Y’all, when I was a young, naïve, single, twenty something, I could not for the life of me understand it when people said they didn’t have time to exercise. I mean, I just didn’t get it. Couldn’t they just get up earlier or go to bed a little later? What was so hard about that?
Then I had kids.
And now, my perspective has changed… like, a lot. I’m coming off of a week during which I did a grand total of 30 minutes of exercise. Yup, that’s it. Hardly the 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends. Oops.
But here’s the thing, often my decision tree goes something like this: I have 1.5 to 2 hours of time while the baby naps. Do I a) get some work done on my blog b) study for my group fitness exam c) wash the baby bottles that are piled on the counter d) pick up around the house a little e) shower for the first time in an embarrassing amount of time f) sleep or g) exercise? Anybody feel me on that little quandary there? I mean amongst all those things, exercise seems like just as important a choice as any of the others. And here’s the thing, when I’m making said choice, I’m probably still in my pajamas, drinking coffee that’s gone cold, and dreaming of getting back under the covers. Hardly the let’s get exercising vibe I was hoping for.
So I am writing this post for myself as much as I am writing it for you right now. It’s Monday as I write this so it’s a new week, which means there are new goals to crush and we are going to start together.
What does one do when they really truly don’t have the time? Well, I’d start with what your definition of time is. If you review my list of to do’s, it will be hard to figure out how I’d fit exercising in with all of the other things that need to get done in the day, but that’s also assuming you look at exercise as I often do, which is fitting in a full 45 to 60 minutes of something that, when you’re done, leaves you sweaty and feeling like you’ve just killed it. And that’s great! But also sometimes impossible.
When I was a professional dancer that had a full schedule of dance lessons to teach all day, fitting in time to practice my own stuff was often a huge challenge. If I needed to work with my partner, it was even more challenging because that meant carving time out of two busy schedules rather than just one. Often, the best we could do was fit in 10 minutes here or 15 minutes there until we could find a block of time where we could work for a good hour. Often that would lead to late nights or long weekend sessions. Now that I’m a stay at home mom that is launching a new career path, I’m realizing that the same structure that worked then works now. 10 minutes here. 15 minutes there. And then long blocks of good old sweat sessions when my hubby is available for the kids.
The solution is simply challenging your belief about what exercise means or needs to be. I can get a pretty challenging set of exercises in during a 20 minute session. I may not hit every muscle group or get my heart rate up as much as I’d like, but I can do something, and so can you.
So I’m going to challenge you here. If you are like me and feel like you just don’t have the time, then tomorrow, try to get 15 minutes in. Leave your office at lunch and walk around the building. When you put your little one down for a nap, take the very first 15 minutes to do a couple sets of 10 reps of push ups, crunches, hip bridges, squats, and then close it out with planks. Before you go to bed tonight, search Pinterest for a quick good morning yoga flow that you can do as soon as you get up. All of those can take 15 minutes and can be a step towards a longer session on another day of the week when you have more time. And maybe it won’t. Maybe that will be the best you can do all week. And that’s ok! If you got in 15 minutes, 7 days a week? That gets you 105 minutes total! It’s better than getting to the end of the week and realizing you did nothing!
So, tomorrow, I already have childcare set up to allow me to go yoga class, but the rest of the week will function much like my description at the beginning of this blog so my goal is to get in small sessions that will add up over the course of the week. I’ll check back with y’all on Friday and let you know how it went. Drop me a comment if you tried this strategy and let me know how it goes!