To not believe 57% do recommended exercise

[brasty]

According to the census, 57% of people have self reported that they do the recommended amount of exercise of 2.5 hours a week. I simply don't believe this. I suspect the figure is much lower.
AIBU to think this is higher than in reality, because it is based on self reporting?

Work your lags? Not sure what they are, but it sounds very Victorian

Prisoners?

Bingo! I knew it was a noun but couldn't recall what for!

Is this you Maid?

A laptop in a sturdy bag with a charger, make up, gym kit would be heavy enough. The total weight I carry when commuting is easily at least 20kg and my bag isn't nearly as big or heavy as most commuters.

I'm surprised it's only 57% to be honest. 2.5 hours each week of brisk activity that gets your heart going isn't much. I do that, though not the strength work, and I think of myself as unfit and sedentary. Because I am.

I mean, a 10 minute school run is 20 minutes brisk walk each day even if you dawdle when the kids are around. If you've a 10 minute walk to work, or even from the car park or train station, that's 20 minutes each work day and I cannot be the only one who always needs to hurry it because of being late?! You really only need a bit of a runaround in the park or garden at weekend with the kids to hit 2.5 hours. I accept there are some people who never walk anywhere, but I do think most of us have need to do a bit of power walking in our daily lives even if it's just what I mentioned above. Remember that for most people, diet rather than exercise is what makes them fat or thin. You can be doing a couple of hours exercise a day and still be fat, if you eat enough I totally could.

Incidentally, does toddler lugging count as weights? Because I meet that guideline if so!

Thing is if you're very overweight/obese, it doesn't take extreme effort to get out of breath etc, so carrying shopping home, in a hurry because it's going to rain, would count.

Likewise the same group of low income people are generally doing their own gardens/decorating and sometimes other people's.

A lot of low income people (who tend to be the fattest) have dogs.

Moderate amounts of exercise doesn't do much for weight loss. That's the truth. The only way for it to have a visible impact is to do at least 1.5/ 2 hrs a day of something which does raise the HB above "moderate". I can run a HM and that will only burn 1000 calories, 10k about 500 and so on. So with all my weekly mileage I don't think think I burn above 3k calories...

@Birdsgottaf1y - people burn more calories the heavier they are. So a really slow lazy walk could burn 500 plus calories if for a really overweight/obese person, but only 50 for a normal weight person. So if a heavier person moved more and ate just a bit less their weight would plummet.

I am a recently lazy marathoner (haven't run since my last race in May) and I still walk 8 miles a day minimum - nevertheless I have gained a stone in weight. I know as someone who is pretty obsessed with their diet, that I do not overeat. My body is used to running 50 miles a week and now it isn't and I am turning into a lardarse. There is no way on God's green earth than 2.5 hours of 'exercise'a week is enough CV exercise for anyone. We need to be active most of the time - and our hearts need to be racing, not just walking. We weren't made to be sat on our arses. Add to this the fact that people are almost never honest with themselves or others when reporting things like exercise and you've got a whole circle of lies which ends up in nobody really knowing what is good or what would be better.

I walk briskly round (and round and round) our huge ward 3 to 5 times a week for 8 hour shifts - I do 8000 to 12000 steps on work days.

I go to the gym for weights and cardio every other day for approx 50 mins to 1 hour.

But if I only do exercise I just 'maintain ' my weight or even put a couple of pounds on!
To lose weight I count 1500 calories a day, I've lost 3 stone so far but as i take a lot of sedating medication I can't take my eye off the ball. One day eating too many calories and the weight creeps up.

So Exercise is important for health & fitness but not for weight loss so much

True freya Exercise makes you feel good but diet is more important for weight. I think a lot of people think if they exercise they can eat whatever but it's not the case (certainly not for me anyway!)

I walk or cycle to work four times a week - walking briskly takes about 35 minutes. Cycling takes 20 mins there (a lot of it up hill) and 15 mins back (downhill, it's lovely). I go for a walk lunch time sometimes as well, so in the summer I easily do the 2.5 hrs without trying. In the winter I'm more likely to get the bus home.

Yes average walking does not count. And certainly not the pace most parents walk with children. If just ordinary walking counted, I would believe it.
But it has to be exercise that raises your heart rate and gets you slightly out of breath. I know some people do this. Lots of my friends are very sporty and run marathons and similar. But yoga, pilates do not count towards this 2.5 hours a week.

