Overcomming Barriers to Exercise and Physical Activity

An active lifestyle plays an important role in helping you both lose and manage your weight.

The traditional exercise prescription of regular bouts of continuous vigorous exercise may not necessarily promote adoption and compliance to exercise. Recent data suggest that accumulating several short bouts of moderate to vigorous activity each day may improve adherence to a program. Understanding the barriers to activity that you face--such as fear or embarrassment--can help you to develop an appropriate exercise routine, which will ultimately help you with better weight management.


Barriers to Activity

Most people recognize that regular exercise is important from both health and weight management perspectives. Given this information, why do so few participate? A recent survey of overweight, sedentary people who were beginning a weight-loss program (unpublished data) found their four greatest barriers to regular activity were:

• Lack of time,
• Embarrassment at taking part in activity,
• Inability to exercise vigorously, and
• Lack of enjoyment of exercise.

A lack of time has consistently been reported as the greatest obstacle to being active. Given this information, new strategies to promote physical activity are being explored that stray from the classic exercise prescription of at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted vigorous activity done 3 or more days per week.


Lifestyle Activity and Regular Exercise

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the surgeon general have recommended that all individuals attempt to accumulate 30 minutes or more of moderate-intensity physical activity on most or, preferably, all days. The aim of these recommendations is to offer a greater range of choices for sedentary people, especially those who do not enjoy traditional activity.

It has been shown that three 10-minute bouts of aerobic exercise yield fitness improvements comparable to (though slightly less than) those from one continuous 30-minute session. Moreover, the strategy of splitting up the workouts may result in better exercise adherence and increased weight loss.

The concept of "lifestyle activity" encourages you to look for opportunities every day to increase energy expenditure. You are encouraged to work short bouts of activity into your daily routines, which may fit more easily into busy schedules. Here are a few examples for increasing daily energy expenditure:

• Parking the car at the far end of the parking lot;
• Gardening, raking leaves, and mowing the lawn;
• Housework such as cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, and dishwashing;
• Using stairs and walking whenever possible rather than using elevators,
escalators, and moving walks;
• Walking during lunch breaks;
• Using fewer labor-saving devices such as remote controls; and
• Playing with or babysitting toddlers.

Focusing on lifestyle activity may be a suitable initial exercise program for an individual with obesity. This is especially true for those who do not have time for a traditional exercise program or those who simply do not enjoy exercise.

A study recently compared health outcomes in a group of obese women who were randomized to a program of either diet plus lifestyle activity or diet plus aerobic exercise. After 16 weeks of treatment, similar and significant improvements in fitness, serum lipid profiles, blood pressure, and weight loss was found. Interestingly, there was a trend for the individuals in the lifestyle group to maintain their weight loss during the year following treatment better than did the aerobic group. It was believed that the lifestyle group created habits that were maintained during the follow-up year.

Traditional exercise prescriptions have been devised to optimize fitness levels, but obese individuals too often find it difficult to comply with a vigorous exercise regimen. Therefore, the focus needs to be on "lifestyle activity counts".

Lifestyle activity may also be a gateway into a more traditional exercise program, though this has not been tested. It has been noticed that people who have increased their lifestyle activity for an extended period begin to gain confidence that they can successfully attempt a vigorous exercise program. You also need to reduce the amount of time that you are doing sedentary activities (such as watching TV).

Obesity typically is associated with low levels of leisure-time physical activity. Beginning a moderate or vigorous exercise routine may be threatening to an obese person who feels winded by simply taking one flight of stairs. The fear of vigorous exercise is often cited as a barrier to increasing activity levels.

The ACSM recommends aerobic exercise 20 to 60 minutes (which can be broken into 10-minute bouts) 3 to 5 days per week, resistance training 2 to 3 days per week, and flexibility training 2 to 3 days per week.

Formerly active people may feel quite comfortable resuming a traditional exercise program, whereas people who have never been regularly active may be overwhelmed with the notion of starting to exercise. Focus on lifestyle activity first and foremost, start off with small bouts of exercise, and gradually build on your physical activity levels.


^top