For fitness and weight loss, experts advise working out for 45–1 hour every day (or 30 minutes for beginners). But if you’re like most women, you don’t always have a block of time each day—say, 30 to 60 minutes—to spend just to exercising.
10 min workout
You just need to find sneaky ways to incorporate the comparable amount of activity. The key, according to fitness expert Ann Grandjean, EdD, “is to keep moving.” “Purchase a cordless phone or attach a long chord to your current phone, and move about while you speak. Simply move and find what works for you. Park half a mile away and walk to the mall. Instead of using the elevator, use the steps. Those tiny, insignificant things build up.”
10 minute full body workout
Think twice before assuming that brief periods of activity have little impact on your fitness regimen. According to one study, women who exercised for 20 to 40 minutes at a time were less likely to exercise regularly and lost less weight after five months than women who exercised for 10 minutes at a time.
Exercise physiologist Glenn Gaesser, PhD, requested men and women to undergo 15-10 minute exercise regimens each week for a historic study he carried out at the University of Virginia. The volunteers’ aerobic fitness was comparable to that of individuals 10 to 15 years younger after just 21 days. They were on par with people up to 20 years younger than them in terms of strength, physical endurance, and flexibility.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore discovered in yet another study that several short bursts of activity are just as helpful as longer, organised workouts for enhancing health and fitness in inactive adults. According to Gaesser, it would be beneficial for people to abandon the all-or-nothing belief that exercising for less than 30 minutes is a waste of time.
According to Harold Taylor, a time management expert and proprietor of Harold Taylor Time Consultants in Toronto who has written extensively on the issue, breaking exercise into manageable portions on your overbooked days will also help you maintain your confidence. Taylor claims that skipping exercise entirely is “de-motivating” since it makes you feel bad and miserable. “If you don’t do it, you could think, “What’s the point? In any case, I can’t keep up. But as long as you put up some effort each day, that inspires you to keep going. Success is contagious.”
But remember that quick workouts are supposed to complement your regular fitness regimen, not to replace it. Here are some doable suggestions for fitting fitness into your day, even if you “don’t have time to exercise.” (Select the ones that work best for you; you don’t have to do them all in one day.)