Exercising regularly is a crucial part of keeping fit and healthy. Added to a well-balanced diet, regular exercise can keep us well and make us stronger, preventing us from catching various illnesses because our immune systems are better equipped.

The problem is that, although many people are entirely aware of just how important it is to carry out regular exercise, even if they want to, they just can’t find the time to do it. There is always something more important (or seemingly more important) that needs to be done first. By the time all the necessary jobs are done, there is no time left for anything else, including (and perhaps especially) exercise and training. To combat this problem, it’s a good idea to try to incorporate exercise into your everyday life where you can. All added up, these short exercise times can become exactly what you need.

Move More

Do you ever forget to move about during the day? Perhaps you have a desk job, or you drive for a living, or you like to sit and relax in the garden. It’s good to not do anything sometimes, but equally, it’s important to move about too, and when you remember this, you’ll also be able to remember to exercise. It’s as simple as going out for a walk at lunchtime rather than staying at your desk or heading to a park to sit on a bench in you’ve been sitting at your desk all morning and intend to sit there again in the afternoon.

Even if you don’t work or don’t have regular lunchtimes, you can still move more during the day. Why not walk to wherever you need to go rather than driving or taking public transport? Or if you do drive, you could try parking at the far end of the car park, so you have to walk farther to get to the entrance of the shop or building you are visiting. Another easy thing to remember is to forego lifts and escalators and always make it a rule to walk up the stairs. Don’t drop a coworker an email or a text to ask a question, instead get up and walk to their desk or office. It’s a small movement, but a good one.

Add It to Your Current Plans

It’s incredible how you can add regular exercise to your current lifestyle without changing much at all. If you love listening to music and you regularly sit down or even lie down to do so, why not exercise instead? You can still listen, and in fact, Myprotein recommends doing so when you are training because it helps with concentration and makes the workout feel much more comfortable, but you will also be exercising at the same time. Or if you are cooking dinner, you could (carefully) jog on the spot or do pushups or sit-ups when you are in between tasks. The same is true of doing any form of housework, and if you like to read or watch TV, you could exercise at the same time.

By combining exercise with something, you enjoy it won’t feel like such a chore, plus you won’t have to take extra time for it if you add it to something you would have been doing anyway.

Put It in The Diary

Of course, making time for exercise is a great idea, and if you can do this, then it will benefit you greatly. If you write it down in your diary and put aside the time to be able to do it, there will be no excuses or reasons as to why it didn’t happen. You can plan ahead and make sure you can do it at the right time, just as you would any other important task.

If you find that you have looked at your diary and there is only one spot in the week that you will be able to leave clear for exercise, that’s fine – once a week is better than nothing at all, and you can always add more at a later date. When you know the time or times, you can exercise, you can then make an appointment with a trainer, attend a gym, workout at home, or even find a class that will suit you.

Your health must come first, and this could mean that you start to say no to anything that is going to get in the way of your training. This is usually a good thing, but always bear in mind that there will be times training can’t happen, and if that is the case you shouldn’t feel guilty, just get back to training as soon as you can afterwards.

Find Something You Love

No one is exactly the same as someone else, and so what you enjoy doing best might be entirely different to anyone else you know. When it comes to exercise, this is exactly the case; what works for one person might not work for another, and it might not work for you. This can be a problem for some who try one method of training and exercising only to find that they really dislike it. It can make them not want to exercise at all because they are under the assumption that they don’t enjoy training full-stop.

In reality, there is probably at least one thing, if not more, that you would enjoy. It is a matter of trial and error until you find out what it is, at which point it can be incorporate much more easily (because you actively want to do it) into your everyday life.

There are many different methods of exercising, including:

• The gym
• A personal trainer
• Exercise videos and tutorials
• Exercise classes
• Bootcamp
• Running
• Cycling
• Sports and games
• Dance

It is simply a matter of finding out what it is that is going to suit you best and trying it out. There are often free trial classes available which means that you can give everything a go and come away knowing what it is you love that will help you to stay fit and healthy.