I see lots of people here with exercise minute trackers... Does anyone know where I can find how many minutes someone at a certain, age, weight etc. should exercise? I don't want to overdo/underdo it, kwim???
I don't think you can find a calculator for such things but it is really a personal thing. Although I've read articles recommending everyone, regardless of age, weight, etc should exercise 30-60 minutes per day. If you aren't on an exercise program, I would start slowly, perhaps on a walking routine which is the easiest to do. My goal is an hour every day but sometimes it is less and sometimes it is more.
I average:
5 days high intensity = 60 minutes of cardio + 30 minutes of weights or pilates.
2 days low intensity = 30-60 minutes of toning and/or light cardio.
There is a gal on this forum who is a personal Trainer. Last year she went to a seminar and brught back the tidbit that for optimal weight loss and maintenance you should be doing at least 280 minutes of cardio per week. I can't remember the specifics, if it was a study of poeple who had lost weight or what, but that 280 number has stuck with me. I may not be there yet, but that's my goal. 280 minutes of cardio weekly. This week I should make 106 mins. Baby steps.
Well I workout everyday and I try to put in 1 hour everyday but, my goal is 500 mins that is 8 hours and 20 mins of workouts. When I first started working hout it wasn't no where near that much but, I guess it depends on the person and how much he or she can do. Just as long as you burning calories you is find. If you do weight training you is still burning calories after you are done working out up to 24 hours after done. Like I said, I guess its on the person just get in 30 mins or 60 mins 3 times a week is a start.
280 minutes a week??? I'd like to have some background to that figure. That's 60 minutes 5 days a week. I can hit that some weeks, but not others. I would be very suprised if that's recommended for someone who is morbidly obese, like most of us who started here. If you're out of condition it would be really hard to hit that and not feel completely exhausted. It also doesn't leave much time for other activities like yoga, strength training, core stability and weights - which are all good activites and important for overall health and well being, but not coutned as cardio.
The American College of Sports Medicine conducted an extensive program of research and came up with 20 minutes of aerobic activity 3 times a week. I think that's a really nice amount to aim for, as it's quite achievable, its half a standard length cd!! And then you can build up from there. That's how I started. I do 5 standard gym sessions a week, two or three are pure cardio, two are a mix. I also do core stability on a pure cardio day. And I swim and walk as well. I probably scrape in the 280 minutes!!! But I could not have done that at 262lbs!!!
Kylie - I'm the one who told Sandi about that study - let me give you a bit of background. I attended a personal trainer seminar in NYC last fall. One lecture was titled Exercise vs. Diet: In The Battle For Weight Loss, Is One Better Than The Other? It was presented by Kara Gallagher, Phd, Asst. Professor of Exercise Physiology at the University of Kentucky.
She's the one who talked about the study that Sandi mentioned. It compared four groups of women: diet alone, exercise alone, diet and exercise of 150 minutes/week, and diet and exercise of 280 minutes/week. The exercise was walking on a treadmill. The biggest losers and the ones who kept the weight off the longest were the ones in the 280 minute group. Not very surprising.
But it's important to keep it in perspective -- it wasn't a study on the best way for morbidly obese people to start exercising or anything like that. It was simply a study of what works best for long-term weight loss and maintenance. I agree that 280 minutes would be impossible for most of us just starting out and I would never recommend that to an overweight beginner. And I completely agree that we need to incorporate other kinds of exercise into our programs besides cardio.
On the other hand, I worked my way up to 60 minutes of cardio per day after about a month of weight loss (I was still about 240 pounds) and did an hour every day - 420 minutes per week - for the rest of the year that I was losing. So it's not impossible! (crazy perhaps, but not impossible!)
Another recommendation to keep in mind about 'how much exercise' is the latest US government recommendations for exercise of 60 - 90 minutes on most days for weight loss - Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005.
About ACSM - I had in my notes that ACSM recommends 150 minutes of aerobic exercise a week for weight loss so was surprised by the 20 minutes, three times a week that you cited. I went to the ACSM web site this morning and found:
Quote:
If weight loss is a major goal, participate in your aerobic activity at least 30 minutes for five days every week.
But elsewhere, they seem to endorse a 270 minute figure:
Quote:
Research shows that approximately 4.5 hours of moderate intensity exercise that results in an energy expenditure of at least 2000 calories per week, in combination with reduced energy intake, will produce desirable results. This may not apply to all individuals, and even a three-hour per week exercise regimen may be difficult for some to establish and maintain. The paper recommends gradual progression and behavioral strategies to maintain these levels.
It's safe to say that there are always going to be all sorts of different studies and figures thrown at us about how much to exercise. I think it's great to pick a number, like Sandi did with the 280 minutes, as a goal to shot for. But the bottom line is that exercise has to become an everyday part of our lives and we need to find ways to move our bodies that we enjoy. Our bodies are evolutionarily adapted for lots of exercise!
I just worry with figures like 280 mintues being bandied around without a contextual framework when there are lots of people on 3FC terrified of exercise, and wondering how they are going to do 28 minutes, let along 280. The way it was put in the post, I honestly thought it was a recommedation for the morbidly obese getting started. One way of getting the morbidly obese statistics down
I was one of those terrified of any exercise. Working full time, with at least 3 hours commute a day, it's difficult for me to squish in the exercise, if I had a family I wonder how I would manage it at all. I do get it done, but only with a heck of a lot of planning, and a very tolerant spouse!
I've never had a minute goal, at first my aim was just put my foot in the gym . now I have a goal for each session, which may be time, distance, strength or flexibility, whatever I feel like shooting for at the time.
