
What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise - ALee
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/03/exercise-depression-disease-death-sit-less-move-more
======
jcousins
I reversed diabetes with diet alone by doing my own research[1], taking charge
of my health. I lost 180lbs in the process. No exercise (disabled). Very much
a work in progress.

I'm not rejecting the importance of exercise for health - I follow the general
principal of eating to get healthy, exercising to get fit - but I think we
skip over the absolute tragedy that is the Standard American Diet at our
peril.

Recovering from the consuequences of three/four generations of preaching the
lipid hypothesis[2], as fast as we damn well can, is the ultimate way to defy
depression, disease and early death.

[1] [http://www.thefatemperor.com/blog/2015/9/5/fat-emperor-
produ...](http://www.thefatemperor.com/blog/2015/9/5/fat-emperor-productions-
present-the-kraft-interview-decoding-diabetes)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_hypothesis)

~~~
throwaway0255
I'm on the same track as you, I've lost about 80lbs so far and I've done zero
exercise.

I've found that when I tell people this, they worry about my health even more
than they did when I was 80lbs heavier. It's bizarre.

Never mind the fact that my blood pressure is now a pristine 110 over 70, all
my pre-diabetic symptoms have disappeared, my sleep apnea is cured, my
gastroesophageal reflux disease is completely gone, my cholesterol and
triglycerides are back to normal, etc.

The fact is exercise has an almost negligible impact on weight loss.

Let's be very generous and say an hour of typical exercise burns 350 calories.
If you're overweight, compare that to the 120 calories you burn per hour spent
sitting in your chair. That's an extra 230 calories you burned by exercising
for an hour.

That 230 calorie expenditure costs you:

* 1.5 to 2 hours of disruption to your daily life

* An hour spent being extremely bored and uncomfortable

* An ever-growing amount of generalized aches and joint pains as you put together consecutive days of doing this

And at 230 calories per hour, doing an hour of exercise every single day nets
you 1610 calories per week, which is less than 1 pound of fat loss every 2
weeks. You turn your whole life upside-down, make yourself miserable and in
pain every single day, take significant time away from work and studying and
family, and all you get is LESS THAN 1 additional pound lost every 2 weeks.

I honestly think the net impact of promoting exercise as a weight loss option
is people getting and staying fatter. People have a tendency to dramatically
overestimate the calories they're burning, people want to use exercise as a
way to avoid having to eat less, and people use exercise as an excuse to eat
more. It also causes an amount of disruption and discomfort in people's lives
that's probably the number one cause of people giving up on their weight loss
goals.

As far as health impacts, I'm still not convinced on the cause-and-effect
here. I want to start doing some physical activities soon, but that's not
going to cause me to be less depressed, that's a _result of_ me being less
depressed because of all the weight I've been losing. All the studies I've
seen on exercise and health draw the same sort of "playing basketball makes
you taller"-conclusion.

~~~
jasonwelk
> An hour spent being extremely bored and uncomfortable

In the beginning, this is often true. But exercise is addictive! When your
body gets used to it, you really want it and it is not uncomfortable. That
"runners high" is also not a myth.

~~~
randallsquared
I'm willing to grant that this must be true for some people. However, I don't
think it's true for everyone, or maybe even most people. In the early 90s I
was in the US Army for a couple years, and exercise never got better: it was
always a struggle: boring, painful, and stressful. I suppose one good thing
about it was that it was very rare that anything worse happened to me later in
the day... :)

Looking around at the PT groups I was in during that time, I do not think most
of them were looking forward to it.

~~~
WalterBright
I've never been able to reach a point where weight training is anything but
boring and painful. The trouble is it requires mental focus, and I cannot
think about other things while lifting.

I try to mitigate the boredom by watching a movie while doing it.

~~~
pnutjam
I listen to headphones, music, podcasts, ebooks. I find it a very stimulating
time and I feel better about it at a gym, even though I don't socialize much.

Just seeing the same people every day makes me feel like a community member
and helps me stay motivated and connected.

------
jedrek
I think it's amazing the way we've completely sidelined physical activity -
not exercise per se, but any physical activity - in our western lives. Unless
you live without a car, there is no requirement for you to walk more than 1000
steps during the day. Wake up, drive to work, sit at your desk, drive to a
restaurant for dinner, drive home, plop down on your couch. Rinse, repeat.

Even if you do decide to work out, it tends to be the first thing you drop
when you don't have time. Or you worked late. Or you forget your gym clothes.
Or you're just too exhausted to go.

We used to be active, our jobs required motion, we had to walk or cycle to
work, or even take public transportation - which requires you to at least walk
to the stop and back.

Now we literally sit on our asses, day in, day out, and wonder why so many
people are obese.

