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My work provides a gym, and I go there for at least an hour every weekday. I'd rather do poorly at work then skip exercising to be honest. I see some of the old

My work provides a gym, and I go there for at least an hour every weekday. I'd rather do poorly at work then skip exercising to be honest. I see some of the older employees coming in trying to reverse the effects of a sedentary lifestyle and I do not envy that position. It's crazy how people will deprioritze their health. It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. Of course, diet is also a huge factor as well. I stick to an intermittent fasting routine unless I can devote more time in the gym to bulking. I think fasting and caloric deficiency have some promising research behind it, and I think intuitively it makes sense that our ancestors would be eating only intermittently and probably never enough to put on a lot of weight. My nutritionist cautioned me, however, that there's still no scientific consensus and it still has a fad smell to it. It also takes quite a bit of mental discipline. Also, if you're struggling with getting fit, GET A PERSONAL TRAINER AND NUTRITIONIST. You could not do more with your money than get professional help in steering your body in a direction that works for you. At the end of the day, you have to do what's right for your physiology and these trained professionals no how to make that easy for you.

kebert 8y ago
>It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. I think your number one priority should be to avoid suffering.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 8y ago
  Then one could just die and be done with everything.
  - perfmode 8y ago
    it’s always on the table. often we stay alive because dying would cause others suffering.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      That's not much of a reason. Why don't we convince them to kill themselves too. /s
JimDabell 8y ago
> It's crazy how people will deprioritze their health. > Also, if you're struggling with getting fit, GET A PERSONAL TRAINER AND NUTRITIONIST. There are tonnes of people out there who are just scraping by, who have to work two exhausting jobs, who have to spend all of their free time looking after kids, etc., who can't afford the gym, let alone a personal trainer and nutritionist. If you have the time and money to do those things, then they are very good ideas. But they are out of reach for an awful lot of people, so perhaps try not to view the people who don't do this stuff as people who are making insane choices.
- alonmower 8y ago
  You’re not wrong, but I know a lot of people who just don’t prioritize it in even though they could. Sure, people scraping by to make ends meet don’t have this luxury. But the people that go to happy hour all the time and then complain about not having time to excercise just don’t have their priorities correct in my opinion
- dsajames 8y ago
  This doesn't describe the fast majority of out of shape people. Poverty has always been an issue, but obesity and poor health from a sedentary lifestyle is a very new issue.
  - collyw 8y ago
    I see you are down voted, but there must be some truth to this. In my group at work there are a couple of other guys the same age as me - mid 40s. I cycle to work and am in decent shape for my age (resting pulse around 60). The other two are overweight and look a lot older than me. They must be paid well enough and they clock off at 6pm. As for poverty - most of my exercise is cycling to work. The bike saves me money - I have had it for 7 years and it originally cost less than a years worth of public transport.
  - Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
    “Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you.” ― George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
"It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible." Living as well and as beneficently as possible might be higher priorities. The older folks with the desk jobs are often quite literally sacrificing their own well-being for their family's, "deprioritizing their health" for another priority. "You could not do more with your money than get professional help in steering your body" You could donate to help poor people survive, to help sick people get well, to heal the natural environment, to educate children, to encourage peace and justice, to strengthen your community, or to advance knowledge.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  >The older folks with the desk jobs are often quite literally sacrificing their own well-being for their family's, "deprioritizing their health" for another priority. Family planning is not rocket science. Choosing to breed without the appropriate resources may be socially normalized behaviour, but portraying parenthood as a selfless act is to gloss over the fact that the parents knowingly engendered the impoverished conditions that required it, and did so for selfish reasons. This precludes it being a sacrifice.
  - losteric 8y ago
    Apparently, family planning is rocket science. What is your rational definition of "appropriate resources"? Public school? Public school in a better but more expensive district? Extracurriculars? Tutoring? Private school? Fully supported university education? Love is not rational... it's giving your all and more for someone that matters. Workaholics are not inherently good parents, but good parents do go the "extra" mile to improve their child's life.
    - WalterSear 8y ago
      It's not. Saying it is doesn't make it so. Neither does thousands of people choosing misery for themselves and their children. Just like physical health, people very much want family planning to be complicated, because it allows them more room to rationalize short-sighted, self-gratifying decisions. Appropriate resources are resources that give you the space to be healthily present for yourself and your child. It means time and money, or more specifically, the money to buy time. Love is not having a baby. You can't love someone who doesn't exist, and making someone to love if you don't have the money to take care of you both is equal parts selfish and self-defeating.
themagician 8y ago
> “It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible.” Why? I personally don’t want to live as long as possible, definitely not if I develop some kind of neurodegerative disorder. I’d honestly be happy with 65. I don’t see too many people over the age 65 who I envy. Diet and exercise are big contributors to preventing heart disease, but when it comes to things like the vast array of cancers it’s mostly luck or the draw. You can do everything right and still die at 40. I wonder if there are any large scale, long term regressions that attempt to get at exactly how much diet and exercise contribute to extending life. I get the feeling that outside of heart disease it doesn’t contribute as much as one might hope it would.
