I am 62, and have been exercising pretty regularly for 18 years. I hate it. At its worst, it is painful and unpleasant. At its best, it is boring. I am fortunate to be able to eat anything I want and not gain weight (even when I don't exercise). It seems to be the case that I can eat any amount of carbs and not gain weight. But I don't eat crap, and I gave up soft drinks completely a long time ago (before I started exercising).
The secret for me was to recognize a few things:
- I do hate exercise. I don't have the willpower to exercise hard for an hour a day. It works best for me if I have someone telling me what to do. So over the years, I have tried various forms of group exercise. I am currently doing crossfit, (minus the cult aspects, thanks but no thanks) 3 days a week, and working with a personal trainer 2 days a week (basically an exhausting form of physical therapy to address problems with the ways that I move, and my lack of mobility).
- Making exercise a priority doesn't work for someone like me, because I hate it so much. No, I made it a habit, which is different. It's a regular thing on my schedule.
- It does make me feel better. Not when I do it. Immediately after exercising, all I feel is relief that it's over for the day. But if I stick to my 5x/week schedule, 1 hour/day, then my aches and pains -- charateristic for my age -- disappear. No more aching knees or frequent upper back pain. If I stop for a couple of weeks, these problems return and I generally feel less energetic.
- The battle is psychological. The worst thing is getting myself to the gym. I wait until the very last minute, and dread it for the whole short drive. The anticipation before the workout sucks. The warmup is the absolute worst, because I am transitioning from my normal lazy, comfortable mode, to a far more active mode, doing completely unnatural (for me) things. Doing the workout is mostly boring, often exhausting, but mentally easier that the buildup.
Figure out what works for you and make it a habit.
That's me as well. Working out just plain sucks. Afterwards I am nauseous, tired, smelly, sweaty, out of breath, etc. These feelings last for about 2-4 hours after cessation of physical activity. I hate going, I dread it all day long. Working out sucks.
But yes, generally, I feel better if I have a routine that I stick to and just muscle out the work-out. I have successfully trained for, and ran, a marathon. I hated every single mile. But I never felt better, life-wise, than during that process. Which makes me hate working out even more, as I know it's good for me and makes life better. Gah!
That's basically what I said -- group classes. I agree, the point is to do what the guy tells me and not think about it. Before I did CrossFit, I did HIIT classes.
What sort of exercise do you do? I hate the gym and find it mind numbingly boring.
I cycle most places - its the fastest way for me to get around my city. Cycling saves me time and money. And I love white water kayaking, skiing and mountain biking. Kayaking especially has made me travel to some amazing places and brought m wonderful experiences. I have kayaked for years and I can understand that they would be difficult for someone older to get into. I imagine that there must be some form of exercise that you could find interesting.
Cycling is terrifying to me. I'm sure this is a function of age, as I used to bike everywhere. But I keep finding out about people who are maimed or killed cycling. Someone I worked with had a really bad broken arm. People in my town have been killed. (There are bike lanes, but they are just painted. Too easy for cars to ignore.) My neighbor is quadriplegic after a cycling accident.
CrossFit, which is a mix of cardio and weight-lifting. It works for me because: it minimizes the time getting to and from; I can turn off my brain and just do what they tell me (no self-motivation required); I prefer boring and predictable to unpleasant (too hot, too cold, too rainy) and variable.
I have tried many forms of exercise, and I find what I'm doing now to be the least miserable.
I like doing hard workouts and 1 hour a day seems like too much. Try 45 minutes instead. I try not to go past that when lifting weights. I rarely surpass 25 minutes when doing high intensity interval training.
I used to not enjoy it too until I found something I genuinely was good at and was competitive: an indoor rowing studio. I now enthusiastically workout 5 days a week. And rowing is a very efficient use of my time, I burn roughly a calorie per row stroke. A 20 minute rowing session means very little dietary restrictions.
The big thing that worked for me was data. I weighed myself every day no matter what and even if I knew I was going over the calorie count for the day I logged it anyway.
For me that was when this vast mystery of diet was cleared. Once I saw how directly linked they were it became very easy to say no to things and it continues to do so.
Yeah, rowing rocks. I just finished the Concept 2 100K challenge. I feel seriously good pretty much all the time. My posterior chain is much stronger. My posture is much better. I can eat anything. The correct rowing stroke is difficult to master, more so if you want to row on the water. Time spent with Dark Horse or Training Tall YouTube videos will help quite a bit.
Jumping rope is also very underrated. I’m just starting the CrossRopes challenge.
Weight training is fairly rated. Spinning fairly rated. Ellipticals are overrated.
this is the key thing that keeps me going as well and it seems underrated. Cardio and better looks and whatnot are nice but for me change in posture and back musculature has been a real boon.
I used to have headaches and back pain pretty frequently and just essentially felt like a slob when sitting and having some more muscles and dropping some weight has fixed a lot of it. In addition to rowing, I can also recommend swimming. In particular for people who haven't exercised in a long time and/or are overweight.
I love training tall! I'm not very tall for a rower (only 6'4") but his stuff helps me continuously improve.
My last vacation to Florida I got out on the water with an 85 year old man that had been rowing for 50+ years. I got great instruction and he was full of sage wisdom. It was a ton of fun and I've never been so pleased to kick my butt kicked by a professional.
You're plenty tall for a rower, in fact, likely the perfect height for many boats. Keep up the erg work and I hope you can get on the water more frequently. I've been at it for 20+ years and love it.
> The big thing that worked for me was data. I weighed myself every day no matter what and even if I knew I was going over the calorie count for the day I logged it anyway.
This is the only method that works for me. A scale with weight, body fat and muscle mass measurements each morning after waking up.
The scales that measure body composition based on electrical signals are basically just toys. They are highly inaccurate and readings can vary significantly from day to day based on several factors such as hydration state and gut contents.
Doing something enjoyable is super important. You'll want to be able to treasure the time spent using the equipment / activity.
Kudos to OP/TFA for sticking with it, but I'm wondering if exploring other options would be beneficial for the long term. Real strength is not gotten from a treadmill alone, although it does have bone strengthening benefits that eg cycling does not.
Rowing seems like a great alternative to be added to the mix, as would weights.
I think rowing is a wonderful exercise, with a caveat.
A relative of mine was on a crew team for years. He got into very good shape, and developed extraordinary back muscles, but his chest became sort of small in comparison. It was similar to runners who end up with huge legs and undeveloped arms.
I wonder if rowing could be re-designed to target all the muscles somehow, not just pulling in one direction.
I suggest anyone who is using a computer (as I am now) needs to focus first on posterior chain/ back and shoulders primarily to stop the shoulders being pulled forward in the infamous keyboard hunch. Sort out core, winged scapula and lower rhomboids first, then do the push exercises that develop pectorals, front deltoids etc, but make sure your back is always stronger for good typing and mouse posture is my suggestion
Agreed - I was using a digitizer for many years through the 90s to early 2000's doing AutoCAD and 3D work...
So, I would say that my mousing was more than any average pointing and clicking one would typically do with consuming content.
I found that my muscles in my back would fall asleep / go numb and I would need to really focus on posture and take breaks to lay on a racket ball ort tennis ball between my shoulders to massage those muscles.
Now I get comments about my posture being so rock solid straight up when I sit at my machine due to how conscious I was of my back.
Now I just do it without thinking - but really having good posture and strong back to hold up at a machine for long hours is a must.
I have a C2 rowing machine and an olympic barbell sitting right next to it. After rowing sessions (perhaps every other one), I will do strict (overhead) press and/or push-ups. Occasionally, I will also drive to a commercial gym to do bench press since doing something like this at home can prove to be hazardous.
You can bench at home pretty safely if you setup a bar thing at chest height (forgot the name). If you also leave the ends off the weight you can usually escape. Maybe not a good idea to bench 600 pounds, but If you are a normal Guy benching a few hundred it seems fine.
Set them up at the right height and your bar will be allowed to bounce off / touch the rib cage (where the movement should go, at least according to eg Rippetoe (1)), yet leave the area further up protected. You should be able to easily wriggle out; verify with bar only first.
