This column is intended for general knowledge only and should not be considered professional medical advice. Always consult with a licensed care provider before making decisions related to your health.
If there were a miracle pill that could help prevent chronic illness, improve your mental health and help you live longer, we’d all be lining up for it. This miracle actually does exist — but it's not a pill. It's exercise.
Bummer, I know.
I’m not here to convince you exercise is the most fun thing ever. But, I believe there’s a form of movement out there for everyone — you just have to find yours.
The truth is, we all need to get moving.
A study involving 1.4 million people found participants with high levels of physical activity had a significantly decreased risk of developing 10 types of cancer, after controlling for body mass index. Exercise is associated with reduced incidence of coronary artery disease, heart failure, heart attacks and Type 2 diabetes. And there’s strong evidence that physical activity has positive impacts on mental health, self-esteem, stress reduction and emotional regulation.
The general recommendation is a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise, plus two days of muscle-strengthening activities (like bodyweight exercises or lifting weights), per week.
In a 30-year study of over 100,000 Americans, participants that met or exceeded the weekly recommendation had significantly lower risks of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease related mortality and non-cardiovascular disease related mortality.
One of my favorite nutrition professors taught me a good rule of thumb: If you can talk but can’t sing, it’s moderate intensity exercise, and if you can only say a few words before having to catch your breath, it's vigorous exercise.
I’m definitely not a gym rat, and I don’t think I’ve ever run long enough to experience a runner’s high, but I was a swimmer almost all of my life.
I used to wake up almost every weekday at 4:30 a.m. and swim for two hours, sit through eight hours of school, and then go straight back to the pool for afternoon practice. When I got to college, I was pretty burnt out. I exercised less than a dozen times my freshman year, with little improvement my sophomore and junior years.
Because I know how bad this is for me, I have been on a mission to exercise more. I tried to go back to swimming, I tried the weight-lifting gym thing, I even tried to get into running, but I could not get a routine going, and nothing would last more than a week or two. That was until my friend invited me to my first Studio Cycle class at Southwest Recreation Center this summer.
That class was the first time I’ve had fun exercising since I quit swimming. I finally found something I enjoy, and now every Sunday, I find myself looking at my calendar to plan which cycling classes I’ll go to that week.
Cycling classes may not be what works for you, but I have other suggestions.
RecSports offers tons of group fitness classes, including yoga, hip-hop cardio, total body workouts and even a weekly run club. For those wanting to weightlift who don’t know where to start, RecSports also offers small group training on beginner and intermediate weightlifting form for a small cost. If you want to swim laps, the Florida Pool and O’Connell Center Pool are open for students.
Gainesville Health and Fitness also has similar workout classes and a lap pool if you don’t have access to UF gyms or just want to get away from campus. Hawthorne Trail is a great place for a long walk, run or bike ride out in nature.
Hopefully at least one of those sounds interesting to you, but I know life gets busy and you cannot always get a workout in. So, while I accept that, I challenge you to incorporate movement into your life any chance you get.
Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Do some squats or pushups while watching TV. Go for a walk while listening to your comfort podcast.
When I know I have to spend all day studying in the library, I pick the library that’s furthest from me, so at the very least, I will have walked the mile there and back. Find opportunities to move your body.
Exercise does not have to be all or nothing. Do what you can, when you can.
With any change to your routine, start slow. If you push yourself too hard, you’ll be hobbling around campus the next day cursing exercise and my name. The goal is to find a sustainable form of exercise you enjoy. Burning yourself out day one — or worse, injuring yourself — will only stall that progress.
Lara Caglayan is a 21-year-old UF nutritional sciences senior.
