Your baseline for exercise.

Have you wondered how much exercise you should be getting per week? What exactly constitutes "exercise" and to what level? Is simply walking to the mailbox and back into the house considered exercise?

New guidelines by our government suggest at minimum (for adults) 2.5 hours of exercise per week and 60 min per DAY for kids.

Now there are some guidelines to help us figure out "am I exercising or not?"

Things like a fast pass walk, jogging, jumping rope and evening gardening are considered exercise if done at least 10 min long (or even DrumFIT for 2 hrs per week. Keeping the heart rate up is the key here and if you are doing an exercise less than 10 min your heard and body are not getting the full benefits of the workout you are doing.

If you do not have a FitBit or other similar device that keeps track of your steps/heart rate/calories, I highly suggest looking into one. Not to just have it collect your numbers while you wear it but as a motivating tool. My daily step goal is 10k. Now I have an office job and this hinders my step count more often than I would like. But toward the end of my day and I notice that I might be around 9k steps, I try to push myself and find ways to get those extra steps in before bed.

Also, using the "talk test" can clarify what type/level of activity you are doing.
Basically, If you can talk while you are active, then you are participating at a moderate level.

This was an interesting article that I found on Yahoo. Feel free to read the rest here.