How To Stay Fit With A Busy Schedule

The secret on how to stay fit with a busy schedule?

One of the biggest reasons that stops people from losing weight and getting fit is they don’t have time. And I get it. We’re all busy. We’ve all got things to do. Time is always this one thing we never seem to have enough of.

Today, I’m going to show you how to how to stay fit with a busy schedule so you can still achieve your health and wellness goals. You can still lose all the weight even if you’re busy. You can have it all.

How To Stay Fit With A Busy Schedule

1. Don’t stress about it

It’s all good. Don’t lose sleep over it. As we go deeper in this video, I’m going to show you some ninja tricks how you can manufacture more time. So stay tuned.

But let’s just do a quick recap. I’ve said many times in my other videos that there are 4 key things you need to focus on if you want to lose weight and improve your overall health. Dealing in your nutrition, exercise and general movement, getting adequate sleep, and managing stress. 

And your mindset is what ties everything together. That’s why I always talk about the importance of improving your relationship with food and yourself. You gotta take care of what’s going on in between your ears first.

When you’re short on time. What you don’t want to do is compromise one pillar over the other. You can’t cheat the system.

So if you’re stressing out because you’re not always able to eat super healthy. Or if you only have 6 hours to sleep which is already not ideal. And you cut that down even more to workout for an hour? It’s probably not gonna improve your overall health and fitness long term.

Why you need to prioritize sleep

Sleep is extremely important if you want to be a healthy and happy human being. There’s a reason why we evolved to sleep for a third of our lives. Cutting that down even more just to get your workout in isn’t gonna help you, as much as making sure you’re getting as much sleep as you can. 

I always tell my students that if the choice is between getting an extra hour or two of sleep versus getting in an extra workout, I will always choose sleep. Because it’s so much easier to make up for missed time at the gym.

My point here is just do the best you can and not worry about the things that are out of your control. If you’re at a meeting for example and the food is being catered. Pick the healthiest option you’re presented with. That should be obvious. 

But if all the options are not healthy, don’t worry about it. If the only option is pizza that day, it’s not the end of the world. Just don’t do it every day. Once or twice a week? Don’t sweat it.

2. Prioritize your health

If you find yourself not having time, you need to evaluate your life and figure out what’s really important to you.

You need to know what your values are. What makes you happy? What are your priorities and goals?

And then you want to schedule your limited time based around those things and everything else just has to fit in.

For me, my two biggest priorities are growing my business and my health. 

Any spare time I have when I’m not working on my business, I spend that time improving my health and fitness.

Whether that means spending extra time that I have at the gym, which I do. That’s how I justify doing CrossFit and Muay Thai. Or spending time meal prepping. Or making sure I go to bed at a reasonable time so I can get my 7-8 hours of sleep every night instead of going out. That’s how I’m able to justify doing those thing.

Because being as healthy and fit as possible is something I value greatly. It makes me happy when I feel good about myself. Think about it. Your health is your number one asset.

A sick person only wants one thing

Think about wealthy people that get a terminal diagnosis. Or the ones that sadly pass away and they’re worth millions and millions of dollars. Don’t you think they’d trade most of their wealth in order to be healthy? Steve Jobs, the former CEO of apple, was worth 7 billion dollars when he passed away from Cancer at just 56 years old. 

What I’m trying to say here is health is wealth. So if you can figure out how to put your health and wellness as one of your top priorities. And you should. Then you can make sure that any free time you have is spent improving it.

But let’s say your schedule is so busy that you don’t really have time to give yourself free time to do whatever. It becomes even more paramount that when you do have some time where you could go to the movies or binge watch Netflix. 

You can think about your priorities and decide that no, you’re gonna focus on these things that you defined as being important to you.

And if you’re one of those people who find it hard to prioritize health and fitness. You’re always lacking that motivation. It’s not something that comes to you naturally. Then it might be a good idea to write down a list of  all the reasons you feel why it should be a priority. 

You need to know your ‘Why?’ because that’s going to be your true north in your journey. Maybe you buy a bathing suit that doesn’t fit you quite yet. You sign up for a physique show. Maybe you want to lose some weight for your wedding. Be ultra specific about this.

That way, when you’re lacking motivation. Or you feel like just sitting down watching hours of Netflix while crushing a tub of ben and jerry’s because you had a long day. You can look at that list and remind yourself why you’re doing this.

I mentioned this earlier but one thing about having a busy schedule is that you tend to have a lot fewer options at your disposal and definitely a lot fewer healthy options.

So it’s extremely important to make sure that the options that are in your control are healthy options.

3. Control the controllable

I used to work at an office and when we have meetings and private functions, we don’t always have the best food. So I make sure that all the food I have at home is healthy. 

This is why I always say that it’s extremely important that you only stock the best options at home. That’s completely within your control. Because your environment determines your success. That way, you can also bring healthy food to work. 

So when you come back to work the next day, you’re not tempted to dig in to the box of donuts that always seems to be calling your name. 

You always have a choice

That’s the other thing by the way. You don’t always have to eat whatever unhealthy food you’re presented with. Nobody is pointing a gun to your head that you have to eat it. You can say no.

Also, this is another reason why intermittent fasting is the great equalizer when it comes to losing weight and being healthy when you don’t have time for a couple of reasons.

It frees up time. For example, when I did a 16 hour fast which meant I skipped breakfast. Right there and then, the time that I would normally spend preparing breakfast gets freed up. I can use that to sleep in a little bit or get in a morning workout.

