How Much Exercise Do You Get?
This news article landed in my inbox shortly after I’d read this very funny post at Shapely Prose, and both got me thinking about exercise.
At Shapely Prose, Kate writes about a recent article asserting that people who are predisposed to being overweight can avoid being overweight by exercising a mere three to four hours a day.
I cannot fucking believe that instead of writing the obvious story — i.e., “people who have this genetic variant would have to do a tremendous, totally unrealistic amount of daily exercise to be thin” — they went with “people who have this genetic variant can be thin if they just work in three to four hours of daily exercise — easy peasy!” Seriously, you guys! It’s not as bad as it sounds! Just break it down to 48 five-minute sessions throughout the day!
The news article is about some new campaigns in California (my very own state) aimed at combating obesity blah blah blah. Here was the part that caught my eye:
One third of the adults interviewed did not exercise moderately or vigorously in the previous seven days.
“That one really surprised me,” said Sue Holtby, senior research scientist at the Public Health Institute… “Our thresholds were pretty low for moderate exercise, but a full one-third of the people we talked to said they didn’t walk anywhere, ride a bike, go swimming … anything. That’s pretty amazing.”
So, this made me wonder. If three to four hours per day is too much, and no exercise at all is too little, where do we all fall? I go to the gym every weekend, at minimum—these days, my workout is one hour of interval training on the elliptical. I also walk about a mile and a half to and from work three days a week. Not a ton of exercise—I would like to exercise more—but I do stick with it. I also occasionally do fun stuff like bike ride or swim.
So how about you? How much do you exercise? What kind of exercise do you do? Do you feel like it’s too much or too little? Does your doctor or an anti-obesity billboard or a partner make you feel guilty about it? Do you love it or hate it? I await your thoughts in the comments!
Posted by mo pie
Email us
I don’t have a car, and I live in a small town in England which is actually walkable. I do the shopping, therefore, I walk a fair deal.
However, I don’t do any sort of regulated exercise-exercise, and I work all day sitting in a chair at a computer, and one of my partners does occasionally get on my case about my ‘sedentary lifestyle’.
Like others have already posted, I walk a lot because I am sans automobile. I just bought a bike, and it is the first time in my life I actually enjoy “exercising.” I used to drag myself to the gym infrequently and feel guilty when I wasn’t in the mood to go. Now I look forward to a long ride on the weekends and my short rides to work and back every day. I don’t know how many hours I spend riding, but I know I usually do about 30 miles a week, possibly more if I have a lot of errands to run.
I run everyday for at least 40 minutes.
I have to, becuase if I don’t, my dog will be intolerable to live with. My girlfriend walks and runs him in the evenings. We have two dogs. One has multiple heart defects, and is very exercise intolerant. The younger dog is only about 8 months old and is practically banging off the walls. The daily exercise means two happy dogs and two exercising humans.
I also do just about all of the housework, so I’m thinking I get weightlifting, stretching and walking on top of the daily runs.
I have noticed something curious, too. When I eat tuna, my run the next day is great.
I grew up going to dance class, which I loved, at least 3-4 times a week, then playing some sports and being a (fat!) cheerleader in high school. But during college, and for a few years after, I was kind of on an anti-exercise kick — I think mostly because I was rebelling against the idea that losing weight was the most worthy goal of all time, and I felt that the only reason people exercised was to lose weight. But then I started out gradually, doing some slow laps in the pool of the apartment complex I was living in, and realized I could just find activities I enjoyed, and really begin to experience life in my body again.
Now I have found that to keep myself feeling good, mostly mentally/emotionally but also physically, I need to exercise for at least 45 mins 4 times a week. Mostly I go walking, but I usually get a good hike in every week or two. For me, I like to combine my exercise time with my social time — often I schedule times with friends where we can go walking/hiking together. It’s really fun, and helps me to fit everything in my schedule. :)
Wow! You all excercise A LOT! I have been with a personal trainer twice a week since Jan 2007. I’ve not lost a pound. I don’t care. In the beginning it was a huge chore, but now I actually look forward to it. Sometimes my husband and I do something that involves walking on the weekend, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes I babysit for my neice and nephew, sometimes I don’t. This is all I am willing to do at this point, and I am happy that I do it.
