Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.
We are pleased to announce that as of March 4, 2025, an updated Rich Text Editor has been introduced in the MyFitnessPal Community. To learn more about the changes, please click here. We look forward to sharing this new feature with you!

Finding time to Exercise

2456789

Replies

  • Posts: 7,722 Member
    edited May 2017

    Yeah, I don't get it either. I have a full time job and two toddlers. Free time is certainly not something I have a lot of. I still average just under 20,000 steps/day. Making the time to do that is a choice (and, to some degree, the result of a semi-active job and happenstance like my parking spot being clear across campus from my office). I prioritize taking my kids to the park. My husband and I like to go for walks. I chase kids a lot.

    Not everyone can (or even wants to) make those choices, but there's no need to attack those who can.

    I'm someone who does have time, being a homeschooling SAHM, but that doesn't mean I judge people who chose to spend their time (however much they have or don't) differently. My current Fitbit running total shows me averaging around 22K a day. I also do shred workouts.

    That aside, I fail to see how the OP's initial post in any way was meant to do anything but help the OP, in spite of the direction this thread went in.
  • Posts: 6,771 Member
    Ah yes, I should have added, my steps are generally low but I lift and do bodyweight HIIT/Tabata type stuff 3-6 days a week. So on the odd day I do walk 15-20k steps it's no issue as I'm fit enough for it.
  • Posts: 6,840 Member
    One word: tabata. Everyone has 8 minutes (2 for warmup, 4 for workout, 2 to cool down) for 5 days a week. Research has found tabata workouts done properly are as effective as much longer workouts at improving markers of fitness. In my case at least it seems to be true - my blood glucose is lower the day after tabata, and it also seems to help my metabolism when I toss a few tabata workouts into the weekly mix.

    Also, tabata is a quick and easy way of proving to yourself that Einstein was right, time is relative. Before trying it I wouldn't have believed that I would end up often choosing a much longer moderate intensity workout over the tabata one because the longer one is easier!

    Anyway, I have learned to be flexible - on days when I know I have no time (for example when I know I will be in the car all day), I do something quick like pushups in the morning when getting ready. You can do squats anywhere, even in the bathroom. Do 40 squats every time you go to pee and you will have a serious leg workout by the end of the day. Do them fast enough and it will get your heart rate up too.
  • Posts: 115 Member
    I have a desk job but I walk in my morning break, lunch, and afternoon break. I then hit the gym. I have a standing desk at work so I don't move too much but I'm on my feet. I average about 16k-20k steps a day with work and the gym.
  • Posts: 5,753 Member
    I'm glad I have a flexible schedule so I don't have to always worry about when to workout.
  • Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited May 2017
    I too would struggle if i had a desk job, plus a two hour commute everyday.

    I'm quite fortunate because although my commute is stupidly long for how far I live from work (about 6 miles, and yet 45 minutes minimum each way, generally longer on the way home), part of that is always a 10-15 minute walk (or a bit more if I detour to one of the slightly farther grocery stores than the one I pass between my place and closest L station), and I can replace part of all of it with something active. The fastest way to get to work is biking, and for a while I was biking the pleasant way along the lake with an extra loop or 2 -- 13 miles there, maybe 20 on the way home if I could leave where I wasn't fighting the darkness. Lots of exercise without adding much to my commute time. I also often run home (have a backpack for that purpose -- 1 hour, so again not much more than my regular commute and the workout is out of the way). Unlike the biking I do this when it's dark and in the winter too (many people bike in the winter, but I don't). Worst case I can walk part way home and get at least some additional exercise.

    Being able to not be cooped up in a car is important to me (I chose not to take one job in part because it would have required a long commute to the burbs), and so it's something I prioritized.
  • Posts: 2,577 Member
    I spend about 2 hours a day commuting, and my job is a desk one. For a given week, Mon-Thu I work 9 hours, then 8 hours on Friday. The following week the Mon-Thu schedule is the same and I have Friday off. I often walk for 15-20 minutes on my lunch break, then 2-3 times a week I do a more solid workout after work. I do realize that I could certainly do more exercise after work, but sometimes it does feel like the time goes by fast once I come home.
  • Posts: 25,763 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »

    I'm quite fortunate because although my commute is stupidly long for how far I live from work (about 6 miles, and yet 45 minutes minimum each way, generally longer on the way home), part of that is always a 10-15 minute walk (or a bit more if I detour to one of the slightly farther grocery stores than the one I pass between my place and closest L station), and I can replace part of all of it with something active. The fastest way to get to work is biking, and for a while I was biking the pleasant way along the lake with an extra loop or 2 -- 13 miles there, maybe 20 on the way home if I could leave where I wasn't fighting the darkness. Lots of exercise without adding much to my commute time. I also often run home (have a backpack for that purpose -- 1 hour, so again not much more than my regular commute and the workout is out of the way). Unlike the biking I do this when it's dark and in the winter too (many people bike in the winter, but I don't). Worst case I can walk part way home and get at least some additional exercise.

    Being able to not be cooped up in a car is important to me (I chose not to take one job in part because it would have required a long commute to the burbs), and so it's something I prioritized.

