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Comment by vinni2 | Hacker News Reader

> Further intriguing results showed that those at the extremes of physical activity—either too little or too much—experienced accelerated biological aging.

So moderate exercise is the optimal. Not too much or too little. But how does one know what is too much? It is different for different people.

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I'd propose that the key to most things in life is moderation through listening to your body. Whether its exercise, food, alcohol, or being in the sun too long your body will warn you if you listen.

Its a skill that we seem to have lost very quickly in the age of modern medicine, pharmaceuticals, and digital technology that distracts us with bright lights and promises to track everything and be able to tell us how to moderate so our bodies don't have to.

I did listen to my body from a young age. It told me to eat as much sweets as I possibly could. And there were absolutely no adverse effects as far as I could tell.

Yes, clever. Are you wanting me to say "no, sugar is the devil!"?

If you want to eat a pile of sugar and can do so without any adverse effects that you care about, buy futures in cane sugar commodities and have a blast.

If you work full time and have any amount of social life you just cannot exercise too much imho, it just doesn't fit in the schedule. Most people don't even walk 5k steps a day and have 0 exercise outside of that.

I walk an hour per day and exercise an hour 5-6 days out of 7, I consider myself barely active in the grand scheme of things, I'm doing the strict minimum to not rot away at my desk job

As far as I know the only people who really suffer from over training are professional athletes or people who have poor routine

Bad study aside, a vast amount of people, including probably 99.999% of HN will get nowhere near exercising “too much.” Even if you’re initially fatigued from starting an exercise regimen, that’s just a normal body adjustment period. So I’d say not to worry about it. You can “overreach” at times, going further than you’re ready for, but sustained long-term “too much” exercise is going to be when nearing an elite level of fitness for most people.

I would say, listen to your body. If it says, "I'm fatigued" then give it a rest. If you're catching too many colds - from your immune system being stressed - give it a rest.

It's not necessary to work out *every* day. It's ok to take one or more days off. It's ok to recover.

There's probably blood work that can test for various things (i.e., over-training) but I don't know any off hand.

But if it says “eat more pie”, don’t listen.

Just like the craze over drinking 3L of water every day which turned out to be worse than just drinking when you're thirsty, I would suspect just doing what your body tells you is probably best. If you're feeling completely exhausted afterwards, you probably overdid it. If you have so much energy left over that you can't sleep, you under-did it or drank too much caffeine.

> the craze over drinking 3L of water every day which turned out to be worse than just drinking when you're thirsty

Is there some more info about this you could link to? I'm not aware of it being determined to be worse than just drinking when you're thirsty.

Science Vs has an entire episode on this: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/xjhz6kn

Thanks!

> So moderate exercise is the optimal. Not too much or too little. But how does one know what is too much? It is different for different people.

"too much" is sky high. Like "training for Tor des Géants" high.

I don't think that anyone being leisurely active can even graze the training-too-much zone.

Physical activity, not exercise

Exercise is something you added

If you can walk and just walk sufficient amount (not just to the cat and from the car) regularly you probably count as physically active

re: Walking

After reading "The Comfort Crisis" by Michael Easter, I've become a fan-boy for adding a weighted vest. The extra bit of weight helps, without feeling like a ball-busting workout.

I've seen some people walking/jogging with weighted vests but never asked, interesting to hear first hand experience.

I don't dig the looks of it tbh. I like to just walk around or to/from places and not look like I am exercising

As a kid watching DragonBall I would have loved that lol

I haven't read "The Comfort Crisis", but but for the last dozen years, I've spent three and a half months training hard to compete in the Bataan Memorial Death March male civilian heavy division[0], meaning I race a tough marathon course wearing a 35 pound pack. I do well.

I'm pretty sure I'd be in the top 10% of LTPA in that study, at least for my most recent ten years. I haven't spent the money to have any of my longevity markers tested, per-se, but I did get a (free) arterial wall stiffness test[1] last year and my heart did very well for any age group, and yet I was sixty.

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them, although I'm about to go for a morning walk and may be gone an hour or so.

[0] https://bataanmarch.com/register/civilian-individual/ [1] https://github.com/ctm/diet/blob/master/blood_work/20230623_...

I'm on the opposite side, not caring for my health with bad habits, walking/biking for entertainment reasons when not feeling depressed.

Yeah. I kinda had the same hang up. But I bought a cheap vest to try it. I'm ok with it now. I mostly run but on off days I'll wear the vest on a walk. I also wear it when I mow the lawn. Anything to work a bit more but still not too much (i.e., off days).

The current fad is "rucking", or putting some weight (sand, rice, books, etc.) into a backpack and hiking around.

But it's not a fad per se. The extra weight can and does serve a purpose.

Calling something a "fad" doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

Is it worse for the back compared to a vest?

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