How I Found Time to Exercise …

According to a survey conducted in December 2019, the most common New Year’s Resolution in 2020 is to Exercise More.

Eating healthy and exercise is a common advice you would hear from a doctor or a personal trainer when you are diagnosed with an illness. It is almost always the cure to any kind of diseases that is surrounding America at this moment. Rightfully so because fueling and moving are two essential components of your body. Being able to move well and eat well will surely increase our quality of life. I think we can all agree to that.

If it’s so important, why do so many of us still desire it? Instead of having it?

According to New York Post, the main reason why people don’t exercise is because they don’t have time.

Top reasons why Americans do not exercise

I don’t have time 42%

I don’t have the motivation 35%

I don’t like exercising 25%

Work gets in the way 23%

I don’t see results 22%

…

From these statistics, we can make a quick conclusion that we don’t exercise because we don’t have time.

As a father of two small children, a full time job and a husband who wants a healthy relationship with his wife, I can relate to this very much. When I returned to a full time job, my exercise routine of 5x a week became 1x a week (when I’m lucky). In retrospective, it was not because I was unmotivated, it was not because I didn’t know how to exercise, or didn’t see results, but it was because I lost 8 hours of my day to being in the office. And the other 4 hours to being with my family.

The only way I could “create” more time would be to be “creative” in with managing my time. That means, scraping not hours, but minutes out of my day by reducing and / or eliminate the little things that is not important to me.

I am proud to tell you that from 0 days a week of exercise, I have now created a habit of exercising 20–30 minutes a day for 4–5 times a week.

Here’s how I did it:

1. I wake up early. After the birth of my son, I have acquired a few new skills: making milk in the dark at 3am, falling asleep at anywhere at any time of the day. There is nothing like parenthood to realize that there is no such thing as “I am not a morning person”. Starting a habit of waking up early will open up opportunities and possibilities to do anything you want. Including exercise.
2. I allocate time for social media. How many of you would unconsciously check your phone or open your instagram just to scroll and double tap a few photo? I used to be that person too. What I have found useful is to allocate a reasonable amount of time in the beginning, middle and end of the day to browse through social media or the Internet. That could be 12 pm, 6pm and 10 pm. Browse for 10 minutes (for example) and close it at the end of the mark. When I had my 2nd daughter, that meant, during her nap time. On other times of the day, I keep my phone face down. Doing this allowed me to have more time to do things that are much more important.
3. I convince myself that any exercise is a good exercise. As a CrossFit coach and gym owner of 7 years, I used to tell people that CrossFit is the only way to exercise. I am now here to tell you that … I was wrong! Taking a walk, playing outside with your kids or pet, hiking, getting on a bike, stretching, yoga and even meditation is a wonderful exercise. The best exercise is the one that you do. As long as you dedicate time to do something, you are doing something for your health.
4. I say to myself “I deserve this”. I have coached so many clients where the first 10–15 minutes of our personal training session is spent talking about how busy their day is, and how difficult it was for him or her to leave their kids / parents / friends to come to our session to work out. Well I am here to tell you that when you make the decision to exercise, you deserve it. The time is yours and rightfully so because you have consciously made the self honoring choice to be healthy. So, enjoy it.

Rome was not built in a day. Your transformation to health and fitness will also not be achieved in a day. Not even in a week or 21 days. Your transformation to health and fitness will be achieved once you realize the importance of it. When that time comes, you would have created a routine for yourself, a habit you can follow and a life that you desire.

I hope that you may be able to relate to one or more of the steps that I have shared in my story above. I will plan on sharing more tips and stories on other New Year Resolutions on this graphic and I hope that one step at a time, we can together walk to a life that we all deserve.