My squat rack has numbered holes, this helps my setup time when switching J hooks from squats to bench.
Do you have your rowing studio at home, or do you use it in a gym? And what's the name/brand? I have been running for a really long time and am hitting an age where it's getting hard on my body. Looking for what's next.
The studio I go to uses water rowers. They're non linear like water, but resistance varies from machine to machine. I like them because you have to feather the start of the stroke to get maximum energy transfer to the tank. Oh they also have a cool usb interface and well documented API.
See other comments about concept2, they're the erg standard by far.
I thought those water based ones are meant to be the actual hifi simulation of a boat on water. Does C2 make those ? The air rowers at gyms are fine value for money, but hardly deluxe.
In my experience, water based rowers are a joke compared to the air resistance ones. Every person I've ever talked to who owns one has said it developed a leak in one or more ways and is otherwise a huge pita to maintain. Hence, the owners of these machines invariably end up never using them. My C2 has none of these concerns and is always ready for use immediately.
Also, consider for a moment the physics involved. Air is a fluid, just like water, and behaves in exactly the same ways. It is simply less dense and requires greater surface area to produce the same resistance. Air is also compressible and seems to produce a much more consistent stroke.
If you want the real thing, get an actual row boat and put it on a lake. Adding water to the machine does not add any degree of authenticity to the experience.
Rowing is amazing. I cannot overstate how great an activity this is for cardio and building core strength. The amount of impact to your body, assuming somewhat decent form, is virtually negligible compared to alternatives such as running. The other thing about rowing that is so compelling to me is the continual variability of intensity that is possible. With running, you usually have a discrete jump in exertion when going from a fast walk to a proper run. With rowing, you have a much finer gradient of exertion to work with. If you feel like rowing precisely at 815 kcal/hr, you can hold that target the entire time without feeling like your body wasn't designed for that exact pace. Warming up into an intense session is also substantially easier because of this. Many times I will tell myself "let's just row lightly for a bit and watch this podcast", and inevitably I will end up in an intense rowing session after about 10 minutes of screwing around. This is how continuous it is... you almost trick yourself into exertion after a while without realizing it. One final upside is that because of the low impact, after a few weeks of conditioning, you can pretty much row every single day without worrying about wearing yourself out in any serious way.
The only downside to all of this is that rowing is an activity that is very direct in its payout model. You have to intentionally push yourself harder because of how the resistance mechanism operates. Just sitting on a machine or boat and going through the motions for X amount of time does not entitle anyone to weight loss or any other health benefits. If it doesn't suck at least a little bit while you are doing it, I can pretty much guarantee you won't experience any upside afterwards. You will have to become the architect of your own individual hell when using a rowing machine. The worse it is during, the better the results will be after (but don't discourage yourself!).
In my personal experience, I literally cannot gain weight when doing at least 5 sessions of 5km (<25 minutes each) per week. Now, this ~25 minutes is pretty brutal, but it's all it takes to keep me at a healthy weight without even trying. I could drink a 6 pack of light beer every single day (obviously not recommended) and still not put on any appreciable weight. Being able to consume anything you want whenever you want is very liberating. Contrary to the parent post, I never bother to log my calories or weight. I just enforce the rowing output on a regular basis and keep it simple. Having the performance monitor module on the rower helps a ton with maintaining consistent output.
I purchased a Concept2 Model D about 4 years ago now, and it has already seen over 7000 km with not so much as a hint of breakdown. Just a little bit of 3-in-1 oil on the chain once in a while and it runs like a dream every time. 9/10 times if I can't get myself motivated to get in the car to go to the gym, I can at least talk myself into a 20-30 minute rowing session since it's just in the other room. This was probably the best purchase I've ever made if we are considering personal health as a high priority.
The impact of running is actually really good for bone strength. People who run have much stronger bones at 70 compared to people that just do low impact.
Concept 2 ergometers, model D, are the gold standard. Used ones can be found for around $600 to $700 and new ones are $950. Many gyms sell their rowing machines because people don't use them, however, crossfit studios snap them up. Check your local craigslist. There's also RP3's from Row Perfect, but they're $3,500. Some swear by the RP3's as feeling much closer to rowing on water.
Indeed. If you find something that involves both exertion and fun, you are golden. If not, it's a constant struggle. For me it's bikes. Those of us who find that enthusiasm are lucky.
I find that the hardest thing about logging what I eat is knowing what I eat, and what calories those things contain. Often I eat lunch at work where they serve a ton of different dishes, and I dont have the opportunity to weigh what I eat, and I have no idea what exactly they put in that said that day. If I try to err on the side of caution, I'll be super hungry because the number of calories I ate does not add up to the number logged. Unless I have the time to make all my food and measure it or only eat processed/pre-made food that is labeled it's hard to keep accurate track.
Do any of you feel the same way? I have used Myfitnesspal and similar before, but have never stuck with it. Before I have stayed reasonably fit because I usually ride mountain bikes a lot,but the past few years there has been less riding and I'm now +10kg my normal weight at least.
After doing it for a while, you get a rough feeling for the calories involved - you can tell just by looking at your dish if it's 500 or 1,000 calories.
That means you don't get high precision data, and the nutrients may be off, but it's more than enough to keep yourself in a caloric deficit/surplus as you choose.
(Also, don't eat lunch at work if you can avoid it. It's greasy, over-salted, and not the best food for you. No matter what corporate propaganda tells you)
I tried this for a while. I was hitting the gym for HIIT and weights and counting calories with MyFitnessPal. I estimated a pretty huge calorie deficit and it felt like it (felt woozy more than once). Lost zero pounds. After that I stopped being so careful with counting and just tried to eat right and keep exercising. Lost zero pounds. I wanted to get some hormone levels tested but my doctor said not too.
See a new doctor. Getting blood work is super important and can help pinpoint if you’ve got something else going on. When dieting it’s also important to weigh yourself once a week, ideally in the morning about 20-30 minutes after you wake up. You may not lose weight your first 2-3 weeks on a caloric deficit as your body adjusts.
Coming back to the bloodwork, you should get a full panel at least 1x/year if not twice a year. I realize not everyone is fortunate enough to do so, but most of the time insurances cover a large portion of it as preventative care. Blood work can show if you’re out of range on items like your test/estrogen levels, thyroid function & many more areas.
If your current doctor doesn’t support that, I’m sorry but that’s not a great doctor. Blood work is important.
Weight lifting's more effective for me at controlling fat than it "should" be according to charts and calculators and such, cardio and calorie deficits, even largish ones (1400 calories/day was one I kept up for 60ish days straight, once, and no, I didn't once cheat, so yeah, I've actually tried) OTOH are way less effective than they "should" be. Flat-out not eating for a day or two at a time does work, though. IDK why, that's just how my body works. Sucks, because dieting's easy for me and saves time & money, versus lifting weights, which uses up time (and space, if you do it at home, and sometimes money). At least straight-up fasts work.
Keep in mind that when you first start lifting you're going to be putting on muscle a lot faster than someone who has lifted for years and thus what average data tells you it will be.
It's not going to balance out the kind of fat loss an obese person dieting can be losing but if you were just a little pudgy with a completely sedentary lifestyle/no muscle previously, potentially you were just gaining muscle at a rate you lost fat.
You won't lose weight if your sleep or hydration aren't right.
Composition of what you're eating matters; I personally find a low-carb low-calorie diet more sustainable than a high-carb low-calorie diet.
You also won't lose weight if your diet has too few calories. Its counterintuitive, but if you go too low, your body will compensate by dropping metabolism and raising your appetite; bad combo.
Also, you need to consider that you may be gaining muscle and that's offsetting any fat loss.
Sorry if you've heard this all before, I know how tiring it can be to get the same canned advice over and over. I'd be curious to hear your numbers (calorie intake, weight, height)
Also, one last thing, _DO NOT_ trust the calorie estimates from those apps. If I ate as much as fitbit told me to, I'd gain weight _very rapidly_ despite having set the program to make me lose 2 lbs per week. E.g. fitbit wants me to eat 2500(!!) calories today to lose 2 lb per week. In practice I need to eat < 1400 calories to lose ~1 lb per week and <1200 to lose the 2 lbs per week. I'm 6' 210lb.
