Anecdatum: my dad never did any sports and never did any physical work that was harder than carrying a shopping bag to the first floor. He lived up to 90, was never seriously ill, and never experienced any back pain in his entire life.
He did enjoy hiking, though, and ran many errands on foot or on his bicycle.
Grandad was a semi-professional track and road cyclist trained hard, swam and ran his whole life. Drank a LOT of alcohol but was also in great health due to constantly working out.
Going to the gym, running marathons, and other strenuous activities are generally done for the challenge, difficulty, or achievement of completing them. Personally, I’d take 60 years of a challenging, but meaningful life over 90 years of relaxation and low stress.
The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as soon as you cannot be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge! The time will soon pass when you could be content to live concealed in the woods like timid deer.
Do you have a real criticism, or are you just being flippant with the middlebrow dismissal?
Not everyone is trying to live the most comfortable, stress-free existence. Many philosophers, religious leaders, and thinkers throughout history have posited (correctly, in my opinion) that a challenge-free life is not a particularly meaningful one.
There's plenty of meaning to be found in all sorts of endeavours, including going to the gym. I just think you sound defensive when you imply there's no meaning in a life full of relaxation and no stress.
I also find it a bit amusing that you bring up a Nietzsche quote in your edit. AFAIK Nietzsche didn't go to the gym or run any marathons. He did, however, go for a long walk every morning.
The long walks were not very effective: "Nietzsche resigned in 1879 [at the age of ~34] due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889 at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward, a complete loss of his mental faculties."
Apparently, the people who started WWII learned something from Nietzsche too. Can't say it is a good or admirable thing through nor that it lead to something good.
Edited: those who downvote would be nice to point where I am wrong. Because the similarity of this quote with that particular value system was striking and clear to me. (Just quote not whole of Nietzsche which I don't talk about and don't really care about).
Sorry, but this is just straight ignorance. Nietzsche was explicitly anti-anti-Semitic and the fact that his ideas have been misinterpreted is pretty common knowledge.
I said that the above quote describes a lot of Nazi ideology. That is what they believed and glorified - struggle, fight, danger. They believed pretry much that. Nietzsche not liking them or not intending it that way does not change it.
Quote has nothing to do with antisemitism, but nazi did not started WWII just due to antisemitism. They started it as quest for world domination, "living space" and as struggle between races for domination (not just against Jews, through they hated those the most).
The above quote maps very neatly to non antisemitic aspects of it all. Results were not admirable.
Sorry, but again, if you think that quote embodies Nazi ideology, you’re woefully lacking in knowledge of both Nietzsche and of Nazism. Nietzsche was focused on the individual and not on the state; on dominating oneself and not others.
Individual does not build cities. It takes society. Also "Be robbers and ravagers as soon as you cannot be rulers and owners," is what Nazi did and I don't find them admirable before gaining power either. It requires government, those in the middle and demands that you seek to dominate others - as a ruler and if you cant as robber.
But that is picking into details of quote more than it deserves. My original intention was to say thay as much as motivating the quote is, as much as it makes you feel proud and itch for activity or to ovecome obstacles, consequences of following it to the logical conclusion would be ugly.
The article mentions that those people who live longer than average lives without gym memberships do in fact have a very active life, as in they grow their own food and such. For what it’s worth I find that growing your own food is a lot more fulfilling than winning marathons and similar stuff, but to each his/her own.
I decided to try growing some of my own food this summer. I live in a small apartment in Stockholm and was inspired on a trip to Glastonbury Tor, where I bought some heritage seeds. It was much too late in the season to plant this stuff when I got back, but I was too impatient and sprouted some peas, tomatoes, and a single lettuce leaf seed. They are now in big pots, the peas on my small balcony and the rest inside since it's just too cold now. I have a bunch of pea pods maturing, and I harvested my first lettuce leaf last week (just the one leaf, it was delicious, the rest of the plant is still maturing). I doubt the tomatoes will come to anything this season, but they're still alive, now in big pots near the window.
As someone who at least used to be a bit of a fitness junkie (and still am in some respects), the joy of seeing your little sprouted peas grow huge and start flowering is (for me) on a completely different plane of joy than that of finishing some obstacle course race. Both are really great, but I've never felt as happy getting a deadlift PR as I did when I ate my very first home-grown lettuce leaf.
To each their own. I've grown lots of edibles (my favorite is the zucchini that became zucchini bread). I'll take a PR on a lift any day. My last deadlift PR had me on cloud nine, practically nothing could have brought me down.
Let‘s talk again when you are 60. My father turned 66 and he looks about 10 years younger, and participates in life just like he did 20 years ago. Pick up my kids from school? Help me push the washing machine upstairs? Weed out a 9k square feet garden? Dig a tunnel in the garden for utility cables? Not a problem. I don’t think he would want to be dead for 6y now for having ran a couple marathons each year. He also always refused to come with me to the gym. He runs 8km every now and then because he has „too much energy“.
