They say that people who exercise stand a 90% higher chance of keeping off the weight compared to people who just diet... but in today's busy busy world, how do you find the time to exercise? I'm attempting to do this "8 minutes in the morning" thing, but even that is a challenge. As weird as it seems, I think having a car would help me exercise more, but thats a whole other thing. So where do you find the time? I am pretty good on my days off, I always get something in. And when I'm working I walk down my hill to the bus (about 15 minutes or 1.5 km's), but thats the extent of it for me. I THRIVE on excuses ... I have 12 hour days, then have to come home, cook, clean, prepare meals for the next day, and sleep... or even better is when I get home from work at 7:30pm (after getting up at 6am), all I have the energy to do is eat, check my email, and then sleep. SO! My question is this, how do you make exercise a priority when everything else is also a priority??

Oh, And Happy Halloween

Boy, is it hard.

And you're right, when you are so busy that you can't seem to think straight, exercise is easy to excuse.

BUT whether it's exercise or homework or writing, if it's something that needs to be done, you have to find a way to do it.

Here are some of my suggestions to squeeze it in:
-Lunch hours. A brisk walk for your lunch hour gets the blood pumping, the appetite lowered and clears your brain for more productivity in the afternoon.
-What are you watching on tv? Oh! You have time for tv? I'm amazed how fast that "quick rest on the couch because I've had a hard day" turns into reruns and shows that I watch only because I'm too tired to think. Take a break from it for an hour and try something else.
-Spending quality time with Significant Other. If you're like me, you've used him as an excuse. You have two options here: Go for a walk and catch up on the day that way. Or have sex. Oh yes, wild, calorie-burning sex.
-Sleep. You need this. Get it. With exercise, it's even easier and better sleep.

Those are just my suggestions. If your 8 minutes is hard in the morning, you might want to evaluate why? You will choose to make it a priority if you want it bad enough.

You need to make yourself priority #1.
I know "if Apryl ain't happy ain't nobody happy" around here.

Tell me about this 8 minutes thing!

Apryl - with the 8 minutes in the morning thing you do 2 different weights (like biceps and triceps), and you alternate between the two for 4 sets of 12 reps. It's a great concept... unless you don't do mornings too well, heh. You do this for 6 days and then have 1 day of rest.

Jessica - it's SO SO easy to come up with billions and billions of excuses! Unfortunately when I get home I tuck my boyfriend into bed (he works nights but gets up to pick me up from the bottom of the mountain), we spend about 10 minutes together.. and he's definitely not up for anything but sleeping (heh, "up" ) Thanks for the great ideas though I often wish I had a NORMAL job, this retail thing consumes your life. This is my normal time line : up at 6am for work, leave 7:15 for work, arrive at work at 8:50am (just enough time to grab a coffee), work from 9am until 5:30pm (with 30 minutes as my break), arrive at the bottom of my hill at 7:15pm, bf comes picks me up, and get home at 7:30pm. Tuck him into bed until about 8pm, get up, make dinner, and lunch for the next day, done at 8:45pm (I'm making the majority of my meals for work, this is a new thing). I check my email, look on here for about 15 minutes. Watch about 30 minutes of tv, do laundry, clean, and I'm in bed by 10pm. I love love love my sleep! Sometimes I'm in bed by 9pm, it's kinda sad, like last week and the week before when I was sick, I never go until bed past 9pm, one night I was actually in bed by 7:30, heh. I'd love some input on where I could fit some time in there for exercise (walking from the bus stop to my house isn't an option at this point, I'm just not fit enough for that kind of hike). And, is diet enough? I'd love to ask the "experts" on where you fit exercise in an already packed lifestyle!

Sometimes you just have to make the time, whether it's convinent or not. I remember when I first started out, the only time I had was late at night, after everything else was done. Even though I have to get up at 5:45 in the morning, most nights I was on the treadmill somewhere between the hours of 10 and midnight. Thank goodness my schedule has since changed, but at the time, that's all I could do. You just have to figure out how important it truly is to you and plan it accordingly.

Beverly

This is a hard one for me too, and my life isn't as busy as yours. Part of my problem is that I get stuck in certain ways of thinking, and miss solutions because they're not part of my "regular" routine. This is where you have to get creative. Look at every single part of your day and think about how it could be rearranged or done differently. Not knowing all the intimate details of your environment, I don't know if these are doable or not, but ...

