The bar for what counts as physical activity seems to be pretty low. I haven't done anything that I would consider a physical activity in the last month but if walking 10 minutes to the grocery store once a month counts, then I am living an active life.
> The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd editionexternal icon, recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week. This can be broken into smaller amounts such as 22 minutes every day or 30 minutes/five times a week. Individuals and families are encouraged to build physical activity into their day by going for a brisk walk or a hike, walking the dog, choosing the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, parking further away in the parking lot and walking the rest of the way, walking or cycling to run errands, and getting off the bus one stop early and walking the rest of the way. The key is to move more and sit less.
10 minutes to the grocery store once a month does not count.
You're right - clicking in I found this question[1]:
“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?”
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.
Simply swinging a golf club during the round is a full-body exercise. You can't do a large bucket of balls at the range if you're out of shape -- you'll wear out first. Walking a course as a spectator, and playing with a caddy (to keep the comparison fair because you don't carry a bag either way), is a different physical experience.
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.).
Suppose you work in a suburban office park with a decent-sized office park building. It might take you 5 minutes to walk from your car to your cubicle, and another 5 minutes from your cubicle to the cafeteria. That puts you at 20 minutes a workday of physical activity... add another daily trip to the cafeteria for coffee, and that would be the minimum threshold for physical activity.
Before COVID and home office I used to walk to the office which must have taken somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes for 2.5 kilometres twice a day. But if someone had asked me for physical activity I would still have answered none.
Keep in mind that the medical classification of overweight and obese don't line up with what most people think of when they hear those terms. Anyone who is taller than average and has even a little bit of muscle mass will come in as overweight or obese.
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.
What you say is absolutely true. But I will also say that most people have warped ideas of proper weight. Using myself as an example, I was 195 and felt like I was overweight but not obese. If only I could get down to 165 again I'd be skinny. Charts said my "normal" range was 120-140 and I felt like that was ridiculous. When I reached 160 I was surprised at how much fat was still on my body. Again at 145. When I reached 130 I could finally see that those numbers made sense. I was fit, not a lifter but not sedentary either. The range was perfect.
Agreed with everything except the first sentence. People's subjective judgements of normal have been warped because most people are fat. Hell, 42% are obese. Everyone is the captain of their own life but at people should at least be objective and honest with themselves and not try to dismiss reality as a coping mechanism, even if it is an unconscious one.
I'm pretty sure this isn't true. Just take a look at data of American BMI over time[1]. I don't think you can explain that away as "people are tall" (BMI takes height into account) and muscular, with a straight face -- very, very few people have BMIs over 25 due to muscle and very, very, very, _very_ few people have BMIs over 30 due to muscle. I think most people's natural judgement of overweight and obese are correct and for the vast majority of people it accurately buckets them into overweight/obese classifications because they are.
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.
It’s well established that BMI doesn’t work well for diagnosing individuals but is a reliable and valid method for measuring obesity in populations. For individuals measuring body fat percentage is probably the most accurate measurement, but given the cost of reliable body fat percentage measurements, a scale, a mirror, and some honesty is what a person really needs.
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.
Most HN users can afford the cost of an annual DXA scan. It costs less than $100 to get an accurate body fat measurement.
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.
An anectdote: I am 5'10", have a 30" inseam (longer torso than normal for my height), and cycle a lot. My legs are quite muscular, and upper body is reasonable with just a bit of a stomach. My RHR is in the 50s. I weigh ~175 most of the time, dipping into the upper 160s during summer.
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 your body double (5'10", wear 30/30 pants). I run (1:46 HM) and I lift (1.5x bw bench, 2x bw squat). My RHR is low 50s.
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.
34/30 pants for me, but yeah, I think torso size is a big part of it. It also comes out in bicycle sizing.
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.)
Your case is exception, not the rule. People always bring up how inaccurate the BMI is, and it's true but not for the reasons they usually think (i.e., overestimating how prevalent obesity is). BMI is bad because it actually underestimates obesity prevalence.