At the bare minimum, I bike a mile a day to get to and from work and move books around a little bit at work. It’s usually more than that, though, what with visiting friends’ houses, going to classes, going to the store, getting food, etc. I tend not to usually exercise for its own sake very often, but only if there’s some goal to be accomplished.
I have been exercising a lot lately. I go to the gym maybe 3 times a week and I’m starting to run one or two times a week outside. At the gym I do spinning and pilates and the elliptical. I love it.
http://lilasweightlossblog.blogspot.com
These days, I do:
water aerobics: 60 min 1x/week, 45 min 1x/week
Bodyflow (tai chi, yoga, pilates): 45 min 1x/week
Zumba (Latin dance fitness class): 60 min 1x/week
Tennis: 30 min, every other week
… but I just quit my job, I’m about to move across the country, and everything is about to change (no money for the gym, but lots more time). We’ll see what happens in the next couple of months!
I do a little less than an hour every day. I feel really good working my abs, so I have an exhausing routine I do every day that includes a lot of keeping my legs in the air and 10lb ankle weights.
I have a couple of 20lb weights and some rubber tubes with handle things, exercise bands, whatever you want to call them. If you know how to use those and weights at the same time, you can actually do some pretty difficult stuff. Even though the total of the two weights is 40 pounds, the effect of the bands is intense. I go to the gym and I do at least 120lbs on the bicep curl machine. Further enhancement for any kind of free movement: wrist weights, or in my case, I put my ankle weights on my wrists as I’m doing any lifting with my hands. Any exercise you can do with simple hand dumbbells, I do. Then squats, pushups, that kind of thing.
Like I said, less than an hour but I pack it all in there.
Then I walk places, and if I had a job I could bike to, I would.
All this, and I still weigh 250lbs. When I was in community college and spending 1 or even 2 hours 4x/week in the lifetime fitness center, I still never got below 239 pounds. It’s not like it was all weight lifting. I’d always do the mandatory circuit for class creddit and 20 minutes of biking or treadmill. My legs got so strong, near the end of the year, on the hydraulic squat (everything was hydraulic in there. Like that bar that keeps your screen door from slamming? Remember that? The resistance is by something like that, only it can resist a lot of force), I burst open a pair of sweatpants that were baggy when I first started wearing them.
Total weight loss: 10-15 pounds in the course of 9 months.
People who criticize me and others for being heavy-set: deserve to be slapped in the face.
I usually try to do at least 30 minutes a day of dancing to music in the house. Sometimes I can go for an hour without stopping. I do not own a car and I am not in walking distance within a gym. Now that the weather is getting cooler, it’s time to get out and do some walking. I do get in a little bit of walking almost everyday to and from the bus stop, and that walk includes two flights of stairs both down and up and vice versa.
Even if I had time to exercise 3-4 hours a day, that is way too much and can lead to even more health issues than just being big.
Well if you include everything that I do, I’m probably averaging 3 hours at least of exercise a day.
I usually go to the gym for 1 hr 1/2 a day, and then often I take my son for a hike in the woods for over an hour.
That’s not including anything else like walks or housework I do all the time.
I’ve budged a few pounds lighter but it definately doesn’t just melt off like some people think it should.
I go to the gym four days a week, and exercise for about 50 minutes each time (that’s an estimate of actual activity without recovery time).
It used to be three days a week, but six months ago I decided I wanted to try an experiment to see how my body reacted to a certain type of exercise, and I had some time, so I added the extra day and new exercise routine .
The result: my body reacted very well to the new exercise. But I didn’t lose anything. I still bounce around in the same range I have been for quite some time. If exercise was the key to weight loss, doing 33% more exercise per week should have had some effect – that’s a significant percentage. But it didn’t. Good thing the experiment wasn’t about weight loss at all!
