Fitting Fitness Into Your Lifestyle

Karl Dauphinais, PhD

Every year on January 1^st, hundreds of millions of people make the same basic resolutions to exercise more and lose weight. Ultimately, most people indicate that they feel they do not have the time it takes to be physically active, so they just dont do it. While many individuals do have a very busy schedule, approximately 84% of inactive people that indicate theyd like more time to exercise watch at least 3 hours of television per week. This doesnt mean that the television viewing is necessarily a bad thing. (If youve got the right personality you can work out while watching TV.) It just demonstrates that there are ways that we can each manipulate our schedule to maintain active lifestyles so that we can have the energy, strength, and stamina we want to lead more productive, fun-filled lives.

The trick to finding ways to create a more active lifestyle is to learn as much about yourself as possible.What do you want?What will motivate you?And, what fits your lifestyle?Creativity helps, especially when you can consolidate multiple goals.The best example being the modern day fitness center. Going to the fitness center is not only a great way to increase your physical activity, but is a great social atmosphere as well (as long as you still get your workout in).

 

 

Goals & Priorities:

The Secret to Determining What Will Inspire You to Action

If you dont plan on going anywhere in particular, youll get there.Its a lot easier to get what you want when you know specifically what you want. Being as detailed as possible helps. You can lose weight fairly easily by just not eating for a couple of days. The problem is that youll not only feel worse, but youll look worse too. A better goal would be to lose 5 pounds of body fat over the next few weeks. Thats a much more realistic and straightforward goal. When it comes to fitting fitness into your lifestyle, you need to find goals that will help make being fit a priority. One of the first steps is understanding that fitness doesnt take time, it gives time. What? More fit individuals have more energy throughout the day and get more restful sleep during the night. These two characteristics allows the individual to get more done throughout the day.

Reminding yourself of the following may help ensure physical activity becomes a priority, not a luxury:

• I feel better throughout the day when I get more physical activity throughout the day
• I have more energy to do the things I want to do when I get more physical activity throughout the day
• Im more efficient when I get more physical activity throughout the day

Remember, one of the biggest reasons people are tired at the end of the day is that they need to get more physical activity. Dont fall into the trap. Youre intelligent. You recognize that the workout you planned will help boost your energy levels.

 

 

Understanding Your Lifestyle: Finding What Fits You Best

Everyones lifestyle is a little bit different.Some people like to run around at a phenomenal pace. Others like to take their time and plan everything out. Some people are very social. Others focus better and feel better about what they are accomplishing when they work on their own in quiet surroundings. What is your lifestyle? You can plan your physical activity to be a social experience, going to the fitness center, or a time to clear your mind and spend time alone, going out for an easy jog on your own.

Can you maintain an activity as a priority if its not scheduled, or, do you need a strict schedule? Be honest with yourself. Some people need to have definite scheduled workouts. An example being Monday, Wednesday, Thursday after or before work. Other people can just plan to get into the fitness center or go for a run three to four days a week. Then they fit the workout in whenever time suits them. If you take this approach, make certain you get the activity in. If you find one or two weeks going by in which you dont do the activity regularly, you most likely need to go to a more regimented schedule. Plan your schedule immediately. The more you wait, the more likely you wont get started. Overcoming inertia is 90% of the battle. Once you get started on any activity, its a lot easier to keep going. The hard part is always getting started.

 

What is Your Mindset? How Will You Stay Motivated?

Are you the type of person that needs social interaction? Do you need coaching and motivation? Be honest and realistic here. Can you be accountable to yourself only or do you need someone else to look over your shoulder? Do you need private time on your own? Do you need to get rewarded with an external stimuli or is the accomplishment enough to keep you motivated? The answers to these questions will tell you if you need to workout in a group or alone, if you need to seek a coach or personal trainer, and if you need to set up some sort of reward system.

 

Small Activities Can Increase Caloric Burn

The major reason people are even reading this article today is that as great as technology is, it has minimized the amount of physical activity we have to do throughout the day. That means we burn fewer calories throughout the day and ultimately we start to gain weight, unless we continually eat less and less. There are some simple ways to increase your physical activity throughout the day without having to go to the gym, go out for a run, and do some other type of workout. In fact, the easiest ways to increase ones activity level and caloric burn throughout the day just means doing everyday activities. Using the stairs is probably the best example. Stairs burn a lot of calories. Just using a couple of flights of stairs everyday instead of using elevators or escalators can make a dramatic difference throughout the year. Not one or two pounds of fat, but over 10 pounds of fat throughout the year. Just by substituting elevators with stairs!

Walking more is another great way to increase caloric burn throughout the day. Park just a few spaces further from the entranceway. Stand up and walk more throughout the day. Got a problem that requires serious thought, get up and walk around. You might even find the answer to the problem a little faster.

Remember, movement is what helps your body burn calories. That means even fidgeting throughout the day will increase the number of calories you burn throughout the day.

 

Consolidation: The Key to Adding Physical Activity to a Busy Lifestyle

Once you have a better understanding of your goals, priorities, lifestyle, and general mindset, you should start to see some patterns that can help you consolidate activities and keep you motivated to stay active. Is there a local intramural sports team you can participate in regularly, such as a Wednesday night basketball league or a Friday night dance club? Do you need to get a personal trainer or keep a journal (highly recommended) to remain accountable to a regular program of physical activity? What about walking more throughout the day? If you belong to a fitness center, is it at a convenient location with convenient hours? Can you combine a trip to the fitness center with taking care of other tasks?

Finally, keep in mind that consistency is one of the most important factors in any successful lifestyle program. Even if you only have five minutes today, five minutes is much better than nothing. Can you find five minutes today? Go ahead, try doing some form of physical activity, walking, jogging, calisthenics, using exercise equipment, stretching, yoga, or even just moving the furniture. Make it a personal challenge to find creative ways to fit more physical activity in throughout the day just by making little changes. Youll probably start to find youve become more efficient throughout your whole day and you have more energy too.

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