Sleep has definitely been a problem. But I just feel like my body is not responding to exercise like it should (or like it used to). I've been pretty consistent doing barbell squats and dead lifts at least once a week. I've stepped up the weight and think my form is decent enough but I still feel like a ton of bricks. I haven't seen any obvious muscle growth or seen my waist shrink.
I'm not one for fads but I may give intermittent fasting a go.
Heh - as you age, your body most certainly doesn't respond to exercise like it used to. On top of that, it's more responsive to food :(
Lifting once a week does little for your muscles if you're in your twenties. It does pretty much nothing once you've reached your forties. (It's still better than doing nothing, but it won't show much in terms of visible change)
And no, exercising once a week won't make your waist shrink. Losing one pound requires a caloric deficit of ~3,500 calories. If you're the average desk-bound adult male, that means eating no more than 1,500-1,700 calories a day to lose a pound/week. (Your deadlifting burns around 500 calories/hour, so if you do an hour a week, that barely influences what you can eat)
Intermittent fasting is a way to get there, but... it's a fad. It can easily lead to eating disorders. I'd look at what you eat, and how healthy it is, first.
You can be losing fat while gaining muscle. Net lbs stay the same, but the circumference of your arms/legs/stomach/hips will be shrinking, and the fat % (if you have a scale that reports that) will be reporting a noisy-but-changing value.
Honestly, as someone who values efficiency, I found MyFitnessPal way too slow and clunky. A food tracker should get out of the way. Otherwise you'll - in the heat of the moment - decide not to log things. It also lacked flexibility for those times you dine out, skip meals, or skip logging.
Which leads nicely to the shameless plug for https://www.joyapp.com . Built it for myself, then it spread through forums and has quite a few users.
Benefits:
- Once you learn the ropes, it's an order of magnitude faster to add entries. It was designed to be opened for as little as possible each day.
- If you make it hard to log your food, you won't do it. This makes it trivial.
- Also, there are no community-entered foods. This is a feature in most cases. All the food is either from a professionally curated database (Nutritionix) or custom foods you enter.
- No ads whatsoever. And we don't sell your data. Privacy is very important to us.
"Also, there are no community-entered foods. This is a feature in most cases."
For me this is the only thing keeping me on MFP (also I don't live in the US so it's a big time saver). The barcode scanner is a godsend. There are a lot of people dissatisfied with the stagnation of MFP though, I think with the right value proposition they're ripe for displacement.
I'd used MFP years ago for a bit, then stopped. I just tried to get back into tracking my meals about a month ago, and tried out an app called LoseIt (Android: com.fitnow.loseit ). I compared them by entering the same meals into both for about a week, and decided to switch to LoseIt, mostly due to the food search feeling snappier and the presentation of the stats looking nicer. Also, LoseIt made it easier to re-enter meals that I'd had recently.
Redux Royalty in the flesh! Your articles and tutorials were helpful in building Joy. Fun fact: it uses Redux heavily, with TypeScript.
Your posts a few years ago in /r/reactjs/ and your site were instrumental. Different username on Reddit, but I'm sure you can find me. Many thanks. [1]
"Oh and to be clear: Joy does have a barcode scanner. It picks up 99% of foods out there."
That's nice to know (I looked for the info but couldn't find it mentioned on the landing or iOS app page).
The community entries are a mess. Spelling mistakes abound, sometimes the nutrition profile gets changed by the manufacturer, and barcodes get re-used. But it still covers most of my needs.
I understand that $2 / month is not trivial for everyone, but this criticism alone is simply not helpful. If a person, such as yourself, does not value the benefits the service provides as greater than the price, they are simply not his/her target market.
Your argument could be that the price asked would limit his/her market needlessly by simply being too high, but at this price point I doubt that to be the case.
He / she built a service with a clear value prop (fastest food logging possible, backed by high quality / custom data, with a privacy focus). For those interested in food logging without having their eating and nutrition habits / data sold off, I doubt the price would be a deterrent.
Maybe you can say the service is not meeting expectations in some way. That’s fair, but then please provide more specific feedback.
Given the nature of this forum, let’s try to be either more supportive or at least more clear about what could be improved. Drive-by negativity is just not helpful to anyone.
I, for one, applaud his/her efforts, find the offering enticing and the price to be very reasonable (Probably too low, in reality) given the attention to detail, data provided, and problem being solved.
Disclaimer: I have not used the service and have no association, only browsed the site. I rarely comment, but wanted to balance out this low-effort negativity.
I used lose it. I will go back to it but I haven't used it for a few months. What worked for me was logging on the table, as soon as I got the food. Once I started deferring it, ok I will log it later at end of day, I started slipping. The reason for deferral was similar to yours: I want to go more fine grained and be accurate, but no: you are deferring it and eventually I will get into a state where I miss a day or 3 and now no way to go back and fix. So the next time I start (touch wood), enter as you grab the food.
I always found that calorie counting is much easier if you primarily eat packaged and/or prepared foods. Popular apps and websites already know the nutritional info for what you're eating, so it can be as easy as searching by brand name or UPC.
If you do a lot of cooking and baking yourself, counting calories is a painful process. You have to weigh everything going into the recipe, understand how cooking processes alter the nutritional makeup of your ingredients, calculate the probable calorie count of the finished product, and then weigh each portion while it's being served. If you like to use specialty ingredients (e.g., different kinds of grain flours in a single recipe or fermented vegetables in Sichuanese cuisine), even figuring out the calorie values of your inputs can be challenging.
What works for me is continuous tracking. As long as you continuously track weight, body weight, activity (fitness monitors or the pedometer on your phone), and calories you will be able to make corrections based on the output (basically body weight with some corrections based on what you see in the mirror if you lift weights or exercise regularly). Even if your calorie estimations are off eventually for the day, it will show up in your body weight so you just adjust your estimates based on that to develop your "feel". Buying a food scale and cooking your own food really gives you a good feel for the calories involved with various ingredients. After a few cycles of calibration you will get a better at it and it will be less of a burden.
My trick is to look carefully at the food I'm about to eat, and consider how good/filling/satisfying/etc it looks compared to a known benchmark (e.g., a McDonalds cheeseburger). Estimating that way, I'm usually within 20%, which is plenty close (esp given that unbiased errors cancel out).
Beyond that, weigh every day, track values in a decaying average app to cancel out noise, and greatly reduce or fast completely on days where I'm over my line.
Easier said than done, of course, but I'm halfway successful.
I tried a few ways and eventually giving up. I just have to live with not having accurate counts.
1. I try to make my own food using common ingredients. It failed in a couple of weeks because I do prefer to not spend that much time on making food.
2. Eating at restaurants is especially difficult. Even if you bring a scale with you. Like if you are given some Chinese dish where all the things are mixed together. I give up and go with "Chinese buffet" option in myfitnesspal.
3. Ironically, fast food places do have calories listed, and that justifies some of my visits...
You MUST use a food scale and weigh ALL of your food.
Don't use measuring cups, and don't eyeball it. Also, don't trust any calorie counts from a restaurant.
After a while you get better at not needing a food scale for absolutely everything, but I've been controlling my weight (both gaining and losing) via CICO for nearly two decades and I still weigh most of my food.
I guess I'll post this here, on the off chance that someone shares my plight and has found success.
I, like the author, have found that most traditional excercise is just... boring. And exhausting. And not enjoyable. I did biking for awhile, and it was fine until life happened and I fell off the wagon. Same with lifting. Same with running. The only thing I've truly enjoyed was rock climbing, but the nearest gym is 45mim away in low traffic - it's a 3 hour commitment to get a good session.
I've seen the advice from this thread before, to find excercise you enjoy or excercise you can integrate into your life (ie: run to work). I work from home. Everything out of the house is inconvenient, and everything in the house is boring.
I make plenty of money and would be exceptionally happy if I could just throw money at this problem. There's not really a price I wouldn't pay for a more durable and comfortable body.
