25% of U.S. adults are not active enough to protect their health
cdc.gov
cdc.gov
10 minutes to the grocery store once a month does not count.
“During the past month, other than your regular job, did you participate in any physical activities or exercises such as running, calisthenics, golf, gardening, or walking for exercise?”
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/data/inactivity-prevale...
Most people doing weekend golf are getting golf carts. Others almost always have a caddy. I suppose walking the course while someone does the heavy listing is some degree of exercise, but they really need to clarify that in order for golf to be exercise you need to walk the course.
Also, most walkers in the golf world don't have a caddy. They're not available at most courses. Even quite a few private clubs with biiig membership fees don't have caddies. I just looked it up and a random link says 32% of private clubs have caddies. Of public courses, a few destination courses have them (Pebble Beach, Bandon, etc.).
Personally it used to cause me a ton of mental anguish until I realized that BMI (the metric used to classify someone as overweight or obese) is flat out wrong. At my peak fitness level my BMI was 30. I was lifting weights 3 days a week and running 3 days a week. Lifting sessions were 90 minutes and I was capable of running half marathons in less than 2 hours. My resting heart rate was between 52 and 57 BPM. I wasn't an athlete but my fitness level was pretty good.
[1]https://conscienhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/BMI-Tr...
Does it do that correctly though? I've always wondered why the formula is not w / h^3, since I imagine your weight should scale cubicly with your height.
I agree with the point you're making, but this generalization is nowhere near accurate.
I’m unsure I ever meet an adult that was obese on the BMI, was not obese by body fat percentage scale, and did not know BMI was inaccurate for them.
[0] CDC: BMI is not a valid diagnosis tool, but is generally correlated with body fat percentages. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/downloads/bmiforpactitioners.pdf
The nice thing about DXA scans is that they can distinguish between visceral versus subcutaneous fat. For most medical conditions it's the visceral fat that's a real killer.
If my weight gets lower, into the low-to-mid-160s, even notoriously-skinny cyclist friends start to think I'm looking exceptionally thin and should watch it.
At my physicals the software automatically classifies me as overweight, but the doctor never mentions it, because he clearly gets how these categories can go wrong for folks like us. Someone my same height, with longer legs and a shorter torso, ends up 10-20 pounds just by nature of having less core. But of course BMI is just height vs. weight.
I'm currently 180lbs and trying to put on more muscle mass. I'm still pretty lean, with ab veins and shoulder striations.
I've only ever been out of the overweight category (<174) once in my life. I felt sapped of energy and looked gaunt, with veins popping everywhere.
That is a super interesting observation about inseam length mattering. I had never considered that and I have always looked with amazement at people my height who seem muscular yet weigh in the 150s. I always thought I was doing something wrong.
Bikes are sized based on the horizontal length of the frame, via measurements "effective top tube length" or the similar "reach", with almost everything else being adjustable. So long as that length is good for your torso length, the other parts can be adjusted or swapped to dial in the fit. (This is why bicycle sizes tend to indicate a height range.)
The whole long torso length thing means that I tend to ride a larger frame with the seat adjusted shorter than someone with a shorter torso would. Thus, I generally ride a large from most companies, but have to be careful that the seat can be adjusted in the right position. Similar height buddies will often ride medium frames with the seat much higher. Their longer legs exacerbate the need for a shorter (length) frame because moving the seat up moves the hips rearward on the bike, making something even shorter needed. For a lot of the typically-athletic-build women (long legs) this can make it a real problem for them to find bikes as it's often difficult to have the seat high enough for their legs but a short enough reach.
(That old thing about sizing bikes based on being able to stand over them is completely wrong. Bike sizing needs to be done based on riding the bike, not standing over it.)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20125098/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2877506/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Go watch the 1985 movie The Goonies and look at the character "chunk". By 1980s American standards he was so fat that it was a defining characteristic. In 2020s America he's an average kid. The same thing can be seen anywhere. Look at any photo of the general public prior to about 1980- high school year books, concerts, festivals, political rallies, beaches, shopping malls and compare it to a similar photo today, and the change in the average body and the number of obese bodies in the contemporary photo will be night and day different.
I think it goes the other way round. Carrying excess fat has been normalized so most people don't notice they are overweight. Unless you are lean enough to have some clear abdominal definition I wouldn't be so quick to attribute overweight BMI to excess muscle.
