How can I fit exercise into my busy schedule?

Wake up early and do it. ;)

I’m in the same boat. I’m thinking I will have to go to bed earlier and carve time in the morning or in the evening. It’s about saying this must happen, every day, consistently. I’m about to start weigh training as well and it’s helpful that my partner will do it with me because we will keep each other in check.

Can you walk to school or work? If so, that is a good way to incorporate fairly effective exercise into your life, considering you also eat a healthy diet.

Also, eating ‘right’ is not too difficult. There are some great frozen vegetable microwaved steam packs, all individual – just throw it in the microwave for 2 minutes and voila. Steamed spinach is also easy, buy a bag of baby spinach leaves and steam for about two minutes. Quick and healthy. Instant oatmeal is nice in the morning, get regular flavor and add a dash of honey and cinnamon. Or have some granola with natural yogurt poured over it. You can buy unfrozen grilled chicken breasts or the like to cook straight in the oven, or even some frozen ones. Lean porkchops and some sliced bell peppers are a good combo, and are quick to cook and are low in fat. Add a vegetable, forget adding sauces. Uncle Ben’s also makes nice microwaveable brown rice, which as long as you don’t eat the whole pack at one go its pretty healthy. Buy skimmed milk, low fat yogurt, cheese, and brown bread, wholegrain pasta. Mini tangerines and bananas are also nice to keep around for a snack. Rice cakes, sun chips and nature valley bars are some of my favorite snacks to have around.You can also make a good salad, to eat with dinner or take for lunch each day. I make a huge bowl of it in a resealable container and just keep it in the fridge, and use what I need for the next two days or so for my lunch. It takes about two minutes tops to throw it together. Buy some grilled chicken, I buy it in small packs – a prepackaged lettuce mix, low fat grated cheese and low fat caesar dressing. Mix that all up and you have lunch. Sometimes I throw in some cherry tomatoes for a change. Oh – and try to drink all sugar free soft drinks. Diet sprite tastes pretty good, and I have found that diet Coke with lime is slightly better than diet Coke. Try to avoid all those empty calories.

There are lots of easy ways to stay away from the ‘junk food’, lack of time is not an excuse not to incorporate some healthy options into your diet! Good luck.

I second @lucillelucillelucille wake up early. I know you said you are having a hard time sleeping, but if you get yourself going the morning with a good work out you will find that getting up is easy your body will wake you up…. at least it does for me.

Also if you are allowed a break during your work schedule walk around the block just to keep

You have to MAKE time for yourself. In much the same way that I was able to learn how to save money (pay yourself first), you might try parking further away at the grocery store, or when you go to class, leave some extra time to walk briskly from your car to class. Get yourself a work-out DVD and spend ten minutes in the morning when you get up doing some stretching or yoga. Also, if you already have a treatmill, get on that thing and prop your study books on the front and walk while you study. Spring is coming to SC, and it won’t be long before we are all outdoors and doing things that will help us get some of winter’s extra pounds off with less effort. Good luck!!

In addition to walking, could you bike? When I was working full-time as well as taking classes, I parked my car 15 minutes away from college and rode in on my bike. I saved a lot of money on a parking permit and got a half-hour of exercise.

I used to work 40 hours a week and go to school for 18 credit hours. During that time I trained for a marathon. :)

Wake up early or stay up later. I chose staying up an hour later to run.

Wake up earlier to do 30 minutes of cardio and lift weights while you watch tv.

I’ve recently started doing the 5 Tibetan Rites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Tibetan_Rites, and am noticing my body shape changing already. I’m also noticing a difference in strength, mental clarity and stamina. It’s very simple, and doesn’t take long, so I can fit it into my busy schedule each day.

My husband and I have been waking up at 5am Mon/Wed/Fri and heading to the gym. The only downside is that I am tired by 6:30pm (like right now). We are going to start going to the gym 5 days a week to work on cardio more than the 25 minutes we work in the hour long work out on the Mon/Wed/Fri.

Once you are motivated you find a way to build into your life. Walk where ever you can. Pack a skipping rope with you and take 10 minutes out what ever you are doing and skip…or do something else.

Monitor what you are eating as you can easily sabotage what ever you are working off in your workouts.

Get up in the morning and dance for 45 minutes.

It looks like you can fit in can easily fit in 30 minutes to an hours a day of exercise into your schedule in the mornings before work. I get up at 0430 a.m. most days (sometimes even earlier) to make it happen.