Not exercising worse than smoking, diabetes and heart disease study finds
cnn.com
cnn.com
The message is important, but I think we can just stop doing studies about how exercise is good. Researchers must love these kinds of studies because they are ALWAYS POSITIVE. And the media loves promoting them, I guess because they get a lot of clicks.
Getting people to do more exercise - that is the hard part. More randomised studies of interventions to do that on a society level are needed. There is going to be an extraordinary number of people transitioning from (admittedly unpleasant and impoverished) more active lifestyles to sedentary work in the next 50 years. Reducing the burden of disease in this group is essential.
I hate running. I hate cycling. I hate cardio-class-type motions.
But damn do I love me some Dance Dance Revolution. And let me tell you, once you get good at it and start doing the hardest songs on the hardest setting, it will kick the living shit out of you. The first time I passed Max 300 on heavy I thought I was dying. But it was so worth it.
Podcasts or films or boxsets on the phone/tablet to kill that boredom if you're doing steady state cardio. Maybe immersive games like that Zombie Run game, if jogging is your thing.
Switch it up, do HIIT instead of low impact steady state cardio once in a while. Lift weights.
Find a buddy to go with you. If you're obligated (or enjoy the company) then you'll be more likely to do it - as will they, you'll be helping them out too. Professional options include: join a sports club. Tennis, kickboxing, whatever works for you. Or get a personal trainer, if you can afford it. 99% of their value is that they simply make you turn up.
Cycle/walk/jog commute if possible. If you can fit exercise into your existing routine it's far easier to keep doing it.
Best of luck!
It can still be fun, but honestly it makes me want an e-bike to get past the boring grindey up-hill parts. The other aspect of this is that in the midwest, once you had attained a certain level of mountain biking proficiency / fitness, you could go fast on trails all of the time, because you'd be able to sprint up the hills, pump any bumps / logs, and pedal down hills as well. It was much more of a "roller coaster" experience. In NorCal, even if you're super fit, you might be able to get up hills more quickly, but no one is sprinting multi-mile climbs at ~15mph. Again, e-bike, but they're super expensive for a nice one and they're only allowed on a few trails out here AFAIK.
Also if I have a free day I love just walking all day exploring and listening to a good fiction audiobook. Audiobooks are weird if you’re not used to them, but trust me, eventually you’ll swear by them if you get over that initial hump. And randomly walking around and exploring is good exercise, you’ll forget exactly how tired you are while listening to the audiobook and it won’t be in until you stop to take a break several hours later that you suddenly realize “Holy crap I just walked 12 miles and I’m tired!”
To each his own, but I used to have your exact same attitude about exercise and these two things worked for me. I’ve lost 50 pounds in the last five years. Obviously there’s other factors like diet and mood and body type and whatnot, but these have been my main forms of exercise. Hope that helps!
Before you know it you'll find yourself walking around several blocks, then swinging your arms, then walking faster, then you may even start jogging. You'll feel motivated, you'll keep making progress, and most importantly, you'll actually look forward to your walks.
I followed the advice above and now run almost daily before sunrise. It has really boosted my self-esteem since I had always disliked running yet admired those people who run before sunrise. But if someone had told me to start by purchasing running clothes, finding the right running shoes, choosing a good running route, stretching for 10 minutes... forget it! However, I will make one recommendation. This mask is helpful on mornings when it is below 40F. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0796R1DPG . Please, start tomorrow morning and report back. :)
That's because most people use bad technique and would probably benefit from strength training as well. Sitting all day and then expecting your body to run for 30-60 minutes and then sitting again will lead to high risk of injury. I see a lot of people run like they're walking with longer strides, or hunched over, or any number of bad habits. The feet should land under your center of mass, not in front of it, and the turnover should be pretty fast. Short and fast steps instead of long and slow. Don't run too fast, use your core for stability, and keep an upright posture, slightly leaned forward at the ankles.
Look up proper running form, do some drills, and add body weight strength training a couple of times each week if you're thinking of starting running.
>this kind of collision leads to a rapid, high impact transient about 1.5 to as much as 3 times your body weight (depending on your speed) within 50 milliseconds of striking the ground (see graph a below).
>This is equivalent to someone hitting you on the heel with a hammer using 1.5 to as much as 3 times your body weight. These impacts add up, since you strike the ground almost 1000 times per mile!
taken from:
http://barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/4BiomechanicsofFootSt...