~~~
hkmurakami
This sounds particularly American, rather than for the entire west.

~~~
jedrek
We like to think so, but there are swaths of Western European where this is
true. Replace the Dodge with a Citroen, the Walmart with Tesco, and the Olive
Garden with a pub. Even in the most pro-bike and public transportation nations
in Europe 20-30% of adults drive to work.

------
pjc50
Just to avoid confusion, not _all_ clinical depression is _fully_ treatable by
exercise; I've known several people who were severely depressed while also
being non-car-owning regular cyclists.

Sometimes antidepressants are required. Sometimes therapy is required. Please
avoid turning this into "why don't you just exercise".

~~~
throwaway0255
You can see this if you just look at the last few hundred years of human
history. Humans used to have to engage in hours of labor every day just to
survive. If the sun was up you were exercising. Were they so much happier and
healthier?

There are people in the world who still have to do that labor. They're not
happier or healthier or longer-lived than the western world. In fact, the
overall high-level trend appears to be that happiness is correlated with being
sedentary.

Correlation doesn't mean causation of course, but as long as articles like
this one are going to imply that it does, I might as well point out that I can
make the exact same argument in the opposite direction.

~~~
3131s
> _They 're not happier or healthier or longer-lived than the western world.
> In fact, the overall high-level trend appears to be that happiness is
> correlated with being sedentary._

Source?

~~~
throwaway0255
This is completely self-evident and not even controversial, but here you go:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Wo...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/World_happiness.png/1200px-
World_happiness.png)

Agrarian populations spend all their time doing hard labor to earn basic
necessities like food, water and shelter. That sucks and they're less happy.

People in western nations live longer and move less. The correlation is pretty
obvious.

~~~
3131s
That chart is not a source for your claim. Not really interested in arguing
the point further.

------
quadcore
Just in case you need to read this again, exercise changed my life. It simply
get rid of the fatigue. Dont take drugs to stay awake, go run half an hour (it
really doesn't take more than that to feel tremendous effects).

~~~
closeparen
I would rate my life satisfaction as at least moderate, but is nothing about
being alive that could possibly justify the experience of exercise,
particularly of running. Given the choice between a lifetime of regular
running or death, I’d choose death without even blinking.

~~~
michaelhoney
You would be missing out on some great experiences. Running is what humans are
good at: our bodies are evolutionarily adapted for it. It makes you feel good.
Yes, running is hard at first, if you're sedentary. But I can assure you that
regular running is considerably more enjoyable than death :)

------
zitterbewegung
Went from 320 pounds to 260. Back problems basically go away unless I have
been sitting a really long time. After I go to the gym I feel great no matter
what day I have had. Since I haven't died I will just rely on the stats in the
article.

~~~
agumonkey
I did go back to sport, I used to be moving 6h+ per week then stopped. Amazing
help. One thing I should do is swimming, the feeling of complete exhaustion
and relaxation after is overwhelmingly good.

Also fixes your bad diet.

~~~
egypturnash
oh man that time when I'm exercising enough that my body starts _insisting_ I
eat better is _the best_

~~~
agumonkey
I stopped eating shit 3 years ago, but since I started long jogging sessions,
I can sense another level, I don't eat, I devour. Apple, beef, veggies,
whatever, it doesn't spend more than 15 seconds in my mouth.

------
spodek
I agree with the article but put it differently.

To say exercise lowers depression, disease, and death normalizes inactivity.

You can define normal how you want, but I prefer to think of exercise as
normal and that lack of it contributes to depression, disease, and death.