Based on those numbers you were literally built like a NFL linebacker. If you were to swap out your hypertrophy sets for max-strength instead you'd likely be relatively stronger and could probably cut your per-mile time down to 7 minutes (from 9) as well.
Ignore BMI and use body fat percentage instead. Try to find a four-electrode machine (hands and feet) you can borrow periodically. (My gym has one and charges $20 per use; I would only expect to need to use it 3-4 times per year.)
And yes, heavyweight boxing champs and NFL linebackers do it, but it just goes to show what a joke PED testing is in most pro sports leagues.
> At that point, you're barely short of peak Arnold Schwarzenegger
Both of these examples are the low side of healthy body fat % though (as evidenced by impressively visible abs), approaching 10%; Where 15% body fat is 50% more than visible abs, and still very healthy.
Stallone could be an example though https://bodywhat.com/?v=ah9a486f 17.8% body fat at 5'10, 27.8 bmi (at age 38)
Vin Diesel @ 50 is not a bad option either for a 6' bmi obese (30.5), muscular, movie star (that isn't a body builder) https://www.bodywhat.com/?1=5h9cfjk7&2=39fkk0o3
At 5’10 you need to be about 210 lbs to hit a BMI of 30. Highly doubt you will get there with a sub 15% body fat without AAS.
There is some reason to think that environmental pollutants are impact hormones in humans causing an overall rise in obesity. Genetic factors definitely play a role. My father never exercised, ate what he wanted, and was always skinny. I was not so lucky.
I can eat 1000kcal of ground beef and go looking for more, but 200kcal of gummy worms and I'm hoping I never see them again.
200kcal of gummy worms is 7 gummy worms [2].
1000kcal of gummy worms is 34 gummy worms [2].
It's just like the people I see on here who have some bad habit, like browsing Facebook or HN all day when they should be doing something more productive. They will do things like set up a special program to lock themselves out of the computer or out of the web browser--using some technical hack rather than the correct approach: which is to simply DECIDE not to do these things and WILL oneself not to do it, in the process developing self-control and self-discipline.
The reason an obese person has such a raging hunger is because they are in the HABIT of eating so much. Habits are hard to break, because it takes willpower and dedication, which the average person in our corrupt society has been brainwashed and trained from birth not to have. In this society, we are trained to be weak, passive consumer drones, to indulge every feeling and craving foisted upon us by media "influencers"; to always give in to impulse, to never to make own decisions or say NO to anything, and if we try, to quickly give up and make excuses for failure. And look what destruction it has wrought.
One might slip up at first and not perfectly follow through on the decided agenda, especially after a lifetime of being trained to just give up and give in, but the correct response is to note when one is slipping up and CONSCIOUSLY take corrective action, rather than give up and blame "luck" or whatever--which is a loser mentality, like the cigarette smoker who "just can't quit" as he takes another drag, until he dies of lung cancer.
I was not myself born as a perfect snowflake who never got into bad habits or screwed up in life. I have done plenty of both. The difference is I CHOSE to give up the bad habits and live differently, for the long term benefit. Once the good habit is locked in place, doing the right thing is effortless.
If a fat or obese person decides to make a change, they will. If they quit eating garbage and cut back on portions, they will crave it for a time, but over time the cravings will lessen, and then disappear entirely. It's simply a matter of breaking old habits and forming new, better ones.
There was a time I used to drink soft drinks and eat fast food and Doritos like the typical fat ass does. The very conveniently placed vending machines at the government-owned school, with all the conveniently located fast food establishments, helped and encouraged me to develop these habits. Now after breaking the habit, none of this junk appeals to me AT ALL. There is ZERO appeal. From the outside, now I can see it to be what it actually is: JUNK. It is repulsive.
In time, as people change their habits, not only will much of this JUNK no longer appeal to them at all, but if any of it still does to some degree, they can indulge in it a little without harm--because they have developed the SELF-DISCIPLINE to control themselves.
Not to mention also that the willpower to override your habits is a limited resource and not everyone has the ability to apply it to this aspect of their lives.