Nowadays, I do OMAD which is one meal a day. Now I have even more time because I have normal breakfast and lunch feeding times freed up to do other things. 

So I sleep in in the morning and I train at noon instead. I even have time to nap mid afternoon because I don’t have to think about food all day.

All temptations go away. When you’re fasting, the answer becomes obvious to all temptations. It’s a hot negative. If there’s unhealthy food in front of you, that’s okay. You can easily say no. You don’t need to think whether you should have it. You’re fasting. 

4. Have a set schedule

It’s a life saver. Specifically, have a schedule that involves you working on your health and fitness. 

Whether that means going to the gym after work. Or making sure you get in your workouts on the weekend first before making other plans. 

Maybe that involves getting 10,000 steps so you go for multiple 10 minute walks throughout the day. You can schedule those walks. 

Maybe by 11 pm every night, it’s lights out. That’s me by the way. Whenever I go out, I don’t care what’s happening. If it’s almost time for bed, I’m gonna bail.

I don’t remember the last time I did a New Year’s Eve countdown for example. That’s just way past my bed time. I sound like an old man when I say that but I don’t care.

Schedule it so you don’t really have an excuse not to do it. It’s just something that’s a part of your day and that’s how it becomes a habit.

5. Be selfish

This might ruffle some feathers but hear me out. You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time. 

When it comes to reaching your goals and maintaining the things that are important to you. You can’t be afraid to say no to other people. You also need to be able to say no to yourself. Let me explain.

If you get invited to a couple of parties during the week and you know that the hours you’re gonna be spending doing that would be better served putting back to yourself. 

Whether that’s going to the gym, meal prepping, catching up on sleep, having a little ‘me’ time so you’re not always high strung from life. Anything that brings you closer to your goals. Then sometimes you just have to politely say no. Focus on yourself first.

It’s the same thing when friends ask you to move. Don’t feel bad saying no. Heck, I said no to my sister when she asked me to help her move. Because I don’t even have time to move my stuff when I moved to my apartment. I hired cleaners and movers.

Save yourself first

The oxygen mask analogy is a perfect example here. Put your mask on first before helping your neighbour. Save yourself first. You’re the asset. You’re no good to anybody if you’re not operating at 100%.

And if you’ve been working so much and you have a couple of bucks in your pocket. Use some of that money to buy back some of your time. 

One of the best things I’ve done for example is to hire cleaners to come to my place. Because A) I don’t know a lot of people who likes to clean. Specifically the kitchen and the bathroom. B) Your time is way better served doing more important things.

If you have kids, spend a couple of bucks and hire a baby sitter so you can have some “me” time to yourself. 

This is why I don’t agree whenever people say my family comes first. And they start sacrificing time that they would normally spend taking care of themselves. Self care goes out the window. 

This is when you see parents become a shell of their former selves. They used to take care of themselves then it stops happening. Because it’s all about your kid now. No. You come first. If you’re not happy, or worse, you get sick, you’re no good to your kids.

Listen, you can’t give what you don’t have. When you’re already short on time. You don’t have a lot of time to spare. You can’t really afford to be doing a bunch of extra stuff that doesn’t add value to your life. 

And if you can, I know that this isn’t feasible for everyone watching this. But if you can, use some of your hard earned money to buy back some of your time. You’re worth it.

6. Make time

Here’s the thing. A lot of people think they don’t have time. But they do. They just choose not to spend it wisely. They choose to spend it on distractions.

Americans for example check their phone on average once every 12 minutes, burying their heads on their phones 80 times a day. The average person struggles to go little more than 10 minutes checking their phone.

Truth be told, I’m guilty of this sometimes. That’s why I’ll go through periods where I’ll do a social media detox and delete my social media apps on my phone.

Here’s the crazy part. I find myself just picking up my phone randomly to check my social media when I’m bored. And you don’t realize how often you do this until you take out that stimulus. It’s crazy. It’s basically an addiction.

One time, I was going through some personal stuff so I deleted my social media for 42 days. I had so much time on my hands, I wrote a book. It’s called The No Diet Diet. Shame less plug. You can get it on Amazon. Great book. 10/10 would recommend it.

Here’s another stat. In 2017, an average U.S. consumer spent 238 minutes (3h 58min) daily watching TV. Almost 4 hours. Are you starting to see where I’m going here?

According to another report, United States adults are watching five hours and four minutes of television per day on average. That’s 35.5 h/week, slightly more than 77 days per year. That’s almost two and a half months every year just spent watching TV.

If you feel personally attacked right now, good. That’s the point. Listen, it would be hypocritical for me to say stop watching TV. Because I watch my fair share of Netflix. 

But if you just take a little bit of that time you spend on your phone and TV and invest in on your health and fitness, then that completely takes away the excuse that you don’t have time. 

You’ll also get a way better return on your time investment in the form of improved quality of life.

Choose your time wisely

At the end of the day, we make time for what’s important to us. We’re all given the same 24 hours. It’s really all about how you choose to spend it. 

That’s why it’s important to determine what your values are. What’s important to you? And plan your life around it. Instead of wishing and hoping that you’re gonna find time to do it. Because life will always give you an excuse not to do it. That’s just how it works.

If you don’t prioritize your health, it’s so easy to start gaining weight and not realize it. It starts to get harder and harder to get yourself back on track the farther away from your starting point you get. 

So don’t let the excuse that you’re busy and you don’t have time to work on yourself stop you from taking action. Make time. Because you’re absolutely worth the effort. That’s the secret on how to stay fit with a busy schedule

As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!

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