It is impossible to run this way with undamped shoes or barefoot.
I recommend this book (not affiliated):
https://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-Greates...
is really fun to read, it is about a indigenous tribe in mexico which run in sandals cut from old tires, for 24 or 48 hours straight. In there is a reference to another study where they found a correlation between cost of the shoe and the rate of injuries: more expensive shoes with better damping had higher rates of injuries, they weren't expecting this.
Our legs evolved to store the energy in our tendons and release it to propel us forward. A QUARTER of the bones in our body is in our feet! Humans evolved to be the best endurance runners on the planet, being "naked" (without fur) is actually an advantage for running, enabling us to cool down our bodies by sweating. There are still tribes hunting their prey by running after it for prolonged periods till it collapses from overheating. There are races for horses, humans started to compete in. Initially the runners where ridiculed but someday a human won the race.
37-56%. Literally the top result when I googled for “running injury rates”.
But most cardio should be easy, like 60-70% your training maximum heart rate. Many elite distance runners follow an “80/20” rule, where 80% of their training is easy in this way. But 100% is fine also. If you’re not used to it, this feels odd, like you’re going too slow and doing nothing. But measure your time and distance and the improvements will be obvious. It’s like training for free. The only ingredient is time. After a good long low-intensity run I feel less fatigued than I did when I started. Meanwhile hordes of people suffer through these awful spinning classes. It’s like they think exercise should make you feel worse instead of better!
People who feel the need to put in effort and who aren’t distance athletes are likely much better served by adding HIIT and/or strength training than by pushing steady-state cardio too hard.
[1] They don't know each other. One friend fast enough to be 1st in a 3,000 person half marathon.
However:
If my home life is stressful or bad, I enjoy walks. I don't suggest having a bad home life for this.
I enjoy walks if someone else wants me to go with them. A great way to do this is to see if a senior center or other such place has a program where you can walk with other folks that could use some company.
I don't mind walking as my primary mode of transportation. I'm quite comfortable with a half an hour walking commute both ways, though an hour seems to encourage bus use one way (at least). I walk to the grocery store a few times a week. If you can work some of this into your schedule, I highly suggest it. It is no longer exercise, but transportation.
I keep thinking that I could probably find time to ride a stationary bicycle as well. I have youtube and other such entertainment. The spouse reads while on the machine. Unfortunately, I do not have the physical space in my apartment for such a thing, since I have a small but cheap apartment with two people living in it. I also do not have access to the spouse's training facilities at work.
I don’t see the need to mention biology. I think every reasonable definition of “exercise” automatically implies that exercise is good. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise says: ”Exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness”
Sure the status quo remains: exercise=good, non-exercise=bad, but reality is more nuanced than that and something like HIIT helps people who feel they lack the time for "full" exercise to justify a minimal time commitment with proven and significant health benefits.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_traini...
I would certainly distinguish this kind of research from the many redundant retrospective observational studies (often with self-reported exercise activity levels) of the kind linked in the original post.
I'm still mad at everyone who had a hand in preventing BART from running down the peninsula. https://io9.gizmodo.com/5866928/a-map-of-san-franciscos-subw... has the original map if you haven't seen it. It would have ran from Jennings (north of Santa Rosa in the far north bay) all the way down to Los Gatos (in the Santa Cruz foothills), crossed the South Bay at 3 points (Oakland, Foster City, and East Palo Alto), and featured MANY more routes inside of San Francisco proper to places like Presidio, North Beach, Masonic, Van Ness, Castro, Oyster Point, Taravel, and Potrero Hill. I know that a couple of those routes are now served by MUNI trains, but this was a plan in 1956, would have been a single system, and still had way better coverage than we have today or planned in the next 20 years.
I heartily disagree. People have limited time. We need to figure out what form of excercise gives the most benefit for unit of time spent. There is serious disagreement about this (the two camps being cardio vs strength training, basically).
I have introduced tons of friends to the gym and my first piece of advice is always just show up and have fun, don’t worry about ideal routines or maximizing output. Just figure out how to make exercise part of your life.
This is what finally worked for me. I died of boredom jogging or lifting weights.
You have to find a sport that you enjoy. I have friends that were unfit and finally climbing did it for them. It was BJJ and MMA for me. I enjoyed tennis/squash, but it's sometimes hard to find an equal partner - same with other "group" sports.
