The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: clarkfan1979 on November 27, 2024, 03:36:18 AM
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I gained about 20 pounds during COVID-19 from April 2020 to June 2021. Then in 2021 I got on a pretty good routine of running/jogging 4-5 times/week for 60 minutes with interval sprints. My back pain went away, blood pressure went down and I am no longer hyperthyroid as of April 2024. I had hyperthyroidism for about 15 years and I no longer have to take the medication, so that is a huge win.
However, I didn't lose any weight. It's possible I gained some muscle, but my waist was still the same size, which was still too big (43.5 inches). About 5 weeks ago, I changed my work out from running/jogging to walking. Instead of doing 60 minutes of moderate/high intensity cardio, I'm doing 120-180 minutes of walking about 6 days/week. I'm down 5 pounds and my waist is down 1 inch (42.5 inches).
When I did the moderate to high intensity cardio, I would eat more and I would be less active throughout the day. Now with my new walking routine, I do not get big hunger spikes post workout and I'm more active throughout the day. It feels more sustainable and I don't feel like my will power is depleted with food or exercise. It just feels more normal. It does require more time, but it is not a problem as long as I plan for it in advance.
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This fits well with my general experience. This is frankly why I golf (I'm not an avid golfer, but it's something interesting to do while walking for me at least). A membership at my course is quite inexpensive without the cart (it kinda cracks me up though that the only walkers are the old guys). When I do 18 at my course I cover about 7 miles (it helps to be bad and often looking for your ball...), though I often walk off the course around the 12th hole due to needing to get to whatever is next. And I definitely have found it almost suppresses my appetite, definitely doesn't increase it (I stay thirsty but there's plenty of good no calorie drink choices now including just a good flavored water, and the appetite suppression may actually be due to the amount I'm intaking fluids that makes you feel somewhat full).
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That is what’s referred to as zone 1 cardio training. As you’ve highlighted, zone 1 cardio is the best type when trying to lose weight.
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Makes sense to me. Walking is meant to be our primary mode of travel throughout the day, and we're well adapted to doing it as part of our normal life. Whereas running is really meant for emergencies, so our bodies dip into reserves that then need to be replenished and/or recovered.
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That is what’s referred to as zone 1 cardio training. As you’ve highlighted, zone 1 cardio is the best type when trying to lose weight.
Yup, the number of calories burned is pretty strictly a function of distance. Running 10 miles fast and walking 10 miles slow take very close to the same amount of energy. But the advantage to the slow walking is that your body will burn more fat to do it, whereas with running you'll need more glucose.
Bottom line is that walking and hiking are fantastic fitness activities if you have enough time to burn serious calories.
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I walk 4-7 miles per day, mostly with a friend on a leash.
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During COVID I put on 30 pounds. I legit did nothing for four months. Then I went back to college for my senior year. I had my come to Jesus moment when I could barely dunk a basketball. After that I started running or walking every day. Now, I get 10,000 steps a day and it has kept me in shape. I do miss somedays, but I still always try to get some steps in. I try to throw in a couple gym sessions a week too, but I always get my steps. I cleaned up my diet, too. The diet is probably the most important part.
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That is what’s referred to as zone 1 cardio training. As you’ve highlighted, zone 1 cardio is the best type when trying to lose weight.
Yup, the number of calories burned is pretty strictly a function of distance. Running 10 miles fast and walking 10 miles slow take very close to the same amount of energy. But the advantage to the slow walking is that your body will burn more fat to do it, whereas with running you'll need more glucose.
Bottom line is that walking and hiking are fantastic fitness activities if you have enough time to burn serious calories.
Yeah, I have had fun stating “I burn more calories at 10 minutes per mile running than 7:30 minutes per mile running” in various groups. After the expected back and forth I relent and say “well, I can run about 15 miles at 10 minute pace, and about 3 at 7:30 pace.”
Walking three hours or more per day is something I really look forward to doing starting in a few months when I retire. Sometimes with a golf bag, sometimes without.
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Google "putting on weight while training for a marathon" and you'll see that its not uncommon for people to put on weight when they do more running if their metabolism is completely screwed.. firstly, they shut down their fat burning at higher heart rates and go into complete glycotic dependency which is more easily accessible (but much more limited in supply).. this also triggers more hunger so you can end up eating more and probably in a caloric surplus (although "calories" per se are not the issue, the metabolism is the issue).. and then if you stuff yourself with simple carbs you are just feeding the cycle again.
There are many undeniable health advantages to regular exercising, but weight loss isn't really one of them unless you fix the underlying metabolic issues... as high-fat diet advocate Vinnie Tortorich likes to say: "exercise is a poor way to lose weight."
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Google "putting on weight while training for a marathon" and you'll see that its not uncommon for people to put on weight when they do more running if their metabolism is completely screwed.. firstly, they shut down their fat burning at higher heart rates and go into complete glycotic dependency which is more easily accessible (but much more limited in supply).. this also triggers more hunger so you can end up eating more and probably in a caloric surplus (although "calories" per se are not the issue, the metabolism is the issue).. and then if you stuff yourself with simple carbs you are just feeding the cycle again.
There are many undeniable health advantages to regular exercising, but weight loss isn't really one of them unless you fix the underlying metabolic issues... as high-fat diet advocate Vinnie Tortorich likes to say: "exercise is a poor way to lose weight."
Glad you told the full story. Eating more calories than you burn is definitely a poor way to lose weight.
Pre had a great quote, something like “if you are running 100 miles per week, eat whatever you want, because you will soon be injured and back on a restricted diet anyway.”
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Google "putting on weight while training for a marathon" and you'll see that its not uncommon for people to put on weight when they do more running if their metabolism is completely screwed.. firstly, they shut down their fat burning at higher heart rates and go into complete glycotic dependency which is more easily accessible (but much more limited in supply).. this also triggers more hunger so you can end up eating more and probably in a caloric surplus (although "calories" per se are not the issue, the metabolism is the issue).. and then if you stuff yourself with simple carbs you are just feeding the cycle again.
There are many undeniable health advantages to regular exercising, but weight loss isn't really one of them unless you fix the underlying metabolic issues... as high-fat diet advocate Vinnie Tortorich likes to say: "exercise is a poor way to lose weight."
Glad you told the full story. Eating more calories than you burn is definitely a poor way to lose weight.
Pre had a great quote, something like “if you are running 100 miles per week, eat whatever you want, because you will soon be injured and back on a restricted diet anyway.”
Wish it took 100 miles per week - lol.
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Makes sense to me.
For cycling I've always found when doing cardio for weight loss that duration matters the most. If I go too hard then I get so tired I can't burn enough calories. If I pace it right so that I'm going at a steady clip for extended periods of time, then the weight comes off pretty quickly. This (for me) translates into the difference between an hour to an hour and a half hard ride vs a five hour moderate pace ride. I used to do a 5 hr ride, come home and eat an extra large pizza, and then still be a few lbs down by the end of the week. :P
That said, I've had the best luck losing weight these days mostly by changing my diet (because I don't have the time to do five hour cardio sessions any more). Oatmeal and cut apple with some chia seed for breakfast. Cheese sandwich and some fruit for lunch. Light dinner with lots of raw veggies (they make you feel full). Then a bowl of yogurt and berries for late night snack. If you're really hungry still, then a tablespoon or two of peanut butter (fat makes you feel full for longer). Don't drink any calories. This has been the easiest way to lose weight that I've ever done and I've come down from 210 to 195 in three weeks while still having energy to do weight training sessions and go to Jiu-Jitsu several times a week.
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I gained about 20 pounds during COVID-19 from April 2020 to June 2021. Then in 2021 I got on a pretty good routine of running/jogging 4-5 times/week for 60 minutes with interval sprints. My back pain went away, blood pressure went down and I am no longer hyperthyroid as of April 2024. I had hyperthyroidism for about 15 years and I no longer have to take the medication, so that is a huge win.
However, I didn't lose any weight. It's possible I gained some muscle, but my waist was still the same size, which was still too big (43.5 inches). About 5 weeks ago, I changed my work out from running/jogging to walking. Instead of doing 60 minutes of moderate/high intensity cardio, I'm doing 120-180 minutes of walking about 6 days/week. I'm down 5 pounds and my waist is down 1 inch (42.5 inches).
When I did the moderate to high intensity cardio, I would eat more and I would be less active throughout the day. Now with my new walking routine, I do not get big hunger spikes post workout and I'm more active throughout the day. It feels more sustainable and I don't feel like my will power is depleted with food or exercise. It just feels more normal. It does require more time, but it is not a problem as long as I plan for it in advance.
That's the difference maker right there. You can't outrun your fork. Glad you've found something that's working for you. May the results continue to show!
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Exercise is not a very efficient way for me to lose weight unless I set it up optimally... food intake is about 85% of my weight management.
I personally find the optimal combo for me to drop weight with exercise is some strength training combined with at least an hour of cardio per day that involves HIIT type (intense, followed by lower intensity, followed by intense). Just walking at a moderate pace only seems to work if I do hours and hours of it.
Regular long sessions of moderate or low intensity cardio are super helpful for my mental state and for maintaining weight. Not that helpful for losing it.
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Exercise is not a very efficient way for me to lose weight unless I set it up optimally... food intake is about 85% of my weight management.
I personally find the optimal combo for me to drop weight with exercise is some strength training combined with at least an hour of cardio per day that involves HIIT type (intense, followed by lower intensity, followed by intense). Just walking at a moderate pace only seems to work if I do hours and hours of it.
Regular long sessions of moderate or low intensity cardio are super helpful for my mental state and for maintaining weight. Not that helpful for losing it.
Basically all of this. I have tendonitis in my hip, or I'd run more often. Definitely the least I've ever weighed was when I was running 30+ miles/week, but my diet was also fantastic.
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I think optimizing the exercise part of the wellness equation is great, but it's obviously only part of it.
I'm not sure which factor matters more (and maybe it varies not only person-to-person but also within a person depending upon age, immune health, mental health, sleep, inflammation, etc.) but I think it's clear it not only matters how you use your body as a physical machine but also what you fuel it with.
I am a sucker for thinking back about "what our ancestors did". Even if you only look at the time modern humans have existed, which is at least 300,000 years - we've only had agriculture and what has spawned since for the last 10,000 or so. That is, even if you ignore all the hominin programming that went into who we are today before we broke away from chimps and bonobos and everything in between, the time modern humans were hunting and gathering dwarfs modern behaviors and consumption patterns. So what were humans doing and eating for those first 290,000+ years? It obviously worked as they survived^. They probably walked a TON (collecting water, foraging) and ate what they gathered and hunted. I'm guessing this didn't involve much, if any, dairy after being weaned and probably was a lower proportion of carbs* overall. So my rudimentary analysis would say to keep up the great job on the walking and make sure you're staying on top of your leafy greens, other fruits and veggies, and proteins (bonus points if your calories are not coming from a feedlot or monocrop ag).
^ If you've ever looked at historical pictures of crowds at sporting events or wherever large groups of thousands would congregate, if it was taken prior to the 1970s, you probably wouldn't see many obese people. This is not to say that I'd want to live back then or that obese people did not exist at all in the past or that obesity is an immediate death knell or even the cause of chronic issues (it could be a symptom!), but *something* has radically changed in the last 50 years and I'm pretty confident that modern humans (especially the ones living in "developed" areas) at their current rate of change with regard to health aren't going to make it 300,000 more years if we keep eating McDonald's dipped in Roundup with microplastic frosting en masse.
* If that is not accurate and ancient humans DID consume a percentage of carbs comparable to many cultures today, then at least they would have been carbs that wouldn't spike the insulin response in the same ways that many of the foodstuffs found in the interior aisles at a grocery store can.
Also, thanks for the topic. Now I'm motivated to go for a walk!
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^ If you've ever looked at historical pictures of crowds at sporting events or wherever large groups of thousands would congregate, if it was taken prior to the 1970s, you probably wouldn't see many obese people. This is not to say that I'd want to live back then or that obese people did not exist at all in the past or that obesity is an immediate death knell or even the cause of chronic issues (it could be a symptom!), but *something* has radically changed in the last 50 years and I'm pretty confident that modern humans (especially the ones living in "developed" areas) at their current rate of change with regard to health aren't going to make it 300,000 more years if we keep eating McDonald's dipped in Roundup with microplastic frosting en masse.
Yes, even in my youth the number of fat people was small, in fact the boy who was picked on as a fatty would be considered slim these days.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-defined-as-obese?tab=chart (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-defined-as-obese?tab=chart)
There was an interesting documentary on the BBC recently https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0025gqs/irresistible-why-we-cant-stop-eating which blames ultra processed food and many aspects of food technology in a quite convincing way.
Of course it starts with refined sugar. In 1972 one John Yudkin wrote a book as a result of his research into sugar which he called Pure, White and Deadly and demonstrated that refined sugar was both dangerous and useless. Since then Robert Lustig has refined and reinforced the reality that sugar is not a good thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y Of course the sugar industry spent lots of effort sidelining the research and successfully laid the blame for the incipient growth in obesity on fats.
After learning about that book I drastically reduced my sugar intake - no fizzy drinks, no sugar in tea or coffee etc. Most of our food is prepared from scratch, we eat very little processed food.
I do no exercise, apart from what I get in the normal course of living and my weight is the same as it was when I was 20.
Looking around it is quite evident that many people like and eat the products of the food industry; it's not surprising that they put on weight.
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Any time I hear people talking about modern physiques compared to physiques of those 50 years ago I wonder what impact the massive decline in smoking has had. Nicotine is an appetite suppressant. Obviously modern diets are filled with garbage, but increased appetites probably contribute to some of the softening.
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Experience tells me that for weight reduction, and/or maintenance, some undramatic component of resistance training helps.
As in, not a big gym workout with equipment. Just consistent body-weight stuff like pushups, squats, planks.
Doing a 6-7 minute routine 6 mornings a week has been great, I find. And simple.
If you really just want to walk or bike, a light pack while walking (groceries?), or a few hills while cycling, would probably do the same thing.
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In 2020 I jogged 5 miles almost every day. My weigh stayed about the same, but I got somewhat trim.
This year I set a goal starting on Jan 1 to go 100 total days of only eating lean meat and non-carb/non-fat veggies. So, no potatoes, avocados, beans, fruit, grains. I could have turkey bacon so long as it had no added sugar, but not pork bacon. I also ate eggs.
Without fat or sugar, the body starves.
I hit the 100-day goal by the end of May and was down about 30 lbs - from 228.2 lbs.
Not wanting to finish the year where I started, I added to the goal to have another 75 days of only eating lean meat and vegetables (I'm 62 days in), and this morning I weighed in at 196.0 lbs.
For next year, I'm thinking of staying on this diet except on Saturdays, holiday weekends, and when I travel. I may also make part-day exceptions for things like birthdays or dates.
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I walk 4-7 miles per day, mostly with a friend on a leash.
Kinky.
;)
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I took an online weight loss course that was offered free from my work. One of the things they said that made a lot of sense based on my experience is that exercise makes a huge difference when maintaining your weight, and almost no difference when losing weight.
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I took an online weight loss course that was offered free from my work. One of the things they said that made a lot of sense based on my experience is that exercise makes a huge difference when maintaining your weight, and almost no difference when losing weight.
Well, you got your money's worth from that course.
I hope at least they framed it with "For a lot of people, exercise is no magic pill. However, you should do it anyway. Then do it some more. And more. Then go workout."
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I took an online weight loss course that was offered free from my work. One of the things they said that made a lot of sense based on my experience is that exercise makes a huge difference when maintaining your weight, and almost no difference when losing weight.
Well, you got your money's worth from that course.
I hope at least they framed it with "For a lot of people, exercise is no magic pill. However, you should do it anyway. Then do it some more. And more. Then go workout."
Yeah, it was mostly framed as "exercise is great, but don't think it means you can do anything different with what you're eating "
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I have started Rucking which is basically walking with weight in a backpack. Learned about it in the comfort crisis.
I think it does a good job of threading the needle between running/walking and weight training. Its about triple the calorie burn of walking so you can get more out of a one hour "ruck" than a one hour walk.
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I have started Rucking which is basically walking with weight in a backpack. Learned about it in the comfort crisis.
I think it does a good job of threading the needle between running/walking and weight training. Its about triple the calorie burn of walking so you can get more out of a one hour "ruck" than a one hour walk.
Rucking is great stuff. I used to jog pretty regularly with 50 lbs of weights in a backpack, and it is a hell of a workout going up hills.
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I have started Rucking which is basically walking with weight in a backpack. Learned about it in the comfort crisis.
I think it does a good job of threading the needle between running/walking and weight training. Its about triple the calorie burn of walking so you can get more out of a one hour "ruck" than a one hour walk.
Rucking is great stuff. I used to jog pretty regularly with 50 lbs of weights in a backpack, and it is a hell of a workout going up hills.
That sound like a hell of a workout!
For me its a good way to bide my time until FIRE when I will (hopefully) have more time for the 5 hour bike rides you mentioned. I did those a ton high school to college and miss them. Plus when biking you can coast a little unlike running/rucking. It was a great way to spend a day, then eat whater (in my teenage years) and still be fit and trim.
Some of my biggest weight loss as an adult has been on vacation while eating/drinking my face off. I think it is 90% that I am on the moved all day. I get a 1 hour walk in on a work day and feel good about myself but on an active vacation I am walking 8 hours between museums, site seeing, etc. the other 10% is better ingredients when eating sweets in EU vs USA.
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I just competed at a BJJ tournament last weekend, and have been eating really, really clean for about two months prior to cut fat and build muscle. I had lots of cravings for junky foods during this time, and on Sunday after the tournament I was ready to gorge on crap foods . . . but found that after a couple bites of cake I was done. To a certain degree, I think you adapt and develop a taste for the stuff you eat regularly and that this can have a protective effect to your waist if you get yourself used to eating good stuff. When eating clean I can eat until I feel stuffed at every meal, but won't gain weight.
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Last spring I went on a group tour of Europe for 2 weeks. Despite eating a lot of pasta in Italy, French pastries in Paris, wursts in Germany, and lots of cheese in Switzerland, I managed to lose weight. I ate way more than I usually do, but I also drank less alcohol because I was too busy and walked everywhere.
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I walk 4-7 miles per day, mostly with a friend on a leash.
Kinky.
;)
You beat me to it :)
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So. I am one of those people who never had to worry about weight. Now that I'm in my later 50s and post menopausal (and on a med that affects my pain levels and mobility) I've gained 10-12 pounds over where I should be and gained fat. (Reduction in activity and increase in comfort foods).I have been starting to exercise more regularly and while it makes me feel a lot better it hasn't made me lose the fat. Anyways I ended up talking to a dietician (colleague). This is from the perspective of her speciality with diabetes but I think it applies to everyone. She recommended: slightly up my protein and produce eliminate alcohol and sugar (well I can decrease them) and stop eating at a certain point (which goes against my Mediterranean habit of eating late) and after dinner, go for a walk. She says that going for a walk or moving after the last meal really helps blood sugar levels. Anyways I'm going to try it.
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So. I am one of those people who never had to worry about weight. Now that I'm in my later 50s and post menopausal (and on a med that affects my pain levels and mobility) I've gained 10-12 pounds over where I should be and gained fat. (Reduction in activity and increase in comfort foods).I have been starting to exercise more regularly and while it makes me feel a lot better it hasn't made me lose the fat. Anyways I ended up talking to a dietician (colleague). This is from the perspective of her speciality with diabetes but I think it applies to everyone. She recommended: slightly up my protein and produce eliminate alcohol and sugar (well I can decrease them) and stop eating at a certain point (which goes against my Mediterranean habit of eating late) and after dinner, go for a walk. She says that going for a walk or moving after the last meal really helps blood sugar levels. Anyways I'm going to try it.
Yeah, I have very well managed insulin resistance and I am SO resistant to eating early even though I know it is a better option. It is going to be the very last tweak I make to my diet if needed, that's for sure.
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I’m on day 14 of walking 20k steps (8.5-9 miles) a day!!
The weird thing is I figured out how to do part of it at home and I’m knocking out 5-7k steps first thing in the morning just pacing across my house reading the internet. It feels like it can’t be correct that I can walk 2.8 miles just taking 25 steps each way across the house for an hour?!
Anyway I and my dogs are really enjoying it, especially the evening walks! I’m also running occasionally to get the steps done.
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It feels like it can’t be correct that I can walk 2.8 miles just taking 25 steps each way across the house for an hour?!
That's my experience as well. I can be on very long conference calls, so I pace my motor home (I'm a full-time vagabond) back and forth. I can easily hit 2-3 miles per hour just being on the phone.
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It feels like it can’t be correct that I can walk 2.8 miles just taking 25 steps each way across the house for an hour?!
That's my experience as well. I can be on very long conference calls, so I pace my motor home (I'm a full-time vagabond) back and forth. I can easily hit 2-3 miles per hour just being on the phone.
Thank you for validating my experience! Walk on!
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During COVID I put on 30 pounds. I legit did nothing for four months. Then I went back to college for my senior year. I had my come to Jesus moment when I could barely dunk a basketball. After that I started running or walking every day. Now, I get 10,000 steps a day and it has kept me in shape. I do miss somedays, but I still always try to get some steps in. I try to throw in a couple gym sessions a week too, but I always get my steps. I cleaned up my diet, too. The diet is probably the most important part.
according to my fitbit clone watch, 10k steps is only 300 calories burned.
meh.. disappointed.
i like doing 10min interval running. (jog then full speed then jog, etc)
but from above poster, walking is better than interval running?!?
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During COVID I put on 30 pounds. I legit did nothing for four months. Then I went back to college for my senior year. I had my come to Jesus moment when I could barely dunk a basketball. After that I started running or walking every day. Now, I get 10,000 steps a day and it has kept me in shape. I do miss somedays, but I still always try to get some steps in. I try to throw in a couple gym sessions a week too, but I always get my steps. I cleaned up my diet, too. The diet is probably the most important part.
according to my fitbit clone watch, 10k steps is only 300 calories burned.
meh.. disappointed.
i like doing 10min interval running. (jog then full speed then jog, etc)
but from above poster, walking is better than interval running?!?
If what you were doing is working for you then keep on. Running worked for me for decades. But my theory is that endurance exercise along with not enough daily thermogenesis, allows you to recompose your body with more fat less muscle. Walking in my experience is part of a full program, combined with lifting and maybe some intense cardio one or more times a week.
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By walking while browsing the Internet or posting on this forum, I am suddenly seeing how glaringly terrible my lack of movement is. I could sit still for hours. If I replace all that sitting still with walking, that is definitely a win and I am a very physically fit person to begin with!
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By walking while browsing the Internet or posting on this forum, I am suddenly seeing how glaringly terrible my lack of movement is. I could sit still for hours. If I replace all that sitting still with walking, that is definitely a win and I am a very physically fit person to begin with!
This will sound wacky, but I do not have cable but do like watching sports. I will go to the gym and walk on the treadmill to get steps in and watch basketball, especially in the dead of winter.
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Pairing a treadmill and TV seems like a good match. Never thought of that but never thought much about using a treadmill.
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It is something that I definitely do more in the winter when it gets dark and cold early, but it helps me get my steps and watch sports. I refuse to buy cable.
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I love to keep my 10k steps a day streak alive!
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I’m a biker—maybe 250 miles a month; walker— ~35 miles a month; and I do a little PT-like lifting and stretching too.
I understand the relationship between exercise and weight intellectually, but have never found exercise to do much for weight personally—likely because I’ve exercised the same amount for many years. It’s just me.
If I want to lose weight I eat less calories.
YMMV.
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I’m a biker—maybe 250 miles a month; walker— ~35 miles a month; and I do a little PT-like lifting and stretching too.
I understand the relationship between exercise and weight intellectually, but have never found exercise to do much for weight personally—likely because I’ve exercised the same amount for many years. It’s just me.
If I want to lose weight I eat less calories.
YMMV.
Eating less absolutely works for weight loss. But exercise can as well.
Duration and intensity are the magic words when exercising to lose weight. You need long enough duration that you burn through a lot of calories. I will lose weight when going for regular six hour bike rides. My tummy just gets full before being able to eat enough to cover the calories when I get home. High intensity is great in many ways, and you need enough intensity to be working when exercising. That said I've found that usually I can't keep up high intensity stuff long enough to make a dent in my weight (the exception being extremely high intensity exercise where I get so sick/pukey feeling afterwards that I can't eat). Medium intensity where you're breathing hard, but can still talk (with a little effort between breaths) seems to be my sweet spot.
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I’m a biker—maybe 250 miles a month; walker— ~35 miles a month; and I do a little PT-like lifting and stretching too.
I understand the relationship between exercise and weight intellectually, but have never found exercise to do much for weight personally—likely because I’ve exercised the same amount for many years. It’s just me.
If I want to lose weight I eat less calories.
YMMV.
Eating less absolutely works for weight loss. But exercise can as well.
Duration and intensity are the magic words when exercising to lose weight. You need long enough duration that you burn through a lot of calories. I will lose weight when going for regular six hour bike rides. My tummy just gets full before being able to eat enough to cover the calories when I get home. High intensity is great in many ways, and you need enough intensity to be working when exercising. That said I've found that usually I can't keep up high intensity stuff long enough to make a dent in my weight (the exception being extremely high intensity exercise where I get so sick/pukey feeling afterwards that I can't eat). Medium intensity where you're breathing hard, but can still talk (with a little effort between breaths) seems to be my sweet spot.
This is 100% true.
It is also true that if you maintain roughly the same exercise program and food intake year after year you will weigh about the same “all things being equal”. So, for someone who chooses to maintain the same level of exercise, diet is the answer to weight loss; whereas someone who does not want to change what they eat can choose to exercise more to lose weight.
I think.
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I’m a biker—maybe 250 miles a month; walker— ~35 miles a month; and I do a little PT-like lifting and stretching too.
I understand the relationship between exercise and weight intellectually, but have never found exercise to do much for weight personally—likely because I’ve exercised the same amount for many years. It’s just me.
If I want to lose weight I eat less calories.
YMMV.
Eating less absolutely works for weight loss. But exercise can as well.
Duration and intensity are the magic words when exercising to lose weight. You need long enough duration that you burn through a lot of calories. I will lose weight when going for regular six hour bike rides. My tummy just gets full before being able to eat enough to cover the calories when I get home. High intensity is great in many ways, and you need enough intensity to be working when exercising. That said I've found that usually I can't keep up high intensity stuff long enough to make a dent in my weight (the exception being extremely high intensity exercise where I get so sick/pukey feeling afterwards that I can't eat). Medium intensity where you're breathing hard, but can still talk (with a little effort between breaths) seems to be my sweet spot.
This is 100% true.
It is also true that if you maintain roughly the same exercise program and food intake year after year you will weigh about the same “all things being equal”. So, for someone who chooses to maintain the same level of exercise, diet is the answer to weight loss; whereas someone who does not want to change what they eat can choose to exercise more to lose weight.
I think.
I always believed this. Then menopause hit. *Nothing* works the same as it used to, and I changed nothing. Always exercised vigorously and consistently, always could eat pretty much whatever I wanted. Not any more. That said, Steve's theory on increasing duration of exercise does seem to work, for what it's worth. I spent a full week and several weekends this fall doing full day intense hikes, and that did result in weight loss. Unfortunately, I really can't exercise much more than 2 hours a day on average and work at the same time...and idk if exercising all day every day would eventually lead to overuse injuries.
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When I lost 40 lbs during my last year of university it was all about the diet. I always lived a relatively active lifestyle, but my diet was downright putrid. It was so much eating out and drinking. Cutting out drinking to only a very rare occasion and cooking most of my meals had a great return. The working out kept me motivated to keep the good diet up.
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I’m a biker—maybe 250 miles a month; walker— ~35 miles a month; and I do a little PT-like lifting and stretching too.
I understand the relationship between exercise and weight intellectually, but have never found exercise to do much for weight personally—likely because I’ve exercised the same amount for many years. It’s just me.
If I want to lose weight I eat less calories.
YMMV.
Eating less absolutely works for weight loss. But exercise can as well.
Duration and intensity are the magic words when exercising to lose weight. You need long enough duration that you burn through a lot of calories. I will lose weight when going for regular six hour bike rides. My tummy just gets full before being able to eat enough to cover the calories when I get home. High intensity is great in many ways, and you need enough intensity to be working when exercising. That said I've found that usually I can't keep up high intensity stuff long enough to make a dent in my weight (the exception being extremely high intensity exercise where I get so sick/pukey feeling afterwards that I can't eat). Medium intensity where you're breathing hard, but can still talk (with a little effort between breaths) seems to be my sweet spot.
This is 100% true.
It is also true that if you maintain roughly the same exercise program and food intake year after year you will weigh about the same “all things being equal”. So, for someone who chooses to maintain the same level of exercise, diet is the answer to weight loss; whereas someone who does not want to change what they eat can choose to exercise more to lose weight.
I think.
I always believed this. Then menopause hit. *Nothing* works the same as it used to, and I changed nothing. Always exercised vigorously and consistently, always could eat pretty much whatever I wanted. Not any more. That said, Steve's theory on increasing duration of exercise does seem to work, for what it's worth. I spent a full week and several weekends this fall doing full day intense hikes, and that did result in weight loss. Unfortunately, I really can't exercise much more than 2 hours a day on average and work at the same time...and idk if exercising all day every day would eventually lead to overuse injuries.
Hey it's me, the dreaded better-in-menopause lady. Mid-50s. Lifelong hard exerciser. Almost a decade into menopause, I'm in the best shape of my life. VO2 max of a 20-year-old (if my watch is to be believed). I did have trouble with creeping weight gain but a year ago finally lost 15 lbs (currently it's around 10 lbs down) due to a combination of efforts (strength, food tracking, walking, cardio). WHAT you eat is really important, especially protein, for satiety and body composition. NEAT is critically important. Whether menopause or andropause, the body changes over the course of our lives, but those hormone shifts are a tiny percentage of what changes it. Most important is the body recomposition that can happen VERY insidiously (it happened to me, and I blamed menopause for 7 years).
So, it turns out that losing weight, especially losing it quickly, is TERRIBLE for you because it erodes the frame and the engine of your metabolism: Bone and muscle. It's almost as if the weight loss industry has been lying to us. Muscle motor units are precious and when we lose them (as we all do) they don't come back. Prioritize explosive moves (the only way to produce the substances that prevent arthritis) and balance.
Be very careful about intensity (HIIT, or other forms). A little goes a long way, and too much will backfire. The older you get, the more effective you'll find minimalist lifting programs, and light (mostly zone 2) cardio that you LOVE to do. It's a wonderful time of life.
I've now been getting 20k steps a day for all of December, January and February to date! I get a lot of the steps on my rebounder now in the evenings. My kid hates it because apparently the bouncing is driving them crazy. Not my problem, I love bouncing!
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Sounds wonderful. I can't wait to age into menopause! :D
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Sounds wonderful. I can't wait to age into menopause! :D
hahahahhaha
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I’m a biker—maybe 250 miles a month; walker— ~35 miles a month; and I do a little PT-like lifting and stretching too.
I understand the relationship between exercise and weight intellectually, but have never found exercise to do much for weight personally—likely because I’ve exercised the same amount for many years. It’s just me.
If I want to lose weight I eat less calories.
YMMV.
Eating less absolutely works for weight loss. But exercise can as well.
Duration and intensity are the magic words when exercising to lose weight. You need long enough duration that you burn through a lot of calories. I will lose weight when going for regular six hour bike rides. My tummy just gets full before being able to eat enough to cover the calories when I get home. High intensity is great in many ways, and you need enough intensity to be working when exercising. That said I've found that usually I can't keep up high intensity stuff long enough to make a dent in my weight (the exception being extremely high intensity exercise where I get so sick/pukey feeling afterwards that I can't eat). Medium intensity where you're breathing hard, but can still talk (with a little effort between breaths) seems to be my sweet spot.
This is 100% true.
It is also true that if you maintain roughly the same exercise program and food intake year after year you will weigh about the same “all things being equal”. So, for someone who chooses to maintain the same level of exercise, diet is the answer to weight loss; whereas someone who does not want to change what they eat can choose to exercise more to lose weight.
I think.
I always believed this. Then menopause hit. *Nothing* works the same as it used to, and I changed nothing. Always exercised vigorously and consistently, always could eat pretty much whatever I wanted. Not any more. That said, Steve's theory on increasing duration of exercise does seem to work, for what it's worth. I spent a full week and several weekends this fall doing full day intense hikes, and that did result in weight loss. Unfortunately, I really can't exercise much more than 2 hours a day on average and work at the same time...and idk if exercising all day every day would eventually lead to overuse injuries.
Hey it's me, the dreaded better-in-menopause lady. Mid-50s. Lifelong hard exerciser. Almost a decade into menopause, I'm in the best shape of my life. VO2 max of a 20-year-old (if my watch is to be believed). I did have trouble with creeping weight gain but a year ago finally lost 15 lbs (currently it's around 10 lbs down) due to a combination of efforts (strength, food tracking, walking, cardio). WHAT you eat is really important, especially protein, for satiety and body composition. NEAT is critically important. Whether menopause or andropause, the body changes over the course of our lives, but those hormone shifts are a tiny percentage of what changes it. Most important is the body recomposition that can happen VERY insidiously (it happened to me, and I blamed menopause for 7 years).
So, it turns out that losing weight, especially losing it quickly, is TERRIBLE for you because it erodes the frame and the engine of your metabolism: Bone and muscle. It's almost as if the weight loss industry has been lying to us. Muscle motor units are precious and when we lose them (as we all do) they don't come back. Prioritize explosive moves (the only way to produce the substances that prevent arthritis) and balance.
Be very careful about intensity (HIIT, or other forms). A little goes a long way, and too much will backfire. The older you get, the more effective you'll find minimalist lifting programs, and light (mostly zone 2) cardio that you LOVE to do. It's a wonderful time of life.
I've now been getting 20k steps a day for all of December, January and February to date! I get a lot of the steps on my rebounder now in the evenings. My kid hates it because apparently the bouncing is driving them crazy. Not my problem, I love bouncing!
I mean, I'm in great shape too, with a well-rounded mix of cardio, strength, and flexibility (I do it all. Running, biking, hiking, walking, yoga, weight lifting, Hiit, pickleball, kayaking, kickboxing etc), but I'm still experiencing weight creep. I'm not overweight since I started out on the lower end of BMI, but it's annoying that I can't just eat anything I want anymore. I have been focusing more on building/retaining muscle, but I guess I have to get more vigilant about my diet. It just goes against my life philosophy to have to pay attention to my diet when it's just taken care of itself my entire life up until this point, ugh.
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I’m a biker—maybe 250 miles a month; walker— ~35 miles a month; and I do a little PT-like lifting and stretching too.
I understand the relationship between exercise and weight intellectually, but have never found exercise to do much for weight personally—likely because I’ve exercised the same amount for many years. It’s just me.
If I want to lose weight I eat less calories.
YMMV.
Eating less absolutely works for weight loss. But exercise can as well.
Duration and intensity are the magic words when exercising to lose weight. You need long enough duration that you burn through a lot of calories. I will lose weight when going for regular six hour bike rides. My tummy just gets full before being able to eat enough to cover the calories when I get home. High intensity is great in many ways, and you need enough intensity to be working when exercising. That said I've found that usually I can't keep up high intensity stuff long enough to make a dent in my weight (the exception being extremely high intensity exercise where I get so sick/pukey feeling afterwards that I can't eat). Medium intensity where you're breathing hard, but can still talk (with a little effort between breaths) seems to be my sweet spot.
This is 100% true.
It is also true that if you maintain roughly the same exercise program and food intake year after year you will weigh about the same “all things being equal”. So, for someone who chooses to maintain the same level of exercise, diet is the answer to weight loss; whereas someone who does not want to change what they eat can choose to exercise more to lose weight.
I think.
I always believed this. Then menopause hit. *Nothing* works the same as it used to, and I changed nothing. Always exercised vigorously and consistently, always could eat pretty much whatever I wanted. Not any more. That said, Steve's theory on increasing duration of exercise does seem to work, for what it's worth. I spent a full week and several weekends this fall doing full day intense hikes, and that did result in weight loss. Unfortunately, I really can't exercise much more than 2 hours a day on average and work at the same time...and idk if exercising all day every day would eventually lead to overuse injuries.
Hey it's me, the dreaded better-in-menopause lady. Mid-50s. Lifelong hard exerciser. Almost a decade into menopause, I'm in the best shape of my life. VO2 max of a 20-year-old (if my watch is to be believed). I did have trouble with creeping weight gain but a year ago finally lost 15 lbs (currently it's around 10 lbs down) due to a combination of efforts (strength, food tracking, walking, cardio). WHAT you eat is really important, especially protein, for satiety and body composition. NEAT is critically important. Whether menopause or andropause, the body changes over the course of our lives, but those hormone shifts are a tiny percentage of what changes it. Most important is the body recomposition that can happen VERY insidiously (it happened to me, and I blamed menopause for 7 years).
So, it turns out that losing weight, especially losing it quickly, is TERRIBLE for you because it erodes the frame and the engine of your metabolism: Bone and muscle. It's almost as if the weight loss industry has been lying to us. Muscle motor units are precious and when we lose them (as we all do) they don't come back. Prioritize explosive moves (the only way to produce the substances that prevent arthritis) and balance.
Be very careful about intensity (HIIT, or other forms). A little goes a long way, and too much will backfire. The older you get, the more effective you'll find minimalist lifting programs, and light (mostly zone 2) cardio that you LOVE to do. It's a wonderful time of life.
I've now been getting 20k steps a day for all of December, January and February to date! I get a lot of the steps on my rebounder now in the evenings. My kid hates it because apparently the bouncing is driving them crazy. Not my problem, I love bouncing!
I mean, I'm in great shape too, with a well-rounded mix of cardio, strength, and flexibility (I do it all. Running, biking, hiking, walking, yoga, weight lifting, Hiit, pickleball, kayaking, kickboxing etc), but I'm still experiencing weight creep. I'm not overweight since I started out on the lower end of BMI, but it's annoying that I can't just eat anything I want anymore. I have been focusing more on building/retaining muscle, but I guess I have to get more vigilant about my diet. It just goes against my life philosophy to have to pay attention to my diet when it's just taken care of itself my entire life up until this point, ugh.
I totally agree, I always could eat anything. Never ate much junk, still don't. I still can eat anything, but very slowly have reduced carbs and increased protein. When I track food, it still shows a very good percentage of carbs. That probably means that my carbs were VERY high before. Also, some of the thinking around carbs, and ye olde food pyramid, have changed. So what might have seemed like a pretty clean, complex carb is now not seen quite that way.
BUT all this can and will change over time, as nutritional fads come and go. That's why the final cherry-on-top component of extreme fitness is belief. I don't do it nearly often enough but sometimes if I put an inspirational workout motivation video on before going to the gym, whoo boy do I get into a focused workout. In general I believe I am getting better and better.
I understand that I may hit a wall due to age, at some point (a point that outliers keep extending -- now into 80s and beyond). Or be injured (have been many times before). Or worse. I exercise now just in case none of that happens.
Oh and as for the ability to put on weight, in survival terms, that's optimal. That means the machine is running well, just needs a few adjustments. In through hiking, for example, the last thing you want to be is someone already thin who easily drops weight. That's why I only did half the Colorado Trail, the weight loss was too extreme and I don't think healthy in the least. Maybe if I knew better how to forage and hunt it would be a different story. Eating dandelion greens for a month ain't it.
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I understand the phenomena and empathize. Aging is different but also throws the math out of wack…
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I’ve cycled about 1100 miles so far in 2025. Burning about 6000 calories a week, which allows a lot of extra food beyond my maintenance levels.
Although I feel pretty fortunate that I can eat as much food as I can right now to maintain my weight, I could EASILY become overweight or obese. It would be nothing for me to still eat an extra 1000 calories/wk eating sweets, fried foods, fast foods, pizza, etc. You really can’t outwork a crappy diet.
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I think I'm an oddball. It seems like how active I am plays a more important part in how healthy I feel, how my clothes fit, my stamina. I dont have a scale but while my weight has crept up these last 5 years, it doesn't seem to fluctuate too much.
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I’ve cycled about 1100 miles so far in 2025. Burning about 6000 calories a week, which allows a lot of extra food beyond my maintenance levels.
Although I feel pretty fortunate that I can eat as much food as I can right now to maintain my weight, I could EASILY become overweight or obese. It would be nothing for me to still eat an extra 1000 calories/wk eating sweets, fried foods, fast foods, pizza, etc. You really can’t outwork a crappy diet.
That's great! I'm at 850 miles for the year so far. Like you, I could easily cycle that much and still put on weight. I still find fasting to be the easiest way for me to lose weight. If I do 24-hour fasts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I lose an average of 2.5lbs per week.
2025
Activities 47
Distance 850.6 mi
Elev Gain 38,793 ft
Time 39h 49m
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I think I'm an oddball. It seems like how active I am plays a more important part in how healthy I feel, how my clothes fit, my stamina. I dont have a scale but while my weight has crept up these last 5 years, it doesn't seem to fluctuate too much.
When I am not active, regardless of my weight, I feel sluggish and in a daze. When I am active, regardless of what it is, I feel locked in and clear headed. I only drink on social occasions, so I feel pretty good pretty much most of the time unless I get sick.
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On my first post in late November 2024, I was down 5 pounds (232 to 227) and 1 inch off my waist (43.5 to 42.5 inches). I'm now down 10 pounds and 2 inches off my waist. I think this is a pretty good win for me in the dead of winter with cold weather. Now that the weather is getting better and spending more time outside, I'm going to be getting more steps.
I have a step counter. I'm averaging 16,500 steps per day since day 1. I slightly modified my diet to restrict processed foods. Less potato chips and cookies. I still eat them, just less of them. I'm not restricting how much I eat. I'm never hungry, but I make an effort to eat meats and vegetables and rice that I make at home.
I haven't really cut back on my drinking yet, but I think that is coming next.
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@clarkfan1979 I lost about 40 lbs three years ago. The number one thing that I did was start getting 10k steps a day. The second-best thing that I did was only drink on social occasions. The third best thing that I did was meal prep my food.
When I drank, I ate very poorly and that was a double whammy for keeping the pounds on.
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Lack of walking, due to our excessive car culture and car infrastructure, is one of the big factors in why this country is so fat in the first place. In most of the world, walking is built in to how people get around. Free caloric burn and muscle building built into every day without even needing to set aside time for it.
Anecdotally, I've heard of the various Americans who take European vacations, eat all kinds of sumptuous fatty and high-carb foods, and don't gain any weight (or lose weight) because they're actually using their legs as a mode of transportation for a change.
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It’s not just walking… it’s high-speed internet/screen time. One study compared neighboring communities with and without fast internet when it was being introduced. The ones with internet gained weight.
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I have been walking 20k steps a day since Nov 30! It feels great & not hard to do now.
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It’s not just walking… it’s high-speed internet/screen time. One study compared neighboring communities with and without fast internet when it was being introduced. The ones with internet gained weight.
I do wonder how much our dependency on tech and screens for entertainment has affected our physical health. I should keep track of my key health metrics and compare them to screen time. I wonder what that would look like.
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It’s not just walking… it’s high-speed internet/screen time. One study compared neighboring communities with and without fast internet when it was being introduced. The ones with internet gained weight.
I do wonder how much our dependency on tech and screens for entertainment has affected our physical health. I should keep track of my key health metrics and compare them to screen time. I wonder what that would look like.
When I started my working life in the 90s, I would go all weekend without looking at a computer. There used to be a concern that longform writing was going to die, and there was plenty of talk about special chairs or other ways to make it possible for people to sit still and read from a computer screen for hours. Guess what, we managed to figure it out lol.
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Granted, I am way younger, but I even I remember a time where my weekends were mostly tech free. We would watch TV and such, but I didn't have a video game console until about 10 or so. So, there were definitely weekends without tech for me especially in the summer months.
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Obligatory "back in my day!" post regarding gaming:
I was a kid in the 70's, when stand up arcade style games got popular.
A little store four miles from my house in the country got a Space Invaders game, then in around 1981 (I was 14, prime video game age) they got a Donkey Kong machine and a Galaga (still my favorite).
I would ride my bmx bike down until I had used up my meager supply of quarters (usually four). My allowance was a few bucks/week.
With all that riding, I was in excellent shape, lol
I didn't just ride for games, though. I probably rode 20-25 miles per day, mostly on single track dirt bike trails, pushing up the hills and riding down.
I never had an Atari 2600. I had a friend with one but I thought the games sucked compared to the arcade versions.
When my DD was little I got a Wii console, we had a lot of fun with that; I really liked the frisbee dog game :-)
I've never played any of the modern games, except one day at my then brother in laws, who had the first Grand Theft Auto. I basically stole a motorcycle and rode around causing mayhem until the SWAT unit flew up in a helo and shot me down. Game over.
I can still kick ass on Galaga, ha. I've forgotten most of the routines on Donkey Kong.
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The walking vs. running part is pretty straightforward, as long as you go X distance then the calories burned is basically the same. Unless you do a lot of acceleration / deceleration (HIIT), the city/highway MPG on a car is a good analogy.
The weight loss part is much more complicated. If you have the time, I found this 2 hour discussion on metabolic studies between Dr. Mike and Dr. Jason Fung to show just how tricky it is to reach consensus - https://youtu.be/pSwppRQ0dDQ?si=KFx72ZlOMNt3elgD
One thing you mentioned though, you were able to ditch your thyroid medicine. That alone could account for much of your recent weight loss success. Once you get your hormones right, many problems with weight gain and loss become much easier. That's why GLP-1 medications have been so successful, they are a shortcut to getting your hormones back to 'lean person'.
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The walking vs. running part is pretty straightforward, as long as you go X distance then the calories burned is basically the same.
That didn't sound right to me, so I looked it up. But all I could find was a time comparison:
Burning calories: Running burns more than twice as many calories per minute as walking. For a person who weighs 160 pounds, walking at a pace of 3.5 miles per hour for 30 minutes burns about 156 calories. Running at 6 mph for the same time burns about 356 calories.
- https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-walking-and-running (https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-walking-and-running)
We know that there are 312 calories burned in an hour walking 3.5 miles for a 160 lb person
3.5/6 = 312/calories burned walking 6 miles
calories burned walking 6 miles = 6(312)/3.5 = 534
So you burn 534 calories walking 6 miles if you're a 160 lb person.
We know that 712 calories are burned in an hour running 6 miles for a 160 lb person.
So comparing the two - 712:534 = 1.33:1 . . . we know that running burns a third more calories than walking. Which is less than I would have guessed at first glance, but quite a bit more than nothing. To say it another way - you would have to walk 8 miles to burn as many calories as someone running 6 miles.
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The walking vs. running part is pretty straightforward, as long as you go X distance then the calories burned is basically the same.
That didn't sound right to me, so I looked it up. But all I could find was a time comparison:
Burning calories: Running burns more than twice as many calories per minute as walking. For a person who weighs 160 pounds, walking at a pace of 3.5 miles per hour for 30 minutes burns about 156 calories. Running at 6 mph for the same time burns about 356 calories.
- https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-walking-and-running (https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-walking-and-running)
We know that there are 312 calories burned in an hour walking 3.5 miles for a 160 lb person
3.5/6 = 312/calories burned walking 6 miles
calories burned walking 6 miles = 6(312)/3.5 = 534
So you burn 534 calories walking 6 miles if you're a 160 lb person.
We know that 712 calories are burned in an hour running 6 miles for a 160 lb person.
So comparing the two - 712:534 = 1.33:1 . . . we know that running burns a third more calories than walking. Which is less than I would have guessed at first glance, but quite a bit more than nothing. To say it another way - you would have to walk 8 miles to burn as many calories as someone running 6 miles.
I didn't say that they were exactly the same, if you'd have read the next sentence, I compared it to the mpg for hwy vs. city driving, which are not the same. I guess it's a bit of a poor comparison because highway mpg is actually higher than city and running is more like highway driving in most people's minds, but I was trying to get at them being 'roughly' the same which you have now provided a quantitative estimate of...
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The walking vs. running part is pretty straightforward, as long as you go X distance then the calories burned is basically the same.
That didn't sound right to me, so I looked it up. But all I could find was a time comparison:
Burning calories: Running burns more than twice as many calories per minute as walking. For a person who weighs 160 pounds, walking at a pace of 3.5 miles per hour for 30 minutes burns about 156 calories. Running at 6 mph for the same time burns about 356 calories.
- https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-walking-and-running (https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-walking-and-running)
We know that there are 312 calories burned in an hour walking 3.5 miles for a 160 lb person
3.5/6 = 312/calories burned walking 6 miles
calories burned walking 6 miles = 6(312)/3.5 = 534
So you burn 534 calories walking 6 miles if you're a 160 lb person.
We know that 712 calories are burned in an hour running 6 miles for a 160 lb person.
So comparing the two - 712:534 = 1.33:1 . . . we know that running burns a third more calories than walking. Which is less than I would have guessed at first glance, but quite a bit more than nothing. To say it another way - you would have to walk 8 miles to burn as many calories as someone running 6 miles.
I didn't say that they were exactly the same, if you'd have read the next sentence, I compared it to the mpg for hwy vs. city driving, which are not the same. I guess it's a bit of a poor comparison because highway mpg is actually higher than city and running is more like highway driving in most people's minds, but I was trying to get at them being 'roughly' the same which you have now provided a quantitative estimate of...
Oh yeah, although it probably seemed that way, I wasn't actually going for 'pedantic dick'. Over the years I've heard people say that you burn pretty much the same calories for going the same distance or that there's a huge difference. I was just curious.
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The walking vs. running part is pretty straightforward, as long as you go X distance then the calories burned is basically the same.
That didn't sound right to me, so I looked it up. But all I could find was a time comparison:
Burning calories: Running burns more than twice as many calories per minute as walking. For a person who weighs 160 pounds, walking at a pace of 3.5 miles per hour for 30 minutes burns about 156 calories. Running at 6 mph for the same time burns about 356 calories.
- https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-walking-and-running (https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-walking-and-running)
We know that there are 312 calories burned in an hour walking 3.5 miles for a 160 lb person
3.5/6 = 312/calories burned walking 6 miles
calories burned walking 6 miles = 6(312)/3.5 = 534
So you burn 534 calories walking 6 miles if you're a 160 lb person.
We know that 712 calories are burned in an hour running 6 miles for a 160 lb person.
So comparing the two - 712:534 = 1.33:1 . . . we know that running burns a third more calories than walking. Which is less than I would have guessed at first glance, but quite a bit more than nothing. To say it another way - you would have to walk 8 miles to burn as many calories as someone running 6 miles.
I didn't say that they were exactly the same, if you'd have read the next sentence, I compared it to the mpg for hwy vs. city driving, which are not the same. I guess it's a bit of a poor comparison because highway mpg is actually higher than city and running is more like highway driving in most people's minds, but I was trying to get at them being 'roughly' the same which you have now provided a quantitative estimate of...
Oh yeah, although it probably seemed that way, I wasn't actually going for 'pedantic dick'. Over the years I've heard people say that you burn pretty much the same calories for going the same distance or that there's a huge difference. I was just curious.
It was an interesting analysis and I've never seen anything definitive. Just from observation, people that show up to my races and walk vs. the vast majority of runners, the walkers are definitely on the heavier side of the scale. But all of the articles I read assure us that you burn plenty of calories walking, it just takes a long time and doesn't feel as strenuous...
I do a bit of both, since running is hard on the joints, but walking doesn't get my heart rate up and make me sweat... most important is that I'm out there everyday, which gets tough in a Norwegian winter or a Houston summer!
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People tend to drastically overestimate the amount of calories that they burn. That is nothing new. The whole point of walking for weight loss is about building a consistent habit of movement that makes sticking to other healthy habits easier.
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I always figured the walking vs running calories debate generally boiled down to most people can (or are willing to) walk for much longer periods of time than they can run. So, if you tell someone to go out and run for 30 minutes; that simply isn't going to happen for a lot of people. But if you tell them to go on a 3 mile walk through a park or something; that is a more accessible use of an hour of their time.
I've gotten way more people to agree to join me on a 10 mile hike than I have on a 6 mile run, for example.
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I always figured the walking vs running calories debate generally boiled down to most people can (or are willing to) walk for much longer periods of time than they can run. So, if you tell someone to go out and run for 30 minutes; that simply isn't going to happen for a lot of people. But if you tell them to go on a 3 mile walk through a park or something; that is a more accessible use of an hour of their time.
I've gotten way more people to agree to join me on a 10 mile hike than I have on a 6 mile run, for example.
So if I'm reading between the lines correctly here . . . for maximum calories burned, you should hike 5 miles out into the middle of nowhere and then have a friend in a bear costume jump out of the woods and run after your group the remaining 5 miles home. :D
#EFFICIENCY
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I always figured the walking vs running calories debate generally boiled down to most people can (or are willing to) walk for much longer periods of time than they can run. So, if you tell someone to go out and run for 30 minutes; that simply isn't going to happen for a lot of people. But if you tell them to go on a 3 mile walk through a park or something; that is a more accessible use of an hour of their time.
I've gotten way more people to agree to join me on a 10 mile hike than I have on a 6 mile run, for example.
I also find in that hour I’m generally not in a spot to mindlessly snack. In fact if I get the feeling I want to snack but I’m not actually hungry, it’s a sign for me in fact go on a walk because it gets me a way from the pantry.
On running makes you gain weight, I’m on team it’s not the running it’s the eating. People tend to interpret being 10% more hungry with 50% and overeat. Running 20-25 miles a week I try to not eat too much more than normal. And guess what I May feel like I’m staring when I first sit down, but once I finish eating I’m generally not. it’s only when I get above 25 miles that I start to notice the true need to eat more.
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People tend to drastically overestimate the amount of calories that they burn. That is nothing new. The whole point of walking for weight loss is about building a consistent habit of movement that makes sticking to other healthy habits easier.
I built a very consistent running schedule for 2 years and didn't lose any weight. I ran 65 minutes on average 6 times/week. Now I'm walking 90 minutes a day (6 days/week) and losing weight. For me personally, walking has been much better for weight loss than running. With running, I would get large hunger spikes post workout. I don't get those with walking. Im also more active during the rest of the day with a walking schedule. When I was running, I would sit for long periods of time post workout, because my muscles were tired and sore.
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@clarkfan1979 Running can definitely spike your hunger. It really all comes down to diet. There have been times where I was very active but somehow gained weight. I later realized that my diet was just truly terrible. This is when I was in university and ate and drank way too much. You can be as active as you want, but if you just eat like crap, it's hard to stay in shape.
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Also, with regard to body composition, it’s not aging, it’s the passage of time. As years/decades go by you gradually lose muscle mass due to disuse, increasing screen time/sedentary lifestyle. Endurance training can help when you have enough muscle mass. But over time, endurance training can ALSO lead to poor body composition, because it is a catabolic process — it consumes muscle.
Here’s an explanation from https://www.healthline.com/health/catabolism-vs-anabolism#body-weight:
Since anabolism and catabolism are parts of your metabolism, these processes affect your body weight. Remember: When you’re in an anabolic state, you’re building and maintaining your muscle mass. When you’re in a catabolic state, you’re breaking down or losing overall mass, both fat and muscle.
You may be able to manipulate your body weight by understanding these processes and your overall metabolism. Both the anabolic and catabolic process lead to fat loss over time. With regard to your weight on the bathroom scale as a benchmark, however, things can get a bit tricky.
If you do a lot of anabolic workouts, you’ll tend to shed fat and maintain or even gain muscle. Muscle is more dense than fat, so your body weight and body mass index may stay higher despite a leaner physique.
Catabolic workouts, on the other hand, may help you shed pounds by working off both fat and muscle. You’ll weigh less, but you’ll also have far less critical muscle mass.
You can think of these processes as an equation to predict whether or not you may lose or gain weight.
It’s important to do ALL the things. You have to do SOME intense cardio (150 minutes a week of moderate and/or vigorous activity). You have to build/maintain muscle sustainably (as in, not in a way that might injure you or cause you to burn out). You have to sleep (when muscle is built). You have to drink water (you excrete fat as CO2 from your lungs, or via urine/sweat). You need balance and flexibility. You need some endurance as well for mental health. And you need walking or some form of non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT).
But if all that seems overwhelming, just start walking!
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I always figured the walking vs running calories debate generally boiled down to most people can (or are willing to) walk for much longer periods of time than they can run. So, if you tell someone to go out and run for 30 minutes; that simply isn't going to happen for a lot of people. But if you tell them to go on a 3 mile walk through a park or something; that is a more accessible use of an hour of their time.
I've gotten way more people to agree to join me on a 10 mile hike than I have on a 6 mile run, for example.
So if I'm reading between the lines correctly here . . . for maximum calories burned, you should hike 5 miles out into the middle of nowhere and then have a friend in a bear costume jump out of the woods and run after your group the remaining 5 miles home. :D
#EFFICIENCY
BRILLIANT! Imma write that down. :D
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CICO is real, I'm not discounting it, but I am also convinced losing weight is person dependent and not 100% CICO. I have lost weight on 10 minutes of exercise alone. I have lost weight on a ton of exercise but also eating like a lumberjack, all crappy foods and drinking tons of alcohol (some people say you cannot exercise away a bad diet, um I could). Walking is good, but for me I need to do a little (10-30) min high intensity exercise like running to see a difference. I also notice core work is really good. The other part (for all the ladies out there) is weight lifting, losing weight is one thing but you can sculpt your body with weightlifting. I hate it, but I try to do it anyway. Age and hormones play a part. And some people just have a heavier set-weight. So yeah watch your CICO but it also seems like each body is a little different so it might be helpful to keep a food and exercise diary. I don't drink alcohol anymore, but I think that's a big weight gainer for people. Park far away from the entrance of the stores, go the long way around, take the stairs whenever possible, all those in between exercises that don't feel like exercise add up. Get one of those watches that tells you to get up if you've been sitting too long.
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
Like, if you think jogging for 45 minutes is going to exercise away several cheeseburgers . . . you're going to be disappointed. If your idea of fun is holding around 85% max heart rate for five or six hours on a bike first thing in the morning, or doing an hour of heavy compound lifts approaching sets of 80% of your 1rm limit followed by an hour of sprinting hill intervals you're going to have better results.
With very heavy exercise, you actually hit a limit where you can't physically eat enough food to keep weight on. Like you get tired of chewing, and your stomach is so full it hurts so you stop.
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
I wonder if you also ned to be a relatively young man for this to work.
CICO is real, I'm not discounting it, but I am also convinced losing weight is person dependent and not 100% CICO. I have lost weight on 10 minutes of exercise alone. I have lost weight on a ton of exercise but also eating like a lumberjack, all crappy foods and drinking tons of alcohol (some people say you cannot exercise away a bad diet, um I could). Walking is good, but for me I need to do a little (10-30) min high intensity exercise like running to see a difference. I also notice core work is really good. The other part (for all the ladies out there) is weight lifting, losing weight is one thing but you can sculpt your body with weightlifting. I hate it, but I try to do it anyway. Age and hormones play a part. And some people just have a heavier set-weight. So yeah watch your CICO but it also seems like each body is a little different so it might be helpful to keep a food and exercise diary. I don't drink alcohol anymore, but I think that's a big weight gainer for people. Park far away from the entrance of the stores, go the long way around, take the stairs whenever possible, all those in between exercises that don't feel like exercise add up. Get one of those watches that tells you to get up if you've been sitting too long.
I think CICO is so dependent on other factors from gut health to age that it's not really useful for regular people. Not only is calculating your caloric intake reeeeeally difficult, but also our "knowledge" of how many calories are in a particular food is based on very old research using out of date methods.
Weight lifting is great, definitely not a way to lose weight. It would be nice to lose weight but these days (I'm a 44-year-old mom to two young teens and a toddler) I am more interested in injury prevention, energy and longevity. So yeah, I'm trying to eat more protein and fiber and get lots of exercise but especially strength training and mobility type exercises (balance, movements like lunges that help counteract all the sitting, etc.) and if I can get back into my old clothes I would enjoy that, but what I want more than that is that when my youngest is in her early 30s and maybe starting and a family and getting going in her career, she doesn't have to be worried about me being old yet, y'know?
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Is it possible to exercise away a bad diet? Sure, but it is usually exhausting and takes so much time. Most of the time the best ROI and most consistent results come from a good diet. Exercise can help but it is all about diet
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
Like, if you think jogging for 45 minutes is going to exercise away several cheeseburgers . . . you're going to be disappointed. If your idea of fun is holding around 85% max heart rate for five or six hours on a bike first thing in the morning, or doing an hour of heavy compound lifts approaching sets of 80% of your 1rm limit followed by an hour of sprinting hill intervals you're going to have better results.
With very heavy exercise, you actually hit a limit where you can't physically eat enough food to keep weight on. Like you get tired of chewing, and your stomach is so full it hurts so you stop.
I recall watching a documentary about the dietary requirements of a top cycling team in the Tour de France. The amount of food those guys consumed was truly astonishing!
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
Like, if you think jogging for 45 minutes is going to exercise away several cheeseburgers . . . you're going to be disappointed. If your idea of fun is holding around 85% max heart rate for five or six hours on a bike first thing in the morning, or doing an hour of heavy compound lifts approaching sets of 80% of your 1rm limit followed by an hour of sprinting hill intervals you're going to have better results.
With very heavy exercise, you actually hit a limit where you can't physically eat enough food to keep weight on. Like you get tired of chewing, and your stomach is so full it hurts so you stop.
I think this is why a lot of people struggle with weight gain after high school, I know I did.
Your metabolism slows down (then stays flat for like 40 years) but you were used to 2 hour practices daily for three seasons and had the heating habits to match. Plus if you are in college you have access to unlimited food.
Also, the garbage food people hiking the Appalachian trail eat (I live near it) always cracks me up. No way they can replace what they burned daily + Budget + Trail magic makes for some funny looking dinners.
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
Like, if you think jogging for 45 minutes is going to exercise away several cheeseburgers . . . you're going to be disappointed. If your idea of fun is holding around 85% max heart rate for five or six hours on a bike first thing in the morning, or doing an hour of heavy compound lifts approaching sets of 80% of your 1rm limit followed by an hour of sprinting hill intervals you're going to have better results.
With very heavy exercise, you actually hit a limit where you can't physically eat enough food to keep weight on. Like you get tired of chewing, and your stomach is so full it hurts so you stop.
I think this is why a lot of people struggle with weight gain after high school, I know I did.
Your metabolism slows down (then stays flat for like 40 years) but you were used to 2 hour practices daily for three seasons and had the heating habits to match. Plus if you are in college you have access to unlimited food.
Also, the garbage food people hiking the Appalachian trail eat (I live near it) always cracks me up. No way they can replace what they burned daily + Budget + Trail magic makes for some funny looking dinners.
Near as I can figure, metabolism slow-down as you age is a myth. It's ability to do work in the elderly that takes a hit.
I'm 44 now. I noticed that at around 40, my ability to exercise as intensely and for as long dropped in a measurable way. Based on my records, I require more recovery time than in the past after a hard effort, which limits my ability to go as hard. Specifically:
- I cannot physically move the kind of weight that I used to at 30 when lifting. The strength just isn't there any more.
- I can go the same distances at around the same times for cycling, but can't do it multiple days in a row like I used to.
I don't think that my metabolism has really slowed down at all. If I go for a 160km bike ride at a good pace, I am not able to eat and drink enough in two days to recover the weight that I lose. Like, I'll still go home, crash in front of the couch, and eat an extra large pizza on my own with no weight gain. My reduced recovery though, means that I can't do this multiple days back to back. In my youth I would exercise pretty hard six or seven days a week. Now, I need one day off a week, and one or two light days. I need to moderate what I eat on the light and off days because of the reduced load.
So, if you measure and track time/distance or weight/reps and what you eat after doing them, you'll find that these are still around where they used to be. But if you go by how hard it feels to do exercise then you'll find that you have to eat less because less and less exercise feels harder as you age.
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
Like, if you think jogging for 45 minutes is going to exercise away several cheeseburgers . . . you're going to be disappointed. If your idea of fun is holding around 85% max heart rate for five or six hours on a bike first thing in the morning, or doing an hour of heavy compound lifts approaching sets of 80% of your 1rm limit followed by an hour of sprinting hill intervals you're going to have better results.
With very heavy exercise, you actually hit a limit where you can't physically eat enough food to keep weight on. Like you get tired of chewing, and your stomach is so full it hurts so you stop.
I think this is why a lot of people struggle with weight gain after high school, I know I did.
Your metabolism slows down (then stays flat for like 40 years) but you were used to 2 hour practices daily for three seasons and had the heating habits to match. Plus if you are in college you have access to unlimited food.
Also, the garbage food people hiking the Appalachian trail eat (I live near it) always cracks me up. No way they can replace what they burned daily + Budget + Trail magic makes for some funny looking dinners.
Part of the reason I stopped at the halfway point (263 miles, 17 days) of the Colorado Trail last year instead of completing it in one go was because of the drastic weight loss and horrible nutrition. I tried to eat well but you’re basically living on an assortment of pastes and powders. And dandelions, I ate tons of dandelions. I met a guy who was foraging and fishing. That would have been a much better way to go. But I came to realize that through-hiking is very unhealthy.
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
Like, if you think jogging for 45 minutes is going to exercise away several cheeseburgers . . . you're going to be disappointed. If your idea of fun is holding around 85% max heart rate for five or six hours on a bike first thing in the morning, or doing an hour of heavy compound lifts approaching sets of 80% of your 1rm limit followed by an hour of sprinting hill intervals you're going to have better results.
With very heavy exercise, you actually hit a limit where you can't physically eat enough food to keep weight on. Like you get tired of chewing, and your stomach is so full it hurts so you stop.
I think this is why a lot of people struggle with weight gain after high school, I know I did.
Your metabolism slows down (then stays flat for like 40 years) but you were used to 2 hour practices daily for three seasons and had the heating habits to match. Plus if you are in college you have access to unlimited food.
Also, the garbage food people hiking the Appalachian trail eat (I live near it) always cracks me up. No way they can replace what they burned daily + Budget + Trail magic makes for some funny looking dinners.
Near as I can figure, metabolism slow-down as you age is a myth. It's ability to do work in the elderly that takes a hit.
I'm 44 now. I noticed that at around 40, my ability to exercise as intensely and for as long dropped in a measurable way. Based on my records, I require more recovery time than in the past after a hard effort, which limits my ability to go as hard. Specifically:
- I cannot physically move the kind of weight that I used to at 30 when lifting. The strength just isn't there any more.
- I can go the same distances at around the same times for cycling, but can't do it multiple days in a row like I used to.
I don't think that my metabolism has really slowed down at all. If I go for a 160km bike ride at a good pace, I am not able to eat and drink enough in two days to recover the weight that I lose. Like, I'll still go home, crash in front of the couch, and eat an extra large pizza on my own with no weight gain. My reduced recovery though, means that I can't do this multiple days back to back. In my youth I would exercise pretty hard six or seven days a week. Now, I need one day off a week, and one or two light days. I need to moderate what I eat on the light and off days because of the reduced load.
So, if you measure and track time/distance or weight/reps and what you eat after doing them, you'll find that these are still around where they used to be. But if you go by how hard it feels to do exercise then you'll find that you have to eat less because less and less exercise feels harder as you age.
What’s really interesting about your observation is that longevity scientists aren’t sure what exactly motor units are, but know that you lose them over time. And you lose more with disuse, and you can’t get them back. That’s why explosive movement is critical. Also, fast movement and reaction time is brain/nervous system training. Your brain learns to be slower and can permanently lose that fast reaction time without practice.
Everyone is slightly different and one person may notice age-related changes in their 30s, other not till their 60s, others not till their 80s. But the trouble with an n=1 type of analysis is that so often we confound other factors with age. What are those factors? Disuse, lack of sleep, stress/cortisol, nutrition, motivation…
In my 20s-30s with young children I had back trouble and felt much older than I do now. In my 50s (knock on wood) I haven’t had back trouble in years, I feel fitter than ever, my VO2 max is that of someone decades younger, etc.
I do think it’s true that you need to prioritize recovery/rest the older you get, and also do your best to avoid injury. Fasting, which had been in fashion for a while for longevity and weight loss, is now falling out of favor because especially men will see a lot of muscle loss or at least lack of growth without enough daily nutrition.
This amazing guy I AM LONGEVITY on YouTube has recently been taking Peter Attia to task for exclusively focusing on VO2 max as a measure of longevity. His point is always you have to do ALL THE THINGS. Anything that you stop doing you will lose the ability to do — not always, but often, permanently.
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
Like, if you think jogging for 45 minutes is going to exercise away several cheeseburgers . . . you're going to be disappointed. If your idea of fun is holding around 85% max heart rate for five or six hours on a bike first thing in the morning, or doing an hour of heavy compound lifts approaching sets of 80% of your 1rm limit followed by an hour of sprinting hill intervals you're going to have better results.
With very heavy exercise, you actually hit a limit where you can't physically eat enough food to keep weight on. Like you get tired of chewing, and your stomach is so full it hurts so you stop.
I think this is why a lot of people struggle with weight gain after high school, I know I did.
Your metabolism slows down (then stays flat for like 40 years) but you were used to 2 hour practices daily for three seasons and had the heating habits to match. Plus if you are in college you have access to unlimited food.
Also, the garbage food people hiking the Appalachian trail eat (I live near it) always cracks me up. No way they can replace what they burned daily + Budget + Trail magic makes for some funny looking dinners.
Near as I can figure, metabolism slow-down as you age is a myth. It's ability to do work in the elderly that takes a hit.
I'm 44 now. I noticed that at around 40, my ability to exercise as intensely and for as long dropped in a measurable way. Based on my records, I require more recovery time than in the past after a hard effort, which limits my ability to go as hard. Specifically:
- I cannot physically move the kind of weight that I used to at 30 when lifting. The strength just isn't there any more.
- I can go the same distances at around the same times for cycling, but can't do it multiple days in a row like I used to.
I don't think that my metabolism has really slowed down at all. If I go for a 160km bike ride at a good pace, I am not able to eat and drink enough in two days to recover the weight that I lose. Like, I'll still go home, crash in front of the couch, and eat an extra large pizza on my own with no weight gain. My reduced recovery though, means that I can't do this multiple days back to back. In my youth I would exercise pretty hard six or seven days a week. Now, I need one day off a week, and one or two light days. I need to moderate what I eat on the light and off days because of the reduced load.
So, if you measure and track time/distance or weight/reps and what you eat after doing them, you'll find that these are still around where they used to be. But if you go by how hard it feels to do exercise then you'll find that you have to eat less because less and less exercise feels harder as you age.
Agreed, I thought I read somewhere it decreases around 20 then plateaus until 60s
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You can absolutely exercise away a bad diet. The intensity and duration of exercise required is well above what most are willing to endure though.
Like, if you think jogging for 45 minutes is going to exercise away several cheeseburgers . . . you're going to be disappointed. If your idea of fun is holding around 85% max heart rate for five or six hours on a bike first thing in the morning, or doing an hour of heavy compound lifts approaching sets of 80% of your 1rm limit followed by an hour of sprinting hill intervals you're going to have better results.
With very heavy exercise, you actually hit a limit where you can't physically eat enough food to keep weight on. Like you get tired of chewing, and your stomach is so full it hurts so you stop.
I think this is why a lot of people struggle with weight gain after high school, I know I did.
Your metabolism slows down (then stays flat for like 40 years) but you were used to 2 hour practices daily for three seasons and had the heating habits to match. Plus if you are in college you have access to unlimited food.
Also, the garbage food people hiking the Appalachian trail eat (I live near it) always cracks me up. No way they can replace what they burned daily + Budget + Trail magic makes for some funny looking dinners.
Near as I can figure, metabolism slow-down as you age is a myth. It's ability to do work in the elderly that takes a hit.
I'm 44 now. I noticed that at around 40, my ability to exercise as intensely and for as long dropped in a measurable way. Based on my records, I require more recovery time than in the past after a hard effort, which limits my ability to go as hard. Specifically:
- I cannot physically move the kind of weight that I used to at 30 when lifting. The strength just isn't there any more.
- I can go the same distances at around the same times for cycling, but can't do it multiple days in a row like I used to.
I don't think that my metabolism has really slowed down at all. If I go for a 160km bike ride at a good pace, I am not able to eat and drink enough in two days to recover the weight that I lose. Like, I'll still go home, crash in front of the couch, and eat an extra large pizza on my own with no weight gain. My reduced recovery though, means that I can't do this multiple days back to back. In my youth I would exercise pretty hard six or seven days a week. Now, I need one day off a week, and one or two light days. I need to moderate what I eat on the light and off days because of the reduced load.
So, if you measure and track time/distance or weight/reps and what you eat after doing them, you'll find that these are still around where they used to be. But if you go by how hard it feels to do exercise then you'll find that you have to eat less because less and less exercise feels harder as you age.
Agreed, I thought I read somewhere it decreases around 20 then plateaus until 60s
Yes, that’s the latest research. But beyond that, “metabolism” as a general concept is a red herring for improving your overall health. And “weight loss” is an actively damaging concept for improving your health.
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Just doing planks, squats, push up and pull ups and that is 90% of the muscles
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Just doing planks, squats, push up and pull ups and that is 90% of the muscles
I mean, sure, but pull ups take equipment and especially if you need assisted pull ups, which a lot of women do! I used to be able to do a couple of pull ups but that was after practicing with the assisted pull up machine at the gym until I saw that my app was calculating my 1 rep maximum as my body weight. Now that I've gained a bunch of weight (doing fertility treatments during a global pandemic that was coincidentally a year of family tragedy will really do that to you) it is simply out of the question. I have a neoprene barbell so I've been doing barbell rows as my "pull" exercise.
Maybe I should get one of those giant bands so I can do assisted chin ups at home- I do have a chin up bar- but they do look awkward...
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Just doing planks, squats, push up and pull ups and that is 90% of the muscles
I mean, sure, but pull ups take equipment and especially if you need assisted pull ups, which a lot of women do! I used to be able to do a couple of pull ups but that was after practicing with the assisted pull up machine at the gym until I saw that my app was calculating my 1 rep maximum as my body weight. Now that I've gained a bunch of weight (doing fertility treatments during a global pandemic that was coincidentally a year of family tragedy will really do that to you) it is simply out of the question. I have a neoprene barbell so I've been doing barbell rows as my "pull" exercise.
Maybe I should get one of those giant bands so I can do assisted chin ups at home- I do have a chin up bar- but they do look awkward...
I have a pull up bar in the kitchen doorway (because teens) and while I can do pull-ups unassisted, the way to get there is to do negatives. You can stand on a chair, hold on in the top position, and gradually drop down using your muscles as much as possible to go down slowly. It’s also an amazing stretch to just hang there. More advanced stretch is hang from one hand, then the other. You don’t have to fully hang either, can be on a chair.
Another concept for getting unassisted pull-ups is something called greasing the groove. Basically you are rehearsing the movement slowly, standing on a chair or stool or milk crate if necessary to take weight off.
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Just doing planks, squats, push up and pull ups and that is 90% of the muscles
I mean, sure, but pull ups take equipment and especially if you need assisted pull ups, which a lot of women do! I used to be able to do a couple of pull ups but that was after practicing with the assisted pull up machine at the gym until I saw that my app was calculating my 1 rep maximum as my body weight. Now that I've gained a bunch of weight (doing fertility treatments during a global pandemic that was coincidentally a year of family tragedy will really do that to you) it is simply out of the question. I have a neoprene barbell so I've been doing barbell rows as my "pull" exercise.
Maybe I should get one of those giant bands so I can do assisted chin ups at home- I do have a chin up bar- but they do look awkward...
I have a pull up bar in the kitchen doorway (because teens) and while I can do pull-ups unassisted, the way to get there is to do negatives. You can stand on a chair, hold on in the top position, and gradually drop down using your muscles as much as possible to go down slowly. It’s also an amazing stretch to just hang there. More advanced stretch is hang from one hand, then the other. You don’t have to fully hang either, can be on a chair.
