Making Time for Exercise to Fit Your Goals

Lack of time.

It ranks right up there with fatigue, boredom and burnout as the most overworked excuses for not working out.

But suppose you decide to steal some exercise time and commit to a program? Before lacing up your athletic shoes, there are crucial questions to face, such as: How much time do you need? How can you make the most of it to guarantee the best return?

The answers to both questions depend on your goals, say exercise experts. Here are their suggestions for maximizing time to achieve the four most common exercise goals.

- Weight loss

Losing weight through exercise--without dietary restriction--is possible, experts say, but not quick.

If your exercise goal is weight loss--and that’s true for most beginning exercisers--be prepared to spend at least 30 minutes daily, advises Dr. Grant Gwinup, chairman of the division of endocrinology and metabolism at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange.

“My studies show that less than a half-hour of exercise (every day) without dietary changes will have no impact on weight,” he said.

Others say weight loss can be achieved if 1,200 calories or more are expended each week. “The minimum level (of exercise) for effective weight loss without dietary restriction is three to four sessions a week requiring a minimum of 300 calories expended per session,” said Casey Donovan, assistant professor of physical education and exercise science at USC.

How do you exercise away 1,200 calories? Walking an hour four times a week will do it, said Bud Getchell, executive director of the National Institute for Fitness and Sport in Indianapolis. So will jogging at a 10-minute-mile pace for four 30-minute sessions. (Previously sedentary people, experts caution, should get a doctor’s OK before beginning any exercise program.)

Even if you do burn 1,200 calories or more a week, don’t expect instant weight loss, Getchell warned. “We’re talking about exercising at this pace for three weeks or more before losing one pound.”

And don’t play exercise catch-up, Donovan added. “I would recommend for the average individual not to attempt to expend all 1,200 calories in one session, but that he or she do it in three to five sessions during the week.”

There’s some evidence that increasing the frequency of exercise can speed weight loss. Burning, say, 250 calories five or six days a week, Donovan said, might lead to quicker weight loss without dieting.

Gwinup recommends that those interested in weight loss avoid swimming, basing the advice on his study of walkers, cyclists and swimmers who exercised but did not change their diets in order to achieve weight loss. During the six-month study, cyclists and walkers lost weight while the swimmers gained slightly.

Everyone does not agree with that, however. “The best exercise is the one that works for you,” said Paul Ribisl, an exercise physiologist and director of cardiac rehabilitation at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. “The more muscle mass you use, the more potential for weight loss.”

- Cardiovascular fitness

If your goal is cardiovascular fitness--the most important one, in health specialists’ eyes--the American College of Sports Medicine recommends three to five exercise sessions a week, each with 15-60 minutes of continuous aerobic activity sufficient to elevate the heart rate to 60%-90% of its maximum reserve. But those guidelines are currently under review, and many experts already advise working out beyond the recommended minimum time.

Said Getchell: “Thirty minutes is minimum. I encourage people to go 30-40 minutes (per session).”

“No one really knows how much (exercise) it takes to give maximum protection from cardiovascular disease,” Gwinup added.

The kind of aerobic exercise is not important, he said. But it should be an activity the exerciser enjoys--and one that produces “noticeable huffing and puffing.”

“Our research has suggested it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it,” confirmed Michael Pollock, exercise physiologist and director of the Center for Exercise Science at the University of Florida, Gainesville. If bicycling and running are done at the same intensity, duration and frequency, for example, Pollock found in a comparison study, cardiovascular results are the same.

Beginners should notice the first “fitness gain” within about six weeks, Getchell and others said. After that time, novice exercisers should have more energy and a lower heart rate during exercise, he said.

In addition, blood pressure levels can decline fairly quickly after beginning an exercise program, found John Martin, a professor of clinical psychology at San Diego State University and an associate adjunct professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine. In a study, he found that 10 middle-age hypertensive men who participated in a low-level aerobic training program averaged a 10-millimeter drop in diastolic blood pressure as soon as four weeks after beginning the program, while a control group of nine hypertensive men involved in a stretching and calisthenics class showed no reduction. When seven of the nine control group members then participated in the aerobic program, their blood pressures also declined significantly, Martin added.

- Stress reduction

Vigorous aerobic exercise is best to curb stress, said Gwinup, who recommends very brisk walking or bicycling.

“Even lifting weights, chopping wood or shoveling snow can be stress reducing,” added Getchell, who advises at least four or five 30-minute exercise sessions a week to reduce stress.

“If competitive sports make you mad, they’re probably not all that stress relieving,” added Steven Blair, director of epidemiology at the Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas.

- Muscle-building

There’s not much debate about the best route to improved strength and muscles. While old-fashioned calisthenics such as pullups and push-ups can do the job, most experts agree that weight training--using either machines like Nautilus or Universal, free weights or some other form of resistance, such as industrial-size rubber bands--is the most effective way to build muscle and strength.

“There have been studies comparing calisthenics and weight training,” Pollock said, “and weight training is far superior for building muscle strength.”

“There’s no evidence this (weight training) is beneficial for health, however,” Gwinup added, “unless you’re going to work as a piano mover.”

How much weight training is enough?

“Twenty minutes a day, four times a week, would probably be sufficient to build muscle,” Donovan said. “But the program would have to be an efficient one.”