The Stopwatch Cure

My friend Kirsty wrote with a great hint. I spend a lot of my time complaining about my lack of time. I use lack of time as my most consistent excuse for not taking care of myself.

*Don't have time to exercise today.
*Don't have time to pack a lunch.
*Don't have time to shop for good food.
*Don't have time to write in my journal.
*Don't have time to plan my meals.

Don't have time to do a host of other things I know I should do, but that seem to fall to the bottom of the list when I'm overwhelmed by that list and am on the edge of going fetal.

Here's what Kirsty suggests. After giving yourself a nice big bitch-slap (That's my own suggestion, not Kirsty's), try timing the actual amount of time it takes to do these things.

Really do it. Get out a stopwatch and time it.

The results can be surprising. How long does it really take to pack a salad and a couple of pieces of fruit? 5 to 10 minutes? How much time does it take to shop for good food on your way home from work? A half an hour? How much time does it take to do 20 push ups? Less than a minute. To do a complete dumbbell routine for your arms? 5 minutes.

It's a half an hour for a brisk walk.

You don't have to spend more than 20 minutes on your diet journal per day, but more if you need to.

A half an hour walk every day? Is that really so hard?

Now, says Kirsty, comes the magic: The lunch can be packed while we run our bath. The pushups during commercial breaks, or while waiting for your bill paying software to back up. You can plan meals while you're on the train or waiting on hold for that customer service rep. Gotta call your mother? Gotta walk? Ever heard of mobile phones? With headsets? Squats while the coffee brews in the morning!

If you have kids, consider how the time spent demonstrating healthy habits compares with the time they'll spend recovering from unhealthy habits when they're older. Oooh. Guilt.

Case the neighborhood where you tend to be at the middle of your day. Find all the spots that sell healthy food that are a 15 minute walk from your chair. There, now you've managed to get in your walk and eat well too.

Hmm.

A nearby gym with lunch-hour classes and a salad bar?

A walkable mall with a spot for soup?

A few sets of stairs to climb with a source for protein bars along the way?

Okay. I'm going to finish this one and start another project, taking a break to stretch in the aisles.

Yeah, it can be done,


Juju

Here's your very own stopwatch

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