I wrote this post a few months ago, but it seems like a good time to post it, seeing as it’s the New Year.

I recently shared my blog with my brother and he set me the challenge of how I can to help him with simple fitness and eating habits with the aim of losing one stone. If you have missed the previous 3 posts of The Andy Files you can find them here and here and here.

As I have previously mentioned, Andy works long hours, has a lengthy commute and has 2 children. Time is his big problem. He has since moved back to Dubai, but everything still stands.

In my previous post, I wrote about how to improve your diet. In this one, I’m writing about how you can exercise more.

I think there can be a million studies done, but the consensus will always be – to lose weight, you need to put a little less in and burn a few more calories through exercise. You can try and cheat and hack your way to do it, but to be successful your very likely going to have to do these two things.

Here are some ideas on how to exercise more with time constraints –

As I spoke about in the second post of The Andy Files – goal setting is important. For tips of goal setting read the post here. You’re going to need a goal, or maybe a better way of putting it is a challenge.

You’ll also need to do something you enjoy. Some people do not like running! If you don’t enjoy it, you are very likely to stop and give up. Have a very good think about what you like to do and how you can use it to exercise more.

GET OUT AND GO RUNNING

If you can, get out and run. It’s free and you need very little kit to start. Start small and build slowly. Run for a minute and walk for a minute. Try and make it two minutes and keep building. Need a challenge? Sign up for a 10km race. Set a time you are aiming for. Write a training plan and see it through.

Try the Couch to 5km app and work towards going to do your local parkrun. You can take the kids!

DO YOU HAVE A BIKE?

Andy does! Can you get up early at the weekend and go for a ride. You may have to plan it in with the wife and it’ll be your turn to look after the kids in the afternoon. But you have to carve out this time. If you work from home, can you build a ride into your day?

HOW ABOUT A CHALLENGE TO DO 7 MINUTES EXERCISE EVERY MORNING?

Try the 7 minutes exercise app. It consists of doing 12 exercises for 30 seconds each with 10 second rest in between and in 7 minutes you’re done. It gives you a full body workout, times you, tells you what exercise is next, tracks your workouts and you can unlock further workouts if you hit your goals. Really can’t find time, but love to watch TV? Do the exercises during the commercial breaks or create your own program to do during the breaks.

HOW ABOUT THE 100 PRESS UP CHALLENGE?

The press up / push up app I prefer and use is Runtastic Pushups. It’s very clever. You place your phone underneath your face and with each press up you touch your nose to the screen and this counts your press-ups and forces you to do proper press ups. With each workout the reps increase until you are completing 100 press ups in a session (not in one go). It notifies you to tell you when your training is due.

NEED TO BE JUST GENERALLY MORE ACTIVE?

Have you thought about a Fitness tracker? The average person walks between 3,000 and 4,000 steps per day. 10,000 steps (the common arbitrary number) equates to about 5 miles and 400 calories! A tracker will log your steps and tally your totals. There are clever ones that now give you a nudge if you have been inactive for a period of time.

KIDS!

Can you involve the kids? Make a social outing active. Go for walks, bike rides. Make it a project for them. Get them to chart your weight loss. Build a wall chart. Is there any way it can involve stickers? Can you join in with their activities? Gymnastics is apparently fantastic for you!

Also, Enjoy the journey. The journey is the destination. It’s not all about the goal. Try and enjoy what you are doing.

It’s the journey where you learn about yourself. Everyone has to start somewhere and you never know where it will take you! Marathons. Ironmans. You never know!