4 ms·

You are greatly oversimplifying people's decisions about how to spend their time. I am not trying to defend laziness. I am just drawing to draw your attention

You are greatly oversimplifying people's decisions about how to spend their time. I am not trying to defend laziness. I am just drawing to draw your attention to some of the factors you are not considering here. People often watch TV while doing things like cooking dinner or housework, which aren't compatible with serious exercise. People often watch TV at hours of the day where outdoor exercise is impractical or at least inconvenient. The decision of how to spend time isn't binary: TV or exercise. People with many family responsibilities have less free time. People who can't afford to buy time by paying for their oil changes, plumbing, etc. have less free time. It should be telling that many people who do get regular exercise get up very early to exercise before starting their normal daily activities. Even people who make exercise a priority have a hard time fitting it into a normal schedule.

VLM 13y ago
You two are going to get really confused at the net results of my treadmill being in front of the TV, just far enough back to not affect the use of the kinect. Although I acknowledge that's probably so weird it makes "standing desks" look mainstream. Do I want to watch Dr Phil today? Well, is it Really worth a 3 mile walk? It certainly cuts down on casual TV watching. One datapoint that might help you both is minimum wage jobs are often physically exhausting. While I was a starving student I stacked 80 pound bags of water softener salt on pallets... four hours per day. Even for a big weightlifter dude thats pretty rough. When I went home to do homework I (correctly) felt no need for further exercise. But even a retail clerk drone is at least standing 8 hours per day, even if not lifting much. At another drone job I figured I walked (pretty fast) at 4 mph about half the 8 hour shift, that's 16 miles of walking every day. There probably are minimum wage jobs where you sit all day, but stereotypically sitting around is a problem for highly paid workers. At this instant the only minimum wage / entry level job I can think of involving sitting all day is call center, and those are organized around churn and burn them to get an annual turnover ratio exceeding 1.0 to keep labor costs low (fire everyone before annual review day, and not only do you get to skip giving reviews, but you never have to pay over starting wage).
- varelse 13y ago
  Confused? Not at all. I personally watch really godawful action movies on my spin bike on a regular basis. And if you're on your feet all day, by all means, eat what you want, you're going to need it! But don't lump yourself in with the couch potatoes. Physics doesn't lie. I wear a fitbit and I can burn ~3,000 calories a day just walking around the office and doing household chores. If I exercise on top of that, it's 3,500 to 4,500 calories.
varelse 13y ago
Housework isn't cardio, but it burns plenty of calories. I've measured it. And who needs to exercise outdoors? You can frickin' walk up and down stairs if you have to. It's a question of priorities. I work exercise into my daily routine and if anyone gets in the way of that, I streamroll through them or work around their existence. I have often suggested the 5 mph scrum - everyone walks at 5 mph and if they're out of breath, the meeting is over. Finally, before it gets mentioned, having kids is a choice. If you're making minimum wage in your 20s or earlier, it's probably a bad one, but even then, it doesn't seem to stop immigrant families who simply pool together their resources and collaborate better than Agile, Kanban, Extreme Programing or any other MBA-induced methodology of the month(tm).

VLM 13y ago

You two are going to get really confused at the net results of my treadmill being in front of the TV, just far enough back to not affect the use of the kinect. Although I acknowledge that's probably so weird it makes "standing desks" look mainstream. Do I want to watch Dr Phil today? Well, is it Really worth a 3 mile walk? It certainly cuts down on casual TV watching. One datapoint that might help you both is minimum wage jobs are often physically exhausting. While I was a starving student I stacked 80 pound bags of water softener salt on pallets... four hours per day. Even for a big weightlifter dude thats pretty rough. When I went home to do homework I (correctly) felt no need for further exercise. But even a retail clerk drone is at least standing 8 hours per day, even if not lifting much. At another drone job I figured I walked (pretty fast) at 4 mph about half the 8 hour shift, that's 16 miles of walking every day. There probably are minimum wage jobs where you sit all day, but stereotypically sitting around is a problem for highly paid workers. At this instant the only minimum wage / entry level job I can think of involving sitting all day is call center, and those are organized around churn and burn them to get an annual turnover ratio exceeding 1.0 to keep labor costs low (fire everyone before annual review day, and not only do you get to skip giving reviews, but you never have to pay over starting wage).

varelse 13y ago
Confused? Not at all. I personally watch really godawful action movies on my spin bike on a regular basis. And if you're on your feet all day, by all means, eat what you want, you're going to need it! But don't lump yourself in with the couch potatoes. Physics doesn't lie. I wear a fitbit and I can burn ~3,000 calories a day just walking around the office and doing household chores. If I exercise on top of that, it's 3,500 to 4,500 calories.

varelse 13y ago

Housework isn't cardio, but it burns plenty of calories. I've measured it. And who needs to exercise outdoors? You can frickin' walk up and down stairs if you have to. It's a question of priorities. I work exercise into my daily routine and if anyone gets in the way of that, I streamroll through them or work around their existence. I have often suggested the 5 mph scrum - everyone walks at 5 mph and if they're out of breath, the meeting is over. Finally, before it gets mentioned, having kids is a choice. If you're making minimum wage in your 20s or earlier, it's probably a bad one, but even then, it doesn't seem to stop immigrant families who simply pool together their resources and collaborate better than Agile, Kanban, Extreme Programing or any other MBA-induced methodology of the month(tm).