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What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

theguardian.com

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Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#91

Post by jcousins »

lisper wrote: post #66
jcousins wrote: post #16

I reversed diabetes with diet alone by doing my own research[1], taking charge of my health. I lost 180lbs in the process. No exercise (disabled). Very much a work in progress. I'm not rejecting the importance of exercise for health - I follow the general principal of eating to get healthy, exercising to get fit - but I think we skip over the absolute tragedy that is the Standard American Diet at our peril. Recoverin…

So what exactly are you eating now vs before?

I was eating a typical western high carbohydrate, moderate protein, low fat diet with a modest caloric deficit. Lots of starchy veg, breads, rice and pasta.

I migrated gradually (six months) to a very low carb diet including abstinence from all forms of artificial sweetener. 9g/122g/100g carbs/fat/protein. On the plate that's lots of saturated fat, moderate protein from meat and dairy (largely unprocessed) and huge volumes of green vegetables (but they are simply a vehicle for fat and micronutrients.) I will experiment with abstinence from dairy in the future.

I keep my eating to a six hour window, two meals. The artificial sweetener ban is due to the insulin response they can provoke, which goes directly against my goal - to significantly improve my insulin sensitivity. I hope that is specific enough!

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#92

Post by jonex »

jdc wrote: post #44
dennis_jeeves wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise is probably over rated is my opinion. Moderate activity like not being a couch potato, and walking around is probably good enough for most people rather than vigorous exercise. Also correlation is confused with causation. The person who is is not active is not necessarily lazy. It the the probably obesity and ill health that makes him/her inactive. Personally I'm on a ketogenic ( about 60 %to 90% calories fr…

Would you say it's just a matter of calories in minus calories out?

It very certainly is. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something.

However, as most people do not count their calories (an underrated activity I'd say, it makes weight control trivially simple if you can keep it up) what's more important is how much your food and activities makes you eat in relation to what you need.

This is what makes exercise not as obvious as a solution. If you move more, you will generally want to eat more. The function of diets is to have the opposite effect, by eating certain kinds of foods you can trick your body into feeling satiated on a calorie deficit.

Generally this happens for instance when you make restrictions on your diet, like eating a limited amount of fat or a limited amount of carbohydrates.

Some foods are designed to be tasty and make you eat more, sometimes your body won't compensate for that and you get on a calorie excess. Processed food and snacks are often in this category. By eating less of those, and more of whole foods you often will naturally reduce your calorie intake. Using less added sugar and fat is often helpful as well.

Going into details of how the body manages your calorie intake like your digestive system and the insulin system is interesting in itself, but it's usually not very relevant for adjusting your diet. This is because the way these affect your body is both non-obvious and often not as well known as it might seem.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#93

Post by Noos »

These articles are such exquisite forms of class warfare that it approaches the sublime.

1. Upper class people seek to differentiate themselves from lower class people by status markers (like reading the guardian)

2. In the past, food was scarce, so upper class people were fat when lower class were lean, hence terms like "rubinesque beauty" or the figures of Botticelli's art.

3. Now food is common though, so the status marker is to be thin, because being thin shows you have leisure time to exercise, (you try being on your feet for 12 hours a day and then going to the gym), have money to eat the right kinds of food, and have the good form to have discipline not to eat when you need comfort (or in general need comfort).

4. but it's not enough to do it, the upper class needs their virtues reinforced.

5. Since the upper class is atheistic due to the lower class being religious (unless they are the right kind of religion, something either punishing to follow or neo-atheistic as it is), we must focus on the atheist's heaven, good health.

6. Your virtue in being thin is rewarded through lack of depression, disease, and long life! Your priestly newspaper has given you a scientific sermon.

Think about this. Why is this article in the Guardian, who I'm willing to bet already exercise, eat well, etc? Wouldn't it be in the Daily Mail instead, if the point was to convince people to exercise? That's because it's there to reinforce the idea of exercise and thinness as a status marker among the Guardian readership. The same thing happens in lower class media too, on different subjects, but the upper class usually never even gets how they are being led around.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#94

Post by DanBC »

hellofunk wrote: post #83
DanBC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you know? Because researchers keep failing to find evidence of effectiveness.

Mayo Clinic is a respected place, and they seem to think there is a link: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-... Even if there was no evidence, surely the testimonies of many others right here on this page would at least be worth the possibility that it could be effective.

Here's a well run meta analysis.

http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre...

> Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression.

[...]

