Exercise For Your Life

New evidence is showing us that we need to both exercise as well as lose weight to have the greatest reduction of risk to lifestyle related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer.

This exercise to weight relationship is a direct balance between the energy we consume as food & drink (Click here to assess your energy intake from fluids) as opposed to the energy we burn when exercising and doing our daily activities. For many of us, there needs to be some change in what’s coming in as well as what’s going out in order to get the best protection of all (not to mention the motivational effect of a healthy body and wellbeing!). As a result, there have been recent changes to many exercise guidelines.

This is where the National Physical Activity Guidelines (NPAG) becomes so important. They get enhanced with a little fine tweaking by Professor Garry Egger, who was one of the original authors of the guidelines as well as being responsible for the National Weight Management Guidelines. Garry proposes that along with achieving the NPAG there are some additions that will help improve our fitness and reduce our fatness and help us be active long into old age.

So the bottom line for long term good health and living a full life is to be active combined with exercise that increases your fitness (Click here to assess your health behaviours including your activity levels). Creating a goal of increasing everyday physical activity will start you off. After a week or two you could begin to increase your physical activity to 20 - 30 minutes of moderate physical activity 2 - 3 days per week. It could also help in these initial stages to break the physical activity up into 2 or even 3, 10-minute sessions per day.

The next stage could progress to 30 minutes of moderate activity most days or greater than 70,000 steps per week, with encouragement to throw in a 60 minute session to develop your endurance. This equates to 150-180 minutes in total.

The final stage may include substituting the 30 minute sessions for some more vigorous exercise that will target your fitness (Click here to find out the best types of activity for you).

At the end of the day it’s important for you to work at your own pace and work with a health professional and your doctor if you have any health concerns. The best results are achieved when fitting these activities in with your daily routine, rather than making activity a special chore. The most important thing is that we move, how, when, why and how often depends on you.

YOUR SAY: How do you get creative with exercise? Share your tips with us below...