Exercise everyday?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-25-2004
Exercise everyday?
5
Mon, 06-19-2006 - 2:22pm

I was reading one of my fitness magazines yesterday and found an article about trying to lose weight/get healthy. In it they recommended that for beginner exercisers, they should aim to exercise EVERY DAY in the beginning. They recommended cardio on all 7 days and strength training on 2-3. That kind of flys in the face of the old "don't try to do too much too soon" recommendation. Their reasoning was that it needs to become an ingrained part of your day and a habit, and the best way to do that is doing it daily. What do you all think? I'm giong to try it out. My goal this week is to get 20 minutes of walking a day. That's less than the 30 they recommend, but it's enough for me for now.

Staci


 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-08-2006
Mon, 06-19-2006 - 2:38pm
I think they are right regarding engraving exercise routine in our daily schedule, but I think there should be at least one day of rest. I would agree with 6/7 or even 5/7, not less then that. Of course doing something is much better than doing nothing. So if there is no way to do exercise on 6 days out of 7, or there is no time to do 30 minutes of walking, it is much better to do 20 minutes for 3 days, than nothing at all. Just in that case the results will be very slow.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-11-2006
Mon, 06-19-2006 - 2:42pm

Hi Staci,

I try to exercise daily.. I fail miserablly most of the time but I try!
I think it's important to make exercise, either formal (like going to the gym or walking, riding a bike etc.) or informal (like dancing, hiking, extra movement that you wouldn't ordinarily do) a priority in your life. Also I think the more exercise becomes part of your routine, the more difficult it is to talk yourself out of going. If you exercise 3 days per week.. you might be able to rationalize that you can just go tomorrow instead (make sense?)

of course I think that ANY exercise whether it be every day or once a week is better than no exericse at all!

20 minutes a day sounds like a reachable goal. I wouldn't put too much stress on the magazine saying 30 minutes per day. I think they are more desinged for readers in better shape than us already and I wouldn't want you to do too much too fast.

anyway that's just my 2 cents.. let's see what the other ladies have to say.


My First 10% of Body Weight

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-11-2006
Mon, 06-19-2006 - 2:50pm
i exercise 5 days a week. it helps gets my mind off of stress from classes and work. i give myself a break on the weekends, but i still watch what i eat.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-01-2006
Mon, 06-19-2006 - 3:50pm

Hi, Staci--

When I started walking, I took weekends off, more or less by default. Monday was really rough after the break, though, so now I try (try!) to do as much walking as possible on the weekends too. So the logic of exercising a bit every day to develop a habit makes sense for me... and since I'm not doing hard-core cardio or strength training, my body probably doesn't need down-time to repair itself.

But everyone responds differently, and any exercise is better than none in my book. (Except dangerous over-exercise, which doesn't tempt me in the least, LOL!) It sounds like your 20 minutes is a reasonable goal for the week, and you can always increase that as you progress. Good luck!

Misha
275.5/254/135

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-06-2006
Wed, 06-21-2006 - 6:58am

I tried the 'walk everyday' approach and it didn't work for me. I was just aiming for a goal that I cannot reach (not at the beginning anyways). I tried to do the 3 times a week cardio, but like jess said I gave myself the excuse of "you can go tomorrow instead of today" and at the end it didn't work. Soooo since the beginning of the month

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