Mostly in the past Ive been told I need to... just do it. Have the willpower to do it. But that's crappy advice and doesn't work. Has anyone had success with particular workouts or strategies to keep motivated?
> Has anyone had success with particular workouts or strategies to keep motivated?
Not to knock you, but this sentence is where I think the issue is - at some point motivation drops off and you need what I like to label as "discipline" to progress further.
The best piece of advice I heard was from someone getting awarded their 5th degree black belt in Aikido, something that takes decades to earn [I'm paraphrasing here]: Training is like a marriage. It is great in the beginning because you are learning all these new things and improving, like the honeymoon phase, everything seems to be great. But over time, that feeling will decrease a bit. Sometimes you wonder if its worth it at all. But, like a marriage, training takes effort and even years down the road you still have to work on it. Not just maintaining it, but actually working on it.
I also like a book by George Leonard called "Mastery" [1] that I think I've linked on HN before. In the book, he's taking the position of the instructor to explain types of "student behaviors" he's seen over the years - Dabblers, Obsessives, and Hackers (people who just "show up"). As learners, people will behave like one of these types on their way to becoming masters in an domain. Each student type stressed the same topic - dealing with when improvement "gets hard" and what steps can be done to help curb some of those issues.
I found BJJ (Brazilian Jujitsu, aka "pajama wrestling") to be the thing I enjoyed and could integrate into my life. This isn't going to be for everybody - hardly anyone (statistically speaking) steps onto the mat to begin with and the drop-out rate is savage. However, it's been the thing that keeps me fitter and saner than I would be otherwise - and it's a brutal reality check when you start getting fat and/or lazy.
I don't think the specific thing I do is likely to work for you - or most people - but I think having a real sport to work on that's a sane distance from your house (my gym is a 12 minute drive) is a good chance. Ideally take a look at the profile of the sport and see if (a) you like the idea and (b) there are actually people your age and fitness level doing it in any substantial numbers (i.e. at 47, I'm not going to take up gymnastics). My wife likes tennis, which is about a 5 minute walk away and there are plenty of middle-aged weekend warriors doing that too.
TBH if everything out of the house is that inconvenient you should be rethinking where you live, but that's just my prejudice - one of the major factors in selecting city/neighborhood was proximity to a wide variety of activities in easy walk/drive distance. Obviously you may have a lot of other factors keeping you where you are that are more important.
I personally find bodyweight fitness (aka calisthenics) incredibly challenging and satisfying. Good routines are based on progression from easier forms to more difficult forms, emphasis on form over quantity, and at the end of the day, you'll learn some very impressive skills that require tremendous, functional strength. Equipment is minimal - a bar to hang from, a floor to resist you. There is enough complexity, challenge, and progression to last a lifetime. I gave up climbing for it. Reddit's bodyweightfitness subreddit is excellent. Head there for more info. The community's recommended routine is a perfect place to begin.
If you want to throw money at it, try hiring a personal trainer for 2 or 3 days a week.
(I had a personal trainer for a while who trained me and a friend, just having the commitment to trainer at least made me show up, and it was his job to keep things fresh. Having a friend there also helped make it less boring).
Totally agree. I did this after a few years off being a competitive track athlete, and trying different sports. I got a personal trainer to come to my house 3 times a week at 6am. It works because you don't have to think about what to do, you're just told to do it. You can't get out of it because they're coming knocking on your door at 6am, and you end up having some fun and interesting conversations. That got me back in to track athletics with a coach and it's something I look forward to every day.
Depending on your location and the experience level of the trainer for someone to come to your house and use equipment at your house plus/minus some small stuff they carry in, I think it could be anywhere from $60-$200 an hour.
This doesn't really work for a lot of people because now on top of still being inconvenient and not changing the willpower aspect, there's also the constant knowledge that you're spending money on something you don't really need. The only exception I can think of is if the gym could literally go to you, as in good fitness equipment in a large van or small truck that drives to your house with the trainer.
Try team sports. Playing the sport is exercise that's fun, but also your team practice sessions are largely exercise as well. You're doing it alongside your buddies so there's lots of joking around and whatnot so its fun.
What's more is it makes the practical effects more immediate. Delayed gratification is hard. Results that are going to be realised soon are much more motivating.
So when you're doing something like running by yourself, it's still easier because you're not running out of some vague sense of being more attractive in a year, or avoiding a heart attack that you may or may not have in 10, you're running so that next weekend it's ever so harder for the opposing teams front rowers to flatten you.
I've had the same experience with exercise as you, but instead of rock climbing I really started to enjoy group yoga for a while. I used to attend a free class given by a friend and his wife in their home. The only reason I stopped was because it was a half hour drive each way on Monday, Wednesday and sometimes Friday night. It ran from 7:30pm to 9pm.
The people there were very serious about practicing yoga and I was completely out of my element. What I liked about it was that it was very challenging, fulfilling and I saw a great results within a month. My energy levels were way up, I felt balanced in more areas of my life and I was losing weight. Being part of a group really motivated me to do my best and to go the entire 1.5 hours without quitting. I also enjoyed the bit of socialization before and after class. The hour of driving started annoying me after a few months though and work got in the way at times, so I eventually stopped going.
Recently, I've been thinking I'm going to turn my 2-car garage into a gym to hold my own regular practice. I love the idea that people would come to me instead of me going to them. I'm still thinking about ways to attract the right kind of people to join in. I am no Yoga Guru. Perhaps I will see if I can find some newly certified yoga teachers and ask if they want a place to practice with a group. If I can't find a real teacher, I think I might just fake it. Sometimes if you can't find the Guru, you just have to be the Guru...
It depends. There are certain aspects that you can treat like you do grocery shopping. Weight training, for example. Three sets for three exercises three times a week, with five minutes rest between sets. Bring a book, set a timer. When the timer goes off, you spend less than a minute doing the set, and then go back to reading. Once you've done squats, deadlifts, and the like for a few months you can focus on your form without losing the context of the book.
For rock climbing, is there anything else you need to do in that direction so you can climb once a week?
You can also try to add loads back to your life elsewhere. Where can you replace sitting down with squatting, machines with lifting, and car trips with walking or cycling without compromising your time? Can you put rings or a bar by your workstation so when you pause to thing you can reach up and hang? Katie Bowman is a wonderful person to read on the topic of adaptation to loads.
You can probably get a rock climbing / bouldering setup built at home depending on how plenty your plenty of money is.
Then anything you do cardio and weight lifting wise could be in support of your climbing goals depending on where your weaknesses are once you reach a certain level.
I enjoy weightlifting because it makes me eat better, sleep better and thus feel better and I like how precisely you can measure progress (compared to team sports for example). A squat rack, bench and Olympic barbell at home is all you need for a simple program like StrongLifts 5x5 which takes very little time.
At the end of the day, you can be Jeff Bezos rich but Jeff still has to do the actual work, perhaps with a little steroid help though he seems jacked. Fitness is one of the things you can't just buy outright.
> Has anyone had success with particular workouts or strategies to keep motivated?
What worked for me was ballroom dance (social, then social + performance, then that + competitive formation team, then all that plus teacher training)—well, until I had kids, still trying to work back into something that works with that but frankly I don't see anything stabilizing in that area for me until they’re a little older.
Much of what a sibling comment says about team sports applies here (and competition is a team, or pair in the case of the more common couples rather than formation team format, sport.)
Essentially, if getting into shape isn't enough to motivate you to stay with exercise (and for lots of people, it's not), you need to find something that also serves other needs. Providing a social third place, competitive outlet, and some kind of feeling of achievement besides what you get from raw fitness measures (the scale, tape, etc.) all can help this.
But while I think those general concerns are broadly applicable, the specific activity that works for any given person is going to vary a lot, because everyone's reward function works a bit differently.
Same. I just find it boring, and all the 'find exercise you like' advice doesn't help as it would be something with even less return on time investment (e.g. group sports). I also wish I could just throw money at it, get augmented or something so I don't have to do it at all. I like doing things with my brain, and for me no sport seems like a novel experience worth spending time on.