The article didn't say their lives were low stress. It talks about active transportation, mostly. I can assure you cycling to work doesn't remove all the stress from your life, and if you live in most modern cities or the US, it's probably adding to your stress level. It does get your heart going, though, and maybe more importantly gives a quick reminder of when you're letting yourself go a bit. If I eat badly for a while the first place I'll notice it is while exercising.
Other commonly cited commonalities to these Blue Zones are a sense of community and healthy diets. The only one I have any familiarity with, Loma Linda, has a lot of people who are quite involved in their church and a high incidence of vegetarianism. Dreadful place to get around by any mode other than car, though.
I can see how being involved with a community can be a good thing, but not so sure that being involved with a church community is a good thing, as it perpetuates their delusional biases. Also, you're implying vegetarianism is a healthier diet than a varied, balanced diet, I don't think that is necessarily the case (Mediterranean diet is known for being one of thw healthiest diets and it includes vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, fruits, etc)
>I can see how being involved with a community can be a good thing, but not so sure that being involved with a church community is a good thing, as it perpetuates their delusional biases.
We have all kinds of "delusional biases" in 2018 secular society as well. At least theirs have passed the test of time (not for being true, for being utilitarian).
Plus, not all church communities are like fundamentalist bible belt nuts. In Icaria for example, it would be more like going to a Dead Can Dance (or Enigma) concert and meeting some friends for 1 hour, celebrating some wedding, mourning some dead at a funeral, at so on. It wouldn't dictate what you do with your everyday life.
Even fundamentalist bible belt people can be good company. Some of the nicest, kindest, most helpful people I know secretly worry I'm on a fast path to hell. They'd never say it since judgement is sinful, but I know they think it.
What I meant is that depending on the church and regional culture church communities don't necessarily come with the "austere fundamental parents", "no puffs or artists in our family", "sex is sin" etc cliches.
I'm not endorsing the religion, and I'm not religious myself. However I did attend a Seventh Day Adventist high school, and for several years, church, and the community aspect is something I dearly miss. Knowing that every Saturday you'll go hang out with friends and chat and maybe go to the beach and generally take it easy was really nice. It was also the sort of place you could go and know nobody would accuse you of delusional biases, unlike online communities like HN.
I'm a doubtful agnostic these days, but people who've never been could try talking to churchgoers to discover their motivations. Seeing friends and knowing it's a pretty safe place are big draws.
Of course, I was pretty lucky to be at, by SDA standards, a _very_ liberal church, and straight. I also had a good secular and Catholic education before attending the SDA school, which had horrendous standards (and creationism). And I now live in a place where the horrors of a state religion are laid bare - google "babies" and "septic tank".
But there are big positives that are hard to replicate. I also really miss the "I. Do. Not. Work. On. The. Sabbath." (standard disclaimer forfirefighters, emt, etc) side of things. Everyone here who has burned out might appreciate the idea of one day reserved for family, friends, and reflection.
Also, c'mon, a person following a vegetarian diet is at _least_ paying more attention to what they eat then most, and animal fats are not particularly healthy. Comparing to the best diets including animals (basically fish heavy ones) doesn't mean that vegetarian isn't better than the standard western diet.
Of course not. But just in case, to check your theory, go to the local hospital and speak with some of the doctors and nurses. Ask them if their patients took better care of themselves, how things might be different.
I think it's safe to presume you need not ask the patients and their families if they're happy to be in hospital. Again?
Yes, you can live a happy unhealthy life - to a point. But when things go sideways - and for most of us at some point they do / will - your general health at the start of that event is going to have a fairly significant impact on outcomes and going forward.
Sure, for example, you can survive a stroke. The med system is good for that. But trying to walk slightly compromised (e.g., paralyzed and/or balance) and suddenly that extra 50 - 100 lbs of happiness (i.e., soda, donuts, etc.) isn't so happy any more.
And then when you factor in your personal (loss of) best, as well as the best lost by your family and friends (i.e., it's not going to only impact you), that aggregate "best" is going to end up a negative.
I was juxtaposing "longest-living" and "healthiest" against "physically intense", not being unhealthy and overweight.
I lift weights everyday and run competitively, and I wouldn't give up the post-workout feeling for anything, even if it theoretically makes me only live to be 70 instead of 80. It's a quality > quantity thing for me.
> I wouldn't give up the post-workout feeling for anything
I'll bet most heroin addicts would say something similar. Do you approve of their choices also? If not, why not? What is it that makes your high different than theirs?
But in the case of blue zones, longest living absolutely == healthiest. They have fewer of the ailments less longer living people have.
>Going to the gym, running marathons, and other strenuous activities are generally done for the challenge, difficulty, or achievement of completing them. Personally, I’d take 60 years of a challenging, but meaningful life over 90 years of relaxation and low stress.
