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While I always advocate working out with your trainer and scheduling an appointment at the gym, sometimes you simply don’t have the window of opportunity to get there and workout, but you do have that extra hour to workout at home. Here are the best exercises at home for those days you simply don’t have the time to make it to the gym. I’ll keep it simple, since most of you won’t have equipment at home. However, if you choose one piece of equipment that travels and stores well, while also being inexpensive, consider resistance bands and a yoga mat, so you don’t have to lay on the floor.

Go back to the basis.

The basics include body weight exercises and the makings of a boot camp. Start with squats, do as many as you can and add five more as your ultimate goal. Push ups, walking lunges, plank and jumping jacks are next. If you don’t have resistance bands or dumbbells, use large laundry detergent containers filled with water, milk jugs, kitty litter buckets or even large cans as weights. You may already know the weight you need or can judge how much water to fill it with by your effort.

Do interval training.

Getting done quickly may or may not be your goal, but either way, High Intensity Interval Training—HIIT— is excellent. You’ll need a slightly lighter weight for interval training to help ensure that you maintain proper form. Use dumbbell lunges with a twist, pushups, step ups while holding weights and bent over lateral raise as your strength exercises. Do a strength training exercises for one minute, quickly move to 30 seconds of jump squats or mountain climbers. If you need to rest between sets, don’t rest longer than 15 seconds.

Don’t forget walking more.

You can get your chores completed and get exercise at the same time if you’re mindful of working out. A pedometer will help. These little tips can help year around, even if you’re working out at the gym regularly. Take the stairs and not the escalator or elevator. Don’t even try to get on the escalator and walk up or you’ll be disappointed by a few people who won’t share your enthusiasm for stair climbing. Carry your packages yourself and don’t take a cart to the car. Park further from the store and walk more. Put on the music and dance your way to a cleaner house. Not only will you get the job done faster, you’ll enjoy it more.

• Talk to your personal trainer to get ideas for exercise combinations you can do at home. HIIT training is quick and effective. Using exercises from your normal workout ensures you know the proper form.
• You don’t have to workout a full session all at once. You can break the workout down to several sessions that are at least 10 minutes long.
• Incorporate dance into your workout. Not a slow dance, but one that gets you moving. Plan your routine first, to put your whole body into the moves. Create a song playlist that motivates and invigorates.
• Get the family involved. Make exercising a game to do with the kids. You can also exercise with your partner to make it more fun. Of course, schedule a time or add an impromptu workout rather than waiting for the right time, which may never come.

Life is really all about how you look at things. If you dread your daily workouts, you’ll find them increasingly difficult to get through and even harder to get started. However, if you focus on the positive side and think about the fact they’re creating a better you, it can make a huge difference in your desire to workout and the effort you put into that workout. Keeping focused on the strength you’re building, the final outcome and how good you’ll feel when you’ve finished the workout can make it all worthwhile.

Daily workouts don’t have to be in the gym.

Most people often spend only three to four days each week working out in this almost formalized workout setting. That’s good, but it doesn’t mean you should be a couch potato the rest of the week, lounging in front of the TV. Learning to live a more active lifestyle is what really keeps you fit. It doesn’t have to be a daily walk or run as your workout. Dance through the house while you’re cleaning, take the stairs instead of the elevator, tackle a home project that takes more energy than money to finish. All these things will keep you fit and remind you why a daily workout is good. You’ll get less tired and finish your tasks quicker.

Make sure you measure your progress for the biggest boost to your workout.

As a trainer, I track your progress so I know when to make the workout harder. However, if you’re looking for motivation, track progress at home, but do it differently. I have one client that decided to use physical tasks to improve his fitness. His first task was remodeling the spare “junk” room to create a usable space. It involved several weeks of going up and down ladders, carrying supplies, lifting and basically working out for several hours at a time. He logged how long he could work before requiring a rest. As that project finished and he started the next, he told me it was a real inspiration to finally go an hour and a half without feeling the need for a break.

Watch your complexion improve and bask in the compliments.

