Who has 150 minutes spare to exercise?

[Cocopogo]

On the news, Boris says he wants to kick start fitness and exercise in England today. He says children should be doing an hour a day of exercise whilst adults should be doing 150 minutes
Who has two and half hours spare to exercise a day? Apart from that prat with his hired help.

YANBU - you don’t have 150 mins spare a day to exercise
YABU - you exercise for at least 150 mins a day and I’m being lazy and can’t prioritise!

I "took up exercising" last year with the government guidelines in mind and really struggled to find the time. It's not about objective time necessarily, but about finding that many minutes together at a time when it's convenient. I've got two young children at home and am a SAHP.

• I can't exercise when they're awake because I've got to have my eye on them.
• I usually had other things I had to do during their naptime that had to be done during business hours (e.g. calling bank)
• Nothing on earth would induce me to get up earlier than them.

So my only option was in the evenings after they'd gone to bed. If I did it at home (e.g. exercise video) then DH couldn't use the sitting room during that time. If I went out then that added to the time with getting changed (and if I'd done anything other than start running out of my front door, then travel time too). I didn't like running in the dark or the wet. And I still had my usual things to be done in the evening so it either meant exercise instead of relaxing or going to bed later.

I did manage to do it but it's not as simple as picking a random 150 mins a week and labelling them "exercise".

Also, running around after my toddler is not exercise. Even if he was a wanderer, I can catch him up in three paces! What it really means is I can't even have a brisk walk to the shops because I've got to go at the pace of his stubby little legs. Snails overtake us!

DD7's primary school do 1 hour of PE a week. 1

The reality is everyone has 150 minutes "spare" to exercise a week. 20 minutes hardly requires restructuring your entire day or giving something up.

YABU to take fitness advice from a slob like Boris.

I don’t want to think about his only form of exercise after yesterday’s Daily Mirror headline. Barf!!!

I have to get up at 5.40am three days a week to run to even approach getting that much in

You've misheard

150 active minutes a week is standard NHS advice and has been for several years at least.

Good to hear the PM endorsing it

@JustSleepAlready

But surely everyone has a personal trainer and money and time and lives just like BOJO? What do you mean we don’t all have privilege and money and the boyz in our life?

I exercise an hour a day. At home. It is free. It does not require childcare. I organise my day around it, which means I do housework in the evenings instead of watching TV like many people do.

I do have time but I can't be arsed to even do 10 minutes - a week.

it's up to you if you find time to be on MN, watch tv and play on the internet

or you exercise instead

It IS about priorities.

WHO recommends 150 minutes a week, which is more than manageable and yet so many fail to reach that goal

It's easiest with young children, you have all day!

you can do some from home
you can put them in a buggy and run for 30 minutes
(you can do longer, but it gets boring for them)

No one puts their life on hold because they have a toddler. You can chose to, but why would you.

Looking at the traffic jams around all the schools in the country, not many adults can be arsed to even walk, let alone exercise.

They tend to be very up to date with the latest netflix series funnily enough. Priorities 🤷

When you work out your average active minutes, do you include just walking?

It's about intensity, if it's intense enough that you're breathing harder and your heart rate is elevated then yes, if not, then no. Walking can be both, but in general it's probably a good idea not to count it as getting the 150 minutes from a few minutes of low intensity exercise is not as valuable, just have it as a bonus amount.

I exercise for at least 40 minutes a day. It’s a priority for me and it’s not particularly hard once you get into a routine that works for you. I get up early most days and do a YouTube workout before work. It doesn’t cost me anything and I don’t need childcare to do it. At the weekends my DCs and I will go for a long walk or we’ll run together.

I’m a single parent and I work full time.

Definitely per week. Even the busiest of people can manage that by perhaps parking a little further from work, walking to the shop/school instead of driving, small changes and little bursts of exercise each day. Even if you WFH a walk round the block for 20 minutes each day would cover it. If you don't have 20 mins a day spare you need to look at your schedule and see what can change - because that's not healthy. Also remember that if you're spending the day cleaning the house etc that all counts as exercise.

I do 1 hour 15 mins each morning (cross trainer and cardio toning class) plus 2-3 hours pilates a week.

Are they going to do funding where normal people can have help with gym memberships? I’d love that!!

I do mine every morning before the school run as I work full time. Pilates is an evening class.

I can't vote because I absolutely could make time to exercise for a couple of hours a day in total but I don't and I'm not going to because I can't be arsed.

Oh great! Now I know where BJ is spending his days , he’s exercising. And it’s clear why he hadn’t got spare time to attend some meetings and to read some documents last year.

And yes, I know it should be per week but the article implies that it’s per day.

Like everyone has said, it's per week

I'm a professional dog walker and on average I walk between 10-15km each day. Which is about three hours of walks, give or take. That's five days a week.

I do nothing on the weekends!

Oh, per week?
Yeah. Could but won't.

@Magnificentmug12

Are they going to do funding where normal people can have help with gym memberships? I’d love that!!

Gyms probably need help due to being closed for a large part of the last year, especially given that a lot of their regulars have probably realised that you don't actually need a gym membership to exercise and there are loads of equally effective other ways of keeping fit, especially if general health and fitness is your goal rather than heavy weight training.

Per week is easy. I go on a minimum one hour a day walk and I currently do home workouts for one hour 3 x a week.

When the gyms reopen I go at least 5x a week for around anywhere between 1-2 hours, I can’t wait for them to reopen.

@whetherpigshavewings Disagree. I'm an active person and probably fitter than most. Have a very low resting heart rate and was getting out for decent hikes within days of my baby being born. On the days I have the baby, fitting in exercise is easy. When I have my nearly 3 year old, it's much harder. She's too old to 'put in the buggy and run' unless I give her loads of snacks, which isn't good for her health! As a pp said, it's finding the right time, not just having that time in your day. I can see if you have a partner who works away or isn't supportive it would be very difficult to get in your exercise with a pre-school child. And when I was working, the time I had after work I wanted to spend with my child. I then had more work to do after she went to bed. I suppose that was me prioritising other things over exercise, but when a lot of people work long hours with small children it's disingenuous to suggest it's not hard to fit exercise in.