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Comment by woliveirajr | Hacker News Reader

> These activities – such as soaking in a hot tub or taking a sauna – may have health benefits for people who are unable to exercise regularly.

I would add not only "unable", but "unwilling". Some people don't get any pleasure by exercising, and perhaps having 50% of the benefits of cycling is better than having none.

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True, but the "50% of the benefits of cycling" isn't accurate.

When I cycle for fun/exercise, with a heart rate monitor, I've burned (an estimated) as many as 650 calories in a half hour. A "normal" ride is typically closer to 800-1,000/hr. According to this chart[1] - a 150lb person cycling at a "moderate" pace would burn 563 calories.

In the study, people sitting in hot tubs for an hour burned about 150 calories per hour, which is about 2x what you'd expect to burn during an hour of sleep.

According to the study, sitting in a hot tub for an hour is more like 25% of the (calorie burning) benefit you'd expect from an hour of moderate cycling, and just under 20% of the benefit you'd expect from an hour of vigorous cycling.

[1] http://www.nutristrategy.com/fitness/cycling.htm

Same here on calorie burn for cycling.

Its 50% the caloric benefit of walking which seems a pretty low bar.

One thing I don't hear mentioned very much w/ exercise and calorie burning is that your body continues burning calories after working out and exercise changes the rate that your body burns calories throughout the day.

For my workouts, I've found sprints and lifting weights on the heavy side to be great because my body spends a lot of energy rebuilding that muscle for a day or two after.

I'd be surprised if baths can change your resting calorie burn rate but I could see them improving circulation and heart health. People should probably still exercise though. Heh, finally I have an excuse to get that jacuzzi in the living room...

It isn't very much. There are charts that show the post workout calorie utilization, and might was well not bother counting it. And if you are running a caloric deficit anyways, it might actually hurt you since your body cannot repair itself well anyways. Example, if you are trying to keep[ muscle while dieting (in caloric deficit), running and lifting heavy is a way to lose muscle.

Lifting heavy while dieting actually is helpful for not losing muscle, as long as you eat enough protein: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2016/01/26/ajcn.115....

That actually repeats what I just said. They lifted, but not "heavy" or until failure. And they did HIIT, not long runs. While they are still trying to figure it out, it appears long runs for example tear down muscule tissue and there isn't enough calories in the diet to rebuild.

Apparently it's called "afterburn" and some googling doesn't seem to turn up anything saying it's not a significant effect... In fact, it seems like everyone is saying it's pretty significant (how much exactly being debatable and probably highly influenced by genetics). Where have you heard the opposite?

Every study I've seen says it is a fairly small amount of calories and you should just ignore it when trying to figure out how many calories an exercise burns. Like we know that running faster slightly increases post exercise caloric burn over running slower (on a per mile basis), but we don't bother calculating it in.

> Example, if you are trying to keep[ muscle while dieting (in caloric deficit), running and lifting heavy is a way to lose muscle.

No, that kind of exercise is what you do to assure that you are maintaining muscle in a deficit; not having that kind of exercise and having a calorie deficit is how you lose muscle instead of fat.

That assumes "calorie burning" is a benefit. Not everyone needs to lose weight (or even exercise to keep their weight stable).

The vast majority of people in the US do.

The vast majority of people do not live in the US. I realize this is a US-centric forum, but these things warrant qualifications.

Please read the parent comment again. They said - "vast majority of people in the US".

I referred to the original comnent that just took it fir granted that calorie burning is an advantage.

Count me amongst the unwilling! I can't wait for a magic bullet or pill that gives me the results I want without trying. I'm supposed to feel guilty about that admission, but I do not.

it's called cosmetic surgery

That will only give you the appearance of fitness, not the effect of it. You'll still be huffing and puffing as you climb the flights of stairs to the office the day the elevator breaks, though being lighter through liposuction will help reduce the difficulty of the task.

What's the going rate on an intelligence implant these days? Having cosmetic surgery to overcome a lack of exercise is like moving your fuel gauge to "Full" so you ever have to buy gas.

It's an interesting idea.

Personally, I wonder how much of the benefit comes from facing and overcoming that unpleasantness. I feel that must be a part of how exercise engages your mind as well as your body.