As if the only challenges in life are the artificial fads/trends of the gym and marathon running (as promoted by an army of websites, books, influencers, gym chains, and co)? (and fads as in 10-15 years ago almost nobody -statistically speaking- run "marathons" compared to today, and 30 years ago mostly wannabe "boby-builders" where pumping iron at the gym).
All those things didn't catch on as challenges (that's just some handful of pioneers doing them as such), they are natural activity replacements for office drones forced to a sedimentary lifestyle.
>The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously!
Yeah, Nietzsche didn't have marathons in mind, in fact he'd laugh at the proposition that "living dangerously" is following some sheepish trend.
Did you read the line in the article, "Moving naturally throughout the day might sound pleasant and romantic, but the reality is that 100 years ago only 10% of us had sedentary jobs, whereas today it’s 90%."?
Marathon running and weightlifting, and the popularity of such, are almost certainly correlated with a lack of meaningful physical activity in our day-to-day lives.
Also, your flippant dismissal of marathon running as a "sheepish trend" is laughable. Marathon and half-marathon event participation is declining [1] in the USA as a whole, and in 2016 507,600 people completed a full marathon and 1.9M completed a half. That's about 0.6% of the US population completing a half marathon or greater every year.
Marathons and other strength / athletic events are challenging, exhilarating, test the merits not only of your physical condition but your psychology as well, and, well, they're f*cking fun. You don't have to have the same fervor for them as the poster you're responding to, but calling them "sheepish trends" is ridiculous.
I think you are missing the point. I don't read this article as an argument AGAINST going to the gym, rather as a comment on the fact that if you want a healthy population, it is not gym membership which is the primary solution.
For me going to the gym is primarily about being healthy, and the does affect your happiness. Being unhealthy is bad for your own quality of life.
I have not been particularly good at going to the gym however, the last years. I remember finding it easier to get into in while living in a society which made natural exercise happen more regularly. E.g. when I lived in the Netherlands I biked about 1 hour of day, because that is often the made mode of transport and it is easy and convenient to do.
That has a positive re-enforcing circle. You feel better, which makes it easier to get to the gym as well. When your health goes down, going to the gym becomes mentally harder to do. It may be more expedient but doing almost anything benefits from feeling good and positive.
The William Wallace depicted in Braveheart never really lived.
"there is no way of knowing who he really was. ...The most famous quote from the movie, “Every man dies, not every man really lives,” is ironic in that the William Wallace of myth and legend never really existed"
> I’d take 60 years of a challenging, but meaningful life over 90 years of relaxation and low stress.
So you equate physical challenge with meaning, and physical relaxation with lack of it? Sorry, but not everyone finds meaning only in the same things you do. It seems likely that the vast majority whose lives revolve more around family/community or intellectual pursuits, or even pure leisure, would prefer 90 years of health just good enough to support those, rather than 60 years of being on leaderboards only a very few (perhaps only you) care about.
Also, how would you feel about only 50 years of a challenging but meaningful life as you define such things? Or 40? Or 30? Every year brings a possibility of some setback that puts that kind of physical fulfillment out of reach, and the probability tends to increase over time. Between genetics, dietary habits, smoking/drinking, occupational/environmental stress, infectious disease, or simple accidents, almost everyone hits some kind of limitation before 60. Sometimes through absolutely no fault of their own, and almost always before they expected. High-risk or high-physical stress activities only worsen those odds, and hyper-competitive "type A" behavior does so in specific well-understood ways.
There's no dichotomy between maximizing total years and maximizing good years. If you graph quality of life over time, extending the curve to the right also increases the time above any arbitrary threshold. The point of the article is that high-intensity exercise-for-its-own-sake might be less effective for such maximization than more frequent but less intense "incidental" exercise. If you have actually run a marathon, surely you know that sprinting the first mile won't get you across the finish line faster and might ruin your chances to get across it at all.
If you want to run a marathon for the challenge - more power to you. But running and training for a marathon is far from healthy.
After a certain point there are diminishing returns on running and at a certain point over that there are actually statistically negative consequences.
90% of my male friends go to gym to build aesthetic bodies, it helps them attract females.
Out of them:
97% of them take whey protein, fish oil, vitamin D, creatine, withania smonifera
70% of them take anabolic steroids.
30% still end up with escorts and hookers.
That said these are my Dutch friends in Amsterdam.
So i would say very few actually go to gym for longetivity.
Particular my male friends, smoke and do drugs, they all say they wanna live a short but exciting life where they get everything they want, let it be money or girls.
Ummm, I don't want to say that reading is fundamental (even though it is), but, of the 36% of his acquaintances that go to the gym for that reason, about just over 25% (of his 'crowd' in aggregate, not of the 36%) take steroids. That's certainly a lot more than my friends ('crowd') do (as far as a know), but it's not as out of whack as you suggest.
The parent comment was edited and a bunch of numbers changed, but actually not enough to invalidate my comment; the numbers would still only apply to very particular subgroups.
Edit: Also no need to be a jerk about “reading comprehension” even if the comment hadn’t been edited to mismatch my reply. That’s the first rule in the HN guidelines.
