jeff@nwfitnessportland.com

By Jeff Hahn
Sales Director

We all have good intentions when it comes to being healthy and fit.  We watch what we eat, and try to get to the gym.  The problem is, we have lives!  Work, family, taking the kids to soccer practice…with all of the responsibility that most of us have, it is nearly impossible to make the time needed to really succeed in taking care of ourselves.

Have you ever done the math?  If you live 15 minutes from your gym, and it takes you 15 minutes to change clothes and get ready to workout, then another 15 to shower and get dressed after you workout, and 15 more to get back home, that’s an hour per day spent on “getting to the gym”.  Once you are at the gym, you have to find your rythm and sometimes wait to get on the right cardio piece, or run through your circuit of weights.  Maybe you take a Zumba class or Spin class.  The average person spends one hour actually working out.  So now we have 2 hours invested.

The average person who works out, does so 3-4 times per week – so we will average that at 3.5 days times 2 hours per day times 52 weeks per year.  Is your calculator working?  That is 364 hours per year devoted to working out.  Equvalent to 45.5 full 8 hour work days!  In other words, 2.25 work months of your time spent trying to take care of you.  No wonder it is hard to do that with all the distractions and life getting in the way!

Octane Q37ci in Cross Circuit mode

So how do you cut down the time and increase your chances of successfully making time and sticking with a fitness program?  The ONLY way for most of us is to do it at home.  Think about it…eliminate the 30 minutes there and back – eliminate the 15 minutes changing clothes, and shower on your own time in your own shower when you are done.  We have just cut the time investment in half. 

Now for the best part: MAKE YOUR WORKOUT PART OF SOMETHING YOU WOULD BE DOING ANYWAY!!!  If you wake up to SportsCenter, jump on your Landice Treadmill at your house then use your Vectra 1450 machine for a quick full body weight routine!  If you get home in the afternoon and watch Ellen, do that while using the Cross Circuit program on your Octane Elliptical.

Making fitness part of your day instead of trying to make your day have a “fitness part” is the key.  Whatever your crazy life brings, get the piece of equipment or two that you need, and invest in your time and health.  When you pay yourself back the time saved by having equipment at home, you will agree it’s an investment you have to make.