I think considering exercise to be unpleasant is similar to considering math "too hard". It's a matter of attitude and perspective. You are probably right that there are benefits from overcoming that perspective but it's unfortunate that we continue to perpetuate the perception that these positive experiences are somehow negatives in the moment. We should really improve our internal marketing campaigns.

The problem with not exercising for HN-types is that your brain suffers because of it. Your cognition isn't as good as it could be and will decline faster than if you exercised. Also more likely to develop neuronal disorders later in life, and those aren't very fun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_phy...

right, he would like a pill which does this.

Exactly!

Does this take into account the time she could have spent learning new programming skills?

Serious question. With pre- and post phases (changing clothes, shower) and the post-sluggishness, the exercise that you are doing in your free time just to do exercise can be quite an extra time investment.

(no anti-exercise opinion here, but I find it better to combine exercise with commuting or real hobbies)

I think you are drawing a false dilemma here. Exercise is absolutely critical to mental and physical health, there are no substitutes. Studying and exercise should be balanced as time allows but exercise should never be eliminated.

Studying without exercise would be like studying by only skimming text. It's really not worth the time if you can't understand and retain what you are studying.

I think the problem with trying to mix exercise with hobbies or commuting is that they don't really satisfy the same physical goals.

Hobbies are for fun. Commuting is for travel. They may involve physical exertion, but they repeat the same movement patterns over and over. You don't exercise all your muscles.

E.g rock climbing is hard but doesn't exercise any pushing movements. Which can become a problem when only one set of muscles is trained.

Good exercise will not only make you fitter in a generally useful way, but help you fix problems like flexibility or posture. I.E we are trying to fix your weaknesses, not just cater to your strengths.

That's true. But primarily I'd like to lose weight. I once had a commute that included a couple miles of walking. I lost significant weight because I was forced to do this (well, too cheap to take a cab or a bus).

I've never been able to motivate myself to do that when I'm not forced to.

Do you take into account the time you could spend learning new programming skills when deciding to sleep more than 5-6 hours a day? Purposefully taking time out of the day to exercise is almost as vital for peak cognitive performance, not to mention the investment in your long-term health which appreciates in marginal value (compared to other things you could do with your time like programming) as you age. If you can work that into your existing daily routine, all the better, but that's getting more and more difficult as the modern day white collar worker has an extremely sedentary daily routine (bed -> car -> office chair -> car -> couch)

I don't know if there are studies that compare those opportunity costs directly, and to me that seems like a tough experiment to set up/run properly.

I seriously doubt, however, that that is an actual trade-off being made in real life. As in, no one I know or have ever met is _actually_ making that trade-off. I've known people that claimed similar reasons for not exercising regularly, but the reality is that they just don't want to -- not that they are making a conscious trade-off based on opportunity cost.

Reality: Most people are probably better off taking 1-1.5 hours of low quality work/fucking around on their computers and use it to exercise instead.

>Does this take into account the time she could have spent learning new programming skills?

Because she can't find 30 mins per day (or less) not devoted to programming skills or other stuff, to do exercise?

Does the question takes into account the less years of practicing those programming skills because of earlier demise due to bad shape?

Did you read and understand the second & third paragraph at all?

If yes, please name the type of effective exercise that you can complete in 30min, including preparations and clean-up afterwards. Really curious.

(Commuting and hobbies that are not for the sake of doing exercise don't count because they were already mentioned.)

>Did you read and understand the second & third paragraph at all?

Yes, and I find it wrong.

I'm not sure what "preparations" and "clean-up" afterwards you imagine, sounds like excuses not to do any or overthinking it.

It can be just doing some sets of repetitions of body only exercises, without any equipment to put out (a towel on the floor will do). Or a jogging run -- no preparations, just putting on your running shoes and a shower afterwards. Or dancing around in your room. And countless other ways (e.g. getting some gym equipment, a stationary bike, etc).

One showers at the end or start of the day (or should) anyway, and that doesn't have to take more than 5 minutes. And 30 minutes, or even 15-20 minutes, of exercise per day is more than enough to see health benefits.

