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Tuesday, December 7, 2010

How do I find time to exercise?

I've found that for me, if I'm not exercising a total of about an hour per day, 5-6 days per week, I'm not maintaining, and I'm definitely not losing. Your requirements may very well be different (if they're less, INVU), but here is a guideline given by Edward R. Laskowski, M.D., from MayoClinic.com (emphasis added): "As a general goal, include AT LEAST 30 minutes of physical activity in your daily routine. If you want to lose weight or meet specific fitness goals, you may need to increase your activity even more. If you can't set aside time for a longer workout, try 10-minute chunks of activity throughout the day. Remember, the more active you are, the greater the benefits."

So how do I find time to exercise? I don't. I MAKE time and I multitask.

Here are some suggestions that help me:

-Read during cardio. It's obviously a lot easier to do this on a machine. I used to do all my reading in college on an exercise bike. It kept me awake and focused. Now I read scriptures while on the elliptical.
-Move while watching a movie. If I'm not doing cardio, I like to do core exercises while watching a flick.
-Split exercise time up during the day. I try to do 15 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes at the gym during lunch, and the rest in the evening.
-Use lunch time for working out. Since my meals are small and quick to prepare, and I don't go out to eat very often, I have plenty of time to eat and work out.
-Either wake up before the family or stay up later. This is the best way to eliminate distractions.
-Use exercise as reflection and planning time.
-Try to plan the week and each day out in advance. Planning weeks and days isn't intuitive to me, but I have to.

Let me know what helps you make time to exercise.

Most importantly, I always have to keep my short-term and long-term goals in mind, because if I don't, motivation to act often isn't there at any random moment. It's always a lot easier to procrastinate exercise if I haven't committed to it. It's definitely worth it though. Like Edgar Allen Poe wrote, "I took the road less traveled by, and that made me get ripped and a smokin' hot wife, sucka."

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