Regular exercisers drink more but are less likely to be problem drinkers – study
outsideonline.com
outsideonline.com
If not wealth specifically, then definitely with traditional "type A" jobs
Get raw grains, get basic non-fancy non-organic veggies. Frozen or canned is fine.
If you eat meat, don't be shy about using cheaper cuts. Trimming meat is easy.
Trainers are great, but most people get trainers to help with motivation. You can also usually snag a free or very cheap single lesson with a trainer if you need particular things (nutrition, form) spot checked.
You really don't need to spend much.
Assuming poor and rich people have exact same level of motivation, this alone is guaranteed to lead to poor people exercising less.
From own experience, exercising by myself do tend to lead to repetitive routine that plateau pretty fast and gets demotivating due to no progress. But I used app rather then trainer.
You don't need to make continual progress to get benefits from exercise. You just need to be active.
And from what I observed, I am not special snowflake in that regard.
I'm a pretty hardcore runner (but also hate buying unnecessary things) and spend thousands of dollars a year on shoes and shorts. I weigh 200 pounds and run 300km per month, shoes do not last, and good ones make a difference. And again, I'm only able to have the time to do it due to life circumstances that haven't burdened me with other responsibilities.
Most other sports have gear or memberships that make them more expensive. Many people can't stick to a regular workout regimen and a lot of people I know only were able to when they paid big bucks for a personal trainer.
Yeah, it's possible to work out without money, but I wouldn't pretend it's free, and it only gets easier with money.
I do think running is probably easier for middle-class people to get into, not because of the equipment (it’s fine if it works for you, but I have no idea how you could spend that much — few will need to). I think middle-class people just are a lot more likely to be living in places that are nice to run around in.
But there are many forms of exercise and various options for limited space and budgets. Bodyweight/calisthenics, e.g., and basic weight-lifting.
I don't agree. Money buys a nanny, a housekeeper, uber eats, shorter commute or work from home... all of these can be a major factor in having the time and focus to exercise regularly.
Facepalm.
Body-weight fitness, walking, jogging, running, hiking, swimming are all "free" to perform, but gear can be super expensive - take skiing, biking, water sports for example.
I recently went to a local bike shop (two in fact) and the average cost of a new modern bike is around ~$5,000.
There was one bike that I was looking at that was $15,000
Crazy expensive weekend warrior gear.
5k should get you a super nice bike, stylish, modern and all that. Diminishing returns probably start well under half that.
Edit— I do know of a 14k bike, the Rene Hearse 80th anniversary edition. Handbuilt custom, and there are going to be 8 of them. I’d love to ride one, but … that’s a lot of money.
He charges typically around $16,000 for his creations. They are AMAZING looking bikes - but not my style at all.
The one I mentioned that was at Mikes Bikes in Folsom, was $15K - I cant recall the brand of that one, but it was a massive full suspension plus electric.
The Specialized there that was ~$12K was also full suspension electric..
The other high end store which is in downtown RoseVille...
Both places with lots of money... rich weekend warriors.
It's very non-free in terms of time investment and spoons ([0]).
I went on a high fat diet to lose weight but these two other goals of mine were achieved with zero effort
100% on the carb/sugar cravings, though.
Do you drink alcohol straight? If you tend to drink beer, wine, or cocktails, maybe it's related to carbs in drinks?
I should do this again, I'm back where I was; lots of sweets and beer thanks to the pandemic and boredom.
A low carbohydrate diet stabilises blood sugar whereas a high carb diet causes swings in blood sugar levels and actually prevents the body from burning fat. Insulin causes the blood sugar to drop then cortisol is released which stimulates the appetite for sugar, causing snacking. When on a high fat, calorie deficient diet, you're still hungry sometimes but not like the cravings you have when your blood sugar is all over the place from eating a high carb diet, Your body isn't prevented by insulin from going to the 'pantry' (your fat tissue) to keep you going.
Also aerobic exercise, ie walking NOT running burns fat. The latter will cause your glycogen stores to be raided as well as stimulating cortisol to tell you that you need carbs, URGENTLY!
