No Time to Exercise

However varied the email you all send me may be, there is one question that shows up in some incarnation or another with amazing consistency, and it's this: "I have absolutely no time to exercise -- what should I do?"

Last week I gave you the kind of "spiritual pep-talk" side of the No Time To Exercise question. Today I'm going to give you a more practical take on the matter.

First, let me reiterate the takeaway point from last week's column: The universe can almost always be counted on to present obstacles -- actually, I prefer to call them challenges -- not just to finding time to exercise but to a host of things you want to do but can never seem to find the time for. I don't need to tell you that. And I don't mean to diminish those obstacles. (I can almost hear you saying, "I know where you're going with this, Jonny, but you don't understand ... in my case, there really isn't any time.")

I know, I know. And I know I asked you to make a big leap of faith last week in suggesting that the act of commitment could actually precede a practical plan. But it can.

So here you are, with a schedule that is packed with a job, husband, kids and soccer practice, you have a long commute home, and you don't have a gym in your neighborhood ... and I'm asking you to commit to exercising.

There's just no time, you say.

Okay, first question. If your doctor suddenly told you that you had a serious illness and the only way you could beat it was to sit quietly and meditate for 20 minutes a day ... what would you do?

Okay, now we've gotten the time factor out of the way.

(By the way, I wish I could share with you the number of clients who come into my office after their doctors have read them the riot act and a lot of damage has already been done. You don't need or want to wait for that to happen.).

So now let's say you're ready to play along with me. You still don't believe there's any time, and you still think I don't understand how truly busy you are, but you're willing to go along for the ride and make this commitment to your health even though the circumstances seem to be stacked against you.

So.

I want you to make a list of all the times, places and ways that you could fit in some kind of physical activity into your day. I'm going to give you a head start with the following questions.

When you go on a short errand, can you walk instead of taking the car? Do so.

Are there stairs in your office or apartment building? Climb them for five minutes a day.

Can you walk around your block once before retiring for the night? Briskly? Do it.

Do you take a lunch hour? Use 20-30 minutes of it to walk, run, stretch, meditate, do push-ups, crunches, squats, lunges or dips. Or use those stairs.

If you live in a city, can you get off the subway one stop early and walk the rest of the way to work? (One New York client I had did this, coming and going; we estimated that that short 10 minute walk taken twice a day burned 25,000 calories a year, or a bit more than seven pounds.)

Can you lift weights for 15 minutes twice a week? (How about on weekends)? No weights? How about push-ups and squats and crunches?

There's an old maxim used in transformational consciousness, a Zen-like teaching. You may be familiar with this version of it from the movie Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come."

Applied to your life, it goes like this:

"Create the space. Something will fill it."

Right now, all I'm asking you to do is make the space for exercise and health, maybe just in your mind. Be open to it. Hang out with it as a possibility. Then watch what happens to that space when you least expect it.

Something will fill it.

Got a question or comment for Jonny? Post it on the Shape Up message board!