Bret Piatt

“So much to do, so little time”, was once said by the very intelligent Willy Wonka.  Each day we wake up and have to prioritize what we do — life throws a nearly infinite set of options at us.  Because of this many people spend some of their time exercising so they can “have more time” by living longer to have the opportunity to do the things they’ve always wanted to do.

We all have to spend some time sleeping and eating — average of around 9 hours each day.  This takes our 168 hour long week and cuts it down to 105.  Now we have to commute to work taking away another 4 hours leaving 101.  The BLS breaks down a number of things we spend time on, working, leisure activites, childcare, etc.  Now that we’ve gone to work, taken care of our kids, and picked up around the house we have gone through another 57 hours of our week leaving 44.

Now we’re down to 44 hours on average, if you commute more than 46 minutes a day or work more than 7.9 hours you’ll have less — if you don’t have kids or you have some help to pickup around the house you’ll have more.  I’ll continue to talk about the averages.  Those 44 hours have to fit all of your leisure activities — any hobbies, reading the newspaper or your favorite blog, watching television, or exercising.

This could be you...

Fourty-four hours may sound like a lot but it goes quickly and here is where the exercise comes in.  I’m suggesting you figure out how to do it in 15-30 minutes a day including the “start and stop” time of going to the gym and cleaning up afterwards — this means you probably need to figure out a way to workout at home.  If you’re going to workout five days a week packing a gym bag, going to a gym, changing, taking a class (spin, step, yoga, pilates, etc.) doing weights, showering, changing, and heading home this can easily take 2 hours if not more.

Those 10 hours are 23% of your “flex” time.  Unless exercise is a hobby that you get enjoyment from you’re committing too much time “just trying to live longer”.  I understand that “quality of life” is important and having a moderate level of fitness can help that as well.  With regard to length, most studies show that ones you reach the “healthy” zone of fitness your life isn’t significantly extended by being in “perfect” shape.  The “healthy” level can be achieved in an hour a week, only 2.3% of your “flex time” by working out at home

Those exercise hours add up, over a 40 year period at 10 hours a week you’ll spend 20,800 hours exercising, that is 2.4 years of time so even if that exercise extends your life by 3 years (a number that seems to come up in many studies) you’re really only gaining a few months of “flex time” and you’re getting those at the end at the cost of having them available throughtout your life.