#27: Improve fitness and feel energised by exercising only 5 minutes a day

It is hard to believe that 5 minutes of exercising a day may lead to any positive change. Media and the fitness industry have led us to believe that long hard workouts are the only way to get results. The harder you push the better you will look and feel. Does it sound familiar?

What we weren’t told is that most research is based on young men whose biochemistry is totally different from the female one. Hard workouts are not a solution for the majority of women, especially those after 30 and those who are looking to stabilise their hormones and reduce different symptoms of hormonal imbalances.

There is a time and place for hard training but only under these circumstances:

WHEN YOU TRAIN HARD YOU MUST PLACE AS MUCH FOCUS ON YOUR RECOVERY (SLEEP, NUTRITION, STRETCH, MASSAGE, MYOFASCIAL RELEASE, ETC) AS ON YOUR TRAINING.

How many mums have the time to do it?

Freya is 18 months old and I already teach (=do) fitness classes. I do spinning twice a week. The truth is that I struggle with my energy afterwards as I don’t get enough sleep. Freya wakes up once or more times every night (we had a few full nights and it was amazing) and if that happens after my class, I need to push myself to be fun and present. Some of the results of just not getting enough sleep are elevated stress hormones, feeling on edge, cravings and belly fat.

Female belly fat is often related to too much stress and not enough sleep.

The truth is, that exercising, but doing less and training smarter, while we’re juggling home and work and we don’t sleep enough, will help reduce stress hormones and therefore will result in better health as well as healthy weight. When you finally start sleeping more and have more energy, increase the time of your workouts, until then five minutes may be just right for you.

Here are some other benefits of 5 minute workouts:

I am now working on replacing my coffee drinking habit with herbal teas… Despite my deep love to coffee this change has served me well. I have more energy and my tummy is happy. I follow the same strategy as the one I mentioned in the post to change this habit.

1. It will help you build a new lasting habit

The thing about habits is that you have to do this “new thing” every day for quite a long time before it becomes a habit. Some experts say 21 days, others 30 days. From my experience it may take even longer.

In his book “Atomic habits” James Clears explains that to make a lasting change and easily create new habits we have to see ourselves as someone who is doing it. You must think about yourself as a mum who exercises every day, period. Don’t wait till you “prove” to yourself you can do it by sticking to it for x days.

In his book he also talks about 4 laws of behaviour change:

• make it obvious – schedule time to exercise

• make it attractive – choose exercises that you enjoy or find a friend who will keep you accountable

• make it easy – 5 minutes is easier than 45 minutes. Adjusting your workout to your energy (training in sync with your menstrual cycle) makes it even easier to follow through.

• make it satisfying – decide what your goal is (please don’t just say weight loss) and track your progress. Being consistent, being pain-free or just having more energy are great goals to achieve.

Starting with 5 minutes a day, making it easy to repeat and enjoy, increases your chances of success.

When exercising 5 minutes a day becomes an automatic habit and you sleep more, you are in the best place to start increasing the length of your workouts. You have created a lasting habit and it can only get better from there. Easy peasy.

Freya is very clingy and I carry her a lot. If my core wasn’t strong enough to deal with that and I haven’t exercises every day, I would be in pain.

2. It will help you strengthen your core muscles and balance your body

5 minutes a day, done every day is enough to strengthen your core muscles and close the abdominal gap. To achieve that you need specific exercises and to be able to focus on how your body feels, when you’re doing them. It is much easier to stay present in your body for 5 minutes than 45 minutes. The key to achieving results is consistency. So set up your reminder and make it happen. You can do it.

3. It will help you improve your posture, help you feel good and confident

This point is related to the previous one. When we strengthen and balance our body, when we move better and are able to tune in to what our body is saying, we will improve posture, look and feel better. There is a direct corelation between our posture and how we feel (I explained that in my previous blog post here). Our body constantly communucates with our brain! Improving posture will boost your mood and confidence.

4. It will help you balance your hormones

We are born to move. Our body needs movement to function better, from improving digestion, sleep, reducing stress and anxiety to making your skin glow and reducing PMS.

We often forget that hormones control every single process in our body. Hormonal imbalances can lead to irregular periods, PCOS, PMS, fibroids, cystic ovaries, depression, adrenal fatigue, IBS, weight problems and other challenging conditions. Exercising to balance your hormones, respecting our menstrual cycle and adjusting training to our ever-changing energy levels is a must.

When we’re constantly tired, we should never force ourselves to do hard workouts, but we definitely should do something. 5 minutes is enough to strengthen our body and keep those stress hormones (and therefore other hormones) balanced.

5. It will help you reduce any pains or aches

As a tired mum I know that it is not easy to get down on the floor and do any exercises. At the same time I know that if I don’t do them I will be in pain in a couple of days. My hips are killing me. I am lucky as I have not had any back problems during and after my pregnancy (because I do exercise most evenings) but I know many women who did. It is so challenging to take care of the little one when our back aches. The truth is that it is so easy to avoid that. 5 minutes a day, every day are enough to be pain free.

It is time to challenge the belief that we need long and hard workouts to be healthy and pain free.

HEALTHY AND PAINFREE are the key words here as it all comes down to our goals. We may need to train harder if we want to run a marathon (but I hope you don’t do it until you are consistently getting enough sleep at night). 5 minute workouts won’t help you achieve all your fitness goals but are the best way to start your fitness journey towards achieving them.

Please notice that I haven’t listed weight loss as one of the benefits here. It is because I really want to promote fitness for health reasons, not weight loss. Most women I know, when they start exercising, they eat better and walk more, which results in balancing body weight as well. Yet this is a side effect rather than a direct goal.

If you’re looking for some ideas of 5 minute workouts join my private Facebook group: 5-min workouts for tired mums, where I post a 5 minute exercise video every day. Each video is specific to a different menstrual phase.

It is time we start exercising because we love our body and we celebrate being women.

With love,

Karo