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September 10, 2018 0 Comments

5 Ways to Stay Fit From Home

Fitness should be a crucial part of our lives – it keeps us healthy and active. When you work from home, you may not have time or want the expense of an intricate gym routine. The good news is – you don’t need to let those challenges hold you back!

Read along for some of our best, simplest tips to stay fit when you work from home.

Take breaks

One of the major benefits of working from home is that your breaks can take place in your house! You have access to house chores, possibly a family dog, a side job, and much more. While this can also make focusing a challenge, it can also hold many benefits, especially when it comes to sneaking in fitness.

Use a few of your breaks during the day to do a short workout. You can even schedule these around meals and other breaks, and they don’t need to last long at all.  It’s even better to get up and move throughout the day, as we all know how bad sitting is for our health.

Make it short

Working out for an hour is not necessary, unless you truly want to.  Choose a reasonable amount of time and don’t make it overwhelming, especially in the beginning.

If you decide to use your breaks, maybe start by dedicating three, 5-minute breaks to do some type of fitness moves.  When it’s a doable amount of time, you’re much more likely to stick to it in the long term.

Use what you have

You don’t need to run out and buy anything fancy! Chances are, you have exactly what you need, or can get a few small, inexpensive items to start.

Most of us have some kind of fitness selection of gym equipment, machines, or dumbbells.  If you don’t have these things, you can start with bodyweight strength exercises or simply use the road for running.  If you don’t know what type of moves to do, you can access tons of free fitness content on YouTube. You can search by length time, type of workout, etc. For example, 5-10-15+ minute workouts that feature High Intensity Interval Training Cardio, light weight training, Tabata intervals, and so on.

Make it social

Fitness is great to share with others.  This is a great time to get out of the house – walk with friends, join a gym or exercise class, or join a running club.

When you work out with others, you come to depend on each other, which keeps you consistent and motivated.

Keep it consistent

In the end, consistency is key with fitness. If you don’t stick with it, you won’t reap the results that come from a regular workout routine.  Start with 10 minutes per day and go from there. You can simply walk or lift some light dumbbells if you’re a beginner, or find a way to make fitness social.

Set a specific number of workouts to aim for each week and start with at least 2-3.  Once you begin to feel better, sleep better, and generally improve your health, you’ll want to stick with your new, healthy habit!

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June 13, 2016 0 Comments

5 Tips for Work From Home Fitness

When you work from home, you might have more flexibility in your schedule, but it doesn’t necessarily make fitness any easier! We know that sitting is bad for our health, and that we need to make time to move and workout.

Although you don’t need an intensive workout regimen, it’s important to fit exercise into your day.  By establishing a schedule and realizing what works best for you, you can maintain your health as well as your flexibility.

Go online

In this day and age, you don’t even have to leave your home to get in a great workout!

There are numerous online fitness classes that are available for free online! YouTube.com is a vast resource for yoga, step aerobics, kettlebell, cardio, and many other types of exercise.  Videos range from a few minutes to over an hour, allowing you to complete full classes in the comfort of your own home.

You can also look into subscription websites for yoga classes, boot camp schedules, and much more.  There’s literally something for everyone and every schedule – simply do a bit of searching and find something that fits your personality, space available, and time available to workout.

Schedule it in

It can be tough to get away to the gym or to classes with kids or other obligations, so work from home moms often become workout from home moms!  Even though this is often the case, it’s still important to keep a fairly structured fitness schedule, as this ensures that you make time in your day.

Reflect on what time of day will work best for you.  Set your workout daily and pick a time that works for your family.  For example, if mornings are quiet and energizing for you, set your workouts for bright and early.  If your kids are rushing in the mornings but leave for most of the day, plan to be with them in the morning, put in a few hours of work, then hit your workout before lunchtime.  Fitness is all about consistency, so pencil your workouts in just as you would any other meeting,

Make it part of your day

When you’re out and about and running errands, make fitness a part of your day.  Although formal workouts help to build strength and long term endurance, fitting small acts of fitness into your day is a great start!

Start by parking further away and walking, taking stairs, and taking simple walks during breaks or on calls.

Get out and move

Leaving the house can be very therapeutic for a work from home mom! We’re often in for long periods of time getting work done, but it’s important to get out and about once in awhile.

There are dozens of local gyms and classes in most cities – take a chance on a class that looks fun, or ask some friends to meet up for an early class before the kids wake up.  Fitness can actually become part of your social routine, and it’s a two for one: fitness and friendship!

Make a move

Make it a point to move throughout the day! Even if you don’t have time for a full 30-60 minute YouTube workout video, you can find 2-10 minute ones that can really add up.  For example, set a timer that goes off every 1-2 hours that requires you to move.

Decide that you’re going to dance to one song when you get alerted, or vow to take your pup around the block during another break.  Mini workouts add up, especially if you don’t currently have the time commitment for a full workout schedule.  If you do 5, 6 minute workouts per day, you’re getting in your 30 minutes!  Simply walk in place, do a few strengthening yoga moves, or work on your kickboxing steps.

Fitness is all about health and balance, and there’s almost always a way to fit that into your life.  Carve out the times that work best for you, or set yourself up for success by planning ahead. In addition to home workouts, it can be fun to try workouts outside the home with friends or family.  Oftentimes, gyms and boutique classes offer childcare, allowing you some more time to fit a workout into your busy schedule.

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May 2, 2016 0 Comments

4 Tips to Get 10,000 Steps Per Day

 We all hear how important it is to get in those 10,000 steps per day.  It’s important for our health, as sedentary lifestyles are not heart-healthy, and we can end up with various health issues by sitting still all day.

When you work from home, it can be especially difficult to accomplish this task – you’re close to everything from the bathroom to your car, you likely don’t have to run around to meet co-workers, and you typically spend lunch hours alone.  It’s easy to see how this goal becomes elusive!

While you don’t have to set out for 10,000 steps right away, use these tips to get well on your way to more movement.

Set an alert

Use your phone or Google Calendar to set alerts throughout the day.  When they go off, go for a 5-10 minute stroll around the block or simply walk in place.  There are various walking workouts online for free, which you can find by typing “walking workout” into YouTube.  They range from 5-60+ minutes and help to get your heart rate up – and those steps in!

Getting your steps in doesn’t have to involve a structured workout – it’s actually better to walk at random intervals throughout the day.  This keeps your metabolism humming along, along with boosting other health indicators that are reduced by sitting all day.

Meet with friends

Meet with friends for lunch and move instead of eating.  This accomplishes two goals of meeting your steps and increasing your social interaction.  Since you’re working from home, it’s easy to do a working lunch later while using your “off” time for a walk with friends.  Set a certain time each day or week to meet with friends fro 20-45 minutes.  You can certainly accomplish a lot of steps in this amount of time! It’s active and social – two very important ingredients to our overall health.

Purchase a counter

You don’t need a fancy FitBit or anything like that, but a simple pedometer can get the job done.  Clip it onto your waistband each morning, and see how many steps you can rack up.  Take a few trips to get food or park further away when you run a midday errand.  These might seem like small changes, but when you’re tracking your progress, it makes it much more fun and motivating to see those numbers going up..

Replace Happy Hour

Happy Hour and dinners with friends after work is fun from time to time, but can you replace it with a healthier habit?  Maybe you can even combine the two! Set a time to meet up with friends or family members after work, and you can even go to your favorite spot afterwards for a leisurely dining experience.  It will be all the more enjoyable after a mini walking workout!

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