I used to live with a guy who was the same with chocolate biscuits. Once, I bought a packet of chocolate "Hob nobs" (very nice), eat one and went out. When I returned, the packet was full and unopened. "So what's the story" I asked, and it turned out that this guy had had one biscuit from the packet, then another, then scoffed the lot. So he went out and bought a new packet (sweetie) and took one biscuit out so I'd be none the wiser. Then the same happened and he scoffed the whole packet. Then he bought another packet and left it sealed for fear of doing the same: "I can't eat 3 packets of Hob-nobs in a day"
On top of that, I believe the GP was talking about not craving those at all as opposed to consciously abstaining despite the desire.
Having been on a similar diet in the past, I second the notion.
The point, though, is if you've succeeded at cutting out carbs, then it's pretty likely you did so by no longer desiring them. So to have a set of people who succeeded at low carb diets claim that the low carb diet was the potential cause of no longer desiring carbs is a strong selection bias. It's like a fooled by randomness type scenario.
It's not like they said "I started playing golf and no longer desired carbs" which would really be novel.
For many people though, cutting out carbs come at an expense. You need to police yourself constantly in order to not give in to cravings. You get twitchy, you get anxious, you get a lot more withdrawal symptoms and you need to soldier through them.
Once you're out of the habit and your body has adapted to getting most of its energy from other nutrients, the cravings reduce or disappear.
Playing golf will probably have no real connection to these results. Making an effort (sometimes a huge one) to cut them down to the point where they cease to be a phisiological and psychological necessity does.
On the point of alcohol being a carbohydrate, you may be right. I am no chemist. It does contain all the same core elements. From a behavioural, dieting and additction points of view though, they are quite different.
So the good news is that the struggle is temporary. Bad news is that cheat meals reset your progress, especially cheat meals when you're hungry. And research suggests this is not related to how much you eat. A slice of pizza or a whole pizza, it's enough to make the brain remember that pizza is good when you're hungry.
If a relapse happens, it's because I had a good experience and kept going down that train of thought but with other foods. "Hey, that reminds me, I haven't had chocolate in a while, wonder what that's like..."
This fits very well of people gaining weight around the holidays, when you're exposed to lots of delicious food that's outside the daily diet. And once they do this, next time they're hungry you can bet that vegetable rice will not be the first thing that pops into their heads. Doesn't help that we tend to starve ourselves before big meals out of guilt, which only makes the habituation stronger.
Another reason is the "voluntary" part. It helps a lot if giving up food is a choice, as opposed to something imposed by a diet. If you see cake, make a cost-benefit calculation and decide that it's nice but doesn't fit into your lifestyle, you're likely better of than if you decide one day that cake is forbidden because it's bad.
Alcohol can improve your mood (temporarily). Exercise can improve your mood too.
Perhaps there are people whose mood is not so great, who seek ways to improve it, and who wind up discovering both exercise and alcohol work for that. Whereas people whose mood is already fine are less motivated to go searching for that sort of thing.
(The article got close to mentioning this: "linked both exercise and drinking behavior to higher levels of sensation-seeking". But it doesn't seem like quite the same thing to me. A sensation is a short-lived experience, and mood is more of a mental state that persists for a while.)
There is plenty of nuance to all that which can't be quickly captured in a comment.
Unfortunately, this effect fades pretty quickly once I've had some down time-- so I tend to return to problematic levels of drinking at that point, which leads to slacking on exercise and lower energy/motivation.
For those who force themselves to be consistent with working out, I would expect most people would crave bioavailable nutrients more and alcohol less, while also getting more bang for their buck out of smaller amounts when they do partake. That's only from my unscientific observations, but it has seemed like a pretty strong effect to me.
I defiantly drink less on days I exercise.
Oh yea, if prone to alcohol, and can't stop, don't ever switch over to hard alcohol. It's just to easy to abuse.
Stay with low alcohol beer, and low alcohol wine. Franzia has a 9% white, and tastes so bad you won't want to drink to much. If you feel like you are drinking to self medicate, only drink when the anxiety is bad. Stop all unnessary drinking, including social. My dad died of a huge liver tumor, and his death was beyond painful.
I come from four generations of alcoholics. I also had some nervous disorder while in grad school. The anxiety was so bad only alcohol could level me out.
I've seen a professional forever, and taken so many drugs, but in the long run exercise has been better than and drug I have been prescribed. I'm still on a couple of prescription drugs I need to get off of though.
good luck
Most studies about alcohol consumption suffer from the fact that the quantity of alcohol consumed is determined by asking the individual how much alcohol they consume.