    The choice of where to live can be an important factor in this. I'm able to get extra steps by walking to and from work when it's not too cold. I can do this because I specifically chose to live in an area that was close to my job -- I'm just two miles away from my office. I've had longer commutes in the past and I don't like them, so when I relocated for my current job, I made distance to work a top priority in choosing a home.

    I have co-workers who have much longer commutes and many of them do talk about not having time to exercise before or after work. Sometimes it's necessary to have a long commute, but sometimes it's the result of choices.

    I know there are exceptions to this rule, but when people don't have time to exercise it is often because of choices they've made. When they made the choice they may not have been thinking "I don't want to have time to exercise," but the end result can be the same. Where we live, the hobbies we prioritize, the after-work commitments we take on, what we prioritize on the weekends, these all factor into the amount of activity we can fit into our lives.
  • Posts: 69 Member

    The choice of where to live can be an important factor in this. I'm able to get extra steps by walking to and from work when it's not too cold. I can do this because I specifically chose to live in an area that was close to my job -- I'm just two miles away from my office. I've had longer commutes in the past and I don't like them, so when I relocated for my current job, I made distance to work a top priority in choosing a home.

    I have co-workers who have much longer commutes and many of them do talk about not having time to exercise before or after work. Sometimes it's necessary to have a long commute, but sometimes it's the result of choices.

    I know there are exceptions to this rule, but when people don't have time to exercise it is often because of choices they've made. When they made the choice they may not have been thinking "I don't want to have time to exercise," but the end result can be the same. Where we live, the hobbies we prioritize, the after-work commitments we take on, what we prioritize on the weekends, these all factor into the amount of activity we can fit into our lives.

    I used to live very close to my job, and then they restructured and I got laid off. I had to get a new job, and that meant a longer commute. I couldn't just up and move, because I had bought a house and selling it too soon to try and move closer to a new job would have lost me a lot of money.

    As a result I have a long work day, and a commute that it's impossible to walk. Getting walk breaks during the day is fairly difficult. If I leave my desk for more than a couple of minutes and I'm not actually in a meeting, someone notices that I'm not responding to instant messages and emails and raises an issue. I can get away with maybe 10 minutes twice a day. Most of the time my lunch "hour" is spent working on the actual work that is prevented by all of the meetings and eating my lunch at my desk.

    I do like to be active, though, so I pretty much rush out the door at the end of the day in order to go and get in a run or a ride. I mow the lawn with a push mower, in the winter there is usually snow to shovel instead of the lawn to mow. I get at least an hour of exercise a day, but I would like to do way more than that. As it is I have to relegate the long rides and long runs, the hiking and the kayaking and the camping to weekends, and sometimes what I want to prioritize and what I have to do are at odds. I'd far rather be out riding my bicycle than doing laundry, that's for sure.
  • Posts: 69 Member

    I totally didn't mean to make it sound as if everyone who has a commute made the conscious choice to do so (lay-offs happen, being tied to a particular house happens). I've had times in my life when I had a longer commute and there wasn't anything I could do about it. My point was more like . . . many of us have *something* we can rearrange in order to make time to be more active if that's what we want to do. And it sounds like you're doing that, just in different circumstances than I am.

    I apologize if my words didn't convey that or if I seemed judgmental of people who do have longer commutes due to stuff happening in their lives.

    Yeah that's what I was getting at. Sometimes it's rough but if you want to do it you find a way to do it. My friends will tell you they never see me because I'm always training for some thing or another. They're not entirely wrong, either. On the priority list, sitting around "hanging out" has fallen pretty far.

    The amount of meetings I have to sit through is a different problem entirely.
  • Posts: 2,171 Member
    Packerjohn wrote: »

    The average American spends 50 non-work hours a week on screen time:
    http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/30/health/americans-screen-time-nielsen/

    Someone has to be a pretty special snowflake to not be able to find an hour a day to exercise.

    How on earth does the "average American" manage that anyway? That's 7.5 hours a DAY of "screen time". Does the "average American" neither work or have any other hobbies or interests or obligations whatsoever? I expect imminent collapse of society if this study is accurate or as broad as portrayed.
  • Posts: 1,515 Member
    RobBasss wrote: »

    Are you including BMR in that number? and I think I just found some ones :D

    Sorry for the delay. I didn't realize this discussion had branched off. Yes, of course I am including my BMR in that number. I can't begin to imagine the amount of exercise it would take for me to burn 2200 above my BMR.

    And save your ones. They won't buy much food. ;)
  • Posts: 10,968 Member
    tomteboda wrote: »

    How on earth does the "average American" manage that anyway? That's 7.5 hours a DAY of "screen time". Does the "average American" neither work or have any other hobbies or interests or obligations whatsoever? I expect imminent collapse of society if this study is accurate or as broad as portrayed.

    Game of Thrones, Kim Kardashian's *kitten*, Honey Boo Boo, and, well, that's as much as I'm capable of naming off the top of my head, but you get the idea. These are the average American's hobbies and interests.
This discussion has been closed.