Minutes of exercise per week?

bsmith404
bsmith404 Posts: 333 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Ok I read that you should get 30minutes of exercise a day but really 45 because it takes time for your body to warm up. Is it true? I have no idea. But I am not exercising 30 minutes every day as I don't exercise on Sunday's and I try on Saturdays but I am so busy running around with the family.

How much should you aim for a week? I "read" somewhere 150minutes. I ask because if I should aim for 150 a week I can break it up Monday-Friday and if I do workout Saturdays great but if not I would have met my goal anyway. So based on 150 I could do 30 on Monday, maybe an hour on Tuesday because I have time etc.

Our membership to the gym just expired and we can't renew because my huband is retiring and they won't renew because we are leaving Spain in 2 months and too expensive on our own. So I am just walking and swimming right now. I have back injuries so I'm not doing any workout videos (just letting you know in case someone tells me "do workout video.). So i'm trying to see how many minutes to aim for a week with swimming and walking.

Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    It depends on your fitness goals. For general heart health, 30 minutes 3-5 times per week of light exercise is perfectly fine...like just going for a walk. If you want to run a marathon, obviously you'd need to do a lot more. I'd also advise spending a fair amount of time doing resistance training to preserve your lean mass.

    Really, there is no singular answer here...it is all subjective and highy dependent on fitness goals.
  • ayalowich
    ayalowich Posts: 242 Member
    It depends on your fitness goals. For general heart health, 30 minutes 3-5 times per week of light exercise is perfectly fine...like just going for a walk. If you want to run a marathon, obviously you'd need to do a lot more. I'd also advise spending a fair amount of time doing resistance training to preserve your lean mass.

    Really, there is no singular answer here...it is all subjective and highy dependent on fitness goals.

    This is a perfect answer.

    For the 7 months from November-May I probably averaged 2.5-3 hrs per week because I just wasn't getting it done, battling illness and injury. For the last 12 weeks I've gotten motivated, had the success dropping the 10-12 lbs and felt better in my running so can go longer. Now I work out 4.5-5 hrs a week and last week got close to 5.5. I won't stay at this level forever, but right now I can handle it so going to hang onto it for as long as I can. And my quality is improving so rarely do I just log miles or minutes without some benefit.

    It is a shame you can't workout more on the weekends. Those are freebies from my viewpoint. I don't work nearly as much on Saturday/Sunday as I used to, so to not get solid workouts on those days would impact my totals.
  • camperchick64
    camperchick64 Posts: 146 Member
    When I was doing a weight class the trainer told us to get at least an hour a day of exercise - but that 1 hour a day could be walking anywhere such as doing grocery shopping, up and down the hall, etc. he just said to move that it didn't necessarily have to be workouts.
  • bsmith404
    bsmith404 Posts: 333 Member
    @cwolfman13-Well training for a half marathon is how I got my back injury.

    I was looking more for weight loss.

    @ayalowich i'm a sahm so I get plenty of exercise mon-fri while the kids are in school so the weekends are my 2 days off. It's summer so i've had to adjust my schedule which means exercising when my husband gets home and it's late and i'm tired so I try for at least 30-45minutes.

    I do take my kids swimming every other day so I swim laps for 30minutes. Right now i'm exhausted after 30 minutes but hope to be able to do more.

    @camperchick I am always moving. I really only sit when i'm eating and every now then on the computer. But I am always running up and down 3 flight of stairs with laundry, I clean like crazy and I try to be active when playing with my kids.

    Was just looking for a "number" as I'm not seeing the weight loss which stuns me because I try to get out and i'm always moving and i'm averaging 1400-1500 a day. I thought I should be aiming for a certain amount of exercises per week. Maybe 30-45minutes 4-5x a day isn't enough? I'll try to extend my walk and push myself swimming.

    Thanks everyone!
  • RunnerElizabeth
    RunnerElizabeth Posts: 1,091 Member
    I believe the guideline is 150 minutes a week for general health. More is needed for weight loss. With a healthy diet, 4ish hours a week seemed to work for me.
  • bsmith404
    bsmith404 Posts: 333 Member
    I believe the guideline is 150 minutes a week for general health. More is needed for weight loss. With a healthy diet, 4ish hours a week seemed to work for me.

    Thanks that's what I was looking for. I did some search on the internet and 150 is needed for general healthy but more like 250-300 for weight loss. This week i'm averaging 150 so need to extend my walks to maybe an hour and my swimming to 45minutes.
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
    30 minutes a day 3-5 days a week is a lie. It's been told to us because most people are so sedentary that the health community wanted to encourage us to do something. Anything. So they put an incredibly low bar out there. There's 168 hours in a week and performing low impact exercise for 2.5 of those hours is just a few grains of sand in a large bucket. Sure, it's better than nothing, but if you actually want to change your body you're going to need around an hour a day, 5 days a week of moderate level exercise.
  • RaggedyPond
    RaggedyPond Posts: 1,487 Member
    230 minutes is what the end of my week looks like
  • harleygroomer
    harleygroomer Posts: 373 Member
    Actually 45 minutes is my minimum. And that is on my FREE day. Otherwise I go from 1 to 2 hours.

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