While daily exercise can help you tone your muscles and lose weight, it also has many other benefits. One of those is an improved complexion. Boosting your circulation comes with many benefits, including great benefits for skin. It sends oxygen and nutrient rich blood to all parts of the body, including the skin. That makes it healthier. It also helps flush away debris through sweat and clean your skin from the inside, making you look more youthful and also helping with adult acne. It gives you a glow that can make you look years younger.

• You’ll have more energy and feel fantastic at the end of the day.
• Even if your day is stressful, exercising regularly can be a great stress buster and leave you feeling good again. That also helps keep you more youthful looking and healthy.
• You’ll think faster. If you find yourself slowing down when it comes to mental tasks, start exercising. You’ll be amazed at how much it improves the mind.
• Daily tasks become far easier when you workout regularly. When you add up all the benefits of exercise and keep them in mind, it should make it easier to go to the gym or take a quick walk when you have the extra time.

There are good and bad correlations with eating disorders and working out. The negative aspect of the duo occurs when exercising becomes obsessive and is accompanied by orthorexia. Just because you exercise every day, it doesn’t mean you suffer from this condition. Orthorexia is a compulsion to avoid eating certain foods to the point, the person may only have a few food choices left. It’s an eating disorder that takes healthy eating and healthy exercise miles beyond the point of healthy. On the other hand, regular exercise has been found helpful for those with anorexia and certain types of eating disorders.

When have you crossed the threshold from healthy to compulsive?

It’s tough to know when you’re just dedicated and when exercise has become a compulsion. Just like anorexia and orthorexia, working out to excess gives the person suffering from it a feeling of control over their life. There’s no actual number you can put on how much is too much, because an Olympic athlete is going to workout beyond the normal amount of time. For the person with a problem, it means putting exercise ahead of everything in your life to a point it becomes unhealthy, both for the body and mind. It means shunning other social activities you used to love. People who suffer from it often workout even though they have a high fever or have pulled muscles. It is truly an obsession, where, regardless of the circumstances, you workout two, three or more hours each and every day.

When exercising is a social outlet, you probably don’t suffer from an obsession.

People with a compulsion to overdo in the area of exercise and feign healthy eating by eliminating most foods from their diet often don’t socialize. They may take up running and other solitary types of workouts, such as running, but keep themselves separated from a workout community, like we have here. Remember, it’s a compulsion and people tend to shun socialization. In fact, one study found that exercising can be beneficial to help prevent eating disorders and overcome them.

Exercise provides other benefits than just weight loss and strong muscles.

Exercise boosts self-image and can help lift depression. One study at the University of Florida shows that it actually might be beneficial for those at risk of eating disorders. For years, doctors felt that exercise could be harmful, but in many cases, it’s quite the opposite. According to the study, which used 539 students of average weight, the psychological effects of working out actually helped prevent eating disorders and could be part of the treatment.

– Whether it’s eating healthy or working out, anything can be taken to extremes.

– When you work with a personal trainer, the trainer can help provide you with a healthy workout schedule and identify the physical symptoms of over-exercising.

– If you’ve suffered from anorexia or any other eating disorder in the past, let your trainer know before he or she creates your workout. Group workouts, strength training and yoga can be far more beneficial than solitary exercising, such as running.

– If you’ve had eating disorders in the past, watch for the signs of compulsion when you start a workout program. Working out when ill, starving yourself on days you don’t workout, increasing your workout time continually and frequent injuries should alert you to the potential of a problem.

Back to school health starts with getting everyone back on the school schedule for sleeping, waking and meals. It’s insuring that all immunizations are all up-to-date and if physicals are necessary, they’re completed. It means the active times of summer are finished and it’s time to sit focused in the classroom. Whether you’re a working parent or a stay-at-home one, it can all add up to extra work and planning to insure the good health of all family members, including parents.

Planning is important.

