Finding Time for Exercise: 5 No-Fail Tips for Busy Women
We’ve all heard it before, and most of us have said it ourselves: “I don’t have time to exercise.”
Whether you have a super-demanding job or a clan of rambunctious kids to look after (or both), it’s easy to put off exercise—it feels like there’s just never enough time in a day. Yet, who are you really serving by neglecting your own needs? You need exercise, and your boss/spouse/kids/friends need you to be strong and healthy. Also, guess what? You deserve to look and feel great and to reap the health benefits of exercise.
So, no more excuses. Here are 5 fail-proof tips for getting the exercise you need.
5: Choose a Form of Exercise You Love
Nothing will discourage you from exercising more than a boring routine. Don’t force yourself to do workouts that you simply want to get through. Choose a form of exercise that fits your personality and lifestyle. Love the blissful feelings you experience during yoga, or the “high” you get from running? Do what you love. If you still haven’t figured out what floats your boat, experiment until you find something that works best for you.
4: Involve Your Kids
As the saying goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Or, rather, let them join you. If finding alone time for exercise just isn’t possible, get active with your kids. Take them out for a jog, get on the trampoline with them, or race them at the park. They’ll thank you for it—kids are meant to run, jump, and tumble. As a side benefit, burning off all that energy just might get them to bed on time.
3: Make It Efficient
Choose workouts you can do anywhere—at home, while you’re traveling, or while you’re with your kids (hint: Racquetball probably isn’t the best choice). Circuit training, yoga, or bodyweight exercise routines on DVD or streaming online are great options. All you need is a laptop or portable DVD player (or, for streaming videos online, internet service), and you can do these routines day or night wherever you are.
2: Plan and Commit
Your boss asks you to run a report at 4:30 in the afternoon, your kids are fighting at home, and you’re low on groceries. The fact is that something will always come up that gets in the way of exercise, as long as we allow it. If you don’t prioritize exercise, you’ll never do it. Rearrange tasks if you need to—run that report for your boss after Zumba class, or do your grocery shopping at an odd hour. The important thing is to create a workout schedule (write it down, store it in your phone—whatever works for you), and stick to it as much as possible.
1: Choose Something over Nothing
We can’t emphasize this point enough: Doing some exercise is always better than doing no exercise. While it’s important to keep your heart rate up for a sustained period, it doesn’t need to be an extensive period.
Got 30 minutes? Go for a jog. In half that time, you can get a decent resistance workout right in your living room using your own bodyweight. Exercise at your desk using an under-desk peddler, or do a high-intensity interval training workout in just 7 minutes. We repeat: Doing some exercise is always better than doing no exercise.
What About the Muscles You Can’t See?
We all know we should exercise our major muscle groups, but it’s equally important to work the muscles we can’t see, including the pelvic floor (Kegel) muscles.
Doing Kegel exercises is especially important for women who have been pregnant, given birth, or who are in menopause. All of these life experiences can weaken the muscles of the pelvic floor, which act like a hammock to hold our pelvic organs (uterus, bladder, urethra, vagina, and rectum) firmly in place. Weak pelvic floor muscles can lead to pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and bladder leakage.
PeriCoach can help. In just minutes a day, you can give your pelvic floor a workout with the best Kegel trainer on the market. PeriCoach is a vaginally insertable device that pairs with your smartphone, so you can see your muscles working in real-time! Learn more about the PeriCoach Kegel exerciser and hear stories from real women.