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blammo999
Ah yes, let me just conjure up some motivation to get rid of my lack of
motivation.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Well, depression is a positive feedback loop where a negative mental state
leads to actions that amplify that state. To break the loop, something has to
change.

~~~
cjsuk
Eating works :)

------
sigi45
There is a simpler explaination to this: If you spend a few hours doing some
exercise (changing cloth, showering, going to the sport area) you are not
sitting alone, as usual in front of a display or in your couche. It distracts
your mind from your negative thoughts. Also beeing able to walk normally and
without pain, going up stairs etc. is a good and normal feeling. When you get
older and those basic things stop working, that really sucks. Or being
overweight when 'normal' things become tedious.

------
dalkishna
I'm a great fan of my daily walk. So not saying this is necessarily wrong.

But there's no theory! e.g. mental health isn't understood, so whether
exercise is of lasting benefit in that department is unclear. Consider that
people pay good money to _sit_ for a week or more to try to elevate their
well-being. Consider that athletes have their fair share of mental health
issues, and that even top athletes live less than 3 years longer than average.
(Which seems like a small difference.)

Consider that people who move about constantly will eventually drop dead of
heart failure:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Plague_of_1518](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Plague_of_1518)

Examples such as this are perhaps misleading edge cases. But theory would give
some insight into _why_ they are misleading. At present we are blind.

------
seizethecheese
For those still unconvinced, I'll add another anecdote to this thread.

Morning exercise completely cured my intractable insomnia.

~~~
purplethinking
Morning exercise specifically? How about lunch?

~~~
seizethecheese
Lunch works too, but the earlier and the harder the better.

------
frankzander
It's great to have a dog that will be walked every day on every weather. Ok if
you have a cold it's not such a great thing but as a desk worker you must go
out and walk at least one hour per day around.

~~~
DoodleBuggy
I agree with this.

If you like animals and are responsible enough to have what amounts to a light
version of a child, then dogs are excellent for encouraging activity since
they require daily walks.

~~~
frankzander
"light version of a child" is funny :) It's like a child but without the
stress ;)

~~~
musage
I agree and disagree. A well-treated animal does require attention and some
effort, but I agree it causes no stress, to the contrary. But they're like
children who never grow up and will always need you or _someone_ who loves
them from the bottom of their heart when you're gone (maybe not so much with,
say, lizards, but certainly with dogs and to a lesser degree cats). I don't
mean this as a negative per se, I just needed to say that as soon as I saw
"light version of a child". When my cats died, I thought what it might be like
to have children, and I nearly swooned. But then I thought how much better it
is for them to have lived a full life and die on me, than the other way
around, and that's certainly not how it would feel with children.

------
Waterluvian
I've moved from an apartment to a house, which means I have two staircases I
traverse daily, a small lawn to mow, and a few other things like that.

It's amazing to me what even a slight bit of regular activity can do. It just
feels good to be even a little active on a regular basis. I feel so much more
ready to move.

------
tomcam
Exercise does nothing to lighten my mood. I hate exercise in virtually all
forms. Never experienced the "runner's high" or any kind of apparent dopamine
production (not saying it didn't happen, just that I don't ever feel better
with exercise).

------
mendelsd
This is a UK article, and I'm going to post a UK-centric, male-centric comment
(as a UK-based man), but I suspect my comment applies to both genders, and to
many health systems around the world.

I don't doubt exercise is extremely valuable, and that everyone should be
following the advice in TFA. However, I am starting to think that lifestyle
recommendations are a way for a public health system to wash its hands of its
responsibility to actually, proactively care for people. As in: “Well, we're
sure you can make changes on your own to improve your health, so just go and
do your bit while we quietly neglect to do ours".

Yes, you should exercise, and eat right, and not drink too much, and sleep
right, and not stress too much. You should do as much as you reasonably can in
all these areas. But if you're looking to "defy depression, disease and early
death", you'd also better learn a bit about the way your health system
operates, and the common issues it is inclined (presumably for cost reasons)
to ignore.