That said I still exercise consistently. Basically, since it seems rational: you get more time in return that you spend doing exercise (presumably returns diminish at some point, but that seems to be true for 'reasonable' amount of exercise)?
I'm also treating this as a 'quantified self' project, and collecting/visualising data makes it a bit more enjoyable.
Some people cannot find motivation to exercise alone. Did you enjoy rock climbing itself or the community aspect of it and socializing with people. May be you need a partner for your workouts to keep yourself motivated. I tried Peloton bike in the gym a few times. I am not a fan in general of stationary bikes and treadmills, but Peloton workouts are fun, and you a part of an online community. The bike is expensive though, but if it works for you it may be a great long term investment.
But in all seriousness, it sounds like a Peloton bike might be a good fit for you. You don’t need to leave the house and the live classes should alleviate some boredom. It can probably even help with your desire to throw money at something. I’ve not used them myself, but have seen a neighbor who has one in her garage. She got into good shape impressively quickly after having her second child.
I like the general thrust of this article that some calorie deficit is the key to weight loss. Alas, he is still suffering under the misconception that cardio works for weight loss/fat loss. All the published research shows this never happens. Here is a summary of that research[0]. The research always shows that humans who expend extra calories during one activity will, over the course of the rest of the day, expend fewer calories to, on average, expend essentially the same amount of energy as those who did not engage in the strenuous activity. Women who train for their first marathon gain, on average, 2-3 lbs of fat, even though they have expended tens of thousands of extra calories during their marathon training. Cardio has its uses in fitness, just not for losing fat.
Being fat is hard; being fit is hard too. You get your abs in the kitchen, not on a treadmill. Also, exercising so one can get away with indulging a higher caloric count sounds dangerous and reads like "exercise bulimia." Sweating so you can cheat and eat some cake or candy is still going to tax your pancreas, gallbladder, and liver. YMMV
Walking outside in colder weather will make you lose more weight than sweating on a treadmill with no breeze. Running, cycling, and swimming are great too, for you can do races which are more communal and a future goal keeps you at it.
You're going too far here. "Never happens" is wrong. If anything, perhaps cardio doesn't help on average. But I know individuals who have lost huge amounts of weight through serious cardio activity and no special diet work. I mean 'serious' cardio though: 2-3 hours/day on a treadmill. I've personally leaned out a lot through cycling.
Sure, I lost a lot of weight when I started running and cycling a lot, but I wasn't tracking my food at all. I was suddenly "the kind of person" who doesn't put crap in the temple of their body, etc. When the laboratory experiment is done, in a controlled environment, same food with exercise results in same weight without exercise. If you want to change how you eat as you start a cardio exercise program, great things will happen. Just because someone loses weight when they start cardio does not imply the cardio led to weight loss. Though the 50% of floor space in big box gyms devoted to cardio would make you think that is the most important effect. The gyms just never get around to presenting any literature to back up that presumption that sells so many memberships.
I care, a lot. I'm lazy and I very much want an ideal body but I very much loathe the effort many people put into getting an ideal body. I've had great success with extended fasts and the more research I do, the more I believe that is the optimal path to achieving my ideal body, both for losing fat and gaining muscle.
I'll tl;dr; this comment by saying I'm a longer term fasting fan boy now so I can stay on topic and say that it very much matters to me what cause and effect are because I don't want to do cardio.
If you want a technical approach to weight loss, you might read The Hacker's Diet[0], free online. He even has an online weight tracking app that is great for smoothing out the fluctuations in daily weight measurements[1].
The cardio is not necessary, but, alas, the strength training may be. If you are losing a large amount of fat by dieting alone, you are saying goodbye to pounds of muscle, too, unless you are suggesting to your body that you still need that muscle (strength training). Sarcopenia is taking your muscle mass fast enough as you age; don't let it speed up because it is a bitch to get it back once it is gone.
If you just want the simplest diet to lose weight, start eating a lot of protein[2]. Fats and carbs have raised the energy balance of typical processed foods, so reverse that trend in what you eat and you will lose weight while eating ad libitum (at will).
extended fasts lose far less muscle than any calorie restriction diets. Hence my poorly worded note about it's the best diet for gaining muscle. What I really meant is that fasting is the best way to lose fat while preserving as much muscle as possible.
> The research always shows that humans who expend extra calories during one activity will, over the course of the rest of the day, expend fewer calories to, on average, expend essentially the same amount of energy as those who did not engage in the strenuous activity.
It's quite possible to adopt an exercise regime where one, on average (even taking into account rest days), expends more in strenuous activity per day than one would expend in total per day without strenuous activity, in which case it is physically impossible to offset the additional calorie expenditure in activity with reduced calorie expenditure at rest (and since the body does actually have irreducible needs at rest—and since exercise, by creating microinjuries that require repair, increases that minimum, even if it also increases resting efficiency) the actual limit where this becomes impossible is a much lower active expenditure.
It's possible that there is a range in which additional strenuous activity is offset, and it's possible most practical attempts to boost strenuous activity for weight loss end up within that range. But it's also certainly possible to get outside of the range where that effect can operate.
I'd really like any reference to that in the exercise science literature. I would be looking for full blown calorimeter studies with fixed diets. Does not seem to exist.
You’re not going to get an endorphin rush from walking for 20 minutes. Endorphins are essentially painkillers produced in response to physical discomfort. You’re going to have to run, and probably for more than 2O minutes, if you want to get a runner’s high.
Yeah this is the bare minimum for what qualifies as exercise. I’m really surprised the author took the liberty to opine on all of exercise based on this...
It's nonetheless a good story if viewed from the perspective of a complete couch potato. As a way of getting started, doing 20 minute walks is great! As long as it leads to higher intensity after adaptation, which it should allow.
I can't imagine not being grumpy walking on a treadmill in the basement and thinking about an extra slice of pizza. I go to gym sometimes to lift weights, and I have never seen a happy face on a person walking on a treadmill. I don't understand why not to go for a walk and enjoy the nature, people, birds, ... whatever you have in your neighborhood.
So many points. The major ones for me, in order of importance:
1) Running on a treadmill is much friendlier to my joints than concrete or asphalt. For us city dwellers, that adds up over time.
2) I can quit the treadmill at any time. If you're outside on a 6 mile run and you have a muscle cramp up at mile 3, limping back 3 miles is the result. That's surprisingly little fun ;)
3) Can't speak for other people, but usually the treadmill is a warm-up, that's it.
4) It's cold and rainy outside. I'm soft and coddled and like being in a warm place :)
(OK, realistically, the first two are the ones that really matter, the rest you can get over)
Sure. Treadmill or elliptical has its uses. They are safe and easier on the joints. I warm up sometimes on a treadmill for a few minutes. The author seems had specific goals, and treadmill is a precise tool, which allowed him to achieve and maintain his goals. I still think that walking or jogging can be an enjoyable activity it the right settings.
A dedicated running track is a good middle option between street running and a treadmill. Usually the surface is a little softer. If there's a public high school or community college in your area you can probably run on their track for free as long as it's not in use.
Tracks are great texture-wise, but they come with their own problems since you’re only turning left or right. Body movement will compensate for this and it can lead to injuries if you’re not careful. My PT told me he’s sees a lot of this at his practice.
Point 1 & 2 still apply, to a lesser extent, except I'd probably switch the order - being able to quit whenever you want is somewhat important. (And, always, point 4 :)
I'd also amend point 1 with "I don't like breathing in car exhaust". If you're in a big city "just do stuff outside" is not really as fun as it sounds.
Back when I was cycling regularly, I considered the fact that I couldn't quite when I wanted a major feature. Even considering the risk of blown tires, the ability to plan routes in advance that I knew I could do even though I would want to quit half way through was a major component of my ability to push my limits.
Personally I hate treadmill walking or running. Anything outside is better.
I've had a weightlifting habit for many years and I always look forward to it. Either increasing weights or reps or improving a movement is always enjoyable. And I look the better for it.
I found a treadmill in a basement gym with dance music pounding made it easy to "zone out" and keep running, whereas when I tried to exercise in the "real world" I'd end up stopping for a coffee or something.