Insuring adequate sleep and good nutrition is of primary importance. The first comes with adjusting sleep schedules. About two weeks before school starts, it’s time to start setting bedtime earlier by increments for everyone whose schedule is changing. If going to school means rising two hours earlier, adjusting bedtime a half hour every three or four days and getting up earlier will help reset the internal clock. Stick with the same schedule on weekends, just as you should throughout the year. It helps stabilize the Circadian rhythm.

Check the school lunch program.

Even though there are many changes to make school lunches healthier, it’s hard to standardize requirements when one child may be the perfect weight at 70 pounds, while another is just right at 120. Each one requiring a different amount of nutrients and calories. Some programs use prepackaged foods with lots of processing and additives. You can check the menu and supplement with nutritious snacks for mid morning and have snacks ready in the refrigerator for after school.

Make sure the kids get physical.

Going from an active summer lifestyle to all day in the classroom decreases the amount of exercise each week. Create activities for the family on weekends that increase the time, whether it’s going for a walk, riding bikes together or shooting hoops in the driveway. Check for after school activities to help burn off the pent up energy and stress from the school day. It might not seem like it, but school can be stressful no matter what the child’s age. Create a chore list that requires physical exertion on the child’s part, whether raking the lawn or sweeping the floors, every little bit counts.

– Get the kids to help you make snacks and meals. It helps them learn how to choose food wisely, encourages healthy eating and can be fun.

– Get up earlier in the morning and walk your children to school, if possible. Both you and your kids will benefit from the extra exercise. It helps boost the brain power for the day.

– Limit online and TV time. Computer games may be fun, but they aren’t developing a healthier child.

– Reinforce the rules of healthy hygiene, such as emphasizing washing hands after using the bathroom.

You’ll often read about a single discovery that suddenly makes everyone switch to the next super food or condemn a specific food. Fat is one of that received the most condemnation. Everyone suddenly got on the “eliminate fat train” and forgot that healthy slimming fat is part of the group. In order to understand the condemnation of fat and why some is good, you have to know there are all types of fat.

Saturated fat versus unsaturated fat in the war for good health.

The two main categories of fat include saturated and unsaturated. Within those groups, there are even further divisions. Unsaturated fat tends to be the heroes of good health with the saturated fats playing the foes. Unsaturated fat includes Omega3 fatty acids, which are the true heroes of healthy eating. It’s a poly unsaturated fat. The best way to get this is eating fatty fish, such as salmon, but you can also get it from flaxseed and walnuts. Monounsaturated fight right along with the polyunsaturated fats to help you keep healthier and are in foods like olive oil, cashew, avocados and pumpkin seeds. Bad fats, such as transfat and some saturated fats definitely aren’t your friend. The worst of the worst is artificial trans fats that were popular because human engineering gave them a longer shelf life.

When you eat healthy fat, it actually helps you lose weight in a number of ways.

While a diet solely of healthy fats, such as cashews and avocados, would be disastrous and leave you malnourished, mixing in healthy fat with your diet can help you shed those extra pounds. Healthy fat leaves you feeling full, but doesn’t add all the calories that it would take for carbohydrates to leave you feeling satiated. It also doesn’t raise the insulin levels.

Your body can burn fat more efficiently when you have healthy fat available.

A diet lower in fat reduces the production of the hormones adipokines. One of those, adiponectin, helps your body metabolize fat and increases the rate that it breaks down fat. Since the goal is to burn fat, you want to maintain higher levels. A low or no fat diet lowers the level, making it harder to shed those extra pounds. In fact, one study shows that a low or no fat diet actually made people fatter.

– A diet that has adequate monounsaturated fat can actually lower the potential for fat building in the abdominal area and help eliminate belly fat.

– Healthy fat is not only good for weight loss, it’s brain healthy too. Many sources of healthy fat also are nutrient rich, making it a healthy option for all parts of the body.

– You’ll get a boost of energy without all the extra calories from healthy foods that are sources of good fat.

– A study from the British Journal of Nutrition published in 2009 found that people who had the highest consumption of unsaturated fatty acid also had lower BMIs. They had limited belly fat too.