FWIW this was me two years ago. Then I came to grips with the fact that running is the best training for mountain climbing.
The research being reported on here studied cardio: "cardiorespiratory fitness was inversely associated with all-cause mortality":
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
Huh, strange to hear this. I do strength training (basically a lot of compound lifts like squats and deadlifts and so on) and I consider them to be a cardio. If I do a speedy 12 rep set, I am properly spent and breathing heavy and see my heart rate at 160 and above
heart muscle doesnt waste as easily, but moderate cardio, including moderate sprinting can be very useful for keeping a strong heart.
endurance cardio has no longevity/healthspan benefits beyond those wrought by virtue of stressing the heart and muscles in the initial moderate dose.
freqiency and consistency of above average myscle useage are key to preserving muscle function. also range of motion helps all muscle get used and keeps loads balanced to prevent injury.
my grandma is 96. never did a day of cardio running in her life.
That the simplest way to know it's not cardio - you can't sustain it for a long period.
optimizing for the wrong variable.
there's always time which could be spent exercising. people are often too stressed or tired to do it, or don't have enough motivation.
flossing your teeth takes four minutes. but how many people do it?
Retrospective observational studies like the one in the original post aren't going to to that though.
Although I agree with you in principle, the differences between types of exercise are likely to be small compared to the benefit of doing anything at all. Most of the population aren't that concerned with what type of exercise gives the biggest delta in VO2 max.
still on the exercise front there needs to be more work in find easy routines that even the least inclined can participate in
> Eat (non-processed) food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (Pollan)[0]
> Invest in strength and cardio training. Couple hours per week[1].
> Listen to qualified medical professionals, critically[2].
[0] tl;dr - make your own meals, high frequency of salads, don't overeat, and don't fuss too much.
[1] I recommend serious kettlebell work to achieve this; takes very little equipment and very little space.
[2] They aren't always right, and you always have to self-advocate.
https://www.precisionnutrition.com/about/john-berardi
not affiliated
I think Pokemon GO may have successfully pushed the problems off a bit.
I tried going to fancy gyms, running around the block, at home body weight exercises... Nothing stuck and I quit in short order. The only thing I kept up was cycling everywhere because it's cheaper and faster than any other means available in my city.
It took me 20 years, a personal trainer, a private gym in my building, a lot of courage, and a lot of free time from getting laid off to finally start exercising regularly. It was absolutely worth it and I could feel the benefits after a couple of months only. I wasn't obese, didn't have heart problems, didn't smoke etc, and thought of myself as healthy as the average person my age.
It made a huge difference in my life, my body doesn't hurt as much anymore overall, I stand straighter and taller, I can lift more and more weight, I can do more reps, hold things for longer, and feel better about myself... It was a pain and a drag to go for the first few weeks and the. It becomes a habit if you stick to it.
So thank you to that dysfunctional employer and their shitty politics games, you made me a huge favor by laying me off!
"People who do not perform very well on a treadmill test," Jaber said, "have almost double the risk of people with kidney failure on dialysis."
The quote doesn't appear to be part of the paper either. The first Google hit for all-cause kidney disease mortality says:
"The absolute risk for death increased exponentially with decreasing renal function in these studies. The magnitude of the unadjusted increase in risk ranged from approximately 38% to >1100%"
Those numbers are for non-dialysis patients. You'd expect the dialysis patients to be much worse due to the first sentence. The exercise paper says:
"The increase in all-cause mortality associated with reduced CRF (low vs elite: adjusted HR, 5.04; 95% CI, 4.10-6.20; P < .001; below average vs above average: adjusted HR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.34-1.49; P < .001) was comparable to or greater than traditional clinical risk factors."
I don't think low vs elite is a fair interpretation of "not doing very well", so I'd take 41% as the increase in risk. That is very much not double 38-1100%. You'd assume it's certainly not double the exponentially worse-off dialysis patients. You wouldn't think 504% was either, even if you are charitable to the quote.
The findings seem interestingly strong. Overplaying them further should not be necessary.
> Question: What is the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and long-term mortality?
> Findings: In this cohort study of 122 007 consecutive patients undergoing exercise treadmill testing, cardiorespiratory fitness was inversely associated with all-cause mortality without an observed upper limit of benefit. Extreme cardiorespiratory fitness (≥2 SDs above the mean for age and sex) was associated with the lowest risk-adjusted all-cause mortality compared with all other performance groups.
