{"id":201563,"date":"2025-09-05T06:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T06:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201563\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T06:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T06:07:11","slug":"why-10-minutes-a-day-is-all-you-need-for-my-september-fitness-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201563\/","title":{"rendered":"Why 10 minutes a day is all you need for my September fitness challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 11am, the day before kids return to primary school. Derval O\u2019Rourke is back from a summer in West Cork with her family, and straight into interviews, corporate work, and prepping for nine straight days of reporting live on the RT\u00c9 for the World Athletics Championships.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But you wouldn\u2019t know it to look at her \u2014 on our Zoom call, she looks refreshed, calm, and is raring to go.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because, for the first time in a long time, she took the summer off to spend time with her family and enjoy a break from work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it made a difference to the kids, but I know it definitely made a difference to me. I really enjoy being with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t share a lot about her children (10-year-old Dafne and six-year-old Archie) on social media, so her followers don\u2019t get to see all the things they do as a family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had lovely days at the beach, swimming in the sea, counting jellyfish, and having adventures, simple things that I get so much enjoyment from,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\"DervalDerval O\u2019Rourke is refreshed, calm, and raring to go. Picture: Chani Anderson<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke also took a trip up to Dublin with her daughter for the Oasis gig in Croke Park, \u201cYeah, I was one of those people,\u201d she laughs. And she had some famous visitors too, like Sonia O\u2019Sullivan, who spent a few days with O\u2019Rourke and her family in West Cork.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day, Sonia swam 2km around Hare Island. I\u2019m not a confident swimmer, so I paddleboarded beside her. I didn\u2019t want anything to happen to her on my watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just because she wasn\u2019t working during the summer doesn\u2019t mean O\u2019Rourke signed off on everything. She maintained her fitness routine, adapting it to her West Cork base.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to do something every day wherever I am. It could go from lifting heavy weights in the gym to walking the dog in the woods.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pauses and flips the camera on her dog, panned out on the floor following a morning walk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, I\u2019ll go to the gym maybe two or three times a week, whether it\u2019s summer or not. But the thing is, I want to go to the gym, exercise is a real lifestyle thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exercise for you<\/p>\n

\"DervalDerval O\u2019Rourke: ‘Exercise is a real lifestyle thing for me.’ Picture: Chani Anderson<\/p>\n

As you would imagine of an Olympic athlete, she has a positive relationship with exercise. \u201cI love movement. I love walking. I\u2019m not great at jogging, so going for a jog is not my favourite thing to do, but I still know I need to do a certain amount of it for my heart health and cardio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely love weightlifting. Because of my background, I\u2019ve never looked at exercise as drudgery or punishment \u2014 I need to go to the gym, the gym for me is like self-care.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a well-known voice of reason when it comes to fitness, O\u2019Rourke says she\u2019s getting a lot of messages from women saying they need to get back to a routine now as they \u201clet stuff go during the summer\u201d. But it shouldn\u2019t be about beating yourself up, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo the exercise because it\u2019s good for you and it makes you feel good afterwards, and not because you feel bad because you didn\u2019t do what you wanted to during the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

She takes that pragmatic attitude into her nutrition, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn holidays, I want to exercise but I also want to go for lunch and have lots of bread, a big salad, and a big glass of wine,\u201d she says, smiling.<\/p>\n

After retiring from athletics and years of eating a certain way to ensure she was at peak performance, she did a cookery course at Dublin School of Cookery in a bid to get \u201ca bit of joy back into food\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI now have a rough idea of what I need to be eating to feel well, and I also know what I need to eat to be joyful and happy. And a lot of the time that\u2019s like a lovely bit of blue cheese and some crackers and a glass of wine, but it\u2019s not every day. It\u2019s all about balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though she says she\u2019s conscious as she gets older that she needs to maintain muscle, she prioritises enjoying her food, saying, \u201cI\u2019m not going to eat plain chicken fillets\u201d. She\u2019ll refer to her cooking training and figure out a way to elevate the flavour of that chicken fillet. \u201cI think food is one of those ways in which we can mind ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perfect doesn\u2019t exist<\/p>\n

\"DervalDerval O\u2019Rourke: ‘I\u2019ve never looked at exercise as drudgery or punishment \u2014 I need to go to the gym, the gym for me is like self-care.’ Picture: Chani Anderson<\/p>\n

For busy parents, O\u2019Rourke knows all too well the pressures of meal times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have two really fussy kids,\u201d she says, rolling her eyes. \u201cI make these lovely dinners, but they won\u2019t touch them, so they end up eating very plain food. And I know people beat themselves up about what their kids eat or don\u2019t eat. They feel guilty, and they feel bad, and they think they need to be doing everything perfectly. But perfect doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of focusing on one meal at a time, she suggests looking at the whole week and seeing how much variety you can get into their meals over the seven days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many different meals getting cooked here. The kids reject them all the time, but they\u2019re always being exposed to stuff. And some days they surprise you, and eat something you didn\u2019t think they would.\u201d<\/p>\n

When trying to structure the week\u2019s meals, she starts with the protein, then the veg, and then the carbs. \u201cAnd I nearly always give them something that\u2019s a winner ingredient, like fried potatoes. I\u2019m not going to give them three things that they don\u2019t really like and torture them, because what\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/p>\n

She is also a big believer in batch cooking, and can often be found making a huge batch of spaghetti bolognese \u201cas if I\u2019m feeding 100 kids\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me feel really good to know that in the freezer there\u2019s X amount of a dinner I know they will eat, all portioned up and ready to go. It makes life that bit easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DervalDerval O\u2019Rourke was keen to develop the upcoming four-week September Reset programme for Feelgood, starting on September 12. Picture: Chani Anderson<\/p>\n

Making life easier is a big thing for O\u2019Rourke, both in terms of food and exercise. That\u2019s why she was so keen to develop the upcoming four-week September Reset programme for Feelgood, starting on September 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s always about making it easy for people to do something. I know everyone\u2019s under a little bit of pressure, going back to the madness, so this is about giving them something they can do at home for 10 minutes every day. Exercise and movement should be accessible. This four-week programme shouldn\u2019t feel difficult to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke explains that each exercise has options to make it easier or harder, depending on the person\u2019s level. The programme has two full-body sessions: one focusing on arms and abs, and another on legs and abs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is that those who are following along will repeat the sessions a few times in the week. And then by the end of the four weeks, they can stack the sessions on top of each other; if they do 10 minutes on arms, then they might do 10 minutes on legs, so that they get confident from doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very accessible, and I hope it\u2019s enjoyable for people to follow along with me. I hope people feel encouraged and good after it, and they feel proud of themselves for doing something. Because it\u2019s not easy to start moving when you haven\u2019t been moving in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n