

The Myth of Moderate Exercise - adamdoupe
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1827342,00.html

======
scott_s
I'm in good shape. To some people, it's a bit of a mystery how I'm much more
physically fit than they are. They know I go to the gym, but, hey, they go to
the gym sometimes, too, so what's the deal? Here's the secret:

 _I work really, really hard._

When I go to the gym, I push myself as far as I can take it mentally and
physically that day. Some days it's more than others. But overall, I work much
harder in the gym than most people I know.

Treat your exercise time as something to excel it, not a chore to do. It can
make a world of difference.

~~~
gnaritas
Except it is a chore, it's not fun. If we could just take a magic pill and
instantly be in shape, I can't imagine anyone still choosing to exercise,
thus, chore!

~~~
scott_s
It's a chore to you, and I'm sorry for that. So find something fun.

That you can't imagine anyone still choosing to exercise says a lot about how
you think about it. Going through a good workout is the same for me as solving
a hard problem.

~~~
gnaritas
Sure it says a lot about how I think about it, I think people weren't meant
push around artificial weights for hours on end boring themselves to death,
it's not what our muscles are for. They're for walking and running and hunting
and other physical activities that actually have a point beyond recursively
working out to have muscles to work out with. Staying in shape should be a
means, not and end.

It's cool that you've figured out how to enjoy it, but to _most_ of society,
it's an utterly boring mind numbing repetitious activity; that it has health
benefits makes it no less so.

If your body was just naturally in great shape and required no exercise to
stay so, you're telling me you'd still go to the gym and pump weights? For
what possible reason?

~~~
scott_s
If you're bored during your workouts, you're doing it wrong. It's that simple.

My sport of choice is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I tend to combine strength training
and conditioning to complement BJJ practices. But sometimes I'll lift for
power only, because it's fun to change it up.

Since you're on HN, I assume you're a programmer. Don't you like solving
programming puzzles? Doesn't it make you feel good to figure something out,
even if there's no obvious benefit? I have the same attitude with workouts -
both BJJ and the strength training I do.

Last week, I wondered if I could do five reps of five set of Clean & Press at
185 pounds. I could seven months ago. I thought my strength wasn't up to where
it had been. But I did it. It was hard; it took considerable effort to not let
myself feel tired inbetween sets, and to maintain focus during the sets. I had
set an ambitious but realistic goal, and I achieved it. I went home feeling
good.

If you have the right attitude to exercising, there are considerable mental
benefits. I think a big part of this is training for performance, not looks.
Pushing yourself to achieve your performance goals, not your body-image goals.
But someone else said it better, so I'll link to him:
[http://dynamicfitness.blogspot.com/2006/04/df-
tip-13-enough-...](http://dynamicfitness.blogspot.com/2006/04/df-
tip-13-enough-form-try-function.html)

Find something you have fun doing. Maybe a sport or a martial art. Or maybe
your concept of "working out" is too narrow; check out
<http://www.crossfit.com> for people who stress performance during workouts
that generally last less than 30 minutes, but will exhaust you.

~~~
gnaritas
"Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu"

Ah, see, that's what I meant by being a means, a sport is and end and
something fun in itself where the getting in shape is a side effect. When I
say working out, I'm specifically talking about pumping iron in a gym. Yes I'm
a programmer, so my definition isn't so much narrow as it is precise, what can
I say; that's how we are. Playing a sport isn't working out, it's playing a
sport; that it happens to work you out is not the main point merely a nice
benefit. Where I live, it's 115 degrees outside, working up a sweat is the
last thing I want to do, I spend much of my time trying to stop sweating!

"Last week, I wondered if I could do five reps of five set of Clean & Press at
185 pounds."

Yes, but can you wonder that a few times a week on a regular basis and
continue to get any thrill or sense of accomplishment out of it. Performance
are only motivating when you're trying to improve your performance, but that
can't go on forever, at some point you just want to maintain and it's the
maintaining, at a gym, that's boring as fuck.

I agree you have to find something fun to do that works you out as a side
effect, like "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu", which is my whole point. Pumping iron in
the gym, in the long term, is boring as fuck, no matter how you slice it.

I haven't found my "something fun" yet, maybe I will someday, but good for you
that you have.