I've written in past comments about thyroid conditions, which are a big deal,
and can easily go undiagnosed for a long time (due, basically, to cost-driven
neglect). I'm becoming aware of more issues:

1) Testosterone: I’m a middle-aged man and I’ve been complaining to my GP for
months about feeling weak while exercising, and about sleep disruption. I’ve
been doing my own reading, and have just discovered that hypogonadism
(inadequate testosterone levels) is incredibly common amongst middle-aged men:

“Hypogonadism affects ap­proximately 40% of men aged 45 or older, although
less than 5% of these men are actually diagnosed and treated for the
condition” [1]. Even discounting the fact that the author of this article
declares that he consults for pharma companies, that’s a staggering statistic.
So why given my symptoms do I have to ask my GP to check my testosterone
levels, rather than him having ordered the test months ago?

2) Prolactin: it seems a very significant fraction of the population (e.g.
6-25% of the U. S. population) have pituitary tumours, forty percent of which
produce prolactin [2], which is a sex hormone. There’s evidence that people
whose prolactin levels are in the upper normal of the physiological reference
range, suffer from insulin resistance [3] and have significantly increased
risk of mortality [4]. Oh, and prolactin stimulates the immune system and high
levels are associated with autoimmune diseases [5]. I had a test done for
prolactin levels recently (I requested some tests to check for
hypopituitarism), and levels came back quite high but in the normal
physiological range (see above, of course). GP response: “no problem, levels
are normal”. Which is true, in that I appear to be suffering from quite normal
disease that the health system intends to do nothing about.

Bottom line: Do your homework, folks. View your health service as a resource,
a gateway to services. When it comes to chronic conditions and diseases of old
age, you (or nobody) are the principal investigator.

[1] [http://www.bcmj.org/articles/testosterone-deficiency-
practic...](http://www.bcmj.org/articles/testosterone-deficiency-practical-
guidelines-diagnosis-and-treatment)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolactinoma#Epidemiology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolactinoma#Epidemiology)

[3]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28384295](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28384295)

[4]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22843444](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22843444)

[5]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16411065](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16411065)

~~~
dabbledash
I think if 40% of middle aged men have a testosterone level that's below
normal, we've probably misdefined 'normal'.

(And conveniently misdefined it in a way that exploits men's fears about aging
and masculinity to sell them things.)

~~~
stinkytaco
I have no idea about the health claims being addressed, but I do feel
obligated that normal != healthy and perhaps the original comment is
conflating the two.

------
tu7001
Exposure to weather conditions, hot and cold is also critical.

~~~
collyw
First time I have heard that. Got any references, I would like to read more?

~~~
nradov
tu7001's comment shouldn't be down voted, it is correct. The human body has to
expend energy to heat or cool itself when the ambient environment is outside a
certain narrow range. Sweating burns some calories, even if you're just
sitting around. When we spend our time inside climate controlled rooms then we
burn fewer calories. The effect is small, but measurable.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3975627/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3975627/)

------
mjcohen
Improv.

------
Noos
These articles are such exquisite forms of class warfare that it approaches
the sublime.

1\. Upper class people seek to differentiate themselves from lower class
people by status markers (like reading the guardian)

2\. In the past, food was scarce, so upper class people were fat when lower
class were lean, hence terms like "rubinesque beauty" or the figures of
Botticelli's art.

3\. Now food is common though, so the status marker is to be thin, because
being thin shows you have leisure time to exercise, (you try being on your
feet for 12 hours a day and then going to the gym), have money to eat the
right kinds of food, and have the good form to have discipline not to eat when
you need comfort (or in general need comfort).

4\. but it's not enough to do it, the upper class needs their virtues
reinforced.

5\. Since the upper class is atheistic due to the lower class being religious
(unless they are the right kind of religion, something either punishing to
follow or neo-atheistic as it is), we must focus on the atheist's heaven, good
health.

6\. Your virtue in being thin is rewarded through lack of depression, disease,
and long life! Your priestly newspaper has given you a scientific sermon.

Think about this. Why is this article in the Guardian, who I'm willing to bet
already exercise, eat well, etc? Wouldn't it be in the Daily Mail instead, if
the point was to convince people to exercise? That's because it's there to
reinforce the idea of exercise and thinness as a status marker among the
Guardian readership. The same thing happens in lower class media too, on
different subjects, but the upper class usually never even gets how they are
being led around.

~~~
michaelhoney
You realise that by rejecting health and exercise on political grounds, you
are condemning the lower classes to shorter, unhappier lives? Good food and
exercise really are good for your body and mind, whatever you think of those
effete Guardian readers.

