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I think this is somewhat misleading. Walking is one of the least strenuous forms of exercise. I could walk all day on a treadmill, no sweat (literally). When I

by lapcat 3y ago

I think this is somewhat misleading. Walking is one of the least strenuous forms of exercise. I could walk all day on a treadmill, no sweat (literally). When I was playing singles tennis almost every day, on the other hand, it was exhausting, I was in the best shape of my life, and I could eat as much as I wanted. Indeed I had to eat more, because my body demanded it. And elite athletes eat a ton of food, an obscene amount of food, but they also have the best bodies. Walking is fine for people who can't do anything else, such as the elderly, but otherwise it's simply not enough exercise. In general, weight is not really a great measure. You can lose weight by losing muscle. I "measure" my own body by looking at it in a mirror.

tomlue 3y ago
I used to feel this way too. It turns out the mirror test is not a good measure. Hard metrics are much better. Weight alone isn't the best, but it is a good place to start.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > It turns out the mirror test is not a good measure. How so? Of course if you're exercising regularly and strenuously, there are some athletic metrics: how long you can run until exhaustion, how much weight you can lift, etc.
  - throwaway74432 3y ago
    Because "a good measure" does not change based on how you feel.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      Not sure how feelings factor in here.
      - throwaway74432 3y ago
        [flagged]
        lapcat 3y ago
        > I actually don't know how to respond to this level of ignorance about basic psychology. Please read and respect the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Do you really not know, or think it's debatable, that how people subjectively view themselves is influenced by their mental state / feelings / emotions? I'm talking about looking at yourself over a period of time, and not just on any given day. You can look at yourself in the mirror every day for months or years, over the course of many different mental states / feelings / emotions. Moreover, the fit of your clothes is pretty good objective measure. If your pants start falling down, you can be pretty sure that your stomach has become smaller. (This is actually one of the few annoying aspects of getting into shape, having to buy new clothes.)
        throwaway74432 3y ago
        It sounds like you want someone to agree with you that your memory plus your subjective view of yourself is a "good measure" of progress, despite the existence of scales and measuring tapes, which dwarf your subjective memories in terms of reliability and accuracy. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
        lapcat 3y ago
        It's really not that complicated. I can tell a lot of things by looking in the mirror. That I need a haircut. That I need a shave. Despite the fact that I've literally never used a measuring tape on my hair. That my hair color changes slightly (lighter or darker) with the seasons. That my hair has gotten grayer with age. (I would prefer to deny that, but eyes can't actually lie that much.) I can tell if I'm sunburned (I never tan, sadly). And yes, I can tell that my stomach has gotten thinner or thicker over time. These are not exact measures, but you can in fact reliably tell when your body changes. Subjectivity is not blindness. By the way, your previous comment was flagged dead. You might want to reconsider the way you reply in light of that.
kwhitefoot 3y ago
> because my body demanded it Are you sure it wasn't because you were younger then? Despite not doing any exercise other than walking I could eat any amount of anything until I was over forty when the weight started creeping up.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > Are you sure it wasn't because you were younger then? Yes, because my weight—or visible body fat, anyway—has fluctuated over my entire life, including then and now, depending on how much exercise I get.
- Fricken 3y ago
  Under normal circumstances one's metabolism doesn't change much between age 20 and 60. Most adults are just less active than when they were younger.
zero-sharp 3y ago
The fitness advice I've heard is that higher intensity cardio can increase your appetite, causing you to compensate for the calories burned. Low intensity cardio like walking doesn't have the same effect.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > higher intensity cardio can increase your appetite True. > Low intensity cardio like walking doesn't have the same effect. That's short-term thinking though. Long term, higher intensity cardio builds muscle and endurance. The more strenuously you exercise now, the more strenuously you'll be able to exercise in the future. If you're not pushing yourself, then you'll remain stuck at the lower level forever. The extra calories now are an investment in your future body.
  - zero-sharp 3y ago
    >Long term, higher intensity cardio builds muscle Where? It's understood in the fitness community that you have to load a muscle within a particular range in order to build muscle. It won't happen through highly repetitive motions, such as the ones that occur in cardio (running, cycling, etc). The load isn't great enough. I believe cardio benefits the heart. But nobody does cardio to build muscle.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > But nobody does cardio to build muscle. The heart is a muscle. ;-) Cardio certainly isn't the best way to bulk up muscles; ideally you want to combine cardio with strength training. Nonetheless, it does build some muscle, and there are various ways to add resistance to cardio, such as with machines, carrying weights, running uphill, etc. In any case, cardio does increase your endurance.
michaelt 3y ago
> And elite athletes eat a ton of food, an obscene amount of food, but they also have the best bodies. The thing to bear in mind is, most discussions of diet are in the context of weight loss - and the kind of exercise regime that allows eating loads of food is generally only accessible to people who are already extremely fit. If you're running a 4 hour marathon every weekend, you can pretty much eat whatever you like and not gain weight. But if my 240 lbs buddy wants to lose weight? Dude would be doing well to jog 5km. He's not going to be running any marathons. So the fact he could maintain his current diet if he burned an extra 2500 calories every weekend doesn't help him, because he can't.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > the kind of exercise regime that allows eating loads of food is generally only accessible to people who are already extremely fit. Of course. And I'm not suggesting that people ignore or go crazy with their diet. I'm personally very strict with mine, though I'm not counting calories at all but rather trying to mimimize salt, saturated fat, and added sugar (which perhaps naturally restricts calories somewhat, since the highest calorie foods also tend to have high salt, saturated fat, and added sugar). > But if my 240 lbs buddy wants to lose weight? Dude would be doing well to jog 5km. He's not going to be running any marathons. Of course. What I would say is that in fact it's a (metaphorical) marathon, not a sprint. The goal, I think, should be health, not simply weight loss, which is only one aspect of health. You shouldn't be afraid to exercise strenuously just because it might make you a little hungrier. In the long run, you want to control your diet and also get your body into shape, which requires investment in exercise. My dispute is with the idea that "we burn calories within a very narrow range: nearly 3,000 calories per day, no matter our activity level." That's simpy not true in general. It may be true for a relatively sedentary activity level, but it's not true for people who are at higher levels of vigorous activity, and I don't mean just elite athletes. A normal person can build up to becoming quite physically active if they commit to it long term. Of course nobody can just run a marathon right away, but almost anybody could run a marathon eventually. The author was examining people who walk all day, but I don't think that's a good baseline for measurement of "maximum" physical activity, because walking is generally not very strenous.