> Meaning: Cardiorespiratory fitness is a modifiable indicator of long-term mortality, and health care professionals should encourage patients to achieve and maintain high levels of fitness.
[0]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
Clearly, if a given person exercises more, they will be more fit. But there are also many other factors, including genetics, influencing fitness.
The study’s benefit is that folks should get tested and if their fitness level is poor, figure out why.
The conclusion isn’t, “I exercise and therefor i will live longer”
Hell, even marines and rangers have lower fitness standards (3 and 6 dead hang chin ups respectively).
3 is for men over 51. And that's the bare minimum, not get kicked out of the marines threshold.
To reach top rank scoring is more like 15-17 for most ages. Mid rank is about 11 or up.
Maybe 99% of the population can't do a pullup, but I feel that's an overestimate. In any case, that says more about our overall societal weakness than anything else.
What are your gym friends doing if they couldn't do more than a few? Are they strength training or just doing cardio? Serious question, I'm curious. With a few months training ar age 26 I was able to do 5 reps of my bodyweight + about 40 pounds IIRC. And now, even when I periodically stop strength training, I am rarely below 8-10 when I start again.
Chin-ups are hard, but they're not that hard if you train them or do any activity that works those muscles.
Health: A physiological state in which there is an absence of disease or pathology and that maintains the necessary biologic balance between the catabolic and anabolic states.
Fitness: The bodily state of being physiologically capable of handling challenges that exist above a resting threshold of activity.
Exercise: A specific activity that stimulates a positive physiological adaptation that serves to enhance fitness and health and does not undermine the latter in the process of enhancing the former.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Strength-Traini...
* does zero exercise, other than a few short walks every workday * has done very little exercise at any time in the last 20+ years * is as sedentary as life allows him to be * can do 10 pullups no problem * has a "normal" BMI
Is that fit? Who knows, I certainly don't. Also maybe he's not very healthy despite some favourable metrics, I dunno. Could be a lot worse, though.
My point here was only to substantiate that exercise and fitness are not perfectly correlated, and thus support vladharbuz's top-level comment.
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.
You should really get a CPX test to verify this.
We might have even mostly convinced ourselves that "fit" means "not obese, and doesn't get winded on two flights of stairs"
Some kind of at-home standard benchmark would be handy.
A lot of people define exercise as either some sort of rigorous structured activity, or something that makes you sweat, or something that makes you huff and puff.
A lot of resistance training my do none of those things, but still result in a high level of fitness, including cardiovascular. So, it was helpful to see what exactly the study was referring to.
Conversely, a lot of people "exercise" regularly, but aren't particularly fit when measured against objective metrics.
PS - one of the things that happens when most people exercise is more UV exposure as they walk, run or cycle: and previous studies have shown UV exposure to be more important for longevity than exercise per se.
“Smoking is bad, but sitting around doing nothing is even more deadly, study shows”
That study didn’t show anything like that!
Would it be insufficient for a study to tell people to drink more water even though we know it's not the action of drinking water that helps us, but the cellular interaction with it once it's inside us? And even though people could connect saline bags directly to their nervous system?
So, I'm wondering what you're clarifying.
There are some personal factors involved, two people performing on equal level on the treadmill test does not imply they exercise with the same regularity.
For example, I use my mountain bike for exercise, but on the treadmill I'll probably be beaten by the person that exercises by jogging even if we exercise with the same regularity.
People that feel good and aren’t sick will be likely to exercise more, so there are confounding factors.
Of course, diet is also a huge factor as well. I stick to an intermittent fasting routine unless I can devote more time in the gym to bulking. I think fasting and caloric deficiency have some promising research behind it, and I think intuitively it makes sense that our ancestors would be eating only intermittently and probably never enough to put on a lot of weight. My nutritionist cautioned me, however, that there's still no scientific consensus and it still has a fad smell to it. It also takes quite a bit of mental discipline.
Also, if you're struggling with getting fit, GET A PERSONAL TRAINER AND NUTRITIONIST. You could not do more with your money than get professional help in steering your body in a direction that works for you. At the end of the day, you have to do what's right for your physiology and these trained professionals no how to make that easy for you.
