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Comment by gragas | Hacker News Reader

I hate how much the authors of this article imply causality.

>There also, interestingly, was less activity among the runners in a part of the brain that tends to indicate lack of focus and mind wandering.

Could it not be that people who have the willpower to run regularly also have the willpower to stay focused?

>In essence, the runners seemed to have brains in which certain cognitive skills, including multitasking and concentration, were more finely honed than among the inactive men.

"Honed" definitely implies that running hones those skills, when in fact having those very skills could be a confounding factor.

All of that said, I have yet to see a compelling argument against running regularly.

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There are plenty of compelling arguments against excessive running:

1) It is destructive to your joints and tendons. Injury rates are very high among runners.

2) It is stressful, resulting in chronically elevated cortisol levels.

3) It is time consuming and boring (of course this is subjective), and very inefficient at improving fitness.

Anything done excessively can be unhealthy, by definition, but there's only a grain of truth to what you're saying.

To your point 1: done properly, running isn't particularly harmful to joints and tendons, and some studies even seem to show that running can be beneficial in that regard[1]. The rapid changes in direction that cause the most stress are less prevalent in running than just about any other sport, not even considering the impacts that can occur e.g. in contact sports. Injury rates are not particularly high in running compared to other sports, and even if that were so you should be careful about confusing correlation with causation. A lot of people get injured while running mostly because it's an incredibly popular form of exercise. Do you seriously think there would be fewer injuries e.g. among the same number of people playing rugby?

To your point 3: I know a lot of weight-training addicts like to make that claim, but it's just not true for any reasonable definition of fitness. Running isn't particularly good for weight loss, but weight loss has little to do with fitness. Ditto for weight gain, even in the form of muscle. When it comes to the kind of fitness that actually matters - i.e. developing one's heart and lungs to prevent the chronic problems that kill millions every year - only a few kinds of exercise are better than running. Swimming, rowing, and cross-country skiing come to mind. There are probably a few more, but lifting weights is certainly not on the list.

You personally don't like running? Fine. No exercise is ideal for everyone. But spreading FUD that discourages others from pursuing a healthy habit doesn't seem very constructive.

P.S. Instead of getting your friends to downvote, how about suggesting an actually-healthy alternative?

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161209100236.h...

Biking, swimming, and rowing are all better on the joints than the impact from running.

>P.S. Instead of getting your friends to downvote, how about suggesting an actually-healthy alternative?

Don't complain about downvotes, it makes for boring conversation.

I had 2 herniated discs (L4-L5, L5-S1) in 2014 due to swinging an axe over my head for an extended period of time on a large structure fire.

I say that to say this; running is way better for my back than cycling. My left leg, mostly my foot, still haven't completely recovered from the nerve impingement, but I am running 30 to 40 miles a week with no problems (lots of trail running too, check my Strava :) )

I can't cycle like I used to on any "normal" bicycles. This position, bent at 90 degrees or more, that one is required to sit while cycling is actually pretty terrible for the lower back. Also, being male and being part of a large male dominated industry - firefighting, I see lots of male cancers. That is, testicular and prostate cancers. My department is participating in a massive testicular and prostate study; We are being asked to change our chonies often and wash hands before going to the bathroom as the scrotum is a sponge for anything it touches... smashing that region when cycling for extended periods of time seems like a bad idea (and it hurts).

I beg you to consider recumbent bikes. I am an avid cyclist. I ride daily to work. (less so now that the roads are icy) I have had back surgery (L4/L5 is now fused).

I went on a bike tour where I rode for 13+hrs a day for a month. At the end of the day the only thing sore was my muscles.

I weigh almost 300lbs.

A recumbent bike is a complete life changing, world altering, paradigm shifting, bundle of awesome. I beg you to look into it, or send me a PM if you have any questions.

On topic: What's a recumbent bike like to ride on the street? I live in Baltimore, and while I've ridden a conventional bike successfully in daytime traffic, it's not something with which I can imagine ever being really comfortable. A recumbent bike, having the rider much lower to the ground, seems like it'd be even scarier - how have you found it? Or do you ride on roads where it's not a problem?

