The department of Health and Human Services recommends 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise.  Moderate exercise consists of brisk walking or swimming.  Vigorous exercise consists of running or aerobic dancing.  They also recommend twice a week of strength training.  Although they don’t give an amount of time of that they recommend, I say you need at least 30 minutes each time to see any benefits.

So let’s do the math.  This means you need 30 minutes 5 days a week of moderate exercise and two of those days add in 30 minutes of strength training to your routine.  If your goal is to lose weight I would add even more strength training to your routine.  Strength training adds muscle and muscle BURNS FAT!

If you are just starting out I recommend you doing 20-30 minutes of exercise every other day and each week add more time.  Keep in mind again that if your goal is to lose weight you probably are going to need to do more than the 150 minutes per week that the Health and Human Services recommends.  This recommendation is only one of maintaining your health.  How much you will need to do each week to lose weight will depend on how many calories you take in.  3500 calories is one pound so you need to either cut that from your diet or burn that in exercise.