I must be thinking of something (I wouldn't have guessed it to be reddit; maybe it was), but I just added a space as an edit to the end of an above comment and didn't get a '*', so I guess it wasn't here. Mea maxima culpa.
That's interesting since a lot of other places look to the Netherlands for examples how to to build places conducive to an active lifestyle. There's a perception that places you can walk and cycle safely will see lower incidences of obesity, etc.
Of course, cycling to work probably won't get you ripped, but it can be helpful for getting some exercise without needing to set time aside for it.
Lots. But you don't need to. You just need to push yourself hard and eat loads. If you're having fun in the gym then you won't make it. It's hard work.
If we've only 1-2 hours to train daily, then some of might not be able to achieve the results we are seeking due to lack of gene expression. We aren't fulltime bodybuilders and have demanding job at a tech company
In that case, if you still want the results, you'll have to resort to rHGH, testosterone and anabolic steroid.
You will find that (depending on gym) a surprisingly large portion do take steroids or have tried them at stages, for that very reason you said. Progress is slow!!!
And people wonder how movie stars can put on so much bulk for film roles so quick... Hmmmm I'll leave that up to the reader to interpret.
>Particular my male friends, smoke and do drugs, they all say they wanna live a short but exciting life where they get everything they want, let it be money or girls.
Sounds like they are all < 40 too. Let's see what they want when they get to 40, 50 and such.
Eh, I live in a relatively large European city and only around 5% of people that I know are within a 15 minute walk from their work or university. I was actually closer when I lived in SF, which seemed denser, but that's an exception among US cities.
I had a 15m walk to the office when I lived in San Francisco... The culture is such that people are willing to sacrifice ridiculous things for merely being able to maintain a life style they do not like. Unfortunately, I now have 0 commute time :) But I go for walks at least twice per day. People work pretty hard in order to get themselves into very unhealthy living situations, and often seem to be unwilling to work for 5 minutes per day to get out of them. I'm not placing blame, just describing the situation.
Beware of the ol' "I have a job so I can afford a car to go to work..." or "I'm working out so I can feel good about myself so I can feel worthy of women/love" or any self-unfulfilling prophecy.
A comment above about the guy's friends working out in order to get chicks... It's another thing I find quite strange. Sure, there are like 2% of girls who are only attracted to very muscular men (and they're rarely the most attractive) - but 98% of girls want a "real man". What is a real man? Well, I'm not going to say because I don't want to get my comment killed again :D However, spending so much time and concern on how you physically look is feminine, not masculine. Just inquire with some girls sometime; they'll tell you they're sick of it! Unless you're trying to cultivate beyond the body & mind, then 15m of strenuous exercise 3 times per week is all you need. Spending hours curling in front of gym mirrors is a beauty contest in fetishized insecurity.
Certainly in London the best places to live are in the suburbs 30 mins walk from a Tube station, less pollution and cheaper than living on top of the station, and a nice brisk walk in.
In a world where everyone starts lifting weights, I find it hard to believe that we'd see an epidemic of "unnatural movement" that isn't easily fixable in the gym. I also think we'll have higher priorities than research into the health benefits of gardening and mowing the lawn.
This is not just about personal choices though but also about how society is structured. E.g. when I lived in the US I found it hard to be healthy other than going to the gym because there was little opportunity for natural exercise as all of society is built around car usage and consumption of fast-food.
In contrast when I lived in the Netherlands I found it VERY easy to be healthy. Life is organized around biking there: it is safe, easy and convenient to do. I probably biked around 1 hour every day, just from doing errands, meeting friends, going to university etc.
If I wanted to grab some food, there was usually a lot more healthy options available. E.g. even in tiny stores in the Netherlands they have great vegetarian options.
A lot of this is not stuff as an individual you can decide on. It depends on zoning laws, building of bike lanes and a multitude of policies and traditions you cannon easily change without collective action.
It’s suspicious because it’s generally dangerous to walk around alone at night in large cities.
It also depends on the area, though. And I would also say just because you’re approached by the police doesn’t mean you’re being suspicious. I’ve been pulled over by police before just because they wanted to let me know it was a dangerous area (I wasn’t from the area).
Edit: I really hope that downvote came from a European or non-American. /s
As an American (and been here my entire life), what I posted above is very accurate to what I have observed.
Maybe in other parts of the country it’s different but in the cities I’m most intimate with (Atlanta, Memphis, Jackson), this is definitely the case.
This is very accurate. I've been approached by police twice in Miami, letting me know that I am entering a dangerous nieghbourhood - which I thought it was the city center.
Another time they didn't let me drive further, when they saw that we were a bunch of clueless europeans.
This only applies to cities where walking isn't a default way to get around. Walking around most parts of NYC is perfectly safe at night in part because the presence of other pedestrians deters crime.
"It’s suspicious because it’s generally dangerous to walk around alone at night in large cities."
