Has your health and fitness suffered due to your super busy schedule? If you are like a lot of people in today’s world, then chances are it has suffered. I have good news though, it doesn’t have to! Below are 8 simple health and fitness tips for busy people that you can apply starting immediately to get results no matter what your schedule is like.
1. Make Your Health and Fitness a Priority
The first of the health and fitness tips for busy people is to make your health and fitness a priority. If you want to lose weight, build muscle, burn body fat, become healthier, get in shape, have more energy, sleep better, and have the benefits of regular exercise and a better diet, then you have to stop using your busy schedule as an excuse. I get it, your schedule is crazy and the last thing you want to fit in is working out or following a diet. If you want the results that come with improved health and fitness, then you have to improve your health and fitness. There is no other way.
The good new is that you can follow these health and fitness tips to get results, even if you are busy. Before you move on though, you have to decide that you are going to make your health and fitness a priority. It has to be something that you place an importance on moving forward. That doesn’t mean that you have to quit doing other things or try to alter your already crazy life, but what it does mean is that you have to decide that your health and fitness is something that you are going to put into your life on a regular basis moving forward.
2. Adjust Your Mindset
Now that you are going to improve your health and fitness, the next step is to adjust your mindset. Get out of the all or nothing thinking. Your health and fitness doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be better and it just has to be an ongoing part of your life. While your busy schedule doesn’t mean that you get a pass from diet and exercise, it does give you a pass to adjust your thinking.
Doing something is better than doing nothing. In the past, one of the things that probably prevented you from exercising is that you thought that if you didn’t have time to do everything 100 percent then why do it at all? If you get started doing some exercise and make some diet improvements and do them on a regular basis, you will get results, and you will improve over time. Sometimes it just takes enough to get started. Get the ball rolling and then once you make your health and fitness a habit and start seeing results, everything improves from there.
Remember, your results are relative to your current diet and exercise routine, not to a perfect diet and exercise routine. To see results, all you have to do is improve what you are currently doing.
3. Schedule Your Health and Fitness
Working out is not a spur of the moment kind of thing. It should be a part of your life just like work and other non-negotiables are. If you keep a calendar or planner, schedule your workouts on it. Treat them like an appointment. Often times, people put no value on workouts and base them on convenience.
Fill in your calendar for the week with everything that you have to do and then schedule everything else around those things. Include your workouts in this! Schedule in at least 3 workouts for the week (4 or 5 if possible). Probably the number one reason people miss workouts is because they make them optional and they base it on if it’s convenient or not each day.
Do the same with your diet. Look at your calendar and put all the times on there that you will not be eating good because of work or whatever reason you may have and then make sure you eat good the rest of the time. Remember, the diet doesn’t have to be perfect to get results, it just has to be better than it used to be.
4. Be Efficient
The most practical of the health and fitness tips for busy people that I can give is to be efficient with your exercise. You don’t have time to waste, so you have to work hard when you exercise. With your workouts, try doing total body workouts that allow you to get in a lot of exercises in a short amount of time. Try doing combination exercises and supersets where you go back and forth between different exercises instead of resting between exercises. Try to avoid exercises and machines that are easy to do and take too much time to do them. You can get in a much more effective and efficient workout with some dumbbells and an open area than you can by going down the line from easy workout machine to easy workout machine slowly doing whatever single body part move each machine calls for.
With your cardio, the best tip that I can give is to run instead of walk. Run for 15 minutes instead of walking for 30 minutes or an hour. You will get in a way better workout in a fraction of the time and it will be way less on your joints over time. If you cannot run, then I recommend a stair stepper or bike or other cardio machine, but work as hard as you can for 15 minutes instead of working at a low or medium level for 30 minutes to an hour. With cardio, it’s not how far you go or how long you go, it’s how hard you work!
Work hard, be efficient, don’t waste time. If it were easy, everyone would be in shape.
5. Follow a Program
The previous tip of the health and fitness tips for busy people was to be efficient. The best way to be efficient is to follow a program. There are a lot of good workout programs you can find at your local gym or online.
Our in-person workouts at Hoover Fitness are designed with the busy person in mind. We never go longer than 45 minutes and often times are even closer to 35-40 minutes. This leaves you time to get in a good 15 minute cardio session and still be in and out of the gym in an hour at the most. With online programs, you can find programs that are even quicker. My Virtual Personal Trainer workouts can be done in 30 minutes or less and are super efficient because they work every body part and contain combination exercises where you are working your lower body, upper body, and core all at the same time.
Remember, wondering around the gym or at home aimlessly trying to figure out what to do is not only ineffective, it is slow and not a good idea for the person who is trying to figure out how to fit exercise into their busy schedule.
6. Get a Coach
You invest in the things that you want to excel in, so why not invest in your health. If you don’t get results, you will probably end up quitting. If you are a super busy person, then your path to better health and fitness is going to be challenging and you need to set yourself up for success. The best way to do this is have a professional set you up on a specific program based on your personal schedule and your personal goals.
In my programs, I work with clients to maximize their time and efforts and set up programming that is doable based on their current schedule. Basically we meet and go over your goals and your schedule and map out a plan to ensure you get results based on what you can do and when you can do it. To set up a free consultation to discuss further, request online coaching information HERE.
The good thing about a coach is that they can set you up for success based on your unique situation. Trust me, there is a plan out there for everyone. Coaches can help you map out a plan and keep you held accountable to continue to see results, especially when your schedule throws you that curveball that would normally lead you to quit.
7. Skip a Meal or Two
This is tip is also mentioned in my 7 Easy Weight Loss Diet Tips post. One of the best weight loss weight loss diet tips is to cut calories. The easiest way to cut calories is to skip a meal. You don’t have to eat 5 times per day and not eating will not mess up your metabolism. These are diet myths. (If you want to overcome several other diet myths that are probably holding you back, check out my eBook). Don’t ever eat because you think you have to. The goal is to burn more calories than you normally burn and to eat less than you normally eat. The greater the deficit the faster the body fat falls off. All that matters at the end of the day is that you created a deficit.
You are super busy, and the last thing you have is time to put towards learning a special diet and preparing food and eating based on a certain schedule or plan you have to follow.
Instead of going on a diet, just cut your calories by skipping a meal or two. Have a cup of coffee or a water or a zero calorie drink instead of those calories you normally have in a meal. This is also a way to enjoy your other meal or meals a little more. Don’t cancel it out by adding the same amount to your other meals, but if you cut out 500 calories at lunch and then add 250 to dinner, then you still came out 250 ahead!
8. Don’t Quit
This is arguably the most important health and fitness tip for busy people that I can give. None of it matters if you quit. You are guaranteed not to get results if you quit. Your health and fitness routine will be good some days/weeks/months and it will be not so good some days/weeks/months. As long as you don’t completely quit then you will get results and maintain results.
If you miss a workout, no big deal, do it the next day. If you miss a few workouts or an entire week, it’s still not the end of the world. Start back the next week. Just don’t let a missed week turn into quitting completely and then waiting 6 months to start back again and then on and off that roller coaster for the next several years.
Your Health and Fitness Path Moving Forward
What’s more important than what you do, is that you do it. This is especially important to the busy person. Start today and apply these 8 health and fitness tips for busy people to your own personal health and fitness routine. Mold a routine to your busy schedule and commit to doing something with your diet and exercise and don’t quit.
Make your health and fitness a priority, adjust your mindset, schedule your health and fitness, be efficient, follow a program, get a coach, skip a meal or two, and don’t quit and you will be set up for success, regardless of how busy you are. If you stick with it, regardless of how good your routine is, you will get results!