Activity vs Exercise

The average American spends 4-5 hours of their lives in front of a TV on a daily basis. If you sit in front of the TV for five hours, work for eight hours and sleep for eight hours, you only have three hours left in your day for everything else! Making time for activity and exercise can be a challenge but you’re weight is directly related to both. Activity and exercise will increase your daily calorie burn but one will change your body composition while the other fights off packing on the pounds.

Activity explained. Activity is classified as movement throughout the day but is not considered exercise. Gardening, cleaning up around the house and walking are examples of activity but should not be considered an exercise program. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen people lose weight just by making the time to go walking everyday but it’s not because they burned a huge amount of calories. Actually, it’s because they’ve reduce their sedentary time and included more activity into their daily life. A sedentary lifestyle makes your feel sluggish, sleepy and worst of all, your metabolism is running at a snail’s pace. Studies show that individuals who are fidgety, busybodies or can’t sit still for extended periods of time tend to weight less based on their daily activity and boosted metabolism. Activity won’t melt off the pounds and increase lean muscle but it will help since it increases your daily movement and decreases the amount of time that can be done sitting down watching TV or other sedentary lifestyle choices.

Exercise explained. A planned time to exert yourself is the best way to describe exercise. If you don’t stimulate your muscle and elevate your heart rate then you did not exercise. Once you’ve completed a workout, a hormonal response has been triggered that forces your body to tap into your fat stores. By the way, exercise doesn’t always have to be pushups and jumping jacks. It can be a game of tennis with your neighbors, a family bike ride or a hiking trail in the mountains. Plan to exert yourself outside of your comfort zone 3-4 times per week for 20-40 minutes and you will feel amazing and see accelerated weight loss results.

Which one is right for you? A combination of activity and exercise is the best plan of attack against weight gain. Maintaining an active day-to-day lifestyle combined with 3-4 exercise sessions will help your metabolism to run at a higher rate, “lubricate” the bones and joints with blood flow and maintain your less muscle by stimulating them often. If you’re very active and exercise regularly, be sure to drink plenty of water. One gallon per day for women and 1.5 gallons per day for men.

[author image=”https://vvng.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1487712_567344853339604_773155816_o.jpg” ]Dustin Bogle is a trainer at Kokomo Fitness in Hesperia Contact him at (760) 995-3366 or KokomoFitness.com[/author]