Life can be busy when you’re actively trying to make a difference in the world and pursuing what you’re passionate about. We can easily burn ourselves out by trying to do the basics. So, that leaves a challenging question: how do we stay in shape when life is busy?

Trying to find the right answer to this question has been a struggle of mine for the past few years. Being a traveling musician, business owner, podcast host, worship leader, family member, and friend (all at once) makes me wish there could be 48 hours to each day… but as we all know, that’s not happening any time soon.

Despite how I feel about my busy schedule, I truly believe it is possible to stay in shape. I’m not lying y’all: it is! So, here are 5 tips I use to stay in shape while living a busy life and keeping up with a demanding schedule:

(1) Realize with Real Eyes

I’ll start by apologizing for the cheesy, poetic title, but it gets to the point better than anything else I could think of. We have got to take the time to realize what our priorities are. It sounds simple, but many of us can get so overwhelmed by the urgency of others demanding our attention throughout our day that we forget what is truly important to us. Urgent and important are two different things-

Something urgent screams “I need to be done now”, but isn’t always important to our day’s mission. Like, calling someone back who just left a message or replying to those 5 new text messages. Those things can wait, but yet they can often seem as if they need to be taken care of in the "now."

Important things don’t always scream at us to be done now, like exercising, but if we take a moment to reflect we can say that the 30 minutes we took to reply to our friends via social media would have been better spent at the gym. (Stings doesn’t it? I’m totally guilty of this.)

What I’m saying is this: take the time to realize what is really important to you and plan each day accordingly. If being in shape is important to you, make sure you take the time to fit it in to your schedule. Not because it’s urgent, but because it’s important.

(2) Give Up Sugar

If you know me, you know this has been a hard thing for me to do. Though it’s hard and I do cave every now and then, I can truly say that sugar (or any of its substitutes) is no longer apart of my diet.

Why?

Good question. Well, I’m no doctor, but I do know that if I eat too many carbs (i.e. — actual sugar, potatoes, corn products, rice, etc. All these things process as sugar in our bodies.) my body’s main source of energy will be carbs and when I don’t burn all the carbs I consume, they turn to fat. And unless you and I are pretty serious about fitness, we will most likely not burn all the carbs we eat daily.

But say you and I get smart and cut out a lot of grains, processed foods, and starches? You know, get rid of a lot of those heavy carbs. Our bodies can now burn the fat that is already there and there is no worries about gaining extra fat.

By eating more unprocessed and lean foods, we naturally and healthily begin to trim down (or for some of us maintain our healthy weight) because we're giving our bodies the proper fuel they need to run well. We'll also no longer be dependent on sugar as our main energy source. Being dependent on sugar for energy used to take me on a roller coaster ride throughout the day and usually had me feeling pretty low around 4pm. I am so done with that!

Want some more info about what sugar does to your body? I suggest you read “Top 9 Reasons to Avoid Sugar as if Your Life Depended on it” by Kris Gunnars and “The Real Truth About Sugar” by Sara Gottfried (one of my favs!).

(3) Drinking Tea

What was my bad habit of the past? I would constantly consume food because I wanted something to be doing. I know, I know - not the best thing to be doing! A lot of the foods I’d eat were carb-loaded and went out the window when I made an active effort to give up sugar (tip number 2). Therefore, I had to find a substitute… something I could constantly consume without gaining a bunch of unneeded pounds. What did I find? Tea.

Now, let’s be honest. I used to think tea was useless. It just never did it for my taste buds: its flavor would usually be too faint. I was more like a "hazelnut latte from my local coffee shop" kind of girl.

But, then I woke up and realized the truth.

Not only is tea my foody version of a nicotine patch, it has amazing health benefits! For example, a lot of teas (depending on what you get) have healing properties and antioxidants. I LOVE green tea which really helps me control my blood sugar levels. There's so much to tea-world that I get excited!

Also, it doesn’t hurt to mention that drinking tea all the time keeps me hydrated and craving less carbs. Amen and high-five to that.

(4) Get Active and Keep It Simple

I don’t know about you, but this seems like the hardest thing to do when you’re busy. But, like I said in tip number one, we can make this happen if we prioritize and realize the importance of good health in our lives.

The worst thing we can do is tell ourselves that an activity we're doing doesn’t count because it was too small, not long enough, or not challenging enough. Every bit of activity matters and getting active is mostly a retraining of the brain to see activity as more of an approachable, simple thing to do.

Walking up your stairs 10 times, going for a 10 minute walk before work, riding a bike, running a few miles… it’s all activity! You’ve got to decide what amount and type of activity will work for you. Make sure you’re not too hard on yourself, but not a sloth either. And remember: you will never have time to be active unless you make time to be active. Yes, I called you out. It happened. (insert smiling Martay here)

(5) Ask God for Guidance and a Friend for Accountability

If you don’t ask, you will never receive. Two things that have kept me active and in shape are asking God to help me do it while believing it’s important to Him (1 Cor 6:19-20) and putting myself out there to be held accountable by other active friends.

Doing these things have helped me grow and stay consistent. If we’re real with ourselves, many of us can lose our motivation after a while and end up back where we started. It’s important not only to have the strength of God on your side, but to have someone supporting you and lifting you up. Try it. It works!

The journey to stay in shape is just that: a journey. While I do it I make sure that it doesn’t become an obsession to where it is all I think about. At the end of the day all that matters is living to the best of our ability to please God and glorify Him. I truly believe being in our best, personal shape does just that - but I also believe that we can quickly turn a healthy pursuit of glorifying God by honoring him with our bodies to one that is all about us.

Make sure that you keep the main focus of why you’re staying in shape or getting in shape at the center of all you do. You will find so much joy in it if you do!

Until next time, let me hear what you do to stay in shape in the comments below and stay tuned for our next talk next Tuesday!