It's the same process either way. As I've taught all my children, you can spend an hour on a treadmill and burn 400 calories. And you can then eat a 10 piece chicken McNugget and large fry from McDonald's to consume about 1,000 calories. Add a sugary soda to that and you can blow the vast majority of your daily calories in about 20 minutes.
My father never exercised, ate what he wanted, and was always skinny
There are definitely multiple factors in play but the #1 factor is how much you eat. I have two sons; one is extremely skinny and the other is overweight. Not coincidentally, the skinny one "eats whatever he wants" which isn't much at all. My overweight son thinks nothing of eating 3-4 slices of pizza for dinner and my skinny son eats 1 slice and he doesn't like cheese so he scrapes that off first.
You hit the nail on the head when you said he "ate what he wanted".
People who are "naturally skinny" are that way because they don't want to eat much. They have low appetites in general and will frequently simply forget to eat meals.
I'm always shocked the medical community still uses BMI in 2022.
I don't think anyone would argue that you should lose weight because your BMI is high, nor does anyone believe that the obesity epidemic in America is due to vast swaths of the population suddenly becoming powerlifters.
America's obesity rate has exploded in the last 20 years. I was lucky enough to have a chiropractor tell me if I didn't lose weight my life would suck.
It's a social taboo for doctors to just outright say you're going to have a large array of medical issues unless you get to a healthy weight. You have the Huffington Post which runs a new "You can be morbidly obese and just fine" article once a month.
As someone who used to be morbidly obese, it was a living hell. I was diabetic had no luck finding a partner and was in constant pain. Did the keto diet, lost about 70 lb, got rid of my diabetes, and finally met somebody nice in real life .
Diabetes doesn't care about your feelings. I lean left , but theirs an insane amount of victimization on the left.
You can buy a salad at any fast food restaurant, meaning you have access to healthy food even in a "food desert".
It just takes an insane amount of self control. It's much easier to call everyone else a fat shammer. Doesn't help with your chronic pain or health issues though
Sometimes the salads are less healthy than the alternative at fast food restaurants because of the dressing and portion sizes they give.
The dressing can be given on the side. This is also a personal choice.
Salads can be pretty good, if they're loaded with vegetables. You can get those at places that specialize in salad, and maybe even Subway. But the "side salads" that you get at fast food restaurants, while better than a burger and fries, aren't very good.
As you say, personal choice. But a decent diet consists of avoiding fast food restaurants most of the time. If you have to, make the the best choice you can, but be aware that lettuce isn't magic health food.
It doesn't act like a video game power-up. It just provides adequate nutrition without overdoing any one aspect. It fills you up without giving you too many calories (the main thing that people overeat).
Though really, I think it's unlikely you'll have a salad that's higher in calories than a burger and fries.
That's kind of sad, since Europeans are pretty fat too. When you hold up "only 25% obese!" as an achievement, it goes to show just how normal it is for humans to be overweight.
Edit: search for 'vertebral artery dissections from chiropractic neck adjustments
Still it's kind of sad, you can't get honest medical advice from a doctor anymore.
You can't even find maybe you should lose weight in a dating book. Even books targeted towards men are afraid to offend.
Strength Training Anatomy, 3rd Edition by Frederic Delavier
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0736092269/
The Strength Training Anatomy Workout: Starting Strength with Bodyweight Training and Minimal Equipment by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill
https://www.amazon.com/Strength-Training-Anatomy-Workout-Bod...
I think for weight loss, seeing a dietician is better. Wikipedia says dieticians are better regualted than nutitionists - they list regulatory bodies in countries including USA.
Dietician:
Seconded. 90% of what chiropractors do is complete quackery.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic_controversy_and...
Is it? I've had doctors literally tell me that my weight was the proximate cause of my medical issues. They may try to be delicate about it, but they say it.
* Having obesity may triple the risk of hospitalization due to a COVID-19 infection.
* Obesity decreases lung capacity and reserve and can make ventilation more difficult.
* More than 900,000 adult COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred in the United States between the beginning of the pandemic and November 18, 2020. Models estimate that 271,800 (30.2%) of these hospitalizations were attributed to obesity.
[1] https://dom-pubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dom.145...
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html#:....
The old saying, you are what you eat is true. A diet that leads to obesity often leads to a weaker immune system. In the last 10-15 years there's been a bunch of research on how GI health relates to our immune system.
[1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/research/advancements-in-res...
