I’ve spent the last eight years of my life refining an exercise regime to keep me in great shape.
Over the years I’ve done everything from going to gym classes, weight training, using personal trainers, and entering competitions.
These all had their benefits but as life got busier I needed something with ultimate ease and flexibility.
Something I could fit around busy working days, travel, and childcare.
I didn’t need to be super fit. I didn’t need to be able to run a marathon. I just wanted to keep in shape, keep weight off, look good, and have a good level of baseline fitness.
My quest became one to find the way to achieve this with the least amount of effort.
I didn’t want to spend hours and hours training. I didn’t have time for that. And I didn’t want to do super hard sessions. I would dread them and make an excuse to avoid them.
I needed something that was time efficient and mentally easy to do.
The answer: I worked out that I could do 3-4 super easy sessions of exercise per week for 30 minutes each. This allowed me to lose weight with minimal effort and maintain a healthy weight and physique.
When I say super easy. I mean super easy. The intensity I would work at was very low. Well within a pace that you could easily talk at. For running, think a light jog.
I would do my sessions jogging, on a cross trainer, or the rowing machine. (but I could have used pretty much any type of aerobic exercise or machine)
The benefits of exercising gently for me are:
- No dreading a hard session.
- Mentally incredibly easy to complete.
- Minimize risk of injury.
- Building of strong aerobic base.
Doing 30 minutes of this 3 to 4 times a week resulted in my losing weight, staying in shape and feeling great.
I played around with different session lengths. Anything from 20 minutes up to 1.5 hours.
I found that over time that 30 minutes is the perfect amount of time for me.
Firstly, if done 3 to 4 times a week it helped me lose weight and stay in shape.
But, more importantly. I could always find 30 minutes even in the busiest of days to do the exercise. So there was never an excuse not to exercise.
My regime was born.
For years I have been following it. It takes barely any effort now that it is fully integrated into my way of life.
Over the years I’ve shared my approach with friends and family. They’ve found it has really helped them where they:
- Have a busy life.
- Find excuses not to do exercise.
- Don’t think they have the stamina to see a session through.
- Think they’re not the type of person who does exercise.
- Don’t think they can lose weight.
Seeing how it gave people confidence to start doing gentle exercise was a real rush, and it made me want to share it more widely.
At its heart, there is nothing complicated about what I do. It’s super simple and deep down aligns with many of us know we need to do. But like so many things in life, sometimes it’s helpful to hear that it’s worked for someone else.
If you think it could help you, please feel free to give it a go.
