So, you are too busy to work out?  Some of my readers who are young moms expressed this problem. After a busy day of homeschooling, housework, and just keeping up with kids, there isn’t enough time or energy left to do exercises.  Going to the gym means arranging babysitting.  Even going for a walk is a challenge.

Other readers who work in an office or have other demanding jobs that don’t allow for a lot of physical movement have a similar complaint.  After a day of mental strain, you feel like collapsing, not pushing your body further.

How can you work out when you don’t have time?  One answer is to build the workouts into  your daily routine.  Instead of adjusting your life to your workout, make your workout fit your life. You don’t have to go  to a gym and lift weights. But you do have to move.  So we’ll be looking at creative ways to sneak some muscle-building, fat-burning exercise into life as you know it.

Here is suggestion number one:  Start squatting.

I don’t mean instead of sitting — although I was fascinated by the way the La Hu tribal people in Thailand would squat as if they were sitting on invisible stools.  While I was trying not to squirm and to find a less-excruciatingly-painful position sitting on the floor of a bamboo hut, they would simply squat.  They could do it for hours with no sign of tiring.

But we aren’t aiming for that level of strength.  Instead I’m suggesting that you not do sets of squats (unless you want to) but to start squatting to pick things up.

For my young mom readers, finding something to pick up is certainly no problem.  Instead of bending over to pick up the toys, the spilled popcorn or the plate someone left beside the sofa, do squats and pick them up while you are on the down cycle.

The rest of us will need to work it in.  Look for things to pick up.  I read about one man who did this by placing post-it notes around the floor of his cubicle.  Every hour or so he would get up, do a few squats to pick up some of them, one at a time, and then go back to work. By the end of the day he would have picked up all the post-it notes and finished his prescribed number of squats.    You may squat down to pull a few weeds from your flower bed.  You can squat instead of bending down to load the bottom shelf of the dishwasher.  Be creative and look for ways that work for you.

Here’s how to do a squat correctly:

• Keep your feet a little wider than shoulder width apart, back in neutral position and your knees above your feet.
• Slowly bend your knees, hips, and ankles, until you are in the squatting position.
• Pick up whatever is on the floor that you came down to get.
• Return to a standing position.
• Breathe in as you go down, out as you go up.

Make it a game and challenge yourself to see how many squats you can work in during a day.  Try to beat your record.

Is it worthwhile to do squats if you don’t plan to sit on the floor in a bamboo hut?  Yes, I recently read an article on the benefits of this exercise.  When you do these regularly, some good things happen.

First of all, this exercise will tone and tighten your backside, your abs, and your legs.  Squats are effective, multi-purpose exercises!

They will also help you maintain your flexibility and balance.  They work out your core, stabilizing muscles and improve the communication between your brain and your muscle groups. That helps you maintain your balance and prevents falls — something of vital importance to my older readers.

Squats help you avoid joint injury, too.  Weak stabilizer muscles,ligaments and connective tissues lead to injuries to joints.  Squats help strengthen all of these.

Having strong leg muscles and tight abs will not only look better, they will burn calories more efficiently and help your overall health.

So don’t bend over to pick that up — do some squats instead!

Eating to live and living for Christ,

Susan Jordan Brown