The good news is that exercising will improve your health outcomes regardless of your weight (http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2016-097400).
That isn't enough to really change things for many people.
Health and weight are much more complicated than simply calories in minus calories out.
Most "calories burned" are also an estimate, often based on heart-rate and other body parameters. I burn anywhere from 500-800+ calories per hour when cycling (depending on intensity, based on actual recorded power). I'm fairly light (63-64kgs) so my power (and as a result energy expenditure) will be less than that of someone larger. An endurance run for me will burn much closer to an estimated 300kCal/hr. While I'm no longer a runner, even at peak I would run only 4-5hrs/week (and usually no more than 1:30-1:45hrs/run). I readily cycle 4-5 hours though and burn 3000kCal+. So if goal is to burn as many calories as possible, I would consider cycling and swimming, since both burn a considerable amount and can be done for longer stretches of time without major body impact.
The unfortunate drawback of cycling is the lack of impact that makes it easy to cycle for long amounts. Have to balance that with other forms of exercise to stay healthy.
Measured how? At what most people would consider a normal running pace the expenditure for your weight should be at least 800kCal/hr according to every source I've seen. On the flip side, 3000kCal over "4-5 hours" is 600-750kCal/hr. I know cyclists tend to underestimate the efficiency gain of wheels vs. legs and thus mistranslate their higher speed to higher effort, but reality is quite different.
If you go walk 3 miles on a treadmill, you burned 250 calories, great.
Now you reward yourself with a gatorade and a health bar, for 500 calories. You just gained 250 calories by exercising.
As an active runner, I cannot run away my bad eating. Maybe maybe maybe during peak right before a marathon I can get away with it, but like right this second I am a bit heavy and it is 1000% because of food/drink choices I have made. To fix it, I need to have a better diet.
Out of a 168 hour week, you might spend 6 or 7 hours exercising and get amazing results. It must have to do with changes that affect what is going on in the body over those remaining 161 hours.
But it's clear caloric deficit does. Physical activity can create a caloric deficit, but so can your diet. Just like revenues and costs, these numbers can't be taken in isolation.
However, you can convince people to exercise, which can mitigate many of the negative effects of obesity. Why not push exercise while research is done about how to run effective public health campaigns to reduce obesity?
- has tech made things better or worse in recent years, and why?
- how could tech make things better?
For example, one might have thought the rise of mobile devices would let people be more ... mobile. "Previously I would have sat at my desk to do this task, but now I can walk to the park and do the same task." But that seems not to happen that much. Or one might suppose that wireless headsets and voice commands might lead to people being able to do stuff while walking etc. That also seems to not happen too much. When devices support our mobility, why do we feel such a powerful pull to sit on couches looking at phones?
And in a forward-looking way, though some people see opportunities for VR-based exercise, I gotta wonder how effective that will really be?
Because we always wanted to sit on the couch. Before it was to watch TV. Phones made moving around more possible, but we never wanted to do that in the first place.
Heck, mobile devices might make it worse by keeping you constantly connected, receiving work calls, e-mails, Slack notifications, all reminding you to stop doing physical activity and get back to your desk. They might also make it worse by the fact that you can passively consume content from them. It's not like you can just walk around or go for a run while watching episodes of your favorite show on your phone. You need to watch the road in front of you, which means you need to stop moving to watch something, which you can now do from anywhere instead of only when you're on your couch.
Google Maps and its transit directions make it fairly idiot-proof to navigate a city on your own two feet, assuming transit is decent.
Not so much our kind of tech, but bicycle materials and components have advanced pretty rapidly I think.
The car enabled urban sprawl. The car and associated infrastructure (eg parking, roads) has destroyed communities. Even a lot of crime depends on cars. Cars mean you simply don't have to walk anywhere at all. It's why obesity is worse in less dense areas than, say, NYC. Cars enable less dense housing and that kills things like having local shops, eateries and public community spaces to some degree.
Dense housing also means you have to be somewhat tolerant of other people and their quirks. I wonder if the unbelievable selfishness that seems to have taken hold in a large portion of people in the US (in particular) is a consequence of not having to deal with people by virtue of this car lifestyle.
