For many healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends the following exercise guidelines:

Aerobic activity. Get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of strenuous aerobic activity per week, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity. The guidelines suggest that you spread this work throughout the week. To provide maximum health benefits and to help reduce or maintain weight loss, at least 300 minutes a week is recommended. But even a little exercise can help. Working short hours all day can add up to providing health benefits.

Strength training. Perform strength training exercises on all major muscle groups at least twice a week. Plan to do one set of each exercise using a weight or resistance level that is heavy enough to strain your muscles after about 12 to 15 repetitions.

Moderate exercise includes activities such as brisk walking, cycling, swimming, and mowing the lawn. Strong aerobic exercise includes activities such as running, heavy yard work, and aerobic dancing. Strength training may include the use of weightlifting equipment, your body weight, heavy bags, resistance tubes, water-resistance paddles, or activities such as rock climbing.

As a general rule, aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity every day. If you want to lose weight, maintain weight or meet certain fitness goals, you may need more exercise.

Reducing the duration of stay is important, too. If you stay for many hours a day, you are more likely to have metabolic problems. Being overweight can have a detrimental effect on your health and longevity, even if you get a recommended amount of daily physical activity. And some studies have found that people who lose weight may have more opportunities to avoid losing weight by staying up less during the day.

A little short time? Even short-term work offers benefits. For example, if you can fit in one 30-minute walk during the day, try walking for five minutes instead. Any job is better than none at all. Most importantly make regular exercise a part of your lifestyle.

Your brother plays tennis every weekend, and your son hits the gym three times a week. Your wife walks every day, and your daughter does yoga and dances. You put the putter in the yard and enjoy a golf course from time to time, but in the end, you decide to focus more on exercise.

To set good intentions into action, you need a goal. How much exercise do you need? Ask the U.S. General Surgeon, the Institute of Medicine, the American Heart Association, and the American College of Sports Medicine, and you will probably find four different answers. But do not let that stop you. You are the only one who can decide how much exercise is right for you.

Why exercise?

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People exercise for one of five reasons: work, health, entertainment, competition, or appearance.

The amount of exercise you need depends on your fitness goals, where you start, and how quickly you want to achieve your goals. And the type of exercise you choose depends on your abilities and preferences, your schedule, and your resources.

Train yourself for the job

For better or worse, not many 21st-century Americans meet their fitness levels at work. As recently as the 1850s, about 30 percent of all agricultural and productive energy in the United States depended on human muscle strength. Never again. We replaced the plows with plowshares, brooms, vacuum cleaners, and stairwells. Freed from physical activity, humans have used the mental activity to build a more comfortable and comfortable society. In this process, however, we have created a hidden energy problem – not the lack of fossil fuels, but the lack of work done by the human body to prevent disease and reach its full potential.

Exercise for health

Exercise is the most secretive secret in preventative medicine. Despite our differences, we all need exercise to survive. Regular exercise provides valuable protection against many of the diseases that plague our country. The list includes:

• heart disease
• stroke
• high blood pressure
• diabetes
• obesity
• osteoporosis and fractures
• depression
• breast cancer and breast cancer
• dementia (memory loss).

What do you need to get these benefits? Less than you can imagine. What matters is what exercise scientists call isotonic exercise – activities that use your large muscle groups in a rhythmic, repetitive manner without making your muscles work against hard resistance. We used to call this exercise “aerobic” because we thought it should be strong enough to increase your heart rate to aerobic (70% to 85% of your heart rate). We also called it “endurance” because we thought it needed to be strengthened continuously to benefit. But now we know that none of these beliefs have been true for a long time. You can get all the health benefits you need with moderate exercise that won’t make you squirm, even if you do it in small doses – as long as it includes enough exercise.

We have created the term “cardiometabolic exercise” (CME) to cover a range of activities, from climbing stairs in your office building to elliptical pushing. All of these things will improve your heart, your metabolism, and your health. The key is to do the right thing and to do the right thing. In health, doctors should “give” at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise or 15 minutes of strenuous exercise a day. To see how your work is accumulating, use the CME points plan (see below), aiming to earn at least 150 CME points per day.

Combine daily activities, formal exercise, and sports to get the cardiovascular exercise you need in life. And to get the best results, do some stretching almost daily and train strength two or three times a week. As we grow older, we need these extra jobs. And as the years go by, most of us will benefit from some simple tests to improve balance and prevent falls, a major health problem for adults.