The Perfect Amount Of Exercise

How to not quit.

60 minutes a day, 7 days a week? Wrong.

Super high intensity every day? Wrong. 

The amount you can do every day for the rest of your life even when you are tired and exhausted? Yes. 

You’ve probably started and stopped exercise routines for a myriad of reasons.

No time. Too tired. Don’t feel like it.

And you know what? You’re not wrong to feel like that or to experience time crunches. It happens to all of us and it’s a normal human experience. 

If you’re reading this you’ve probably quit an exercise routine before or are trying to start a new one. 

I’m going to cover why you quit and how to remove the barriers that cause you to quit allowing you to more effortlessly exercise. 

Barriers

No time. A common one. If you live in an expensive area you’re probably working all the time. If you’re married you might both be working. Add on another layer if you have kids, or elderly parents, or both, and you’ve got a true problem of extremely limited time. Notice I say extremely limited and not no time. 

There is always time. Cue the eye roll, right? How could there be time! “That’s offensive to say,” you might say. 

Hear me out. While time is limited is it true there is zero time? This would mean that every minute of every day is consumed by time where you could not participate in physical activity. That is not humanly possible. 

So if it’s not possible to be busy for 16 hours straight, what’s going on? 

We have the perception that we have no time or we are choosing to do other things that fill the time. 

For example, how many minutes per day are you scrolling on social media or news apps on your phone?

How much time are you spending watching TV? 

Most people if they reduce their time on those activities can already reclaim half an hour or more in their day. 

A final note on this; how much time do you think you need to workout or get physical activity in? As little as one minute. 

If you start with one minute you can always increase from there. If you can’t commit to one minute, start with one squat, or one push up, or 30 seconds of walking. 

If you are scoffing because that amount of activity won’t do anything, you’re correct and also incorrect. 

Sure, it won’t change your physiology that much but it’s not about changing your physiology at this point in time. 

It’s about changing your habits. You must build the habit before you can change how you look and feel. 

All the yo-yo dieting and exercise starts and stops are because you never focused on building the habit. You focused on a predetermined duration of exercise and intensity (difficulty) and burned out because it didn’t fit with your lifestyle or goals. 

Start small. It’s the best way. 

The only reason you’ll quit in this way is if you don’t take to heart the importance of building the habit AND if you accept that a shorter amount of time and lower intensity that you can do for the rest of your life IS the goal. 

If you burn out and stop working out, that’s the problem. 

The beautiful thing about starting small and easy is that even people who hate feeling uncomfortable with working out can do this. You are in control of how hard you work. How hard you work, how much you sweat, how many calories you burn, etc, is not important when you are building the habit. Show up and do the work is what matters in the early stages.

A Rant

I’ve worked with so many people over the years who want to exercise more and get in better shape and feel better about themselves yet they have all these ideas about what they should do and how much they need to do. And then, the most frustrating part is that I explain to them that how they’re thinking about it is flawed, that building the habit is more important, and with many of them, their eyes gloss over. 

This is so frustrating. It’s a defense mechanism. When you hear something that you don’t want to hear it’s common to disengage with a conversation and not truly hear what was said. 

So hear me now – if you read the section about building a small exercise habit and you’re eyes glossed over, I’m speaking to you. Your subconscious is trying to stop you from making changes. Changes that you said you want to make! Don’t allow yourself to be controlled in this way. 

Did you notice that your brain shut off reading those last few paragraphs? Good. Noticing is the first step on the way to building new habits. 

A Solution

Do you believe that building habits is the path forward or are you going to keep trying to exercise 1 hour a day 5 days a week and then quit in a month because it’s too hard? 

It’s your choice. If you choose to keep doing things the way you’ve always done them you’re going to keep getting the results you always get, nil. 

START SMALL. BUILD THE HABIT. THAT IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL. Good luck!