How To Fit Exercise Into Your Busy Schedule: Get Fit Even if You Have No Time
You can find time to exercise. It’s hidden within the day. It may not be in large chunks, but it is there. Here are a few ways to find it.
Create an Exercise Plan
Look at your medical history and recommendations from your doctor. If you feel inspired, go for a visit to a personal trainer for a body composition assessment.
Create an exercise goal for yourself. Your goal might be to lose weight and feel better, but it is also helpful to set short and long-term goals so that you feel motivated to continue exercising.
Perhaps you would like to participate in a longer run in the coming summer. Maybe you’d like to be able to use an exercise bike for a ten minute time period without feeling exhausted. With a series of short and long-term goals, you’ll be more likely to stick to an exercise program.
Look at Your Schedule
Take a long, hard look at your schedule. Is there any time available for exercise? What sort of exercise would fit into that time? Look at what is located close to you during the day. Think about exercises that you can do at or around home or work. You may love figure skating, but perhaps running is another love, and a more convenient option. When you have a busy schedule, convenience helps you show and do your exercise program.
Creative Commuting
How do you get to work? If you drive, could you bike once a week? Perhaps you could get off the bus a few blocks early and have a short walk before work. On the weekends, run errands with a bike or walk. Yes, transportation will take longer, but realize that you are also getting exercise. You don’t need to go to the gym to get fit.
Lunch Hour
Depending on where you work, you may or may not have easy access to a gym over your lunch hour. However, you might have access to a field for running, a tennis court, or simply a small space where you can stretch. Even a walk counts!
Purchase Equipment
Sometimes the gym is not open at the times that we’d like to go, or it’s too dark and icy to run. Or perhaps you have ten minutes and you’d like to spend it unwinding on the exercise bike. Craigslist and other classifieds have a lot of used gym equipment for sale, from free weights to treadmills.
Choose something that won’t take up a lot of space and is easy to set up and take down. That way, when you have a few minutes, you can spend those on exercise!
Use Exercise As Down Time
Exercise can be meditation, and we all need more meditative time in our lives. Begin the day with yoga or a simple stretching routine. Go for a slow swim in the evening and end your night in the hot tub.
Exercise as Social Event
If you get together with a friend or go on a date, make it an exercise-oriented event. For a romantic evening, go ballroom dancing or skating. If you would like to make new friends, consider joining a team that meets once or twice a week to do a sport that you love. Set an example for your children and have fun by playing soccer with the kids.
You can find time to exercise. It doesn’t need to be a lot of time, but by creative multitasking, you can develop an exercise program that works for you.