I didn't downvote you, though I thought your comment really needed a citation.
However, it's also probably true, given how often people are killed by drivers at night. It depends on a lot on the city. Similarly the suburbs are pretty dangerous when you consider road deaths and not just violent crime (though in places with presumed liability, operating your car unsafely _is_ a crime).
When I lived in Santa Monica walking across Wilshire blvd. at night was especially dangerous (25 mph limit but people routinely went 45mph+), and pedestrians were (and are) killed on a regular basis. My understanding is at least one of the cities you named (Atlanta) is considered a poster child in how to design a city to be dangerous for walking.
However, if you've walked in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, etc. at night you'll know a large city can be a lovely place for a night stroll.
I am an American who has lived in the EU for 6 years, fwiw.
It depends where you are walking if you want a realistic answer. Lots of people walk around denser areas at night with commercial stores/nightlife and residential areas near transportation. Walking around the suburbs when it’s 12am and there is nothing open is probably going to raise suspicions because it’s uncommon and there’s not many places to walk home from other than a friend’s house. (Not to mention it’s dangerous with all the people speeding/not paying attention to the roads when less cars out at night). IMO, I would say the more empty an area is the more suspicious it would be to walk around at night. There’s legitimate reasons to walk around at night like going for a stroll or walking a dog, but for the most part police would stop you to let you know “you do know this is risky?” and let you go on your way as long as you don’t seem like you are planning some criminal activity or acting erratically. Plus, it lessens their chances of having to go help someone out of trouble if they just advise that person reevaluate their decision.
Walking 30 minutes per day 5 days per week and losing 15 lbs (for an adult male) lessens the likelihood of a pre-diabetic person becoming diabetic by 60%.
In NYC where I live which has subways with stations that mostly do not have escalators people are constantly walking and walking up and down stairs as part of their daily activity.
During the hours long rush-hours it is also much faster taking subways than automobiles (e.g 15 mins instead of 45 mins).
Cities can be designed as NYC so that there is plenty of walking and stair climbing as part of the daily activity.
There are also plenty of Citibikes (cheap rentable bicycles) and bike lanes.
It works better if your workplace has a fitness center with showers. But if not, see if there is a gym nearby that you can join just for the shower usage. You can also leave an extra half hour for your journey, and not work as hard at it. Also, wiping down with alcohol wipes before your journey can prevent bacteria which avoids the smell funk (along with putting your work clothes in your saddle bag, and changing out of your cycling gear once you get to work).
I have biked to university here in Denmark, and while it might be nice in the summer, it is not something I ever want to do again in winter. Instead of having two fairly broad sets of wheels I now have two thin ones and a much higher center of gravity...
Pointing out people in blue zones are consistently active even if they don't run marathons or go to the gym is a very weak argument against marathons and exercise. Instead of the tortured analogy the author could have tried looking at data directly related to the topic:
Was it meant to be an argument against marathons and other deliberate and/or high intensity exercise? Saying that X achieves a particular goal better than Y doesn't mean that Y is bad.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is easier when moving is built into your daily activities. You might go to the gym and run marathons in your 20s and 30s but it's nearly impossible to keep up with that routine for 30-40 years.
The title of the article makes it sound like walking is better than gyming and is misleading, just like most Quartz articles these days. Sigh, I live in a world where Quartz is becoming Buzzfeed, and Buzzfeed is becoming Quartz.
walking to school and then walk to work only if you have the privilege to pay for a decent house or apartment, not an option for the people living far away from the downtown areas
The people who are actually old in these blue zones were around literally before gyms or recreational running became a thing. I'd like to compare that against someone who has been going to the gym their entire life in those blue zones and see if they live even longer.
There certainly are other ways to stay healthy, walking or cycling are two I prefer. Fresh air is always better than gyms. I know, that in some parts of the world in winter this can get tricky, due to heavy snow or ice cold temperatures, but still, maybe then we can reduce the time spent out, 10 minutes of fresh snowy air is still awesome.
So what I do every day is walk to the bus station, take the public transport and walk from the station to the office, I also stand up every hour or two hours, walk around the office for minute or two, it really helps my spine and well being.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 105 ms ] threadLived till 90 also.
Going to the gym, running marathons, and other strenuous activities are generally done for the challenge, difficulty, or achievement of completing them. Personally, I’d take 60 years of a challenging, but meaningful life over 90 years of relaxation and low stress.
The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as soon as you cannot be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge! The time will soon pass when you could be content to live concealed in the woods like timid deer.
- Nietzsche
This reads like satire.
Not everyone is trying to live the most comfortable, stress-free existence. Many philosophers, religious leaders, and thinkers throughout history have posited (correctly, in my opinion) that a challenge-free life is not a particularly meaningful one.
And how do you define struggle? is it physical challenges or mental ones? There's a lot of grey area here too.
Personally I would like to live happy, I would trade years of my life for happiness, but being in the gym does not make me happy by itself.
