In my fitness consulting business, I get the opportunity to talk with people from all walks of life about their health, fitness, and weight loss goals. Whether their goal is to lose weight, gain muscle, stick to a diet plan or program, improve their cardiovascular health, or simply to maintain their current fitness level they all have one common enemy---TIME.
For most of us, the #1 challenge in the quest to stay in shape
and/or lose weight is not exercising itself but being able to actually
fit an exercise program into our busy schedules.
So how do you do it? How do you balance the demands of family,
career, important errands, relationships, organizational responsibilities,
and working out? I have found that there are five keys that will
help you to be able to fit a consistent workout plan into your already
hectic life.
- Commit to a specific schedule
When you fail to plan you plan to fail. Don't try to haphazardly fit your
workouts into your schedule without any rhyme or reason. Don't think you're
guilty? If you've ever told yourself "I'll workout as soon as I get some time",
you were in direct violation of this key principle.
In order to set yourself up for success, you will need to take the time
to literally write your workouts into your weekly schedule. In order to be effective,
you will want to be following your exercise program at least 3 days per week.
Anything less would be kidding yourself.
Therefore, right in the midst of all of your appointments, "to-do" lists,
etc., should be a written plan for your weekly workout routine, so that
you will never be in the dark as to when you committed to yourself to go.
- Utilize the weekend
Take advantage of the fact that it only takes 3-5 days per week to put
together an effective, results-producing workout. One trick to help you
pull it all off is to workout on the weekends. One of the benefits to this
course of action is that your schedule is more flexible and under your
control during this time.
What is also means is that when the hectic weekdays roll back around,
you will only be responsible for working out 1-3 days during the work week.
- Keep your workouts as a high priority
One of the biggest mistakes that even many people who have scheduled
a workout program into their schedule make is allowing it to be bumped
off of their schedule to
easily.
Although things will occassionally come up that will cause you to
have to reschedule the workout you had planned, you must be vigilant
in making sure that only the most important emergencies are allowed
to temporarily take you off of your plan.
In the event that one of those important emergencies does happen
and you can't make it to your workout, reschedule with yourself to make
it up on the next possible day that you are available to do so. If your
own health, fitness, and efforts to lose weight are not a priority to
you, they certainly won't be so to anyone else.
- Enroll others in your goals
Don't go at this alone. Let the important people in your life
know what you are up to. Your spouse or love interest, parents, children,
co-workers, and close friends will often pitch in and help you to meet
your fitness or weight loss commitment to yourself if you make them aware
and ask for their support.
Leverage these relationships to delegate some of your normal responsibilities
or even allow you to shift appointments that you have with them as you restructure
your schedule for your workout. If any of them are into exercise or trying
to lose weight themselves, don't hesitate to form a buddy system with them
as you move forward with your program.
- Don't beat yourself up
No matter who you are, there will be times in your workout program
that you just aren't able to keep it up as you would like due to outside
demands. Don't be too tough on yourself when that happens.
Remember that it is what you do consistently over a long period
of time, not what you do in spurts, that truly counts. Just make sure that
you get back on the horse full force as soon as you can and continue to
press forward, doing your best to avoid slacking off again.
No matter what goals you have for health, fitness, or weight loss, you
CAN fit an effective exercise program into that hectic schedule of yours
and be amazingly successful at getting the exact results that you want!
Lawrence Cole is a Lifestyle and Fitness Consultant based
out of Los Angeles, CA. He has over 10 years of health and
fitness experience and designing simple, effective nutritional
strategies to help individuals achieve their personal best
internal health and physical conditioning.
