Any physical activity that makes your heart beat a little faster is helpful. If you’ve never monitored your heartbeat while exercising, it might be worth a try. For moderate exercise, the recommended goal is about 50 to 70 percent of your body’s maximum heart rate. (To calculate your maximum heart rate, subtract your age from 220.) Many people will reach this goal during a brisk walk, Dr. Lewis said.
Estimating your maximum heart rate can help you gauge how hard you should walk, run, or bike. But it’s not perfect, as your natural heart rate during exercise may be higher or lower. Also, fitness levels and heart rates among people of the same age can vary, and not all exercises increase heart rate by the same amount. Consider talking to your doctor before setting your goals.
“Just moving your body in some way will help,” Dr. Garber said. “That’s a really important message.”
Focus on general health, not weight loss.
Many people exercise with weight loss in mind, but simply increasing physical activity is often not effective. in a 2011 revision From 14 published articles, scientists found that people with larger bodies who did aerobic exercise for at least two hours a week lost an average of just 3.5 pounds over six months. And in a little 2018 clinical trial, women who did high-intensity circuit training three times a week did not see significant weight loss after eight weeks. (They did gain muscle, though.)
Exercise improves your overall health, and studies suggest which has a greater effect on life expectancy than body type. Regardless of your size, exercise reduces the risk of heart diseasesome types of cancer, depression, type 2 diabetes, anxiety Y insomniasaid Beth Lewis, a sports and exercise physiologist at the University of Minnesota.
It’s okay if you can only exercise on the weekends.
I’ve always assumed that the healthiest athletes exercise almost every day, but research suggests otherwise. in a to study published in July, the researchers followed more than 350,000 healthy American adults for an average of more than 10 years. They found that people who exercised at least 150 minutes a week, for one or two days, were no more likely to die for any reason than those who got to 150 minutes in shorter, more frequent sessions. Other studies by Dr. Lee and her colleagues have drawn similar conclusions.