- boboh 8y ago
  You sound 'young.' When you start looking 50 years of age in the eyes, your attitude will assuredly change. Like with everything in life, there's a balance. You actually need to work-out more as you age than when you were young.
  - themagician 8y ago
    Mid-30s. My attitude definitely has changed. When I was younger I thought different. I thought I would want to live forever, and figured I could if I did all the right things. The older I get the more I realize that it’s luck that determines the majority of outcomes. I’ve been surprisingly lucky, literally zero health issues in my life. But I see what happens to the people around me and it just seems like mostly luck. When my luck inevitably ends I don’t think I’m going to want to stick around. The fittest people around me seem to actually be the most miserable. Arthritis, bad headaches from whatever fad diet they are doing, agitation from fasting, various food sensitivities, back problems, etc.. Antecdotal of course, but that’s my experience. There’s probably some confirmation bias here too, as people seek out fitness as a way to compensate for various conditions. I just don’t know what to make of it. I’m not saying you have no control, I just think it’s vastly overstated.
    - Izkata 8y ago
      > The fittest people around me seem to actually be the most miserable. [..] back problems This caught my eye. Back in highschool I rollerbladed for fun, a couple times a week. During that period, and for years before that, I had pretty regular soreness in my lower back, for no apparent reason, which would persist for most of the day. Then in college I stopped rollerblading and gained about 30 pounds, ticking over into the "overweight" BMI category, and the soreness completely vanished. Since then, ~10 years ago, it's only reoccurred a couple times. Since it was still gone during breaks and back home after college, all I can figure is the extra fat added some support or padding that's stopped whatever was causing it.
howlgram 8y ago
reminder that getting a professional trainer and a nutritionist is a luxury, you can easily learn how to diet and exercise off the internet the way that people learn programming
- WalterSear 8y ago
  How many articles on programming techniques have you seen that were written by non-programmers, by people who are just writing about coding in order to try to sell you hardware, or by kept spouses, programming to justifying their existence, and to have a 'job' to tell people about at cocktail parties? Fitness and nutrition information is drowning online in a sea of woo.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - howlgram 8y ago
    It's so funny but it's so true. I do feel it takes a similar degree of ad hoc research though, if you have the ability to learn how to program an app with certain degree of complexity then I believe you have the capacity to search, find and judge information pertinent to fitness and diet. Of course, it's not as easy as googling "how to be fit" and clicking on the first 5 articles.
Zigurd 8y ago
When you get into your 50's, unless you've won the genetic lottery, you need regular exercise or things will go badly wrong if you also have a tech industry workload. I nearly died ignoring that. Now I exercise every day, usually on my bike or a rowing ergometer. Less need for caffeine, better alertness. The time spent is returned in better productivity.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kopo 8y ago
The only problem I see with this kind of pitch is these days hospitals, docs and the pharma industry keep physically inactive people alive decades past their expiry date.
kgwgk 8y ago
> It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. Then a career change may be one of the most effective ways towards that goal. An environment where your employer provides a gym may be a bit too stressful...
elcinr 8y ago
OP: article linking a study suggesting a strong correlation between exercise and mortality Top reply: I really really like to go to the gym, and I fast because I think it's really, really good. Get a personal trainer
- Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
  You forgot "and therefore everyone else should too."
  - ilovecaching 8y ago
    Yes, you should! Take care of your body!
    - Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
      Call your mom!
      - elcinr 8y ago
        You got downvoted even though you were funny
raffael-vogler 8y ago
> It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. Not for me. Living healthy yes - and then dying quick and painless. I don't care if that happens with 50, 60 or 70. Another 10 years to go would nice, still. > unless I can devote more time in the gym to bulking. I have experience with IFing as well as with bulking. And if you ask me - especially with respect to the specific reasons why IF is good for you - bulking is one of the worst and unhealthiest things you can do to your body. > that there's still no scientific consensus and it still has a fad smell to it. Do you not feel the difference? When bulking I feel heavy and bloated - it's tiring. Especially when dirty bulking - eating crap just to get those additional calories? Pushing and squeezing more and more food through this delicate and soft tube (your gut) in your stomach. It's more like plumbing than eating. Having said that - I might do some bulking again at some point - but for aesthetic reasons - not because I believe it's good for me.
flatline 8y ago
Your priorities may not be the same as everyone else’s. I think there is a certain moral incumbency on people to remain healthy for the benefit of others, but that only goes so far. Cost of maintaining life is an issue: just because there is some intervention that could prolong an individual’s life, doesn’t mean it’s not prohibitive for that I dividual to take it for a variety of reasons. Financial burden is obviously one, but let’s take up the primary case you seem to be arguing, the sacrifice of other pleasurable activities. Some people find exercise excruciating, either due to physical limitations or just because. If we lived in a world where taking forty lashes a day prolonged life, but only with great suffering, would it be so universally recommended?
- pm90 8y ago
  I think you're taking the argument to a moral extreme which really does not help much. You could say that reading, or thinking critically, are excruciatingly hard for some ... would you say that they should just give up on it, despite the benefits that it provides to a person? The argument for exercising seems to be similar. To be completely fair, I have a more visceral reason to agree with the OP in that I too have been quite alarmed by how obese some of my older coworkers are, and that has contributed pretty strongly to my desire to not be that way.

