Find Your Starting Point

We want to help you become more active, get the most from your activities, and do them safely. The key is to know your starting point and build slowly from there. Knowing where you are right now will help you pick activities that are realistic for you so that you can be successful.

Think about a typical weekday and weekend day. How much time do you spend sitting? How much time are you active? When you’re up and moving, what kinds of activities are you doing?

To help you figure out your activity level, try using the My Starting Point interactive tool. You can also print a blank activity log, if you’d like to fill in one by hand. For a couple of weekdays and a weekend, keep track of how much time you exercise or are physically active. Record how much time you spend doing each activity.

You can use the last column of the My Starting Point interactive tool to write down some ways you think you can increase your daily activities. If you’re not active yet, aim for a modest beginning and build from there. If you are already pretty active, then you can be more ambitious about adding to your activities.