~~~
scott_s
Actually, I lifted regularly - and enjoyed it - before I got into BJJ. The key
is I'm always trying to improve my performance when lifting. Every time I go
into the gym, I have a different goal.

An important point here is that I know a variety of lifts, so I know a variety
of ways I can challenge myself. Eventually I come back to similar challenges,
but then I always try to improve. So, yes, doing 5x5 C&P with 185 pounds again
would be boring. So I'll do 190 pounds, because I know it will be hard, and
I'm not sure if I can do it.

I agree, if you look at it as maintenance, it is boring, and you will stop
doing it. So focus on improving performance, even if what you try to improve
changes.

And I can't help but notice you keep saying "pumping iron." Are you thinking
of bodybuilder style workouts? I focus on movements, not muscles.

------
dejb
> Within a few months, most of the participants had resorted to exercising as
> much as they chose to. That left researchers with a slightly different data
> set than they had planned for...

This self-selection tends to invalidate the study I think. It is possible that
the people who chose not to exercise much were exactly the ones who needed it
the most. The people who chose to exercise a lot are more likely to have been
fitter in the first place.

~~~
edw519
_This self-selection tends to invalidate the study_

Not to mention the fact that almost no treatment of a "study" in popular media
distinguishes between _correlation_ and _causation_. There is a difference, a
fact lost on almost everyone these days.

[I lost .4 pounds last Thursday commenting on Hacker News. Therefore, typing
causes weight loss :-) ]

------
streblo
I don't understand why people think staying fit is such a god damn mystery.
Exercise a few hours a week, eat a well balanced diet, get enough sleep. How
hard is that?

~~~
omouse
bike shed: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_of_the_bikeshed>

------
jamiequint
Perhaps the problem is that the study only considered exercise is moderate.

<antecdote> I've found high intensity exercise for short periods of time
(20-40 minutes, 3-4 times a week) has far more effect for me personally than
moderate exercise (45-60 minutes, 5-6 times a week) I've seen more personal
improvement doing CrossFit (www.crossfit.com) than I ever did previously going
to the local gym. </antecdote>

~~~
aantix
I have had a similar experience.

Lately I have been doing interval swimming where I swim one lap freestyle as
if my life depended on it, and then another lap doing the backstroke as fast
as I can. I am going 100% the whole time.

I rest for a few minutes and as soon as I feel I've got my breath slightly
back, I do it all over again.

Not sure what it is about getting the hard pumping that hard for short
intervals, but I've lost weight in the process.

The thing about it is there is no way to become content. You see a lot of
cardio people churning away at the same rate on the treadmill as they were
doing last week.

But with my interval swimming, I am going 100%. You are always pushing full
throttle; there's no allowance for contentment.

<http://www.quitrunning.com/interval-training-swimmers.htm>
<http://www.marksdailyapple.com/sprint-training/>

------
dmfdmf
Read the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. The scientific
evidence supports the theory that carbos, especially refined carbs and sugars,
are the cause of obesity and a raft of modern ailments. The most striking
comment was that input (eating) and output (exercise) are dependent
variables... something that these eatless/exercisemore approaches ignore.

~~~
me2i81
Or watch this lecture by Taubes:
[http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=2121...](http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216)

~~~
dmfdmf
Damn! Realplayer....

------
dominik
A good read that provides a hacker's look at dieting:

The Hacker's Diet by John Walker

<http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/>

------
kingkongrevenge
> Research suggests that weight may largely be regulated by biology, which
> helps determine the body's "set point,"

So where did all the fatties come from? They didn't used to be here.

This is ridiculous. There are big, obvious changes in diet and exercise levels
since the 70s that have correlated well with rising obesity.

~~~
natrius
One theory says that the food you eat can affect your set point. High-calorie,
strongly flavored foods that are easily digested (which make up most of the
modern American diet) raise your set point. Breaking the flavor-calorie
association with flavorless calories supposedly lowers your set point.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shangri-La_Diet>

~~~
kingkongrevenge
> High-calorie, strongly flavored foods that are easily digested

I think French cuisine is WAY more flavorful and calorie dense, and they're
thin.

