Stay fit even if you're always busy: It's advantage you with this expert's 'Netflix & Uphill' trick

Fitness training should be marked on your calendar like an important meeting with yourself (Image: Canva)

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle can be a challenge, particularly for those with busy schedules. Finding the time to exercise, cook healthy meals, and get enough sleep while juggling work, family, and other commitments is by no means easy – but it’s certainly possible.

Let’s explore some simple strategies that can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, even when you are short on time.

What are some small changes you can make to be more active throughout the day?

Making micro changes to your daily routine can help you be more active, even when you have a busy schedule. For example, I do all my phone calls while walking around, I try to take the stairs most times, and hey, if you’re trying the latest season of Succession, watch it while walking on the treadmill – I call this “Netflix & Uphill”!

How can you incorporate healthy eating habits into your busy schedule?

I find that incorporating just this one good habit (that takes under 5 minutes a day) helps most people I get this advice to. Tracking your food is so much easier than running 30 minutes, swimming for 45, or walking for 60! While tracking your meals does not by itself make you eat healthier, it makes you super aware about the quantity and quality of the choices you make, the appetisers you have, the drinks, the mains, the desserts you eat – everything! Now, we all know that “what gets measured, gets better over time”, and that’s true for your food habits as well.

What can you do to improve your sleep quality, even if you have a packed schedule?

Let me put it this way – if you have time to charge your phone overnight, you should make time to recharge yourself. Sleep is one of the building blocks of good health – pay attention to getting 7-8 hours in bed every day. The best thing that works is to keep the same sleep schedule on all days. But since that’s tough (& boring), I get into and out of bed atleast 6 days a week. And on Sundays, I never miss the afternoon nap post lunch – it’s priceless!

Who can you recruit as a workout buddy or accountability partner?

We all need someone to push us. So a workout buddy to keep us accountable and motivate makes all the sense in the world. Find someone who has a similar schedule, so you always have someone to go with. Or make a friend in the gym you train at, or the park you walk in, or if you want to go really deep, then hire yourself a good personal trainer.

What steps can you take to make fitness a habit, even when life gets busy?

This part is what I call non-negotiables. Fitness training should be marked on your calendar like an important meeting with yourself. And you can never cancel. Ever. If you make it a point to do it regularly for a month, you’ll be able to do it for 3, then continue for 12, and make it your lifestyle. Health cannot be bought, it has to be earned, and you can only achieve it, if you don’t cancel on your own appointment.

To conclude, being busy does not need to be an excuse to neglect your fitness. With some systems, structures, strategies, and prioritisation, it’s possible to maintain a healthy lifestyle even with a packed schedule. That said, it’s not easy, and we can slip up once in a while – that’s OK. Because, fitness is not about perfection – it’s about getting our act together, feeling good about ourselves, and living life to the fullest!