I think 280 minutes is a decent goal for someone but if someone starting out thinks "wow i'll never make it there" then maybe 280 isn't something to think about. Someone who doesn't ever exercise should think about 10 minutes per day as a goal, then up that to 15 minutes, then keep increasing and soon enough, they can reach 280 minutes. I don't think weight has much to do with how much you can exercise or not but it is other factors such as how out of shape you are and what medical problems you have. I can only speak as someone who weighed 360 lbs, I'm not sure how I'd feel if I had weighed 500 lbs but at 360 I was exercising around 280 minutes a week.
This thread is really interesting. I am one of those people who has never in my life maintained regular exercise. I will do it for a while, and then stop completely. Perhaps it's no surprise I ballooned to 300 pounds.
Back in the fall, I decided it would be important for me to track my exercise by minutes, in an attempt to make it a habit. Over the past 6 months I have gradually increased my exercise and this month I am trying to do 800 minutes total -- cardio, weights, etc. The thought of 280 minutes of cardio a week is overwhelming right now, but then, so were so many of the healthy behaviors I now take for granted.
One other piece of infomation to consider about the study Meg cited. Like all research studies, it is limited by how it manipulated the diet and exercise variable. For instance, the exercise conditions were 150 and 280 minutes of cardio. We know that the 280 group did better than the 150. But would 200 have been okay? Would 280 minutes of combined cardio and weights have been as effective as 280 minutes of cardio alone? What about for men? We don't know. And we cannot extrapolate beyond the conditions they researched. One of the many reasons why it is so important to have the context of the research and evaluate that when making decisions.
I'm not saying we shouldn't all shoot for 280 minutes of cardio a week... I'm just saying that our information is actually quite limited. That's often the way it is in science.
I also wanted to add a personal story that makes me really believe our sedentary lifestyle needs to compensated by regular exercise. I've always been overweight but I've had periods of maintenance with few periods where I'm actually gaining. I started college at 300 lbs, by the end of college, 5 years later, I weighed 330. I didn't have a car until I graduated from college. I didn't eat the healthiest in college but I also didn't eat the worst. I did have a 6 pack/day of coke habit. Not diet, the sugary sugary stuff. I graduated from college, got a car, quit the soda habit (drank only water for a couple month), started trying to improve my diet as I cooked for myself AND gained 30 lbs in 6 months. Despite cutting out approximately 720 calories/day in soda, I gained weight. The biggest difference is I had a car and instead of walking everywhere, I drove.
So 5 years it took me to gain 30 lbs by poor diet decisions but it took me 6 months to gain 30 lbs by cutting out my regular walking.
I think Meg's study shows walking because it is something very natural to us and if we didn't live in our modern age, then it would be nothing for us to get 60 minutes of walking in per day. As we have cars and other forms of transportation, we need to add in exercise. If someone who didn't exercise at all, exercised 30 minutes per week, that'd be a major improvement but I also think they should have a goal to strive to meeting.
Meg!! Thanks so much for clarifying!! I didn't know the details or where to find them. I will link to your post next time I mention 280 minutes.
I don't mind exercise, but I rarely find time. I always make excuses. I know in my head and my heart that this cannot be done without it. Last Tuesday, I promised myself that I would move EVERY day, no excuses. I am taking a 20 min walk every day at a pace that I can handle. I would agree that daily exercise, however many minutes you can handle at whatever pace you can handle is a better goal. Especially for the obese and new exercisers. I didn't mean to imply that you need to exercise 280 minutes to lose weight. Sorry if it came off that way.
But since I tend to get lazy and do only what I have to that 280 minutes is a good thing for me to shoot for. If I can manage 106 minutes at 320 lbs, I would hope that when I weigh 250 or less , I could be doing more. That would be taking a 47 minute walk 6 days a week. That seems totally reasonable and doable for me.
Well I can tell you how the 500 lb person would feel. I could not have done that. Then I can tell you the person with a messed up back I could not have done that. My point is you can lose weight without exercising. That is not what I recommend but it can be done, I am proof of that. Now that my back is fixed and I have the weight off I have no problem walking an hour a day and I have enjoyed doing it. So do what you can for now and as you lose the weight you will find that you feel like doing more. The worst part about not being able to exercise much while I was losing is that I have lost muscle too. So now I am working on getting my strength back. So like I said it's not something I recommend I'm just saying do what you can and focus on getting the weight off first. The exercise will come into place along the way.
Right now this is my exercise plan. If I would have tried this at 490lbs I would have probably caused a heart attack.
60 minutes walking 6x weekly.
Back exercises and stretches. 6x weekly.
Low impact weights 6x weekly. I can only lift 20 lbs until ok'd from the doctor.
I think for cardio if you work out for less than 30 minutes at a time, you aren't doing your body much good. It takes 20 minutes to even get into the fat burning zone, to get your heart rate up to where it needs to be and to get some of the glycogen out of your blood so that you start to burn the fat.
I think 30 minutes twice a day is probably better than 60 minutes at a time, but I'm not certain of that.
There is lots of wonderful insight in this thread. I'm going to go simpler yet. Remember that Meg said "I worked my way up to 60 minutes of cardio per day" and Howie said "I could not have done that" (referring to the 280 minutes I think)
How much can you do? When I first tried our old manual rowing machine, I mastered 7 minutes. Now I can do 30 easily. Whatever you can do ... do a little more.
So, how many minutes should you exercise?
, I could be doing more. That would be taking a 47 minute walk 6 days a week. That seems totally reasonable and doable for me. 