I've found that calories-in/calories-out logic only gets you so far. It's foundationally true, of course, because energy is conserved, and we use all of the calories that we eat, with few exceptions, either for energy or for fat storage.
But exercise really helps. It changes what you want to eat first of all. Fat loss can be grueling or easy, depending on where your body wants to be, and exercise pushes it to the easier side.
Some of the non-calorie burning exercises have the biggest effects here. Weightlifting is almost pointless from a calorie perspective, but it really energizes weight loss. I assume that the hormonal effects are king.
Biking colossal distances is another thing that seems to lead to leaning out. In theory it should be possible just to eat through the calories burned biking, but in practice, it seems to shift the bias towards losing.
Also, the biggest problem with calories-in calories-out is that weight regain after a calorie deficit period -- even a long one -- seems to be almost a law of nature. The body seems to push extremely hard for regaining everything that has been starved off.
> Weightlifting is almost pointless from a calorie perspective
Maybe in terms of the energy you burn directly by lifting weights, but it raises your base metabolic rate significantly for quite some time after a workout. The extra muscle mass you built also raises your BMR in a longer lasting way. Especially when combined with interval training, weights are very effective.
Agree. Although, when I'm doing my working set of deadlifts (after a series of warm up ones) my whole body is by then heaving for air and on fire after the last rep.
It certainly gets the heart rate going. Now I don't do those every day, of course, but squats I do. Either as high rep/lower intensity warm up for other exercises, or low rep 5x5 heavy as a primary target of the day. They never fail to kick-start the body.
Does it raise your BMR that much? What is that energy doing exactly? Does your body temperature increase? Do you move around more? You can't have energy going nowhere, of course. What other activities can drive the same? And what is the magnitude?
"The extra muscle mass you built also raises your BMR in a longer lasting way."
Unless you are talking about fantastic amounts of muscle mass here -- 10 pounds of muscle will only burn an extra 60-70 calories a day -- this oft mentioned factoid is unnoticeable in daily calorie expenditure.
It's hard to find good data on what the effects are in amongst all the bro-science articles, but I believe the raise in energy usage is due to the body repairing the muscles after the weights workout, so you'd see an increase in body heat generation (although the core temperature would stay the same, peripheral circulation would go up and skin temperature would rise a bit). HIIT is just good at hitting a lot of different muscle groups hard enough in a short amount of time to maximize the effect. It's not huge but several hours of increased passive energy burn does make a difference.
Also, 10 pounds of muscle isn't a fantastic amount to put on (depending on body size), especially if it's muscle that you're re-gaining rather than building for the first time. A few months of regular moderate weights work would build that much without pushing too hard. And again, passive energy burn is "free" and helps with gradual long-term weight loss.
>I've found that calories-in/calories-out logic only gets you so far. It's foundationally true, of course, because energy is conserved, and we use all of the calories that we eat, with few exceptions, either for energy or for fat storage.
Unfortunately it is not true that we use all the calories that we eat in the same way, or that simple calories in/calories out is all that matters[0].
To me the main issue with the calories in/out way of thinking is that while generally correct your body deals with different types of calories very differently. Obviously high quality protein and processed sugar cause very different hormonal responses in the body. The calories in/out way of thinking sort of brushes this under the rug.
The weight regain phenomenon you mention can be explained in part by the hormone ghrelin. I’m no nutritional scientist but from my understanding ghrelin is involved in meal initiation and is a driving factor in the weight regain after a period of weight loss. Conversely the hormone leptin acts to suppress food intake and would cause someone to lose weight after a brief period of weight gain. Together when functioning correctly these work to “stabilize” ones weight. Obese individuas are thought to be leptin resistant.
As you mention, hormonal effects are king and you want to take great care to not overly stress or break your body’s systems, for example, by becoming insulin or leptin resistant.
I think people sometimes shy away from this because it's seen as a young, vain person's pursuit; something you do primarily to look good.
But past middle age, it becomes critically important. Once your muscles, joints, and bones begin to weaken, keeping muscle mass can mean the difference between maintaining balance or not, breaking bones in a fall or not, and retaining motor function or not. It has all kinds of second order effects on general health and longevity.
Aye. My own goal in my late 40s, a bit overweight, is to get strong first, lose weight second.
I'd hardly ever get an endorphin rush/hit from cycling, but I get them regularly from weights. They certainly help the mind settle, even after a short stint.
My best tip would be to get your own equipment, if possible, to have the ability to do it frequently and without making it a mission to go to the gym.
It's amazing what you can do with a squat rack, bar bell, a bench, and a set of plates. (Starting strength / Rippetoe, Stronglifts 5x5, etc).
Weight is in fact regulating itself somewhat naturally as a consequence, but just being able to feel the body getting stronger is the real pleasure. I've been doing this for a good few months now and I know I'm adding years if not decades to my usable life span as well.
I think it's fun with a friend (did that years ago), but trying to get back into lifting by myself now... is boring. I quit each session sooner than I should, so I don't see the same gains. I'm not sure how to get excited about it when I am by myself, other than playing music to pump me up, which I'm not always in the mood for.
If I could do this at home, I would. Otherwise, I dont feel like losing an hour of my life a day, for something that's going to minorly improve my life a year+ out. It's a flaw, but I cannot get motivated for anything where the reward isnt short term.
But for some people it takes forever to actually see results. Even by following strict dietary plans and trainings regimes it is just super slowish to see the impact.
You will see results after a few month and you will also make the most gains in your first year. You just need to define your goals, lift and eat in a caloric deficit or surplus.
Just remember that the gains will stop after a while if you don’t start taking steroids or something. People seem to have difficulty finding a stable workout routine they enjoy without improvements. Otherwise lifting is good but watch for form and don’t ignore nagging injuries.
I can attest to this. In my mid 20s, I used to hit the gym for 2-3 hours M-F (50/50 cardio and weights per day) and then biking for 5-6 hours over the weekend.
The exercise was a great stress relief for me, and I went from 165 lbs to about 215 lbs over 3 years, all lean muscle mass. Felt great. Was biking thousands of miles per year, running about 4:30 mile on the treadmill, and squatting 2x my bodyweight. I had a resting heart rate of around 45 bmp.
Then, I got hit by a car while on my bike (guy ran a stop sign and and clipped my rear wheel and seat stay). Destroyed my bike; the carbon fiber frame was cracked, carbon pedals ruined and my handle bars were messed up. I also racked up $20k in ER bills that his insurance paid. I dont know how much the X-ray, MRI and orthopaedic visits cost (his insurance had accepted responsibility at that point, and I never saw a bill). I didnt break any bones, but strained almost all ligaments in both knees. The accident knocked me off my workout schedule for 2 months while I recovered. Despite my best efforts, I was never able to reestablish my routine. I now weigh less than when I graduated high school at nearly 40. And, to boot, I suffer from arthritis now and exercising is near impossible for me now without great risk of being laid up in bed with a severe pinched nerve.
I do not believe this is true. Perhaps if you are an elite international-level competitor in your 20-30s or something. But otherwise, no. I consistently add several kg to my powerlifts each year for the past 5+ and I’m late middle age. I don’t see any signs of this changing, in fact the more I’ve trained the smarter I’ve gotten about things, so I have fewer injuries etc, so even more effective progress. Buts it’s a hugely tiny incremental grind to get this. Probably impatient people get dismayed and stop. Fortunately it appeals to my personality so I stick with it.
Huh? What part of that is supported by any kind of evidence? You can lift for many years and keep improving consistently if you stick to a good regimen. I also have a great routine that I stick to consistently and enjoy immensely, you're speaking for yourself.
How long have you been lifting? How old are you? How much do you weigh? I have never seen anybody who didn’t plateau. Either you haven’t been doing this for long or you aren’t training hard.
Gains are asymptotic so the returns are diminishing, but most people - i.e., everyone not competing in bodybuilding - will not hit their "natty ceiling" before they hit old age.
Just ride the slow and steady gain train until you actually need medically prescribed TRT.
