Finding time

It can be tough, but I had to make it a priority. I'm a full time teacher with 2 kids (3 and 6) so I had to sacrifice. I'm up at 5:15 to go the gym, and back at 6:45 to get ready for work. My next step is to force a quick strengthening routine before I start dinner. It means going to bed at 9:15 instead of 10:30, and prepping everything for morning before bedtime.

I schedule it in my calendar. It is the only way I make time to go. A month at a time, I look and see what days have the most time free and schedule in the gym. I have decided to make it just as important as everyone else's activities. Sometimes that means that my husband takes over bedtime routine, sometimes I go after my daughter is in bed, sometimes the dishes don't get done that night. Oh well.

A trainer on an email list I belong to had really great post about this. He believed the key is changing your perception. He pointed out the we don't find money, we make it. We won't "find" the time, we have to make it. If we approach it as we do the other "must do" things in life, we are more successful at making it work.
I have always found that approach works for me as well.

I have a white board we use to plan our week, shifts, appointments, supper. I also write down my goals for the week and plan when each workout will be.

Yep, you have to make it fit in. If you can't do that, you can't expect to have the motivation to keep at it.

Sometimes we get stuck in thinking that there is just one way to exercise and it needs to be done at the gym where you can do it "right". There are lots of options to do at home whenever you have some free minutes. You don't have to set aside hours and hours to exercise, just move more. You can get a lot done in 5-15-30 minutes. It is easy to procrastinate when you have to go somewhere to exercise. Save the expense and drive time and you will have a lot more time and money available.

There are workouts that use your own body weight, or get some exercise bands, or dumbbells if you want more. Or just put on some great music and dance your heart out. Also, there are tons of exercise DVD's, even Youtube videos. If money is an issue, you can borrow them from the library.

Just taking that first step to move more in your everyday situations can add up. Get creative and have fun with it!

I realized I'm going to be really busy the next few months and knew that I had to change something if I wanted to keep up with my evening exercise schedule. So I asked myself, what is the one thing that is likely to get me off track. For me it was being disorganized about dinner -needing to eat fairly soon after arriving home because I'll be hangry and meal planning so I'm not scrambling to come up with a healthy meal after work. If I'm late having dinner due to the above then I'm more likely to skip my workout. I decided to meal plan and shop for the entire week and make crock pot meals on my cardio days so I can do my workout right away and have my meal waiting for me. So my advice would be to figure out what the main issue is and do some problem solving around that to find the time you need.