New Exercise Guidelines: What's Changed?

The guidelines are fine. I'm sure some people will nit pick them too death for not being what they wanted, but when you put this in the context of your target audience being the entire American population you have to have a pretty broad amateur level scope to your message.

The only thing I would like to see added is over training some people take there exercise too far and do more damage too there bodies than good. A maximum amount of hours per week, and reminders that rest is needed for the body to repair would have been nice.

Will people buy in, some will some want ,it's the same old story.

I agree with you, for the beginner, these guidelines are OK. But don't you think it's a pretty sad state of affairs when we have to beg people to get their butts off the couch and do something, anything? I think we need to get our messages aligned. Too often, the mass media will report on studies in a way that perpetuates various myths about nutrition and exercise. Companies continually look for ways to market their products as healthy even though they aren't. Sure, licorice is a "naturally fat-free" food, but that sure as heck doesn't make it healthy. We need to send a clear, accurate message that being healthy isn't complicated. Eat mostly whole foods, avoid processed foods, and be active daily. If you can do that every day, then you're well on your way to being healthy. Without a concerted effort, this country will only get fatter and fatter.

Maybe adults would get more exercise if they were playing tug-of-war and skipping instead of doing dull reps at the gym. I try to make fitness fun in my own life, even though I'm old enough to be considered a grownup!

I think it's a sad truth that exercise guidelines are necessary here in the U.S. We've gotten ourselves so far from what physical culture should be, that we actually need time duration recommendations and the like.

Many children get plenty of physical activity, others do not. However, I think that kids, in general, have a better grasp of physical culture than most adults. Hence, the recommendation that kids should get 1 hour of moderate to high intensity activity daily makes sense to me. Why is this not the standard for adults - do we really need less activity?

I think part of the solution is getting away from the mentality that exercise is necessary instead of desired, and that it's brutal hard work instead of an energy booster. Exercise doesn't have to be extremely difficult and leave you exhausted for it to be effective and beneficial.

I think that when adults start playing (do you remember what that was like?) instead of exercising - they forget that exercise takes work and they remember that it's fun to move around - it's fun to be active. I think that's part of the solution, anyways.

Sincerely,
John Sifferman NSCA-CPT

I think it is of the utmost importance for people to understand that weight gain is something that can be overcome even if everyone in your family has yet to defeat it.

Even if you're swamped at work (as I am) it's pretty easy to find 30 minutes of exercise of some kind per day, but it's hard to get your heart rate up for 20-30 minutes a day sometimes.

Climbing the stairs instead of taking the elevator, using the printer that's farther away from your desk, taking a walk at lunch, all of these things add some activity to your day, but they don't really get your heart rate up necessarily (or if they did, you wouldn't want them to while you're dressed for work). Okay, climbing the stairs probably would, but can you sustain that for 30 minutes?

I'm trying to add more incidental activity into my day, but I'm not really counting that as my "exercise" for the day since it doesn't help you get a little out of breath. For me there's no substitute to working out at the gym (or going for a brisk walk).

I can't believe I didn't catch this earlier, but two and a half hours of exercise a week doesn't equal thirty minutes a day , it would be just over twenty minutes a day ; unless your week only has five days.

What changed?
2002- 1 hour a day
2008- 2.5 hours a week

We must be too fit.

Hopefully people will listen and just get active.

I pretty much agree with the guidelines, but I sort of disagree with encouraging people to only work out in 10 minute increments. I don't think you can sufficiently raise your heart rate (especially high enough so that you can't sing and are breathing fairly heavily) in 10 minutes unless you are extremely out of shape. Is it so unreasonable to ask people to work out in 20 minute intervals or are we so incredibly "busy" that no one has a little 20 minute block of time to work out? Seriously, I only get a 30 minute lunch break at work and I can manage to squeeze in a 25 minute mini-workout on the stationary bike on days I don't get my longer workout in. It's almost as if the health experts out there don't want to piss anyone off, so they make the guidelines just about as lax as they can possibly be so the average Joe figures "Hey, I walked around Walmart for 10 minutes today...that's half my workout. I must be doing pretty well on my exercise". Who are we trying to kid?

I think it's important to see them as 'physical activity' guidelines rather than exercise guidelines. Not being pedantic, just pointing out that it's important for people to understand the value of movement in general, rather than formal exercise. Exercise is important, but some individuals have to start right at the bottom of the movement chain.

The work done by various people on 'non-exercise activity thermogenesis' or NEAT -- Mayo Clinic for example -- is quite interesting. (Forgive me if you've covered this previously.) Even standing for 2 hours a day more, rather than sitting, can use about 300 kcals extra. Obese people tend to have low NEAT, and the differences between low and high NEAT people can be in the range 500 - 2000 kcals. Amazing.

I guess the hope is that people might start exerciseing and realise that they enjoy it. Stranger things have happened.

10 minute increments are kinda on low sides

It all boils down to one thing. Exercise and proper eating is the only true way to lose weight and tone. In the world of gimmicks and lose weight quick schemes people are becoming more confused on what works.

Like most government advice - I wouldn't follow it. They got it wrong with the food pyramid and, I feel, they have it wrong with their exercise guidelines. Perhaps they need to catagorize their recommendations with a minimum and suggested maximum.

I think the guidelines are sound, it is just a matter of consistency. That is everyone's biggest issue.

Consistency is the biggest issue as someone just said, but one point people are missing is with the intensity of the workouts. It's idiotic to tell people they need to workout for hours to see results when there are studies showing the exact opposite.

I just wrote an article about this very thing on my blog: Check it out at
http://fitdadsays.com/blog/are-short-workouts-enough-to-lose-fat/

Well I think the guidelines for the most part are pretty sound but as you point out, they're hardly anything particularly new. Will people buy into it?? Well they haven't in the past, so what's going to make it all that different this time round?

I think we need to place more emphasis on ways to make exercise fun because if we can help people become mentally fitter about exercise I think there's more chance they'll actually do it in a sustainable way.

In the Mind over Fatter program I refer to exercise as bodyfun and bodyplay and in the workshops I run we play fun games and it's amazing to see how adults get involved, have fabulous fun and tell me they didn't even notice they were doing exercise.

We've got to get over the attitude of 'it's a bore and chore'.

I think if you encourage sport and competative team sports from a young age, children are encouraged to keep up the exercise as during this time they feel happy and positive from all the natural endorphines that exercise releases. With adults that now don't exercise, I have heard of companies that encourage staff to lose weight with insentives as it is good for companies for their staff to be well and healthy as they have less sick days because of a healthier immune system - in the study it worked really well and people lost weight.

The scientific method is vry, very overated. Science was invented by persons- persons no better than you and I, persons with stinkybuttholes,and that INCLUDES the researchers and PhD's conducting the "scientific method"

REAL WORLD, REAL LIFE RESULTS TRUMP CLINCIAL TRIALS ANYDAY

COMMON SENSE and CRITICIAL THINKING SKILLS ARE LOST.,