The lunch hour walk is always a good idea, even if it's just 10 or 15 minutes, as long as it's brisk.
Could you go for a walk after work, before you catch the bus? Like, if you're in a mall, could you cruise around for 15 or 20 minutes?
If you're not yet fit enough to make it all the way up the hill from the bus stop, could you go up PART of the way, and have your BF pick you up at a prearranged point? You could gradually increase the amt of walking as you become more fit.
Could you do any exercises while you watch TV? Like, move your "8 minutes" routines to TV time? Or, do some really serious killer abs routines? Or jog in place?
If BF lives with you, could you enlist him to do some of the cleaning/laundry/etc. to give you more free time?
Be sure and make the most of your days off and get in some longer workout times on those days.

Finally ... don't let this stress you out! Do what you can. If you can do some solid workouts on your days off, and work in as many little exercise breaks as you can, you'll be fine. In the long run, yes, you'll want more sustained cardio sessions for greater heart-lung health. HOWEVER, for weight loss, several small bursts of serious activity are actually BETTER than one long session, because it revs up your metabolism every time. So, get creative, do what you can, make it a priority, but don't let it ruin your life.

I heard that 3 ten minutes bouts of exercise were just as good as a full thirty minute routine. Funniegrrl has some excellent suggestions about maybe changing the pickup point a little bit each time until you are walking home.
Also I read somewhere that you should treat your workout sessions as though they were an unbreakable appointment. So if you plan to exercise at 8pm then everything else just gets arranged around it like you would for work, doctor's appointment etc.
Maybe while watching television you could jog or walk in place at the same time. Or maybe invest in a treadmill so you can walk and watch.
I don't really have anything more to offer except encouragement to keep at it. I'm confident a solution will come up.

I myself used to try to squeeze in exercise while working a 70+ hour week. I found 5-10 minute walks throughout the day helped A LOT. I get to work early enough to do a walk, then take one on a break and at lunch. Poof there's 30 mins if I can do 10 min each time

Yeah, your retail job sucks.

I completely understand because your schedule looks a lot like mine.

Is diet enough? To do what? To lose weight? Yes. Most of it is diet. Exercise has been a super integrated part of my life for a long time and I'm still not some skinny minnie. The basic principle is ALWAYS going to be more calories out than in and that's how weight loss occurs.

But don't be using that as an excuse! Exercise keeps me sane and gives me enough energy and motivation to stick with dieting.

My advice is quit worrying about doing "enough" exercise and concentrate on grabbing a couple energizing bursts when you can. Remember, if you are conscious about adding exercise to your life, when you actually have enough time to have a life you won't mind adding more in.

Hi,
Fitting exercise in can be tough. I got an exercise bike - I dont watch much tv, but if I have time to watch tv - I have time to cycle! I pop the bike in front of my favourite program and dont get off until the program stops. I prefer to get out of the house and go for a walk, but some days it just feels impossible with a toddler and with study.

Good Luck with fitting it all in!

I know that I need to make it a higher priority, and I wish for a lot of things really.. things just feel harder than they should be right now. Thank you for the GREAT advice, and I will definitely consider some of those things I've heard about that thing of exercising on your lunch break....I get a 30 minute break for an 8-8.5 hour shift, but thats all, I was talking with my brother about this earlier as well. I do stress myself out because I don't feel like I'm doing enough with my time, I do the multi-tasking thing pretty darn good.. if I do say so myself! In the end, I think it'll come down to what I want to do in my "spare" time. Currently I don't think there is time in my life for formal exercise, however informal? I walk 20 minutes to the bus everyday, and then 10 minutes from the skytrain to work, and then after work 10 minutes back to the skytrain, and of course.. there is my work. Today I ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off, for 8 hours and 15 minutes, my arms ache from lifting heavy things, and my legs... oh my legs.. lol. I think I need to find time for YOGA, to calm my down at night (I have issues with having too much energy at night, and need to find ways to calm down to get enough sleep), and while if I was very serious, I would exercise at night, I think I might value sleep over exercise.. heh. If I don't sleep at least 8 hours a night, I'm unpleasant So my conclusion is this! I will continue to workout on my days off (a little more intense though!), and do the diet thing... BUT I am going to stress less.... until my life becomes less complicated. I just need some reassurance that I can lose weight and keep it off with just diet....

Yoga is great. Here is a link to a site that has instructions for every pose that you can print out and do.. you can work out different areas of your body to focus on during the routine.
http://www.yogatv.biz/

Keep up the great work and dont stress about the exercise.

Just by your schedule it sounds to me like you are doing a bit of exercise. Are you wanting to add more structured exercise to your life? I think the yoga may be just the thing to try before bed.

I too struggle with trying to fit in all the exercise. I'm going to start trying at least the one mile walk away the pounds tape while cooking dinner. Don't know how well that will work though. we'll see.