Welcome to the 2018 Shape-UP Program! This term my focus is on tackling what holds people back from their physical fitness.
Let’s get started with the number one reason people fail to exercise regularly.
Too busy for exercise
This reason is the big one! It is what holds most people back from exercise.
If you have a stressful job, run a household or both! Then struggling to find time to sleep will be enough of a challenge.
- Having to find the will and time to exercise will seem impossible!
On super busy days I have learned to let go of guilt and implement strategies to help me exercise.
Here are my top 3 strategies to stay on track:
- Switch off your mobile phone for 30 minutes and exercise before switching it back on – this works!
- Exercise before lunch, because, if you’re too busy to exercise then you’re too busy to eat – a diet tip if you are trying to lose weight!
- Schedule just 9 minutes of daily exercise that is NOT negotiable
The Catch-22 of fitness
Being continuously too busy for exercise prevents you from doing the one thing [exercise] that will ultimately help you do twice as much with more energy.
- Exercising is like oiling a car engine, it doesn’t fuel the car – it makes it run smoothly.
Catch-22 was a term coined by Joseph Heller in 1961. He describes the absurdity of being caught in a circular argument in terms of military bureaucracy:
- A soldier can be dismissed from duty on the grounds of insanity, however, applying for dismal proves that the solider is indeed sane and therefore cannot be dismissed!
In our own lives, when we continually allow ourselves to be stuck in a loop of “too busy to exercise” we will eventually break down for lack of self-care.
Time is elastic when exercise becomes a priority.
Time will stretch to accommodate our priorities. While we cannot make more time, we can choose what to put our time into.
One of my favorite stories comes from author Laura Vanderkam, who writes about how successful women make the most of their time.
Laura recounts how one of her extremely busy women found 7 hours in her week to clean the mess to her home caused by an exploded water heater.
The moral of the story was that no matter how busy we are when faced with an emergency we will find time for action.
- A body without exercise is a health emergency waiting to happen.
In the course of our lives, we make choices that suit us at the moment.
We can choose to exercise now, later or never and the consequences of each decision will find its way to our body’s health.
I recommend a little exercise every day and avoid the suffering of an unpredictable health emergency.
Join our 9 minutes to fitness program and find out how a little exercise can help you go a long way.
Live well with fitness
Anna
Click here to send me a message
Recent Comments