In what ways is fitness not within reach for a large portion of the population?
Ignoring that extreme the questions maybe different: How many hours does a median person have free from work, commute, and sleep? How much time must be spent managing exercise and diet to achieve fitness?
I think if you took the time to answer those questions for the median or modal non-impoverished person in the world you might find that fitness is actually quite difficult to achieve.
It seems really hard in the US.
Eating healthier requires very little extra time: perhaps 2-3 hours a week for shopping and meal prep.
- making a salad take 5 minutes.
- baking 10 meals worth of chicken takes 30-45 minutes, with about 5-10 minutes of actual prep time.
- baking a few meals worth of salmon, or some other fish is about the same as chicken.
- cutting up an apple takes 1-2 minutes. Bananas, peaches are ready to go, almost no prep required.
- steaming fresh broccoli takes 3-5 min of prep... and about 15-20 minutes total.
- Equally important is making small decisions to avoid or limit less healthy foods, which requires no time at all and often saves us money [that we can spend on healthier foods instead].
Exercising: 30-60 minutes a day, most days, is ideal but anything is better than nothing. A morning and evening 20 minute walk is great place to start (and can be so relaxing). If a person spends time on Hacker News, they could instead allocate that time to exercise. There are free 15 minutes yoga videos on Youtube. A set of push ups requires 60 seconds. Sometimes I do body weight squats at my desk at work (especially during Teams calls, camera off of course).
Sleep: get at least 7 hours of sleep a night... ideally starting to bed before 11pm. more sleep gives us more energy to put towards being awesome during the day and more energy for exercise and doing the extra work to eat better.
I think almost everyone can set aside 6-10 hours in their week towards building their health. It is a matter of priorities... a person's health should be one of their top priorities.
We all can make healthier decision about what food we put into our bodies (a lot could be done to make our food supply healthier, as well). I find I have to be more strict about eating right as I get older to maintain my health.
I feel like folks saying 'fitness' isn't in reach [for most/many of us] is a cop out. This is anecdotal, but i know people who have lost 100+ lbs in their 40's and 50's and completely turned their life around; I know people who have reversed Type-2 diabetes through diet and exercise. These people have busy lives with a lot of responsibility... some of these people live in city areas where access to gyms or outdoor spaces for walking, etc. is not convenient.
I have a few doctors and other medical professionals in my family... knowing what I know, I am 'almost terrified' of becoming metabolically unhealthy and overweight. Many of the maladies that afflict us are metabolic disorders (in whole or in part) due to the long term effects of poor diet, lack of exercise & quality sleep (high stress doesn't help either). Poor metabolic health tremendously increases risk of almost every disease and malady: diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, dementia & Alzhiemer's, many cancers, stroke, depression and other mental illnesses, sleep apnea, susceptibility to infectious disease, etc. Poor metabolic health also indirectly leads to higher likelihood of issues causing chronic pain: e.g., herniated discs in the spine, ankle/knee/hip problems, migraine headaches.
I'm glad Ozempic exists but it is not a cure... it is an aid towards building a healthier life. Use Ozempic as a tool, by all means!!, to start your journey and get yourself into a better situation physically. But please use that good start to pursue the 'best/healthy you'... do it for yourself.
Not going to waste my time providing sources to remedy your ignorance. You are more than capable of doing this research yourself.
Until next time we meet on the internet. :salute:
You can't outrun thermodynamics. But your body will change its efficiency.
You’d still be eating less, but retaining more weight. Why? Because your metabolism slows down significantly if you don’t fuel it, and that makes it harder to lose weight, not easier.
Most things in life are not binary, and are affected by more than just a single choice.
Moreover, have you ever tried to work out at 450 lbs? No? It is an immense effort, often literally impossible for most people at that weight, and the best they can manage is a walk around the block before their cardio can’t keep up.
What then?
See above, where I reminded people (which includes you) that things are rarely binary.
For others open to listening to why it's often out of reach: Outside the go-to "motivation" type discussion gravitation (and, keep in mind, not everyone can just 'motivate themselves past their addictions' in the first place or they wouldn't be addictions) it is also disproportionately hard for those struggling in other ways of life (financially, mentally, physically/genetically). Some of these can be cascaded effects, like support systems (e.g.not everyone's partner is willing or able to go all in on it like above). Others can be that it is medically not as easy for some people to lose weight at a given intake amount which makes it just that much harder.
Most people would like very VERY much to be fit. That most still aren't fit should be a good indicator it's out of most's reach to "just eat less" independently. All this said as a person who is not overweight themselves but has been around many people in different situations, abilities, and luck that have left them unable to be so as well.
Taking a pill doesn't.
That's why it will always be out of reach of some people.