subject: Fitness Make Time For Your Health [print this page] The fitness lifestyle is easyThe fitness lifestyle is easy. Ask anyone who is fit. The hard part is making those initial changes in your life. That means making time for exercise most days of the week, even if its only a little. My changes in your diet, which means setting time aside to shop, cook, and yes, even eat. Are you too busy to make time for any new changes in your life? Dont be so sure.
1. Start with small achievable goals and build from there.
If you are making a new commitment to fitness, dont let your new found enthusiasm get the best of you. Often time people do too much too soon. This radical change in their lifestyle gets to be too much and before you know it youve dropped the idea of getting fit and are back to your usual bad habits.
Temper your enthusiasm and start off with small changes that you know you can make easily. Start with only 15 minutes of strength training each day from Monday to Friday. Just do some push ups, crunches, and lunges to start. Start with a low amount of repetitions for each exercise and add one rep every day for the next two months.
For cardio, just start with a short brisk walk. If you can make it part of your regular day, as in walk to work (or part of the way to work), even better. As the weeks go on add 5 minutes to you walk each week for the next two months.
This way within two months you will be much stronger and you will have slowly made a time for your cardiovascular fitness routine.
2. Do you usually eat a well-balanced breakfast?
While most of us understand that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, less than half of us eat a proper breakfast. But what if youre in such a rush in the morning you dont have time for breakfast? Simple solution: fruit. Grab an apple, banana, or orange on your way out the door. It may not be a full breakfast but it is better than nothing. Fruit will give you energy first thing in the morning, it will help get your metabolism started for the day, and the fibre in apples and oranges help with your overall digestion.
3. How do you make time when you have no time?
Lets look back at the cardio example. What if you make walking part or all of the way to work your cardiovascular exercise for the day. After a couple of months of walking, switch to biking to work, or if youre feeling ambitious, run to work (provided you have a place to shower and change). By looking to fit fitness into your current schedule you can make changes that dont interfere with your busy life, but add to the quality of your life all the same.
Or take a look at the breakfast example. If you can start with just a piece of fruit as you walk out the door and make that a habit then thats something you can build on. Maybe you start having a quick, lean protein shake after a while. Or maybe you boil eggs at night so you have some fruit and a hardboiled egg for breakfast. Use your imagination and you can make it happen.
If you want to make fitness a part of your lifestyle start with small changes in your diet. Start with a simple and short fitness routine. Make progress steadily but slowly and you will soon be eating well and working out hard without having to turn your current routine topsy turvy.
