Each day, you get up and do fifteen minutes of intense exercise. You go about your day feeling pretty good about yourself, knowing that you are doing what you need to do to ensure your continued good health. How disappointed and surprised will you be to learn that the fifteen minutes that you spend exercising each day isn’t doing you a bit of good?
What the Experts Say about How Long You Should Exercise
You can toss those eight minute miracle exercise programs. Medical research and science have proven that anything less than thirty minutes of exercise is essentially fruitless. You may get out of breath. You may sweat. You may feel like you’ve done some good – but in the end you haven’t. It is, however, better than doing nothing at all – you just aren’t getting the health benefits that you need from that small amount of exercise.
Understanding the 30-60-90 Rule
The 30-60-90 rule was established in 2005 by the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Based on this rule, if you are of average or normal body weight, you need thirty minutes of exercise each day. If you need to lose a bit of weight, you need sixty minutes of physical exercise, and if you’ve lost a great amount of weight, and want to maintain that loss, you need ninety minutes of physical exercise each day.
How to Get the Amount of Exercise You Need
First it is important to realize that the more muscle you build, the more calories you will burn. For each gram of muscle that you have, you burn ninety calories per hour – doing absolutely nothing at all. Of course, when you have more muscle and toss exercise in for good measure, you will realize even more health benefits.
Many people avoid exercise because they don’t have time to go to the gym or to a class each day, or even a couple of times a week. It doesn’t have to be this difficult to get the amount of exercise that you need. Take a look at your daily activities, and see what can be turned into beneficial exercise. For example, if you spend all day on your feet, make it a point to shift your weight from foot to foot, swinging your hips in the process, to turn this into a small bit of exercise.
Use time spent with family and friends to exercise. Instead of lounging in front of the television, take a walk together. You might also consider biking, bowling, miniature golf, or anything else that gets you on your feet and moving – and when you are on your feet, put a little kick in it to turn it into beneficial exercise.