Well, it’s been five days since the New Year… how are your resolutions coming along?

I’ve definitely been eating better; I’m not eating fast food for every meal, I’ve completely forsaken candy bars, and I’m slowly cutting out the caffeine even in the wake of a terrible caffeine headache this morning.  But what about exercise?  Where in the day are we supposed to exercise if our schedule is busy?

My old excuse was a good one: I went from bed to work to school to bed again with little time for a workout.  But now that my schedule is flexible and my classes are online… now that my time is my own and I can portion it out however I please, why am I unable to commit to exercising?

The problem is that I no longer can point to time constraints, but I can still look at all my obligations.  “How am I supposed to find time to exercise when I have to do all this Access programming and do a report on Saul Bass and write an essay on the junk food tax?” There are no more blocks of time, only deadlines.  For me, this is just not working.

In order to commit to a certain time period for exercise in my day, I need to assign blocks of time for the rest of my schoolwork and housework.  Most importantly: the exercise must come first.  I understand that a lot of people choose to work out at the end of the day, after they come home from the office or after their spouse gets home to watch the kids, but for me, if I don’t exercise before I get engrossed in my essay writing and required reading, the exercise will not happen at all.  Though it may be more financially and educationally important for me to complete my homework, for those in situations like mine who have a waistline like mine, it should be equally important to get and stay healthy.

Tomorrow, more on exercising and dieting instead of just dieting alone.