~~~
a-priori
The key is portion size. French cuisine may be more dense, but they eat less
of it.

~~~
fortes
It's also about the rate of absorption into your body, as well as the
consistency of flavors (packaged food is very uniform, and creates strong
associations)

------
xlnt
Just don't eat when not hungry.

Most people eat large quantities of food all at once. Stop half way and wait
20 minutes and you might not be hungry anymore. If you eat too quickly then
you don't know at what point you'd eaten enough to satisfy your hunger.

~~~
dominik
This only works for people who have their "hunger point" properly calibrated
to when they should actually stop eating.

Some folks don't stop feeling hungry until well after they should have stopped
eating, leading them to eat way too many calories.

John Walker explains this concept in his "The Eat Watch" chapter here:
<http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/eatwatch.html>

~~~
xlnt
So how do you move it down? Fast for a few days?

~~~
dominik
You don't change your hunger point.

You change your behavior, taking into account that your hunger point is lying
to you.

You stop eating before you feel full.

You look up how many calories you should be eating and how much you want to
lose. (3500 calories = 1 pound of fat; if you maintain a 500 calorie deficit
every day, you'll lose a pound a week).

You weigh yourself every day, using signal processing techniques to remove
random variations in your weight caused by water and reveal the trendline of
where your weight is headed.

You then adjust your consumption based on where your weight is headed.
Trendline sloping upwards? Eat fewer calories.

If you do this for a long time, your hunger point may change. It may not. But
you don't care about your hunger point, you care about eating the right amount
of food. The key insight is to realize that your hunger point may be lying to
you, so you need to get an accurate hunger point. Walker describes how to do
this in his book, combining signal processing with dieting.

------
fallentimes
Yankee apologists are bad enough. Now we have fat people apologists. It really
isn't hard: exercise moderately, take walk breaks, get enough sleep, consume
primarily vegetables then fruit then meat/carbs. Eat five small meals a day
and focus on lower calories.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Who the hell could eat primarily vegetables? You'd be on the shitter half the
day.

Also, a fruit heavy diet is particularly bad for weight loss. Humans don't
deal with fructose too well.

~~~
fallentimes
I do and I'm not. You should eat a lot more vegetables than fruit - I should
have articulated that better.

I'm not saying you have to follow such a diet, but the fattie excuses are
laughable when solutions are right in front of them. For more information on
diet:
[http://www.lesmills.com/files/globalcentral/Consumers/Health...](http://www.lesmills.com/files/globalcentral/Consumers/Healthy%20Living/PyramidSliced.jpg)

~~~
kingkongrevenge
The "seven a day" recommendation seems to be baseless myth. Nobody can figure
out where it came from. Surveys find no correlation to life span or health
beyond two servings of vegetables a day.

~~~
fallentimes
Interesting - do you happen to have a source? Here's some for me:

<http://docnews.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/3/10/8>

[http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-03-15-fruits-
vegeta...](http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-03-15-fruits-vegetables-
study_N.htm)

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070415183652.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070415183652.htm)

Regardless, I definitely agree with your starch points at the top of the
thread.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
I just quickly went through the references and every one of them is either: a
pooled analysis (inscrutable), a relative risk factor analysis (worthless;
assumptions piled on assumptions), or doesn't indicate anything about
servings.

I have in the past seen actual population studies, not pop media articles,
looking at relative vegetable consumption and coming up blank. High rates of
heart disease in indian vegetarians, very low rates of heart disease in low
vegetable consumption mormons, etc.

Actual controlled experiments (not surveys) come up blank when they feed
people more fruit and vegetables than a relatively low cut-off. Of course
surveys are going to be very hard to get any useful information out of because
of course health conscious people in America will tend to eat vegetables; that
doesn't establish causation, only that they follow one piece of advice whether
valid or not. Look at these actual experiments:

    
    
      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Freese%20R%22[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus
    

Consistently no significant blood chemistry effects from high fruit/veg diets.

~~~
chandler
>> High rates of heart disease in indian vegetarians...

Have you ever been to an Indian restaurant and ordered a vegetarian meal?
While incredibly flavorful, I wouldn't classify it as even moderately
healthy--

~~~
ashu
What is served in Indian restaurants (especially in the US) is far removed
from and has way too much oil / cream than what is the norm in Indian homes.