I think your number one priority should be to avoid suffering.
often we stay alive because dying would cause others suffering.
/s
> Also, if you're struggling with getting fit, GET A PERSONAL TRAINER AND NUTRITIONIST.
There are tonnes of people out there who are just scraping by, who have to work two exhausting jobs, who have to spend all of their free time looking after kids, etc., who can't afford the gym, let alone a personal trainer and nutritionist.
If you have the time and money to do those things, then they are very good ideas. But they are out of reach for an awful lot of people, so perhaps try not to view the people who don't do this stuff as people who are making insane choices.
― George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
I don't think they're worthless by any means, good ones are great. However, you need to carefully vet them rather than trusting their advice by default to the degree you might (or should be able) to trust a doctor or the like.
If you decide you want to work out and eat right, take responsibility for it and truly make the personal choice. Or buy a couple of self-help books to learn some techniques. E.g. The Power of Habit. It'll be orders of magnitude cheaper.
For the people who absolutely can't afford it, there's a lot of good information for free online. My point is that for many of us, we treat professional help as a luxury or explain it away rather than embrace it as a necessity.
The real wealth in life is your health.
There's also tons of it that's downright horrible or outright dangerous. The simple truth is that most professional help in the US is out of reach of most people unless they're willing to take on a significant debt the their salary doesn't support. It's not as clear cut always as "health is most important" -- it's not even clear how much any given procedure will cost two different people with the same insurance for the exact same process.
>If your doctor told you the only way for you to see another year was to get in shape and eat right, how would you prioritize then? Would you still go to the movies? Go out for drinks and food?
Maybe not a good example, as if my doctor told me the only way to see another year was to basically cut out a few pleasures in life, I'd just bite the bullet on this one, and I imagine quite a few others would also. This isn't suicide ideation or anything, it's more just a value judgement; how great will my life be during that year? Right now, without the mental stress of imminent death in my mind, an enfeebled life or one that just racks up a huge bill for those legally closest to me seems pointless.
Ultimately I agree with you that we can make time for ourselves -- an hour walking is better than no time walking, and if you can convert that into 15 minutes of jogging, even better. It's the same time we spend watching our shows on Sunday, and I think we can at least do that for ourselves.
But as someone who loves to cook, hates takeout, etc, there are days when even I just don't have the usual energy to go through and prepare a proper meal or to put the hour into my regularly scheduled run: 12+ hour days do that to you.
Only that the good information is often vague and mixed in with horrific information. Or is grand information for someone in decent shape but horrible advice for you in your health condition.
I'll add that there is more to it than simply getting the right advice. There is basic equipment. I'm not talking about anything fancy: For example, I wear an odd bra size. I'm thin and have large breasts. I have not had surgery to enlarge them. I have to buy at specialty stores here (Norway), and could not find my size in stores in the states (indiana). A regular bra is expensive.
I've never had a sports bra that fits. I often can't find them large enough and the ones that come close and actually offer some support are expensive - plus I have to order them. These are, in general, $60-$100 each. I have a similar issue with bathing suits, so even if I had free access to a pool, I couldn't actually use it.
Shoes have been an issue in the past as well. Buying the cheapest shoes possible, I was wearing through shoes withing 2-3 months and trying to keep them for 4-6 months. This is without exercise putting additional stress on the shoes.
The other issue I found with such things while being poor was hunger. Even if I walked, had an active job, and/or wasn't too strenuous with motion, increased hunger was an issue. $25/week for food doesn't go far. Especially not in a house with bad heat (60 degrees if it wasn't too cold out). More activity meant that I was miserable more simply due to hunger.
Living as well and as beneficently as possible might be higher priorities. The older folks with the desk jobs are often quite literally sacrificing their own well-being for their family's, "deprioritizing their health" for another priority.
"You could not do more with your money than get professional help in steering your body"
You could donate to help poor people survive, to help sick people get well, to heal the natural environment, to educate children, to encourage peace and justice, to strengthen your community, or to advance knowledge.
Being strong helps everyone around you passively and actively, with stronger effects as the decades pass by, and remember from other research that a strong body keeps a mind keen, with better blood flow for all functions. Sacrificing that is not being smart about helping people.
Last and less scientifically, if you want to heal your environment and community, first heal thyself. It's the only subject from whom you can guarantee cooperation.
