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What's the best exercise just to stay healthy? And what frequency? I would hate to exercise for years just to find out it actually harmed my health.
Most of the evidence I'ev seen points toward cardio for longevity. My goal isn't longevity, though.
Doing anything s better than doing nothing, so you should pursue the fitness routine that suits your goals, so that's cardio if you want to live forever, but I don't, so I squat.
My view might be classified as 'odd', but this is how I look at this problem, and this is what I ended up doing: I do not mind living a decade shorter than those ones who are more active than me. I have tried to be active, but could not fit it into my mentality. Note that I did not say my lifestyle, I said my mentality. I am unable to be active. I was not an active person a a kid, and I am not one as an adult. If I a…
Except it's not about a decade. Good friend of mine died at 30 from obesity induced cardiomyopathy. Then we talk about quality of life. I run, lift, and generally workout because I want to maintain quality of life as much as length. My Aunt is 95 and still runs 5k every day. Guess who isn't an invalid in her autumn years?
What's the best exercise just to stay healthy? And what frequency? I would hate to exercise for years just to find out it actually harmed my health.
If you are male, you can also do intense instead of moderate exercise.
For types of exercise, endurance exercise like running or cross country skiing have been found to extend most lifespan, followed by team sports and last strength training
If all that sounds complicated, my advice is to find a job or a hobby that involves moderate exercise. Gardening as a hobby is a good example. Or commit to commute by bike every day
I switched to a standup desk 5 years ago. I got a dog 3 years ago. I don't sit anymore and she forces me to take her for two walks almost everyday. I don't exactly have more energy and I don't feel like I'm going to live forever, but I have noticed I am aging slightly slower than my colleagues who are forced to sit down in their offices for over 12 hours a day.
How can you notice something like this?
My view might be classified as 'odd', but this is how I look at this problem, and this is what I ended up doing: I do not mind living a decade shorter than those ones who are more active than me. I have tried to be active, but could not fit it into my mentality. Note that I did not say my lifestyle, I said my mentality. I am unable to be active. I was not an active person a a kid, and I am not one as an adult. If I a…
This won't alter your lifestyle, and it may bring many health benefits with minimal effort. Plus you will experience mental benefits towards those long coding sessions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not OP, but, yes. I'm regularly mistaken for being 5-7 younger than I am. I notice differences when I look at many high school friends. These differences weren't apparent 5-6 years prior, but they grow more visible with the passage of time. And it's not everyone. Some people hardly look different from high school. Other looks five years past their biological age.
> I'm regularly mistaken for being 5-7 younger than I am. But that's other people judging your age. When you look in the mirror can you say you look different than you did 5 years ago in the area of age? Can you then extrapolate a level of your own aging over a period of 5 years and compare it against your own coworkers, given what they look like to you now versus what they looked like 5 years ago?
And like I said, I have friends that didn't strike me as looking older than me that now I find do look older than me. Liver spots are a very visible one: some of my friends now have these. Creases around the eyes are another. I have some when I smile, others have creases in permanence. (And other friends the same age don't.)
Of course, it can be hard to separate aging vs. sun damage (that affects nothing deeper) vs. weight gain. All of those make a person look older.
If the headline read "people with advanced cellular age exercise less" no one would read it, but it's a more plausible interpretation of the data.
I was inclined to disagree, but seeing the populations involved are elderly, I think you're likely correct. It would be interesting to see what the data shows in younger populations, when almost everyone is able to exercise.
One person sees sick people sitting and concludes that they are sitting because they're sick. Another person concludes that they're sick because they're sitting.
We need better-quality studies to really determine if sitting makes people sick.
My view might be classified as 'odd', but this is how I look at this problem, and this is what I ended up doing: I do not mind living a decade shorter than those ones who are more active than me. I have tried to be active, but could not fit it into my mentality. Note that I did not say my lifestyle, I said my mentality. I am unable to be active. I was not an active person a a kid, and I am not one as an adult. If I a…
This is a fixed mindset vs a growth mindset; that itself is the over-arching lifestyle choice you are making.
Getting in shape is painful, but after 6-8 weeks of a routine, your body adapts and it becomes much easier, even enjoyable to some people. In 2 months, you could have the data to know what your body is actually capable of.
> If I aggregate all those activity hours together.. it could maybe worth a couple of years of my life.
Do you really believe that? Would you tell this to a doctor, or teach this to a child?
I'm no expert, but a few reasons why its very unlikely a linear model applies here: 1) You increase risk of a life-ending event like a heart attack. 2) You are not combatting the effects of stress, which is suspected to be highly related to the feeling of time passing faster as we age. 3) Particularly as you age, your cognitive ability will decline relative to your potential. You'll be a worse programmer than you could be at 40+ - memory, psychomotor speed and executive function in particular will decline vs potential. Simultaneously you will be more likely to get dementia.
I think if you factor these things in your expected years, and expected quality years, of life would change significantly from your estimate. Further, there are plenty of ways to exercise that people consider to be an inherently good use of their time for a variety of reasons.
What's the best exercise just to stay healthy? And what frequency? I would hate to exercise for years just to find out it actually harmed my health.
Every hour or so while working at the computer, I'll get down and knock out twenty pushups or so. You'll be surprised at how fast you build up muscle endurance, and your lower back pain will be gone.