Introduction.
You are busy. You really want to exercise but you don’t have time. You have to get the kids ready for school. You work full-time. You have to drive the kids to after school activities. You are a single parent. You need to do the laundry. You have to go grocery shopping. You have a part-time job while studying full-time at college. You promised your friends you would play video games with them all night. You have to catch up on last weeks episode of “Keeping up with the Kardashians.”Don’t find time, make time.
“If it is important you will find a way, if not you will find an excuse.”
First off, you will never “find” time to do anything, you have to “make” time. If something is important enough, you will always make time. Out of food at home? You will get up an hour early to go grocery shopping, or stop at the store on the way home from work. Need to finish a school assignment? You pull an all-nighter if that is what it takes. Out of clothes? You will run the washing machine over night or “borrow” something from your partner.
If you can make time to buy food, finish your school work and do the laundry, you can make time to exercise.
How to make time to exercise.
Schedule it. Set a reminder to schedule time on your calendar to exercise. Figure out when (not if) you can make time to exercise this week. Then keep that appointment as if it were a Doctors appointment. Tell yourself you can’t cancel your “exercise” appointment.
Replace non-exercise time with exercise. Replace the first episode of a show you were going to watch with exercise. Tell yourself that before you pick up the remote you have to exercise. Decline the invitation from your friends to play video games so you can exercise.
Do tiny workouts. Every time you are watching TV and a commercial comes on, stand up and do jumping jacks, run on the spot or walk around in circles. In an average hour of TV that will give you 15 minutes of exercise.
Find a short workout you can do at home. If it’s hard for you to find an hour to go to the gym, find a short workout you can do at home. The New York Times has a great workout that only takes 7 minutes!
Find a spot in your daily routine where you can add 7 minutes. Maybe it’ as soon as you get up in the morning, maybe it’s as soon as you put a load of laundry in, maybe it’s while you are waiting for you partner to get ready, Whatever it is, find a time and a reminder and do the short workout then.
Combine playtime and exercise. Make a habit of exercising if your kids are exercising instead of watching just them. If you take your kids to the play park – run around with them. If you take our kids to a sports game, join in. If your kids take their bike or scooter to the play park, take yours too. You already have a “reminder” to prompt your kids to exercise (whatever that might be) so simply add your own exercise to that reminder too.
Combine playtime and exercise. Make a habit of exercising if your kids are exercising instead of watching just them. If you take your kids to the play park – run around with them. If you take our kids to a sports game, join in. If your kids take their bike or scooter to the play park, take yours too. You already have a “reminder” to prompt your kids to exercise (whatever that might be) so simply add your own exercise to that reminder too.