All of my experience would be the complete opposite. Obesity is so normalized in contemporary American society that we have skewed, unhealthy concepts of what is "skinny", "normal" and "fat".
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.
> Keep in mind that the medical classification of overweight and obese don't line up with what most people think of when they hear those terms.
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.)
This is really not true outside of extreme non-weight class strength athletes. I'm 6'2" and would need to hit 195 lbs before 25 BMI, which is where "overweight" starts. That's roughly Chris Evans at peak Captain American shape. How many people in any randomly selected group do you think are really more muscular than Captain America and that accounts for why their BMI is high? I'd need to be 234 to hit 30 and qualify as "obese." At that point, you're barely short of peak Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is not achievable without getting fat unless you're taking a lot of anabolic steroids.
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.
> That's roughly Chris Evans at peak Captain American shape
> 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.
I am pretty strong and still get chubby when over 25 BMI. Unless you are using AAS I personally doubt you are at peak healthiness at 30 BMI. And if you are using AAS, those are just as bad for your heart/cholesterol as being fat, if not moreso.
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.
I'm obese (bmi 31, i'm a big guy) but active: i walk several miles most days, lift weights, rock climb, and use the rowing machine, adding exercise on to my walks about 4 days a week. Still, it's easy to gain weight and hard to lose it.
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 think appetite itself has a lot to do with the nutritional density of what you're eating. I can eat 1000kcal of gummy worms and just be getting started, but 1000kcal of ground beef and I can't look at food for a few hours. Or in other words, it seems like your body will keep giving you hunger-signals regardless of volume, until it gets what it needs (e.g. protein, minerals, vitamins).
The real problem here is self-control and self-discipline, or the total lack thereof.
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.
While you are not wrong about self-discipline being an important factor, there are also genetic components to things like ghrelin and leptin levels and responsiveness.
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.
> If you refuse to understand this obvious truth, then perhaps you're right about yourself: you are mentally and genetically defective. For obvious reasons, we can't afford to have genetic defectives giving shitty advice that will enable others to ruin their lives,
"Genetically defective" - who determines this? And how are we to know that you yourself are not 'defective'?
Hmmm...how about the fact that I don't engorge my piehole with mass quantities of junk food, become obese, then make pitiful and pathetic excuses for my lack of self control?
How about the fact that at 41 years old, I am much healthier than 95% of the U.S. high school graduating class of 2022, many of whom are too fat to see their own feet without a mirror?
How about the fact that my conscious CHOICES have kept me healthy and free of sickness for all of my adult life, despite society's attempt to brainwash me to become an unhealthy, disgusting lard ass?
Do you think any of that might indicate some form of superiority?
Do you agree with the other idiot that these poor, helpless obese people can't possibly do anything to help themselves? Then you are also genetically defective, and striving hard to bring down as many others as you can.
The idiot himself admits he is defective. Isn't that the entire point of the "but I just can't help myself" excuse? I tried to help him see reason and overcome his poor mindset, but he steadfastly stuck to his "I'm just defective and can't help myself" excuse. So I guess in the end I am forced to agree with him.
I guess that just proves my point about discipline being a limited resource. You appear to have put of yours into bettering your physical health and none into interpersonal relationships or compassion.
The genetics of the human population have not shifted nearly as fast as weights have increased. Genetics may play some role in weight, but other factors are far more determinant.
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.
> My father never exercised, ate what he wanted, and was always skinny.
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 "obese" my medical standards but wear a size men's medium with a 34 waist simply because I workout a lot. BMI is a terrible estimator for anyone that lifts heavy weights. I can still run a mile in under 8 minutes too.
I'm always shocked the medical community still uses BMI in 2022.
BMI is not useful as an individual metric, but as a population-wide average.
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.
When traveling though Europe you can really notice what a healthy society looks like.