You're going to have to lift for many years before that happens. I went from 165 lbs to 235 lbs over 4 - 5 years, and ended up having a powerlifting total of 1,405 lbs. I didn't even use supplements, just good old fashion whole foods. I am not at my peak yet (34 years old), the gains will come slower but they will come.
Personally I'd try two things to make the process easier:
1) Fit physical activity into your day to day life. I run to work but there are far less extreme ways to do this. Walk or cycle places, find a hobby that burns some calories etc. Leading a life that involves movement is far more sustainable than trying to start an exercise habit.
2) Try lots of different exercise routines. After a lot of trial and effort I've found running and swimming work best for me, with maybe 5/10 min weights after a swim. I've previously tried cycling, dumbbells, thai boxing and many many body weight/calisthenic/ natural movement type systems. Everyone's different so it's worth trying out a load of things to find which you'll actually enjoy.
I wholeheartedly support (1). Earlier this year I lived closer to work and biking to work every day is extremely natural, and I easily close every ring on my Apple Watch with basically no effort. Now that I live farther away from work and my commute involves a car, it is a struggle everyday to close the rings.
> at no point in my year of exercising has it been much other than an annoying thing that I’ve had to do
I was jogging for well over a year before I started to enjoy it and look forward to my runs. Before then it took a fair amount of willpower to do it, afterwards I wanted to run and it was no effort.
It took me about 3 months (two different times a bit over a year apart). Each instance only lasted for about 4 months when I'd just lose motivation. Maybe it was because I made an accomplishment each time (being able to jog half an hour without stopping for the first time in my life was the last one), and that feeling of satisfaction meant I no longer had a drive to accomplish something anymore.
I still have my goal of being able to run indefinitely, but I'm just not motivated to start back up again.
I made a conscious decision not to run for time or distance, nor do I concern myself if I stop to chat with a neighbor. If another jogger speeds by me, I yell at them to stop making me look bad. If I pass one, I chide them for being lazy :-)
I found the article a little... well, I'm not sure what adjective to use, but a little "off".
>People told me that the first few weeks of exercising would be the hardest, and after that point all the endorphins would kick in (or whatever) and then I would really start to enjoy that.
Yes, it's the most difficult to start a new habit when you start it. It's certainly not a common claim that endorphins "kick in after a few weeks" though.
>It turns out that in actual practice, I don’t exercise to lose weight, I exercise so that I can eat more calories and still lose weight.
I'm the same way, but it has nothing to do with exercise, and it's certainly not "exercise's fault" (personifiying a bit) that I have poor willpower (or very good rationalization).
>It also meant that honestly speaking the real key to losing weight was the calorie counting, not the exercising.
This is not a revelation. Literally every gym, fitness club, personal trainer, pro or amateur athlete, etc... they will all say it's an 80/20 split between diet an exercise. "Abs are made in the kitchen" is a very common phrase amongst bodybuilders/those who want abs/athletes.
>Also key for me was understanding that the exercise and calorie counting was going to be a permanent thing now, and not just something I was going to do until I hit a goal.
I mean... if you diet and exercise and lose 10lbs, then stop dieting and exercising... you will gain the 10lbs back.
>I felt better when I started exercising, and I feel better now than I did a year ago, both physically and mentally. But it’s important to note that exercising and bringing my body closer to something that corresponded to my own internal self-image of myself did not, in fact, solve all my problems.
This is a great point and really the only part of the article with any insight. I think it's very important to realize that going from unfit to fit actually doesn't solve a lot of the problems one may think it does.
One option: if you live near some mountain bike trails, get a mountain bike. All the nature of hiking with as much or as little roller coaster like excitement as you want.
There are so many options, even indoor ones, that there is no need for being active to be boring.
Surprised, nobody mentioned Bodyweight exercises. They build basic foundation on which you can add others like running, cycling, swimming, whatever etc.
When I tried 10 burpees first time heart rate shot to 170-180. Made me question my existence along with all poor life style choices.
Good thing is, you need not to waste to time traveling to gym, other places to pursue other activities. Can be done at home, hotel, park wherever you are.
it's my personal preference but bike-commuting seems like the optimum for people who are overweight, don't have time and lack motivation. you lose weight, learn more about your local area, learn more about human psychology, you can listen to your favourite podcast/audiobook, don't have to pay for gym membership/gas to drive to te gym, and it's better for your knees
I can very much relate to the author's thoughts about the whole exercise routine, including a lack of general enjoyment of it, and when I set out to improve my body in the gym, I lasted a few months or so and gave up: too much time and effort and motivation and money needed at the same time for something so dull - and that was e few years ago and I stopped doing much exercise except for some week end walks and the like.
Now for a few months I have been commuting to work by bike, driven by the time gain vs car or subway, and I have to say even though it's a bit of an effort on rainy days, it's really a very good combination of low cost, low friction, useful in its own right, means of doing exercise.
This is exactly the blog post I would have written this year. In April I got sick of being nearly 50 and 220 pounds; after 8 months of calorie counting and exercise I’m nearly 50 and 170ish pounds.
And while I’ve gotten at least a little enjoyment out of running, that’s as much as I can say about appreciating exercise. Such an incredibly tedious chore.
I highly recommend anyone who wants to learn more about exercising for aesthetic or performance goals to check out Eric Helms, he is a huge name in the science based fitness community along with Greg Nuckols, Brad Schoenfeld, and Bret Contreras to name a few (there are plenty and luckily all these guys mention each other so you can find great info all over). His Muscle and Strength Pyramid videos (and books that I have both bought) provide a great amount of detail into the fundamentals of nutrition and training as well as understanding the hierarchy of importance.
Exercise is the best! Physical and mental gains, guards your health, keeps you young.
I had a gym close to my office, and used to take the lunch hour to exercise. Really made the day go quickly! (Sadly, that gym moved and now I have to work out after work. But the upside is that I now go with my wife, son and daughter.)
The misery from the work expressed makes me think this will not be a very long-lived habit.
I think in order to get the endorphin rush (or, more accurately, a general increase in a well-being feeling over time), you need to have a level of intensity higher than just walking.
So if you run instead of walk your calorie burn is 4-5x more so you can play this calorie game with even less time investment and you'll get the endorphins that will help reinforce the behavior better.
I completely agree with point 1. Everyone said the first month would be the hardest, but halfway through my 9th month, I still think it's the hardest thing to do.
The thing is, now it's become such an integral part of my daily routine that I cannot move forward without it. That consistency has programmed my brain to cling on to it, and it being hard does not matter anymore.
Something no trainer/exercise junkie will tell you
Try squash. Amazing amount of exercise and for those of us who are competitive it never gets boring. Sheds weight like crazy and has cardio demands like few other sports.
Alternatively, just walk with 5lb dumbbells. No shortage of studies on mental/physical benefits of walking and lugging around weights help core and upper body. I usually add 20lb weight vest.
I'll throw in my vote for actually liking the exercise I do, which is mostly sprints and weightlifting. During school it was my meditation. After working on other, uncertain things for long enough I need to be able to hone my own will, struggle for my own sake, and yes, I do get the endorphins.
I have bern doing vigorous exercise for 51 years and still love it. Outdoor running up to 70 miles a week for the first 46 years, high speed walking 25 miles a week the last 5 years. The secret is doing something that is fun so you look forward to it every day.
- Better diet makes you lose weight;
- More exercise helps you maintain your weigh loss.
Also I think it is important to be careful when starting exercising to not make too much too soon. It is more important to target the long game and avoid injuries or mental exhaustion which would make you quit in both cases if not handled correctly.
Your body is an adaptive system, it responds to stimulus, given nutrition, rest/recovery, and other parameters (of which stress is a major element).
Cardio works your heart. That's useful, but there's more to your body than that.
Strength training works your muscles, building strength, endurance, power, and mass.
There are skills, fine-motor control, coordination, and other exercise modalities, with their own specific results.
Training is a stimulus which achieves a specific result, preferably one you've identified as a goal.
All said, 20 minutes of daily walking ... isn't a lot. It's better than nothing. There are other things you can do. You don't need a lot of equipment or space (though as with many things, the right tools for the job help).
