
Stop Thinking of Exercise as a Way to Lose Weight, You May Actually Enjoy It - ALee
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/if-you-stop-thinking-of-exercise-as-a-way-to-lose-weight-you-may-actually-enjoy-it/
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hprotagonist
Something i have personal experience with -- I knocked off 80 pounds a few
years ago.

 _Diet_ controls _mass_.

 _Exercise_ controls _fitness_.

They're mostly[0] decoupled. This is not intuitive to reason about.

[0] there are some interesting things in difference in metabolic rates of
tissue types, but it doesn't really matter much for mere mortals.

~~~
szemet
Excercise also changes body composition. It is usually missing from these
articles - people are so much conserned about sheer body weight.

Even if one didn't lose weight may look much slimmer, just by having lower fat
percentage... People with low enough body fat (especially taller people) can
be rather slim even with BMI over 25...

~~~
hprotagonist
that’s what i meant about fitness.

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phamilton
I once did a research paper on how exercise affects depression for a
persuasive writing class. I don't remember much about it, but one particular
study compared people with active jobs and people who were only active in
their free time. It suggested that exercise as a form of leisure was more
effective in combatting depression than just overall activity.

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jaravis
Great article - we saw the same lack of correlation between activity level and
weight when analyzing data from 750+ fitness tests:

[https://hack.fitness/2017/04/09/what-we-learnt-
from-750-fitn...](https://hack.fitness/2017/04/09/what-we-learnt-
from-750-fitness-tests/)

Increasing activity however does have a positive impact on your fitness
(specifically VO2Max) -- the challenge is that this increase in fitness is
invisible to most.

That's a big part of the reason why we started Revvo
([http://revvo.co](http://revvo.co)) - to make it easy to measure the vital
but often invisible elements of fitness.

~~~
trendia
The authors only looked at weight and BMI, and _not_ bodyfat % or lean mass,
which are much better indicators of health than weight or BMI alone.

Someone who is 6' and 200 lbs could either be a body builder or a coach
potato, and they'd have the same BMI.

~~~
jaravis
Sure -- but body fat won't change much with aerobic activity (such as running)
without also impacting weight.

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neverminder
I am lifting (and doing some cardio) for 7 years now. The truth is there's
nothing to enjoy, it's just routine. Just like having a shower, brushing
teeth, making diner and washing dishes. It's hard and monotonous work, not
leisure. I've seen people who seek "to enjoy it" come and go all the time,
because they just don't have the right mindset.

~~~
mlevental
I've been doing it for 15 years. amongst my friends I'm the workout zealot. I
used to run 15 miles a day 4 days a week and I've got good PRs (approaching 1k
lbs right now). I enjoy it. do I enjoy it like I enjoy candy? a good movie? a
day at the beach? of course not. but I don't enjoy writing code in that way
either and yet I enjoy writing code. the change of mind is coming to enjoy
difficult things (not making difficult things easy)

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HumanDrivenDev
That's good because I do enjoy it, and it doesn't help in the slightest.

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moneytide1
I do not like repetitive motion without productivity. I understand the
argument that this type of movement ("exercise") leads to enhanced capacity
for mental labor, and less healthcare budget. What bothers me is not getting
anything done.

Riding a bike is repetitive, but you instantly see results (going somewhere).

Swinging an axe into a tree over and over is repetitive, but a felled tree can
be a useful resource.

Rearranging all your furniture may seem repetitive, but you are creating a
fresh space, simultaneously cleaning. Doing this with others further
reinforces community.

"Exercise" became a common term as we gradually started expecting machines to
do the heavy lifting.

Now we pay a "membership" fee to go somewhere safe and climate controlled so
we can simulate labor (mostly iron going up and down up and down).

The hydrocarbon killed creativity and fortitude?

~~~
nightski
Wow, judgmental much?

For some of us the "productivity" is the mental high you get from the workout.
Honestly I just feel damn good. Lifting weights and cycling (yes even indoor)
both are very enjoyable and give me a high equivalent to eating chocolate,
sex, or other chemically rewarding activities. I pay for a personal trainer
not because of the air conditioning, but because there is tens of thousands of
dollars in equipment to help me train that I have no interest in buying
myself.

~~~
moneytide1
Today I worked some harsh terrain by hand - it is a thicket and the roots are
heavily entrenched. My goal is to dig a channel away from where I'm building
my house, so water can drain from the foundation. Lifting dirt is more of a
lower back workout, but tugging on those roots... I feel it in my abs and
triceps. The harder I tug, the larger these assets will become (as long as I
supply their growth with protein).

There are lots of rocks in the primary creek where gravity brings the rain. I
plan on moving these rocks out to use as for a road so I can bring my truck
through the mud to my building site, and ferry heavier tools and supplies. For
now I am walking a half mile to the site with my pickaxe, shovel, and hedge
trimmers. Sometimes I'll go into a sprint, for no reason really, until I get
winded. There is usually a steady burn on my shoulders while I lug this gear.
I imagine this is the sort of conditioning required of a soldier throughout
the ages - to be able to carry your own weight, equipment and all, through the
mud and uneven terrain.

My ultimate goal is to build an off-grid home, and dam up this creek so I can
use it for hydroelectric power to supplement my home-made solar panels. These
panels are low cost, because I'll drive around on Saturdays and find glass on
the side of the road that people apparently don't want (renovation?). This is
another workout, and simultaneous recycling measure.

When we use physical labor only as a means to achieve an image, we are only
fooling the opposite sex. Basic sexual attraction has everything to do with
physicality - it is a signal of a mates capacity for strength and endurance.
It's not that working out in a gym is a waste of time, because the body does
become stronger if effort is applied. But that is the very thing we become
good at - iron up and down in the same spot.

~~~
moneytide1
Also, I tend to get at least a few cuts on thorns when I do this. In a way,
this exercises my immune system.

Sterile environments are dangerous.

