NO TIME to exercise, then increase the intensity! Blog

The biggest excuse I hear for not exercising seems to be lack of time!

I believe EVERYONE can find SOME time if they really want to but whether you choose to spend it exercising is up to you. If you are truly limited on time it still isn’t a reason to cut out exercise, instead you might just look at including a few shorter more intense sessions.

This week I’ve been away on a 5 day trip and have managed to fit in a variety of exercise sessions and it showed me just how important it is to make sure you are pushing yourself a bit and increasing the intensity.

On Thursday afternoon I arrived into Canberra and went for a big walk around the Lake, 8km and 1:20 minutes later I was done only to notice that I had burnt a measly 200calories! That’s not a lot of reward for such a long time exercising. For sure I wasn’t really out to burn maximum calories as at the moment I’m just trying to do whatever I can whenever I can and on this day I wanted to get out in the fresh air. Although it was a reminder that if you rely solely on walking for your exercise it might be worth including some hills or bursts of jogging as flat walking even when going at a decent pace doesn’t really burn many calories!

The next day I was a bit limited for time so I decided to hit the gym instead and just did a mixture of incline walking on the treadmill (not holding on of course!) and also the stepper, just 40 minutes and 300calories later and I was done. It just shows that by adding in an incline when walking and using the stepper can make a huge difference. For sure it was a bit harder but not too intense as I’m trying not to get carried away with my cardio at the moment (not good when bubs gets too hot!).

So if you’ve been doing the same thing over and over again for little results just trying upping the intensity a bit. It might mean adding some hills or stairs into your usual walking routine or even a few minutes of jogging.

Just think the harder you work the less time you need to spend exercising, sounds good to me!

On that note it’s time for me to fly out for another day. Day 4 of my 5 day trip and I can happily say I’ve managed to squeeze some exercise in 3 out of 4 days so far and feeling good!

Enjoy your Sunday

Cheers, Hilds