Making Fitness a Part of Your Daily Routine

One of the biggest complaints that I hear in terms of why people are not working out regularly is that they do not have time.  Obviously being a father, full time social worker, competitive age-grouper triathlete and part time student working on my Fitness Trainer Certification, I get that time can be limited.  This being the case for a lot of us, it simply means that we need to become more creative with working exercise into our everyday lives.  Once you can get to the point that fitness and wellness become a part of your lifestyle, it is easier to do this.  Some simple ways to start working at this can be using part of your lunch break to walk around outside the office, take a yoga ball into the office to use to sit on in place of a chair (been shown to burn up to 65-85 calories per hour alone), jog around the parameter of the playing field at the kids soccer practices, make the weekend days to go hiking with the kids, or playing active games like hide-and-seek with the children (which is healthy for both you and the kids).  The way that I structure my workouts into the day begin at lunchtime.  Instead of going to eat, I typically do a swim or weight training session.  Then after work my wife and I take turns working out, so I’ll use that time to get in my run or a session on the elliptical machine.  I then do my bike workouts on the indoor bike trainer at night when everyone else goes to bed.  Afterwards I stretch and do my yoga routine.  It’s all about making fitness a priority.  I promise that once it becomes a part of your everyday, you’ll do what you have to do to get in your workouts, otherwise your day will seem off balance, which is a good thing…..it should feel that way because physical health is an equal ingredient in the wellness pieJ 

So here is my challenge to you if you do not think that you have time to exercise.  Write down everything that you do in a day.  This includes travel to work, hygiene routines, talking on the phone, watching TV, reading….whatever it is that you do in a day.  Then evaluate this list and see if there are things that can be shortened, combined, shared with the spouse, or otherwise eliminated (ex. Instead of watching 2 hours of TV a day, maybe shoot for one hour, or get a treadmill and watch TV while working out).  Dare I even suggest getting 7.5 hours of sleep instead of 8 if that means you can squeeze in a 30 minute run?  You get where I am going here, its again as simple as making your health as much of a priority as you do other things in your life that you can take a bit of time from here and there to carve out some time to exercise. 

So get creative!  We all get 24 hours in a day, yet those of us that make fitness a priority and strive to live a healthy lifestyle make time each day to exercise.  I promise that soon after you start a consistent exercise routine, you feel much more energized and much more capable of getting the most out of each and every day!