About Her Lifestyle

Most adults and children do not get enough exercise for a variety of reasons, including lack of time and opportunity, the expense associated with memberships in exercise facilities, lack of neighborhood safety, transportation issues, the fact that we have engineered exercise out of society (cars, elevators, etc.), and many more. This is despite the fact that most of us know that regular physical activity can reduce the risk of or help improve a variety of conditions including but not limited to: obesity, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, bone health, certain types of cancer, psychological health and well being, cognitive function, and quality of life.

The current U.S. Physical Activity guidelines recommend 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous intensity aerobic physical activity. In addition, muscle strengthening activities that involve all major muscle groups are suggested to be performed on 2 or more days per week.

Sounds great, but who has time for that? It really is a challenge to find the time to incorporate all of this physical activity into one’s dayand for many individuals, the typical 30-60 minute a day workout does not fit into their schedule.
The good news is that recent research indicates that you can receive similar benefits by breaking up your activity into shorter segments. For example, instead of a 30 minute exercise session you can perform 2 fifteen or 3 ten minute walks throughout the day. You can build the walks into your schedule. For example, park 10 to 15 minutes away from the office (this will give you 20-30 minutes of walking per day), use part of your lunch hour to walk, take the stairs instead of the elevator, etc. You can probably think of many other ways to incorporate activity into your day.

One caveat, recent research has indicated that higher intensity exercise (this is relative to each persons’ individual capability) may have greater health benefits than lower intensity exercise. You should try and perform higher intensity exercise 2 to 3 times per week if possible (make sure you alternate days of high and low/moderate intensity exercise so that you can recover adequately to avoid overuse injury).