Cars also allow you to psychologically remove yourself from things like homelessness, drug use and poverty. I think it's a large reason why, for example, I see so many people in SF go on about how amazing the city is. I mean have these people never walked down Market Street? Or the Mission? Or the Tenderloin?
Weirdly I never really see much about these negative externalities of affordable private transportation.
Possible. Though personally I'd lean more towards the increase of heavily processed high calorie, high carb foods.
Consider that Europe still has a high obesity rate, but much less of the urban sprawl the US has.
[1]: https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/two-maps-and-one-graph-com...
This survey asked respondents if, in the past month, they did any physical activity outside of their regular job. People who said “no” were classified as inactive.
By this classification, somebody who is very active in their job (think of a postman walking 8 hours as an example) would be classified as inactive.
I'm working on losing some weight by dieting but I just don't like sports. And my health isn't that important to me. I just don't care enough to do it just for that reason. And I never will. Any campaigns to encourage it will be lost on me. I have to die of something eventually :) It's important to enjoy life too. Most sports enthusiasts actually like what they're doing so it's easy for them.
I do go for hikes but not really for the exercise, more for the peace of mind of being in nature than the workout. I also walk a lot just for transportation because I don't own a car. But I live in a small city so distances aren't enough to class as real exercise.
In the US, if you have kids, especially while in your 30s like many people do nowadays, staying healthy through 60s can provide an immeasurable boost to your kids’ probabilities of achieving/maintaining security. Through 70s and being able to take care of grandkids is an even bigger boost considering daycare prices.
Getting to 65 without needing hospital care is a big benefit too, since 65 is when you qualify for taxpayer funded hospital care. I assume it will be more than 65 when I am older, or it will be means tested.
I mean I do care some about my health but not so much that I'll spend 6 hours a week on a mind numbing treadmill. And I absolutely hate team sports(the commitment and rules etc). There is just no sport I like.
Swimming is the ideal cardio, I think. No impact on joints, and almost zero chance of injury.
Try riding, maybe with an e-bike. Gets you out there in a similar way to hiking. Do it with friends or not. If you get vaguely hooked it gives you a new way to explore areas. Even if not that, please don’t give up on the idea that maybe you’d enjoy a sport if it didn’t suck. It’ll suck a lot less when you’re 10kg lighter. Two weeks of changed patterns and I’d guess you might feel differently.
I’m currently overweight and just took up a new sport to make exercise more fun. I ride and sometimes run, but no upper body. So started BJJ to get some form, suppleness, technique, social fun with friends. I’m not there yet but I can’t wait to feel a bit stronger again.
Have you ever been fit/strong? Friends who haven’t often just hit that initial annoyance or pain and quit. I have been fit so I know that feeling is just temporary and it doesn’t take long to fix.
I love good food, and hate sports of all kinds. I am in the 'nearly overweight' sort of body size. The only reason I haven't gone all in on the fat life is because we live where there are woods and outdoors areas. I don't want to be winded when I'm just walking around looking at things.
Beyond that, I have no real physical needs living the stereotypical software dev life behind a computer.
What have you tried?
I discovered relatively late in life that I really like lifting weights. I'm really happy in my own zone with some music in my ears just pumping iron. Picking up heavy things and putting them down again, getting stronger.
I never even considered trying for so long because I was so burned by the whole "sports"-thing which just isn't my jam at all. Competition does absolutely nothing for me, but struggling against something difficult and overcoming is different. It's a problem to solve, a skill to hone; not a competition to win.
I'm curious how old you are? Because this sounds like the hot take of a young guy ;-). Take it from someone deep into middle age -- being healthy isn't about living a long time, it's about how much you hurt on the way.
There's a saying: "health has many wishes, illness only one". You will miss your health when it's gone.
As soon as I started squatting again, all that hip pain was instantly gone, literally the next day. I'm not even talking extreme effort here. Two days a week, nowhere near a heavy weight. Just squatting at all, and so much of a quality of life boost I was missing out on for no reason, just sheer laziness and apathy.
Sometimes it's worth it to do something you don't enjoy at least a few hours a week, to make all of the rest of your life more enjoyable in return.
That's true, but some people worked to find a sport they like. Personally, I like trying new things, which is how I found a few sports that I like (mostly weightlifting).
I think it's worth trying to find something you like, especially if you enjoy new experiences. If you find a sport you like, then it's a new hobby you can enjoy, and getting healthier is just a nice side benefit but not the main thing IMO.