No it isn't, just off yourself when you feel like the time is right. I don't get why everyone wants to stretch these years out until the bitter end and would rather end up in a home than just taking a nice walk one day and not coming back.
Further, I suspect you wouldn't actually do this. And then you're a terrible burden to others.
The Lotus Eater by Maugham is a good read on this theme: http://facultyweb.wcjc.edu/users/jonl/documents/LotusEater.p...
You're in the best position to help others and make good decisions when you feel stability in your own life. Making sure you'll be around a long time also makes you last longer as a resource to society, and to your family.
You can't do any of those things you mentioned if you're dead, sick, or miserable.
How does donating encourage justice? What is the definition of justice? It's the light which reveals 'what is' in a society. That is not accomplished by donation alone, and in fact, generally it's easier for the opposite to occur. One can draw the conclusion that to donate without confirming how it's used is equivalent to a misdeed.
It'd be just great if you gave some of your self-care time to guide and counsel.
Secondly, what self-care time? lol
(That said, it's wise to ensure you have yourself taken care of before helping others; else you may end up making things worse. )
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 mostly luck or the draw. You can do everything right and still die at 40.
I wonder if there are any large scale, long term regressions that attempt to get at exactly how much diet and exercise contribute to extending life. I get the feeling that outside of heart disease it doesn’t contribute as much as one might hope it would.
The fittest people around me seem to actually be the most miserable. Arthritis, bad headaches from whatever fad diet they are doing, agitation from fasting, various food sensitivities, back problems, etc.. Antecdotal of course, but that’s my experience. There’s probably some confirmation bias here too, as people seek out fitness as a way to compensate for various conditions.
I just don’t know what to make of it. I’m not saying you have no control, I just think it’s vastly overstated.
This caught my eye. Back in highschool I rollerbladed for fun, a couple times a week. During that period, and for years before that, I had pretty regular soreness in my lower back, for no apparent reason, which would persist for most of the day.
Then in college I stopped rollerblading and gained about 30 pounds, ticking over into the "overweight" BMI category, and the soreness completely vanished. Since then, ~10 years ago, it's only reoccurred a couple times.
Since it was still gone during breaks and back home after college, all I can figure is the extra fat added some support or padding that's stopped whatever was causing it.
Also, you'll certainly feel different about dying once you are 65.
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 to deal with stress (e.g. meditation).
If you're mentally and physically fit, you can do as much with 65 as you do with 20 today.
Also, I believe that our understanding of how sicknesses work and tech advances, we'll be able to live much longer. So, in 40 years from now, 65 might just be "middle-aged". Heck, it's even possible that you'll never have to die if you don't want to.
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.
There are definitely 65-year-olds who are fitter than some of the 20-year-olds you see :-)
I see some people over 65 who can do what they once did, but they are the exceptions.
I see how diet and excise impact heart disease. That’s obvious, particularly in the extremes. Other than that… it seems like the genetic lottery determines the majority of outcomes.
And living healthy increases your probability of living a longer, healthier life. And as this study shows, it increases it by a significant factor.
Of course, the wonderful thing about life is that you can make your own choices. And if you don't want to eat healthy and work out, and are fine with the consequences, that's totally ok.
He's 74 now...
Fitness and nutrition information is drowning online in a sea of woo.
Then a career change may be one of the most effective ways towards that goal. An environment where your employer provides a gym may be a bit too stressful...
Top reply: I really really like to go to the gym, and I fast because I think it's really, really good. Get a personal trainer
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.
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.
Here is a quite technical paper on exercise and mitochondrial biogenesis: http://m.jbc.org/content/282/1/194.full
It seems that modern humans have a lot of power-saving traits which are active deterrent as of now when food is abundant, since they lead to obesity, muscle loss and mitochondria problems here. Other mammals don't seem to have such problems en masse.
My #1 priority is to achieve my goals and have fun. If that means I die earlier so be it. I do exercise in ways I find fun, but I will not go to a gym and lift weights just because it increases my chances of living long enough to enjoy my pension.
The real challenge in life is not to live the longest, but to have lived a life worth living.
Btw I agree with him, I think that's what you really want, but you want your fun. Not fun as perceived by other people. It does not necessarily mean pleasure.
Strength training can be as simple as doing one of squats, pushups, or pullups every day. Work towards 2-3 sets of 10-20 reps. Add weight (or reduce assistance) as necessary.