The reason I keep with it is that I like how it feels, and I like how it helps me manage my stress levels. I don’t ask anything more of it.
I feel that I should workout more consistently. One week I will work out a lot and then the next I’m not so friendly with the elliptical. My doctor says I’m in good health BUT I should exercise for a half hour 3x a week more than I do now.
I’ve training for a half-marathon so I’ve been running a lot more. I also do some classes at Ballys. The most I have worked out is 3 hours which includes running and then 2 classes. On Saturdays, I run between 1 hr 30 min and 2 hrs.
Sometimes I work out too much, but I try to calm myself. I enjoy running. And the classes are Ballys are really fun.
Here’s what I’m doing these days:
just started training for a mile swim — 33 laps
This morning I swam 30 laps (about an hour and 10 minutes)
Strength training 2-3 times a week for about 45 minutes each time — usually with some cardio first to round it out to an hour, time permitting.
Walking, hiking, other stuff on weekends.
I think it probably averages an hour five times a week, sometimes more.
This is about the amount that I can do and enjoy while still having energy for my full time job, three-and-a-half-year-old, and not fall asleep before Mr. Rounded wants to get busy.
On top of the fact that I live in New York and thus walk everywhere, I run a few days a week. Well, in theory…the past few weeks I’ve been out of commission because of a nasty case of plantar fasciitis. But I did do a 5K on Sunday, and I was able to run about half of it and brisk-walk the rest despite my foot issues.
I just bought new running shoes and some Dr Scholl orthotics and will be making an appointment with an athletic trainer soon, so hopefully the foot issues will work out and I can get back out there.
I would go back to swimming, but it’s such a pain in the ass to lug my stuff to my campus and back, especially when there’s a treadmill in my building and a park with a bouncy track within a 5 minute walk. And the people that work at the campus gym are dicks.
Interesting to read that you do interval training, Mo.
I had to find a form of exercise that really catered to my mental needs as well…. yoga is the only thing I’ve ever stuck with, and it also took finding a style that I really connected with. I highly recommend Ana Brett and Ravi Singh’s DVDs (amazon has ’em). This one was a good start. Or the Yoga for the Rest of Us series gets great reviews. To stick with a program I need to be able to do it at home AND somewhere outside of the home if I can.
I walk and cycle everywhere… and that adds up to about half an hour up to an hour a day, I think. I sometimes do yoga and I want to take up swimming again.
I have the one two whammy of fibromyalgia and a vestibular disorder.
I stretch twice a day, do housework as I can, and am very carefully introducing a few isometric type of muscle strengtheners.
I have to be careful, though. I cannot physically do a full crunch without intense pain because my pubic symphysis is still loose, despite the last baby turning eight this year. Of course, loose stomach muscles equal painful back, so I am trying, but that does make it difficult.
Add me to those few above who do *not* exercise strenuously for hours at a time each day because of CFS/FM, plus loads of arthritis and neuropathies, and heck, just being in my mid-50’s. I do tai chi and “Mindful Movements” when I can, and try get in a half hour of slow (under 2mph, “brisk” is defined as 4 mph) treadmill walking a few times a week when I’m able.
Now and then I feel brave (my husband calls it stupid) enough and do a Leslie Sansone or Richard Simmons video and always regret it because I wind up injuring myself. I did just that yesterday and now have a painful hip, knee and ankle and tingles down my right leg (sciatica). It’ll take at least a week before I can walk without a limp again – this isn’t the first time I had this exact injury – and about 2-3 weeks before my hip feels normal enough to be able to attempt the treadmill again.
3-4 hours a day? Impossible to get that much in even one week.
I get some regular exercise. I actually started getting it when I went on Yet Another Diet almost a year ago. I was going to the gym for about an hour at a time 3-5 times a week.
Then I discovered FA/SA. I threw out my calorie charts – and, as expected, because I allowed myself to eat if I was hungry, I put back on those 15 pounds I lost. I ended up being happy, and not obsessed with food. But, I discovered that I liked being fitter – my heart rate went down, and I could reduce my hypertension meds (though not eliminate them, as the condition has more than fitness feeding into it). So, I kept up with the exercise habit. I now only go 2-3 times a week, and some weeks just once. But I do keep going, and I feel good about it -the one good thing I’ve ever gotten from a diet!