It wouldn’t be surprising if people who exercise more and are healthier and probably feel better about themselves (the causation could work both ways here...exercise makes you feel better and feeling better makes you exercise), are more willing to declare higher levels of alcohol consumption.
In addition, as the article abo it the study points out, it’s surprising because more exercise is correlated with more consideration about one’s health. This would also mean that people who exercise more are more careful about their health and are more aware of how much they are drinking, as opposed to people who are less considerate and don’t keep track of their drinking habits as much, which would also lead to differences in self reporting alcohol units.
Pretty much all sports clubs I had been in had a culture of drinking when I was young. I am speaking about getting drunk fairly regularly. Now that I am not members of organized groups, I still see people going for beer and socializing after training.
Sport leads to socialization which leads to drinking. Sport attracts competitive personalities and they get competitive in drinking as extension. Some sports attracts guys who have sort of masculinity that treats drinking as a right kind of guy thing - the women in same sports tend to treat drinking as cool thing too.
I could continue, but health is only one of many reasons to exercise.
At the end of the day, sport and drinking alcohol are social activities so it is not weird that they are correlated
Spending hours on the road alone in your own head knowing you've inflicted extra suffering on yourself through the personal choices of drinking gives you lots of time to reflect on your priorities.
For me at least, preparing for some kind of sporting competition makes it really easy for me to fix any drinking or eating habits as it becomes so obvious how much of a hindrance those activies are on my progress.
Can’t read actual methods to check if this was adjusted for…
It's like saying the interesting part of the study is "why people who die younger choose to smoke" about a study correlating early death with smoking.
The point being there is no such choice being made.
I’ve heard this from almost every runner I know, yet I have never ever found it harder to exercise because of a hangover - in fact, I’ve done many of my fastest 5km times after a heavy night. It curtails neither my desire or ability to get out and walk/hike/run — on the contrary, I often feel like going for a run will be a surefire way to cure a hangover (and atone for the behaviour that caused it).
Up until 26 or so.
Since then I just started feeling like shit and can't do anything if I drink more than 4-5 beers in the evening.
Also, some people are more made for swimming, others for running.
Went out with some ex-coworkers, had a great night, maybe 4-5 beers and a solid 6 hours sleep. Felt absolutely awful the next day.
I will offer that my PB was at 9am (Parkrun) after a night on which I drank at least 5 beers, likely more (it was a celebration).
edit/ I had a bourbon and then 6 IPAs that night. Which is a pretty big / unusual session for me. I'm 6'0" and at the time I weighed around 170 lbs.
I also just recalled another "fast" run that I had on a hangover and wanted to share. I ran my half marathon PR hungover on maybe 3 hours of sleep. Stayed with a friend in Haight-Ashbury, who I hadn't seen in probably 5 years at the time, stayed up drinking til 3am, and then ran the first half of the SF marathon. I ran a 1:41 that day and I'm still not entirely sure how it happened. My normal half times are around 1:45-1:50.
I’m honestly surprised how running can be so neatly slotted into the degenerate things I enjoy (except gorging on food: baaad idea)
https://www.triathlete.com/nutrition/a-nutritionist-shares-w...
I rarely get hungover these days, but in my 20s I found that about four miles of hard running would break a hangover. I would feel much better, but also still tired.
Enough binges and your brain is kindled, then you’re in trouble. The one day recovery turns multi day, then week+. Then The Fear, brain zaps, and insomnia make you incapable of anything but drinking. Which only makes the withdrawals worse of course.
I wouldn’t say someone is a problem drinker until they have withdrawals.
And yet it's the best way to shake a hangover.
I don't see why you're downvoted though: runner's high does give me something to look forward to / some way to relax so I wouldn't need to do something like drink excessively.
But heavy drinking tends to also increase your weight and it can take several days to get rid of that excess weight.
So it's a bit of a paradox really.
Perhaps it's the "high" feeling that a good exercise leaves you with, that also makes you seek out alcohol for that same feeling.
Anything else is normal, binges are unhealthy but it’s not a problem until you’ve binged enough to kindle your brain. Which at that point you’re getting withdrawals and you’ve got a problem.
That said it would be interesting to do a follow up study and check how these social party tigers who liked to drink and to do sports ended up when they are 70. My guess is they do less sports but drink more. Maybe they even go to the sport club to meet their friends and to drink.