Time and motivation – the 2 biggest frustrations and hurdles for my mama clients when it comes to their health and fitness goals.
If you recall, last week we tackled motivation, we talked about how consistency is more important than motivation when it comes to achieving goals (no matter what they are). You can read that article here if you need to catch up.
So today, I’m sharing my three most amazing time-saving workout hacks. Because, seriously it’s NOT helpful to just sit here and remind everyone that we all have the same amount of time in the day, and we all prioritize what’s most important, and say that you always have time for the things you care about most, and we just need to get it done, blah blah blah. Clearly, if we were “getting it done” we wouldn’t be feeling frustrated about the lack of time in our lives.
Instead, I thought I’d offer something helpful and share my favorite time-saving workout hacks when it comes to finding time for a workout! Here they are, short and sweet:
1) Clothes. Somedays I find time to workout by getting up an extra hour early before my kids are awake. And to be honest, it’s a total bummer to wake up at 5am. Even though I’ve been doing it for like 11 years now, I still don’t love it. One of the things that helps me the most to get up is that I sleep in my workout clothes! Yep, the whole outfit. Sports bra, tank top and shorts. Then when I get up, I brush my teeth and I can head downstairs without the extra effort of changing out of my comfy pjs. Plus it saves me like 5 minutes, which is HUGE because that’s 5 more minute of sleep. Now, before you go and decide that it sounds miserable or stupid to sleep in workout clothes, try it. You just never know how effective it can be unless you do it. Plus, if you wake up already dressed to exercise, you’re way more inclined to actually exercise!
2) Combine weights and cardio. So, this is nothing revolutionary, but it’s a huge time saver! Rarely do I have a full 60-90 minutes to do all the cardio and weight training that I’d like to do, so 4 or 5 days out of the week, I plan a HIIT workout (high intensity interval training) where I’m using weights and constantly moving to keep my heart rate up. Using HIIT lets you get the best of both cardio and weights into one 20-30 minute super short but effective workout and it’s really amazing. Then the other 1 or 2 days of the week (aka the weekend) I indulge and go for a long run, or spend 90 minutes alone at the gym and do whatever I want to do. But for the weekdays when every minute is jam-packed, HIIT is my go-to. And where do I do this HIIT workout? See number 3.
3) Park Workouts. I’m always looking for ways to multi-task, and recently our favorite daily activity has been walking to the park! How is this a time saver? Because it combines my daily workout with kid playing time, so I knock them both out in 1 hour instead of trying find that extra hour to get an “alone” workout done. Walking to the park is exercise. Walking home from the park is exercise. Then when we’re at the park, I take 15 minutes of exercise time for myself while they play. Then we spend another 20 minutes just playing. Our park time is a total of 1 hour, and 30 minutes of that is exercise time for me! The kids love it, they get to walk, play for a long time and we all spend time together. It’s a great time saver that ends up being quality time!
Obviously, you don’t have to use the same time-saving hacks that I use. The point is, just get creative and make it fun. Multitask. Find the hacks that work for you. I’d love to hear what it is you do to save time! (And, if you try sleeping in your workout clothes, please let me know! ha!)