How Busy Women Should Exercise To Stay Fit?

 

Are you always busy? Fret no more. It’s not an excuse. There are still ways to be fit and live a healthy lifestyle even if you have a hectic schedule.

One time saver trick is to work your fitness opportunities into the course of your day.

Rather than performing one lengthy workout each day, try to find methods of bringing a little fitness activity into the most mundane portions of your day.

Go stair climbing at lunch, park on the top level of the parking garage and walk down-then-up when returning the stairs, park far away from the door of the supermarket and see if your mall has a walking path that is clearly marked.

You’ll be amazed at the hidden opportunities many of us have for exercising during our busy days. The trick is often in discovering the activities rather than the time.

fitness for busy women

4 Quick Exercises to Stay Fit

These tried-and-tested exercises can give you quick results with just 10-minute focused workouts every other day. If you’re on a serious mission and feeling really motivated, feel free to go for it every day.

And don’t forget to mix up these moves with some cardio work, even if it’s a game of soccer with the kids or a brisk walk to the park.

Dolphin Kicks

For this exercise, you want to balance your weight on your forearms with your elbows directly underneath your shoulders.

Make sure to pull your shoulder blades down towards the hips (away from your ears) – this will keep the stress off your shoulders.

Extend your hips and spine, pull in your abs (this supports your torso) and bend your right knee slightly off the floor for more support.

First Inhale, and then as you exhale extend your left leg straight out to hip height, contracting the glutes and hamstrings. Your hips should be facing forward at all times.

With a slight bend, return the left leg to meet the opposite supporting leg.

Reps:

Repeat up to 20 repetitions, keeping the torso still, then switch to the other side.

Muscle Focus:

Glutes, hamstrings, abs, and lats

 

Super Butt Kicks

Lay down on your back, placing your arms down by your side. Lift your hips off the floor in a bridge position.

Your right knee should be bent with the heel in line with your sit bone, and your left leg should be extended straight up.

As you inhale, lower your left leg to the floor. Be sure to keep your hips still and maintain the bridge position.

Exhale and bring the leg back up to the start position

Reps:

Repeat up to 20 reps, and then lower your left leg to the floor in the same bent position as the right. Lower your butt to the floor, rest, and change over to the other leg.

Muscle Focus:

Glutes, hamstrings, abs

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Dead Bug

Lay down on your back with knees bent at a 45-degree angle. Head, neck, and shoulders should be off the floor and hands resting on your knees.

On an exhale, draw in your abs and simultaneously extend your left leg out and your right hand over your head.

Repeat this move, alternating your arms and legs.

Keep your eyes focused on your belly button at all times, and if you start to feel the tension in your neck, lower your head down to the floor. This will get easier as you build more strength in the abs.

Reps:

Build up to 20 repetitions completed twice with a 30-second to 1-minute break. Make sure not to sacrifice form.

Muscle Focus: Abs

 

Side Plank Leg Lifts

Lay down on your side, balancing on your right hip and resting on your right forearm.

Your right elbow should be directly underneath your shoulder and your knees bent and stacked on top of each other.

While exhaling, contract your abs, and lift your hips off the floor.

At the same time, extend your left arm and leg out to the side of your body, making sure to keep the knee and toe facing forward.

Reps:

Try for 10-15 reps, and then turn over onto your other side and repeat.

Muscle Focus:

Glutes, abs

woman-exercise

No Time for Exercise?  Try This!

While it’s generally accepted that multiple 30-60 minute sessions per week are optimal for producing results, the truth is that it’s possible to do a great amount in far less time.

EVERYONE has five minutes a day. The only question is, can anything really useful be done in just 300 seconds?

The answer is a resounding “yes”, but you need to choose your exercises carefully.

If there is such a limited amount of time, the best choice is to pick the most important muscle group. Chest? Back? Shoulders? Legs? All wrong. The abdominals are the most important muscles in the body.

In no particular order, they:

  • protect the low back
  • are vital to sports performance, transferring power from the lower to upper body
  • aid digestion, and massage the internal organs
  • are important for proper, healthy sexual function
  • are “the window to health”

We judge fitness and health more rapidly with a glimpse at the waistline than any other single indication.

  • are vital for posture, which increases physical energy and mood
  • are the cornerstone of your entire fitness program

You’ve never seen someone with toned abdominal muscles and flabby arms and legs, have you? The reverse is not true.

