>Exercising for 30 minutes means that you also need to prepare, have a shower afterwards and it also means that you will require more sleep.
We've fetishised physical activity as "exercise", a strange and pointless hobby that you need to wear special clothes for. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Current health guidance suggests that it's perfectly sufficient to do 150 minutes of moderate cardiovascular activity and 60 minutes of muscular activity every week. Crucially, there's nothing magic about "exercise" as opposed to just doing physical things. Going for a brisk walk or pushing the lawnmower counts as moderate cardiovascular activity. Digging in the garden, laying bricks or carrying heavy bags of shopping counts as strength activity.
We need to get away from thinking about exercise as something we add to our schedule, but something that we build into an active lifestyle. Many people never do "exercise" per se, but get more than enough physical activity to stay healthy. Some people do have extremely sedentary lifestyles that are detrimental to their health, but they don't need a gym membership and some lycra pants to fix that.
The message shouldn't be "get more exercise", but "be more active".
This is sad. Walking, brisk or not isn’t exercise, it’s walking. Carrying shopping bags isn’t exercise unless you’re so old or weak that you should seriously consider physiotherapy.
Yes, it really is. A majority of Americans don't get this basic level of physical activity. Going jogging or lifting weights simply isn't necessary to maintain physical health, but you need to do something.
I agree that it's sad, but there's a minimum amount of activity that can be done to reduce your risk of death considerably [0]. I would rather people be fit and take their bodies seriously, but just a little bit goes a long way.
We've fetishised physical activity as "exercise", a strange and pointless hobby that you need to wear special clothes for. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Current health guidance suggests that it's perfectly sufficient to do 150 minutes of moderate cardiovascular activity and 60 minutes of muscular activity every week. Crucially, there's nothing magic about "exercise" as opposed to just doing physical things. Going for a brisk walk or pushing the lawnmower counts as moderate cardiovascular activity. Digging in the garden, laying bricks or carrying heavy bags of shopping counts as strength activity.
We need to get away from thinking about exercise as something we add to our schedule, but something that we build into an active lifestyle. Many people never do "exercise" per se, but get more than enough physical activity to stay healthy. Some people do have extremely sedentary lifestyles that are detrimental to their health, but they don't need a gym membership and some lycra pants to fix that.
The message shouldn't be "get more exercise", but "be more active".