3 ms·

>Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice Are you young? this is all very different when you are young. I know I didn't have any trouble staying fit wh

by lsc 8y ago

>Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice Are you young? this is all very different when you are young. I know I didn't have any trouble staying fit when I was college aged. For most people, there comes a point in your late 20s or early 30s where being not fat suddenly requires a lot of effort. (I am only now applying that effort in an effective way, a bit more than a decade after I should have.)

barry-cotter 8y ago
There’s a difference between not being fat and being fit. I’m almost 10kg over my ideal weight but I can run a marathon on the flat no problem and squat 80kg for five sets of five without significant strain. I’m unlikely to ever be as thin as I was on my wedding day again but three hours of exercise a week will keep you fit. Even one hour will pay substantial dividends in terms of how you feel though at that level I’d definitely lift weights rather than run.
- lsc 8y ago
  If you think 3 hours a week is enough to make you "fit" - we have very different definitions of that word. Certainly, 3 hours a week is a lot better than nothing, and does make an absolutely huge difference over a sedentary lifestyle, but it's not going to make you what I would call fit, unless those three hours are incredibly intense. (to be clear, I think I'm a long ways away from 'fit' - I do pretty reliably hit your 3 hour a week number.) That, and excess fat is a problem, even if the rest of you is strong Over the last six months, I went from about 100kg to 90kg; (now I'm about as far as you are from my ideal weight, at least with the muscle mass that is historically realistic and a fat content goal that isn't.) We will see if I can keep up my calorie counting and make it to the goal or not. Oddly, I can lift a lot more and run a lot less than you can. Running seems to be a lot harder on my knees than squats are. I could run forever and squat very little when I was young and skinny. I still bicycle, but running, if I really push myself, pretty reliably ends in minor injury, and I always attributed this to the extra weight I wasn't carrying around as a youngster. my problem before calorie counting was that it didn't matter how much I worked out, working out makes me hungry, and I'd put on more fat to go with the new muscle, and... that gets to be a problem. I mean, I wasn't weak, sure, but I was also 30% body fat. That's... a lot more fat than is healthy for a guy. I started developing the medical problems you'd expect from someone who was on the low end of obese. After losing enough weight to put me reliably in the 'just overweight' classification, some of those problems seem to be receding. I mean, I'm losing muscle, too, which is bad; I can't lift what I could three months ago; partly just 'cause I'm eating less and partly 'cause I switched to a new office and there's a lot more contention for the barbells than there was at the old office, so while I'm not doing a lot less cardio, I am doing a lot less lifting. But I have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to build muscle; if I can prove that I can actually lose fat... well, that would be a new thing for me. That, and in spite of my neglect of the gym, I am feeling better, and like I said, objective measures like blood pressure are looking better, so that seems like a datapoint, for me at least, to say that excess fat matters and is a real problem that needs to be dealt with. (on the other hand, those health metrics might be improving because I've treated the obesity-associated problems. Sleep apnea messes you up good, but is fairly straightforward to treat. So maybe that's why I'm doing better rather than the reduced excess fat. But, sleep apnea is very strongly correlated with excess fat. Still, it's possible that just treating the sleep apnea and then working out while continuing to be fat would result in the same sorts of improvement in overall health. If I'm being truthful, vanity is a big driver of me wanting to lose weight. I mean, the health benefits are also really important, but there's vanity in there too.)
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Obviously each person has their own personal standards for what fit means for them. I would say that three hours a week, four max, is enough to do the Starting Strength programme, which will reliably make you a lot stronger than the median person of your sex. Congratulations on your weight loss. If you’re around 1.83m our physique is very similar. I find intermittent fasting helpful, not eating at all, just drinking water or tea one day a week. I started off trying to run and just gave myself shin splints over and over and hurting my knees. Squats fixed that for me and after a year of weightlifting I started running in the treadmill, 2k and gradually building up to 10k, all on the treadmill. Then one day I ran a half marathon distance and felt fine, calves a bit sore the next day is all. For me all I needed was to take it very slow increasing distance. Keep up the sleep apnea treatment. It sounds awful. As for reducing body fat enough to look good on the beach those fork put downs are the hardest. My cursory reading of the medical literature suggests that the recommended BMI is too low for health benefits as measured by longevity. Mildly overweight people live longer than people in the healthy body weight range. But definitely look after your sleep. That’s almost certainly the best health investment you can make with your time.
village-idiot 8y ago
Yes, but my metabolism stopped early at 22. So I know exactly what it’s like to climb back out of that hole. Regardless, being overweight and out of shape was the result of choices I made, not my personality traits. It turns out I have plenty of grit, I just wasn’t valuing my health highly enough.

