How much exercise should you be doing?

By Heather

After a hard day’s work, there’s nothing I desire less than exercise. I also hate waking up early in order to exercise so finding an appropriate time to exercise has always been challenging for me.

When should you exercise?

Find a time that’s easy for you. The number of calories you burn is not impacted by the time you choose to exercise at all.

For me, midday, after a hard morning of graft seems to work well and weekends, as soon as I wake up. I have, over time, discovered that if I tell myself I’ll exercise later...later never comes. I have to do it as the first thing during the weekend because after that, there’s always something much more fun to do.

How intensely should you exercise?

Mild to moderate exercise is good enough for most people. Moderate exercise should make you warm, sweaty and slightly out of breath. Anything that gets you out of breath and very sweaty is vigorous activity.

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Recommended activity levels

Britain’s Chief Medical Officer, the Government’s top doctor, recommends the following:

• Adults should undertake about 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five times a week;
• This activity doesn’t have to be taken all in one go;
• Included is anything that gets you warm, slightly sweaty and a little out of breath, including brisk walking.
• If you’re at risk of obesity or have a medical condition such as diabetes, you need to exercise more than this: about 45-60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five times a week is necessary.

Does the US Government advise the same?

Pretty much. The US Department of Health splits its recommendations into aerobic activity and strength training. They recommend that:

• Aerobic activity. Adults should get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity (that is equivalent to 30 minutes times 5) or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity. They also recommend that this activity be spread out across the week.
• Strength training. Adults should undertake strength training at least twice a week. For strength training there are no specific guidelines on amount of time.

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​Note that these are the minimum recommended guidelines for exercise. You can do a lot more if you wish and if you’re trying to lose weight, you will need to do more. Whether or not you are trying to lose weight, the key message is:

• Exercise regularly
• Mix up aerobic exercise with strength training
• Lifestyle things like walking to the shops or walking the dog count as exercise if you walk briskly.
• Some exercise is better than nothing: set a weekly target and assess whether you met it at the end of every week. 

If you mess up one week, scrap it and just set new goals for the following week. You don’t have to make up the lost exercise. If you can, great, but being over ambitious can lead to feelings of failure causing you to give up exercising entirely.

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