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Last fall I challenged several of my clients to achieve a certain number of cardio minutes each week. The ultimate goal was to increase the number of minutes each week for about 15 weeks. They all did wonderfully! One of the unforeseen outcomes of this “test,” was that all of these ladies had to find time where they didn’t know they had it (lol). When crunched for time, it turned out that “pockets” of time could be created out of down time, such as reading a book, watching television, waiting for a child’s soccer practice, and so on. Ordinarily, they might have spent the time idle, but with a challenge to accumulate minutes of movement, they each turned this time into “up,” time – i.e, they got up and moved. A half-hour television show turned into 30 minutes of marching in place, doing jumping jacks, pop-squats, push-ups, and crunches. A favorite book was as easily consumed while riding an incumbent bicycle as it was sitting on the coach. And a daughter’s hour-long soccer practice turned into a heart-pumping power walk around the track.
Do you have down time you can turn into up time? I challenge you to try.
Bonus: each of these ladies lost weight! In fact, one lost 20 lbs over the course of the challenge – about 15 weeks! Way to go Kim, Jen, and Maria! And you can do it too!