> The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive.

[...]

> The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive.

Since depression is a potentially fatal illness it's important to stick to evidence based treatments.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#95

Post by Fnoord »

WalterBright wrote: post #51
jasonwelk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An hour spent being extremely bored and uncomfortable In the beginning, this is often true. But exercise is addictive! When your body gets used to it, you really want it and it is not uncomfortable. That "runners high" is also not a myth.

I've been jogging for a long time. For the first year, I had to force myself to do it. After that, I was surprised to find I started enjoying it, looking forward it, and missing it if I didn't do it. I don't try very hard at it, I'm not running against time, I just jog and don't worry about it. As for boredom, the opposite happens to me. I find I think better while jogging. I work on programming bugs while jogging, a…

When you run, your brain enters the diffused mode of learning [1]

[1] https://staciechoice1010.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/focused-vs...

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#96

Post by Fnoord »

throwaway0255 wrote: post #67
szemet wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=male+80+kg+1+hour+runn... = 1050 calories

15 years of being very overweight and trying to lose weight through exercise = 1050 calories/hour only if I exercise at a level of intensity that risks injury and causes me to be practically bedridden for a week even without injury. Your calculation is for a person who weighs 80kg, which is someone who doesn't need to lose any weight. People who have a lot of weight to lose aren't capable of running for an hour.

> Your calculation is for a person who weighs 80kg, which is someone who doesn't need to lose any weight.

If you are 1m80, quite possibly. Don't forget it isn't just about BMI but also waist circumference. Obese men and alcoholics likely have high waist circumference.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#97

Post by jpfr »

throwaway0255 wrote: post #38
jcousins wrote: post #16

I reversed diabetes with diet alone by doing my own research[1], taking charge of my health. I lost 180lbs in the process. No exercise (disabled). Very much a work in progress. I'm not rejecting the importance of exercise for health - I follow the general principal of eating to get healthy, exercising to get fit - but I think we skip over the absolute tragedy that is the Standard American Diet at our peril. Recoverin…

I'm on the same track as you, I've lost about 80lbs so far and I've done zero exercise. I've found that when I tell people this, they worry about my health even more than they did when I was 80lbs heavier. It's bizarre. Never mind the fact that my blood pressure is now a pristine 110 over 70, all my pre-diabetic symptoms have disappeared, my sleep apnea is cured, my gastroesophageal reflux disease is completely gone,…

Sure, eating better has a huge impact. But you miss the main argument why physical training helps in weight loss: Physical training increaes your resting metabolic rate by ~10%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11283427

Since you are not doing sports 95% of the time, this has a lot of leverage. And you can build muscle with 30min of training per day easily.

Also, you please check whether you mean kilocalories when you say calories.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#98

Post by hellofunk »

DanBC wrote: post #94
hellofunk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mayo Clinic is a respected place, and they seem to think there is a link: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-... Even if there was no evidence, surely the testimonies of many others right here on this page would at least be worth the possibility that it could be effective.

Here's a well run meta analysis. http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre... > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. [...] > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. [...] > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of l…

No one is suggesting that exercise replace any other treatment. Is that the impression you were getting? But because it has in fact helped at least some people, it seems limiting for any person to disqualify that for themselves without a try.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#99

Post by baylisscg »

seppin wrote: post #84
legulere wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being depressed might prevent you from exercising.

> Being depressed might prevent you from exercising. Would being depressed prevent you from taking anti-depression medicine? Seeking help from a doctor?

Actually, yes. It's difficult to try and take control of a situation when simply doing all the things necessary to keep being alive is a challenge. Couple that with the social stigma of being diagnosed with mental problems and yes it's completely possible.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#100

Post by bakoo »

jcousins wrote: post #91
lisper wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what exactly are you eating now vs before?

I was eating a typical western high carbohydrate, moderate protein, low fat diet with a modest caloric deficit. Lots of starchy veg, breads, rice and pasta. I migrated gradually (six months) to a very low carb diet including abstinence from all forms of artificial sweetener. 9g/122g/100g carbs/fat/protein. On the plate that's lots of saturated fat, moderate protein from meat and dairy (largely unprocessed) and huge v…

> The artificial sweetener ban is due to the insulin response they can provoke

I also eat during a 6 hour window and try to keep the carbs at a minimum, and the 18 hour fasting period works wonders for my insulin levels.

Ingesting zero calorie artificial sweeteners during the fasting window have no measurable impact on my insulin.

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