Platform note: Hacker News doesn't support PMs, so you'll want to include in your profile an email address, or some other means of contact outside HN itself, in order to make out-of-band conversations possible.

Welcome! We're glad to have you.

My bike is 'average' height. Lower then some, higher then some. (There is incredible diversity in recumbent designs.)

I am "eyeball-level" with most cars/sedans. I am lower then most mini-vans.

As a general rule-of-thumb 75% of vehicles give me more room then they do when I ride a traditional bike. I would say that the majority of cars give me "half the lane" (which would mean that they pull over far enough that their right-side tires are in the left-side wheel track).

BUT, I still get atleast 1 vehicle a day that drives too close. In some parts of town this is more likely to happen then others, it also depends on road/traffic/other conditions too. When I am areas or during times-of-the-day where it is not as safe for me, I 'Take the Lane' and don't let cars try to drive beside me.

In my city I can either take road (12km route) or dedicated bike paths for most of the trip (20km route). I always prefer the bike paths.

Cycling can be bad for your back but it depends upon your position on the bike. I had problems with my lower back but I cycle regularly on a road bike and I haven't had any issues for a long time. One thing is that the lower handlebars on a road bike takes weight off the lower back and onto the shoulders and arms. It also makes you build up your core which is one of the main causes of back pain. Too low or too stretched out is not good. But if your position is right theres no problem.

Rowing should only be done with a very good coach. Source: Girlfriend has two bulging discs in her back due to a bad coach of her freshman year rowing team.

I second this. I rowed semi-competitively for years in my teens and early twenties, and thought I had good form. I didn't learn until after herniating a disc that it's important to do most of the drive through the heels rather than the ball of the foot. Most people learn not to overreach at the catch, which is part of it, but you also have to focus on not just getting the heels down, but actually driving through them. (Much like squats, another thing I didn't learn to do properly (with weight on the heels) until after that injury.)

Of course there's a bunch else to it - keeping the back straight and strong, etc. - this was just the thing that happened to be missing from my training, so might be for others as well.

Doesn't surprise me. I had some friends in college, men and women, that rowed, and universally they were put through hellish, body-destroying workout regimens that the football team would have looked cross-eyed at.

It still seems weird to me that rowing is a competitive sport. Rowing is something you do with a six-pack of beer in the cooler and a tacklebox and reel by your side, rather than as an end in itself. But I have decidedly plebeian tastes.

> Biking, swimming, and rowing are all better on the joints than the impact from running.

I was a competitive swimmer for a large portion of life. My back hated me for it. Running has been nothing but good to me.

Competitive sportsmen of any stripe tend to have various injuries. Unless you're a competitive runner too, the two cannot be compared.

> Don't complain about downvotes, it makes for boring conversation.

And more downvotes.

Good thing that's not all I wrote, then. Kudos for ignoring most of the rest to focus on that.

As for the other part of your comment, when I mentioned swimming etc. in the context of overall benefit, not harm to joints. I've yet to see evidence that cycling is easier on the joints, and I've seen plenty that it's slightly below running in terms of aerobic benefit. Sure, an elite cyclist probably has a higher VO2max than I do, but if we compare apples to apples then we'd have to compare to an elite marathon runner and I don't think that comparison would look so good.

VO2max has nothing to do with joints. Your post is all over the place.

No, my post is not all over the place. You're just not very good at reading. Effect on joints was the OP's point 1. Effect on fitness was point 3. Must I address those points in separate replies, even though they were made in one? That's absurd. Also, they're not completely unrelated and I've even drawn the lines between them. Talk of running's negatives should be balanced by consideration of its positives. Even if running is harmful to the joints, and already cited evidence suggests otherwise, that might still be outweighed by the aerobic benefits. More people die of heart attacks than of sore knees. I don't think it's unreasonable to counter unremittingly negative commentary with some mention of positives.

Next time, try reading what others write, instead of cherry-picking one piece out of context to address in support of your biases.

>You're just not very good at reading.

Now this is what this site is about.

Unless you are intentionally trolling, I recommend you remove personal attacks from your discourse if you want to engage in any kind of intelligent conversation.

