Any physical activity that makes your heart beat a little faster is helpful. If you’ve never tracked your heart rate while exercising, it might be worth a try. For moderate exercise, the recommended goal is about 50 to 70 percent of your body’s maximum heart rate. (To calculate your maximum heart rate, subtract your age from 220.) Many people will reach this goal on a brisk walk, said Dr. Lewis.
By estimating your maximum heart rate, you can estimate how fast you should walk, run, or cycle. But it’s not perfect, because your natural heart rate can be higher or lower during exercise. In addition, the fitness levels and heart rates of people of the same age can vary, and not all exercises increase your heart rate to the same extent. Consider talking to your doctor before setting your goals.
“Just moving your body in one way or another will be helpful,” said Dr. Garber. “That’s a very important message.”
Focus on overall health, not weight loss.
Many people exercise with weight loss in mind, but more exercise alone is usually ineffective. In a 2011 review of 14 published papers, scientists found that larger-bodied people who did aerobic exercise for at least two hours a week lost an average of just 3.5 pounds in six months. And in a small 2018 clinical trial, women who did high-intensity circuit training three times a week saw no significant weight loss after eight weeks. (They did gain muscle, though.)
Exercise improves your overall health, and studies suggest: that it has a greater effect on life expectancy than body type. Regardless of your size, exercise reduces your risk of: heart diseasesome species cancer, depression, type 2 diabetes, anxiety and insomniasaid Beth Lewis, a sports and exercise physiologist at the University of Minnesota.
It’s okay if you can only exercise on weekends.
I’ve always assumed that the healthiest athletes exercise almost every day, but research shows otherwise. In a study published in July, researchers followed more than 350,000 healthy American adults for an average of more than 10 years. They found that people who exercised at least 150 minutes a week for one or two days were no more likely to die for any reason than those who reached 150 minutes in shorter, more frequent periods. Other studies by Dr. Lee and her colleagues have signed similar conclusions.