In fact: "For most healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends these exercise guidelines: Aerobic activity. Get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity".

Making breaks actually helps learning. I may start to sound like a broken record, but take a look at this: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn It's easy to follow, and helps to understand how learning works, what helps it and what hinders it.

This really cannot be overstated. When I was in college I always made it a point to schedule a fitness class of some kind in my credit load, most of the time it was just a credit to show up at the gym regularly. It was a great way to overcome my laziness and get regular exercise.

It was one of the most important lessons I learned at the time because I had gone through a year or so of no real exercise and when I started again everything became so much easier.

I too desire this, I feel guilty about it, but less so after this comment. Thank you.

Your body WANTS to move around. There has to be some sport or physical activity you enjoy! Soccer? Badmitton? A game of tag? Land Quidditch?

Land Quidditch sounds awfully close to something something my mom would have made up, when trying to market something healthy but inherently boring to us as kids. Don't play with my heart like this. The disappointment is too real.

Many colleges in the US have (land) Quidditch teams. I've heard they sometimes have horrific injuries because the people on the team are not conventionally athletic.

My brain doesn't want to move my body around. If my body enjoys it, it certainly has never told me it does. Quite the opposite.

Ditto. Some people simply don't understand that other people hate exercise. It is extremely unpleasant for me.

I get that other people enjoy it. Wish I did, but I hate it. The only choice of activity that makes physical work bearable for me is some sort of tangible payoff - I can work hard building things. Some of my heaviest physical activity is carpentry and light construction. I still don't enjoy it, but working towards making something is enough payoff to make it worth it. For this reason, I do quite a bit more of that sort of thing than is probably normal for a desk jockey. I also walk about two miles a day, just two and from work.

For whatever reason, my brain wiring doesn't see "vaguely feeling a bit better in three months, maybe living an extra year or two when everything is falling apart anyway" as sufficient.

The puritans can start on with the you-weren't-raised-right judgements now. I've heard it before.

Some people simply don't understand that other people hate exercise. It is extremely unpleasant for me.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: If done at a proper relative intensity, everyone finds exercise extremely unpleasant in the moment. It's why we give up on planks, wuss-out on an uphill run or climb, back off the pace, listen to music, blab with others, skip the next rep, try to squeak out a few extra seconds before the next interval, and all sorts of other distractions while exercising. So your friends are BSing themselves or not working hard enough.

What people actually enjoy is the feeling of accomplishment that comes after the fact, getting out in nature, or the validation of being in shape, being able to cheat more on meals... basically all the side benefits. It's fine that you don't want to do whatever you prop up in your head as "extremely unpleasant" exercise... just stay active like you are already doing. But please, cut out the mental baloney that you're some special snowflake because you find exercise unpleasant... we're all feeling the pain here.

> we're all feeling the pain here

Are you positing that everyone hates exercise to the same degree? I don't buy it. It's pretty obvious some people enjoy running. It's also pretty obvious some people hate it. Why should running be any different in that way from Brussels sprouts?

> mental baloney that you're some special snowflake because you find exercise unpleasant... we're all feeling the pain here.

The other poster already addressed this, but I'll add: this is the sort response that always comes up.

It clearly costs different people differently, in terms of mental energy and willpower. This "we're all feeling the pain here" is a vaguely polite form of the sort of "just suck it up, wimp" response that I've come to expect.

It clearly costs different people differently, in terms of mental energy and willpower.

Comparatively speaking, we are all wimps anyway. A Kenyan elite marathoner can run my old mile PR twenty-six times over. An elite powerlifter reps out my squat max for a warmup.

Which is why I said "proper relative intensity." If 10 pushups for you scores a four on the pain scale, but 100 pushups for me scores a four, then you do 10 pushups while I do my 100, and we both feel the same amount of "extremely unpleasant" feelings together. Both of us gain in terms of adaptation to capacity for work and pain tolerance.

I'm not sure what you're envisioning in your head as "extremely unpleasant" pain, but the saying goes that you don't have to train AT your max to UP your max. Exercise done at relatively comfortable levels of pain will still produce positive adaptations. That's why Couch->5K is so successful, it basically starts people off walking instead of running. But again, I don't care if you dance, run, row, lift, bike, hike, walk, whatever... it sounds like you are staying active already, which is great.

