Although there are no sure-fire recipes for good health, the mixture of healthy eating and regular exercise comes awfully close. Most of Nutrition Source is dedicated to singing the praises of a good diet. This is where exercise gets its due.

Regular exercise or physical activity can do everyone a world of good. It helps prevent heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and a host of other diseases, and is a key ingredient for losing weight or maintaining a healthy weight.

With all these good things going for it, it’s mind boggling that only a minority of Americans get enough exercise or leisure-time physical activity to benefit.

Body-wide Benefits

Studies that have followed the health of large groups of people for many years, as well as short-term studies of the physiologic effects of exercise, all point in the same direction: A sedentary (inactive) lifestyle increases the chances of becoming overweight and developing a number of chronic diseases. Exercise or regular physical activity helps many of the body’s systems function better and keeps a host of diseases at bay. According to the US Surgeon General’s report, Physical Activity and Health, regular physical activity.

Cardiovascular Exercise

If you don’t currently exercise and aren’t very active during the day, any increase in exercise or physical activity is good for you. Some studies show that walking briskly for even one to two hours a week (15 to 20 minutes a day) starts to decrease the chances of having a heart attack or stroke, developing diabetes, or dying prematurely.

The U.S. Surgeon General, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine, recommend getting a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most days of the week. You can do all 30 minutes at once or break it up into 10- or 15-minute periods.

Moderate intensity exercise or physical activity is activity that causes a slight but noticeable increase in breathing and heart rate. One way to gauge moderate activity is with the “talk test” – exercising hard enough to break a sweat but not so hard you can’t comfortably carry on a conversation.

Exercise experts measure activity a different way. They talk about metabolic equivalents, or METs. One MET is defined as the energy it takes to sit quietly. For the average adult, this is about one calorie per every 2.2 pounds of body weight per hour someone who weighs 160 pounds would burn approximately 70 calories an hour while sitting or sleeping.

Moderate intensity activities are those that get you moving fast enough or strenuously enough to burn off three to six times as much energy per minute as you do when you are sitting quietly, or exercises that clock in at 3-6 METs.

Brisk walking fills the bill for moderate-intensity activity. How fast is brisk? For the average person, it means walking 3-4 miles an hour, or about as fast as you’d walk if you were late for an important appointment. Walking is an ideal exercise for many people – it doesn’t require any special equipment, can be done any time and any place, and is generally very safe.

Resistance Training

Resistance training or weight training is probably the most neglected component of fitness programs but one of the most beneficial. Our body can basically be divided into 2 components. Fat mass consists of the body’s fat store, while fat free mass is a combination of non-fat tissue such as muscle, bone, internal organs etc. An important part of fat free mass is lean body mass, which is essentially muscle.

Muscle is metabolically active tissue. This means that it utilizes calories to work, repair and refuel itself. Fat requires very few calories, it just kind of sits there. As we enter our mid to late twenties, we slowly start to lose muscle as part of the natural aging process. This means that the amount of calories we need each day starts to decrease and it becomes easier to gain weight. By engaging in regular strength training exercise, it is possible to decrease this loss of lean muscle tissue and even replace some that has been lost already. Studies have shown strength training to increase lean body mass, decrease fat mass and increase resting metabolic rate (a measurement of the amount of calories burned per day). These effects may make it easier to manage one’s weight.

Another beneficial effect of resistance training pertains to bone health. In addition to weight bearing cardiovascular exercise, weight training has been shown to help fight osteoporosis. For example, in postmenopausal women, 2 strength training sessions a week for one year increased bone mineral density by 1%. A sedentary control group lost 2% in the same time period.

Many people are intimidated by the idea of resistance training or are afraid of injury. They need not be. A great idea is to consult an expert. Consider hiring an exercise physiologist or personal trainer for a few sessions until you have the confidence to branch out on you own. For more information and to locate a trainer contact, The American Council on Exercise. (www.acefitness.org)

Flexibility Training

Flexibility training or stretching exercise is another important part of overall fitness. It has been shown to increase range of motion, decrease muscle soreness associated with exercise and may decrease exercise related injury.

Tips for Getting Exercise into Your Life

1. Get off a stop or 2 earlier during your bus or subway commute; walk the rest of the way.

2. Purposefully park you car a little further from the mall or store. It may not seem like much, but over weeks and months, these minutes of exercise add up.

3. Use the stairs instead of elevators and escalators whenever possible.

4. Consider buying a piece of cardiovascular equipment for your home (e.g. treadmill, bike, elliptical machine). Home models can be more reasonable than you think and you can’t beat the convenience.

5. When you get busy, try to combine your cardiovascular exercise with something that you do already. Hop on that piece of home equipment while watching TV, reading the newspaper or returning phone calls.

6. Make it fun! Try a new sport like tennis or rollerblading. The more that you enjoy exercise the more likely you are to stick to it.

7. Make it social. Walk with a friend, your spouse, or your family in the morning or evening.

8. Keep an exercise log. It will help to make you more accountable.

9. Take a walk for 20 minutes of your lunch hour.

10. Hire a personal trainer for a session or 2 to help you with your weight training and flexibility training. Then you’ll have the confidence to branch out on your own.