Life is busy.

For all the same reasons you probably don’t think you’ve got time to learn a second language you may also think you haven’t got the time to spend hours every week getting fit and healthy. Now while I think most people do have some things that can prioritize around and cut from their schedule, I’m not going to say it’s as simple as cutting out TV time. Most people are genuinely busy and that can make fitting in a workout difficult.

Thankfully there are some ways that you can make it work and at least fit something in without having to sacrifice anything from your schedule.

Sometimes you just hit a wall in your progress.

It happens to everyone – it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been training, how well constructed your program is, how perfect your diet, sleep patterns and recovery are – at some point you’re going to plateau. Often times it’s extremely frustrating because it feels like you’re doing everything right, but you still can’t make any progress.

The natural response for most people is to try to power through it. They up the intensity, super fine tune their diet, obsess over every little thing and about kill themselves to push as hard as they possibly can in each workout. The problem is this is the wrong response. So how do we get back to progressing?

Simple. Take a break.

There are some days when getting yourself to the gym is a huge struggle. It’s understandable, sometimes you’re really just not feeling it. The worst part is then you feel like crap the next day because you’re full of regret for skipping a lifting day.

Rather than let that get you down, why not take 5 minutes every morning to run through a light workout? Sure, it’s no replacement for heavy lifting, but putting in 5 minutes every morning will ensure that even on days when you skip your regularly scheduled workout you’ll still have done something.

With Thanksgiving day right around the corner a lot of people’s thoughts are inevitably turning to food, feasting and fat. Whether you’ve been struggling with weight loss for a while or are already fit and dreading the extra fat you expect to be saddled with, Thanksgiving Day generally marks the start of a holiday season characterized by complete dietary hedonism followed by shame fueled resolution making on January 1st.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Here are some things you can do before, on and after Thanksgiving day to mitigate the damage.

There’s something you’re doing that’s making your life shorter. This is something that most of our U.S. readers do on average for at least 11 hours each day. It’s even something that I would bet you’re probably doing right now as you read this. Ready for the big revelation? Are you sitting down? Well then stand back up because that’s what’s killing you – sitting.

Yes, you heard me right. The more you sit in a day the sooner you are likely to die.