Physical activity refers to any activity that causes your body to work harder than normal. The amount of physical activity you need primarily depends on two things:
(1) what you would like to attain whether you’re aiming for losing weight, increase flexibility, improve stamina, or develop strength and
(2) how physically fit you are right now.
Physical activities is very important to keep your health affairs as it will help you burn calories efficiently, will reduce fat, will reduce your appetite, will keep your current weight and control it, and it will increase basal metabolic rate. It also decreases the risk for cardiovascular disease, and reduce the amount of bone loss that is associate with age and osteoporosis.
There are several factors that will affect the amount of calories burn when doing physical activity. Among these is the amount of work you spend on physical activity. Like walking for 45 minutes burn up more calories than a 20 minute walk of same pace. Your body weight also matters also. A heavier person burns more than a lighter person. Example, a 250-pound person will burn more calories walking for 30 minutes than a 185-pound person. Lastly, the pace on how you perform the exercise also affects the number of calories burned. Walking 3 kilometers per hour will of course burn more calories than walking at 1.5 kilometers per hour.
What is Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR?
Basal metabolic rate is the number of calories your body uses when it is at rest. It accounts for the calories burne while breathing, digesting and nutrition food, and keeping your heart and brain working. Age, sex, body weight, and level of physical activity affect the BMR. BMR is higher at higher body mass and goes down with age.
Physical activity increase your MBR, and it will remain high after 30 minutes of moderate physical activity. For a lot of people, the BMR can be increase for about 48 hours after the activity. This means that after the physical activity, when a person is resting like sitting down and watching TV, the body continues to use more calories than usual.
Combining physical activities with calorie intake reduction can result in loss of 98% of body fat. To keep your desirable body weight and preserve lean body mass and muscle tone, a maintenance level of calories along with physical activity is recommended. For losing or maintaining body weight, do some form of physical activity at least three times a week? Increasing it to four to five times a week is even more helpful. Spread out the physical activity through the week rather than doing it on three or four consecutive days, to reduce the risk of injuries. The target heart rate during physical activities should be 60% to 90% of the maximum heart rate.
Target heart rate is calculate by using the following formula:
- Target heart rate = maximum heart rate x intensity level
- Maximum heart rate = 220 beats per minute less your age
Example if you are 40 years old, your maximum heart rate is (220-40) 180 beats per minute. If your target heart rate is 60%, your target heart rate would be 108bpm.
Physical activities at 60 to 70% of the maximum heart rate can be continue safely for a long period of time. If a person is out of breath meaning he cannot carry out a conversation during the physical activity, then his activity is too hard and could be detrimental.
According to the American College of Sports Medicine, physical activities of less than 2 times a week at less than 60% of the maximum heart rate, and for less than 10 minutes per day, does not help in developing and maintaining fitness. If physical activity is stopped, the fitness benefits are completely lost. Within 2 to 3 weeks the level of fitness is reduced, and within 3 to 8 months it is completely lost, and the person has to restart again.
Twenty minutes of continuous aerobic activity 3 days per week is recommend for weight loss. Examples of physical activity that are consider aerobic are: walking, running, jogging, hiking, swimming, bike riding, rowing, cross country skiing, and jumping rope.
