I have heard of and even seen peope make big changes to their body and health with only 15, 30, or 60 minutes of exercise a day. It doesn’t even seem like much.
Whether it’s cardio or lifting weights, why do people only need that much time a day to improve? In fact, why does MORE time with exercise (like 3 hours or more) even seem harmful?
I know diet plays a big role but still. Like I started strength training for only 15 minutes a day and I see some changes in my body physically.
In: Biology
The reasoning that exercise specialists give is that you’re not getting more fit WHILE you exercise. The exercise (the load on your muscles, the increased depletion of energy stores, etc) just changes the mode your body is operating in. Getting these signals, it starts rebuilding itself in a different way, for example, growing muscle.
If you think about it, it’s pretty improbable that your muscles only grow during the time they’re stressed. It’s more of a recovery/adaptation activity.
Because exercise isn’t something you do and be done with, **it’s a lifestyle change.** People often aren’t honest with themselves, and set unrealistic goals that they can’t meet, and subsequently drop exercise entirely due to the unrealistic goals they set in the first place.
Just a little bit of exercise, even 5 minutes every month beats those who never exercise. Think of it this way, let’s say you exercise for 30 minutes twice a week, or even more.
Time | 30 Mins 2/ Week | 30 Mins 5/ Week | 60 Mins / 5 Week | 0 Min Per Week
—|—|—-|—-|—-
1 Month | 2 Hrs | 10 Hrs | 20 Hrs | 0 Hrs
3 Month | 4 Hrs | 20 Hrs | 40 Hrs | 0 Hrs
6 Month | 8 Hrs | 30 Hrs | 80 Hrs | 0 Hrs
12 Month | 16 Hrs | 60 Hrs | 160 Hrs | 0 Hrs
2 Year | 32 Hrs | 120 Hrs | 320 Hrs | 0 Hrs
5 Years | 80 Hrs | 300 Hrs | 800 Hrs | 0 Hrs
10 Years | 160 Hrs | 600 Hrs | 1,600 Hrs | 0 Hrs
20 Years | 320 Hrs | 1,200 Hrs | 3,200 Hrs | 0 Hrs
Look at the difference. **This is how quickly exercise can compound.** Like anything else, the power of taking a single step at a time, slowly putting in time each day is going to compound much quicker than trying to make huge drastic lifestyle changes that only last a small amount of time.
Finally, people don’t often realize, but you lose weight in the kitchen, not in the gym. Gym you really honestly gain weight, due to muscle growth. Cardio does burn calories, yes, but not enough to really be meaningful unless you’re doing kickboxing or such (which can burn up to 1000 calories an hour)
My advice to everyone is to be honest with yourself about what you can do, **start small, and be absolutely unforgivingly disciplined in your consistency, because discipline will save you when the spark of inspiration eventually dies out**. It only takes a few weeks for a habit to form.
If you set a goal like working out an hour each day, when life inevitably gets in the way, you will beat yourself up for not meeting your goals, and sometimes use it as an excuse to stop continuing “oh I already messed up I might as well keep the streak up,” whereas if you set a smaller goal, even just 30 minutes every weekend on Saturday or something, if you can meet that goal 99% of the time, that’s what you need to set. If 30 minutes a week isn’t doable for you, do 25, if not 25, 15, if not 15, 5 minutes. Set realistic goals for yourself and MEET them, then work yourself up!
> **If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving.**
– Martin Luther King Jr
I suck at consistency, and I have no idea why. Every time I exercise – literally *every single time* – I feel better afterwards. If I manage to go 3-4 days in a row my energy levels are higher and mood is better.
No clue why it works but at 56 years old I can confidently say it always has.
Think of it this way: how can you possibly get to the end of a book if you only read for 15 minutes per day?
Yeah is that it? It’s so easy….just 1 hour a day, three times per week and you can look incredible with proper diet. Oh just a reminder you need to do it consistently for the next 30-50 years to maintain. Easy when life is going good….but when life happens, loved one passes away, breakup, injuries….its so easy to fall off the wagon.
Also just doing something gives you the mentality of hey, I might be a fat and lazy bastard but I did do something today. Mentally it makes it feel like you’re trying which is what we strive for deep down in my opinion.
You’d be surprised on the effects of “truly strenuous” exercises in short time frames.
Pushing yourself to your limit regularly takes very little time. As this topic is subjective based on the effort that YOU put in.
For instance, I can get an amazing, full body workout, in the manner of a 20 minute dumbell exercise, only because I know specifically which weight I need and how many reps, as well as which exercise is needed and how to do it properly.
If you don’t know yourself and your own limitations, you will have a hard time exercising and knowing what or why something is the way it is.
As a general tip, find a kettlebell that you can just barely do 10 Flies with, and keep doing that until you can increase the weight or handle more reps.
Shit, i wish that was true for me. I AM doing ~20 minutes workout every day with an extra 20g protein and hardly seeing any results. Generally eat healthy too.
Mainly just wanna lose my ‘beer belly’ (i don’t drink anymore).
In addition to that 30-60 minutes of exercise I find that I am far more motivated and physically active for the rest of the day which will burn probably another 150 or more calories that I would not have otherwise.
I also tend to be more observant and critical of what I put in my mouth if I feel like I am offsetting the benefits of the exercise. In that way, regular exercise also directly impacts my diet.
This happened to me story, take it for what it’s worth: Baseline is 71 years old, 6 feet tall , 220 lbs.
Been doing cardio every day for years (biking 15 miles alternate days, fast walking 3 miles alternate days, yard work on Sundays (but mostly laying on the couch watching Netflix on Sundays, but hey, killing it 6 days, right? I’m retired so not doing much of anything else (quality time on Reddit, video games, movies, whatever chores wife wants, etc). My cholesterol is always high, not insane, but not good either, glucose always high, on the verge of pre-diabetic, BP always trending high-ish. Year in year out, inching up slowly so not a good trend. Six months ago my wife decides we need a dog, we get a giant chihuahua from the shelter.
Now, doing one mile sniffari walk in the morning, same thing other direction in the evening. No more bike work, no fast walks, just two slow miles every day. Oh, and play some catch in the backyard with a squeeky ball 15-20 minutes three times a day, maybe some tug of war 10 minutes with the rope once or twice a day. Nothing formal, nothing strenuous, but no exceptions allowed, the dog won’t tolerate being ignored (worse than kids, really).
Last physical was two weeks ago, my cholesterol and sugar numbers looked like they fell off a cliff. No high, no slightly high, no high normal, but dead center optimal, in the green. Doc says WTF? I dunno maybe the dog? Doc says dogs can do that. See you in six months, take care of the dog, she’s saving your life.
My take away is it isn’t the intensity of the workout, it’s the constant movement. And dog for the win.
YMMV
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