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
Even without the dressings, they tend to be loaded with items like meat, cheese, bacon, and croutons. The lettuce is a nutritional non-entity -- at best, a way of getting some extra water into you.
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.
There aren't any magic health foods. There are a lot of ways to eat a healthy diet. Most of them are based on a lot of vegetables (in different varieties), whole grains, pulses such as beans, and (if you like) some meat and dairy. The last is optional but makes certain things easier.
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).
Spinach, Kale, and Beans are as close to “magic” health food as you can get. However there is of course no magic going on. It’s just a question of giving your body the right source materials to heal itself from the damage caused by eating unhealthy food. The body is amazing at healing itself. But it can’t do it if you keep damaging it with crappy food and don’t give it the nutrients it needs to heal itself.
> When traveling though Europe you can really notice what a healthy society looks like.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
You are absolutely right. Taking responsible for your own health is the only thing that will help you long term. Doctors in general are not trained in nutritional science, and are typically as unhealthy as the rest of the population. So you need to either get advice from a nutritional expert or read books that teach you the skills needed. That’s what I did and it saved my health. I recommend reading “How Not To Die”. It’s the best “one book solution” I have read so far.
Definitively. As someone who runs, I've been amazed at how many people think a MILE is a long distance to run or that people have very little conception of how much time it takes for an average human to simply walk a mile.
I had to walk to pick up my car at the hospital yesterday with my young daughter, and it was a 1.5 mile walk. It was pretty easy, and my daughter had a lot of fun. But a lot of people wouldn’t have attempted it because they would think a 30 minute walk is nuts.
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.
I just moved to the suburbs and, while it is winter, I'm surprised to see that my wife and I are usually the only people walking to places. Even ones that are hundreds of feet from our door!
The ubiquity of car-centric designs in major population areas of the US has produced immeasurable harm both environmentally and physically. I've seen obese family members lose tens of pounds while spending a few months in Europe in part because they have to walk a few extra miles each day (and in part due to dietary changes, I'm sure).
Walking "several miles per day" isn't sufficient enough to burn tens of pounds without a major diet change. Even at 5 miles per day, you'd be likely burning 350-450kCal, which is not enough of an expenditure to make that much of a difference. For weight loss, even moderate exercise will not yield same results as significant diet changes will.
It's hard to disagree with such a objective view, but I would like to validate that I've seen similar changes in my friends and peers that travel. A reduced diet and moderate exercise can really do more than you expect.
The advice really should depend on where you are. There's an old adage that says "you can't outrun your fork", and that's very much true. Cardio alone will often be compensated by increases in hunger. If you aren't on top of your diet, then exercising probably won't amount to much.
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.
> Walking "several miles per day" isn't sufficient enough to burn tens of pounds...you'd be likely burning 350-450kCal [per day]
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."
And yet somehow walking alone does not seem to be a sufficient weight loss method for vast majority of people (nor does moderate cardio which burns considerably more).
Possibly, but the implication here is that you aren't specifically exercising - you're just being more active as a byproduct of being in a different environment. The impetus to "reward" yourself for that behavior would seem to be lower.
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?
Unfortunately, weight loss is slightly more complicated than that, 450kCal/day for a month isn't quite 4lbs/month (even for fat) and my estimate of 350-450kCal/day for walking several miles is likely an over-estimate. I would find it quite unlikely for most people to lose even 20lbs only as a result of added walking in 6 months without diet changes.
I think going from almost no exercise to walking a few miles a day probably has enough of a positive effect as to help some people break the "feel like crap > eat comfort and junk food to feel better > feel like crap later" death spiral.
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.
Walking alone with no other changes will do little for weight loss. But exercise does affect diet and satiety. There are also changes in terms of mental well being. Keeping active has benefits well beyond mere calorie expenditure.
This is the key. We like to blame people for being inactive and overweight, but we've designed our transportation and food systems so that only the most motivated can be anything else.
