Cardio: Mixin' It Up

Thanks to Carol, whose comment in the 'I Dare You' post reminded me of an interesting article I read a few days ago (and I could almost swear I read the same article about four months ago, but oh well.) Anyway, Carol wrote:

I don't want to set a specific time goal each day because if my body gets used to it, I may plateau and I've got so much weight to lose, I have to avoid that possibility so my cardio must be switched up and changing constantly.

I agree with you, Carol. So does Debbie Rocker of Yahoo! Health. Among other things she writes about in her January 28th article (and possibly another one four months ago *g*), Ms. Rocker suggests:

So exercise efficiently – two short, very intense (relative to your level of fitness) training sessions weekly, like a 15-minute fast run/walk or fast cycling sprint intervals, and two moderately long, moderately intense sessions (30-45 minutes) of strong walking, cycling, or yoga, with one long day (60-90 minutes) of a moderately paced walk/hike. That’s a great five-day/week training schedule.

That's sort of how I manage my week. On training days, I usually only do 15 minutes, 20 if Ashley left me any legs to work with, and on other weekdays I walk about 35-45 minutes, and then on weekends I try to get two 60 minutes walks in, but I don't always manage that for both days. I almost always take one day a week as a rest day. (I've got to get better at that!) The idea is that I average 35 minutes per day for each day of the month.

For February I'm right at the 35-minute average, but tomorrow is a rest day, so I'll try to add 5-10 minutes here and there for the remainder of the week to catch up.