Yes, Virginia, there is a magical elixir... and it starts with "E"

One February, in honor of National Heart Month, I attended a lecture at our local hospital. The cardiologist asked the crowd of mostly seniors, "If I could prescribe one thing that would make you healthier, would you take it?" The crowded nodded excitedly and said, "Yes," without hesitation. Dr. R-- told us that the one thing is... exercise. The crowd was visibly disappointed. We expected to learn about a miracle cure -- the latest statin or some other drug. We wanted a pill. Dr. R-- recognized this and told us that if he could bottle exercise and get people to take it, they would see amazing results. The crowd wasn't buying it.

If you think of disease as a battle to be fought, then exercise is the silver bullet. If you see health as more of a journey, then exercise is one of your tools, like GPS or mapquest.com.

How much exercise do I need?
Many studies have been conducted on the benefits of exercise. Staying with the cardiovascular theme, let's look at the American Heart Association (2007) recommendations.

To promote and maintain health, all healthy adults aged 18 to 65 yr need moderate-intensity aerobic (endurance) physical activity for a minimum of 30 min[utes] on five days each week or vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity for a minimum of 20 min[utes] on three days each week. Combinations of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity can be performed to meet this recommendation. For example, a person can meet the recommendation by walking briskly for 30 min twice during the week and then jogging for 20 min on two other days.

Where do I start?
Even combining forms of exercise or breaking it up into increments of 10 minutes apiece can still sound daunting. How do we encourage others -- and ourselves -- to get the exercise that they (we) need? I'm not the first to suggest that exercise has to be FUN. If it's a chore or drudgery, we just won't do it.

What would be fun for you? Dancing, playing in the dirt (gardening), swinging on swings?
Here's an example of how one group encourages people to take the stairs -- by making it fun. As the organizers posted, "We believe that the easiest way to change people's behaviour for the better is by making it fun to do. We call it The fun theory. http://www.thefuntheory.com"
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

References:
Haskell, W.L. et al. Physical activity and public health: Updated recommendation for adults from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2007;116;1081-1093. Originally published online Aug 1, 2007. DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.185649. Retrieved from http://circ.ahajournals.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw