Welcome to the Get Fit Guys' quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and I'm the Get Fit Guy.

And as the Get Fit Guy, I'm on a constant quest to figure out the sweet spot of exercise for you,

especially when it comes to discovering the ultimate balance between health, performance,

and longevity.

Well, I've written many articles and recorded many episodes on this topic.

For example, you can check out at quick and dirty tips.com in the show notes for this episode,

episode number 231, articles like, what's the minimum amount of exercise you can do?

Is exercise bad for your heart?

Can you exercise too much? Can kids exercise too much? How much should kids exercise? And many more.

Well, this week, the New York Times published an article that was entitled The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life.

The article discusses the results of two new studies that investigate

how much exercise you need to actually get the longevity benefits of exercise. Well, before

jumping into the results of these studies, it's important to note that rather than being

controlled or randomized studies, the research relied primarily on people's memory recall

of their exercise habits. So

similar to diet studies that rely upon memory recall of meals, this data can be prone to human

error, but it can also give us important clues. So in the first study, it was found that people

who didn't exercise at all were at the highest risk of early death. No surprises

there, right? Those who exercised a little, not meeting the current American Heart Association

guidelines of 150 minutes per week, but at least doing something lowered their risk of premature

death by 20%. Those who met the current exercise guidelines of 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise

...