So a one-line comment that's nothing but cherry-picking/diversion is OK, but calling you on it - and also continuing the actual discussion with facts and stuff - is a mortal sin? Look at all the responses in this thread. It's pretty clear that I did a pretty good job spurring an intelligent conversation, and you didn't, so I contend that your criteria/priorities are way out of whack.

I've been running for years and enjoy running, but everything he said is pretty much true...well, the boring part for me is obviously not true.

#2 (elevated cortisol levels) is a huge problem that is rarely discussed though. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

So 1/3 is "everything" to you? Also, elevated cortisol levels are associated with any exercise done to excess. Why single out running? Why focus on the negative? Running might not be the best possible exercise, there might be others that are even better, but it's highly accessible and running is overall better than not doing anything. That's totally lost in all the FUD the OP was slinging.

Try ashwagandha, it has some evidence of lowering cortisol.

The person you responded to never said that exercise is bad, or that being fit isn't important. They simply were responding to the statement that they had never heard an argument that running could be bad. You really jumped to conclusions by assuming they were saying exercise is not valuable.

The problem is the OP said "against running regularly" and the responder said "excessive". Neither "regularly" nor "excessive" were well-defined. Regular could be anywhere from 2-3 times a week to daily. Excessive could be anywhere from daily to many times daily, and probably is more about time/distance run than frequency of runs (daily 1 mile runs would be hard to consider excessive, but daily marathons?).

Defining our terms is critical in conversation (and something I probably need to work on as well).

> The person you responded to never said that exercise is bad

I never said that they did. Who's jumping to conclusions now? The person I was responding to clearly has an axe to grind with running specifically, and the most likely reason is that they prefer something else. I see that a lot from lifters and cyclists especially. For some reason they feel a need to explain why their choice is as good as running, which is in itself interesting. I don't see swimmers (for example) who feel compelled to explain why their choice is as good as running. Nor do I see anyone trying to impugn exercise in general (because that would be stupid).

I don't know what sport/exercise that person prefers, though, because they didn't say. It would have been nice if they had, to balance out the relentless negativity. When one casually equates "regularly" with "excessive" and then lists only negatives, it implies an overall negative. Identifying a basis for comparison might have been enlightening instead of offensive.

1) The idea that running is bad for your knees and joints is a popular fitness myth. According to several studies runners, even those who have run competitively for many years, do not have an increased prevalence of osteoarthritis.

2) Chronically elevated cortisol levels are result of overtraining. If you do that, you are doing it wrong. Overtraining happens when a person experiences stress and physical trauma from exercise faster than their body can repair it. Overtraining is not same as training a lot. Gradually increasing the running time and having enough rest days prevents that while the running distances grow.

3) You get runners high and it's not boring.

Of course there are people with conditions that get worse with running. Fat people should start slowly.

The knees is still out. One problem with studying long term runners, I'd often people who get knee pain drop out.

That's me -- went to various physios, they all agree I've messed up my knees, and won't ever recover enough to take up running again.

Like the back problems sometimes associated with rowing, a lot of knee issues from running are due mainly to bad form.

If you over-stride, particularly down-hill (and going "too fast" down hill instead of managing your pace/stride is a recipe for over-striding) the knees will be too straight during impact and so experience excessive impact force (and therefor potential damage) that would otherwise be absorbed by muscles/tendons/elsewhere.

While form is important, it doesn't fix fundamental joint problems unfortunately. I was checked fairly carefully by a couple of NHS physios, who both agreed it was joint problems, not bad form.

No, once you have a significant joint problem (from running or anything else) running is never going to help and will probably make things worse. Cycling possibly too, depending on the problem.

Swimming is probably the thing to go for in such circumstances. While some problems make that difficult too, it doesn't have the impact or strain (depending on stroke) of other options.

I really wonder how barefoot runners fare on 1) The sensitivity of your feet forbid any kind of pressure, I believe you end up running softly naturally. If true that would be very funny.

> According to several studies runners, even those who have run competitively for many years, do not have an increased prevalence of osteoarthritis.

That smells like survivorship bias to me. ;)

> It is time consuming and boring

Not for me. Mentally, it's the most productive part of my day. I "zone out" and work on problems that I haven't solved yet. Most design issues I work out while running, I write papers while running, I put together presentations while running. Many, many perplexing bugs I've solved while out for a run.

