That's Fit

Oh the good 'ol days when lunchtime was for nothing but eating, visiting with friends, and relaxing. When is the last time you did nothing but eat on your lunch break? We're a society of stressed-out, always-busy, multi-tasking maniacs most of the time, which of course sets us up for snarfing down fattening convenience foods from fast food joints and vending machines in an effort to save time. Not good. Not good at all.

Life is about more than just how much you accomplish each day and although being as productive as possible is not a bad thing, there's definitely something to be said for slowing down to smell the roses. Here's some good advice on how to make the most of your lunch break:

Get outside Depending on where you work, you're probably cooped up indoors in the same place for most of the day, so get outside and breath some fresh air to recharge your body and your mind.

The research is in on exercise, let's face it. You need to get at least a little moderate exercise every day to protect your health, and it's even better when you can get more than a little. But when? Between work and family obligations and life in general, it's easy to let your workout be put off another day.

Recently, I was reading an article about time management,and it suggested making a "not-to-do" list. When your schedule is rapidly filling up and it's clear that there aren't enough hours in the day, start bailing out your sinking ship by eliminating tasks that don't have to be done that day. Just make sure that exercise rarely, if ever, gets put on that not-to-do list. Not only will you make more time for yourself and for exercise, you may just find your stress levels improving as well.

Feel like you have no time to be healthy? Who doesn't! But the truth is everybody has time. Really. There are all kinds of healthy things you can do that take less than 1 minute out of your day. Now if you're serious about being healthier then there's no way you can't find 1 minute, just 60 seconds, to put towards that effort. Nobody is even asking you to find ten 1 minute segments all stuck together -- just ONE minute at a time. So try these ideas, and then start personalizing and adding in some of your own.

1 minute ways to start being healthier right now, today:

Gallery: 1 minute ways to get healthier TODAY

Read sunscreen labels = Better SPF protection

Being busy with work and coming home stressed out and exhausted is a vicious circle that is not only hard on your health by raising stress hormones, blood pressure, and even interfering with sleep, but it can leave you too tired and pressed for time to fit a workout in -- which only makes things worse and perpetuates the problem. There are many ways to deal (like making sure you get enough sleep and make exercise a priority) but being more productive at work can help at a grassroots level. If you get more done while you're on the job you'll be less stressed, work less overtime, and feel more satisfied.

So on that note, Pick The Brain suggests maximizing your productivity by setting up "Project Kill Days," which can as much as triple how much you get done. Project Kill Days are a great way to shorten up To Do lists and de-stress either before taking time off or after coming back and finding your desk piled with projects. Some of the tips they have for tripling your productivity include:

One of the most common excuses for not exercising is a lack of time. We've all been there: It's a busy world filled with busy lives and sometimes the last thing you want to do with your spare time is spend it at the gym. But it's so important -- your health is at stake.

So if you need some inspiration for finding time to exercise, take advice from some of Hollywood's biggest (and busiest) celebrities. They have a number of useful tips, including:

• Get up early -- Rebecca Romijn
• Make time for yoga every day -- Minnie Driver
• Do what you can and don't beat yourself up if you don't make it to the gym -- Meredith Vieira
• Have an exercise machine in your office -- Courteney Cox

How do you fit in time for exercise?

I'm sure there are a few out there that aren't, but most jobs for most people are absolutely full to the max in the way of things to do and general responsibilities. How many of us get to say "I wish I had more to do..." in the middle of the afternoon? It's more like "What?!? It's what time already!?" followed by some discreetly done internal freaking out and a trip to the coffee machine.

This inevitably leads to working late hours, which in turn takes time from home, family, and personal obligations. All this causes generalized stress, which we all know contributes to countless health issues. It's why so many of us relate so well to the phrase "not enough hours in the day."

Do you find yourself being scatterbrained or not being able to keep your home and work lives in order due to being overwhelmed on a regular basis?

If so, there are proactive steps you need to take to get that part of your brain working for you instead of against you. While every person is "wired" differently, that does not mean areas cannot be improved upon. We all have areas we are weak in -- but the difference is in those folks who actively attack those weaknesses with actions that can alleviate the weakness.

So, with a limited amount of time and tons of responsibilities, what can we all do to ensure everything gets done? Here are a few tips that may set you on the road to being a skilled "get things done" person as well as a good time manager.

I am a stressed out person. Some say workaholic, others just say crazy, but amidst the parenting, working, parenting, working, working, working and working I seem to be doing lately, there's never time for anything else.

Or when there is, I'm so exhausted that I'm having trouble getting out of it what I'd like to.

For instance, this whole jogging business. Let's call a spade a spade: I started running because I was worried I was getting fat, and I thought this might help temper my expanding waistline. Any additional health benefits seemed great, sure, but I was driven by fear. The fact that I actually started to enjoy my nightly fitness vigil was both ancillary and a surprise.

But being busy is such a common complaint that mentioning it is a tired cliche -- it'd be news if somebody wasn't overworked and frazzled all the time.

So maybe problem is that there are other fears that can be far more immediate. Deadlines, forgetting to pack a snack for my daughter after daycare, rent, eating, showering (or, indeed, not showering) -- the list goes on, continuing more or less in that order. When the fears have subsided, when I've made headway on the pile of stuff, when I've finally found a moment to myself with my head clear and my spirits lifted, all I want to do is sit still, and do nothing.

I'm not sure what needs to change. Do I just have crappy time management skills? Plenty of people in the world take on more than this and do just fine. Or am I experiencing an extreme malfunction in the priority department? How old do I have to get (I'm 24) before my perspective starts to change -- just like everyone says it will -- and I start to regret not staying in better shape while I was younger?

In response: this week, a very unpractical experiment. I'll run when it strikes me. Like now, in the middle of writing this post, thinking about how much I wish I'd ran this week so I had something more interesting to write about.

OK, I'm leaving...

(And I'll be back next Tuesday with the results.)