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Comment by ericmcer | Hacker News Reader

Failing to exercise is an area where I think the victim/excuse mentality kinda falls to pieces. Unless you are just entirely ignorant that it's a concern, it is something that anyone can do. Do some yoga/pushups/sit-ups every morning (5-10mins) and then go for a short walk on your lunch-break. There is no way someone cannot do that unless they just 'don't want to'. It is free, takes almost no time, and can be as simple as walking around for 15 minutes.

I don't think it is smug to challenge people to take the smallest, tiniest, bare minimum amount of personal responsibility.

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It is easy to think that everybody can carve out even a small 5-10m for exercise, but that thought fails to consider people that have had or do have chronic pain or serious injuries.

It is incredibly hard to go from zero to minimal exercise, especially when even basic exercises seem to flare up old injuries. Where do you start? A poorly done crunch might throw out your back again -- do you risk it? Ten push ups might flare up your old tendonosis, should you do any? Your knees are weak from lack of exercise for years, and now 20 free weight squats makes your knees ache the next day -- is this good pain, or will the problem get worse as you do more?

Even without pain, it isn't hard to imagine people being too busy for _most_ of their day to find the motivation to exercise for a simple 10 minutes. Your day might start with a long, early commute to a tedious job. After a long commute back home, it may be hard to say "well, time to strain my body!" That is mentally tough, especially so if you have to prepare dinner, interact with kids, answer late night emails, etc.

I don't scoff at people who fail to exercise. I feel bad for what is going on or had happened in their life that drains them of the motivation or ability to exercise.

For most Americans, they can easily carve out 1 hour of TV a day. There's really no excuse for anyone between the ages of 10 and 60 to walk 15 minutes a day. Obviously there are outliers, as you said, disability issues, health problems etc.

But the vast majority of Americans eat way more than they should and don't give it a second thought. For most of America it's a cultural issue, not a physical or practical problem.

If you try hard enough you can always find a plausible excuse not to do something.

> Where do you start? A poorly done crunch might throw out your back again -- do you risk it? Ten push ups might flare up your old tendonosis, should you do any? Your knees are weak from lack of exercise for years, and now 20 free weight squats makes your knees ache the next day -- is this good pain, or will the problem get worse as you do more?

So scale it down to something you can do. No shame in that.

> I don't scoff at people who fail to exercise. I feel bad for what is going on or had happened in their life that drains them of the motivation or ability to exercise.

Pretty sure for most of the people in my socio-economic bracket it's just laziness. I know they have money, I know they have time to binge on Netflix, I know they have similar jobs to mine. And yet so many people I know from work fail to exercise.

This may be true for a lot of situations, however there could be all kinds of factors that are not considered, so I would caution you not to be too absolutist about this thinking.

I for one would very much like to exercise much more, and had in the past invested a fair amount of money and time into it. I enjoyed it immensely most of the time, even without the other benefits mentioned in the article.

However I rarely exercise now, and since I lost health insurance some years ago I feel the financial risk too great. Even basic yoga / pushups could lead to expensive treatment for anti-hemophilia factor treatment if it was needed.

I see many other people have more serious issues with mental and emotional health which take priority over exercise and growth too.

It's easy to armchair quarterback and say "oh that persons is lazy watching tv, drinking or smoking" for example, and not realize that they are actually suffering greatly and are prioritizing working, paying bills, and getting a small amount of comfort in doing one thing that another may think is just lazy, is actually a sad form of self medication for issues that perhaps could be treated better if they had access to better care.

Of course this is not an excuse for all who don't, just another way of seeing some things that I have learned over the years, not everything is always the way it seems to us and others do not always have the same things stopping them as we do.

Wait wait wait...

You stopped exercising because you lost health insurance and you feel the financial risk is too great?

I'm assuming you're not accounting for the health effects and treatments you're going to need because you stopped exercising?

@ACow - I'm assuming you don't know what it costs to treat a bruise / internal bleed when you have hemophilia factor 8 deficiency with no health insurance.

believe me, I want to exercise like I used to. There were times in an Aikido dojo where the exercise was so good that I felt better than after sex.

Right now I stand consciously for times, and I got on walks on occasion. However the past 30 days I have had immense pain from my lower back to my left knee, which at this point I am pretty sure is an untreated bleeding in my left gluteous, which makes sitting in most positions difficult.

I do some slow tai chi on occasion, but have to be careful not to over extend and cause injury. This is great, but it certainly doesn't burn the calories and get blood flowing like other things I could be doing, at least not the way I do the tai chi steps at home. I know there are more vigorous ways to engage in it, it's me that is limiting the type, not the available / advanced tai chi options.

