The All American One Week Exercise Off

I'm starting a challenge on my Google Groups page. Here's the link:

http://groups.google.com/group/the-challenge-group

Here's the basics, but check out the site and join in!

The Center for Disease Control recommends that adults participate in moderate-intensity physical activity for 30 minutes or more on 5 or more days of the week. The American Heart Association recommends "For health benefits to the heart, lungs and circulation, perform any moderate-to-vigorous-intensity aerobic activity for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week at 50–85 percent of your maximum heart rate."

Now, seriously, how does anyone actually do all that exercise? I mean it was kind of easy when we were paddling and they basically forced you to do exercise 4 out of 5 days a week, but in real life, how do we make sure we're getting enough exercise? My biggest excuse (and probably one of yours as well) is that you don't have the time to exercise. So my challenge for this upcoming week is to find out exactly how much exercise you can fit into one week.

They say that you can break up your expected 30 minutes of exercise into 10 minute walks or you can add exercise by parking your car farther away and walking to your destination. Let's see how much that all adds up.

Details:

The challenge will start on Monday, January 14th (whenever your morning begins) and end on Sunday January 20th. You can count any exercise you can fit in until midnight your time zone.

All you have to do is keep track of how much exercise you've done for the day and BE HONEST about it. Sign in and let the group know what your daily tally is. When you sign in on Sunday to input your tally, put your daily tally and then go back and add all of them up for a total.

The winner of this challenge...... Gets their name on my Blog! At the very top! And can feel a sense of self-satisfaction! And will be the winner!

For this challenge you can count anything, but we're adding time, not exertion. You can count your trek up the stairs to work and the walk up the hill to your car. You can count the walk to the top of the hill on the way to smoke your cigarette. You can count any time you spend on pushups or squats or at the gym. Washing the dishes? Do some squats in between. Even cleaning the house can be counted as exercise if your moving your body around. The point is to challenge yourself to see if you really don't have the time, or if you're just using it as an excuse.

Good luck!