No Time for This

Overbooked, overextended? It's the morning rush, the calendar haggles, the job, the lunch-hour errands, the doctors' appointments, meals, kids' after-school programs, committee meetings. Or it's pure overwork, plain and simple. Your life is so demanding. You don't have time to cook. You don't have time to exercise. No time. No energy. No way.

Bull.

Look, overbooked is a fact of life these days. You can be ridiculously overbooked, or very overbooked, or kind of overbooked, or slightly overbooked, but all these degrees of too-too-much amount to the same thing: You have more to do in a day than you have time to do it.

So adding cooking healthy meals and exercising to all of that won't actually make things much worse, now will they? It's just a matter of degree and priority. And they will make your energy stores and the years you have to enjoy overbooking yourself more plentiful.

If you put off eating well and exercising, you're not modeling good behavior for your kids (my favorite guilt card). If you put off eating well and exercising, you're doing damage to yourself that may become permanent, or very hard to heal. If you put off eating well and exercising, you're missing out now. Today. And you shouldn't miss out now, no matter how busy you are.

The busiest people I know who enjoy good health work in a workout and find a way to eat nourishing, whole foods every day. The rich and famous do, the grand and powerful do, the introverted geniuses do, the chronically busy do. Why not me? Why not any of us?

Some hints for eating well, exercising, and multi-tasking from friends who get it done:

*Cook up whole grains, roasts, and casseroles over the weekend to enjoy, reheated, stir-fried, cassaroled, sandwhich-wrapped during your busy week.
*Eat more vegetable-puree soups you simmer on the stove while going through your mail, catching up with friends on the phone, helping somebody with their homework.
*Bread machines and whole-grain recipies, people.
*Leave the fruit in a bowl in the middle of your kitchen. Keep the bowl full.
*Crock-pot cooking is back, baby. It's the groovy new old thing.
*Splurge once in awhile on good takeout.
*Grocery Store Salad bars are for families too, and faster than fast food.
*Shop together. Read labels together. Make good choices together.
*Many grocery stores now deliver. It's not cheap, but it's better than relying on fast food.
*You can get in a good walk while talking with your parents on a cell phone headset.
*You can get it in a good walk with your spouse or kid or parent or sibling or buddy.
*You can get in a good walk or jog while catching up with a co-worker or colleague, negotiating deals, or planning hostile takeovers.
*When you drop off your daughter at her Kung Fu class, look for classes for yourself that run at the same time.
*When you take your kids to the ball park, pack your walking/jogging shoes, and let the kids know you'll see half the game, but the other half you'll spend getting your own exercise.
*Sign up all your friends for a dance class.
*Meet your buddies for long walks on the weekends.
*Trade morning rush supervision with your dear other so one of you always gets the chance to exercise.
*Exercise with the family during commercial breaks, during TV viewing, or instead of TV viewing. Keep plenty of exercise equipment in front of the TV for everybody else: Therabands, Exercise balls, dumbbells. Make sure everybody knows how to use them.
*Dance around the house while dusting and vacuuming.

Don't try to sort out your life before scheduling eating better and exercising. Sneak it in to your busy day, which is likely to be overbooked no matter what you do.

Lots of ways to fit in exercise, about.com

Crock pot/slow cooker recipes from chefmom.com

Want to discuss today's Post? Visit The Skinny Daily Forum at 3fatchicks.com.