by lapcat 3y ago

tomlue 3y ago

I used to feel this way too. It turns out the mirror test is not a good measure. Hard metrics are much better. Weight alone isn't the best, but it is a good place to start.

lapcat 3y ago
> It turns out the mirror test is not a good measure. How so? Of course if you're exercising regularly and strenuously, there are some athletic metrics: how long you can run until exhaustion, how much weight you can lift, etc.
- throwaway74432 3y ago
  Because "a good measure" does not change based on how you feel.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    Not sure how feelings factor in here.
    - throwaway74432 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - lapcat 3y ago
        > I actually don't know how to respond to this level of ignorance about basic psychology. Please read and respect the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Do you really not know, or think it's debatable, that how people subjectively view themselves is influenced by their mental state / feelings / emotions? I'm talking about looking at yourself over a period of time, and not just on any given day. You can look at yourself in the mirror every day for months or years, over the course of many different mental states / feelings / emotions. Moreover, the fit of your clothes is pretty good objective measure. If your pants start falling down, you can be pretty sure that your stomach has become smaller. (This is actually one of the few annoying aspects of getting into shape, having to buy new clothes.)
        throwaway74432 3y ago
        It sounds like you want someone to agree with you that your memory plus your subjective view of yourself is a "good measure" of progress, despite the existence of scales and measuring tapes, which dwarf your subjective memories in terms of reliability and accuracy. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
        lapcat 3y ago
        It's really not that complicated. I can tell a lot of things by looking in the mirror. That I need a haircut. That I need a shave. Despite the fact that I've literally never used a measuring tape on my hair. That my hair color changes slightly (lighter or darker) with the seasons. That my hair has gotten grayer with age. (I would prefer to deny that, but eyes can't actually lie that much.) I can tell if I'm sunburned (I never tan, sadly). And yes, I can tell that my stomach has gotten thinner or thicker over time. These are not exact measures, but you can in fact reliably tell when your body changes. Subjectivity is not blindness. By the way, your previous comment was flagged dead. You might want to reconsider the way you reply in light of that.

