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Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

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Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#141

Post by cynicalkane »

Waterluvian wrote: post #97
Gatsky wrote: post #92

If there is one universal truth of human biology, it is that exercise is good. It is good if you do a bit or a lot, if you are young, old, male, female, trans, pregnant, trying to get pregnant, single, married, divorced, depressed, a smoker, have cancer, have heart disease, have dementia, an astronaut, a pure mathematician, a plumber, tall, short, liberal, conservative etc etc. There isn't anyone that doesn't benefit…

I worry about my health and often I have a really good try and making a habit. But crap is it hard. It's not the money or the time. There's something else about willpower and boredom. I wish I could get on an exercise bike, stare at a brainwashing device, and "wake up" an hour later having remembered none of it.

In addition to what everyone is saying, you might be exercising too hard. The fitness industry, paradoxically, pushes the idea that exercise should be hard, perhaps because it’s an easy thing for people to believe. Hard work feels like it’s getting you in shape.

But most cardio should be easy, like 60-70% your training maximum heart rate. Many elite distance runners follow an “80/20” rule, where 80% of their training is easy in this way. But 100% is fine also. If you’re not used to it, this feels odd, like you’re going too slow and doing nothing. But measure your time and distance and the improvements will be obvious. It’s like training for free. The only ingredient is time. After a good long low-intensity run I feel less fatigued than I did when I started. Meanwhile hordes of people suffer through these awful spinning classes. It’s like they think exercise should make you feel worse instead of better!

People who feel the need to put in effort and who aren’t distance athletes are likely much better served by adding HIIT and/or strength training than by pushing steady-state cardio too hard.

Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#142

Post by seanp2k2 »

louprado wrote: post #125
Waterluvian wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry about my health and often I have a really good try and making a habit. But crap is it hard. It's not the money or the time. There's something else about willpower and boredom. I wish I could get on an exercise bike, stare at a brainwashing device, and "wake up" an hour later having remembered none of it.

Then forget exercise for now, just take a contemplative walk around the block. Perhaps do it right before breakfast and/or after dinner. It's easy and takes less than 10 minutes. Don't think of it as exercise and do it in any clothes and with any shoes. No excuses, anyone can walk around 1 block and everyone needs 10 private minutes to collect their thoughts. Before you know it you'll find yourself walking around sev…

I got into running, thinking that I wanted to try for a half-marathon. I actually worked up to the distance surprisingly quickly. I was under 30 at the time and it took like 2 months, and before that I wasn't running at all or doing any other exercise regularly. I started having some knee pain (flat feet don't help) and stopped after it became painful to run even a mile or two. About a year later, I fell on a skateboard on the same knee and injured my bursae. I fear that my running days are over, but it was kind of fun in a weird way after you get past ~mile 4. I still go mountain biking occasionally and enjoy long walks (on vacation I'll walk 15+ miles in a day).

Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#143

Post by seanp2k2 »

ndnxhs wrote: post #122
craftyguy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go out and ride a real bicycle, either around town or commuting to/from work. I do a lot of cycling (thousands of miles/yr) but cannot stand to spend more than 5 minutes on a stationary bicycle/trainer.

Mountain biking is also great. You put in loads of work to get to the top and then you get the fun of going down vs a stationary bike which is all work and no fun. You can make them slightly more fun with games like zwift that make stationary bikes competitive and gamified.

I also enjoy mountain biking, but not as much in California. I grew up in the midwest, and while there were many more mosquitoes there and the weather sucked half of the year, the trails were a lot more fun IMO. It was much flatter, so you could build up a lot more speed and basically push up the small hills without losing much momentum. Mountain biking in NorCal is much more 30-90 minutes of climbing followed by 5-15 minutes of downhill where you're dodging hikers, other bikers, horses, and dog poop. The sun is also pretty brutal, with not much cover aside from a few trail networks, whereas in the midwest most MTB trails were 90% in a forest.

It can still be fun, but honestly it makes me want an e-bike to get past the boring grindey up-hill parts. The other aspect of this is that in the midwest, once you had attained a certain level of mountain biking proficiency / fitness, you could go fast on trails all of the time, because you'd be able to sprint up the hills, pump any bumps / logs, and pedal down hills as well. It was much more of a "roller coaster" experience. In NorCal, even if you're super fit, you might be able to get up hills more quickly, but no one is sprinting multi-mile climbs at ~15mph. Again, e-bike, but they're super expensive for a nice one and they're only allowed on a few trails out here AFAIK.

Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#144

Post by darkerside »

themagician wrote: post #109
shafyy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very shortsighted statement, but I can see where you're coming from. I thought the same way when I was in my late teens/early twenties. Was a way for me to justify unhealthy food, smoking and alcohol. Now I'm 30 and slowly realized it's not true. Living healthy when you're young doesn't have short-term reward. But I'm pretty sure when you're 50+ you'll be happy that you ate healthy, exercised and had a way t…

I’m older than you. When I was younger I thought you had more control over your health. Now I realize the amount of control you really have is minimal. It seems like a crapshoot. I see older people who did nothing to take care of themselves doing just fine, and plenty of fit people whose health is surprisingly bad. I see some people over 65 who can do what they once did, but they are the exceptions. I see how diet an…

> I see older people who did nothing to take care of themselves doing just fine, and plenty of fit people whose health is surprisingly bad

You may be older, but your viewpoint seems surprisingly immature. Unless you've kept careful records, it's likely that you feel this way because your brain has lived the surprising counterexamples, not because people don't have control over their health outcomes. Genetics obviously play a role, but until those can be changed, you can choose to work with the tools you have or opt out of the game.

Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#146

Post by seanp2k2 »

fitzroy wrote: post #123
koboll wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah finding something you enjoy is key. I hate running. I hate cycling. I hate cardio-class-type motions. But damn do I love me some Dance Dance Revolution. And let me tell you, once you get good at it and start doing the hardest songs on the hardest setting, it will kick the living shit out of you. The first time I passed Max 300 on heavy I thought I was dying. But it was so worth it.

I’ve honestly thought about getting a VR setup just to play Beat Saber.

Honestly GORN is a great workout as well, but you run into issues with the Oculus getting too hot on your sweaty face. I picked up a "VR Cover" and it helps a bit, but it still gets soaked through with sweat. It is at least easier to wash.

Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#147

Post by barry-cotter »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #142
louprado wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then forget exercise for now, just take a contemplative walk around the block. Perhaps do it right before breakfast and/or after dinner. It's easy and takes less than 10 minutes. Don't think of it as exercise and do it in any clothes and with any shoes. No excuses, anyone can walk around 1 block and everyone needs 10 private minutes to collect their thoughts. Before you know it you'll find yourself walking around sev…

I got into running, thinking that I wanted to try for a half-marathon. I actually worked up to the distance surprisingly quickly. I was under 30 at the time and it took like 2 months, and before that I wasn't running at all or doing any other exercise regularly. I started having some knee pain (flat feet don't help) and stopped after it became painful to run even a mile or two. About a year later, I fell on a skatebo…

For anyone worried about knee injuries from running, or shin splints I can highly recommend weightlifting, in particular squats, as an auxiliary exercise. I kept on running, getting pains in my knees and resting for two weeks and then just doing it again. After six months (way longer than probably necessary) of progressively lifting higher weights I went back to running and I’m doing my first 50K next week, having done a 35K up and down mountains previously. My first run after the long period weightlifting I just decided to run a half marathon distance to see if I could. The muscle pain the next day was less than I often get from lifting.

Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#148

Post by seanp2k2 »

kaitai wrote: post #117
Gatsky wrote: post #92

If there is one universal truth of human biology, it is that exercise is good. It is good if you do a bit or a lot, if you are young, old, male, female, trans, pregnant, trying to get pregnant, single, married, divorced, depressed, a smoker, have cancer, have heart disease, have dementia, an astronaut, a pure mathematician, a plumber, tall, short, liberal, conservative etc etc. There isn't anyone that doesn't benefit…

"More randomised studies of interventions to do that on a society level are needed." This gets at the heart of things. We used to have societies in which exercise needs were often met through activities of daily living. Many places in the world still require walking, biking, hauling water, carrying children, transporting food on your back, etc. Many places in the world people still dance at community events, for fun,…

Yeah, one thing that world travel has really shown me is how dumb US cities and infrastructure are. In the UK, Japan, Hong Kong, etc, you can take trains wherever you want to go and walk on both ends to make up the last 1/4 mile. All of those 1/4 miles add up to a decent workout, and it's great to not have to buy + maintain + drive + park a vehicle.

I'm still mad at everyone who had a hand in preventing BART from running down the peninsula. https://io9.gizmodo.com/5866928/a-map-of-san-franciscos-subw... has the original map if you haven't seen it. It would have ran from Jennings (north of Santa Rosa in the far north bay) all the way down to Los Gatos (in the Santa Cruz foothills), crossed the South Bay at 3 points (Oakland, Foster City, and East Palo Alto), and featured MANY more routes inside of San Francisco proper to places like Presidio, North Beach, Masonic, Van Ness, Castro, Oyster Point, Taravel, and Potrero Hill. I know that a couple of those routes are now served by MUNI trains, but this was a plan in 1956, would have been a single system, and still had way better coverage than we have today or planned in the next 20 years.

Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#149

Post by appleiigs »

cynicalkane wrote: post #141
Waterluvian wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry about my health and often I have a really good try and making a habit. But crap is it hard. It's not the money or the time. There's something else about willpower and boredom. I wish I could get on an exercise bike, stare at a brainwashing device, and "wake up" an hour later having remembered none of it.

In addition to what everyone is saying, you might be exercising too hard. The fitness industry, paradoxically, pushes the idea that exercise should be hard, perhaps because it’s an easy thing for people to believe. Hard work feels like it’s getting you in shape. But most cardio should be easy, like 60-70% your training maximum heart rate. Many elite distance runners follow an “80/20” rule, where 80% of their training…

The 2 fastest runners I know both told me to run slow[1]. It's so counter-intuitive but works so well. So many benefits: 1) no injuries; 2) energizing exercise instead of draining; 3) can run 5-6 times a week which is habit forming; 4) run farther/longer which burns more calories; 5) I can multi-task (audiobook, podcast) instead of just trying to catch my breath. I repeat: no injuries!

[1] They don't know each other. One friend fast enough to be 1st in a 3,000 person half marathon.

Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds

#150

Post by davidjnelson »

Gatsky wrote: post #92

If there is one universal truth of human biology, it is that exercise is good. It is good if you do a bit or a lot, if you are young, old, male, female, trans, pregnant, trying to get pregnant, single, married, divorced, depressed, a smoker, have cancer, have heart disease, have dementia, an astronaut, a pure mathematician, a plumber, tall, short, liberal, conservative etc etc. There isn't anyone that doesn't benefit…

I find that if the exercise is in nature, it is much more pleasurable which creates a positive feedback loop. Take a look at google maps, there are probably wilderness trails 20 minutes from most places people live.
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