Yeah I've thought about this in the past in the context of software development "sane defaults"...here in NYC just going about normal daily activities easily results in 3+ miles of walking per day. The "default" lifestyle involves walking to transit, walking to shops etc. Plenty of people use cars, but in very many situations it's more cumbersome than walking/transit.
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.
Just an anecdote- but the wife and I when we go to Europe eat well and post lots of pictures and such and people make jokes like- how much weight did you put on while you were away? And most of the time we actually come home down 2-3 pounds, and its because we are walking around and seeing sights and such- the meals we eat aren't an issue- especially since portions are much smaller.
Yep, same here. Last 2 week trip to Paris / Chamonix resulted in my losing a few pounds just because we're covering 12 - 14 miles on foot daily. It probably helps that I don't really care for much French food and just ate kebab the whole time.
10km daily is my bare minimum.Granted during winter I walk some part of it, up to 30-40% or even more because i need my body to slowly adjust to cold temps.This is especially true for sub 8-10C and almost mandatory for <0C(sometimes i don't need to, due to the godly cold showers).
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)
> 30-40% or even more because i need my body to slowly adjust to cold
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.
Well depends on how much i want to run, that adjustment period i usually take for setting a deeper & slower breathing tempo which helps with energy during longer runs(i think some may call this trying to avoid 'negative energy' in endurance terms).I have the same reaction usually with colder temps: go faster->higher blood flow->feel less cold.I also do more breaks in summer,it's definitely worse.I guess my lower BMI & generally less time for recovery immediately after are the main reasons for these changes.
> As someone who runs, I've been amazed at how many people think a MILE is a long distance to run
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.
Walking barely counts as being active. It takes almost no effort and 99.999% of the time does not increase heart rate which is the important part of exercise.
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
I'm pretty fit, and walking absolutely increases my heart rate.
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.)
I didn't say it's high. I said it's an increase over 55-60. The claim was that walking doesn't increase ones heart rate, which is, assuming we can agree that 100 > 60, is demonstrably false.
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.
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.
> Walking barely counts as being active ... does not increase heart rate
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).
A mile is not far. "don't run distances" is an excuse for most people (people with immutable disabilities notwithstanding) and gatekeeping in this case is not only valid, but necessary to maintain an objective idea of what bare minimum physical activity should be for a human body.
I don't think I would've thought a mile as a "long run", but until age 30 it was further than I'd ever run without having to stop to rest. If you don't run regularly, running for any length of time is hard, even if you're in good shape. (I was biking ~70 miles a week when I first started running, but unless you're really pushing, that doesn't work your heart of lungs anywhere near as hard.)
When I started running (or rather, attempted many times over a few years) I hated every moment of it and would regularly quit after literally 60 seconds. I had to learn to run very slow to start off. Very soon my pace drastically quickened and anything below 5k felt like a complete cop out.
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.
That's one of the weirder things about running. Generally you just say "go out for a run" like there's no skill to - that's it's just effort.
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.
How can "active enough to protect their health" be anything other than arbitrary, a value in the eye of the beholder? To take that fluffy indeterminate thing and use it to divide up society isn't much more than saying "we think 25% of people don't move around enough". That's not very authoritative.
More interesting would be "active enough for optimal health", since you can at least approach an objective definition of "optimal".
This article is based on self-report data, where the (relatively objective) criteria is:
> 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.
The "other than your regular job" bit seems a bit odd. Someone who works as a labourer probably doesn't need to do any exercise outside of work to be active enough.
"active enough that factors other than exercise dominate health" would seem to be a reasonable bar to me. Obviously you can only estimate this, but that still seems useful.
True I can see that in myself too but I'm not going to change...
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.
The recommendation is "150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week", 6 hours of treadmill isn't required and it would probably make it more palatable without thinking like that. I'm not a team sports person at all, but I've found I enjoy the gym and jogging, those both can be solitary activities where you throw music or an audio-book on and just go.
It's really not about liking or not , most things are just habits. It's isn't necessarily a healthy state to like inactivity either. Humans aren't built to live in small square rooms , it's an acquired taste that most people have because they grew up in cities.
