There was an interesting (although VERY confusing) article on the Well blog covering this topic yesterday.  The article stemmed from a study done in Scotland that concluded you only need 20 minutes of exercise a week to increase your contentment. Okay, but how much do you need to be healthy?

That’s more difficult to define. The article went into a discussion about “MET” minutes, which are “Metabolic Equivalent of Task” minutes. Huh? Apparently  you need 500 of those as week, and they vary based on what you are doing for exercise and how intense it is. For example, running at 6 mph is a 10-MET activity. So if you run for 60 minutes, that is 600 MET minutes. So, you’re done for the week then? Confusing…

Has anyone heard of this MET mumbo-jumbo before? How do you decide how much to exercise a week? Do you have any exercise goals for 2010?

I aim for at least 30 minutes a day, but usually go by how I feel. If I am in the groove, I will keep going! If I feel like crap, I won’t work out at all.

A few other interesting points from the article (repetitive, but interesting):

According to the Physical Activity Guidelines report, “It has been estimated that people who are physically active for approximately seven hours a week have a 40 percent lower risk of dying early than those who are active for less than 30 minutes a week.”

Interestingly, they did not find that exercise beyond a certain point conferred significant additional health benefits. Instead, the “dose response” for exercise, the committee found, is “curvilinear.” In other words, people who are the least active to start with get the most health benefit from starting to exercise. People who already are fit don’t necessarily get a big additional health benefit from adding more workout time to their regimens.

You do not necessarily have to divide your exercise time into daily allotments, either. Existing “scientific evidence does not allow researchers to say, for example, whether the health benefits of 30 minutes on five days a week are any different from the health benefits of 50 minutes on three days a week,” according to the activity guidelines. Do what suits your schedule.

Meme time! Leah, Gelareh and Holly have all tagged me for the “7 Random Things About Me” meme. Thanks, ladies! Click “more” to read on…

And of course, Happy New Years Eve! Enjoy your evening and be safe!

It was hard to come up with 7 random facts that I felt people wouldn’t know/weren’t a repeat of my “100 Things.” Anyway, I tried! I am sure as soon as I hit publish I will come up with 7 better things. (And yeah, should I have actually posted 21 things since I was tagged three times?)

1. Instead of dropping my maiden name when I got married, I changed my middle name to my maiden name – from “Marie” to “Ilax.” Changing my name was not something I wanted to do and I waited for over a year to do it.
2. I lived in Rome from January – August of 2006. You can read all about it in my old archives. I was in school until the end of April, then worked for the architect Massimiliano Fuksas (for free!) until August. I worked in “Sala Plastici” – that’s Italian for the Model Shop!



Me + Random Gatto at Colosseum

3. My first three cars were Oldsmobiles (a 1979 Delta 88, a 1985 98 Regency, and a 1988 88 Brougham). The first one was totaled when a semi failed to stop at the end of an off ramp and squished my car in half (thank heavens he hit the END of my car and not the front!). The company that owned the semi gave us the second car. It didn’t run as well as the first. So my dad bought me the third one from his Aunt. And I held on to it until last April. My sister drives it now.



Bye bye last Oldsmobile


4. I’ve been a vegetarian for 9 years tomorrow. YES, I am lame and became a vegetarian on January 1st, 2001. My fourth post on my blog was about why I became vegetarian (scroll down to 7/25/05).
5. I had an embarrassing rebellious phase when I was a sophomore in high school. Think staying out WAY past curfew, cutting class, dying my hair strange colors… and much more. Yeah. It was embarrassing. I pretty much cut it out when my older friends went to college the following fall. And I still graduated class valedictorian. I got rid of all of my journals from that time in my life, but there are some stories and opinions I would love to share someday.
6. I don’t follow television or sports. I do watch movies though!
7. I work for the federal government and I love my job. Bet you didn’t see that one coming!

I am not going to tag anyone (supposed to tag 7) but please do the meme if you’d like!

One more thing: Check out Brie’s RoadID Giveaway! I actually asked for a RoadID for Christmas, but didn’t get one, so I should probably buy one. I’ve just been using a dog tag!