Fit exercise into your busy schedule? That’s as absurd as saying that there are eight days in a week!
First, you’ve never exercised before or engaged regularly in a sport; second, you’ve never been into the fitness crowd and have had meager time for such pursuits, and third, you’re far too busy to even think of exercise.
In other words, YOU’RE JUST NOT INTO IT.
Of course your friends talk about it and rave about the latest fitness craze, but you’ve seen it too often: some of them are on the “on-again-off-again” treadmill / stair master mania, and you wonder why they haven’t shred the fat that they’re desperately still trying to hide.
Seeing what your friends go through and not seeing any results, you cling to the notion that your total lack of interest is justified.
You’re not the least bit inclined to engage in these circus-like contortions or do those mindless freestyle strokes in the water. That would only encroach into your already busy schedule of juggling family, home and career. These three combined – husband/children/work are your exercise.
Yup, we’ve got a problem.
That mindset is like a seething volcano that’s about to erupt. If you stubbornly cling to the notion that the “fat to trim” concept is merely a myth and a figment of the imagination of a handful of oddballs, your health could be going into “eruption mode” soon, like a restless volcano.
Have you looked at your body lately? Have you taken stock of your overall physical well-being?
Before tackling the idea of fitting exercise into your busy schedule, it might be better if we start with the concepts of self-assessment and then familiarize ourselves with the disease-prevention aspect of exercise.
Once you’ve accepted the fact that your body needs overhauling, and that exercise is good for your health – then we can talk about some of the ways that you can include exercise into your roller-coaster existence.
This ebook in your hands right now (or on your screen!) is your KEY to fitting exercise into your life. And rest assured, this ebook already assumes that you’re a busy person with a life to lead; and that’s why the tips in here are specifically designed to fit in with your busy lifestyle!
To keep things organized and simple, this ebook is broken down into five easy sections:
Section 1: Assessing Physical Damage
And Accepting the Importance of Exercise
Section 2: No Matter How Busy you Are, there are Ways you can Exercise
Section 3: Busy Traveler? You can Fit Exercise into your Trips
Section 4: Exercise Aids To Go
Section 5: Information / Resources for the Hurried and Harried
Read them in order, or if you wish,
focus on the section that is most relevant to you right now. Regardless of how you choose to read this
ebook, you can be confident of one thing: once you apply the advice within these
pages, your busy life will include something new and important: exercise!
Section 1: Assessing Physical Damage and Accepting the Importance of Exercise
Do you think of your body the way you think of your car? When a few lucky individuals acquire a sports car that boasts of the best automotive engineering available today, watch them read the maintenance manuals religiously.
They take their car for inspection even if it purrs like a kitten and take it for repairs as soon as something does not feel right. And they’re very concerned.
That car is their most prized possession, a symbol of all the long and hard hours they put on the job so they could finally acquire it. It cost an arm and a leg, so taking care of it is logically, their # 1 priority.
But how important is the person that drives that car? Shouldn’t that person – shouldn’t you – be the #1 priority?
Lifespan and Physical Appearance
The average life span of men and women is 80 years, give or take a few years. The painful truth is, a significant number of men and women look and feel 80 before they even make it to the first half of their life! You spot the tell-tale signs from their physical appearance:
- sagging dry skin
- unsightly posture
- uneven and unsteady walk (they need to drag around those heavy pounds)
- aching joints
- sporting the “I’m not happy because I look terrible” look
Now, if their appearance is this bad, imagine what the inside machinery is like! Most likely, it’s even worse:
- clogged vessels
- inefficient heart
- mounds of sugar and fat parked in or around vital organs
- Conditions such as diabetes, nervous tension, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease that are silently brewing.
If fitness authorities had it their way, they’d create legislation to make exercise mandatory as soon as a baby leaves the cradle, not during the teenage years when obesity is likely to strike.
But fitness shouldn’t be associated with any age limit. You can start at 10 or at 30 – even at 50 and 60 – the idea being that fitness should not be seen as the cure for a condition that’s already come about. As the saying goes, don’t wait for illness to strike.
Assessing How Fit You Are
Brad King and Dr. Michael Schmidt in “Bio Age, Ten Steps to a Younger You” (Macmillan, Canada, 2001) have devised a questionnaire for assessing physical damage to a body as a result of no exercise. We will borrow some of their guidelines, which we will summarize here:
Start with the question, “How do I look?” Do any of these answers apply to you?
- Am I overweight, looking like an apple or pear?
- Do I have a spare tire around my waist?
- Has my skin become excessively dry, almost paper-thin?
Next, ask: “How do I feel?”
- Do my joints hurt before or after any physical exertion?
- Am I constantly worried and anxious?
- Do I feel tired and sluggish most of the time?
- Do I suffer from mood swings?
Last question, “How am I doing?”
Are simple walking and climbing stairs difficult?
- Do I have problems concentrating?
- Is running impossible for me now?
- Am I unable to sit straight, preferring to slouch or stoop my shoulders?[1]
You’ve completed your basic assessment. Note, however, that other exercise or fitness gurus will have their own parameters or indices for assessing your body’s overall state and one isn’t better than the other.
As long as they include all dimensions of the self – physical, psychological and mental – they are as valid as the next person’s assessment charts.
Turning You into a Fitness Buff!
After going through the assessment phase, you’re probably experiencing what some people fondly call a “rude awakening”. If you’re not mentally prepared to accept exercise, please don’t force yourself. Just be familiar with its benefits and when you’re wholeheartedly disposed towards giving it a crack in the can…
Read more HERE
[1] Brad J. King & Dr. Michael A. Schmidt. Bio Age – Ten Steps to a Younger You. Macmillan, Canada. 2001.