Try Some Exercise During Lunch If You Never Feel Like You Have Time
Finding time to exercise can be challenging. I’ve found that most people try to go to the gym before or after work, but that means a choice between pulling away from the comfy sheets or working out after a day of mental exhaustion from work. However, there is a third option: train at lunchtime. Here are the benefits and how to achieve them.
Benefits of Exercising During Your Lunch Break
Exercising at lunchtime is obviously more convenient than setting aside a separate workout time. You can exercise when free time is least important to you, not when you can sleep or rest after work. Instead of hanging out with colleagues at Au Bon Pain, pack your lunch and eat it at your table after the gym.
The second benefit of training at lunchtime is purely physiological. Many people mistakenly associate food with energy. Yes, food is what provides your body with energy, but not necessarily in an acute form (that is, right now). In fact, if you’ve ever had a serious need to take a nap after a heavy meal, you know what I mean. Conversely, many who practice intermittent fasting — essentially skipping breakfast — find that they have more energy after acclimatization. Yes, instead of feeling sluggish in the afternoon, you can experience a second wind that will lengthen the rest of the day.
It has to do with your body’s parasympathetic system , which is responsible for stimulating what many call the “resting and digesting” mechanism. You may feel sleepy after eating large amounts of food. Although you’ve probably heard about this phenomenon called “food” or “carbohydrate” coma, scientists call it sleepiness after eating . This affects people to varying degrees, but the bottom line is that food gives energy, but this does not mean that you will immediately feel a surge of energy.
In communicating with clients, I have found that exercising before lunch seems to mitigate many of the effects of this afternoon nap. This may be due to the effects of increased insulin sensitivity – the ability to tolerate eating more food (especially carbohydrates) without many of the negative effects – after exercising with less food in advance .
Lunch workout
Given the benefits listed above, why aren’t more people exercising at lunchtime? The answer has more to do with the perception of time pressure than anything else. In fact, you can get an effective workout in a short amount of time . Here’s what you need:
- At least one hour for lunch, four days a week.
- Gym, which is less than 10 minutes walk (i.e. 20 minutes round trip).
- A workout of 30 minutes or less.
- All of your gym clothes are ready and ready to go, giving you approximately 10 minutes to shower quickly afterward.
Choose three days to focus on strength training that gradually increases your weight. You can use the minimum viable fitness workout we linked earlier here, or alternatively find a place where you can end your bodyweight workout like our bodyweight workout . At least on another day of the week, complete a high intensity interval training (HIIT) workout, such as the 15 minute workout we wrote about . HIIT workouts allow you to get the benefits of cardio training within your time frame.
And it’s all. As with any fitness recommendation, there is nothing magical about it, other than the fact that lunch at the gym might be exactly what you need, but you’ve already written it off. If you’re the type of person who never seems to have time to exercise during the day and feel like they could use the pep rather than the protraction that lunch usually brings, then this might be a gimmick that is finally making sense. you exercise regularly.