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Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#71

Post by stinos »

rndn wrote: post #64
stinos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice. First time I hear about this but it certainly contains lots of things which make a lot of sense to me or which I do already myself and/or are backed up by reserach. Except the part of the squatting position :P Not everybody accepts this though. Especially about point 2 and 3 I've had discussions, almost religious fights sometimes. People sometimes get offended when I question if just going to the gym and train…

I agree with everything you say. Unless it is particularily beneficial to do special exercises to counteract deficiencies of our modern life style, it should be sufficient to roughly simulate the movements our ancestors did. I'm wondering whether our ancestors did stretching exercises. I could imagine that the occasional yawn/stretch and a variety of different movements is sufficient to avoid contracture.

I do think ancestors did stretch: nobody ever learnt me to stretch yet I've been doing it when waking up before getting out of bed since I can remember and I'm definitely not the only one, on the contrary. Some other animals do so as well. I know these are mere observations and no hard evidence, but I would be surprised to learn I'm wrong on this point. Whether they did actual stretching exercises is another thing though. I would guess they did if they were able to figure out by experience stretching had positive effects. Also sort of depends what you mean with ancestors, i.e. how many centuries ago.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#73

Post by user_0001 »

awjr wrote: post #63

As somebody touching 20st (127kg) I recently started working on a client site and had a choice, drive by car or catch a train and cycle the 5 miles to the client site. Into my second week and finding the cycling is really making a difference and can get desk to platform in 31 minutes (unlocking of bike etc) down from 35 minutes at the beginning. I'll weigh myself at some point but honestly feel I'm physically getting…

I used to ride the Leeds to Bradford canal to work, was beautiful and just the right distance (about 40 minutes).

Watching the seasons change, seeing the migratory birds come and go through out the year, the calves appearing etc

Good way to unwind after a long day as well

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#74

Post by awjr »

JosephRedfern wrote: post #66
awjr wrote: post #63

As somebody touching 20st (127kg) I recently started working on a client site and had a choice, drive by car or catch a train and cycle the 5 miles to the client site. Into my second week and finding the cycling is really making a difference and can get desk to platform in 31 minutes (unlocking of bike etc) down from 35 minutes at the beginning. I'll weigh myself at some point but honestly feel I'm physically getting…

Worth mentioning that in the UK, a lot of employers are enrolled on the Cycle to Work scheme. This allows employees to buy a bike through their company/business (normally worth up to £1,000), and pay it back over a period of time, through a salary sacrifice, i.e. pre-tax.

In the UK, use http://www.cyclestreets.net/ it can highlight non-traffic routes so enable you to plan a more pleasant ride.

Of note, don't just assume it gets it right. In my case, it put me at the front of the train station, rather than at the back. This caused the routing to take me out of my way. Always worth exploring an area/talking to people to work out if there is anything out there that has missed.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#75

Post by awjr »

user_0001 wrote: post #73
awjr wrote: post #63

As somebody touching 20st (127kg) I recently started working on a client site and had a choice, drive by car or catch a train and cycle the 5 miles to the client site. Into my second week and finding the cycling is really making a difference and can get desk to platform in 31 minutes (unlocking of bike etc) down from 35 minutes at the beginning. I'll weigh myself at some point but honestly feel I'm physically getting…

I used to ride the Leeds to Bradford canal to work, was beautiful and just the right distance (about 40 minutes). Watching the seasons change, seeing the migratory birds come and go through out the year, the calves appearing etc Good way to unwind after a long day as well

Monmouth canal (Newport to Cwmbran) is unused (no boats) so has way more wildlife than I've seen on any other canal path. I've had to face off against a swan, a rather large number of ducks and the odd suicidal moorhen. Recent wind meant I was climbing through fallen trees :D

To be honest it makes for awesome office banter.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#76

Post by pyre »

Shivetya wrote: post #37
SixSigma wrote: post #8

Number of deaths is a poor metric. Everyone dies. Obesity contributes significantly to the 70 man years spent by patients in dialysis every week in the US.

Obesity is an epidemic we are accelerating. Then to top that, far too many do not understand the difference between obesity and morbid obesity. The latest fads of Fat Acceptance and Healthy At Every Size show the trend quite well. Then to make matters worse, in the US hospitals and doctors can be punished for trying to help obese, especially very obese patients. The ACA brought along patient satisfaction scores. So i…

So you're saying that nobody would be obese if it weren't for benefits programs? That is utter bunk. There are plenty of obese people that work for a living.

More likely culprits:

* The "cheapness" and accessibility of junky food.

* The inaccessibility of heathy food in poor neighbourhoods (which may only have a corner store that primarily sells processed, packaged foods and no fresh veggies).