Ah. You're assuming that the original poster's dislike of exercise is the same as your dislike of the pain of exercise. They're not necessarily the same.

As it happens, I dislike exercise as well, and it's not because it hurts. (As you point out, it doesn't have to hurt.) It's because it's unpleasant in a lot of ways, it's boring (no matter what exercise I try), and I don't get anything else out of it. I don't enjoy being out in nature, I don't get a feeling of accomplishment from moving around, I don't feel better afterwards. This is true for exercise at any intensity level. As it happens, my life is active enough to keep me fit without extra exercise, but if I had to dance/run/row/lift/bike/hike/walk/roller skate/rock climb/ski/anything in order to stay healthy, I'd dislike it. That's just how it is. Some people do not like physical exercise, period.

I wonder what magic_beans ("your body WANTS to move around", three posts up) thinks of this response.

I don't agree with "If done at a proper relative intensity, everyone finds exercise extremely unpleasant in the moment.". It may be physically uncomfortable but you can get pleasure from taking control over yourself. It's hard for me to explain, but some unpleasant thing can bring pleasure. Alos, if it is extremely unpleasant I'd doubt it is done at the proper level.

I totally agree :)

I exercise nearly every damn day, and I find it UNPLEASANT. Of course it's unpleasant! My brain screams at me to just sit down and sleep.

But exercise, if anything, is a mental challenge. The brain screams at you to stop, but your body, deep down, wants and needs to move. So I make myself do it, and OP makes themselves do it.

I'm shocked that OOP doesn't seem to get any exercise-euphoria. That high is absolutely worth it.

But your previous comment was:

> Your body WANTS to move around. There has to be some sport or physical activity you enjoy!

This couldn't be more true. I do crossfit 4 times a week. I hate every single second of it. But the second it's over, I am flooded with euphoria and happiness for having accomplished the day's workout.

I look at exercise as a form of self-domination. How can I dominate my life if I can't even dominate myself?

I had a roommate that refused to shower for a week when we ran out of gas because he couldn't even bear the thought of a single 30-second cold shower.

I hate every moment of exercising, but as soon as I'm leaving the gym, it doesn't matter anymore and I'm glad I did it. Even if I wasn't glad, it's necessary for my health. Tough potatoes.

I don't think anyone is surprised that people hate exercise. That's why a tiny portion of the population exercises daily, and everyone else has excuses for why they can't, like "it's particularly unpleasant for me, you just don't understand."

Saying no to another donut also sucks, but that's not a very good reason to eat donuts.

> I don't think anyone is surprised that people hate exercise.

In my experience, plenty of people are surprised when I tell them there is no form of physical activity that I enjoy for its own sake. They start listing activities ("but what about skiing? Playing soccer?") and they seem genuinely surprised when I say that no, in fact, I really don't enjoy any of those things.

I don't understand their surprise either, but there it is.

> "vaguely feeling a bit better in three months, maybe living an extra year or two when everything is falling apart anyway" as sufficient.

Once you are middle-aged (and even before for many people) it is much more than "vaguely feeling a bit better". Without reasonable muscle-tone and fitness your joints will ache every single day and you will begin losing mobility and getting injured more easily.

I hate exercising. I do it because it is too costly not to.

THIS.

The difference between 39 and 46 at the same apparent level of non-fitness is shocking. Stuff hurts that never did before.

Getting and staying in shape is key after 40.

>I'm supposed to feel guilty about that admission, but I do not.

It's not the admission that's problematic. It's that, until said magic bullet is found, this mindset leads a person nowhere health wise...

Maybe if there was a health reward of some kind every time you exercised then it would be different. But there's nothing. I just can't stick with doing something for weeks and weeks and weeks before I realize that I'm losing a small amount of weight, or able to perform a bit better than when I started.

It's called strava for running or cycling... It will show your progres on the same routes or over common segments... You don't even have to share that info with other people if you don't want to

>I just can't stick with doing something for weeks and weeks and weeks before I realize that I'm losing a small amount of weight, or able to perform a bit better than when I started.