I also find it a bit amusing that you bring up a Nietzsche quote in your edit. AFAIK Nietzsche didn't go to the gym or run any marathons. He did, however, go for a long walk every morning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche
We know from actual studies (not a single anecdote) that long walks are very effective in improving health.
We also know that Nietzsche had prior health issues, the kind that long walks wont fix.
Edit: as many years as possible. I have no desire to check out. I like being alive.
"For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know" - Anonymous
Edited: those who downvote would be nice to point where I am wrong. Because the similarity of this quote with that particular value system was striking and clear to me. (Just quote not whole of Nietzsche which I don't talk about and don't really care about).
https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/how-the-nazis-hijacked...
https://www.vox.com/2017/8/17/16140846/alt-right-nietzsche-r...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_and_reception_of_F...
I said that the above quote describes a lot of Nazi ideology. That is what they believed and glorified - struggle, fight, danger. They believed pretry much that. Nietzsche not liking them or not intending it that way does not change it.
Quote has nothing to do with antisemitism, but nazi did not started WWII just due to antisemitism. They started it as quest for world domination, "living space" and as struggle between races for domination (not just against Jews, through they hated those the most).
The above quote maps very neatly to non antisemitic aspects of it all. Results were not admirable.
A state, is called the coldest of all monsters.
But that is picking into details of quote more than it deserves. My original intention was to say thay as much as motivating the quote is, as much as it makes you feel proud and itch for activity or to ovecome obstacles, consequences of following it to the logical conclusion would be ugly.
As someone who at least used to be a bit of a fitness junkie (and still am in some respects), the joy of seeing your little sprouted peas grow huge and start flowering is (for me) on a completely different plane of joy than that of finishing some obstacle course race. Both are really great, but I've never felt as happy getting a deadlift PR as I did when I ate my very first home-grown lettuce leaf.
Other commonly cited commonalities to these Blue Zones are a sense of community and healthy diets. The only one I have any familiarity with, Loma Linda, has a lot of people who are quite involved in their church and a high incidence of vegetarianism. Dreadful place to get around by any mode other than car, though.
We have all kinds of "delusional biases" in 2018 secular society as well. At least theirs have passed the test of time (not for being true, for being utilitarian).
Plus, not all church communities are like fundamentalist bible belt nuts. In Icaria for example, it would be more like going to a Dead Can Dance (or Enigma) concert and meeting some friends for 1 hour, celebrating some wedding, mourning some dead at a funeral, at so on. It wouldn't dictate what you do with your everyday life.
What I meant is that depending on the church and regional culture church communities don't necessarily come with the "austere fundamental parents", "no puffs or artists in our family", "sex is sin" etc cliches.
I'm a doubtful agnostic these days, but people who've never been could try talking to churchgoers to discover their motivations. Seeing friends and knowing it's a pretty safe place are big draws.
Of course, I was pretty lucky to be at, by SDA standards, a _very_ liberal church, and straight. I also had a good secular and Catholic education before attending the SDA school, which had horrendous standards (and creationism). And I now live in a place where the horrors of a state religion are laid bare - google "babies" and "septic tank".
But there are big positives that are hard to replicate. I also really miss the "I. Do. Not. Work. On. The. Sabbath." (standard disclaimer forfirefighters, emt, etc) side of things. Everyone here who has burned out might appreciate the idea of one day reserved for family, friends, and reflection.
Also, c'mon, a person following a vegetarian diet is at _least_ paying more attention to what they eat then most, and animal fats are not particularly healthy. Comparing to the best diets including animals (basically fish heavy ones) doesn't mean that vegetarian isn't better than the standard western diet.
Of course not. But just in case, to check your theory, go to the local hospital and speak with some of the doctors and nurses. Ask them if their patients took better care of themselves, how things might be different.
I think it's safe to presume you need not ask the patients and their families if they're happy to be in hospital. Again?
Yes, you can live a happy unhealthy life - to a point. But when things go sideways - and for most of us at some point they do / will - your general health at the start of that event is going to have a fairly significant impact on outcomes and going forward.
Sure, for example, you can survive a stroke. The med system is good for that. But trying to walk slightly compromised (e.g., paralyzed and/or balance) and suddenly that extra 50 - 100 lbs of happiness (i.e., soda, donuts, etc.) isn't so happy any more.
And then when you factor in your personal (loss of) best, as well as the best lost by your family and friends (i.e., it's not going to only impact you), that aggregate "best" is going to end up a negative.
Again. You can find this answer at any hospital.
I lift weights everyday and run competitively, and I wouldn't give up the post-workout feeling for anything, even if it theoretically makes me only live to be 70 instead of 80. It's a quality > quantity thing for me.
I'll bet most heroin addicts would say something similar. Do you approve of their choices also? If not, why not? What is it that makes your high different than theirs?
For the rest of us, there is the squat rack. And riding to work.
I'm not sure what "best" means in this context.
