When I’m working with people and/or students on their fitness and weight loss goals, one of the things that often comes up is the issue of time. Specifically the time that you have to invest in an effective workout program. I have a lot of people tell me that they are just too busy to exercise. Really? I have a simple word for that; Bulls**t. In my very experienced opinion, 99.9% of you aren’t that busy, so get a grip. The time is there, trust me you just have to be honest with yourself and stop wasting time and making excuses. Plus its a common misconception that you need to spend many hours everyday doing hard core PT to get/stay in great physical condition and keep your weight right. Unless you’re in a Special Forces outfit, or training for a specific athletic event like a triathlon, that’s just more Bulls**t. In fact the average military, or firemen or cop would do very well to spend five hours a week on PT, many do much less. As I outline in my book Corps Strength I am convinced (from many years of personal experience and observation) that you can obtain and maintain a very high level of fitness with the time investment of only about five hours a week of the right PT. Now my normal routine is to PT every morning 0530 -0630 (a little later on the weekends) for an hour, and I take a day (at least one day a week) off when I have/need to. I do the standard stuff I recommend in my book, and this includes some more traditional military PT that I do with my students. In any case its balanced and the intensity level varies depending on my mood and energy level. I relate this to illustrate that I’m like anyone else, I don’t have all day to PT and then lay around resting up. I work full time, travel a lot and have a family/home to take care of. Plus I have another important part of my life, its called fun, so I’m not going to spend all my free time in the gym, or running. PT is part of my life, not my life, and it doesn’t need to be to stay in shape.
An hour everyday is my baseline, and I do my best to stick to it. However for the average person five – one hour sessions (Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri and one day on the weekend is great routine) a week isn’t that much when you compare it to how you spend much of your other free time, like on the internet, watching TV, etc. In fact its less than 3% of your total weekly hours. Which by the way is the same for all of us. You can do this, its just a matter of priorities. To start out with you have to look at it like an investment. Its just like going to college at night, or saving your money. Spending time exercising is a investment in not only your future health, but your present quality of life. It will also pay big dividends in your attitude, and your outlook on everything around you is better when your health is good. Secondly once you imbed these five hours into your life, it will be come a no-brainer and you’ll be pretty much on cruise control. I set my own cruise control on this somewhere around 1977 and its been pretty much been running every since, and that’s during years of construction work, active Marine service, and now as a contract instructor. Different locations and duties the whole way. Its not that hard bro, if you just look at it the right way. Of course it must be said that you need to eat right also, which isn’t a matter of time. As you are going to have to eat my friend, and it takes just as much time to eat crap as it does to eat something healthy, but that is the subject is for next month. Till then be safe always, and good when you can. Good luck.
Semper Fi
MGunz
Tags: Corps Strength
Good stuff man. After reading a few of your and Jon Canipe’s pieces, I started exercising again too. Nothing hardcore but I’m running and lifting a bit more each day.
Once you tell yourself that you cannot (except in extreme situations) weasel your way out of your daily workout, it becomes part of the day itself.
I definitely waste less time doing my workout now than I did putting it off or wasting time. Thanks!
Totally agree.
When it comes to those looking to lose weight, I would strongly argue that all the exercise in the world, or no exercise at all, means squat if you diet is crap. To lose weight in a HEALTHY manner, you must learn to ‘eat clean.’ It doesn’t matter if you’re full Paleo, high carb, low carb, high fat, vegetarian, vegan, whatever. You must eat clean. (As an aside, while I disagree with a bit of their philosophy and application, Paleo is the only diet I know that by definition of following it requires you to eat clean. In contrast, you could, say, eat low carb or vegan and still eat complete junky crap).