10 Minutes, Three Times a Day

It Doesn't Have to Be All or Nothing

By Charlene Torkelson, Fitness Expert

The American Heart Association, in conjunction with Blue Cross/Blue Shield, has came up with ads promoting fitness for the average American. "Ten Minutes – Three Times a Day" segments flashed across the screen showing middle-aged adults doing ordinary average things or simply feeling the music and getting up to dance. The ads were trying to tell us something.

Americans tend to see things as either extremely left or right, nothing or everything. It's the same way with exercise and fitness. It's either training for the marathon or couch potato. This promotion tells us to get in the middle – do something in between the extremes. In order to feel fit we need to put more movement and activity into our everyday lives. It doesn't have to be taking hours to run 10 miles. Instead it is taking 10 minutes to weed the garden, walk the dog or dance to the music.

If you take the challenge to heart and calculate how many additional calories you burn by doing these added activities, Caloriesperhour.com gives the following advice: Remember when calculating your calories to subtract the number of calories you would have used doing a more sedentary activity during that same time. For example, if you know that walking your dog burns 250 calories an hour, you aren't actually burning 250 calories by doing that activity. You need to subtract the 80 calories an hour you would have burned by just sitting and watching TV. So in actuality you are burning an additional 170 calories.

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