This column is for
everyone who hates to exercise, or would like to
exercise, sort of, but really, truly, deeply
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 now 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.
Two weeks ago,
federal health officials upped the ante, issuing
tougher, new 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 two 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 does
sound daunting. But here’s how 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,
a non-profit 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.”
Okay, the time
issue. You probably have more than you think: 24
hours a day, like everybody else.
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, MA who chaired a committee convened by
the National Research Council, part of the National
Academy of Sciences, 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 absolutely
can’t give up TV time, turn it to your advantage.
Get up and walk during the commercials. Get a
treadmill or exercise bike (used ones can be fine)
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.
There are other easy
steps, too. 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 earlier 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. Kids love those elastic
resistance bands for building strength, she said. Or
create a “walking schoolbus” whereby you walk your
kids (and your neighbors’) to and from school when
the weather’s decent.
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, don’t despair. You may feel tired
at first and only be able to walk a few blocks. But
if you 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 briskly, 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.
If you’re out of shape and overweight, “the actual
amount of calories you burn won’t be huge until you
get better trained,” he said.
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 fellowship at the
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana, CA.
Sallis “prescribes” exercise for all his patients
“except for those I’m admitting to the ICU,” or
intensive care unit in a hospital.
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 just start. Then keep going.
Judy Foreman’s
column appears every other week. Past columns are
available on
www.myhealthsense.com