by lsc 8y ago

barry-cotter 8y ago

There’s a difference between not being fat and being fit. I’m almost 10kg over my ideal weight but I can run a marathon on the flat no problem and squat 80kg for five sets of five without significant strain. I’m unlikely to ever be as thin as I was on my wedding day again but three hours of exercise a week will keep you fit. Even one hour will pay substantial dividends in terms of how you feel though at that level I’d definitely lift weights rather than run.

lsc 8y ago
If you think 3 hours a week is enough to make you "fit" - we have very different definitions of that word. Certainly, 3 hours a week is a lot better than nothing, and does make an absolutely huge difference over a sedentary lifestyle, but it's not going to make you what I would call fit, unless those three hours are incredibly intense. (to be clear, I think I'm a long ways away from 'fit' - I do pretty reliably hit your 3 hour a week number.) That, and excess fat is a problem, even if the rest of you is strong Over the last six months, I went from about 100kg to 90kg; (now I'm about as far as you are from my ideal weight, at least with the muscle mass that is historically realistic and a fat content goal that isn't.) We will see if I can keep up my calorie counting and make it to the goal or not. Oddly, I can lift a lot more and run a lot less than you can. Running seems to be a lot harder on my knees than squats are. I could run forever and squat very little when I was young and skinny. I still bicycle, but running, if I really push myself, pretty reliably ends in minor injury, and I always attributed this to the extra weight I wasn't carrying around as a youngster. my problem before calorie counting was that it didn't matter how much I worked out, working out makes me hungry, and I'd put on more fat to go with the new muscle, and... that gets to be a problem. I mean, I wasn't weak, sure, but I was also 30% body fat. That's... a lot more fat than is healthy for a guy. I started developing the medical problems you'd expect from someone who was on the low end of obese. After losing enough weight to put me reliably in the 'just overweight' classification, some of those problems seem to be receding. I mean, I'm losing muscle, too, which is bad; I can't lift what I could three months ago; partly just 'cause I'm eating less and partly 'cause I switched to a new office and there's a lot more contention for the barbells than there was at the old office, so while I'm not doing a lot less cardio, I am doing a lot less lifting. But I have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to build muscle; if I can prove that I can actually lose fat... well, that would be a new thing for me. That, and in spite of my neglect of the gym, I am feeling better, and like I said, objective measures like blood pressure are looking better, so that seems like a datapoint, for me at least, to say that excess fat matters and is a real problem that needs to be dealt with. (on the other hand, those health metrics might be improving because I've treated the obesity-associated problems. Sleep apnea messes you up good, but is fairly straightforward to treat. So maybe that's why I'm doing better rather than the reduced excess fat. But, sleep apnea is very strongly correlated with excess fat. Still, it's possible that just treating the sleep apnea and then working out while continuing to be fat would result in the same sorts of improvement in overall health. If I'm being truthful, vanity is a big driver of me wanting to lose weight. I mean, the health benefits are also really important, but there's vanity in there too.)
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Obviously each person has their own personal standards for what fit means for them. I would say that three hours a week, four max, is enough to do the Starting Strength programme, which will reliably make you a lot stronger than the median person of your sex. Congratulations on your weight loss. If you’re around 1.83m our physique is very similar. I find intermittent fasting helpful, not eating at all, just drinking water or tea one day a week. I started off trying to run and just gave myself shin splints over and over and hurting my knees. Squats fixed that for me and after a year of weightlifting I started running in the treadmill, 2k and gradually building up to 10k, all on the treadmill. Then one day I ran a half marathon distance and felt fine, calves a bit sore the next day is all. For me all I needed was to take it very slow increasing distance. Keep up the sleep apnea treatment. It sounds awful. As for reducing body fat enough to look good on the beach those fork put downs are the hardest. My cursory reading of the medical literature suggests that the recommended BMI is too low for health benefits as measured by longevity. Mildly overweight people live longer than people in the healthy body weight range. But definitely look after your sleep. That’s almost certainly the best health investment you can make with your time.

village-idiot 8y ago

Yes, but my metabolism stopped early at 22. So I know exactly what it’s like to climb back out of that hole. Regardless, being overweight and out of shape was the result of choices I made, not my personality traits. It turns out I have plenty of grit, I just wasn’t valuing my health highly enough.