100 Minutes OF MOVEMENT Weekly
This target asks you to add an extra 100 minutes of movement to your week.
When you add 100 minutes of movement to your week, you gain momentum and energy, kick-starting your metabolism and creating the habits that support long-term health and weight maintenance while fighting disease.
Movement refers to our ordinary functional activity throughout the day—things like walking, doing housework, gardening, and climbing stairs. Exercise is important, particularly as a mental training ground that builds your confidence and emotional stamina. However, to achieve sustainable, long-term weight loss (not to mention wellness), it is simply not enough to get to the gym for thirty to sixty minutes in the morning if we then spend the rest of the day mostly sitting down. It stunts metabolism, torpedoes bone density, and actually shortens our lifespan.
Let me be totally clear: I want 100 minutes outside of your exercise, and on top of whatever your current “baseline” is now. So even if you get forty-five minutes of exercise for a kickboxing class, you still need those ten to fifteen minutes of extra movement for this target. If you walk to work already, those minutes don’t count toward your 100.
But adding just 100 minutes of movement to your week will make you feel noticeably better almost immediately, and getting more movement in your day has a pretty low barrier for entry; it is just a matter of creating the habit. You don’t have to fight cravings or brave discomfort, and you don’t need any equipment or special gear. I love using a wearable fitness tracker for this target, but if you are not a technology person, don’t worry about it: this target was intentionally created using minutes instead of steps.
THE OTHER FIVE TARGETS
Moving Target
What does this target look like in practice?
It’s as simple as adding ten to fifteen minutes of walking to each day of the week.
Take a twenty-minute walk after lunch every day during the workweek, or get up from your desk four times every workday and walk for five minutes with a friend.
Or take a thirty-minute walk after dinner, three nights a week.
Or do some gardening on the weekend, walk the dog, dance around the kitchen while you cook...whatever works for you.