13 Ways of Staying Fit When There's No Time to Exercise

1. If you've got a young sports enthusiast in the family, play along. Shooting baskets and kicking a soccer ball around the yard are great ways to get your heart pumping. Thirty minutes of cardio training are recommended, but even five to 10 minutes will elevate your energy and speed your metabolism.
   
2. Take the kids for a walk or just go by yourself. If their pace is too slow, add some lunges, jumping jacks, or running place every few minutes to make yourself work harder.
   
3. Pull young children in a wagon through the neighborhood. Or give them a ride in a jogging stroller.
   
4. Let little children ride bicycles or tricycles while you jog behind.
   
5. Get into some vigorous sweeping, mopping, or vacuuming. These types of housekeeping chores can burn a significant number of calories.
   
6. We've all heard the benefits of taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Everything you've heard is true.
   
7. Likewise, getting off the bus or subway a stop or two before your destination on a regular basis adds up to a lot of heart-healthy walking.
   
8. Do yoga or Pilates while you, or the kids, unwind in front of a movie. While watching TV, do push-ups or sit-ups during commercials. Even one per commercial during a two-hour movie can give you some good exercise.
   
9. In a sedentary job, take your breaks outdoors and have a brisk, short walk. You'll also improve your concentration and mood.
   
10. Dance or do aerobics at home. No one is watching, anyway. If you like, include the little ones and turn it into a game.
    
11. Practice stretching or light yoga moves while talking on the phone, listening to the news, or while dinner is cooking.
    
12. Find the high-energy items on your to-do list and tackle these when you need physical activity. Think about washing the car, digging the garden, mowing the lawn, or reorganizing a closet.
    
13. Get up 15 to 30 minutes earlier than the rest of the family and use this time for a run, a walk, or some stretching and yoga.

15 Tips to Restart the Exercise Habit (and How to Keep It)

It’s okay, you can finally admit it. It’s been two months since you’ve seen the inside of the gym. Getting sick, family crisis, overtime at work and school papers that needed to get finished all kept you for exercising. Now, the question is: how do you start again?

Once you have an exercise habit, it becomes automatic. You just go to the gym, there is no force involved.

Once you have an exercise habit, it becomes automatic. You just go to the gym, there is no force involved. But after a month, two months or possibly a year off, it can be hard to get started again. Here are some tips to climb back on that treadmill after you’ve fallen off.

1. Don’t Break the Habit – The easiest way to keep things going is simply not to stop. Avoid long breaks in exercising or rebuilding the habit will take some effort. This may be advice a little too late for some people. But if you have an exercise habit going, don’t drop it at the first sign of trouble.
2. Reward Showing Up – Woody Allen once said that, “Half of life is showing up.” I’d argue that 90% of making a habit is just making the effort to get there. You can worry about your weight, amount of laps you run or the amount you can bench press later.
3. Commit for Thirty Days – Make a commitment to go every day (even just for 20 minutes) for one month. This will solidify the exercise habit. By making a commitment you also take pressure off yourself in the first weeks back of deciding whether to go.
4. Make it Fun – If you don’t enjoy yourself at the gym, it is going to be hard to keep it a habit. There are thousands of ways you can move your body and exercise, so don’t give up if you’ve decided lifting weights or doing crunches isn’t for you. Many large fitness centers will offer a range of programs that can suit your tastes.
5. Schedule During Quiet Hours – Don’t put exercise time in a place where it will easily be pushed aside by something more important. Right after work or first thing in the morning are often good places to put it. Lunch-hour workouts might be too easy to skip if work demands start mounting.
6. Get a Buddy – Grab a friend to join you. Having a social aspect to exercising can boost your commitment to the exercise habit.
7. X Your Calendar – One person I know has the habit of drawing a red “X” through any day on the calendar he goes to the gym. The benefit of this is it quickly shows how long it has been since you’ve gone to the gym. Keeping a steady amount of X’s on your calendar is an easy way to motivate yourself.
8. Enjoyment Before Effort - After you finish any work out, ask yourself what parts you enjoyed and what parts you did not. As a rule, the enjoyable aspects of your workout will get done and the rest will be avoided. By focusing on how you can make workouts more enjoyable, you can make sure you want to keep going to the gym.
9. Create a Ritual - Your workout routine should become so ingrained that it becomes a ritual. This means that the time of day, place or cue automatically starts you towards grabbing your bag and heading out. If your workout times are completely random, it will be harder to benefit from the momentum of a ritual.
10. Stress Relief - What do you do when your stressed? Chances are it isn’t running. But exercise can be a great way to relieve stress, releasing endorphin which will improve your mood. The next time you feel stressed or tired, try doing an exercise you enjoy. When stress relief is linked to exercise, it is easy to regain the habit even after a leave of absence.
11. Measure Fitness - Weight isn’t always the best number to track. Increase in muscle can offset decreases in fat so the scale doesn’t change even if your body is. But fitness improvements are a great way to stay motivated. Recording simple numbers such as the number of push-ups, sit-ups or speed you can run can help you see that the exercise is making you stronger and faster.
12. Habits First, Equipment Later – Fancy equipment doesn’t create a habit for exercise. Despite this, some people still believe that buying a thousand dollar machine will make up for their inactivity. It won’t. Start building the exercise habit first, only afterwards should you worry about having a personal gym.
13. Isolate Your Weakness - If falling off the exercise wagon is a common occurrence for you, find out why. Do you not enjoy exercising? Is it a lack of time? Is it feeling self-conscious at the gym? Is it a lack of fitness know-how? As soon as you can isolate your weakness, you can make steps to improve the situation.
14. Start Small - Trying to run fifteen miles your first workout isn’t a good way to build a habit. Work below your capacity for the first few weeks to build the habit. Otherwise you might scare yourself off after a brutal workout.
15. Go for Yourself, Not to Impress – Going to the gym with the only goal of looking great is like starting a business with only the goal to make money. The effort can’t justify the results. But if you go to the gym to push yourself, gain energy and have a good time, then you can keep going even when results are slow

