Do you remember how easy it was to run and jump and skip when you were little?  Small children just seem to have endless energy. What happens to it all when you start to grow up?!

Well, it’s not your imagination.  Around the time you turned 6 or 7 your overall body growth finally started to outstrip the growth of your lungs. Before that age, you were able to run and play for a long time without ever feeling winded because your lungs were huge in proportion to your body size. Since that age you’ve always had to contend with fatigue to some degree or another.

Some of us continued to run and play and kept our fitness levels high. But some of us began to taper off because running and playing were suddenly a little more work for us.

More than any other wellness habit, exercise is the easiest to neglect. If you are dehydrated, eating poorly, or slumping, your body will very quickly send you a signal that something’s not quite right.  But you may not get obvious signals that you’re not moving enough for a very long time.

Here’s the bad news. The negative effects of neglecting your body’s fitness level are serious, cumulative, and long-term. Most of us are aware that lack of adequate exercise greatly increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.  But did you know that it also lowers your ability to fight diseases, including cancers?

It's not entirely clear what the connections are between exercise and your immune system but there is strong evidence from both animal and human studies that regular exercise lowers your risk for several types of cancers.

But we really don’t need to know the exact mechanism of why something works to benefit from it, right?

Now for the good news. The positive effects of exercise are also cumulative and long-term. Our bodies are very forgiving. Even if you haven’t been moving, stretching, or strengthening much lately, it’s not too late to get back in the game.

Any amount of exercise will benefit you. You don’t need to be a super-athlete to feel better and live more healthily. Thirty minutes per day, five days per week is a good goal, and it’s achievable for most of us most of the time.

So what’s stopping us?

The two most common excuses for neglecting the habit of exercise are:

Excuse #1:  “I don’t have time to exercise!”

Excuse #2:  “I hate exercise!”

Keeping your body fit and well is just as important as eating good food every day.  You wouldn’t dream of skipping food for a week or two because you were too busy to eat. And you probably wouldn't starve yourself because you were craving Chinese food and all you could get was Italian!

Make no mistake, it can be very difficult to find an activity that you love to do, and nearly all of us are pressed for time. But overcoming these negative mindsets is critical for our long-term health and short-term wellness. Sounds like it's time for a rule!

Rule #6: Make time every day for physical activity.

In an ideal world we would all get 30 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise 4 times a week, balanced by 30 minutes of strength training on the off days. There would also be stretching and balance workouts for 10 to 15 minutes every single day. All workouts would start with a warmup, and end with a cooldown. We would eagerly look forward to our activity time each day and wouldn’t consider skipping it because we had other things to do any more than we would consider skipping a night’s sleep because we had other things to do.

*sighs*

Ah, well. Back to the Real World.

Ideally we should get a range of the four basic types of exercise every week: aerobic, balancing, stretching, and strengthening. If our class extended through the summer months these other types of movement would have gotten a month of their own. After all, strength, balance, and flexibility certainly contribute to your overall wellness.

But since we only have time to focus on one kind of physical activity, then aerobics is the logical choice. For one thing, heart and lung health is probably a more urgent concern for most people than strength and flexibility.  And too, many aerobic exercise routines and activities utilize aspects of the other exercise types, while the reverse is not generally true.

Our reminders this month are mostly focused on aerobic activity, but there will also be a few tips on adding the other types of exercise to your day painlessly (and sometimes stealthily).

What constitutes aerobic activity? Aerobic exercise is defined as “any long duration exercise of low to moderate difficulty using the large muscle groups of the body such as the legs, back, gluteals, arms, etc.”

In other words, 20 minutes or more of vigorous movement that gets your thighs, arms, back, and butt moving!

The greatest benefits from aerobic exercise are derived when the workout is sustained for at least 20 minutes. That doesn't mean that if you don’t have 20 minutes to spare you should just forget about the whole thing!

While the maximum benefit accrues from the longer workout, any activity is better than no activity.  And if you are starting out from a rather sedentary lifestyle, you are actually better off starting with an extremely short workout.

First, you are more likely to continue to work out day after day if you can slip it gradually into your schedule. Second, you’ll avoid sore or stiff muscles from doing too much too soon. (You can forget the old adage of “No Pain, No Gain.” Unless you are a professional athlete in rigorous training you should avoid pushing yourself to the point of pain.)

Homework alert: Our eventual goal is to enjoy 30 minutes per day of physical activity. We’ll work up to it gradually, however.  For the month of December your goal is a mere 5 minutes every single day.  Post in the forum as usual.

The reminders for this habit will change each month based on this schedule:

December: 5 minutes per day

January: 10 minutes per day

February: 15 minutes per day

March: 20 minutes per day

April: 25 minutes per day

May: 30 minutes per day

Now, on to the tough part. Fighting those excuses!

Excuse #1:  “I don’t have time to exercise!”

In December you are only being challenged to find 5 minutes per day to get a workout. In January you are only shooting for 10 minutes. There is no one out there who can’t contribute ten minutes per day. No one.

“But I go straight from school to my job and I don’t have time….”   Jog there, or park five minutes away and walk.

“But the kids are little and won’t let me get in a good workout….”   Carry one around while you do housework.

“But I don’t have time to get to the gym….” Put on your headphones and dance like it’s a martial art.

This calls for some creativity on your part. Start small. At this point it’s more important that you are establishing the habit than what it is you’re actually doing.

Excuse #2:  “I hate exercise!”

As for what you should do, the sky is the limit. Each of us is different, and what brings you joy might make me snarl.  A treadmill can be a great workout while you watch TV, or it could be pure drudgery. Soccer is not for everyone.  Neither is salsa dancing.

You’ll never make time for an activity you dread.  It’s vital to find something that you can and will do. Keep experimenting until you find the right fit.  Basketball might do it for you. You might love Wii Fit. Running could be it. Why not take that karate class you always dreamed about? Swimming?  Sparring?  Yard work?  Frisbee with the dog?

Speaking of dogs, here’s some food for thought:

“If your dog is fat then you aren’t getting enough exercise.”  J

For many busy people it’s easiest to just make everyday activities into workout opportunities. Raking leaves is an aerobic activity.  Vacuuming is very rhythmic – turn it into a vigorous dance routine. (Hmmmm. When was the last time you washed your windows?)

In 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine released a joint recommendation regarding the amount of physical activity needed for health benefits. In sum: