No question that pushing yourself, at least some of the time, some leads to more results than not.
OTOH … the biggest health impact with fitness lays in the space between doing nothing and doing something. Every additional step up from there is slightly diminishing returns (and may at some point lead to negative returns). The mentality that unless it is uncomfortable it is not worth doing, that whole “lift heavy or go home” and go all out or don’t go mindset, makes some falsely believe that doing something not so intense is not as beneficial as it actually is.
Enough fitness to significantly impact health can be easy. Even if more benefits come with pushing yourself a bit more. And seriously the attitude promoted in bad CrossFit boxes (and there are quite a few of 'em, and some that are excellent) gets people hurt.
I’m not sure I agree with this. There was a time in my life where I was a competitive downhill skier. Every additional amount of training effort I put in led directly to better results on the race course. Every time I took a risk in a race led to better understanding of my abilities and challenged my idea about what I thought were my limits. Made me a better, more competitive racer.
The negative impact of being sedentary is huge. The benefit of going from inactivity to even minimal activity, on mortality and quality of life measures both, is huge.
I understand what you’re saying but it’s not my assumption that we’re talking about getting some couch potatoes to run a marathon in as short a time as possible.
What I think you were saying is that the level of effort required to make incremental gains yield diminished returns when you are an amateur athlete (or better). It goes without saying that getting up and becoming active after years of sedantary life is net better for you than improving your average mile by 10 seconds if you’ve already been running for years.
However, to someone who is competitive and is looking to become even more competitive, those diminished returns don’t matter at all if you can achieve that faster mile by working harder than before, even if it’s only 10 seconds per mile improvement.
So what I’m saying is, it depends on your frame of reference.
Only pure water counts! I’m really not sure. I’ve run into it quite a few times, though. I’ve been told that one must drink at least 8 glasses of water a day (and sometimes they are referring to 16 oz glasses rather than 8 oz :eek:) in addition to any other fluids.
I suspect that’s why “flavored water” came out. Somehow that’s ok, because it still says “water” in the name. I have pointed out to people that coffee, Coke, tea, lemonade, etc are also “flavored water,” but apparently that’s crazy talk.
Do you have a chart or study for that? I have heard this before, the biggest benefit comes from ‘no’ activity to ‘some’ activity, with the benefits slowing down after that with bigger jumps and at the extremes negative health benefits from things like overtraining or injury.
But what is the minimum amount needed to not be labeled sedentary that people who aren’t overly motivated can do? Is something like 2 hours a week of walking enough to get the biggest health boost?
I did find this about moderate intensity exercise.
So 1.25 hours a week adds 2 years. 2.5 adds 3.4 years. 5 adds 4.2 years. 7.5 adds 4.5 years.
Breaking it down on that scale (0-7.5 hours a week and 0-4.5 years life expectancy) that works out to 17% of effort gives 40% of benefits. 33% of effort gives 76% of benefit. 67% of effort gives 93% of benefit and 100% of effort gives 100% of benefit.
That would fit the curve of diminishing returns but up to about 2.5 hours a week the rate of return is steady and high rewarding (going from 1.25 to 2.5 hours a week nearly doubles life expectancy gains). After that it drops, by 5 hours a week the rate of return is tiny (an extra 0.3 years for an extra 2.5 hours a week of activity). Going from 0 to 2.5 hours adds 3.4 years, going from 5 to 7.5 hours adds 0.3 years.
If so the sweet spot is 2-3 hours a week, after that returns become a lot smaller.
Interesting post. I graphed the points and then fitted them with a logarithmic function, then factored in the time spent walking. Turns out walking 7.5 hours/week only becomes optimal if you’re over 47–otherwise, you’ll spend more time walking than you’ll gain in life expectancy.
And that doesn’t even factor in diminishing marginal returns–a 47 year old walking 4 hours a week gets 94% of the time he would have at 7.5 hours a week, and he’s getting better quality time when he’s younger rather than when he’s older.
In other words: just go out and walk for a couple hours a week.
What the graph shows is the relationship between peak exercise capacity in METS and mortality rate. This table gives you a sense of what activities are associated with what METS level. Those who go from inactivity to a peak exercise capacity of 4 to 6 METS (the equal of being able to play table tennis or playing golf and pulling your own clubs up through mowing the lawn or swimming “leisurely”) lower their RR by 20% (normed at 1 for the inactive to 0.8). Get to 6.1 to 8.0 METS (peak of able to walk more briskly to jogging at 5 mph) and it lowers by about the same bit more - to RR of 0.57. Honestly minimal exercise can get most people up to that. Get peak fitness up to 8.1 to 10 and RR lowers slightly more and at over 10 METS it flattens out, staying RR of 0.27 to 0.33 from over 10 to over 14 (10 is a 6 mph running pace).
From the article:
Also to answer about how much walking …
For males walking faster had a stronger association than walking more and females the other way around.
This article includes this graphic which plots both the data I already discussed with another study’s results (the ovals) which more dramatically shows the rapid drop-off leveling off between fitness and mortality rates. There the base is under 6 METS (tops at peak capacity of walking briskly or cycling at 10 to 12 mph). The first level over that 6.1 to 8 (again peak of being able to jog at 5 mph) halved their mortality RR with dramatically diminishing (but still real) returns from there. Lots about the costs of inactivity in that article. They attempt to drive home the point that it is not all about how long one lives but how one lives long:
If the point was just ‘don’t give up’ there are plenty of metaphors they could have used, they chose to use losing your guts and what happens if you push yourself too hard? But anyway, I’m getting tired of talking about vomit so let’s just agree to disagree and move on from stomach chunks.
[QUOTE=Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron (the movie)]
“I have no fear of fainting in a gym. I’ve thrown up many times while I was working out… But it doesn’t matter because, in the end, you know, it’s all worth it.”
The biggest myth for those obsessed with fitness is that more is always better.
It is very possible to overexercise and it can kill you as easily as remaining a couch potato can. Cite Cite Cite
This little debate is more of a miscommunication than a debate. The calories in/out people are saying, putting aside whether it is difficult, losing weight is just a matter of eating fewer calories. It is slightly more complicated than that in terms of translating labeled calories to actual calories stored and expended, but the basic premise is right.
The people pushing back on this are, by and large, saying that what you eat affects how psychologically easy it is to restrict your calories, because of satiety levels, or more obscure theories about insulin or whatever. That may well be true, but it isn’t actually conflicting with what the calories in/out people are saying. What would conflict is if there was some indication that metabolism was affected significantly by what foods are selected, but AFAIK that research has mostly disproven that theory.
Actually, I think there’s a lot of truth to this one. Of course, it involves engaging the brain’s memory and cognitive functions, rather than just comparing today’s number with yesterday’s and treating that difference as the only thing you need to know.
Suppose the number on the scale goes up by a pound or so between yesterday morning and this morning. You might want to recall what you ate yesterday. Anything different? No? Disregard. Yes? What was it? Make a mental note. If you get a similar spike after the next time you have that meal/snack/whatever, you might want to keep that food on your watch list. Similarly, if you’re wondering whether some food is bad for your weight, and after a number of times you eat it, nothing happens, then you can relax about eating that food.
This is how I know that eating natural peanut butter straight from the jar isn’t a problem, weight-wise, but a two-pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups most certainly is, even though the difference in calories is pretty minimal. My body can deal with one a lot better than the other.
The other thing is, daily v. weekly weighing helps you see a weight gain in time to do something about it before those added pounds get too comfortable. If office party season rolls around, and I’m enjoying them a bit too much, the fact that my scale shows me weighing three pounds more today than I did two days ago reminds me to slam on the brakes NOW, when I can still make them go away by resuming normal healthy eating habits. If I don’t weigh myself for a week, I may be up five pounds by the time I do, and it’ll be too late for a return to normalcy to shake all those pounds off; I’d actually have to diet. And that would suck.
I thought most daily fluctuation was just a matter of water retention and how quickly your bowel happened to be working. Wouldn’t you just be learning which foods cause you to retain more water or digest more slowly by focusing on daily changes?
