Here it is another weekend, another week gone by in the blink of an eye. If you seem caught in a cycle of wanting to make a change, but nothing ever happens (i.e. you don’t take action), think about this: If you do nothing different, time will go by, and if you do make a change, time will also go by. Time marches on, until suddenly it is next year. If you would rather wake up and realize it’s a year later and you have something positive to show for that time, then get started now.
No matter how small, when you make changes, time is suddenly on your side. I just finished my fifth week of consistent weight training, and I’m very happy about that. Five weeks isn’t very long, but usually after six weeks you can start to see a significant difference from consistent exercise, so now the ball is easily rolling along. I’m back in the habit of working out, on a regular schedule, four times a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, just 34 minutes in the morning.
We all get the same 24-hour day. How do you spend your 24 hours? If you think you have no time for exercise, think again. I’d estimate I work 60 hours a week, plus take care of a family, I’m finishing writing a book, I run a busy web business, and so on. I’m busy, we’re all busy, yet I’m finding about an hour a day (some days a bit more) for exercise, and I’m looking better and feeling better for it.
One place you can gain a lot of time is the time you regularly spend watching TV. If you don’t want to give up some TV time, what about the amount of time you lose during commercials? I get so frustrated by all the commercial interruptions whenever I watch regular TV that I just don’t have the patience for it, but if you still watch shows most nights, get busy during those commercials. Start a regular exercise program you can complete while you watch your favorite shows.
For instance: the show starts and runs for about 1 – 2 minutes, then it’s five minutes of commercials. That is plenty of time to do three sets of crunches, or side bends, or some other type of abdominal work. Three little sets, and you’re done with abs. I do 100 crunches every day which takes about 90 seconds. Do you have 90 seconds to spare?
Next, the show’s back on, so you jump back into your chair and enjoy it, until the next commercial break, at which point you grab your dumbbells (or soup cans or whatever you use), and fire off three sets of 12 repetitions of bicep curls. Make sure you rest between each set for 45 – 60 seconds.
Then more show, and during the two commercial breaks on the half hour, you can work your shoulders, with shoulder presses (up and down with dumbbells above your head, or shrugs, or any number of other exercises.)
More show, then next up, you do three sets of pectoral (chest) work. You could do regular push ups for instance (many very well built people use body weight alone as resistance and push ups are an excellent example of this) and that is it for today’s workout, so you’ve watched your favorite show and done a workout! How’s that for great time management?
Tomorrow you would work the rest of your body doing three sets for your back, legs, and calves.
Give this idea some thought. There is much more time in your day than you realize, plenty of time to do the things you really want to do, and making fitness a priority, will help you gain the strength, size and shape you really want, and besides it’s fun.
