13 Ways to Workout When You Don’t Have Time

You have 24 hours today. You will have 24 hours tomorrow. This week is full of 168 hours in which you have a million things to do: work, sleep, eat, drive, school, watch a TV show, shower, do your hair. It’s easy to look at your schedule and decide that you just don’t have the time for exercise. If working out isn’t something that you love, it’s tough to make it a priority.

The hard truth is…

But here’s the hard truth: exercise and health needs to be your priority. Without your health, you can’t do the things that you love to do, be with the people you love to be with or stick around for the long haul.

What exercise is, and what it doesn’t have to be.

Exercising means different things to different people. If you think exercise is an hour long workout 5-6 days a week, and your schedule just happens to be full of 100 other to-dos, then yes, sure, it doesn’t look like you’ll ever fit in some real exercise. Luckily, you have me to let you know that exercise doesn’t have to be that set 1 hour sweat session in the gym. You have chances to exercise all day long – it just takes a bit of deliberate action.

13 easy ways to fit in exercise when you definitely do not have the time:

1. Wake up 10 minutes earlier. Just 10 minutes of extra time is enough to bang out some body weight squats, push ups and crunches before you hop in the shower. Even a 10 minute yoga flow when you wake up is an easy way to fit some physical activity into your day.
2. Do squats while you brush your teeth. You’re standing in the bathroom staring at yourself anyways…spend the time squatting. If you are brushing as long as Oral-B thinks you should, that’s a full 2 minutes of booty building.
3. Wear ankle weights while you clean. Just the small amount of weight ankle weights is enough to remind you they are there. You might find yourself lunging your way through the living room with your vacuum.
4. Take the stairs. You read this all the time: skip the elevator and take the stairs. Every step counts!
5. Exercise during the commercial break. If you have time to watch a TV show, you probably have time to go to the gym. However, if you can’t miss GoT, at least move a bit while you wait for the show to come back from commercial break.
6. Park further away. Simple, effective. Park further from work, from the grocery store, from the mall.
7. Bike or walk to work. If you can, commute on foot to work. If you can’t, walk to the “next-closest” bus station.
8. Get a standing desk or stability ball chair. Explain to your boss that healthy workers are more effective and efficient workers. Healthy workers don’t take sick days. Healthy workers (like yourself), deserve a healthy work environment.
9. Exercise at lunch time. If you have 30 minutes for lunch, spend 10-15 of those minutes outside taking a walk. The exercise and the sunlight will rejuvenate you more than the Starbucks latte you might have to skip in lieu of exercise.
10. Play. Join a volleyball league, your work softball team, or a running group. Promise your kids that you’ll play Frisbee or soccer with them after work. Make a commitment to have some active fun.
11. Walk your dog, or your neighbors dog.
12. Walk and talk. Have to check in with a co-worker or call your mom? Your phone isn’t connected to your wall anymore, take it for a walk.
13. Sets of 10. How long does it take to do 10 squats or bench dips? 30 seconds? You’ve got 30 seconds here and there throughout the day. Do 10 sets of 10 throughout the day, that’s just 5 minutes of your time in total, and you end up doing 100 squats!

It’s really important to remember that exercise doesn’t have to look a certain way! Just because you didn’t run 3 miles doesn’t mean that you didn’t treat yourself to some healthy exercise! There’s a reason you hear about 10,000 step goals…it’s because every step counts!