Exercise & Weight

Hello, I'm Dr. Amy Lukowski, Licensed Psychologist and Clinical Director of Health Initiatives Programs at National Jewish Health. Today I'm going to be talking to you about integrating physical activity into your everyday.

Physical activity is a major component of the energy balance. Energy balance is defined as the number of calories consumed through eating and drinking versus the calories that you expend through physical activity. What we find is that small changes make the biggest difference and tend to stick longer. So when you're integrating physical activity into your everyday, one of the keys is to make it fun, make it enjoyable. That way it's more likely to become part of your regular day.

There's also ways to increase your physical activity. The first is through frequency, how many days you're doing physical activity in a week. The second way to increase your physical activity is by the amount, how much activity you're doing each day. And the third way to increase your physical activity is through intensity, so how hard you're working when you really are engaging in different physical activities.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has a physical activity goal for all adults of two hours and 30 minutes of moderate activity per week. In addition, they also recommend participation in muscle strengthening activities that involve all major muscle groups performed on two or more days per week. Moderate physical activity is defined as working hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat, but easy enough that you could carry on a conversation with somebody.

Learn about starting an exercise program and exercises you can do at home:

This information has been approved by Kimberly Sack, MS, PT (May 2012).

Exercise

Exercise increases:

Exercise decreases:

Learn about starting an exercise program and exercises you can do at home: