Obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, high cholesterol and high blood sugar are all huge health problems in today’s society, and a major breaking news contributory factor is leading a sedentary lifestyle. But what does having a sedentary lifestyle actually mean?
What Is A Sedentary Lifestyle?
The term sedentary lifestyle means living a life that involves very little physical activity or exercise. If you never workout, play sports or walk more than the odd 5 minutes to and from your car, then you fall into this category. If you watch a lot of television, spend time online or playing video games, then you are sitting for far too long and this has implications for your health. We all tend to walk up to 3000 steps a day by just doing the basics like moving around the house and the workplace. This is the equivalent of walking around 20 minutes a day, and is classed as a sedentary lifestyle.
The Importance Of Physical Activity
Adopting a more physically active lifestyle today will help you avoid a whole host of health problems in the future. The great news is that it is so simple to make a couple of changes, that can make a huge difference to your health and wellbeing. The American Heart Association recommends around at least 150 minutes a week (or 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week) of physical exercise performed at a moderate intensity, but what exactly is moderate intensity exercise?
Examples Of Moderate Intensity Exercise
Before you start to panic, we are not talking about running marathons, buying expensive exercise equipment or spending hours on end at the gym. Regular exercise does not have to take over your life or eat up all your free time. But it is important that you take exercise on regular basis, in order to develop and enforce the habit of physical exercise. If you have not done any form of exercise for a long time, then walking is a great starting point. Try to walk between 30-60 minutes a day as a bare minimum level of exercise, then introduce some more intense exercise as well. This is exercise that raises your heart rate and gets you sweating a little.
Lets take a look at some examples of moderate intensity exercise: –
Brisk / power walking.
Jogging.
Swimming.
Cycling.
Tennis / squash / badminton.
Using a treadmill or elliptical trainer.
Zumba / ballroom dancing / line dancing.
Aerobics.
Playing on the Wii console.
There are lots of ways that you can get active and stay healthy, the key is to find something that you enjoy as you will be more likely to stick with it. So if you are leading a sedentary lifestyle, then get motivated, get moving and get fit, your destiny and future health is in your hands.