I used to bike to work– about 7 miles a day, which was most of my exercise. Now that I’m unemployed, I hardly exercise at all. I’ll bike somewhere every so often, rollerskate on a Sunday, and sometimes go for long walks. Really not enough though.
I do about 2 hours a day of gym exercise (step, kick-boxing, body sculpt, yoga). I bike or walk everywhere I go, unless I drive to go hiking, which I usually do for three hours. I’m likely to be one of those people who do get 3-4 hours of exercise a day. Maybe if i took up cigarettes, I’d actually lose weight.
I don’t do any formal exercise. I have, however, moved to a city recently, and live in a very pedestrian-friendly area. I walk virtually everywhere I go, which is sometimes 2-3 miles per day.
This will probably result in no lost weight for me, but within a year I might drop a pant size just because my body’s more toned than it was living the the car-dependent midwest. It happened before when I lived sans car.
Of course, if it doesn’t — if my body stays the same as it is, that’s fine too. I know I’m getting enough moving for my body to be happy about it, and that’s the thing that really matters to me.
The only thing I’d like to add to my (lack of) routine is yoga, because it’s so relaxing. :)
I’m 19 years old and in college, I’m currently trying to make a better stance on exercising by going with my friends to the gym every other day. So far we went twice, but both times I felt great. I before tried going and felt very out of place among all fo the thin people.
Even though all of these stupid billboards say fat people need to go the gym, the gym gives the vibe that fat people need to stay AWAY!
But… it’s not as loud when friends are there. :)
I don’t exercise at all. I love to read, both books and surfing the web, and I occasionally watch DVDs and hardly any tv, and I occasionally hang out with my friends. I take the one stair flight up to my apartment and the one floor up to my office, and that’s about it. I’ve always found exercising for exercise’s sake to be extremely boring and distasteful and dieting to be futile and often farcical. I enjoy my hobbies and my life; being thin might be fun but I’m pretty happy now. I guess I think, who do I want to satisfy, whose standards do I want to rule my life — people who don’t make the time in their life to enjoy the pleasures that suit me? I’m pretty sure skinny bitches have their own grief; do I really want to sweat and cry and hate myself just to adopt their lifestyles and their troubles?
Phronsie: Oh, I don’t exercise to lose weight or to feel good or to get fit. I don’t delierately ‘exercise’ at all. I just live and study in (old!) York and don’t own a car.
I do get some exercise besides walking round, but that’s not exercise, that’s killing the bad guys with swords!
Let’s see…
Boxing class (with professional boxers) = 1 hour x 2 a week
Strength/conditioning circuit to complement boxing = 1 hour x 3 a week
Boxing/kickboxing DVD = 1 hour x 2 a week
Interval training on spinning bike = 1 hour x 2 a week
HIIT on spinning bike = 20 mins x 2 a week
Core work = 20 mins x 2 a week
Yoga/stretching = 1 hour a week
Hard uphill hike including some rock climbing = 2 hours a week
So that’s about 13 hours, 20 minutes a week, not including all the walking I do, as I don’t have a car.
As someone commented, that’s almost like a part-time job. On the other hand, I am pretty fit.
Just adding…
I work full-time and am in my early 50’s.
I do enough walking to get over 10,000 steos on my pedometer daily, plus 45 minutes on either the elliptical or stationary bike four days a week. Then I try to bike outside a couple of days a week. I think it’s the “right” amount for me.
Since stuff like housecleaning and gardening counts as moderate exercise according to the study, I probably get two to three hours day, between walking my errands, housework, and my fairly active profession. Because I am a gardening fanatic, I get more in the summer. I’m sure I’m over four hours in gardening season!
I hate jogging or those tedious cardio machines at the gym. I like to be accomplishing something or getting somewhere.