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Born to Rest

harvardmagazine.com

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Re: Born to Rest

#111

Post by revelation »

komali2 wrote: post #49
Jtsummers wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they starve? Are skinny students only capable of eating unhealthy, carb-loaded, crap? Most healthy skinny people I know eat fruits, vegetables, and moderate amounts of meat, dairy and carbs, or they run 20 miles a day.

20 miles a day? Surely you aren't serious? Someone check my math but at a 7 minute mile, that's a 2 hour run every day, plus warmup, stretch, change, cleanup time. That feels absurd for anybody with a job, family, etc. Maybe every other day would make more sense.

Two hours a day is not a crazy number at all for some endurance sports. If you do cycle racing 10 hours per week is a good starting point to build up endurance.

But that works because cycling isn't weight bearing, so after the initial exponential learning curve you can pretty much do as much of it as you have time and motivation.

20 miles a day of running, on the other hand, is absolutely not typical. Other than ultra-runners no professional does >100mi/wk regularly simply because the diminishing returns don't justify the linear increase in injury risk and aggravation (it's running, injury incidence is already crazy high).

Re: Born to Rest

#112

Post by semi-extrinsic »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #40
Jtsummers wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they starve? Are skinny students only capable of eating unhealthy, carb-loaded, crap? Most healthy skinny people I know eat fruits, vegetables, and moderate amounts of meat, dairy and carbs, or they run 20 miles a day.

Capable? No, people with the sort of metabolism I'm talking about need that (high carb/protein) on top of the healthy diet you described. Removing that dining option to keep fatsos from gorging themselves doesn't seem fair. High calorie food lets me get adequate energy from a reasonably-sized dish. A brief skinny manifesto: I hate how the world caters to the obese. Thermostat kept at low temperature in all seasons be…

If you're having trouble keeping healthy weight eating normal food, it may be that you have some digestive disease/problem rather than just "fast metabolism". (Or it could be an appetite problem.)

Consider this: if you had a fast metabolism, your body would be producing more heat than a normal person; where else would the extra energy go? This means you would prefer lower-than-normal room temperature. If you're having trouble keeping weight AND you prefer higher-than-normal room temperature, it means you're not getting all the energy you should from the food you eat, in other words, your system is digesting food incompletely.

I do have a digestive disease myself, and at my worst before surgery + medication, I was drinking glasses of custard every day just to stay above 155 lbs; I'm a pretty tall guy, ideal weight that I'm seeing now is around 190 lbs. I gained 30 lbs in one month after the surgery.

Re: Born to Rest

#113

Post by kough »

helloworld wrote: post #61

Harvard "needs to reopen a discussion about…a physical-education requirement." It's been said that "love is a better master than duty," and requiring college students to take a physical education course sounds like a duty. If you want people to exercise without coercion for the rest of their lives, I think you have to tap into intrinsic motivation, i.e., the unique things that get you excited. Depending on your perso…

Strange to see no one has mentioned this – just down the river, MIT has mandatory PE classes. They're not all "running around a track" though: sailing, pistols, archery, yoga, weightlifting, sailing, all sorts of really cool activities.

> Forcing college students to exercise will backfire, leading many of them to stop as soon as the course is over.

How is this backfiring, if those students would never have exercised at all without the mandatory courses? Plus, you're overlooking the cohort who had never previously been exposed to the benefits of physical activity (maybe this is more prevalent at MIT...) and end up sticking with it. Among my friendgroup the latter is more common than the former.

Re: Born to Rest

#114

Post by Mithaldu »

ars wrote: post #35
justinator wrote: post #23

Is there actually any evidence that ancient hunter gatherer groups didn't do what we now call "exercise" on a voluntary basis? Some ideas come to mind: dancing, walkabouts, spirit quests, right of passage rituals, ?ancient forms of martial arts? I am compelled to believe that early man did things merely to do them, including exercise.

None of those things you mentioned are exercise. They are physical activity yes, but productive (including mentally productive) physical activity. Exercise is physical activity without being productive at all.

Exercise is maintenance of the body. Maintenance of any machine is productive.

