How Much Exercise Do We Really Need in Midlife

How Long Is Enough Movement?

I’ve been thinking a lot about a question that kind of annoys me.

How long do we need to work out for it to “count”?

There’s something about that framing that feels gross to me. Not because it’s a bad question. It’s a very practical one. Life is busy. Energy is finite. Time is weird in midlife.

But the idea that movement only matters if it crosses some invisible threshold feels off.

Still, I think about it a lot. Probably because I’m living it.

Most of my workouts right now are short. Ten to fifteen minutes. Dumbbells for arms. Resistance bands. Booty bands. The usual suspects if you’ve been following along for a while. I’ve also added some fascia work, though I learned quickly that thirty minutes of that was a little too ambitious for me. So now I’m doing about ten minutes there too.

And here’s the thing. I feel progress.

Not visually. Not in a mirror. But in what my Body can do. In how it feels during the day. In how it functions when I’m not “working out” at all.

That shift is kind of the entire point of this project. It’s not about how I look. It’s about what I can do.

But even with that mindset, this question keeps coming up. Especially in conversations with other midlife women.

How long do we need to move?How long do we want to move?And are those the same thing?

💡 Check out the Substack post that goes into this topic in more detail: https://mybodycan.substack.com

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