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

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

#101

Post by lisper » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

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…

Yes, thank you!

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

#102

Post by Fnoord » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

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,…

> That 230 calorie expenditure costs you:

> * 1.5 to 2 hours of disruption to your daily life

Or a replacement of meditation. Or, as another user suggested, listen to e-books, podcast, music, conduct a phone call, or record whatever interesting thoughts come up.

> * An hour spent being extremely bored and uncomfortable

Boredom is a matter of adaptation. See above for some suggestions.

Comfort? Do you mean because you're overweight and at the gym? Seriously, get over yourself and fuck what other people think about you in that regard. You'll be laughing the longest on the long term. If its such a big barrier consider to see a psychologist to aid you.

> * An ever-growing amount of generalized aches and joint pains as you put together consecutive days of doing this

Start with light exercises and go to a gym where there's qualified physicians with low amount of overbooking. Those gyms cost a bit more. You can also do like me (I follow a TV program with varied daily exercises, 15 min a day). Take a day rest in between heavy exercise. If you get muscle pain the day after it was heavy exercise according to _your_ standard.

That said, changing your eating habits is going to have more meaningful impact: eat less calories, eat less sugar, eat less salt, eat less saturated fat, and have a critical look if you get all your nutrients (consider blood analysis). Guaranteed you'll lose weight just from #1 and the rest is going to aid your health. Finally, don't drink or smoke are an obvious no-brainer.

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

#103

Post by wingworks » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 11:04 PM UTC

jasonwelk wrote: post #42

throwaway0255 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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 agree, exercise is addictive, and I love running, but I worry that it's bad for the joints, from what I've read, which is the only thing holding me back at the moment. But I see all these people running, and I wonder, are there no join issues, or does everyone just not know yet.

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

#104

Post by throwaway0255 » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 11:11 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #102

throwaway0255 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> That 230 calorie expenditure costs you: > * 1.5 to 2 hours of disruption to your daily life Or a replacement of meditation. Or, as another user suggested, listen to e-books, podcast, music, conduct a phone call, or record whatever interesting thoughts come up. > * An hour spent being extremely bored and uncomfortable Boredom is a matter of adaptation. See above for some suggestions. Comfort? Do you mean because you…

Uncomfortable meaning physically uncomfortable. Even when it's not painful (like walking for an hour on a treadmill), it is uncomfortable and it feels bad and it's boring. Yes podcasts and ebooks are great, but they're even better when you're not exercising.

People who enjoy exercise are by far the exception, otherwise we'd see a lot more people doing it. We would see every elliptical at the gym occupied on January 1st, and they'd stay occupied indefinitely.

But that's not what we see. The ellipticals are all taken on January 1st, and they're all empty by February.

People need motivation and willpower to do it. That should tell you all you need to know about how enjoyable it is. You don't need motivation or willpower to eat a steak or watch a movie, because those things are fun. You need motivation and willpower to exercise, because it's boring and it sucks.

Sorry but every time this subject comes up there's this contingent of people trying to insist to everyone how fun exercise is, and none of you seem to realize that you're outliers and this is your hobby and not everyone likes your hobby. Most people don't like it and can't be convinced to like it and will never like it, and that's normal.

But the tone is always that there's something deficient with people who don't exercise, and if they don't like it that's a sign of their deficiency or something, and you think we all need pep-talks to better ourselves. I don't agree with this.

I don't think exercise matters anywhere near as much as you think it does. I've waited my whole life for proof, and all I've ever gotten is correlations found in studies funded by vested interests (if exercise works the food industry can shift blame onto the consumer).

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

#105

Post by phaus » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 11:38 PM UTC

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,…

>Let's be very generous and say an hour of typical exercise burns 350 calories.

This isn't being generous at all. Once you get past the initial few weeks of not being physically able to put that much effort into exercise, 350 calories for an entire hour would be on the low end of what I expect most people to burn.

>I honestly think the net impact of promoting exercise as a weight loss option is people getting and staying fatter. People have a tendency to dramatically overestimate the calories they're burning, people want to use exercise as a way to avoid having to eat less, and people use exercise as an excuse to eat more. It also causes an amount of disruption and discomfort in people's lives that's probably the number one cause of people giving up on their weight loss goals.

Virtually everyone that advocates exercise as a way to lose weight mentions in the same breath that it has to go hand-in-hand with a diet. It is an objective fact that if you burn more calories in a day because you exercise, that you will get away with eating more food. How much more depends on how many calories you burn when exercising.

The concept of weight loss is very simple. Burn more calories than you eat. People need to start somewhere by making an estimate of how many calories that they burn on a daily basis and then adjust it slowly if they don't lose weight.

Its silly to act like the concepts of physical fitness and weight loss are so complicated that people are being manipulated and/or confused into gaining weight. The only thing difficult about losing weight is the consistent execution of an incredibly simple process.

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

#106

Post by nradov » Sun, Oct 08, 2017, 12:00 AM UTC

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,…

Why are you so adverse to a little pain and discomfort? There's more to life than being comfortable.

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

#107

Post by nradov » Sun, Oct 08, 2017, 12:03 AM UTC

wingworks wrote: post #103

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 agree, exercise is addictive, and I love running, but I worry that it's bad for the joints, from what I've read, which is the only thing holding me back at the moment. But I see all these people running, and I wonder, are there no join issues, or does everyone just not know yet.

Running won't damage your joints provided your joints are healthy to start with and you run with proper form.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/well/move/running-may-be-...

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

#108

Post by throwaway0255 » Sun, Oct 08, 2017, 12:03 AM UTC

phaus wrote: post #105

throwaway0255 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

>Let's be very generous and say an hour of typical exercise burns 350 calories. This isn't being generous at all. Once you get past the initial few weeks of not being physically able to put that much effort into exercise, 350 calories for an entire hour would be on the low end of what I expect most people to burn. >I honestly think the net impact of promoting exercise as a weight loss option is people getting and sta…

> Virtually everyone that advocates exercise as a way to lose weight mentions in the same breath that it has to go hand-in-hand with a diet.

Something must be wrong with exercise then, because that’s not true of dieting at all. Just dieting will do just fine.

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

#109

Post by phaus » Sun, Oct 08, 2017, 12:25 AM UTC

throwaway0255 wrote: post #108

phaus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Let's be very generous and say an hour of typical exercise burns 350 calories. This isn't being generous at all. Once you get past the initial few weeks of not being physically able to put that much effort into exercise, 350 calories for an entire hour would be on the low end of what I expect most people to burn. >I honestly think the net impact of promoting exercise as a weight loss option is people getting and sta…

> Virtually everyone that advocates exercise as a way to lose weight mentions in the same breath that it has to go hand-in-hand with a diet. Something must be wrong with exercise then, because that’s not true of dieting at all. Just dieting will do just fine.

There are more reasons to exercise than just weight loss and there's more to being healthy than just maintaining a specific weight.

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

#110

Post by alecco » Sun, Oct 08, 2017, 12:58 AM UTC

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…

A close relative does this diet. He gets eggs and bacon for breakfast. And is quite close to ideal weight in spite of occasional slips.

A couple of minor inconveniences: First his stool is hard. Second, he just had triple by-pass surgery as his cholesterol is sky high.

The Atkins/South Beach/Keto madness has to be stopped.