Working out with little time

So I joined myfitnesspal years ago. Used for a bit then quit. It's been an on and off cycle for a while. Well for the past ummmm about month now I decided to just dive in. Now that I have consistent routine going I decided to come back to myfitnesspal. Not so much to track things but for the community and support. As much as I love sharing my successes with my spouse and the amazing support I get from them I need a group of people that are going through the same ups and downs as me :)

So what I want to know is how people get in their work outs between traveling to and from work, working full time, and just having a busy schedule almost 7 days a week?

I have started working out in my office with anything I can find lol Have managed to start getting an average of 10,000 steps in each day and now I can do a plank for 1 whole minute lol. I am down from 167 to 160 and have more motivation than I have had in years.

Excited to be back and share my journey with anyone interested :)

Replies

sawyerdude

Good job on your progress so far since you've been back!

I agree that it is extremely difficult to find the time to exercise. Through my own journey, I've learned that if I do not do it first thing in the morning, it likely will not get done during the day. So I made the sacrifice of getting to bed a little earlier than I otherwise would have years ago so that I can wake up earlier in the morning so that I can exercise. It was not an easy transition but with any habit, once you keep doing it, it becomes routine.

Hope this helps and keep up the good work!

ZaiBikes

I also find morning exercise easiest to ensure it gets done! I mostly ride my bike on a stationary trainer indoors, which is an incredibly efficient way to exercise as you don't have to stop for traffic and there's no coasting. I set out my clothes for exercise and for work, pack my lunch, prep my breakfast, etc, the night before, so that I can roll out of bed, grab a snack, and start my workout.

ddsb1111

So what I want to know is how people get in their work outs between traveling to and from work, working full time, and just having a busy schedule almost 7 days a week?

I don’t. You describe being busy 24/7 and proceed to ask how to fit even more in. Why?

Life tends to improve through subtraction, not addition. Adding more rarely makes it better or clearer. Reducing what you carry mentally sharpens your priorities and intent. Decide what actually matters, be honest about how much time you have, and choose. Filling every second isn’t the flex people think it is (so don’t let them fool you).

Until you can master subtraction, I wouldn’t add more. Master making what you do have more active and enjoyable.

AnnPT77

If you're getting in 10k steps and doing things that are letting you be able to plank for a full minute, you're already doing pretty well, in context of a busy life. Nobody's perfect.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48998760#Comment_48998760

I agree with this 100%.

But I'd also say this: There's a question about priorities hiding behind this.

No question, it's absolutely possible to be so busy with absolutely essential or highly important things that exercise can't make the priority list. That would be a time to think about fitting extra movement into the day in small bits, maybe while doing something else - the "do squats while brushing teeth" kind of thing.

However, sometimes a rethink of current activities will allow a person to re-prioritize and make time for exercise. It's easy to get in a whirlwind routine, and think the whirlwind is unavoidable because we're caught up in it.

In my own case, I didn't have time for exercise for years. In some of those years, I truly didn't have time, like when working full time at a stressful long-hours job and also caring for a dying family member at home. In many of those years, though, it was about my priority choices, prioritizing that job over my health, for example.

For most of my adult life, I didn't exercise routinely, to my detriment. I'm not recommending this specific route, but in my case, I found time for exercise after treatment for advanced stage breast cancer, because it finally sunk in that exercise was one of several things necessary if I didn't want to die soon or feel persistently terrible. When the priorities changed in my head, I fit in the exercise, and threw some things that felt less important overboard.

There's a thread here where lots of people talk about how they fit extra movement into their daily lives. I link that in case you haven't seen it and think it might help:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss

Best wishes!