kebert 8y ago

>It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. I think your number one priority should be to avoid suffering.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 8y ago
Then one could just die and be done with everything.
- perfmode 8y ago
  it’s always on the table. often we stay alive because dying would cause others suffering.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    That's not much of a reason. Why don't we convince them to kill themselves too. /s

JimDabell 8y ago

> It's crazy how people will deprioritze their health. > Also, if you're struggling with getting fit, GET A PERSONAL TRAINER AND NUTRITIONIST. There are tonnes of people out there who are just scraping by, who have to work two exhausting jobs, who have to spend all of their free time looking after kids, etc., who can't afford the gym, let alone a personal trainer and nutritionist. If you have the time and money to do those things, then they are very good ideas. But they are out of reach for an awful lot of people, so perhaps try not to view the people who don't do this stuff as people who are making insane choices.

alonmower 8y ago
You’re not wrong, but I know a lot of people who just don’t prioritize it in even though they could. Sure, people scraping by to make ends meet don’t have this luxury. But the people that go to happy hour all the time and then complain about not having time to excercise just don’t have their priorities correct in my opinion
dsajames 8y ago
This doesn't describe the fast majority of out of shape people. Poverty has always been an issue, but obesity and poor health from a sedentary lifestyle is a very new issue.
- collyw 8y ago
  I see you are down voted, but there must be some truth to this. In my group at work there are a couple of other guys the same age as me - mid 40s. I cycle to work and am in decent shape for my age (resting pulse around 60). The other two are overweight and look a lot older than me. They must be paid well enough and they clock off at 6pm. As for poverty - most of my exercise is cycling to work. The bike saves me money - I have had it for 7 years and it originally cost less than a years worth of public transport.
- Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
  “Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you.” ― George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Jill_the_Pill 8y ago