You've just made a huge difference in how your body feels, and it takes as much time each day as brushing and flossing your teeth.
I definitely think all homes should have a pullup bar. They can be had cheaply, and easily attached to doorframes. A good way to add quickly pulling motions for $30.
I may try higher rep dumbbell squats, I've been looking for a way to workout purely at home. Is there a deadlift targeting version too?
I also prefer using one dumbbell held with both hands (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3siyLMUr_Q) to holding a dumbbell in each hand. I think its easier to maintain good form engaging the posterior chain, but ymmv.
I've never liked deadlifts personally, so I'm a bad person to ask. I tend to target lower back with back extension machines, or supermans if no machines around.
I exercise by riding my mountainbike up and down hills. Which I find to actually be fun instead of feeling like I'm wasting my time.
I've also done team sports during my student years, which was also a case of getting exercise while having fun doing it.
Some people have fun doing gym exercises and that's great for them. However I don't think you'll ever convince the majority of the population to hit the gym or do home exercises just to stay healthy. We should find more ways to make all kinds of sports more accessible, so everyone can find the method of exercise that they enjoy.
I exercise because the immediate effects are evident on my mood and wakefulness. It just feels good to exercise. The first couple of weeks/months consistently going to the gym maybe took some more discipline, because everything feels weird at first. The elliptical. These machine contraptions. It's unfamiliar. But once you're used to it, it's smooth sailing. You don't have to be so strict about it...just do it until you're comfortable and then go when you feel like it.
Another note, keep in mind it is MUCH easier to maintain fitness than to build it. When it comes to weight training, I was serious about it for a couple of years following a plan I found online. Since then, I lift weights a few times a month and have mostly maintained the strength/appearance from the time of consistency.
I've always wondered if he'd be better off not exercising and not smoking that cigar. I guess now I know.
What caused GP to raise the question, and why I mention the effect's name, is that secondhand smoke also affects the smoker themselves. So the total effect is always going to be worse for the smoker than the people around them - they get both the filtered and unfiltered smoke.
However, your link is going for the consent angle - that the people around the smoker are being terribly affected by something they didn't choose. Note it also specifically states "nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke", not generally that secondhand smoke is worse. What's frustrating is that their reference is a dead link that redirects to an unrelated article, that doesn't include what's supposedly sourced from it, so it's hard to tell what their baseline for "25 to 30 percent greater risk" is, but I'm guessing it's nonsmokers with no exposure at all.
That said, I also remember seeing some claims that the filters actually make it worse than commonly believed, that particles or fibers break off of the filters and damage the lungs directly.
What good is being fit when you die in your 50s from lung cancer?
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/t...
One of my aims as someone who spends his work hours sitting is to avoid that fate. This is largely within my capability. I can choose to invest regularly in my enjoyment of life down the road. I can't control all sorts of things in life; but I can control if I can find time to swing a kettlebell.
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?
I have not yet seen a study which can say with good confidence "Exercise makes people healthier".
Sure you can say "People who exercise are healthier", but establishing cause and effect requires an intervention experiment.
I suspect the commonly held belief that exercise is good for health is true, but it still seems to be bad to publish it as advice so widely without the cause/effect established.
It doesn't help that our observability of biological systems, while better than it's ever been before, is still p. bad in situ.
That article itself says: “This [study] doesn’t apply to 99% of people”
I personally have plenty of friends that run, swim or gym session for an hour 7 days a week.
Elite athletes are doing more like 2-5 hours per day. My brother in law runs ultra marathons (just for fun), and runs somewhere between 1-3 hours every single day of his life. For fun.
I guess the article doesn't make it clear what counts.
There are similar syndromes/symptoms that mean different things for people with different activity levels - folks who do aerobic exercise a lot have larger hearts than sedentary people, the enlarged heart can be a symptom of very serious problems - but mostly for sedentary people.
First, I'd argue that an hour a day is not "hardcore". Anyone trying to lose weight can easily fall in this category, including me currently. Second, the actual underlying study upon which this article is based seems to indicate that calcium buildup is bad for everyone. Time Magazine went out and found someone who gave a quote contradicting the study, but that was the whole point of my comment.
Different studies and individual researchers have different views on all of this stuff. Some say that lots of exercise is bad, and others say it is great. The point is that nobody knows, but everyone seems to be be publishing studies advocating for a given position.