Why Should I Exercise?

Exercise is a key component of health. In order to be healthy, we have to exercise regularly. Sure, it can be difficult to take the time out of your busy schedule to engage in physical activity but exercise helps your mind, emotions and your body in so many ways. Yes, exercize can help you to lose weight and tone muscle. It will make you look better, but it also releases endorphins and other feel-good chemicals that stabilize and even improve mood.

Exercise isn’t just a prescription for weight loss. It’s a prescription for longevity. Strength and weight-bearing exercises such as jumping, running or walking can help stave off osteoporosis (weakening of the bones) for both men and women. A person might be able to avoid deadly diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure if he/she engages in regular physical activity. Of course, for those who have these diseases, it’s easier to manage or control them going forward if exercose is a regular part of your life.

It’s also important to note that exercise, when done routinely, can boost HDL (high-density lipoprotein) – the good cholesterol – while decreasing LDL (low-density lipoprotein) – bad cholesterol. As a result, the blood flows more smoothly through the body, reducing the buildup of plaque in the arteries. (Arterial plaque leads to a host of heart problems including arteriosclerosis, stroke and myocardial infarction, aka heart attack.)

Studies show that most people know that they should exercise, but still maintain that they can’t make the time for it. It’s true that life is hectic with work, child care/family responsibilities and a bunch of other demands on our time. The trick is to make exercise a priority. You just have to commit to doing it. Although experts suggest we exercise 5-7 times a week for at least one hour, long-term benefits can be seen with regular activity of 20 minutes, 3-4 times a week.

If you’re new to exercising, the best thing to do is to start slow and build up at a reasonable rate. Overdoing it can lead to injuries and stress. Find activities you enjoy such as golfing, swimming or walking and start with those. Many people think exercisd is boring, but it doesn’t have to be. Mix up your activities and again, do the things you enjoy.

Others need outside support to make exercise work. So, if you need to engage a buddy, your significant other or even a fitness trainer, then go ahead and do it. Some people report success with marking time out in their calendars for exercise each and every week. They make an appointment with themselves and find that they’re much happier – and healthier – for it.

Of course, you don’t have to do the whole hour of activity at the same time. Exercise has a cumulative effect. You can get the same benefits from working out in three, 20-minute intervals a day or building up your hour in five-minute chunks.

Another benefit of exercise is that it will boost your confidence – and potentially – your sex life. Regular exercise, as we mentioned earlier, makes you look better. It also makes you feel better…and it gives you more energy. Men who exercise regularly report fewer problems with erectile dysfunction as they age. Most individuals claim improved sleep function. They have less trouble falling and staying asleep.

With so many benefits to regular exercising, the question should be – how can you not find the time for it?