Although there are no sure-fire recipes for good health, the mixture of healthy eating and regular exercise comes awfully close. Most of Nutrition Source is dedicated to singing the praises of a good diet. This is where exercise gets its due.

Regular exercise or physical activity can do everyone a world of good. It helps prevent heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and a host of other diseases, and is a key ingredient for losing weight or maintaining a healthy weight.

With all these good things going for it, it's mind boggling that only a minority of Americans get enough exercise or leisure-time physical activity to benefit.

Studies that have followed the health of large groups of people for many years, as well as short-term studies of the physiologic effects of exercise, all point in the same direction: A sedentary (inactive) lifestyle increases the chances of becoming overweight and developing a number of chronic diseases. Exercise or regular physical activity helps many of the body's systems function better and keeps a host of diseases at bay.

If you don't currently exercise and aren't very active during the day, any increase in exercise or physical activity is good for you. Some studies show that walking briskly for even one to two hours a week (15 to 20 minutes a day) starts to decrease the chances of having a heart attack or stroke, developing diabetes, or dying prematurely.

The U.S. Surgeon General,(1) along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine,(5) recommend getting a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most days of the week. You can do all 30 minutes at once or break it up into 10- or 15-minute periods.

Moderate intensity exercise or physical activity is activity that causes a slight but noticeable increase in breathing and heart rate. One way to gauge moderate activity is with the "talk test" - exercising hard enough to break a sweat but not so hard you can't comfortably carry on a conversation.

Exercise experts measure activity a different way. They talk about metabolic equivalents, or METs. One MET is defined as the energy it takes to sit quietly. For the average adult, this is about one calorie per every 2.2 pounds of body weight per hour someone who weighs 160 pounds would burn approximately 70 calories an hour while sitting or sleeping.

Moderate intensity activities are those that get you moving fast enough or strenuously enough to burn off three to six times as much energy per minute as you do when you are sitting quietly, or exercises that clock in at 3-6 METs.

Brisk walking fills the bill for moderate-intensity activity. How fast is brisk? For the average person, it means walking 3-4 miles an hour, or about as fast as you'd walk if you were late for an important appointment. Walking is an ideal exercise for many people - it doesn't require any special equipment, can be done any time and any place, and is generally very safe.

Learn more at:http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/Exercise.htm