"It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible." Living as well and as beneficently as possible might be higher priorities. The older folks with the desk jobs are often quite literally sacrificing their own well-being for their family's, "deprioritizing their health" for another priority. "You could not do more with your money than get professional help in steering your body" You could donate to help poor people survive, to help sick people get well, to heal the natural environment, to educate children, to encourage peace and justice, to strengthen your community, or to advance knowledge.

WalterSear 8y ago
>The older folks with the desk jobs are often quite literally sacrificing their own well-being for their family's, "deprioritizing their health" for another priority. Family planning is not rocket science. Choosing to breed without the appropriate resources may be socially normalized behaviour, but portraying parenthood as a selfless act is to gloss over the fact that the parents knowingly engendered the impoverished conditions that required it, and did so for selfish reasons. This precludes it being a sacrifice.
- losteric 8y ago
  Apparently, family planning is rocket science. What is your rational definition of "appropriate resources"? Public school? Public school in a better but more expensive district? Extracurriculars? Tutoring? Private school? Fully supported university education? Love is not rational... it's giving your all and more for someone that matters. Workaholics are not inherently good parents, but good parents do go the "extra" mile to improve their child's life.
  - WalterSear 8y ago
    It's not. Saying it is doesn't make it so. Neither does thousands of people choosing misery for themselves and their children. Just like physical health, people very much want family planning to be complicated, because it allows them more room to rationalize short-sighted, self-gratifying decisions. Appropriate resources are resources that give you the space to be healthily present for yourself and your child. It means time and money, or more specifically, the money to buy time. Love is not having a baby. You can't love someone who doesn't exist, and making someone to love if you don't have the money to take care of you both is equal parts selfish and self-defeating.

themagician 8y ago

> “It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible.” Why? I personally don’t want to live as long as possible, definitely not if I develop some kind of neurodegerative disorder. I’d honestly be happy with 65. I don’t see too many people over the age 65 who I envy. Diet and exercise are big contributors to preventing heart disease, but when it comes to things like the vast array of cancers it’s mostly luck or the draw. You can do everything right and still die at 40. I wonder if there are any large scale, long term regressions that attempt to get at exactly how much diet and exercise contribute to extending life. I get the feeling that outside of heart disease it doesn’t contribute as much as one might hope it would.

boboh 8y ago
You sound 'young.' When you start looking 50 years of age in the eyes, your attitude will assuredly change. Like with everything in life, there's a balance. You actually need to work-out more as you age than when you were young.
- themagician 8y ago
  Mid-30s. My attitude definitely has changed. When I was younger I thought different. I thought I would want to live forever, and figured I could if I did all the right things. The older I get the more I realize that it’s luck that determines the majority of outcomes. I’ve been surprisingly lucky, literally zero health issues in my life. But I see what happens to the people around me and it just seems like mostly luck. When my luck inevitably ends I don’t think I’m going to want to stick around. The fittest people around me seem to actually be the most miserable. Arthritis, bad headaches from whatever fad diet they are doing, agitation from fasting, various food sensitivities, back problems, etc.. Antecdotal of course, but that’s my experience. There’s probably some confirmation bias here too, as people seek out fitness as a way to compensate for various conditions. I just don’t know what to make of it. I’m not saying you have no control, I just think it’s vastly overstated.
  - Izkata 8y ago
    > The fittest people around me seem to actually be the most miserable. [..] back problems This caught my eye. Back in highschool I rollerbladed for fun, a couple times a week. During that period, and for years before that, I had pretty regular soreness in my lower back, for no apparent reason, which would persist for most of the day. Then in college I stopped rollerblading and gained about 30 pounds, ticking over into the "overweight" BMI category, and the soreness completely vanished. Since then, ~10 years ago, it's only reoccurred a couple times. Since it was still gone during breaks and back home after college, all I can figure is the extra fat added some support or padding that's stopped whatever was causing it.

