CrazyBusy Mama! (Dot Calm)

By Susanne Myers

How many times have you said to yourself that you just don’t have the time to exercise? Don’t feel bad; it’s my favorite excuse as well. We all have busy lives and not much time for anything in our schedule. That’s why I wanted to share some of my favorite ways to sneak some exercise into everyday activities with you.

Get Up Earlier. Did you know that you are much more likely to stick with any type of exercise program, if you do it in the morning? Makes sense, doesn’t it. The day is new, and you haven’t had a chance yet to get burned out from long meetings at the office or running around town all day. It’s hard to get motivated to work out after a long day, so why not get it out of the way first thing in the morning?

Set your alarm to go off 20 – 30 minutes earlier than usual and ride your exercise bike, go for a brisk walk through the neighborhood, or get an exercise tape and work out with it in the morning. Exercise is a great way to start your day and you’ll feel energized throughout the rest of your day.

Walk During Commercial Breaks. You just settled down on the couch to watch your favorite TV show, and it goes to commercial. That’s the perfect time to get in a little exercise. Just get up and march in place right in front of the TV until the commercial break is over. Doing this even just once or twice a day will start making a big difference. You can even wear a pedometer to get an idea for how much walking you get done during your favorite TV shows.

Once you get used to your commercial workout, step it up a notch by marching through the entire show. Now that’s a workout! Plus you don’t have to feel guilty about watching Desperate Housewives anymore instead of doing the dishes – you’re exercising.

Work On Your Abs While You Wait In Line. One of my least favorite things to do is to stand in line. Whether it’s at the grocery store, the pharmacy or the DMV, it just seems like such a waist of time to just stand there and wait. That is unless you are working out at the same time. You can get a great abs workout standing in line and best of all, no one has to notice. Here’s how you do it:

Stand up straight and suck in your stomach as hard as you can. Hold and count to ten before you release. Repeat. Each of these counts as one sit-up and is just as effective. Just imagine how many sit-ups you can do just while waiting in line each week.

Go For A Family Hike Or Bike Ride. Instead of just hanging out on the weekends, take the family for a hike or go on a bike ride. You get to spend some quality time with your family and get some great exercise at the same time.

If your life is as busy as mine, give a few of these exercise tips a try and see if you can’t start to find time to work out a few times a week.

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Susanne Meyers is the owner of HillbillyHousewife.com. Check out her fun and helpful ebooks by clicking here.

For more tips on how to squeeze some exercise in your busy day visit Home Based Workouts. Get healthy and low calorie meal ideas delivered right in your inbox. Sign up for a free trial at Healthy Menu Mailer.

Article printed from LadyPens.

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My first run-in with exercise was quite unfortunate. I was in the fifth grade and participating in my school’s “Jump Rope for Heart” campaign (a great program that continues to this day). I’d gotten a few pledges from my parents and people at my church, which meant the longer I jumped, the more they’d pay. Easy enough.

I never was the strongest kid in my class. Okay, scratch that: I was the class wimp. (Classmates loved breaking through my spot in a Red Rover line because I was such an easy target.)  I didn’t have a “strong constitution,” as my English ancestors would’ve said, and couldn’t keep up with the others. After 10-20 minutes of jumping over that flipping piece of overgrown twine, I began to get lightheaded. In fact, I had tunnel vision and almost passed out. (Looking back, it’s obvious that I was dehydrated…besides being a weakling.)

I want to talk today about preparing to exercise…beginning with that necessity of life: water.

You’ve probably heard that if you want to build muscle, you need to eat more protein. Protein, after all, is the building block of muscle. But did you know that your muscles are also 73% water? I never knew that until recently. If you want to build muscle by working out, drink water. Cindy Whitmarsh of ExerciseTV recommends drinking 90 ounces of water per day. That’s around five 16.3 ouncers. That may seem like a lot of water, but trust me: If you’re working out like you should, drinking that much will come easily.

Also, if you want to give your body the right fuel for your workouts, you need to stay away from junk food. I’m not a nutritionist, so I’m not going to tell you exactly what you should eat — you can find that information yourself just by doing a Google search. But I will tell you that when I eat too much sugar, I feel weak and even sick to my stomach. Also, and maybe this is because I have fibromyalgia, my body will start to ache shortly after eating sugar-laden “food.” (A side note on my fibromyalgia, which I’ll cover in more depth in a future post: Since I’ve begun working out, my flare-ups have pretty much been non-existent.)

When I eat right, which includes whole wheat or whole grains, dark green veggies, protein, small amounts of fruit (fruit is good for you, but is still full of fructose, or “fruit sugar”), etc., I feel stronger and have more endurance for my workouts. Try eating better — you’ll find you have more energy for your daily tasks, as well.

Also, if you’re serious about working out, stay away from alcohol, especially if you’re training for a race. Because it’s a depressant, it affects your brain’s and body’s ability to do normal tasks. One little glass of wine can slow you down and inhibit your endurance for four days.

The last one should be obvious: Get the sleep you need. My mother has told me for years (she’s always reading the latest research) that the sleep you get before midnight counts twice as much as the sleep you get after. I don’t know why that is, but I know my body sure feels it if I make it a habit of not hitting the hay until 1 or 2 in the morning.

Sometimes I work out late at night after my three year-old is asleep. That’s really not the best time to exercise. For one, if I do several ExerciseTV workouts in a row (10-20 minutes each on average), I can pretty much plan on being awake for at least another hour or two afterward. Because exercise gets your heart rate up and your adrenaline flowing, it’s a great way to begin your day, but not such a great way to end it like that.  If late at night really is your best time for working out, then do what works for you. Otherwise, try switching it to sometime earlier in the day. You might find you’ll sleep better, too.

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