You wake up at around seven. Eat breakfast and take a shower. Take the car out and drive to the office. Arrive five minutes before nine and go home a quarter to nine in the evening. You eat and catch a movie halfway on cable TV. Then you go back to sleep.

The above mentioned routine could earn you this much money by the end of the month, but the lack of exercise takes away a lot more than you can imagine. Calories turn to pounds and slowly add up. Before you know it, you’re an overweight executive that gets tired with just short walks, and constantly purchasing new pants and clothes, or constantly thinking of getting a medical procedure just to get things done in no time.

While medical procedures do tend to shape you up, they can be expensive. And while there are surgical services that provide excellent results for a more reasonable price, the question of money is irrelevant to those who just cannot get themselves anywhere near a syringe, let a lone an operating room. And with the number of practicing medical professionals calling themselves surgeons despite the lack of board accreditation, safety will always be a concern, unless you know which surgery centers or doctors to approach.

Losing weight the natural way is the best method to get effective results without a list of concerns plaguing you. And the best way to do this is to make exercise a part of your daily routine. It’s not committing yourself to joining a gym. It’s simply creating a fitness program that you follow everyday. Here are some easy to follow and easy to add routines to maximize time and minimize your weight.

Leg Raises/Cycles

After waking up, don’t get out of bed just yet. Perform about 20-30 leg raises or leg cycles give your abdominals a good burn. Most men’s problem area are their stomachs. Doing this won’t give you Brad Pitt abs overnight, but it can manage your belly in such a way that you’re preparing it for further exercises like crunches.

Staircases

If you have a nifty staircase at your home, about 10 – 15 steps, try going up and down five to ten times. Make sure you’re not doing this while you’re still sleepy though. This exercise is perfect since you don’t need to slip into your training shoes. You can stop when you feel that you’ve had enough, and you don’t mind breaking a sweat because you’ll be taking a bath shortly anyway.

If your house doesn’t have a staircase, try the ones in your office building. Simply go down two to five floors from your destination and take the stairs up.  Or, more simply, take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Stationary Jog

This is best done when wearing running shoes and with a nearby wall clock. If you live in an apartment building and jogging outside is not an option, this can do wonders. Do this for around five minutes. Rest for 2 minutes, then repeat another five minutes of stationary jogging.

Inclined push-ups


Unlike your regular push-ups where you make use of your arms to lift most of your body weight, inclined push-ups make you lift only a fraction of your body weight. By making use of a certain angle, stress and effort is reduced. This means you can do more repetitions and build strength. Its also more advisable for overweight people. You can also do this on your knees to further reduce stress.

The extra walk

There are times when you can afford the extra time to walk. For example, you have everyday dates with rushour. Instead of taking the elevator down to the parking levels, why not go down the stairs (as mentioned earlier)? If it’s parked on the other side of the building, go the long way around.

For ladies, you can bring sneakers that you can change into after work to maximize this window of opportunity.

Light weights


If watching television is something you can’t remove from your schedule, why not make the best of it? Purchase two very light dumbbells and simply do lifts while watching. They won’t cause enough strain to tire you, and you’ll still enjoy your shows. Lifting light weights might not give you perfect biceps, but they can tone your arms and reduce pre-existing flabs.

D-I-Y Program


If you want to do more than just tone your body, or if your work schedule prevents you from performing regular exercises (read: night shift), might as well do a little research and creat your own workout program.

You can do this by consulting the Internet or other related literature. Exercise books might not be the way to go since you are indeed lacking time.

The best way is to find routines online. YouTube is filled with videos you can use as reference. And with a visible example of how to do so, you save yourself the time by doing the exercises correctly. Plus, you can also see the feedback and judge if the workout is effective or not. And while you’re on the Internet, might as well consult other websites that discuss diet tips and the such.

Click here to use a workout calculator

Join the after-work club

Co-workers planning to do some after-office sports isn’t really unheard of anymore. In fact, one might say that it’s showing the beginnings of a corporate trend. Why not take advantage of this, and join the weekly office badminton game, or the two hours of basketball every Sunday morning? These activities are planned not just for fun or team building (which they are, by the way), but to solve the problem you, and your officemates, had to begin with: finding the time to break a sweat during the busy week.