If you’re looking to get healthy particularly if you haven’t been active in a while then you need to think about your overall health level. If you’re someone who doesn’t have any heart disease and by and large you can do all your daily activities then you should be able to go right into an exercise program safely. If you are somebody who’s had a history of heart problems and especially if you haven’t seen a physician in a while then you really ought to talk to your general internist or see a cardiologist before you start any kind of new exercise program.
The general recommendations are at least 30 minutes of exercise up to five days a week. So that’s a fair amount of exercise, probably more than most people would suspect however, it doesn’t have to be 30 minutes constant. It can be broken up into individual periods of at least 10 minutes or so, and sometimes that’s a way people can work that into their daily routine. They actually may find that it fits their routine better than they had thought.
The most important thing for people with or without heart disease when they start an exercise program, is to start slowly and listen to your body. If you start having any kind of symptom that you get with exercise that gets better with rest, whether that be shortness of breath, chest discomfort, arm discomfort, back discomfort, no matter what it is that’s something that you really ought to pause and speak with your physician about.
As long as you start slowly increase slowly and listen to your body, most people do very well. More exercises associated with longer lifespan lower risk of heart attack, lower risk of congestive heart failure, lower risk of stroke, and higher functional level. So it’s not just how long you live but how well you live. People who exercise regularly can even do so very late into life and they maintain a lot of independence from a health standpoint.
I don’t recommend people follow their weight as closely when you’re starting an exercise program. Losing the unhealthy weight, such as fat tissue and replacing it with muscular weight your weight may not change at all, but your overall health is going to be significantly improved. So what’s most important I think is how you feel, more so than how much you weight you lose.
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