kwhitefoot 3y ago

> because my body demanded it Are you sure it wasn't because you were younger then? Despite not doing any exercise other than walking I could eat any amount of anything until I was over forty when the weight started creeping up.

lapcat 3y ago
> Are you sure it wasn't because you were younger then? Yes, because my weight—or visible body fat, anyway—has fluctuated over my entire life, including then and now, depending on how much exercise I get.
Fricken 3y ago
Under normal circumstances one's metabolism doesn't change much between age 20 and 60. Most adults are just less active than when they were younger.

zero-sharp 3y ago

The fitness advice I've heard is that higher intensity cardio can increase your appetite, causing you to compensate for the calories burned. Low intensity cardio like walking doesn't have the same effect.

lapcat 3y ago
> higher intensity cardio can increase your appetite True. > Low intensity cardio like walking doesn't have the same effect. That's short-term thinking though. Long term, higher intensity cardio builds muscle and endurance. The more strenuously you exercise now, the more strenuously you'll be able to exercise in the future. If you're not pushing yourself, then you'll remain stuck at the lower level forever. The extra calories now are an investment in your future body.
- zero-sharp 3y ago
  >Long term, higher intensity cardio builds muscle Where? It's understood in the fitness community that you have to load a muscle within a particular range in order to build muscle. It won't happen through highly repetitive motions, such as the ones that occur in cardio (running, cycling, etc). The load isn't great enough. I believe cardio benefits the heart. But nobody does cardio to build muscle.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > But nobody does cardio to build muscle. The heart is a muscle. ;-) Cardio certainly isn't the best way to bulk up muscles; ideally you want to combine cardio with strength training. Nonetheless, it does build some muscle, and there are various ways to add resistance to cardio, such as with machines, carrying weights, running uphill, etc. In any case, cardio does increase your endurance.

michaelt 3y ago

> And elite athletes eat a ton of food, an obscene amount of food, but they also have the best bodies. The thing to bear in mind is, most discussions of diet are in the context of weight loss - and the kind of exercise regime that allows eating loads of food is generally only accessible to people who are already extremely fit. If you're running a 4 hour marathon every weekend, you can pretty much eat whatever you like and not gain weight. But if my 240 lbs buddy wants to lose weight? Dude would be doing well to jog 5km. He's not going to be running any marathons. So the fact he could maintain his current diet if he burned an extra 2500 calories every weekend doesn't help him, because he can't.

lapcat 3y ago
> the kind of exercise regime that allows eating loads of food is generally only accessible to people who are already extremely fit. Of course. And I'm not suggesting that people ignore or go crazy with their diet. I'm personally very strict with mine, though I'm not counting calories at all but rather trying to mimimize salt, saturated fat, and added sugar (which perhaps naturally restricts calories somewhat, since the highest calorie foods also tend to have high salt, saturated fat, and added sugar). > But if my 240 lbs buddy wants to lose weight? Dude would be doing well to jog 5km. He's not going to be running any marathons. Of course. What I would say is that in fact it's a (metaphorical) marathon, not a sprint. The goal, I think, should be health, not simply weight loss, which is only one aspect of health. You shouldn't be afraid to exercise strenuously just because it might make you a little hungrier. In the long run, you want to control your diet and also get your body into shape, which requires investment in exercise. My dispute is with the idea that "we burn calories within a very narrow range: nearly 3,000 calories per day, no matter our activity level." That's simpy not true in general. It may be true for a relatively sedentary activity level, but it's not true for people who are at higher levels of vigorous activity, and I don't mean just elite athletes. A normal person can build up to becoming quite physically active if they commit to it long term. Of course nobody can just run a marathon right away, but almost anybody could run a marathon eventually. The author was examining people who walk all day, but I don't think that's a good baseline for measurement of "maximum" physical activity, because walking is generally not very strenous.