I think the treadmill sounds terrible as well, but maybe be open to the possibility that you would enjoy some if fitter and thinner. I’ve been strong and fit and I’ve been pretty overweight. The state affects what you perceive as enjoyable.
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.
You don’t need to. Just go for a 20 min walk every day and change your diet to be more healthy. Read “How Not To Die” to learn the food skills you need.
The simplest thing you can do to lose weight reduce the amount of sugar that consume, eat some vegetables. and reduce your feeding window. I highly recommend just eating once a meal day. Try it for a week. I guarantee you feel better by the end of it. If not I'll give you your money back ;).
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.
Get two dumbbells and do a 10-minute dumbbell workout off youtube. Better than going on blood pressure pills or whatever is coming down the line for ya.
I am in the same flabby boat really. I don't really need a lot of health to keep my life where it is now. Can I walk? Can I talk? Can I go up two flights of stairs? Can I carry a piece of luggage to the car to go to an airport?
Beyond that, I have no real physical needs living the stereotypical software dev life behind a computer.
> I'm working on losing some weight by dieting but I just don't like sports.
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.
Just gonna add to the chorus of "this is really easy to say when you're still in good health." You'll care when it goes bad. I had ten screws put in my spine and two discs removed a few years back, which has the unfortunate side effect of putting more strain on my hips and making them very stiff. I got lazy midway through the pandemic and totally stopped lifting for 15 months. I got a little fat, but only a little, and that wasn't really a big deal. But it destroyed my hips. They got unbelievably stiff, almost nonstop daily pain, at one point I could barely even keep having sex with my wife because the positions hurt so much.
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.
> [...] I just don't like sports [...] Most sports enthusiasts actually like what they're doing so it's easy for them.
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.
You most certainly will the moment your body starts failing you and you have to live with pain every day. But at that point in time it will be too late. Health is not about not dying. It is about quality of life and long term happiness.
> I do go for hikes but not really for the exercise,
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. :)
About 1/4 of US deaths each year are from heart disease[1]. When you have it as a chronic disease, living with it, you have less energy and capability to do physical activity. I know people living with it who have trouble grocery shopping without being out of energy.
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.
>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.
"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.
Obesity is a major risk factor for COVID hospitalization and death[1]. A few highlights from the CDC[2]:
* 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.
> “A huge proportion of your immune system is actually in your GI tract,” says Dan Peterson, assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. [1]
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.
How would increasing physical activity not reduce obesity? If I’m understanding that link correctly it is saying “fitness” and weight are two different measures so obese people can be fit. I doubt many Americans fall into this category.
Exercise burns far fewer calories than I thought (I was surprised by this too). If you walk a mile, you only burn 100 or so calories and that assumes you are walking briskly.
That isn't enough to really change things for many people.
Calories burned is just the start of the benefits of exercise. It also promotes muscle development which will cause fewer aches and pains as one ages. It increases lung capacity through deeper breathing, which promotes the parasympathetic nervous system and helps keep one more relaxed throughout the day. It strengthens the heart, leading to lower blood pressure and a lower resting heart rate.
Health and weight are much more complicated than simply calories in minus calories out.
Not all cardio is built the same and walking/running (for many) is not the most efficient way to burn calories.
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.
> An endurance run for me will burn much closer to an estimated 300kCal/hr.
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.
There is more to endurance exercise than just calories burned; it can be amazingly effective, way out of proportion to the raw calorie picture.
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.
Agreed in principle. Cardio makes me feel good (I am borderline obese). I was in a good place at the start of the pandemic .. lost about 30 pounds by heavy exercise and completely cutting out take out food and junk food. Year 2 of the pandemic has been terrible for me (mainly due to responsibilities related to work and 2 little kids). I gained all my weight back and my eating is terrible again. I am actually scared of working out because it raises my appetite by a disproportionate amount :(
> It’s not clear that increasing physical activity will actually reduce obesity.
