Someone suggested to me about writing a blog post about the barrier of not having time to exercise and I think it’s a fantastic topic to talk about.. this is also very coincidental because I have check ins with some of you and time was brought up, but I can assure this blog was drafted before we spoke and not aimed at you.

This may not be for everyone, as a lot of you reading do make the time but maybe it’s something you can help your peers with if they are open to discuss.

We all go through different stages in our life when we’re busier and have less or even more time.

I want to point out that post covid, there still would have been individuals with more time than they could ever want and nothing changed, which is why I think it’s a very loose and lazy statement to make.

Saying you don’t have time is the easy thing to say.

I think it reflects well on how we prioritise our own health and that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to do CrossFit or become a member of CrossFit Harrow. It’s not the intention this post.

My aim is to raise awareness on what you prioritise. There is of course, certain parts of your life, where this is true and you don’t have time but in my opinion, this is short term such as 2 weeks. My mentality would be it’s a reset and deload as opposed to putting on the back burner.

Events such as a new born, recovering from surgery whilst trying to manage work, a change of career, a wedding, or mental break. For me, they are short term tactical breaks as opposed to not having time. Again it’s the mindset towards it.

You can make the time for your top 3 or even top 5 things in your priority list.

You have to ask yourself the question which has the greater risk to your health. Prioritise my health or don’t prioritise my health.

I know what the answer is… and so do you.

Have you ever wondered why the people you may admire or are in awe of are always in good health? They look great, they’re vascular, they are a symbol of strength and you look at them fuck they got their shit together.. and we are in admiration of them. They look fit, they are always active, they have a balance of social life and improving their health.  You know why… because it’s part of every day routine. It’s a non negotiable.

The reality is they have a better relationship with their own health than you have with yours.

I appreciate that is very direct but I believe it to be true.

Just an fyi here, health isn’t just exercising in the gym or going to CrossFit. It’s what you eat, what you watch, what you listen to, who you surround yourself with and so much more. Don’t get it twisted that if you go the gym that it means your healthy. Just like if I had wheels, it doesn’t make me a bike (any Gino D’Campo fans out there?)

For a lot us, we want to change when it’s too late and I think that becomes more apparent as we get older. We believe we have ‘time’; we’ll prioritise our health when this project is over, we’ll prioritise our health when we come back from holiday.. we’ll prioritise our health when we finish all the junk food in the house. .. we’ll prioritise our health after I have watched this Netflix series…

…how ironic as apparently we struggle for time.

We are all or nothing people and we try to change everything in one go and it’s the worst thing for 99% of us because we’re not able to do that. I’m not sure how many of us have read that statement in the past or that we know it already but we cannot continue this approach because it doesn’t work.

I will try this analogy, stay with me here…

When you bought your house, or rented it and moved in. Did you paint the walls, change the kitchen, upgrade the bathroom, buy the kitchen utensils, do the garden, change the front door, board the loft, do the garden and change the bed all in one day?..

No you done bit by bit, saving money in between spends to ensure you could keep going and get the outcome you want. You prioritised what needed to be done first and made time for the things that were most important to you.

So why can’t we have this approach to our health. We can’t change our food all in one go we can’t go to the gym five days a week all in one going having never done any of those things before.

The 2 examples that are the most popular barriers associated with time are work and children. And the key word here is examples. I want you to personally know that they are not excuses, they are just barriers at the moment and we can work towards pulling those barriers down.

Work is the most popular barrier, it’s the thing that takes up most of our time.

Without using the ‘but’ word, you have to think that – Work will always be there.

It’s crazy to think that we give up our (extra) time to work to get something done passed working hours, but we can struggle to give up our (extra) time to work on our health.

I can’t understand how we haven’t figured that out yet.

Look I have been there, and am still there. You guys know the situation at work, it’s tough and I am overloaded with admin work, operational work, session delivery and personal sessions and for a long time I was in a dark headspace that I couldn’t get out.. I had no ‘time’ for training.. . no motivation, high blood pressure through stress and work was doubling by the minute but I broke it down it too small chunks and I started to take action by making time. And this has been in the last 70 days..(this will be another blog).. so how did I make time?

I blocked out my training time in the week the same way I book my appointments when we meet or if I have a class to teach. I blocked out the times I eat every day. These 2 things are non negotiable for me because without one, the other is more difficult.

