No Time to Workout? Try These Clever Life Hacks.

Lack of time is one of the most common obstacles my clients face. When it comes to working out consistently and sticking to a fitness routine, it’s no surprise that life often gets in the way. If you find yourself saying “I have no time to workout!” often, check out the tips I give to my clients listed below. You might just find something that works for you!

The women I coach are busy. They have families and homes to take care of. Careers and social lives that are meaningful to them. Important goals in many areas of life that don’t all revolve around fitness.

Sound familiar?

The hard truth is, sometimes life is just going to be busy and there’s not a ton you can do about it.

But, all of your goals, not just the fitness and health-related ones, will benefit from working out and treating your body well. A strong and fit you will be less stressed. You will have the energy to be a great mom (to pets or kids), a great “other half”, a good friend and efficient business woman.

Bonus!

Exercise Helps You Live Better

Not only does exercising and improving your health help you live longer, it helps you live better.

There are the obvious benefits of exercise, including building strength, maintaining a healthy wait and fending off illness and disease. But the link between exercise and quality of life goes beyond that.

Finding the time to workout and improving your health is linked to…

Decreased symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Exercise helps anxiety and depression in a few ways:

• triggers the release of feel good hormones called endorphins. Endorphins are natural brain chemicals that give you a sense of well-being and relieve stress.
  
• increases level of serotonin, another natural brain chemical that boosts your mood and decreases negative feelings.
  
• boosts confidence. Reaching even the smallest of goals and getting in shape helps you feel better about your appearance, your abilities and your ability to successfully face and meet challenges.

Improves sleep quality.

Deep sleep is essential for your well being, your mood, energy levels and even your motivation to make healthy choices. And little known fact: exercise is the only known, natural way for adults to boost the amount of sleep they get on a daily basis. Regular exercise helps you fall asleep faster, spend more time in deep sleep – when the body recovers and produces HGH and other important recovery hormones, and wake up less frequently in the middle of the night.

Protects pain-free movement.

If you’ve ever experienced an acute injury or chronic pain, you know how physically and emotionally debilitating that can feel. It’s draining.

Exercise helps to increase mobility, muscle and bone strength and decrease your risk of injury. A regular routine slows the decline in performance, metabolism and strength that comes naturally with age. Finding the time to exercise and get in shape now will improve your quality of life and movement today and in the future.

What If You Have No Time to Workout?

First of all (and I recognize that this is insanely cliché and predictable coming from a fitness coach), what you choose to do with your time is all about prioritization. You have time/can make time to exercise. You’re simply choosing to put your priorities elsewhere.

Second, please know that choosing to prioritize fitness and exercise will knock some other tasks and chores down the to-do list, but you can still do it all.

Promise.

Now, what’s a girl to do if she wants to reach her fitness goals, but struggles to find the time?

Read on, girlfriend.

#1: Start by fitting in very small increments of movement.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with a program that requires 5-6, hour long workouts a week. That’s like deciding you want to walk a mile today and signing up for a marathon. Give yourself some room to succeed!

For instance you could:

• Set your alarm to go off every 2 hours. Get up from your desk and do 5 minutes of cardio: jumping jacks, skips, high knees, butt kicks. Or 5 minutes of body weight training: squats, incline pushups, dips, lunges.
• Commit to 10 reps of 5 different exercises first thing in the morning.
• Set up a white board chart to track reps of exercises. Aim to hit 100 of each by the end of the week.

Start small, and work your way towards longer sessions. If you can do 5 minute sessions the first week, bump it up to 6 minutes the next, and so on.

#2: Connect exercise to habits your already have.

We are creatures of habit. Habits are how we get by. Imagine how hard it would be to get through a day if you didn’t have certain habits, and instead you had to make a conscious decision about each and every single thing that you do. Talk about no time…

By connecting exercise, in small amounts, to habits that you already have, you can easily increase daily movement. Tell me, do you…

Brush your teeth at least once a day?

Make coffee or tea every morning?

Do the dishes after dinner?

Go from downstairs to upstairs?

Find little habits like these and attach movement to them.

For instance, you could write 10 SQUATS!! on a sticky note and post it on your bathroom mirror. Every time you brush your teeth, shoot every time you see the note, it’s a reminder to do 10 squats. And you won’t even be wasting time because you’re brushing your teeth anyways!

Or you could put a note next to the coffee pot to stretch while your coffee brews. That’s anywhere from 1-5 minutes depending on how fancy your coffee needs and apparatuses are.

Or instead of taking the elevator up to your office, take the stairs. Take them slowly, two at a time. Whatever you can do to increase the challenge a bit matters.

#3: Invest in a stand up desk or stability ball chair.

Here’s a tip that won’t knock a single thing off of your to-do list. You don’t actually have to re-prioritize at all!

Invest in a stand up desk or a stability ball chair. It’s not expensive but it’s a game changer. It takes more energy to stand than it does to sit. You use more muscles to engage your core and straighten your back standing or sitting on an unbalanced surface than you do plopping into an office chair.

And friends, it’s not a big time investment! I bought my stand up desk for $80 on Amazon. You could even ask your company to invest in your health and well being for you!

#4: Clean and Lean (Out).

Here’s a priority that we all wish we didn’t have: cleaning. The house, the car, the office, the yard. You don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do it. We all have to do it.

So make it count even more!

Grab some ankle weights, turn up the music and turn a 15 minute cleaning sessions into a mini-workout. Everything from sweeping to vacuuming, and especially more vigorous chores like raking leaves, burns calories. Up to 200 an hour, in fact!

#5: Get Honest With Yourself.

When was the last time you took a true appraisal of your day – how you spend your time doing what?

If we’re being completely honest with ourselves, most of us will find chunks of time that could be better spent improving our fitness, health and ultimately, quality of life.

Most of my clients fill out a Time Diary at some point during their Coaching Program. A Time Diary is a simple log of what you do throughout the day and how much time you spend doing it. For example:

• 6:00-6:30 am – wake up, get ready for the day
• 6:30-7:00 am – coffee, breakfast
• 7:10-7:45 am – drive to work, call friend to chat for 15 minutes
• 8:00-12:00 pm – desk work
• 12:00-1:00 pm – drive to get lunch, eat at desk, scroll through social for 15 minutes
• 1:00-4:15 pm – desk work
• 4:15-5:30 pm – drive to gym, workout
• 5:30-6:30 pm -drive home, shower
• 6:30-7:30 – prep dinner, help kids with homework, let dogs out
• 7:30-8:15 pm – dinner with family, clean up
• 8:15-9:15 pm – TV, mess around on phone
• 9:15-9:45 pm – kids to bed, get ready for bed, get clothes ready for tomorrow
• 9:45-11:00 pm – watch a little TV, flip through social, read a magazine
• 11:00-6:00 am – sleep (up twice)

I highly recommend the practice. It’s a great way to honestly assess how you spend your time and decide if maybe (just maybe) you have a few minutes that could be spent doing something more productive. Even 15 minutes on the phone with your best friend could be turned into a walk or morning stretch.

There will be days when with 100% honesty you can say “I have no time to workout”. And that’s okay. But most days you can fit something in. Remember that every little bit counts. 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there adds up to some serious calories burned!

Give yourself the chance to succeed.

You got this!