Is three hours of exercise a week really enough? When I joined my gym (what a waste of money that was!) the gym woman told me that three sessions a week, for about an hour a time should be sufficient … but surely this can’t be right?
I live such an inactive lifestyle - the only walking I do at work is from the fridge to my desk, and my desk to the printer. It’s no better when I get home, I literally walk through the door, grab a plate of food and sit infront of the teelly/computer all evening.
We humans weren’t meant to sit infront of a computer screen all day, gliding from our desks to the filing cabinet in our armchairs. 100 or so yearss ago, before all this technology was invented, we were so much more active … from cleaning to cooking to growing our own food. Now everything is done for us, and it seems like so much effort to pop something in the microwave for three minutes :o
Back in Pakistan, there are hardly any fat women in our gaon cuz they’re all so physically active, working from dawn till dusk … the point i’m trying to make is that surely an hours worth of doing star jumps or circuit training three times a week will never equate to the amount of work our bodies were made to undertake?
She probably meant if you keep the current in-take of calories, it is probably enough to see a bit of difference on the weight scale. But if exercising means you go home and eat like a horse, than you will probably end up gaining weight.
Also I have experienced that walking doesn't count in exercising, unless you do a LOT of it. Our bodies are walking machines and we burn the minimum amount of calories while walking. I have always suggested trying something more strenuous. You know, cleaning the house isn't a bad idea to keep oneself active.
My personal trainer told me that if I can talk while exercizing, I am not exercizing. it has to be vigorous enough that I can barely talk. And I have to do it for at least 30 to 40 minutes. So, star jumping is good but not enough to burn calories.
I lead a pretty inactive lifestyle myself, but 4 hours of vigorous excercise is enough for me. Like I do spinning twice a week, kickboxing once and body conditioning once and I've got a steady weight loss going.
if you want to maintain your current weight, the consensus among most experts is to exercise 30 mins daily, and 30 mins could be any physical activity that increases your heart rate and burns fat....
if u wanna lose weight u should workout 1 hr daily.....dance, bikeride, powerwalk to work, take stairs, run...all included.
also since we are not so physically active it is only logical that we do not need the extra calories and contrary to popular belief, cutting calories actually lengthens life....this has been observed in societies in japan where a certain kind of people live the longest in the whole world and their secret is the small number of calories they take and especially less meat.
as we get older our metabolism also slows down so we need to eat less.....