It’s that time where many of us think about goals and changes we want to make for the upcoming year. Is increasing your activity level at the top of the New Year’s resolutions? Are you wondering how much exercise is enough? If you want to decrease your risk for heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, etc. the Centers for Disease Control recommend that you engage in moderate-intensity exercise for 30 minutes on most, if not all, days of the week. And you can accumulate those 30 minutes in small increments; say 10 minutes at time, during the day. In other words, you don’t have to head to the gym to meet this goal! If on the other hand your objective is to change your body composition (e.g. increase lean muscle mass) or improve lung capacity you will have to exercise more intensely. However, most of the health benefits are achieved at lower levels of exercise intensity. In fact the greatest gains (in health) are achieved when you go from doing nothing to moderate activity. Talk about a great investment that will pay you dividends over and over again! Happy trails.