Hey I just started a new job, an office job at that. I have to get up at 6am to get ready and I am off at 5. By the time I get home, it is dinners, and baths, and during school home work, when am I supposed to find the time to work out? When I wasn't working I went for a half hour to an hour walk twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. My office is small. There is not much room to get up an do anything. I have to stay close to check out patients and answer the phone. The extent of my moving is getting out of my chair and walking about a foot to my file cabinet and back again. Any ideas. I only get a half hour lunch and can't go to far incase I am needed. Any ideas would help me greatly.
Thanks
~Sharon

When I had a job that had a long commute and hours like yours, I got up at 4:30 a.m. to exercise using videos at home. It took a lot of determination. I had an infant and a stressful job, but I lost 20 pounds. You could get up at 5:00 and get a good hour in before you have to start getting ready.

My favorite exercise is to get up in the morning before anyone else, put on my wireless headphones, choose some hourlong program I've tivo'd in advance and get on the treadmill for an hour. When I get my treadmill out of storage, I'll do exactly that again.

Sharon, I do something similar to Kateful also. I stumble out of bed between 5 and 5:15, throw on some clothes and shoes, get a glass of water, then start my Walk Away the Pounds tapes. I'm finished and heading to the shower around 6:00. It's really the only time I have all day to exercise. If I oversleep in the morning and don't do it, I'll tell myself that I'll catch up in the evenings, but I usually don't have time in the evenings, or I'm so dead tired. The best part of it is reveling in the fact that I'm finished with my exercise before most other people are even awake for the day

Hi Sharon! I could've typed your post...in fact, I think I have! DH wakes me up at 6 (he's up at 5) and we have to leave the house by 7:15 to get to daycare and work by 8. (I start at 8:30, but DH & I commute together and he starts at 8). I work until 5:30, then p/u DH across the street and head to daycare by 6. We get home around 6:30 usually. Even if dinner is planned, it's still around 7 by the time we sit down to eat. After that, it's either baths and bed, or a little play time and bed. And honestly, sometimes all of us are in bed by 8:30-9, asleep!

I get an hour for lunch, so I can walk then...although I haven't with the rain/humidity/procrastination! If you can stand to drag yourself up even a 1/2 hr. earlier, and DH doesn't mind staying home with the kids, could go for a walk early? Or get up and do an exercise video? I don't have any other suggestions...if I did, I'd be trying to do them!

I leave at 6 for work also and get home around 5... but I guess I am fortunate in that I do get a lunch hour and two breaks, the vast majority of which I spend walking. My job also requires a lot being up and running around.

Sharon, you are not really allowed to take your own lunch break? Of course even if you did, you need time to eat lunch. Can you eat at your desk? It helps that we are allowed to do that so use our lunch break time for other stuff.

Obviously you have young kids so doesn't sound like evenings are an option; so obviously it is going to have to be early mornings. Just work in what you can and go for it!!

I do get a half hour, and like i said we have half of our Docs take 11:30-12:30 lunches the others take 12:30-1:30 lunches so we always have at least 2 doc seeing patients. We are paid for our lunches so we can be considered at their beckoned call. Which isn't horrible because it doesn't happen often. There is usually someone in the office that can handle your job if you aren't there but there is the rare occasion. And no we can't eat in patient areas so eating at my desk is out of the question. I have started bringing a quick lunch, yougart and a piece of fruit or cut up raw veggies, so I can walk the parking lot after, but even then after I eat I don't have much time! I am going to start a pilates video in the pm and I am looking for some sort of cardio video for the am and we will see how that goes! Any suggestions on a good cardio video?

Video-wise I really like the Walk Away The Pounds series (I like Abs or Express the best, better than the original I think.)

You may also want to ask around and check the papers or used fitness equpiment places for an exercise bike or something like that. I ended up with a FREE Recumbant bike because my friend just did not want it anymore and wanted to get it out of her house! I have been getting up in the mornings and riding while I watch the news, before shower time. Sometimes I will even hop on in the evenings if I catch a few minutes to watch TV, granted I don't go all out during these "extra" times but its more than I would be doing sitting on the couch.

I have the WATP Superchallenge that I like. I also have a really old Kathy Smith video that pretty challenging. Most recently, I got a Prevention Magazine dance video (from Target). I haven't learned the steps yet, but I think it'll be fun when I do.

I've also heard of people that really enjoy Dance Dance Revolution for one of the video game systems. We don't have one of those, so I don't have any first hand information. It's supposed to be really fun.

My 9 year old daughter got dance dance revolution for her birthday. They would do it in Gym class in school and I have done it before it just wasn't as challenging as I would like. I didn't feel like I got anything out of it. However a bonus to the dance dance revolution is it has a "workout" mode and it tracks how many calories you should have burned and how many minutes you have done. You can put in your weight and track your loss etc.....
Thanks for the ideas ladies!
Sharon