But in the case of blue zones, longest living absolutely == healthiest. They have fewer of the ailments less longer living people have.
>Going to the gym, running marathons, and other strenuous activities are generally done for the challenge, difficulty, or achievement of completing them. Personally, I’d take 60 years of a challenging, but meaningful life over 90 years of relaxation and low stress.
As if the only challenges in life are the artificial fads/trends of the gym and marathon running (as promoted by an army of websites, books, influencers, gym chains, and co)? (and fads as in 10-15 years ago almost nobody -statistically speaking- run "marathons" compared to today, and 30 years ago mostly wannabe "boby-builders" where pumping iron at the gym).
All those things didn't catch on as challenges (that's just some handful of pioneers doing them as such), they are natural activity replacements for office drones forced to a sedimentary lifestyle.
>The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously!
Yeah, Nietzsche didn't have marathons in mind, in fact he'd laugh at the proposition that "living dangerously" is following some sheepish trend.
Marathon running and weightlifting, and the popularity of such, are almost certainly correlated with a lack of meaningful physical activity in our day-to-day lives.
Also, your flippant dismissal of marathon running as a "sheepish trend" is laughable. Marathon and half-marathon event participation is declining [1] in the USA as a whole, and in 2016 507,600 people completed a full marathon and 1.9M completed a half. That's about 0.6% of the US population completing a half marathon or greater every year.
Marathons and other strength / athletic events are challenging, exhilarating, test the merits not only of your physical condition but your psychology as well, and, well, they're f*cking fun. You don't have to have the same fervor for them as the poster you're responding to, but calling them "sheepish trends" is ridiculous.
[1] https://running.competitor.com/2017/06/news/new-report-2016-...
For me going to the gym is primarily about being healthy, and the does affect your happiness. Being unhealthy is bad for your own quality of life.
I have not been particularly good at going to the gym however, the last years. I remember finding it easier to get into in while living in a society which made natural exercise happen more regularly. E.g. when I lived in the Netherlands I biked about 1 hour of day, because that is often the made mode of transport and it is easy and convenient to do.
That has a positive re-enforcing circle. You feel better, which makes it easier to get to the gym as well. When your health goes down, going to the gym becomes mentally harder to do. It may be more expedient but doing almost anything benefits from feeling good and positive.
I like the general message, although pep talks like this have led many people into stupid fights.
Sorry Fyre Festival has better pep talk than Braveheart.
"there is no way of knowing who he really was. ...The most famous quote from the movie, “Every man dies, not every man really lives,” is ironic in that the William Wallace of myth and legend never really existed"
https://peterrock12.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/braveheart-%E2%...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wallace
So you equate physical challenge with meaning, and physical relaxation with lack of it? Sorry, but not everyone finds meaning only in the same things you do. It seems likely that the vast majority whose lives revolve more around family/community or intellectual pursuits, or even pure leisure, would prefer 90 years of health just good enough to support those, rather than 60 years of being on leaderboards only a very few (perhaps only you) care about.
Also, how would you feel about only 50 years of a challenging but meaningful life as you define such things? Or 40? Or 30? Every year brings a possibility of some setback that puts that kind of physical fulfillment out of reach, and the probability tends to increase over time. Between genetics, dietary habits, smoking/drinking, occupational/environmental stress, infectious disease, or simple accidents, almost everyone hits some kind of limitation before 60. Sometimes through absolutely no fault of their own, and almost always before they expected. High-risk or high-physical stress activities only worsen those odds, and hyper-competitive "type A" behavior does so in specific well-understood ways.
There's no dichotomy between maximizing total years and maximizing good years. If you graph quality of life over time, extending the curve to the right also increases the time above any arbitrary threshold. The point of the article is that high-intensity exercise-for-its-own-sake might be less effective for such maximization than more frequent but less intense "incidental" exercise. If you have actually run a marathon, surely you know that sprinting the first mile won't get you across the finish line faster and might ruin your chances to get across it at all.
After a certain point there are diminishing returns on running and at a certain point over that there are actually statistically negative consequences.
https://www.active.com/running/articles/the-risks-and-benefi...
Out of them:
90% of my male friends go to gym to build aesthetic bodies, it helps them attract females.
Out of them:
97% of them take whey protein, fish oil, vitamin D, creatine, withania smonifera
70% of them take anabolic steroids.
30% still end up with escorts and hookers.
That said these are my Dutch friends in Amsterdam.
So i would say very few actually go to gym for longetivity.
Particular my male friends, smoke and do drugs, they all say they wanna live a short but exciting life where they get everything they want, let it be money or girls.
Most of my friends don't go to the gym - they drink. Maybe I hang out with the wrong crowd.
Edit: Also no need to be a jerk about “reading comprehension” even if the comment hadn’t been edited to mismatch my reply. That’s the first rule in the HN guidelines.
I simply edited my comment to clarify how many of my friend actually go to gym.
And I added, "out of them" to clarify that further distribution is sub distribution of the distribution above it.
