An Hour a Day??

Recent articles have suggested it may take a woman (especially those over 40) at least an hour a day of exercise to avoid gaining weight.

Yes I believe this is probably true; not just because it's a new finding but our lifestyles are becoming increasingly more and more sedentary making our overall physical activity less and less even without neglecting exercise.

Add to that the decrease of muscle mass with age due to declining hormones and our ability to repair but most of all due to lack of activity in our daily lives.

Our lives are becoming increasingly "easier" in terms of what we have available to do the work for us. Power mowers and leaf blowers do our yard work or we hire someone to do it for us. Cars drive us to the coffee shop a block down the street where we sit in the drive thru to place our order. We spend more and more time on our computers, with our tvs and other technological entertainment rather than playing ball, gardening or hiking in our spare time. It's no wonder we have "spare tires" around our middles.

If we would consider utilizing the time we have in each day to add activity in relative ways such as walking to the coffee shop or post office, parking in the furthest stall at the grocery store, taking the stairs rather than the elevator and sweeping/raking those leave rather than blowing them into our neighbors yard we may just spend more than that hour each day being active.

The big picture is each day has 24 hours in it. People who are in "good physical shape" don't have more time they just make their time count!! The key is finding what works for you. Sure you may have to get up 15 minutes earlier to ride your bike to the office but it might just add to your life; not in quantity but the quality of your life; your ability to enjoy those things you enjoy doing (or want to enjoy doing) say playing ball with your kids on the weekends or hiking on your vacation to Hawaii.

So get active and start living!!

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