So yes, I stopped most vigorous exercises soon after I lost health insurance, the financial risk is indeed too great.

"not accounting for the health effects and treatments you're going to need because you stopped exercising?"

- It would be an interesting comparison. Unfortunately I can not afford either, so I guess it's a matter of try to play safer for now so I can prolong the time between now and then.

Regular exercise improves mental and emotional health for the vast majority of people.

@nradov - yes you are right! I promote knowledge of this to people when I can. Just doing some now again can have a similar effect as prozac and similar meds as far as percentage of people helped from what I understand.

I think it helps for many different reasons too, some physical, some just seeing the world differently.

My point with statement above was just not to be a blanket absolutist.

There was a time in my life when I looked at my obese friends and wondered why they did not get that X calories - X movement = whatever.

I learned later in life that sometimes it's not so simple, whether it's genes, or types of food that are different, the way they were raised, emotional issues that were not treated, medications for one thing that caused another... there are so many things I do not know just by looking at someone. The same with them looking at me.

As cruel as it might seem, you need to prioritize yourself when looking for a relationship and if 'exercises' is a useful heuristic to you when choosing who to date so be it - the other person's concerns, excuses and reasons are not your problem.

I spent a little over 2 years incarcerated. Inside I learned the ultimate truth of exercise. In my institution there were no weights or exercise machines. Inmates would fill trash bags with water and use for weights. The point being, money should not be an excuse for lack of exercise. People that tried were able to stay in really good shape.

So it's a matter of will power and determination?

Another problem is the mentality of always being smart. Being smart almost always mean achieving the same thing with less and less effort.

But for some things being smart is being dumb. Why always take the shortest route to minimize walking? Why go over the lawn instead of around when walking is good for you and only <30 seconds will be saved? Is it smart when you'll likely end up overweight, unhappy and with cardiac problems in the next 20 years?

And what about your discipline, patience and character in the long run?

Doing exercise(lifting in my case) makes you realize your limits and over time you realize that being consistent can really help you change yourself.

Personal responsibility for what? One's own choices? I choose not to exercise. I've tried it plenty of times at the nagging of busybodies like you. I don't like it, and I don't want to do it. Why do YOU care about MY choice in this matter?

You're upset at a straw man. The OP was condemning the "I would exercise, but I just can't because XYZ" attitude, not "I choose not to".

There are precious few people who can't actually carve out time to exercise. Not wanting to is a different matter - but not wanting to is a choice you make, rather than a circumstance you're forced into.

There’s no time in the morning for people with terrible commutes and multiple jobs, etc.

Some jobs have lunch breaks that are really short, especially if you have to drive somewhere to find food or wait in line.

While I ack not everyone can home cook, cooking for lunch is one way to avoid wasting your lunch time waiting in line.

Technically you're substituting that time into the labor of food preparation yourself, not avoiding it.

Additionally, I'm not convinced that waiting in line at lunch is not itself a niche behaviour. I'm guessing it must be a US tech/mega Corp thing, is it like a children's tuck shop or school canteen or something? I do remember I did some work experience when I was younger with some NASA guys out at tidbinbilla, and they had like a work canteen...which I found really weird and put it down to "an American thing". Is that what you mean?

Because I'm still struggling to comprehend what it involves...a line for what exactly? A fridge? Shops? Seats?

Additionally again, at least here, with sub $8 AUD lunches available, the marginal gain of buying ingredients and preparing one's own is getting less and less.

And you can then sub off that preparation time into doing something like exercising. Even if it's simple as going for walks while eating your lunch for most professionals...

Good observation it could be trading one time sink for another.

That said, prep time is the most time consuming, but only takes about 10 mins. for me. Cooking, while linearly can take a lot if time, doesn't because I'm doing other things while the cooking is happening.

The line thing can be many things like walking to a restaurant/food service, getting seated, ordering, waiting, eating. Or walking up to a food truck, ordering waiting. Going to a sandwich shop ordering, waiting. Going to a supermarket, deciding, ordering waiting checking out.

On site food service is the quickest of course, but not all techs or star-ups do or have that.

That's BS. I'm one of those people, and recently have taken up Crossfit. I wake up 2 hours earlier, and it sucks, but I'm doing it. Other people can do it too.

Running a 2-hour-per-day sleep deficit is almost certainly worse for your overall health than whatever benefits Crossfit provides.

I would worry about this as well

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