American adults spend about 55 percent of their waking day inactive. A sedentary lifestyle has been linked to diabetes and death from heart disease or stroke. In addition, being sedentary for more than three hours a day can shave years off your life. Since many of the physical demands of daily living have been eliminated, we need to find ways of adding more physical activity as part of our daily routines.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
According to the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans<\/em>, children, and adolescents should get one hour or more of physical activity daily. Adults should get at least two and a half hours (150 minutes) each week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity. Any bit of physical activity you get counts towards your 150 minutes per week. You do not need to be active for at least 10 minutes at a time, so if you can do 5 minutes at a time, it all adds up! Adults should also do strengthening activities at least two days a week. Only 53.3% of all adults meet the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines<\/a><\/em> for aerobic exercise, and only 23.2% meet the guidelines for both aerobic and muscle strengthening.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Exercise is one of the easiest and most effective ways of improving both your physical and mental health. No matter your age or fitness level, there are many enjoyable ways to use physical activity to help you feel better, look better, and enjoy life more.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The real key to success is changing your lifestyle by increasing your level of activity throughout the day with incremental, sustained changes to your lifestyle. As you increase your activity levels, you will increase your capability for physical activity. People who exercise regularly tend to do so because it gives them a sense of well\u2013being. They feel more energetic throughout the day, sleep better at night, have clearer memories, and feel more relaxed and positive about themselves and their lives.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Exercise is not just about aerobic capacity and muscle size. It doesn\u2019t take hours of pumping weights, running miles, or sweating buckets to achieve results. Research has shown that even modest improvements in fitness levels have overall health benefits. Start with 5- or 10-minute sessions and slowly increase your time. As exercising becomes a habit, you can slowly add extra minutes or try different types of activities. If you keep at it, the benefits of exercise will begin to pay off and improve your chances of making and sustaining the change.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Move more in your daily life. Think about physical activity as a lifestyle choice rather than a single task to check off your to-do list. Look at your daily routine and consider ways to sneak in activity. Even very small activities can add up over the course of a day. Also, a pedometer is a great tool to help you measure how much change you make to your daily routine.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Rather than focus on why you don\u2019t want to exercise, concentrate on how good you feel when you\u2019ve finished an activity or a workout. Hopefully, these tips will inspire you to get moving and do something good for your health!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Written by Vicki Hayman, MS, University of Wyoming Extension Nutrition and Food Safety Educator<\/p>\r\n Sources:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n American adults spend about 55 percent of their waking day inactive. A sedentary lifestyle has been linked to diabetes and death from heart disease or stroke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4102,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[422,957],"tags":[87,83,427,53],"class_list":["post-493","newsletters","type-newsletters","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-active-living","category-newsletter","tag-exercise","tag-health","tag-health-and-wellness","tag-physical-activity"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletters\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newsletters"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletters\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16576,"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletters\/493\/revisions\/16576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwyoextension.org\/uwnutrition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Improve Your Health<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
It’s a Lifestyle<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Tips to Stay Active<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n