Of course, I've been running for decades. When I started out, it was time consuming, painful, and boring. It took maybe 5 years for that to change into what it is now - I look forward to it, I enjoy it, and it works for me.

Also, switching from a heel-strike gait to a ball-strike one has eliminated the knee pain.

I will never argue it's not time-consuming. Last year, I trained for 4 marathons and logged over 2000km of mileage. I don't want to think of the time that went into it, but I had a great time. The lonely "boring" runs I interpret for myself as a way to disconnect from the world and just zone out. Running with a group or with music curbs this greatly.

All sports have a bit of injuries, but those who last are those who take care. Changing shoes every 500km or so, foam-rolling muscles and joints, not running through pain, etc. Proper nutrition (during longer runs AND as a lifestyle) also helps immensely. Slowly optimizing your gait, cadence, and varying your weekly training so you have those back-off weeks for recovery. These are what keep you on your feet.

Here's my kicker that throws people off. I would rather watch a marathon on TV with full commentary than any other sporting event. I love it and follow the scene pretty closely. And this is coming from a guy who played professional soccer in his early 20's.

This data still isn’t perfect, but it adds another brick to the growing pile suggesting that running will not ruin your knees.[1]

New study explores how exercise may fight joint inflammation[2]

[1]http://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/run-for-your-knees

[2]http://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/is-running-actuall...

>* It is time consuming and boring (of course this is subjective)*

Very very subjective...

> and very inefficient at improving fitness

Depends on what your fitness goals are. It is pretty effective at maintaining cardiovascular capability but doesn't do much for overall strength or, on its own, weight management. Anecdotal data point: as a regular runner, 10K in <42m, half marathon in <1h50, I have a cracking set of legs and lungs but my upper body is pretty weak, my core strength "fair-to-middling", and I still carry a little more than I might like around the waist.

The trick to overall fitness, and something I could benefit from addressing, is to not concentrate on just one thing. Mixing running with body-weight exercises (push-ups, pull-ups, crunches, dips, ...) is generally considered a good minimal-equipment combination. For "bulking" or faster muscle strength gains add in some weights. For weight loss: eat less (or, for a more nuanced approach, eat better).

#1 and #2 seem reasonable points, but

> very inefficient at improving fitness

Efficiency relative to what? Time? Joules? Cost?

I'm skeptical running is "inefficient" at improving fitness.

Not sure what is meant by that commenter, but weight loss and strength gains are common goals which running isn't the most efficient at achieving. Obviously, it still impacts these and, obviously, those aren't goals for everyone.

Running is great at improving cardiovascular output (honestly not sure how it compares to biking and swimming), but that isn't all of fitness.

According to this [1], running is much more efficient at improving cardiovascular endurance than biking, in terms of time spent training for a particular gain. Particularly trail running.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Training-New-Alpinism-Climber-Athlete...

(ps. As someone who is sort of a weekend outdoors entusiast, without being any kind of a competitive climber or particularly interested in training, I thought it was an interesting read and would recommend.

It's a solid book, although I don't recall the bit that you're citing. I didn't read it that thoroughly. Started it and realized that I'd rather work towards 5.13 than the summit of Everest/Denali/whatever.

Body weight exercises such as pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups are the best for fitness.

Again, this depends on how you define both "best" and "fitness". What's best depends a lot on what someone enjoys. I would rather do an activity I enjoy for 40 minutes than get the same benefit doing something I hate for 20. Likewise, fitness means different things to different people and at different times. You may be focusing on cardio-vascular fitness, or on strength, or speed, or weight loss, or performance in a particular sport...

Or, you know, "do something". Throwing a bunch of complexity and equipment cost at someone who doesn't currently exercise at all isn't likely to help anything much. Pushups and situps require only a clear stretch of floor.

Sure! If you're just getting started and can stick with that, maybe that's best for you! Just not for everyone.

I think calisthenics are great, but they focus more on muscular strength than cardiovascular.

There are only so many push-ups you can do before your muscles are fatigued. Running, swimming, and cycling are better for cardio because you can do them for great lengths of time.

