Can 10 Minutes Really Be the Solution?
Feel too busy to exercise? Do you have 10 minutes? 
“Lack of time,” is the cited as the number one reason people stop exercising. Do you fall under this reason as well? Do you feel overwhelmed by the surgeon general’s fitness report that recommends at least 30 minutes of exercise, 5 days a week? For most of us, that is asking for a whole lot more than you can handle. Our lives are busy.—how in the world are we to hold down full time jobs, take care of house chores, raise children, and then exercise?? Let’s be honest, exercise does come last in most of our lives. We have the mentality of ‘all or nothing’ – meaning that we don’t have the full hour to devote, then we just don’t do it. Shame on us! We need to change our way of thinking when it comes to exercise. No more all or nothing mentality- because actually ‘a little goes a long way!’
No time is your plea? I bet you have more time than you ever thought! Take a hard look at your average day and figure out where you can substitute inactivity with activity. Harold Kohl from the CDC states, “Think about exercise the way you think about substituting low-fat food for high-fat food. The key is to look for opportunities to be active in ways that aren’t necessarily planned or structured—look beyond the stuff we typically think of exercise.”
Ways you can substitute inactivity with activity;
- Turn your ‘Downtime’ into Activity Time! Be more present in your day. Look for opportunities for activity appear everywhere. Going out to get the mail- don’t drive; walk! Instead of sitting in the stands as you watch your son’s football game get out and walk a few laps!
There are tons of easy ways you can sneak in a walk. Before you know it—5 minutes here, 3 minutes there, and so on really does add up.
- Take mini walks! If you continue to keep waiting until you have more time during the day to offer to exercise—quit it, its not going to happen! If it hasn’t happened yet, what makes you think it will miraculously happen this week?
Divide your walking goal into mini walks— three 10 minute walks, six 5 minute sprints, or even fifteen 2-minute bursts. Studies show that you burn the same number of calories whether you exercise all at once or in short burst. Little chunks of walking may even be better. That’s right- better! Short bursts may cause your body to burn calories because it revs your metabolism higher more steadily throughout the day.
A one hour block of time may seem not seem ideal, but breaking it down into 10 minute intervals through out the day can be accomplished. Take one of our DVD’s and pick a few different 10 minute times through out the day to complete. 10 minutes before breakfast, 10 minutes when you get home from work and another 10 minutes while the kids are playing. That’s 30 minutes of exercise!
- Interval train. No need to set up expensive equipment in your house or trek yourself to the gym. Set up simple and effective workouts that fit in your life. Once you find that 10 minute time block, rotate through a few different activities- pop in one our DVDs for a few minutes, pause it, do a few ab crunches, go back to the DVD, pause it, do a few reps of bicep curls and so on. Wow-that is effective!
Interval training is so powerful! In a recent study, women who exercised 3 days a week for 20 minutes, alternating between fast – and moderate paced intervals, lost 5 times as much weight as women who exercised 3 days a week for 40 minutes at a steady, brisk speed. Even better, the interval exercisers shed most of the fat from their legs and belly.