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.
None of which matters unless you can convince people to run a calorie deficit. Despite years of public health messaging, the obesity rate continues to rise.
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?
> For these maps, physical inactivity for adults is defined as not participating in any physical activities outside of work over the last month – activities such as running, walking for exercise, or gardening.
Weird definition. A physical job could fall under physical inactivity.
I think this can't be much of a surprise.
But perhaps in a HN context, maybe the follow-on questions should be:
- 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?
> When devices support our mobility, why do we feel such a powerful pull to sit on couches looking at phones?
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.
I can tell you that when I played Ingress, I walked a fair bit more as a result. I also ran a lot, but tbh my runs would cut short because by mile ~10 my phone battery would be low.)
Mobile devices are great for passively consuming content and recording your surroundings. For the most part, that is not what people are using computers for when they're using computers for work. They need keyboards and full-size displays and the ability to install software that doesn't come from Google's or Apple's walled gardens.
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.
Honestly it's worse than this sounds. According to a UNC study only 12% of adults are metabolically healthy.
>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.
Here's a hot take: a lot of these health issues and negative outcomes can be tied back to the automobile.
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.
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 considered overweight by BMI measurements due to my height & build, but I'm actually quite active by lifting weights, playing basketball, and running regularly(5x a week usually).
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.
I do 4 mile runs 3x a week. Play pickup basketball 1-2x a week. Lift weights 3x a week. Do deep breathing exercises at home (i.e. hold breath for 1 minute, 1.5 minutes, etc).
IF you're looking to get into cardio I would recommend:
- 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.
Here is my own experience and advice about health and physical fitness, shared in hopes it will encourage and help people who are living unhealthy lives, because they have been misled by society. I'm typing this on a touch screen, which sucks (I'm more of a Model M kind of guy), so I'll make it brief.
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 animal...
the media has spent the last 10 years telling us being fat is acceptable. then covid comes around and how dare you mention losing weight as a partial remedy (78% of those hospitalized with covid are obese). they want us fat and guzzling food products (i.e. chemicals) so we use their allopathic slash and burn "cures".
I'm a bit surprised that "active enough to protect their health" seems to be defined as "taking time for sport." I'm willing to bet that many (no idea how many) people among these 25% have a work that requires considerable physical effort while many (again, no idea how many) among the remaining 75% spend their days sitting in front of a computer.
I may be wrong, but it feels like a social marker more than a health marker.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 269 ms ] threadSource: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
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].
[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef
[2] https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms
1000kcal of gummy worms is 34 gummy worms [2].
[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef
[2] https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms
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.
"Genetically defective" - who determines this? And how are we to know that you yourself are not 'defective'?
How about the fact that at 41 years old, I am much healthier than 95% of the U.S. high school graduating class of 2022, many of whom are too fat to see their own feet without a mirror?
How about the fact that my conscious CHOICES have kept me healthy and free of sickness for all of my adult life, despite society's attempt to brainwash me to become an unhealthy, disgusting lard ass?
Do you think any of that might indicate some form of superiority?
Do you agree with the other idiot that these poor, helpless obese people can't possibly do anything to help themselves? Then you are also genetically defective, and striving hard to bring down as many others as you can.
The idiot himself admits he is defective. Isn't that the entire point of the "but I just can't help myself" excuse? I tried to help him see reason and overcome his poor mindset, but he steadfastly stuck to his "I'm just defective and can't help myself" excuse. So I guess in the end I am forced to agree with him.
There's no reason to repeatedly insult me.
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:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietitian
Seconded. 90% of what chiropractors do is complete quackery.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic_controversy_and...
https://quackwatch.org/related/chiro/
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.
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.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34869516/
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.
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. :)
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.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm
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-...
* 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?
Weird definition. A physical job could fall under physical inactivity.
- 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.
>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...
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 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 animal...
I may be wrong, but it feels like a social marker more than a health marker.