3) is extremely subjective. I have a love for running. You can say it's repetitive, dull, hurtful .. and I'd agree totally.

I was extremely ill last year, couldn't even jog; the first time I could sustain mild jogging I cried of happiness.

I love all kinds of sports, biking, skating, soccer, tennis, badminton you name it. Yet running has a special wire in my spine. When you're in flow, you feel like flying, it's a bit surreal. I'm not a regular runner anymore and I can't have long periods like these but still.

What qualifies as "excessive", though? Excessive anything is harmful almost by definition.

This comment replies to the wording of the parent comment, not the content. We know what the parent comment means.

No, we don't. I'm not sure even the author has a clear definition of "excessive" in mind, so we might not know even if we were all telepathic. The validity or applicability of their complaints about running is very closely tied to that definition, so it's entirely reasonable to seek clarification.

2) Your premise is true but your conclusion is wrong: while cardiovascular induces an aroused state and increases cortisol levels, it is also conditioning the body to be able to quickly return to a resting state, so when it is aroused at a later time (from a stressful encounter with a coworker for example), it will spend less time in that state because it recovers faster.

> 3) It is time consuming and boring (of course this is subjective), and very inefficient at improving fitness.

Whether you run, bike, hike, swim, row, or whatever it doesn't have to be boring.

Running/biking on a rural Midwest road IS insanely boring alone. I frequently listen to audiobooks or podcasts either educational or entertainment and that boring road becomes something I look forward to. The times I elect no audio I use it to think on hard problems I am trying to solve or plan for

These eliminate your counters of time consuming and boring. Regarding the inefficiency, you can do cardio that isn't running if you believe running is bad for you. I listen to the same thing during strength training

#2 is something that can affect your mood, energy, focus, work productivity levels...

Pretty sure there have been studies positively correlating running a certain amount with dying younger. I can't imagine sucking in city pollution can be that healthy either. Anecdotally, it helps my anxiety.

I'll try to clarify. According to the studies I've seen, mortality is decreased for all runners compared to non-runners. However, the greatest benefit was for people who ran a moderate amount. People who ran a lot regressed somewhat vs. the moderate runners, but still not to the level of the non-running population.

There are also some serious methodological questions about the studies involved. The best analysis I've seen is here:

http://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/will-running-too-m...

So no, there's no solid evidence that any amount of running is harmful. Maybe if someone did a study in a place where pollution was extra bad (e.g. Beijing) they would find such an effect, but I'm not aware of any such efforts.

Well, where are the studies? While we are talking about dying; Personally, I would rather die young than die in a "home" shitting myself unable to remember who I am. I see this more than I care to and it is horrible.

There is a tendency, from what I've observed, to use running as a way to have a really bad diet and still stay thin. There is a lot of pressure for people in their 20s and 30s who live in urban areas to both look fit and drink heavily. Not a good recipe for long term health.

Running is not great for losing weight, so I'm having doubts about this one...

It's been pretty effective for me. What are better ways of losing weight?

It takes hours of running to offset a couple of beers worth of calories. If you're eating unhealthy and drinking a lot, there is no amount of running to undo it.

This is not true. "A study done by researchers at Syracuse found that men burned about 105 kilocalories/mile on average running a mile in 9 minutes and 30 seconds, and about 52 calories when walking the same mile in 19 minutes." [1]

[1]http://running.competitor.com/2015/03/training/many-calories...

A beer is, say, 150 calories. A mile of running burns about 100 calories. When I ran, cruising speed was 7 minutes per mile. So a light 6 mile (10k) run would be about 45 minutes, 600 calories, or 6 miles.

And that doesn't even take into account the increased metabolism after the run is finished, nor the increased resting burn rate (over time) due to increased muscle mass.

Very true. Again this is anecdata, but when I ran my metabolism was insanely high. Runners are notorious for basically being pigs.

One of the marathons I ran had a "carbo-loading" event. Basically huge vats of spaghetti were cooked, and runners would absolutely gorge. It's totally unnecessary, IMHO. It's good to eat enough and cleanly before a big run, but stuffing yourself just weighs you down. And come mile 20 or so, you're not going to be worried about how much energy you have to burn, but rather how much everything hurts.

