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Comment by antaviana | Hacker News Reader

Regarding commuting, it depends on how you look at it.

For example, commuting has been instrumental in helping me lose 35 kg in 10 months, from size 46 to size 36.

I made the decision to always commute walking (30 minutes commute which I do 4 times a day because I also wanted to have lunch at home with my family). Once you factor in that your commute is 30 minutes instead of 10 minutes (or 0 minutes if you work at home), things are rather easy.

So I end up spending 2 hours a day walking, which turns out to be an activity that I happen to like a lot (its been a bit of an evolution, possibly inspired by the "Love what you do" approach to things as opposed to "Do what you love") and therefore I do not see it as a time waste at all.

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Glad that worked out for you! Highly dependent on circumstances, though. I have a 30 minute _drive_ to get to my office, and it's supposed to be 117 degrees next Monday. Walking is pretty impractical in Phoenix in general, and the public transportation is awful. So yes my exercise happens in a dedicated gym.

You know you could have a shorter commute, go to the gym for ~30-45 minutes of real exercise, and have more free time in the day, right?

Don't long walks qualify as "real exercise"? The op's weight loss seems to indicate so. Even without the results, you can't discount the fact that they might get far more enjoyment out of long walks than being crammed in a smelly Gym each day. It's not always about being efficient with your time. Often the most enjoyable things in life are the least time efficient.

There's a bit of irony in describing walking as "not real" exercise.

In my case, I'm not sure. I had a long history of being a member of gyms to where I did not go because I always found something better to do. In fact, in the past I even was paying for two gyms and I did not go to any of them. I suspect I'm not alone here, if all members of a gym decided to go, they would not fit in the gym. I always hear that the lion's share of revenue for a gym comes from people who never go.

I think that what worked for me (goal: increase activity) was to build the activity as a part of routine that was too inconvenient to skip, and then ending up liking that routine. I do not see anymore commuting as busy time, for me it is part of my free time, an activity that I do want to do. In other words, on weekends I now usually go hiking and I do not consider as busy time.

"Chemotherapy is actually kind of nice considering the money you save on haircuts"

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