By Judy Foreman
This story is for everyone who hates to exercise, or would like to exercise, sort of, but believes they don't have enough time or just can't do it.
First, if you're in this category, take heart: You're not alone. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, according to government figures, and more than half do not get enough physical activity -- and that's according to the old, wimpier guidelines.
Recently, federal health officials upped the ante, issuing tougher exercise standards as part of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005. Like the old guidelines, the new ones recommend at least 30 minutes of moderate activity on most days of the week. This figure is based on solid science and translates to walking 2 miles in 30 minutes, or the equivalent.
This will not make you buff and beautiful. But it will reduce your risk of high blood pressure, stroke, coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, colon cancer and osteoporosis.
Now -- and here's the tough part -- the new guidelines also say it may take an additional 30 minutes a day, for a total of 60, to prevent weight gain. And another 30 -- 90 minutes in all -- to sustain weight loss in previously overweight or obese people.
Granted, that sounds daunting. But there are ways to make it less so.
For openers, the 60-minute recommendation is not absolute and is not based on as much data as the 30-minute recommendation for general health or the 90-minute advice to prevent weight regain, said Steve Blair, president and CEO of the Cooper Institute in Dallas, Texas, a nonprofit exercise research organization.
While some people may need 60 minutes a day to prevent weight gain, he said, others may hold the line with 40 and others may need more than 60.
"It's not a flat 60 minutes for everybody," explained Russell Pate, an exercise physiologist at the University of South Carolina and a member of the committee that advised the government on the new recommendations. "There is a wide range of activity levels that different people need to prevent weight gain."
And you probably have more time than you think.
The problem is that while "people's leisure time has increased, most of that goes into watching television," said Susan Hanson, a geographer at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., who chaired a national committee convened to study how the "built" environment affects physical activity. Studies reviewed by her committee show that the average American watches TV for three hours a day.
So, one obvious step is to skip 30 to 60 minutes of TV and walk instead -- around the house, in the mall, outside, wherever. Get a pedometer (they're cheap -- $15 and up) and see how many steps you take on an average day. If it's 3,000, try to make it 4,000. If it's 4,000, try to make it 5,000. At 10,000 a day, you'll be close to the basic guideline.
If you can't give up TV, turn it to your advantage. Get up and walk during the commercials. Get a treadmill or exercise bike and work out while you watch.
Buy light weights to lift as you watch your favorite shows. (They're roughly $3.50 for a 5-pound dumbbell and $24 for a 10-pound ankle weight.) The best use of a weight "is to throw it through the front of the TV," joked Dr. Christopher B. Cooper, an exercise physiologist and professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Used as intended, weights can build muscle mass. This doesn't directly boost cardiovascular health, but every pound of muscle burns roughly 280 calories a week because muscle is metabolically active 24/7, not just while you're pumping iron. A pound of fat, Cooper noted, burns less than 20.
If your goal is 60 minutes of exercise a day, break it into six 10-minute bouts. Take a walking break from the computer every hour. Get off the bus a few stops early and walk the rest of the way. Go for a walking meeting with your boss.
If child care is your excuse, exercise with the kids, said Johanna Hoffman, an exercise physiologist at Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center, Lutherville, Md. Children love those elastic resistance bands that help build strength, she said. Or create a "walking school bus," walking your kids (and your neighbors') to and from school when the weather is reasonable.
If you've failed at exercising on your own, get a buddy and commit to walking or working out together.
If lack of energy is your problem, stick with it. You'll find that exercise actually gives you energy.
Too much housework? Give yourself some credits for vacuuming, raking leaves, cutting grass, even ironing. These activities probably won't equal walking, but they're better than sitting on the couch.
Finally, recognize that you will have setbacks. Don't let these depress you into giving up. It's a sad fact of life that if you weigh, say 150 pounds, walking a mile in 20 minutes will only burn about 100 calories (probably less than a cookie), said William J. Evans, chief of the nutrition, metabolism and exercise lab at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock. If you're out of shape and overweight, he said, "the actual amount of calories you burn won't be huge until you get better trained."
But, except for "the sickest of the sick," it pays to start, even for people with severe heart failure, said Dr. Robert Sallis, a sports medicine expert at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana, Calif. Sallis "prescribes" exercise for all his patients, "except for those I'm admitting" to the hospital's intensive-care unit.
Start off by just doing as much as you can, he said, and by following the "FITT" mnemonic, which stands for "frequency" (preferably, most days a week), "intensity" (hard enough so that you can't sing but you can talk), type (exercise that works major muscles groups like the arms and legs) and time (at least 30 minutes a day).
As with much else in life, the key is to start. Then keep going.
Judy Foreman is an affiliated scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.
© Judy Foreman, 2005. Distributed by Tribune Media Services Inc.