I wouldn't call 150 calories of beer heavy drinking. A pint of something like Guinness is a little over 200 calories.

"SAMHSA defines heavy drinking as drinking 5 or more drinks on the same occasion"

So you're right that heavy drinking of beer could be undone with running, but it's going to take a 10-11 mile run every day.

Why can't you just admit you were wrong? You said no amount without specifying how much eating/drinking you were talking about. That's a pretty absolute statement, refuted by the facts others have provided.

I said "drinking a lot", someone refuting with evidence of running of a single light beer hardly refutes anything.

There is little to gain by behaving like a smug asshole in comments. What could you possibly expect as a response to your comment that would make for good conversation.

Maybe you should ask yourself that question more often. Saying things that are untrue without even an attempt to back them up, and then being abusive to anyone who calls you on it, is kind of "smug asshole" behavior itself and not conducive to good conversation.

> If you're eating unhealthy and drinking a lot, there is no amount of running to undo it.

Emphasis mine.

Restricting calorie intake.

> Running is not great for losing weight

Since when? I'd like a citation on that.

As a sometimes fat runner, I cite myself.

Weight is won or lost in the kitchen. Full stop.

A 1 hour run might burn 500 calories. If you go and eat till you are not hungry, you can easily eat 800 or 900 calories. You are not going to lose much weight at the method.

It's a bit more complex than the commonly spouted calories in/calories out argument.

There is still a lot that we don't know with regards to metabolism. I am usually a higher mileage runner during spring to fall months (70-90km / week) and although I scale my eating to offset my calories burned, I will still lose weight. I will not provide a citation but it's quite widely known that metabolism increases as the body normalizes into a training period or regimen. And increasing with diminutive returns as the training increases. Recovery also burns more calories even while sedentary (as you should be when recovering).

That's the consumer-side of it. The supply-side argument is what's usually 'spouted': if you're gaining weight, its because too many calories in. Full stop.

Of course the body can/will waste calories, burn them at a higher rate depending on other things. That's not most peoples' problem though: unexpectedly losing too much weight. There's not a billion-dollar industry around that issue.

> Weight is won or lost in the kitchen. Full stop.

I think this is disingenuous. Certainly regulating caloric intake has more impact than exercise because it's "easier" to achieve a caloric deficit, but that doesn't mean running isn't great for weight loss all else being equal.

Furthermore, exercise is important for other health reasons. So maintaining the same caloric intake and adding running is much better than simply reducing your caloric intake by the same amount.

A 1 hour run for me burns 1000+ calories: https://www.strava.com/activities/800853045

Of course it's possible to eat 1000 calories' worth of food in one sitting, especially if you're eating something with tons of carbs in. But if you keep your diet roughly the same and go on a 1 hour run three times a week, you'll definitely start losing weight..

You are not burning 1200 calories in a hour run at 10min/mile. At an average 25% efficiency that is the equivalent of producing 350W on an ergo for a whole hour, which is well beyond the genetic ability of the vast majority of the population.

(The idea that sport can't help you lose weight is still ridiculous of course, even if you are only burning 600 calories per hour. Bad habits make you overweight and establishing good habits (like exercise) is the key to get out of that.)

May I ask how you came to this calculation? I have a relative in my family that regularly touts they are burning 3,000 calories on an elliptical for an hours worth of use.

It'd be nice to have an outlandish comparison to put towards their claim.

You start with gross efficiency, which for humans is going to be 20-30%. So when the tool says you expended 1200 calories and you assume an average efficiency of 25%, that means you produced 1200/4 = 300 kcal of actual work and 1200-300 = 900 kcal in excess heat.

The 300 kcal of work equate to ~349 Watt hours as WolframAlpha will tell you, so if you want to produce that in a single hour you need to continuously put out 349 Watts.

Now we have put lots of humans on scientific ergos which can accurately measure work, and that is a very high number for a single hour for any individual. There is a chart here that gives you the kind of work rates achievable by category:

http://d4nuk0dd6nrma.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/...

