Many people can control their blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and weight with diet and activity. Some do have genetic risk factors that need medication — but even then, moving regularly means better control, and often less medication.
Does it have to be 30 unbroken minutes?
No. A lot of people believe exercise only counts if you keep your heart rate up without breaks for at least 30 minutes, and that a leisurely walk does not count. That is the kind of belief that talks people out of doing anything at all.
The federal Physical Activity Guidelines dropped the requirement that activity happen in sustained blocks. It used to be that only stretches of 10 minutes or more counted toward your weekly total. That requirement is gone. Ten minutes, five minutes, two minutes — it all adds to the same total.
What the guidelines actually ask
- 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous, or a mix. Spread it through the week however fits your life.
- Muscle-strengthening work on 2 or more days a week, covering the major muscle groups. This half gets skipped constantly and it isn’t optional — it matters for blood sugar, bone density, and staying on your feet as you get older.
And the line the guidelines lead with, which is the one we most want you to hear: move more and sit less. Some activity is better than none.
So does walking count?
Yes. A brisk walk is the textbook example of moderate activity — you should be able to talk but not sing. And an easier walk still counts for something. When researchers measured people’s activity with devices rather than questionnaires, even light activity tracked with substantially lower mortality.
On step counts: most of the benefit arrives well before 10,000. Studies suggest the curve flattens somewhere around 6,000–8,000 steps a day for adults over 60, and 8,000–10,000 for younger adults. Ten thousand was a marketing number, not a medical one.
The honest version
If you can do 30 unbroken minutes, that’s excellent — keep going. If you can’t, because of your knees or your schedule or your lungs or because you’re just starting: break it up. Three ten-minute walks. Parking at the far end of the lot. Stairs instead of the elevator. Getting up from your desk every hour.
Those all count. And the person who goes from nothing to a little gains more than the person who goes from a lot to slightly more.
If a chronic condition keeps you from reaching 150 minutes, be as active as your abilities allow. The worst outcome isn’t an inefficient workout — it’s deciding that because you can’t do it properly, you won’t do it at all.
Want help building something realistic around your health conditions? Call (417) 332-3639, or read about our weight loss support.
Transcript
Hi, I'm Carolyn Clark, and I'm the nurse practitioner at Tri-Lakes Family Care. Today, I would like to talk to you about exercise.
So in the world of Fitbits and Apple Watches and any type of movement tracker, we often get obsessed with how many steps we have had during the day, or how many calories we show that we have burned. And so often I have the conversation with patients that there's a major difference between exercise and movement. So movement are those 10,000 steps that your Fitbit said that you just had today, which is awesome. That's fantastic. Way better than sitting at a desk all day. However, that 10,000 steps that it shows that you have does not necessarily mean that you achieved exercise today.
So I have patients that come in and their blood pressure is high or their blood sugar is a little high or maybe their weight is higher than what they want and they're frustrated because they have noted that their Fitbit shows they're getting plenty of steps or they work a job where they are walking constantly and I have to unfortunately remind them that there is a difference between that movement and exercise.
So exercise is simply when your heart rate is doubled from resting for at least 30 minutes at a time without a break. So how do you know if your heart rate is doubled? Well simply put if you're out of breath for 30 minutes straight then it is very likely that you've achieved exercise, you've achieved that double heart rate.
So I often give the example that if you are a avid walker for your exercise then if you are power walking with a friend and you can talk to them just like this and enjoy your entire walk and visit then you are moving but you are not exercising. So instead in order to achieve exercise in that same situation you and your friend should be walking at an intensity that both of you would have trouble finishing a sentence because you're out of breath. Once you do that then you can count that as exercise and not movement.
So if you're having difficulty moving down on the scale like you want to or maybe you're trying to get your blood pressure to improve or your blood sugars to improve or your cholesterol, what I would encourage you to do is intensify your movement and make it become truly exercise. So examples again are increase the speed of your power walking. If you cannot get out of breath by doing that, that means you are in better shape than you realize and so maybe you need to intermittently jog as well. If you're riding a stationary bike, that simply means increase the intensity of the bike ride by making the resistance harder or speeding up your repetitions. But either way, try to make your movement become true exercise by increasing the intensity and making it vigorous.
In order to achieve cardiovascular effect, to reduce blood pressure, to reduce cholesterol, to reduce blood sugar, the ideal time frame would be to do it for a minimum of 30 minutes a day and at least five days a week. So get out there and get moving.
If you are having trouble losing weight or you're having trouble with those numbers, I am passionate about helping people fix their diet and fix their exercise in order to stay off medicine or reduce their medication load. So feel free to contact me through a virtual visit today by going to trilakesfamilycare.com and clicking virtual visit or feel free to book an appointment online. I'll share the link in the description or finally do it the old-fashioned way. Pick up the phone and call our office (417) 332-3639 and we can sit down and talk about how we can increase your exercise and help your diet in order to decrease your medication load. As always, I hope you stay healthy and happy. Be well.
As always, stay happy and healthy.
Carolyn Clark, NP-C
