Supertracker Physical Activity Report This Discussion Concerns

Supertracker

Physical Activity Report

This discussion concerns the result of my physical activity report for March 3rd-9th, 2013. This report compares my actual exercise habits vs. The goals that were set out for me using USDA guidelines for good health. The report will focus on the outputs of my exercise, the changes I should make to my exercise habits and the types of amounts of exercise that would work best for me.

My Activity

The target for my activity for the week was to exercise for 150 minutes, which would be five workouts of thirty minutes in length, or three fifty-minute workouts. I was only able to work out for sixty minutes in the course of the week. There were three workouts, but they were only around twenty minutes each time. After the twenty-minute workouts of weightlifting, I engaged in 2km of walking as a cool-down and aerobic exercise. However, because walking is considered to be "light," it did not count towards my total minutes. Thus, I exercised at a level, despite three workouts in the week, that was insufficient to promote health benefits and to maintain my weight.

It seems to me that my current exercise habits are inadequate for my needs. They are limited to specific parts of the body (muscles) and ignore other parts entirely. While these exercises are certainly beneficial, they do not represent either enough exercise or enough balance in my exercise. The score I received in the SuperTracker reflects the overall inadequacy of my current exercise for maintaining good health and body weight over the course of my lifetime.

I believe that I do not expend enough energy in the course of my daily activities. During this period of study, my caloric intake was very low, but if I increased that back to a more sustainable level, I would be in a better position to engage in the needed amount of exercise. Thus, I believe that I need to exercise more, but also to increase the variety of different exercises that I do. For example I believe that I lift weights to a sufficient level. However, it is clear that using walking as a form of aerobic exercise, while worth something, is less than ideal. I simply do not engage in enough strenuous aerobic exercise, and this is to my detriment. I believe that I should increase the amount of aerobic exercise in my workout regimen. This means something like a bike or elliptical, or jogging on a treadmill instead of walking. By increasing the aerobic activity, I can perform better in terms of m health. If I added thirty minutes of aerobic exercise to my workouts, I would achieve my target of 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week.

It is also worth considering that I might want to exercise more frequently. My routine for a given week has me working out during the midweek period, but avoiding workouts on weekends. This is not a balanced approach, but because my midweek has more structure, it is easier to work out on those days. Thus, it would be to my benefit to work out even during non-structured times, and that would make working out a more natural part of the week. If the workouts were longer and more balanced, they would be more useful overall. Right now my body is being trained to accept only a light workout a few times midweek, and then slack for four days over the weekend.

I believe that weightlifting does work well for me, but I am not convinced that walking is the best. I am too young to be forced to rely on walking, and should engage myself in more intensive aerobic exercise in order to maximize the benefits of my workout regimen. I believe that if I can not only increase the time and intensity of structured workouts, but add random exercise on other days, this will benefit me significantly. I can see that I would benefit from doing physical activity on weekends, for example, as this would orient my body towards being in a constant state of readiness for exercise.