howlgram 8y ago

reminder that getting a professional trainer and a nutritionist is a luxury, you can easily learn how to diet and exercise off the internet the way that people learn programming

WalterSear 8y ago
How many articles on programming techniques have you seen that were written by non-programmers, by people who are just writing about coding in order to try to sell you hardware, or by kept spouses, programming to justifying their existence, and to have a 'job' to tell people about at cocktail parties? Fitness and nutrition information is drowning online in a sea of woo.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- howlgram 8y ago
  It's so funny but it's so true. I do feel it takes a similar degree of ad hoc research though, if you have the ability to learn how to program an app with certain degree of complexity then I believe you have the capacity to search, find and judge information pertinent to fitness and diet. Of course, it's not as easy as googling "how to be fit" and clicking on the first 5 articles.

Zigurd 8y ago

When you get into your 50's, unless you've won the genetic lottery, you need regular exercise or things will go badly wrong if you also have a tech industry workload. I nearly died ignoring that. Now I exercise every day, usually on my bike or a rowing ergometer. Less need for caffeine, better alertness. The time spent is returned in better productivity.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kopo 8y ago

The only problem I see with this kind of pitch is these days hospitals, docs and the pharma industry keep physically inactive people alive decades past their expiry date.

kgwgk 8y ago

> It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. Then a career change may be one of the most effective ways towards that goal. An environment where your employer provides a gym may be a bit too stressful...

elcinr 8y ago

OP: article linking a study suggesting a strong correlation between exercise and mortality Top reply: I really really like to go to the gym, and I fast because I think it's really, really good. Get a personal trainer

Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
You forgot "and therefore everyone else should too."
- ilovecaching 8y ago
  Yes, you should! Take care of your body!
  - Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
    Call your mom!
    - elcinr 8y ago
      You got downvoted even though you were funny

raffael-vogler 8y ago

> It should always be a person's #1 priority to live as long as possible. Not for me. Living healthy yes - and then dying quick and painless. I don't care if that happens with 50, 60 or 70. Another 10 years to go would nice, still. > unless I can devote more time in the gym to bulking. I have experience with IFing as well as with bulking. And if you ask me - especially with respect to the specific reasons why IF is good for you - bulking is one of the worst and unhealthiest things you can do to your body. > that there's still no scientific consensus and it still has a fad smell to it. Do you not feel the difference? When bulking I feel heavy and bloated - it's tiring. Especially when dirty bulking - eating crap just to get those additional calories? Pushing and squeezing more and more food through this delicate and soft tube (your gut) in your stomach. It's more like plumbing than eating. Having said that - I might do some bulking again at some point - but for aesthetic reasons - not because I believe it's good for me.

flatline 8y ago

Your priorities may not be the same as everyone else’s. I think there is a certain moral incumbency on people to remain healthy for the benefit of others, but that only goes so far. Cost of maintaining life is an issue: just because there is some intervention that could prolong an individual’s life, doesn’t mean it’s not prohibitive for that I dividual to take it for a variety of reasons. Financial burden is obviously one, but let’s take up the primary case you seem to be arguing, the sacrifice of other pleasurable activities. Some people find exercise excruciating, either due to physical limitations or just because. If we lived in a world where taking forty lashes a day prolonged life, but only with great suffering, would it be so universally recommended?

pm90 8y ago
I think you're taking the argument to a moral extreme which really does not help much. You could say that reading, or thinking critically, are excruciatingly hard for some ... would you say that they should just give up on it, despite the benefits that it provides to a person? The argument for exercising seems to be similar. To be completely fair, I have a more visceral reason to agree with the OP in that I too have been quite alarmed by how obese some of my older coworkers are, and that has contributed pretty strongly to my desire to not be that way.