My Top 10 Tips on Fitting Fitness into Your Life!

You’ve heard this way too many times, as have I: “Exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.” However, it’s a cliché for a reason! Regular exercise keeps us fit, strong, and healthy and helps us to stay in balance.

Here are just a few of its other benefits:


♥Exercise builds muscle, and muscle burns more calories than fat. Therefore, just by exercising, our bodies become more muscular, thus creating a steady boost in metabolism.
♥Exercise is a great way to energize ourselves and overcome fatigue.
♥Exercise aids our bodies in circulation and digestive functions. It also decreases blood pressure, blood sugars, and triglycerides.
♥The act of exercise burns calories and therefore makes it much easier to lose weight and/or maintain a proper body weight.
♥Exercise releases endorphins, which helps us feel better and maintain a more positive outlook.

No matter what your current state of fitness, you CAN (oh yes you can, I know you can, can) begin to make exercise a part of your lifestyle.

Here are my Top 10 Tips on Fitting Fitness into Your Life!

1. Make a list of all of the ways you enjoy movement and exercise. For the moment, set aside concerns about money or bodily limitations. Try to think of at least 5-10 things you enjoy that could constitute exercise (keep them mostly rated PG). Now you have a working list to draw from! Use this list to motivate and inspire you.
2. Consider splurging - even just once - on a personal trainer to get you started in the right direction. Often, once is all it takes, and you'll be able to work on his or her suggestions for months.
3. Walk more. Walking is cheap, easy, and almost anyone can do it. Can you fit in a short walk after dinner? If so, you'll develop a great habit and get your metabolism revved up for the evening...bonus!
4. You've heard this one before, but it bears repeating: Park further away, take the stairs, and use the escalator vs. the elevator. All those little steps add up over the course of a day, which is even more substantial over the course of a lifetime!
5. Make a list of your top 5 "challenges" (a nice word for "excuses") in the area of fitness. For example, one of yours right now might be: "It's too cold out to exercise and I can't afford the gym." Look at your challenges, do some creative thinking, and list some possible solutions. For example, for the challenge I listed, one solution might be to bundle up and take walks...or to just join the gym for one month - monthly gym memberships are often much cheaper than the cost of one coffee per day, and far better for your health!
6. Get out your schedule book and find a way to make it happen! Even the busiest people deserve a little me-time. And that means YOU. Isn't your health and well-being worth it? Where there's a will, there's a way.
7. Consider using some of your extra time to exercise. Don't have extra time? Perhaps you do...when I was working 70+ hours a week several years ago, I developed a habit of eating my lunch before my lunch break and instead using my lunch break to take a walk. My productivity went up, I felt better, and I still finished all my projects on time. And no one cared, not even my boss.
8. If you have kids, you can make exercise a fun family activity! For example, my daughter and I take walks, go on hikes, cross country ski, do yoga, and strength train together (and she's only six years old!). Sure, I still want to have some exercise time on my own, but I love doing both. Exercising with kids is a great way to do some bonding, have fun, and model some good habits! To, you know, balance out the not-so-good ones we teach them...
9. If you have a sit-down job, you can rev up your metabolism by getting up every 30 minutes or so and walking around (or you can even do a set of jumping jacks if you can escape your boss and colleagues for a minute).
10. Make a list of the top 10 reasons you want to exercise regularly and post it somewhere visible. It will motivate you! And when you're motivated, you'll naturally find ways to fulfill your desire for greater health.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I truly appreciate it. And I hope these tips gave you a little motivation to start shaking your booty - something we could all stand to do a little more of!

And remember, exercise is one of the things that will keep you focused on prevention, not prescriptions...which, by the way, is the name of an empowering program on the Kathleen Show. For more Prevention Not Prescriptions ideas, please visit this link. Have a wonderful, healthy, happy day! XO