It's normalized by weight but it's more accurately height, someone weighing 300lbs isn't suddenly going to produce more power than at a normal weight. The number you're looking for is "FT" or Functional Threshold, which is generally assumed to be around the absolute maximum average power sustainable for an hour. At the end of that you should fall over and puke your guts out. So for someone doing 350 Watts for a hour, that would put them at world class or domestic pro level.

They would have to chug harder than a train to burn 3,000 calories on an elliptical. Chances are it's less than 1,000 calories [1].

[1] http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/walking-vs-elliptic...

I think that 1000 is also including your base calorie burn. I.e. if you sit in chair you burn 300. if you run 10 minute miles, you burn 700. Some of those calorie estimates are a bit off..

Here's a couple of citations for you. Both are generally exercise vs calorie control, not specific to running. Of course, running lands in the exercise category.

https://youtu.be/ztiHRiFXtoc https://youtu.be/eXTiiz99p9o

My personal experience of a lifetime of moderate amounts of running has been that it didn't help me lose weight at all, it increased my strength and endurance. But when I run and when I exercise, I eat more to compensate. A decade of regular exercise left me healthy, and just as chubby as when I started.

Finally realizing exercise is a strength plan and not a weight loss plan, and getting myself into the right mental place to count calories -- I lost 40 pounds in 6 months and have kept the weight off for years because I learned how to eat & exercise. I get fat by eating more and skinny by eating less, I get strong by exercising and weak by not exercising.

Presumably this varies a lot person to person. I find it much easier to lose weight with a combination of exercise and calorie restriction than with the latter alone. Yes, I get a bit hungrier when I exercise, but that just helps with focusing on eating when I'm hungry. It also allows me to eat somewhat more, thereby enjoying the experience of eating healthy food more, so it lessens the perceived hardship of calorie restriction. Finally, it's motivational: as I eat healthy food and begin losing weight, I feel stronger and more fit when I exercise, which makes exercising more enjoyable, and gives me more motivation to stick with the diet.

I actually haven't tried counting calories without exercising, but I'm absolutely certain you're right that this varies from person to person.

Exercising does afford me the opportunity to eat a little more after a workout, and I get to reward myself with a treat sometimes. I suspect that makes counting calories a lot easier.

Fully agree on it being motivational, and I'd go further about the benefits. Exercise is mandatory for me personally, it is a higher priority than most things, including weight loss.

Calorie restriction isn't nearly as effective at weight loss as it "should" be for me, which sucks because I find it fairly easy. Aerobic exercise also isn't very effective, which is fine because I find it incredibly boring unless it's part of a sport.

Strength training, on the other hand, is way MORE effective at cutting fat for me than it "should" be. Go figure.

Figure a 100 calories per mile; not exact for every person, but close enough for our purposes. Now let's take the common "imma have a smoothie, I ran today". I've seen people order smoothies that contain a thousand calories, that's what it said on the sign. But that's ridiculous, lets go with half that. 10K run, carry the 2, comes out to 6.2 miles. Your smoothie cancelled all but 120 calories. And you need to burn 3500 calories to lose a pound.

Put another way, if you ran fifty miles and took in no calories (obviously hypothetical), you'd lose ~1.5 pounds. You still have to make dietary changes if you want to lose weight.

Signed, Skinny, lifelong runner who hasn't the first clue what it's like to try and lose weight

I've walked three miles a day, every weekday this year, and not lost so much as an ounce - I've shed a lot of thigh fat, true, but the increase in calf and thigh muscle mass easily makes up for that.

Same for the situps and pushups I've been doing since August. I'm a hell of a lot more fit than I was, and I move better than I have in years. Hasn't made my gut any smaller. Sure, I've had to put three new holes in my belt, and probably need to go down a waist size next time I buy trousers. But it turns out that improved abdominal muscle tone just means you carry belly fat higher, so even though my waistline's shrunk, I actually look fatter than I did before. (On the other hand, I can move like I did in my twenties, so I'm willing to take the hit to my narcissism here.)

I've twice in the last decade lost fifty pounds or more in under a year. Both times, I did it purely by means of calorie restriction.

Exercise will make you healthier. It will not, by itself, make you lose weight. You do that by making sure that (calories in - calories out) has a negative sign, daily, over a long period of time. Aerobic exercise can help in that you burn more calories that way. But it's an adjunct, and insufficient on its own.

