You don’t need to set aside a full hour at the end of the day to reach your workout goal every day. Finding just a few minutes here and there is a great way to get more active and reach your daily fitness goals as you lose weight.
Time Crunch, meet Abdominal Crunch
Hands down, the most common reason people give when explaining why they don’t exercise more is that there simply isn’t enough time in the day. Between hectic work schedules, crazy evenings taking care of the family and weekends that are loaded start to finish with errands and household chores, it is easy to understand how time can go by without there being time for a strong workout.
If this hits home for you, then you may want to consider ways that you can incorporate more activity into your daily routine. Being more active doesn’t mean that you need to rearrange your entire schedule to fit in hour-long gym trips once a day. All you need to do is improve your current activity level, and you can do this literally one step at a time.
Here are a few ideas to help you get started:
- Try taking two minute breaks at work to increase your daily step count. If you sit at a desk all day then this is especially important. Try breaking away from your desk once and hour and take a quick walk to the bathroom, to the water fountain, or to the copy machine.
- Practice the same thing once you get home, getting up once an hour from the couch or separating yourself from your chores to stand up and stretch and move around a bit more when you realize you’ve been sedentary for a bit too long.
- Incorporate a few quick stretches into your morning routine by doing a few simple exercises when you first wake up in the morning. Sure, you don’t have time for a full body workout or to go to the gym, but how hard would it be to avoid the last snooze on your alarm and to spend five minutes reaching for your toes and doing circles with your arms? Even simple exercises like this are getting your body in motion, and set a positive intention for the day by putting your mind in a healthy place.
Increasing your activity level naturally in this way can help you start to experience the many health benefits of living an active lifestyle. Try fitting in a true exercise session as often as possible, but when it doesn’t work out still do what you can to make sure that you are increasing your activity level daily.