  • are the most important muscle group for physical attractiveness in women

No matter the wonderful definition of arms or legs, if your belly is sagging, you have a problem!

There are other reasons, but one of the best is the fact that of all body parts, the abs tends to be the least favorite body part to work.

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They’re hard! That reason alone should be enough to motivate you. Anything other people don’t like working is a golden opportunity for you.

But how can you do anything useful in just five minutes? One daily approach is to perform five minutes of the toughest ab exercises you can find.

And a fantastic tool for this is a “Roller Wheel” available for five dollars at any sporting goods store. Not the fancy ones, just the simple get-on-your-knees variety.

Try this, perform one rep, and take a breath. Then do two reps, and take two breaths.

Then three, and take three breaths…and so on until you can’t go any higher.

Then, drop back to one rep, and start climbing again. When that gets easy, take one breath for every two reps.

An even better method is to break up your exercise into multiple daily sessions.

The roller wheel is useful here as well, but you might want to investigate some of the powerful “Vacuum” exercises from yoga, or the dynamic tension style “stomach flattening” exercises.

In these, you exhale all air and flex the abdominal muscles for several seconds. If you do these properly, even without aerobic exercise your waistline will decrease!

While there is no serious disagreement that longer sessions produce better, and more balanced results, the busiest woman on earth can find five minutes a day and sometimes.

That grip is what it takes to get you started on a new, healthier lifestyle.

woman-diet tips

Diet Tips for Busy Women

Staying on your diet can be a challenge for anyone, but for a busy working mom, the challenges can be especially tough.

A busy lifestyle can make it impossible to get to the gym for a daily workout, prepare your meals ahead of time, or even to remember to pack your lunch for work each day.

Being in a rush can make it difficult to stick to your diet when it’s so easy to grab something at the drive through.

Here’s a collection of hints and tips from other busy women that will help you stay on your diet despite all the temptations.

Don’t try to ‘save time’ by eating on the run, or snacking at your desk while you work. No matter how rushed you are, take the time to eat like a civilized human being.

Set the table, put your food on a plate and have a meal. You’ll eat less and feel fuller – and not feel the urge to snack because you ‘haven’t eaten anything all day’.

Cook just what will be eaten. Ignore all those homemaker articles that suggest that you ‘cook for tomorrow’ to save time. Cook one portion per person at each meal.

That way you’ll avoid the temptation to finish off the leftover – and teach your family healthy eating habits.

Unless, you have a systematic way of doing things that your cooked meals for the week are already segregated, packaged and labeled for every meal.

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It’s great to bring it to work for lunch or snack or it can be your backup if you are really tight to prepare something fresh.

But doing this strategy takes a lot of planning and preparation beforehand along with discipline to eat only the right portion indicated for that meal.

Get up early enough to eat breakfast at home. The morning rush to get ready may make it tempting to grab something on the way to work or skip breakfast entirely. Don’t do it.

You’ll end up eating up all that saved time – and a lot more calories – with mid-morning trips to the snack machine or fight off the blahs all morning long.

Stock up on easy breakfast foods. A piece of fruit, a container of yogurt and a slice of toast are a healthy, balanced start to your day.

You should also make sure to have a nice supply and cleaned and cut fruits, vegetables, and salad ingredients in your refrigerator in order to make these dishes readily assessable for quick lunches or snacks.

Having these foods readily available will help you resist the temptation to snack on higher calorie prepackaged food while also helping to ensure that you have a ready supply of fresh fruits and vegetables to help you get your 5 servings a day.

You should also keep some conveniently packaged yogurt on hand as a good quick and easy dairy product.

Sugar-free pudding cups are another decent snack for those who need something quick and easy to have on hand.

Most diets suggest that you drink at least eight 8 ounce glasses of water a day. If the thought of drinking a half gallon of water makes you queasy, there are ways to make it more appealing.

Stock up on flavored bottled water in the fridge at work and keep one icy cold on your desk.

At home, float mint sprigs or lemon slices in a crystal pitcher. There are no added calories, but oh what a difference in presentation and flavor!

Preparation and planning are essential to successfully meeting your weight loss goals.

By preparing the right amount of nutritious food, you will never even miss the convenience of that high calorie prepackaged meals and snacks that so many of us survive on when not dieting.

 

 

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