Re: Born to Rest

#115

Post by shanusmagnus »

Floegipoky wrote: post #99
shanusmagnus wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the maple syrup class could be a fantastic wellness opportunity -- making maple syrup involves hiking around the woods, often in the snow, carrying heavy buckets full of sap around. It's this kind of real-world, ecologically reasonable movement that most people are so profoundly deficient in. To say nothing of spending time in a beautiful natural setting, which is often quite restorative and de-stressin…

>> It would be awesome if everyone knew proper lifting form, but it's just not going to happen I'm not talking about proper lifting form, I'm talking about proper human movement. We perform these archetypal movement patterns every day throughout our entire lives. Every time you sit down in a chair you're performing a squat. Every time you pick up your bag off the ground, you're performing a deadlift. And to say "that…

It's less a self-fulfilling prophecy than drawing on a bunch of professional experience with trying to get people to do things that would be vitally important to their health.

Re: Born to Rest

#116

Post by smnplk »

justinator wrote: post #23

Is there actually any evidence that ancient hunter gatherer groups didn't do what we now call "exercise" on a voluntary basis? Some ideas come to mind: dancing, walkabouts, spirit quests, right of passage rituals, ?ancient forms of martial arts? I am compelled to believe that early man did things merely to do them, including exercise.

you forgot sex :)

Re: Born to Rest

#117

Post by CaptSpify »

Jtsummers wrote: post #42
CalRobert wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that gym class was hell on Earth for some of us fat people and we greatly looked forward to the liberation of college, I think the idea of mandatory PE is horrible. PE is usually taught in a manner that's great if you're already fit, and atrocious if you're fat. It's hard on the joints and exemplifies how much weaker/slower/less valuable to society you are compared to the fit kids. I know this because I W…

High school and middle school PE were fucking miserable for me. I wasn't fat, but I was slow and in a group with very fit (naturally or by practice) guys. I was also uncoordinated as I had a massive growth spurt and, being extremely near sighted, wasn't active in any typical sport so my coordination lagged behind for years. College PE is different. It's not (usually) a general class. You typically pick which one you…

> You typically pick which one you want

Typically being the key word. IIRC, at my college, the choices were baseball, weights, basketball and track.

Re: Born to Rest

#118

Post by tambourine_man »

helloworld wrote: post #61

Harvard "needs to reopen a discussion about…a physical-education requirement." It's been said that "love is a better master than duty," and requiring college students to take a physical education course sounds like a duty. If you want people to exercise without coercion for the rest of their lives, I think you have to tap into intrinsic motivation, i.e., the unique things that get you excited. Depending on your perso…

>…that might be novelty, socializing, recognition, or competition

Your comment made me realize why I never liked sports. I don't really care for any of those things.

Re: Born to Rest

#119

Post by CaptSpify »

striking wrote: post #34
Jtsummers wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And remove cheap, high calorie, low nutrition foods. No reason schools ought to provide students with tons of mac & cheese, they can do that to themselves. Give them healthy, nutritious options with the meal plans, and let them spend extra on the unhealthy stuff if they really want it.

Isn't college where people are supposed to be responsible for their own actions? Or have we extended the hand-holding that far out?

Sure, but many colleges require you to get a meal-plan with the dorm room. And, IME, the food was expensive, and garbage.

Re: Born to Rest

#120

Post by eyelidlessness »

striking wrote: post #48
Jtsummers wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, they can be responsible for their own actions. Doesn't mean the schools have to provide them the option to be actively harmful to their health. They're adults (as mentioned in another comment). If they want to buy a few cases of Coca Cola and drink that instead of water every day for 4 years, that's their prerogative. No school should stop them from making such a terrible, stupid mistake, but no school should p…

There's a little bit of cognitive dissonance going on here. If they're responsible for their actions, and they're adults, why are you taking an option away from them in fears that they're "making a mistake"? This is universally seen as hand-holding.

Choosing to offer only healthy foods at a location provided by the school does not preclude the students getting unhealthy food anywhere else. It's just making a healthy choice available, not making unhealthy choices unavailable.
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