> It's important to enjoy life too.
Just fyi, being healthier usually means you enjoy life more. I mean, depending on how unhealthy you are. Though to be fair, just dieting to lose weight is in most cases going to improve both health, and how you feel on a daily basis, quite dramatically.
I doubt that outside of 10% of fitness fanatics the rest don't have similar motivations as to yours. Just having a work out is seldom a goal for anyone. :)
Weird definition. A physical job could fall under physical inactivity.
Heart disease is mostly a lifestyle disease based mostly on eating habits (e.g. eating too much cholesterol over a long time). This speaks volumes about the US diet.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31838890/
"This advisory was developed after a review of human studies on the relationship of dietary cholesterol with blood lipids, lipoproteins, and cardiovascular disease risk to address questions about the relevance of dietary cholesterol guidance for heart health. Evidence from observational studies conducted in several countries generally does not indicate a significant association with cardiovascular disease risk."
Dietary cholesterol is not a threat, surplus calories and processed sugar is.
> heart-healthy dietary patterns (eg, Mediterranean-style and DASH-style diets) are inherently low in cholesterol, with typical menus containing <300 mg/dL cholesterol, similar to the current US intake.
The CDC reports that greater than 240 mg/dL is considered high [1] with more than 11% of people having that.
The study and the CDC differ on what's normal.
A Mediterranean diet (to pick on something in the study) is mostly plant based [2] and LDL cholesterol comes from eating animal based products [3]. It's low in LDLs.
For people who have had high cholesterol (including those with heart disease) heart specialists will tell you to change your diet to lower the intake of LDLs. I know many who have been given this advice by a doctor and it works.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/cholesterol.htm
[2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/a-practical-guide-to-the...
[3] https://www.heartuk.org.uk/low-cholesterol-foods/foods-that-...
>Data revealed that only 12.2 percent of American adults are metabolically healthy, which means that only 27.3 million adults are meeting recommended targets for cardiovascular risk factors management, according to researchers.
https://www.unc.edu/posts/2018/11/28/only-12-percent-of-amer...
I may be wrong, but it feels like a social marker more than a health marker.
I'm in the best shape of my life and yet these indicators of average health do not really represent me. Getting in that shape I believe saved my life when I got covid prior to the vaccines being available to everyone (Jan 2021). It was a couple of rough nights breathing with mild heart/chest inflammation. Thankfully that all went away with enough time (up to 10-12 months).
My lung capacity has increased from all of the cardio and my resting heart rate is in the 50s down from the 80-100s years ago. Wim Hof's deep breathing exercises have helped me through all of this not only by increasing my lung capacity, but also the mindfulness brought when in extreme discomfort and pain. If you experience any type of anxiety or breathing difficulties, give his techniques a try.
Exercise has so many benefits that it's hard to express in a single comment alone but should definitely be a priority in life when you realize them in your own journey.
- Treadmill on an Incline of 11 and then depending on your level of comfort, put the walking speed to 3 and do quick sprints for 30seconds or longer. Rest and repeat. This is something that keeps me entertained and also is really tough, I will try to do this for 15 minutes.
Since you are focused on lowering your resting heart rate, I would look into Heart Rate Training, where your focus is to keep your heart rate below a threshold and as you continue running you will be able to run faster below that threshold. This also helps with Preventing Injuries which has always happened when I tried to rush my progress: https://marathonhandbook.com/heart-rate-training-zones-for-r...
One of the things that has really helped me lately has been a proper warmup before working out. Sitting all day makes my hips and glutes super tight, so unlocking them has really helped with injury prevention as well.
- Stair climbers are my next go to for a hard but great workout. - Ellipticals are also easy on the knees but are a little boring for me.
I have always been active, always moving around, exploring the woods and climbing up and down hills, that sort of thing. I do sit in front of the computer a lot, but also get up and move around plenty, and do work outside on sunny days. (I live out in the country.) I'm not hesitant to walk or run a long distance, and in fact last year I walked about 10 miles to get a spare vehicle when the battery on my truck literally exploded at the post office. Was sore as hell on arrival, but did enjoy the scenery, plus the knowledge that I'm one tough mother fucker.