Of course, cycling to work probably won't get you ripped, but it can be helpful for getting some exercise without needing to set time aside for it.
My 23andme report says that I've disproportionately high amount of fast twitch muscle fiber.
And I am gaining muscle faster than my friends, sometimes even faster than the ones who take steroids.
I am not cacassian. 20% North European, 30% South East Asian, 20% Siberian, 30% Arab.
You might find this useful: https://www.t-nation.com/training/truth-about-bodybuilding-g...
If we've only 1-2 hours to train daily, then some of might not be able to achieve the results we are seeking due to lack of gene expression. We aren't fulltime bodybuilders and have demanding job at a tech company
In that case, if you still want the results, you'll have to resort to rHGH, testosterone and anabolic steroid.
And people wonder how movie stars can put on so much bulk for film roles so quick... Hmmmm I'll leave that up to the reader to interpret.
Because it's anecdotal?
Anyway - here's an upvote, as I don't see anything wrong with it.
It would be nice if people would reply with why they downvote a comment.
<<40% of my friends go to gym. Out of them:
90% of my male friends go to gym to build aesthetic bodies, it helps them attract females.
Out of them:
97% of them take whey protein, fish oil, vitamin D, creatine, withania smonifera
70% of them take anabolic steroids.
30% still end up with escorts and hookers.>>
Sounds like they are all < 40 too. Let's see what they want when they get to 40, 50 and such.
Interesting ... and sadly laughable considering modern cities.
I wonder if my 15 minutes walk to the station each way counts!
Why wouldn't it?
Modern US cities.
Beware of the ol' "I have a job so I can afford a car to go to work..." or "I'm working out so I can feel good about myself so I can feel worthy of women/love" or any self-unfulfilling prophecy. A comment above about the guy's friends working out in order to get chicks... It's another thing I find quite strange. Sure, there are like 2% of girls who are only attracted to very muscular men (and they're rarely the most attractive) - but 98% of girls want a "real man". What is a real man? Well, I'm not going to say because I don't want to get my comment killed again :D However, spending so much time and concern on how you physically look is feminine, not masculine. Just inquire with some girls sometime; they'll tell you they're sick of it! Unless you're trying to cultivate beyond the body & mind, then 15m of strenuous exercise 3 times per week is all you need. Spending hours curling in front of gym mirrors is a beauty contest in fetishized insecurity.
Focusing on the outliers doesn't really prove a thing.
In contrast when I lived in the Netherlands I found it VERY easy to be healthy. Life is organized around biking there: it is safe, easy and convenient to do. I probably biked around 1 hour every day, just from doing errands, meeting friends, going to university etc.
If I wanted to grab some food, there was usually a lot more healthy options available. E.g. even in tiny stores in the Netherlands they have great vegetarian options.
A lot of this is not stuff as an individual you can decide on. It depends on zoning laws, building of bike lanes and a multitude of policies and traditions you cannon easily change without collective action.
It also depends on the area, though. And I would also say just because you’re approached by the police doesn’t mean you’re being suspicious. I’ve been pulled over by police before just because they wanted to let me know it was a dangerous area (I wasn’t from the area).
Edit: I really hope that downvote came from a European or non-American. /s
As an American (and been here my entire life), what I posted above is very accurate to what I have observed.
Maybe in other parts of the country it’s different but in the cities I’m most intimate with (Atlanta, Memphis, Jackson), this is definitely the case.
Another time they didn't let me drive further, when they saw that we were a bunch of clueless europeans.
I didn't downvote you, though I thought your comment really needed a citation.
However, it's also probably true, given how often people are killed by drivers at night. It depends on a lot on the city. Similarly the suburbs are pretty dangerous when you consider road deaths and not just violent crime (though in places with presumed liability, operating your car unsafely _is_ a crime).
When I lived in Santa Monica walking across Wilshire blvd. at night was especially dangerous (25 mph limit but people routinely went 45mph+), and pedestrians were (and are) killed on a regular basis. My understanding is at least one of the cities you named (Atlanta) is considered a poster child in how to design a city to be dangerous for walking.
However, if you've walked in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, etc. at night you'll know a large city can be a lovely place for a night stroll.
I am an American who has lived in the EU for 6 years, fwiw.
In NYC where I live which has subways with stations that mostly do not have escalators people are constantly walking and walking up and down stairs as part of their daily activity.
During the hours long rush-hours it is also much faster taking subways than automobiles (e.g 15 mins instead of 45 mins).
Cities can be designed as NYC so that there is plenty of walking and stair climbing as part of the daily activity.
There are also plenty of Citibikes (cheap rentable bicycles) and bike lanes.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2358586/dont-worry-about-exerc...
Any BJJ people here?
The title of the article makes it sound like walking is better than gyming and is misleading, just like most Quartz articles these days. Sigh, I live in a world where Quartz is becoming Buzzfeed, and Buzzfeed is becoming Quartz.