Hard or not, that's a bad attitude in life in general. Instant gratification seldom got people places...

I can think of very few other things with such poor reward systems. When I start washing dishes, I start seeing clean dishes immediately. Even if I have hundreds of dishes to wash, I can feel good about that first clean dish.

>I can think of very few other things with such poor reward systems.

Anything important has a "poor reward system". General education for one. Better eating. Advancing at a career. Playing a musical instrument.

> Some people don't get any pleasure by exercising

Couldn't this be a result of not exercising? It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that people who've made exercise a habit generally seem to enjoy it more.

I've faithfully gone to the gym 5 times a week every week for a year and a half. I still despise exercise - but I like the results enough to keep going.

My inspiration is simple [0]. Ultimately, I'm in control of how I look and feel. Exercise sucks - but it's the best way to keep myself looking how I want to look. That's the only motivation I need to suffer through it.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/B63LzdF.jpg

Maybe it's not exercise you hate, but the gym. I tried the gym once and dropped it because I hated it. A few years later I found running and loved it; then I found cycling and loved it even more.

Exercise is tiring enough as it is (that's the point). You should at least find something you enjoy, otherwise it's even more likely that you won't do it.

I agree.. I have had a greenway near me for 5 years before I started using it... If you can do something without even having to commute to it, it can be even easier to start a habit

I tried everything - lifting weights is the only thing that 'stuck'. I'd love to swim, but the only pool is at the gym and it's heavily chlorinated and I have to shower before and after swimming which is now outside of "convenient to exercise".

The gym is a few minutes up the road, I'd jog but it's on an incline - terrible for the knees.

Scan in, get changed, throw some weight around, wipe off the sweat (not enough time for a full shower), leave. It's convenient enough and something I've managed to stick with long-term.

Of course it's not a coincidence; people who enjoy exercise generally make a habit of it.

It's rather obvious that people who find it more enjoyable will have an easier time making a habit of it.

The only way I've found to keep myself in shape is to find activities I enjoy. For me it's dancing and rock climbing. But I had to try a bunch of things to discover that. I never imagined I would like dancing before I tried it.

Also, not everyone responds equally to exercise. Some people improve much faster than others. Some people see no progress at all unless they exercise at high intensity. Understandably it's harder to get motivated if you see little progress. I'm lucky in that, while I'm not athlete material, it's not super hard for me to gain muscle and improve my cardio.

See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/fitne...

I've had that result with some activities. No amount of distance running, it seems, will ever make it feel like something enjoyable and healthy rather than something incredibly boring that makes me feel like I'm less healthy afterward. Meanwhile, weightlifting and sports—even those with lots of running!—are fun and make me feel alive, but I could definitely see someone not feeling that way about any exercise.

I find running pairs well with music -- I'm into electronic dance music, and running allows me to simulate how the music would feel at a nightclub: you're physically engaged, sweating, does the music push you forward or pull you back? What are the cycles of tension and energy and are they effective? I also find myself more able to really dig in and listen while running: I've found myself gaining a much deeper understanding of albums after I've run with them.

I would find running without music to be frustrating and boring. Although, after about 15-20 minutes, I just drift off into thought-land and kinda forget that I'm running, so maybe it'd be doable. I guess that's runner's high/endocannabinoids for ya.

I find weightlifting less fun but it's SO healthy (and quick) that I push through and do it anyway.

But what if I dislike nightclubs?

Between you and me, I also dislike nightclubs, hate the environment/social setting, but I like some of the music (unfortunately not the stuff they play at most nightclubs around here either) and I like the idea of music as a source of energy/physical motion.

Honestly I think it's that it just starts to suck less with each time you do it. I've run the gamut in my life from overweight couch potato that didn't exercise for years, to fanatically going to the gym 3 hours a day, five days a week. Running an 8-9 minute mile when I was in my worst shape would have been orders of magnitude harder for me, mentally, to complete - than probably a half marathon or something when I was in good shape. That doesn't mean I've _ever_ liked going to the gym and working out. It did mean that at times when I was in such good shape I didn't mind it that much.

Sometimes I enjoy exercising, sometimes I do not.

I always enjoy having exercised.

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