I saw an article yesterday saying that the average Brit spends more time on the loo than they do exercising. (You can read the full article here)

OK, the headline is pretty powerful, but actually the facts are scary. Apparently the majority of us spend double the time on the loo than we do exercising.

I’m just going to give this a little consideration. Double the time on the loo than exercising.

Nope, saying it again isn’t making it any less shocking.

Right. How do we change this? Well, we start multitasking (not while on the loo – I’m not encouraging Zumba at the same time, or anything like that, don’t worry!!). We can do exercise while cooking. We can add in some activity while brushing our teeth. There are so many ways to fit more time being active into even the busiest of lives.

I am a firm believer that little changes equal big results. If I ask a client to do an hour of exercise everyday, she’ll most likely fail after a week. That’s not a harsh indictment of my clients, it’s a realistic view that someone who is currently inactive won’t do an hour a day. It’s too big. It’s daunting. It’s terrifying. It doesn’t get done. Failure occurs.

So what do my clients do? They start with what is achievable. With what will bring about success. If that’s 5 minutes a day for the first week, and it gets completed, then it’s a win. We can move onto 10 minutes in week two. 10 minutes a day, 6 days a week is suddenly an hour of exercise. For someone who was previously inactive. Awesome.

Now according to the article about the loo, we spend 3 hours (and 9 minutes, but I’ll over look the 9 mins for now) on it a week. Well, working on my building activity levels theory that’s 30 mins a day, 6 days a week. In the mantra of little changes equalling big results, and in the mindset of wanting to bring about success not failure, I would rather my client completes her 30 minutes in whatever way works for her – that might be a brisk walk to work in the morning (10 mins), a 10 minute dash to the shops at lunchtime and then 10 minutes of exercises she can do while getting dinner ready in the evening. Voila, 30 minutes a day on work days and we’ll work out what is fun exercise for the weekend. It might be a longer walk. It might be roller skating. It doesn’t matter – by this point she only needs 30 more minutes and she’s beaten the stats in the article. Winning!

In my head there’s a really good punchline here about movement being about more than bowels, but I’ll erm leave that there!

Seriously, though, if you or someone you know fits the bill for this, please put them in touch with me. I’d love to have a Skype chat with them to see how we can fit more activity into their everyday life, and get them away from being a statistic.