It's not easy, especially when you start out habituated to large meals and highly caloric sugary foods. It is absolutely doable, and the younger you start, the easier it is.

Since forever. The human body is very efficient.

You have to run about 1 mile to burn 100 calories. Skipping a 1000 calorie lunch is the equivalent of running 10 miles when it comes to weight loss.

Put another way, without a diet change, you would have to run about 35 miles to lose just 1 pound of fat.

Running is good for the heart and lungs. For weight loss, not so much.

I think running reduces my appetite.

Ditto.

Running has served me as an early warning of health problems.

what about strength training/weightlifting?

There are several studies that show adult neurogenesis from aerobic exercise, particularly running, in rats and mice.

Example: Physical exercise increases adult hippocampal neurogenesis in male rats provided it is aerobic and sustained. https:/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26844666

A review article here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5566493_Neurogenesi...

There is at least one study that allows us to infer that the same effects may occur in humans (quoted below).

Please let us know if there are more studies like this. It looks like a very practical approach to improve your cognition and prevent dementia with little risk.

From: http://www.dana.org/Publications/Brainwork/Details.aspx?id=4...

"Columbia neuroscientist Scott Small and colleagues appear to have found a way around this problem. First, they put mice that had been running voluntarily for two weeks into a magnetic resonance imager to map exercise-induced changes in cerebral blood volume, a measure of increased blood vessel formation in the dentate gyrus. Then, by sacrificing the animals and counting new neurons, they were able to correlate the neuronal proliferation they observed with changes in blood volume.

The researchers then conducted magnetic resonance tests on a small group of middle-aged people who had been exercising about an hour a day, four times a week, for three months. By charting exercise-induced changes in cerebral blood volume in the human hippocampal region and applying the same algorithms used in the mice, they were able to deduce that neurogenesis was also occurring in the humans. Changes in blood volume in the dentate gyrus, they concluded, provide a correlate of neurogenesis in humans."

Anecdotal, yet may not be completely coincidental: Alan Turing was an avid marathon runner. This is not part of the argument--so please don't take it into account when responding. ;)

That first study does not support your claim. This is the main chart: https://i.imgur.com/pTFJkaJ.png. Note how it shows a significant response in Doublecortin+ cells only in the HRT group and not for the LRTs. These acronyms stand "for low (LRT) and high (HRT) response to aerobic exercise training". In particular, quoting from the article:

Starting with a founder population of genetically heterogeneous rats (N/NIH stock), we applied two-way artificial selection based on the magnitude of change in running capacity after completing 8 weeks of standardized aerobic treadmill training. After 15 generations of selection, rats bred as HRT increased maximal treadmill running distance from 646 to 869 m (change, 223 ± 20 m), whereas rats bred as LRT decreased from 620 to 555 m (change, −65 ± 15 m) after completing the same absolute amount of training (Koch et al. 2013).

This is a huge confounding variable. There is a very good chance these cells have an impact on these rats' ability to run long distances after training, so it's completely reasonable to expect that the cell growth would respond well to the very exercise the rats were selected for responding well to! It does not show that the same effect would happen in a normal rat (the LRT rats did not see a difference in this particular cell growth, but they were also nonrandom).

Your point regarding the first study I cited seems to be a good one. There are a number of other studies with similar effects, however; some of which can be found in the review article.

Well, the article states:

> Of course, this type of study cannot prove that running actually caused the differences in the men’s thinking, only that runners had certain patterns of thought.

>Could it not be that people who have the willpower to run regularly also have the willpower to stay focused?

This is just an anecdote, of course, but I notice a major boost to my ability to concentrate, avoid distractions and think after a good aerobic exercise session. My efficiency goes from <1 hour of intellectual work done in a day to >4.

The boost lasts about 2 days, after which the lethargy sets back in.

Maybe it's just that a prolongated uneasy physical activity trains people into not quitting and understand early sensations are only transient. Just a thought.

I thought multitasking had been shown not to exist.

Since these people's minds don't wander I expect another study showing how Running is the Non-Creative's Sport.

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