GUEST BLOG POST – 168 HOURS IN THE WEEK
Author: Krista Cook
There are 168 hours in the week. Can you dedicate 1 or… even 2 of them to your physical activity? The BIG benefit: Being Healthiest to the last Heartbeat! You’re super busy. Your family is super busy. Work is super busy. There is so much to do – “I simply don’t have time for exercise.”
But what if you did? Have you ever tried breaking down your week to see where exactly you spend your time? Surprised you will be at the things that are eating up your time every week.
Think of exercise like homemade coffee. Perhaps you’ve gradually adopted the habit of picking up a coffee on your way to work, and maybe you grab another one from the café downstairs mid-morning. From a daily perspective, that feels pretty innocuous. Chances are though, you’ve seen the articles totaling up that daily coffee habit. Pretty quickly, $5/day turns into $25/week and before you know it, you’ve spent around $1000/year at coffee shops.
Now, there’s no need to give up coffee, but by making it at home, you can save $800 each year. All that’s required is a small change of habit.
Similarly, when you break down your week into time spent at work, commuting, buying and preparing food, sleeping, personal care, watching television, and playing online games…you might be surprised at how much time you spend on ‘non-productive’ activities.
Now, as with coffee, there’s no need to give up your evening news or CSI – watching movies and television may be part of your relaxation and self-care routine. But perhaps, with a small habit change, you can shift some of that time toward physical activity. Maybe you can even combine them!
The pie chart is hypothetical, of course, but it goes to show how LITTLE time exercise takes when you’re getting started. Adopt a something is better than nothing approach (because it is!!), and set your goal to carve out just a tiny little wedge of exercise time each day of each week. If exercise were a piece of pie, its slice would be so small, no one would want it.