And the replies to this thread simply confirm the belief that people are counting activities that do not count towards this. And this has nothing to with fatness or slimness.

I can only think of 1 friend in our large social circle who would actually meet this target and pretty sure none of my neighbours would. DH and I go to the gym 3 times a week and we probably only just meet the target - and most of our friends think we do loads of exercise and are super fit - we are just averagely fit in our opinion. Hardly anyone around here walks anywhere let alone at speed - too easy to jump in the car and pop up the road.

I suspect that people over estimate what they do by way of exercise in the same way that people can't understand why they don't lose weight as they "hardly eat anything". If they actually wrote down what they ate in a day it would be far more than they would admit to off the top of their heads for most people.

I know quite a few people who meet this target, but they are super sporty - play sports in teams, go running most days.

I don't. I walk lots of places, but probably only do 1.5 hours a week of exercise that makes me out of breath and gets my heart beating. My daily walks to the shops and other places are better than sitting on the sofa all day, but are just ordinary walking pace. I know I need to increase my level of exercise.

But yoga, pilates do not count towards this 2.5 hours a week

Depends. If I do an active vinyasa flow class, that has me out of breath and dripping in sweat. It is both a cardio and strength workout- lots of flowing through press-ups etc. If I did a gentle hatha class, no, that would not count towards the 2.5 hours.

Okay if you are out of breath with your heart pumping, that counts. The yoga classes I have done in the past are brilliant for flexibility, but were not cardiac.

Ah YANBU as shown by some of the above posts.

Commuting, walking the kids to school or shopping is not exercising. Gardening or housecleaning can be, but only certain tasks, for ex out of 1h of cleaning there is maybe 15min that counts as exercice.

It does depend what you count.

I'd say I'm a 'yes' as I run 3-4 times a week (between 20 and 60 mins a time), do another sport once or twice (about 90 mins a time) and an hours Pilates class most weeks in term time. Plus cleaning, gardening and walking a lot (pace variable).

But in the days when I did less defined sport, I saw a doctor for a check up who was happy to put me down as active on the basis of self-reported 'toddler chasing'

I run about 3.5hrs a week and walk the dog fast most days for more than an hour so that my Fitbit reads cardio (pulse 130ish) for most of it. So I do the recommended amount. I'm not fat though.

I cover 65 miles a week according to my Fitbit. That includes all pottering around.

According to TheWeek magazine last week the average person walks 95 miles a year which I found staggeringly low. No pun intended

I run 3 times a week + various other "normal" activities like school runs, shopping & housework easily put me into this category. On the other hand, if I'm working from home some days I do less than 2,000 steps.

I suppose what I'm saying is that it's quite a low target.

I absolutely do not do enough exercise for me at the moment. I can feel the difference from a few months ago when I was swimming 3 times a week (only for just over half an hour but covered a km each time which was a strenuous pace for me).

But I also think the targets are quite low. I used to exercise with a heart monitor and was advised to avoid strenuous exercise in the early stages of my first pregnancy. I got a target heart rate to keep the exercise as 'moderate' rather than 'strenuous'. The bloody monitor was always going off - seriously just a moderate walk up a hill. I'd say anything we're thinking of exercise is really in the 'strenuous' exercise category and running around after a toddler is definitely moderate!

It's 2.5 hours of 'moderate aerobic activity', isn't it? So average walking that doesn't raise your heart rate wouldn't count
Exactly. Seeing as most people I encounter walk at half my normal speed they certainly aren't getting "moderate aerobic activity" even when they probably think they are. I knew someone who was convinced she exercised a lot because she walked her dog, but in reality she dawdled to the park, let the dog off the lead and stood around while he ran rings round her. A lot of people overestimate the exercise they do and underestimate their calorie intake.

A laptop in a sturdy bag with a charger, make up, gym kit would be heavy enough. The total weight I carry when commuting is easily at least 20kg and my bag isn't nearly as big or heavy as most commuters.
Really?! I'd be surprised if it was anywhere near 20kg as that's pretty heavy for just a laptop, charger, gym kit (or are you carrying kettlebells?) and make-up (unless requiring a trowl to put on).

Brasty I said the legs of the school run walked without the child, not with! So if you have a 10 minute walk, that's 20 minutes brisk walking you can do in a day not 50,20 of it won't count. I push a buggy for mine too so that helps.