Physical activity is of major importance to staying healthy. Some people are always taking shortcuts, trying to do as little as possible. That road leads to death. Note: I DO NOT work out at the gym. That sort of thing can have its use, but working on the FARM (or similar type of work) is much better overall.
I used to drink soft drinks. I do not anymore, and it has been one of the best changes I ever made. The sugar is bad and will make you fat. The acidity destroys one's teeth. The caffeine intake, in quantity, is IMO unhealthy.
I eat a variety of pure and natural foods. Examples: whole milk, eggs, cheese, butter, wheat bread, bacon, homemade hamburger, homemade pizza, salad, baked potato, vegetables of all kinds, oatmeal, rice, beans, beef, chicken, fish. Yes, I add sugar and salt to flavor, and not to excess. I DO NOT eat processed junk like TV dinners, or load up on sweets or the substance euphemistically called "ice cream." I do eat these things on occasion, if called for, but not regularly.
I quit fast food restaurants like McDs, Burger King, Taco Bell. They're all garbage. The only "fast food" I eat these days is healthy stuff like authentic Mexican food from a family owned restaurant, or Chick-Fil-A, and in moderation because it's cheaper and better to eat home cooked meals at home.
I have a garden every year and am often eating fresh fruits and vegetables during the summer. I also can some things for winter, or make big batches of canned soup for eating over time.
I don't continually stuff myself with food. Some days I take a break and just drink milk, or water. I believe fasting is very important to long term health. The more I eat, the more active I am. The less active I am, the less I eat. Because I have muscle, and stay busy, and don't overeat, or eat JUNK, I don't get fat.
I drink a little (homemade) alcohol, but in moderation, and not daily. I also occasionally smoke homegrown tobacco, and frequently smoke home grown WEED.
I get a full night's rest, every night. This is of critical importance. I also refuse to work a stressful, shitty corporate job, preferring instead to be DIRT POOR rather than destroy my life, health, and sanity like that.
I don't take any medicine at all. I also don't ever get sick, period. The last time I ever got sick was over 25 years ago, when I was a boy.
90% of health advice from the mainstream is total bunk and is in fact purposely designed to KILL you. For example, veganism. Want to be a weak, unhealthy soyboy? Be a vegan.
I saw one guy on here commenting the other day about his vegan girlfriend who is in ill health, with serious problems including joints getting stiff and locking up, steadily going downhill. The idiot "doctors" had no advice other than "stop eating meat"--which is exactly the problem in the first place, but this guy didn't make the connection and was at his wit's end. Stay the hell away from these quacks!
Yes, I fully agree that the Western meat industry is horrible and evil, but the solution is to make friends with decent farmers and butchers who treat their animals humanely, not deprive yourself of vital nutrients.
In closing, let me share an anecdote with you I read the other day, which should help you understand humans and the world we live in a little better:
"Funny story: I have a friend who works for a social media influencer (with 1 million followers) who does health fitness. This person says she's vegan and does just yoga, pushing lots of powders, etc. She is in incredible shape and has a million women following her and wondering why they don't look like her, and they keep paying more to try. Well the big deception is she actually is keto/carnivore, and when doing her real workouts she is definitely not doing yoga.
She was elevated because she would push the agenda. The deception runs deep."
It ended up being a great walk and way better than using a cab to retrieve our car. I had hemmed and hawed for awhile about how to get the car back, looking into car seat options in a cab, the bus, asking a friend for a ride, and then I looked it up and realized it was a safe, 1.5 mile walk.
There are so many advantages to being active and fit. One of them is that it makes your world seem smaller and more accessible.
> in part because
I assume the other part is diet change from being in European countries.
In general, if you are very heavy, you can usually get away with significant calorie deficits through diet alone, as your base metabolic rate is so high. You should still be active for other health benefits, but your weight loss is best accomplished from from eating better and less. But the lighter you get, the more cardio matters, because at some point you'll start to have problems getting nutrition from not eating enough. This is especially true if you are getting shredded.
I think this is in part why there's so much conflicting advice on this. You have former fat people saying "nah, it's all diet", and you have very fit people saying "no way, it's totally cardio". They're both right, in their respective domain.
Assuming your diet (and thus your caloric intake) stayed exactly the same, burning an extra ~450 calories per day should net a loss of ~4 pounds per month. Over, say, a six-month span, that'd be roughly 20 pounds lost - easily within the bounds of "tens of pounds after several months."
