Wednesday, November 7, 2012

How Much Should You Exercise?



Worried that you are not getting enough exercise?  It might help to know that the minimum amount of exercise according to the Department of Health and Human Services is enough to fit into a busy day.  In addition, you can incorporate some of your everyday activities and chores as exercise to meet these requirements.  Below are the recommendations:

• 150 minutes of aerobic activity or 75 minutes of high impact aerobic activity per week or a combination of both.  Higher impact activities include high impact aerobics and jogging while less intense aerobic exercise might involve walking at a faster pace, swimming or mowing the lawn.  It is recommended that you pace yourself by doing shorter periods that span the course of a week with the goal of meeting the above requirements.

• If you are training for a marathon or exercising with the goal of weight loss, increasing your exercise time to 300 minutes per week will help in meeting these goals.

• If you are extremely busy, which most of us are, aiming for 30 minutes of exercise per day is a realistic goal.  Can’t fit in 30 minutes into one span of time?  Break it up by separating your exercise time into three 10 minute time periods. 

In the winter months, when it isn’t as easy to get outdoors to exercise, consider signing up for a fitness class at a local gym or look for local community wellness activities that involve exercise activities like swing dance, aerobics or tennis.  Also, integrating daily tasks like vacuuming into your exercise requirements will help you stay productive at home, while getting your required exercise time in. 
Finding time to exercise is a great way to promote stress relief and keep your motivation levels high as you get ready to tackle that next homework assignment.

For more information on this topic, visit this link

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