...and then we see that exercising an hour per day (7.5 hours or more per week), which people trying to lose weight often do, can cause damaging calcium buildups in your heart, especially if you are a man [1]. So we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. I really hate these conflicting studies.
Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
71–80 of 233 posts
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#72I took a new job in January that is mostly desk-bound and promptly gained 10+ pounds (5kg). I'm at my heaviest ever: 170# (77kg). So last weekend I went hiking with some friends on a trip I instigated a couple months earlier, with no preparation. Its my favorite hobby, but my pack was too heavy, body too flabby. In the swamps of South Florida (Myakka for the locals), it was flooded and brutal and I about died. If I w…
It’s also possible that you’re more tired and sick because of the workload’s burden on the body.
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#73My work provides a gym, and I go there for at least an hour every weekday. I'd rather do poorly at work then skip exercising to be honest. I see some of the older employees coming in trying to reverse the effects of a sedentary lifestyle and I do not envy that position. It's crazy how people will deprioritze their health. It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. Of course, diet is also…
> It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible.
Not for me. Living healthy yes - and then dying quick and painless. I don't care if that happens with 50, 60 or 70. Another 10 years to go would nice, still.
> unless I can devote more time in the gym to bulking.
I have experience with IFing as well as with bulking. And if you ask me - especially with respect to the specific reasons why IF is good for you - bulking is one of the worst and unhealthiest things you can do to your body.
> that there's still no scientific consensus and it still has a fad smell to it.
Do you not feel the difference? When bulking I feel heavy and bloated - it's tiring. Especially when dirty bulking - eating crap just to get those additional calories? Pushing and squeezing more and more food through this delicate and soft tube (your gut) in your stomach. It's more like plumbing than eating.
Having said that - I might do some bulking again at some point - but for aesthetic reasons - not because I believe it's good for me.
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a little pedantic, even for HN, don't you think? "Oh, it's not the exercise that's important, it's the stuff that happens BECAUSE you exercise."
It's not pedantic at all. I'm ~40 and don't exercise at all, yet I'm still perfectly fit. I presume it's due to doing groceries by foot several times per week, having a standup desk, and carrying the kid around. Perhaps genes help too. But the point I'd like to get across is: going to the gym isn't the sine qua non of making you fit. You can get enough "exercise" by simply living without a car, standing, and walking.
Now we've just traded one form of pedantry for another.
Some would say your activity is exercise. Or you could say exercise is only stuff done for no other reason than fitness, but your activity substitutes for exercise.
In any case, the first paragraph of the CNN article makes it clear the distinction is "a sedentary lifestyle". Clearly if you are active, you aren't sedentary.
Anyway, what the researchers studied is not self-reported fitness but treadmill testing as a measure of cardiovascular fitness. If your grocery- and kid-carrying habits allow you to do well on a treadmill test, then you "exercise" according to the parameters of what was studied.
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#75My work provides a gym, and I go there for at least an hour every weekday. I'd rather do poorly at work then skip exercising to be honest. I see some of the older employees coming in trying to reverse the effects of a sedentary lifestyle and I do not envy that position. It's crazy how people will deprioritze their health. It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. Of course, diet is also…
Your priorities may not be the same as everyone else’s. I think there is a certain moral incumbency on people to remain healthy for the benefit of others, but that only goes so far. Cost of maintaining life is an issue: just because there is some intervention that could prolong an individual’s life, doesn’t mean it’s not prohibitive for that I dividual to take it for a variety of reasons. Financial burden is obviously one, but let’s take up the primary case you seem to be arguing, the sacrifice of other pleasurable activities. Some people find exercise excruciating, either due to physical limitations or just because. If we lived in a world where taking forty lashes a day prolonged life, but only with great suffering, would it be so universally recommended?
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#76My work provides a gym, and I go there for at least an hour every weekday. I'd rather do poorly at work then skip exercising to be honest. I see some of the older employees coming in trying to reverse the effects of a sedentary lifestyle and I do not envy that position. It's crazy how people will deprioritze their health. It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. Of course, diet is also…
Your priorities may not be the same as everyone else’s. I think there is a certain moral incumbency on people to remain healthy for the benefit of others, but that only goes so far. Cost of maintaining life is an issue: just because there is some intervention that could prolong an individual’s life, doesn’t mean it’s not prohibitive for that I dividual to take it for a variety of reasons. Financial burden is obviousl…
I think you're taking the argument to a moral extreme which really does not help much. You could say that reading, or thinking critically, are excruciatingly hard for some ... would you say that they should just give up on it, despite the benefits that it provides to a person?
The argument for exercising seems to be similar.
To be completely fair, I have a more visceral reason to agree with the OP in that I too have been quite alarmed by how obese some of my older coworkers are, and that has contributed pretty strongly to my desire to not be that way.
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#77What I am missing here is what they call "performing badly on treadmill"
I run a mile or two each day, but I am still obese and frankly old and unfit. What is the criteria they are using here? Five minute mile pace? Ten minutes? Can't actually walk a mile?
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a little pedantic, even for HN, don't you think? "Oh, it's not the exercise that's important, it's the stuff that happens BECAUSE you exercise."
It's not pedantic at all. I'm ~40 and don't exercise at all, yet I'm still perfectly fit. I presume it's due to doing groceries by foot several times per week, having a standup desk, and carrying the kid around. Perhaps genes help too. But the point I'd like to get across is: going to the gym isn't the sine qua non of making you fit. You can get enough "exercise" by simply living without a car, standing, and walking.
> I'm ~40 and don't exercise at all, yet I'm still perfectly fit.
You should really get a CPX test to verify this.
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#79What I am missing here is what they call "performing badly on treadmill" I run a mile or two each day, but I am still obese and frankly old and unfit. What is the criteria they are using here? Five minute mile pace? Ten minutes? Can't actually walk a mile?
Probably a CPX test.
Re: Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> “It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible.” Why? I personally don’t want to live as long as possible, definitely not if I develop some kind of neurodegerative disorder. I’d honestly be happy with 65. I don’t see too many people over the age 65 who I envy. Diet and exercise are big contributors to preventing heart disease, but when it comes to things like the vast array of cancers it’s…
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…
> "If you're mentally and physically fit, you can do as much with 65 as you do with 20 today."
Can you, though? You're definitely long past your peak physically and in terms of testosterone. I don't know if intellectual decline is a factor at that age.
You can definitely still do a lot, but I don't think you can come close to your abilities at age 20.