Understanding how your body responds to what stimulus, under what circumstances, and roughly how quickly or slowly, helps a lot.
A modest, consistent, balanced, and goal-appropriate programme can be absolutely life-changing. It's valuable at any age -- what you do when you're young will deliver returns in your old age (the more so if you keep it up). Training as an older adult is also a major quality-of-life determinant.
There's no One Perfect Exercise. A balance of modalities (cardio, strength, flexibility, skills) is generally preferable. Starting out, virtually anything is better than nothing. As you advance, you'll find you need to make more specific tweaks to continue progress (should you want to).
And once you've gotten yourself beyond baseline, a small amount of work goes a long way. Clarence Bass, now well into his 80s, maintains an impressive physique based on two workouts a week -- one lifting session, one cardio.
Another under-appreciated point: in the end, aging & chronic disease are due to metabolic activity, and reducing your metabolism x time AUC probably has a lot of benefits.
Another thing is that you should view calories from simple sugars as calorie multipliers in terms of weight loss. Too much sugar causes insulin to stop opening the cell gates for glycogen to be consumed, similar to a lock getting worn out so the key(insulin) stops working. The net effect is no matter what you do you're not going to be able to consume as many calories causing fatigue and glycogen that stays in the bloodstream stores as fat.
I struggled with weight all my life. I constantly would get motivated to workout only to quit over and over again due to the lack of meaningful progress after the initial period. Even weight lifting I could only put on muscle but never lower my body fat below 18. After getting a scale that measures body composition and studying what I ate and how it affected me I was finally able to figure out the issue. The issue is metabolic syndrome and I suspect many people have this condition.
Think of it this way, your body is constantly in either burn or store mode. When you move, you deplete energy reserves within the cell which must be replenished from the blood supply. Glucose is the basic energy block on the cellular level (ignoring intercellular ATP) for the human body. In order for glucose to pass into the cell and replenish reserves, it must pass through a gate that blocks out harmful material. The key to this gate is called insulin. When you eat a sugary diet, this gate mechanism becomes less and less responsive sort of like a tired security guard after the morning and evening rush. When the gate fails to open, two things happen: The first is that the cell becomes fatigued because its energy reserve hasn't been replenished, and second, the glucose stays in the bloodstream where it eventually is converted to glycogen and stores as fat.
This is the problem that gets people. When you are in this state, you will burn less fat during your workouts and they will feel harder too. For the triple whammy, your body will catabolize energy-burning muscle instead of using what's already available. The only good time for sugars is after a workout so as to prevent catabolism. Keto and low carb diets work by reducing the strain on the insulin receptors allowing them to become resensitized. This is also why fasting diets work because they reduce insulin sensitivity so that your body more readily uses the energy it has when it has it.
3 Things Effect Weightloss and a change in any of them could make a "bad" food good or a "good" food bad in terms of losing or gaining weight.
I agree that's ideal, but there's plenty of people who won't find any form of exercise enjoyable. Or perhaps will only find some types of exercise (after years, I really only like hiking and biking, which doesn't help much with upper body strength).
The other thing that works is just being motivated. I find I feel like crap if I go for a long time without exercising, so I will.. even if I don't particularly enjoy doing it.
Have you tried climbing? It just seems like something that woukd fit in that group, that and parkur. Unfortunately those both seem like they have a high barrier to enjoyment.
Used to climb weekly. It's enjoyable as a social activity, though (for me) not so much individually. Either way, after having a kid, I haven't prioritized it in.
It's also a lot different from hiking or biking - indoor climbing lacks the calming nature aspect. Outdoor climbing has a high time/coordination cost.
If you don’t feel subjectively better after exercise than before, the solution is to add to the intensity and keep trying. I wonder what percentage of max heart rate he averaged.
Maybe some people feel better after exercise than before, but for the vast majority of people I've talked to, they're mostly exhausted after exercising. Same goes for me. And yes, I regularly exercise significant chunks of time at 80%+ of MHR.
And yes, I've done it for extended amounts of time, too. I've done half marathons. I've run somewhat decent times for my age. I was bored out of my skull while doing it. I certainly didn't feel a big endorphin rush.
Keep in mind that this doesn't mean "100% effort, 100% of the time". Rather, the body is extraordinarily effective in responding to brief sessions of intense activity.
For cardio, high intensity interval training (HIIT), and Tabata intervals in particular (20 seconds effort, 10 seconds recovery, repeated 8 times). This can be done with virtually any activity -- low-weight squats, rowing machine, sprints, burpbees, spinning, running.
For strength -- a small number of moderate-to-high weight sets (3-8 reps, 3-4 sets) -- 2-3x weekly, is more than sufficient to build muscle.
Long, low-intensity effort -- cardio or strength -- has relatively low yield . You can and generally should train efficiently.
The most important factor, though, is consistency over time. That is: get your workout in, and do that 2-3x a week, every week, year in and out. Rewards don't come from a heroic effort in a single workout, but consistency over time, with progressively (over weeks and months) greater challenges (more weight, effort, reps).
This might be true of some people at some intensities but it is not universally true. The more intense my exercise the worse I feel afterwards. @ 70% of max hr I feel pretty good afterward. 80% and I start feeling pretty tired. At 90-95% I get super irritable, nauseous, and can't sleep.
I love being totally exhausted but it took me a while to accept that a lot of people don’t like it. People are different. I never had weight problems and it also took me a while that what’s easy for me is hard for others. But then I can’t wean myself off chocolate which is easy for others.
The current recommended best practice for most athletes is to do only about 20% of training near max heart rate and the remaining 80% at much lower intensity. Otherwise you won't recover correctly.
This has been my experience as well. You need to start out slow and let your body adjust, and at different points I’ve had different levels of highs. The rush came for me when I was pushing myself towards my limit without pain, and that didn’t happen until I had set a certain baseline of endurance.
Intensity is 80-90% of the determinant of a muscle's adaptive response to load. If you plan to get somewhere near your genetic potential in strength and size, you will need to use rather high intensity to deeply fatigue ("inroad") the muscle. But you also have to not repeat that stimulus for days to a week, to allow recovery in people like us with middle of the bell curve genetics. The ideal profile for building strength is exercise that is intense, brief, and infrequent. Yes, it is unpleasant for a couple of minutes per muscle group, once or twice a week. So what? Do you enjoy brushing your teeth? Or do you just do it and get it over with? Note, this is for strength training. Skill building for sports, or general physical activity, is a different protocol, depending on the activity.
One of my favorite recent book titles is "If You Like Exercise ... Chances Are You're Doing It Wrong: Proper Strength Training for Maximum Results"[0], which is another book about the work of exercise genius Arthur Jones, inventor of Nautilus and MedX equipment.
The secret for me was to recognize a few things:
- I do hate exercise. I don't have the willpower to exercise hard for an hour a day. It works best for me if I have someone telling me what to do. So over the years, I have tried various forms of group exercise. I am currently doing crossfit, (minus the cult aspects, thanks but no thanks) 3 days a week, and working with a personal trainer 2 days a week (basically an exhausting form of physical therapy to address problems with the ways that I move, and my lack of mobility).
- Making exercise a priority doesn't work for someone like me, because I hate it so much. No, I made it a habit, which is different. It's a regular thing on my schedule.
- It does make me feel better. Not when I do it. Immediately after exercising, all I feel is relief that it's over for the day. But if I stick to my 5x/week schedule, 1 hour/day, then my aches and pains -- charateristic for my age -- disappear. No more aching knees or frequent upper back pain. If I stop for a couple of weeks, these problems return and I generally feel less energetic.
- The battle is psychological. The worst thing is getting myself to the gym. I wait until the very last minute, and dread it for the whole short drive. The anticipation before the workout sucks. The warmup is the absolute worst, because I am transitioning from my normal lazy, comfortable mode, to a far more active mode, doing completely unnatural (for me) things. Doing the workout is mostly boring, often exhausting, but mentally easier that the buildup.
Figure out what works for you and make it a habit.