* The creep of sugar/HFCS into everything.

* The optimization techniques used by junk food companies to determine the right balance of taste so that people don't do things like eat in short bursts, but get sick of the flavour fast. [They basically run a ton of focus-groups on a bunch of small variations of the formula until they get one where people can -- for the most part -- just keep eating and eating it without getting sick of it.] If you liked potato chips, but got sick of the flavour after a single "serving" then you would eat fewer chips.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#77

Post by vetler »

unimportant wrote: post #3

I would say obesity implies inactivity, so the headline is rather misleading.

I've been obese while I worked out a lot. I know others in the same situation, and these train MMA, submission wrestling, and brazilian jiu jitsu, several times per week.

Eating more than required caloric intake is amazingly simple, if you're used to it. The calorie count in alcoholic beverages, fast food, candy, chocolate and potato chips is amazingly high.

In addition, the extra amount of calories you need to maintain weight when working out, is not a lot.

/r/fitness has links to a lot of details on everything: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/getting_started

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#78

Post by vetler »

victorhooi wrote: post #62
ars wrote: post #2

Normal exercise will not cause weight loss - countless studies have shown that. But it will make you healthier, so it's worth it anyway.

I do not agree with your statement. What do you even mean by "normal exercise"? I believe that most "normal" people are capable of doing enough exercise (combined with good eating choices) that they can lose weight. For example, say you have a 1-hour lunch break each day. During that lunch break, you could easily go for a 6km run (30-40 minutes), as well as have time for a shower, and grab food. If you're prepared to…

It's psychological.

Of course; eating exactly the number of calories that are required to maintain your weight, and then you start to exercise - yes, you will lose weight.

But people don't do that. They think "hey, I need a post-workout meal", and suddenly they're eating that in addition to everything else. And then it's the weekend, and they feel they deserve something extra because they've worked out a lot. Or they're already getting too many calories, and working out just makes them get fatter slower.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#79

Post by jeffasinger »

awjr wrote: post #63

As somebody touching 20st (127kg) I recently started working on a client site and had a choice, drive by car or catch a train and cycle the 5 miles to the client site. Into my second week and finding the cycling is really making a difference and can get desk to platform in 31 minutes (unlocking of bike etc) down from 35 minutes at the beginning. I'll weigh myself at some point but honestly feel I'm physically getting…

Biking to work is the number one thing I miss now that I work from home. I highly recommend it to everyone.

I didn't used to bike to work this time of year, because the path I'd use is covered in snow, but even in upstate New York, riding in March and November is surprisingly enjoyable with the right gear.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#80

Post by arrrg »

awjr wrote: post #63

As somebody touching 20st (127kg) I recently started working on a client site and had a choice, drive by car or catch a train and cycle the 5 miles to the client site. Into my second week and finding the cycling is really making a difference and can get desk to platform in 31 minutes (unlocking of bike etc) down from 35 minutes at the beginning. I'll weigh myself at some point but honestly feel I'm physically getting…

Well … when I was still very obese (162kg, just as tall as you are) I was also struggling with high pulse (around 90) and high blood pressure as well as, you know, just a general discomfort, a feeling of shortness of breath, …

After I started restricting calories nearly a year ago I also started driving around 30 min every single on the ergometer bike (always the same amount of kilojoules per day to be consistent, first 1,000 and now 1,350, first at 120 Watt and with breaks, now at 210 Watt and with no breaks). I also started taking long walks every day, around 6km. (I know people have strong opinion about what is right and more correct to do and I know that my exercise plan is weird and unbalanced, but the most important thing to me is to have something that works and that I can easily get into the habit of doing. Habits are fucking powerful and wondrous things if you make them work for you, devilish, evil things if they work against you. For now I have something that works and that I’m very comfortable with. I can always make improvements, sure, and I want to. Just slowly and with consideration.)

To my astonishment my vitals started improving almost immediately, before I had lost any significant amount of weight. My pulse was down to around 60 (resting) or lower only a couple of weeks after I started, when I was still very much extremely obese. I’m a coward when it comes to measuring blood pressure, so I have no data on that, but I do know that it’s either optimal or normal right now that I’m merely very slightly overweight (94 kg). All the discomfort went away almost immediately, also before I had lost any appreciable amount of weight.

My dad also always has been struggling with his weight, but doctors have told him repeatedly that health wise he's actually doing relatively well, presumably because he also has a similar and very consistent exercise regiment (that also includes daily cycling).

The nice thing with exercise was that I felt its effects on my health more or less immediately. Weight loss is much, much harder to notice and a much more longer term process.

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