The first couple of weeks, I literally trained twice a week and I started to feel great again. The endorphins kicking in gave me a spark. My workouts were timely and build around the staple of CrossFit that was relevant to me and my current position.

Constantly varied, functional movement at high intensity (oh and very much a scaled down version).

That’s it. I didn’t want to over do it and feel drained.

(a different type of conversation incoming following on from the above but worth the note to put things in perspective and follow on from previous things I have talked about)

Laying down on the floor and breathing out of your arse is not fun. Some people like that and that’s cool but if you’re reading this and resonating with what I am saying then we need to train how we want to feel and I want to feel fucking great. My ego still tells me I’m 27 again, and that I can train twice a day, can snatch 100kg and do Fran in sub 3 minutes but the reality is we’re getting older and we need to be smarter in how we train otherwise the relationship we have with prioritising our health in my opinion will hang on by a thread as we’ll burn out and leave no room for progression.

Maybe in 6 months as I build intensity relative to my fitness I will get faster, lift heavier weights etc but for now I needed the kick. After 14 years of CrossFit, I have never scaled back so much in my life and what a difference it makes. I feel so much better. I have even considered doing my 10th CrossFit Open scaled, just to prove a point.

Having experience in the industry how I eat is pretty good anyways apart from a sugar overdose (I like Lindt Dark Chocolate, Nutella and Chocolate digestives)… I prioritised protein intake and have roughly anywhere between 150g-200g a day depending on how hungry I am..

I ordered myself some meals because I was ‘tight on time’ and prioritised paying for the convenience so I could have time elsewhere. Everything is an exchange. I had to give something, the sacrifice for making time is taking time off other things. Mine was the social element of maybe grabbing dinner out every Saturday evening. We cut that back in half. Using that cost towards the convenience that I needed.

By the way, these are healthy nutritious meals with around 500kcal/ 40g protein per meal.  

My other activities were walking to Tesco every day to get sunlight and I slowly built training to 3 days, and every now and again I can creep in a fourth which feels great when I do it because now I have overachieved….and brick by brick I build the foundations and got my health back. It helped me unlock the padlock that was on so tightly.

Why is this important, because I wanted to regain my health so I made time.

Why do I share this with you? Because I want you to know we are all human and we all have the same struggles, so If I can share how it worked for me, maybe there is something in this that you can take and it can work for you.

As for children… this is a tougher one though and I can’t pass comments from experience as I don’t have any at the moment but I understand that there can be time struggles with that… however I am going to challenge you here because, given the chance to but on your blue suede shoes or throw on some red lipstick you’ll find someone to take pressure off you and go and enjoy your evening.

I’m not naive and being ignorant, just opening a conversation to keep you reading and that there is a way to utilise time. Now the way might mean that you can’t gym 3-4 times a week, but could you do it twice, you could do it at times that are maybe not so convenient… it might mean you have less time in the morning or you could just even wing it for a couple of weeks and just tick over. Let’s face it, we’re all winging it everyday (the thought process in your head though should be health is wealth, and this is for life) Your 5RM on Monday won’t mean anything if you don’t have your health.

So why don’t we try and do that when we try to improve our health? We can’t change our food all in one go we can’t go to the gym five days a week all in one going having never done any of those things before. What we need to focus on is have a staple in our day-to-day so if that means that we slowly starts to attend the gym two or three times per week or whatever it is and make no changes to nutrition, well that’s absolutely fine because now we’re starting to prioritise our health.

Now after being able to do that consistently well for a long time, we can begin to include how we eat, what we eat and when we’re eating it. Then dive into other areas of optimal health, your bedtime routine for example or the things that you watch or the things that you listen to.

The barrier of I don’t have time can grind me at times, because it’s weak. It could be laziness, It could mean that our health is not in our priority list but it could possibly be bad time management and genuinely not knowing how to fit it in. There are many reasons.

I believe that if your health isn’t in your top 3 priorities, it’s likely you’re going to always be someone that chases the way that you feel the way, the way that you eat and always have an unhealthy relationship with the gym.

The last thing I have to help you by raising awareness of priorities and a last attempt to convince you that you actually in fact is have time-

Unlock your phone.

Go to settings.

Scroll to screen time

Look at your daily average.

How do you say you have time without saying you have time?

I hope you enjoyed the read and a lot of my writing is free flow and what comes to mind. If there is a topic you wish for me to write about. Let me know. I am more than happy to share my views.