Pencil it in! Exercise is something that should be done like brushing our teeth. No need to be reminded. It’s already on our schedules. To help set our schedule, we’re talking about exercise recommendation. It’s important to know how much physical activity we should be getting throughout the day and week to structure our goals and our schedules.
Imagine this, you walk into your local gym to start your first workout. You have a specific goal in mind and want to start using the free weights. You move to the weights section and there is an enormous guy who must have been born a body builder. He’s right in the middle of the equipment you want to use. You immediately get intimidated because you are far from where Mr. Weight Lifter is in his exercise journey. As a result, you decide it’s not worth going back because you’ll never be that strong or that built or that dedicated. The good news is that, that is ay okay. Everyone is different.
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week. This can be whatever you want it to be. If you’re Mr. Weight Lifter, that’s great. Keep doing you. Lifting weights is a wonderful form of physical activity for reason’s we’ll talk about one of these days. But if that isn’t what motivates you to move, then that’s not what you’re going to do. You have to find what activity brings you joy and motivation to move. That can be walking your dog, rocking climbing, yoga, cycling, hiking or anything else you want.
It also can be any time frame you want. Three 10-minute walks throughout the day, bike rides to and from work that total 30 minutes, 1 hours of swimming at the beach. The list goes on and on. You get to decide and determine what fits YOUR life.
Now, let’s turn this into action. As we all know, actions speak louder than words. So how are we going to make a change to exercise more? The trick here is to make a goal that is achievable and not overwhelming. For example, I will take a 30-minute walk after dinner three times this week. I know what you’re thinking. 30 minutes x three times per week does not equal 150 minutes of the recommended amount. That’s okay! Eventually this can be progressed but for now we’re going to take it slow. Just to get the wheels turning. Once we have reached this goal consistently we can make another goal.
Any exercise is better than no exercise. So go ahead, make your commitments to physical activity. These should last several weeks before we move forward to a new goal. So let’s get moving!
Get pedaling,
Cara
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