How to exercise? -very limited time
 

I'm 163 lbs being 5'5" height. It's about 8 lbs over BMI's normal weight boundary.
I'm out of shape, because I have a little to no time for exercise. I have a sedentary job, I commute about 4 hours a day. Playing with my 3 kids is the most exercise I get.
I didn't pay attention to my diet in the past - my bulging gut is proof of that. What is good - I don't eat fast food, my wife cooks for the whole family. What's bad - I love sweets.
I don't want to be fit overnight. I want to lose weight (about 20 lbs), be fit and stay that way.
Please advise me what would you recommend and especially what does it mean for me in the terms of daily time investment.

Everyone in our family owns a bike, so we all go on family bike rides nearly every day. We take a picnic dinner with us. The kids don't go fast, but I just adjust the gears so I'm getting a ton of resistance with every pedal.
We also walk to places we normally drive like down to the store or the park. There are also tons of amazing hiking opportunities for us that are very kid friendly. Shove 40 lbs of rocks in your pack. I'm not kidding, this is how I train for longer, overnight hikes.

You an burn a ton of calories playing with kids. Jumprope, tag, football, basketball . . My kids love doing exercise videos with me and they're better at it than I am.

Hope those ideas help.

Wow, this is a great advice! Exactly what I needed. Not all of it - I have no bike for example - but, I wouldn't have thought about shoving rocks in pack.

Thanks Rengetfit

Royal Canadian Air Force Exercises - it's a paperback book with a plan for a limited set of simple exercises you can do anywhere - home, outside, inside, while traveling for business, on vacation, whatever. It's simple, neat and elegant because it is designed to take up x minutes of your time. No special clothes, no special shoes, no special place, just your motivation to stick with it. By the time you reach the level goal you are aiming for, you have exercised regularly and increased gradually to a number of repetitions. It's awesome. It's boring to describe but with music or while watching TV, not really so boring.... just doesn't sound too snazzy, does it.

Push ups! Simple. Good workout for arms and core muscles. Do 10-20 when you first get up. That's less than a minute.

At work, instead of sitting, would you be able to do your job standing up? One of my sons works at a place where they're into keeping employees fit (to keep their insurance rates low) and they got him a desk where he can stand or sit to work at his computer. He stands part of the day now. There are risks to both standing all day and sitting all day, but experts seem to agree that doing some of both is better than all of one. If you can't stand at work, at least take small walks during breaks and lunch.

Check the portion sizes of what you're eating (just google portion size). Many people don't know what a one-serving portion looks like. Portion size has crept up over the years. In the 1950s and 1960s, an adult-sized soda was 7 ounces!

There is a saying that "It’s not about having time,It’s about making time". We all know that there are no shortcuts to fitness and we need to push hard if we really need something in life. I can understand that you may not be getting time to devote some extra hours to workout. If this is the case then you should avoid having sweets frequently and why don't you check out fitness videos from youtube and start working out just for few minutes a day at your home at your own pace. Children do love evening walk, you may also have an evening stroll with your kids and may burn some calories. I hope this idea may be of help to you.

There exists a indicating which "It’s definitely not regarding getting time, It’s regarding doing time". We all know there are absolutely no shortcuts to be able to physical fitness in addition to we need to drive difficult when we actually need anything inside lifetime. I can understand that you might definitely not be getting the perfect time to devote several more hrs to be able to exercise routine. When this can be a case then you definately should avoid getting sugars frequently in addition to why don't you take a look at physical fitness videos coming from vimeo and commence training just by little bit every day at your house . pictures individual pace. Little ones do appreciate night go, also you can produce an night go walking with all your little ones and will burn off several calories. Lets hope this kind of concept can be involving be an aid to people.

exercise in limited time
 

Hi Mike,

We all face this problem!

In addition to the great advice above, maybe also doing more vigorous things with your kids: chase one of them, play tag, etc. And at work, try to "visit" or borrow things from people far from your desk so you have to get up and move every hour or half hour. Just to get the movement going a bit. And on the weekends, consider going out for a walk or hike with the family, and if they don't want to, go by yourself...and then tell them of all the fun things you saw. It might encourage them to want to go also. And if they do, then you can drive them to a nearby park for an explore. That could lead to more of them, more places visited, maybe to a mini-picnic afterwards every once in a while, and suddenly everyone's loving the Dad and his cool new ideas. "Hey Dad, can we hike up a mountain?" might be just around the corner. It can snowball just like that. Just take that first step.

My work schedule is rigorous and unpredictable -- which makes working out difficult. About 2 years ago I discovered Kettleworx, 20 minute exercises to do 3x a week. not only are they quick, but it is the most transformative and efficient workout I have ever done. You can see results really fast -- which is really gratifying! The only thing is that it costs I think $90 bucks for the set of DVDs.

I hope you won't feel like I had abused this community, but I've cheated a little. I've already lost weight. I've described my weight loss quest in an ebook.
Some pics of my transformation:
http://i1287.photobucket.com/albums/a624/Mike768
I know it's not very impressive, but I really did everything on my own and with a minimal daily investment of time.
I started this thread to check out if I can recommend this community to my readers. I found your advice to be sound and that's what I wrote about you:

http://www.fitday.com/fitness/forums...ited-time.html - great feedback, great advice. One guy even recommended the very exercise I've been doing - pushups. I highly recommend this forum.

As a payback for your engagement please find below a link to my book. It is free till 4th of August:
Amazon.com: The Fitness Expert Next Door (How to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day) eBook: Michal Stawicki, Diane Arms: Kindle Store
The Fitness Expert Next Door (How to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day) eBook: Michal Stawicki, Diane Arms: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store