How to Overcome Your Exercise Excuses
The alarm goes off, you roll over, hit snooze and sleep through your workout. A-h-h-h-h sweet slumber!
After you've milked your extra sleep time for all it's worth, you jump out of bed thinking, "I'll do my workout later." You rush off to work or get the kids off to school and you're consumed until lunchtime.
As you nibble on your fast-food lunch, you're reminded of the need to exercise...later. Later comes, you get home from work, or put the kids to bed and you throw yourself on the couch and begin your vegetable state. Exercise has officially been "dissed!"
Sound familiar? For most of us it's all too familiar. Unless you've been naturally active for most of your life or you exercise for life or death reasons, you will always have an excuse for not exercising. It's as natural as peanut butter and jelly.
Excuses are used on a daily basis and not just for exercise. So, what's your favorite exercise excuse? I've heard them all and like my 15-year-old son, I've got an answer for everything! So in an effort to rid you of your exercise excuses, I invite you to read the list of excuses and solutions to the perpetual "dissing" of exercise.
Top 10 Exercise Excuses -- BUSTED!
1. No time! We all know this is the oldest excuse in the book, but it continues to top the charts. Time, schmime. Whether it's five minutes or 45 minutes, any amount counts. Keeping your mind connected to the body can be accomplished with short bursts or long bouts of exercise. Exercise can be effective without having to spend hours a day. And yes, even breaking up your bouts of exercise can have a positive impact.
Certainly it's important to get in longer sets of cardio exercise to improve your cardiovascular system, but rather than giving up if time is short, power pack what little time you have. Five, 10 or 15 minutes can provide benefits to your health. Time is on your side no matter how much or how little you have -- make it count!
2. No equipment! It's been said that you can tell a great trainer by his ability to train a client without equipment. While equipment isn't necessary it can certainly enhance your fitness routine and add variety. But don't let lack of equipment be the reason you don't exercise. You can get fit with the most high-tech equipment in the world and not have to pay a penny.
What is it? It's your body! We have the gift of gravity and a body full of pulleys and levers (bones, muscles, joints). Those elements combined will do the trick! Some ideas of equipment-free exercises? Push-ups, wall squats, crunches and dips. You can use soup cans for bicep curls, shoulder presses and tricep kickbacks. For your cardiovascular needs pavement works just fine in place of a treadmill. You have all you need from head to toe. So take that body and get your money's worth!
3. I'm too tired! As am I... from hearing that excuse over and over again! The truth is exercise will increase your energy level . It's a hard sell getting people to believe that exercise will get rid of ups and downs in energy. Exercise gives you that extra push to stay perky during that 2-4 p.m. down time. Actually, you will probably notice that your sleeping improves, thus increasing your energy level. Being tired all the time can be a direct result of inactivity, poor nutrition and lack of water. Start small and watch that fatigue become just a bad dream.
4. I don't know what to do! The sad truth with this excuse is that we have forgotten how to have fun. We are led to believe that "fancy schmancy" health clubs are what we need in order to be successful with a fitness program. The numerous choices of exercise options end up leaving us confused and overwhelmed. It would be like me going into the cockpit of a plane and the pilot saying, "Go ahead, and give her a try!" Something tells me I'd take one look and say, "Thanks, but no thanks".
Don't make exercise rocket science. MAKE IT FUN! Why not hire a personal trainer to help give you some direction? Not only can a good, well-qualified trainer keep you safe and enlightened, you may be directed toward exercises you really like. You don't have to spend a fortune hiring a trainer or buying tons of equipment. You can simply experiment -- find what you like and you are good to go!
