Is it thirty minutes three times a week or forty for four? Perhaps it is thirty minutes four times or is it forty minutes three times? We all have a vague idea of how much exercise we are supposed to take to maintain a healthy weight and heart. It is one of those recommendations that has been made by a government advisory group and is announced on the news but is, for most of the population, no more than just that, a feature on the news.
Well apparently in order to maintain a healthy weight one should exercise moderately for at least half an hour a day for five days of the week. “Moderate” is one of those subjective terms but is defined as exercise that makes you slightly breathless. Well that does not seem too bad. Half an hour for five times a week sounds doable. Well, apparently not if you want to lose weight. Scientists have announced this week that in order to lose weight and to keep it off a woman needs to exercise for 55 minutes five days a week.
The announcement was made by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh. They discovered that this amount of exercise was required to maintain a ten per cent drop in weight and to keep it off. Of the two hundred women who took part in the study only fifty were able to achieve this. Exercising for nearly an hour five times a week is a major commitment and it is hardly surprising that many people are not making it. Our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, driving to work and then sitting at a desk for most of the day only to arrive home exhausted and sit in front of the television, not to mention our unhealthy eating habits, have resulted in two thirds of the population of the United Kingdom being overweight or obese. There are estimates that suggest that this number will rise to a staggering nine out of ten by the year 2050. So maintaining a healthy weight is increasingly becoming a major lifestyle commitment. If you do not want to be amongst the two-thirds of adult Britons who are overweight or obese then it is time to start exercising and to start eating a healthy, calorie controlled diet.