Correct, but how many fat people are going to "reward" their efforts with a 450kcal treat?
Answer: Most.
On days that I go to an office, I don't (consciously) base my lunch decisions on whether I walked, took the train, or used a car service that morning, know what I mean?
Emphasis on consciously. Your leptin/ghrelin balance will do that for you, and you won't even think about it.
If they had reached some sort of "stable" level of obesity, that is if they had plateaud their weight gain naturally, then a sudden consistent 400kcal deficit would result in some change. Assuming they didn't eat more to make up for it.
Whenever I visit family in the midwest it can be a bit of a culture shock: by default you might find yourself walking a few hundred feet per day. With garages built into every house, few sidewalks and office parks/shopping centers that are only accessible by car, you have to make an explicit effort to get any exercise.
As a European who’s visited the states a few times, the portion sizes always amaze me. They are gargantuan in comparison to what I’m used to
Edit: Fun video - https://youtu.be/rg3Y3tCmBWo
The _smallest_ Burger King drink has 90ml more liquid than the _largest_ UK size
Any physical activity is good at the end of the day.For those who want a 'scientific' explanation: during movement (eg walking) the amygdala "turns off", and you become more relaxed, because that's responsible for emotions.For the rest,take it for granted: better pump for the entire day, you don't feel jittery after coffee, and you actually don't feel the need to eat as much.(as in frequency, you might want to eat more but fewer times during the day)
That seems weird to me. I find that as it gets colder my inclination is to go faster. I regularly go out in -5°C; after no more than 5km or so my hat and gloves are off, and not too long after that I'm wishing I could take off more without being indecent. It's in the summer that I need more breaks. It's an unending source of wonder how differently people can react to the same conditions.
Most people, especially past a certain age, don’t run distances. A mile is a long distance to run for the average person (across all ages). We don’t need to gatekeep physical activity.
But fortunately you don’t need to be a runner to be active. Walking is substantially better than sitting.
If walking is considered being active, we have vastly lowered the bar.
I know literal 70 year old people who could out-run 20 year old kids because they made the choice to stay active and healthy in old age
Even a casual stroll will raise it noticeable, and my normal medium-fast pace can easily bring it to 100+ bpm. (My resting heart rate is generally around 55-60 bpm.)
As for my estimate of my fitness, I think just the fact that my resting heart rate is below 60 might suggest something to that end.
Nope.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr041.pdf
Even for someone who's 60+ and in poor shape it's unlikely to be that high, so getting it up to 100 would be an improvement and have positive health effects. 100bpm doesn't even count as zone 1 for me, but even so a half hour or more of walking at a pace sufficient to sustain that is clearly better than remaining stationary.
Every physiologist who has ever taken quantitative measurements of these things would disagree. Walking is definitely better than remaining stationary, with significant measured benefits from even modest time per day, and GP is right that those of us who can do more should resist the temptation to gatekeep (usually done in this case as a low-key kind of bragging).
Although years of not stretching has led to regular achilles tendon pain now (at least I think that's the cause). I'm stretching and doing calf raises.
Watch a kid run. You quickly realize that they have two paces - flat out sprint and walk. Pacing is something that you learn over time. The opposite extreme of that kid is someone's who's a really experienced runner - my wife for example; it's not that she's incredibly fast but she's amazingly conscious of her pace - if she wants to be consistent she'll run a mile pace that's within seconds for 10+ miles. If she's running a shorter distance she can calibrate her pace.
I think that's one of the things I like about running. The other nice thing about it - really about any form of exercise is the discipline it forces on you. Not "I go running everyday" but - I go running as often as it takes to keep me where I want to be while listening to my body to avoid injury. The more you ask of "where I want to be" the more you have to know about stopping not just going. It forces a self awareness that can be atypical.
More interesting would be "active enough for optimal health", since you can at least approach an objective definition of "optimal".
> Respondents were classified as physically inactive if they responded “no” to the following question: “During the past month, other than your regular job, did you participate in any physical activities or exercises such as running, calisthenics, golf, gardening, or walking for exercise?”
It doesn't attempt to determine what an appropriate level to "protect health" is; that's pure editorialization on the part of the byline.