Another concept for getting unassisted pull-ups is something called greasing the groove. Basically you are rehearsing the movement slowly, standing on a chair or stool or milk crate if necessary to take weight off.
Second the concept of negatives. I've helped several people develop the strength to do pull-ups from being able to to zero to 10+. All started with them holding the bar, jumping as high as they can go, and slowing the descent. You don't need special equipment.
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It is actually pretty crazy how far some body weight exercises will go
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Just doing planks, squats, push up and pull ups and that is 90% of the muscles
I mean, sure, but pull ups take equipment and especially if you need assisted pull ups, which a lot of women do! I used to be able to do a couple of pull ups but that was after practicing with the assisted pull up machine at the gym until I saw that my app was calculating my 1 rep maximum as my body weight. Now that I've gained a bunch of weight (doing fertility treatments during a global pandemic that was coincidentally a year of family tragedy will really do that to you) it is simply out of the question. I have a neoprene barbell so I've been doing barbell rows as my "pull" exercise.
Maybe I should get one of those giant bands so I can do assisted chin ups at home- I do have a chin up bar- but they do look awkward...
I have a pull up bar in the kitchen doorway (because teens) and while I can do pull-ups unassisted, the way to get there is to do negatives. You can stand on a chair, hold on in the top position, and gradually drop down using your muscles as much as possible to go down slowly. It’s also an amazing stretch to just hang there. More advanced stretch is hang from one hand, then the other. You don’t have to fully hang either, can be on a chair.
Another concept for getting unassisted pull-ups is something called greasing the groove. Basically you are rehearsing the movement slowly, standing on a chair or stool or milk crate if necessary to take weight off.
Second the concept of negatives. I've helped several people develop the strength to do pull-ups from being able to to zero to 10+. All started with them holding the bar, jumping as high as they can go, and slowing the descent. You don't need special equipment.
Fine, fine, I did some damn negatives. IMO the pull up bar IS special equipment! Our house has no place it can be permanently installed and it also cannot be conveniently stored due to our house being an older one with limited storage and quite small for our family size. I drug it out of the basement and up the stairs and hung it from the bathroom doorframe upstairs. I can't jump that high so I had to stand on a stool and have my teenage son move it for me as I descended (additional logistical challenge).
I did exactly 3, in place of one of my sets of barbell rows. At my age (44), I am cautious of injury. Did not enjoy but at least it was something different! The teenager did two sets of negatives.
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Just doing planks, squats, push up and pull ups and that is 90% of the muscles
I mean, sure, but pull ups take equipment and especially if you need assisted pull ups, which a lot of women do! I used to be able to do a couple of pull ups but that was after practicing with the assisted pull up machine at the gym until I saw that my app was calculating my 1 rep maximum as my body weight. Now that I've gained a bunch of weight (doing fertility treatments during a global pandemic that was coincidentally a year of family tragedy will really do that to you) it is simply out of the question. I have a neoprene barbell so I've been doing barbell rows as my "pull" exercise.
Maybe I should get one of those giant bands so I can do assisted chin ups at home- I do have a chin up bar- but they do look awkward...
I have a pull up bar in the kitchen doorway (because teens) and while I can do pull-ups unassisted, the way to get there is to do negatives. You can stand on a chair, hold on in the top position, and gradually drop down using your muscles as much as possible to go down slowly. It’s also an amazing stretch to just hang there. More advanced stretch is hang from one hand, then the other. You don’t have to fully hang either, can be on a chair.
Another concept for getting unassisted pull-ups is something called greasing the groove. Basically you are rehearsing the movement slowly, standing on a chair or stool or milk crate if necessary to take weight off.
Second the concept of negatives. I've helped several people develop the strength to do pull-ups from being able to to zero to 10+. All started with them holding the bar, jumping as high as they can go, and slowing the descent. You don't need special equipment.
Fine, fine, I did some damn negatives. IMO the pull up bar IS special equipment! Our house has no place it can be permanently installed and it also cannot be conveniently stored due to our house being an older one with limited storage and quite small for our family size. I drug it out of the basement and up the stairs and hung it from the bathroom doorframe upstairs. I can't jump that high so I had to stand on a stool and have my teenage son move it for me as I descended (additional logistical challenge).
I did exactly 3, in place of one of my sets of barbell rows. At my age (44), I am cautious of injury. Did not enjoy but at least it was something different! The teenager did two sets of negatives.
Awesome! Yeah it’s ugly, ours is in the kitchen doorway in our 100+year old house. Older kid took it away when they moved out, but I missed how ugly it looked and now we have it back! Like I said I use it to stretch a lot too.
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Awesome! Yeah it’s ugly, ours is in the kitchen doorway in our 100+year old house. Older kid took it away when they moved out, but I missed how ugly it looked and now we have it back! Like I said I use it to stretch a lot too.
I wish we had anywhere that we could leave it up most of the time! Our only framed doorways are bedrooms and bathrooms that need to be closed regularly. Before we had the cuckoo, we left it up in the doorway to her room sometimes, which was my Covid office. But I think that if I just get in the habit of getting it out, installing it, and putting it away after, it won't feel so burdensome.
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Could you install a bar permanently in the basement somewhere? You'd get the added benefit of adding a stair climb every time you went to do pullups. If you're feeling spicy, you could install the bar with a length of chain supporting each side to bring it lower for you to reach, as well as for the bonus challenge of instability (serious, not joking).
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.There are many undeniable health advantages to regular exercising, but weight loss isn't really one of them unless you fix the underlying metabolic issues... as high-fat diet advocate Vinnie Tortorich likes to say: "exercise is a poor way to lose weight."
Thank you for the chuckle
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I have been super consistent about my 10k steps with the weather warming up. I really feel it keep my energy levels up.
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Could you install a bar permanently in the basement somewhere? You'd get the added benefit of adding a stair climb every time you went to do pullups. If you're feeling spicy, you could install the bar with a length of chain supporting each side to bring it lower for you to reach, as well as for the bonus challenge of instability (serious, not joking).
Nope. Our basement is fully finished and contains the master suite and nursery. We do leave the laundry room door open but it does not have an upper part of the frame. Part of living in a house that is very small by American standards (about 1800 square feet for 5 people, and a full half of that is basement) is accepting that a lot of your shit is stored in a weird place that is not where you use it and also not with the other shit it goes with.
I did more negatives today. I am not 100% convinced it's going to be a useful excercise just because of my higher BMI. I can't get myself all the way up to the bar even from standing on a stool and jumping, and the descent doesn't feel very controlled. But I know that at my age (44) progress will be slow so I will give it at least a month of two to see if it starts feeling better.
I have been super consistent about my 10k steps with the weather warming up. I really feel it keep my energy levels up.
Yesssss same!
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Could you install a bar permanently in the basement somewhere? You'd get the added benefit of adding a stair climb every time you went to do pullups. If you're feeling spicy, you could install the bar with a length of chain supporting each side to bring it lower for you to reach, as well as for the bonus challenge of instability (serious, not joking).
Nope. Our basement is fully finished and contains the master suite and nursery. We do leave the laundry room door open but it does not have an upper part of the frame. Part of living in a house that is very small by American standards (about 1800 square feet for 5 people, and a full half of that is basement) is accepting that a lot of your shit is stored in a weird place that is not where you use it and also not with the other shit it goes with.
I did more negatives today. I am not 100% convinced it's going to be a useful excercise just because of my higher BMI. I can't get myself all the way up to the bar even from standing on a stool and jumping, and the descent doesn't feel very controlled. But I know that at my age (44) progress will be slow so I will give it at least a month of two to see if it starts feeling better.
I have been super consistent about my 10k steps with the weather warming up. I really feel it keep my energy levels up.
Yesssss same!
My house is smaller than that and we had 5 people living here plus a pack of dogs and assorted other animals. Now it’s just three of us and the dogs and chickens. I always say my house got bigger over the years because I used to think it was so small and I just got more and more efficient and decluttered but I guess that’s another thread.
Also, 44 is not by any medical standards an old age. And BMI is not a good indicator of health lol I hope you don’t hate me for saying all these things.
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Currently reading a book by Mark Sisson called born to walk — sort of the antidote to the book born to run, which I and everybody else read some years back and spurred the barefoot running and the ultra running boom (if you can call it that).
Author is biased and an influencer, but still makes tons of interesting points that I have empirically been proving to myself as someone who did endurance exercise for 30 years and began to see weight gain, despite the exercise. Lots of good points, which I will summarize somewhere else.
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I did more negatives today. I am not 100% convinced it's going to be a useful excercise just because of my higher BMI. I can't get myself all the way up to the bar even from standing on a stool and jumping, and the descent doesn't feel very controlled. But I know that at my age (44) progress will be slow so I will give it at least a month of two to see if it starts feeling better.
If negatives are totally not working then you'll have to change the angle of your pull to reduce the force needed.
Step one is get some rope. Loop the rope over the bar, then lie down under the bar holding onto the rope one end in each hand. Keep your back and legs perfectly straight, and pull yourself up by pulling the rope back. (Ideally you're going to be pivoting on the heels with the rest of your body kinda planking). Initially you'll probably only be able to lift up your shoulders an inch or two off the ground, but then you can work on lifting higher and higher as your strength develops. In the long run you want to be able to pull your hands with the rope all the way back to your chest. Once you get this working (aim for sets of 3 or 4 sets of 10-12), then the negatives will be very doable.
FWIW, I'm going to be 44 this year and while recovery for a lot of stuff takes longer than in my early thirties or twenties, it's still very possible to gain strength in a reasonable amount of time. Don't give up!
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I did more negatives today. I am not 100% convinced it's going to be a useful excercise just because of my higher BMI. I can't get myself all the way up to the bar even from standing on a stool and jumping, and the descent doesn't feel very controlled. But I know that at my age (44) progress will be slow so I will give it at least a month of two to see if it starts feeling better.
If negatives are totally not working then you'll have to change the angle of your pull to reduce the force needed.
Step one is get some rope. Loop the rope over the bar, then lie down under the bar holding onto the rope one end in each hand. Keep your back and legs perfectly straight, and pull yourself up by pulling the rope back. (Ideally you're going to be pivoting on the heels with the rest of your body kinda planking). Initially you'll probably only be able to lift up your shoulders an inch or two off the ground, but then you can work on lifting higher and higher as your strength develops. In the long run you want to be able to pull your hands with the rope all the way back to your chest. Once you get this working (aim for sets of 3 or 4 sets of 10-12), then the negatives will be very doable.
FWIW, I'm going to be 44 this year and while recovery for a lot of stuff takes longer than in my early thirties or twenties, it's still very possible to gain strength in a reasonable amount of time. Don't give up!
Ha, I actually have a suspension system, I just need to dig it out of the baby's closet sometime when she's awake! I've been meaning to do that because I'm getting bored of doing sets of 15 with the 52 pound barbell. (It doesn't go any higher but I could break it down into dumbbells if I want, and each dumbbell could be up to 52 pounds.) That's a good idea, thanks for the suggestion.
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I did more negatives today. I am not 100% convinced it's going to be a useful excercise just because of my higher BMI. I can't get myself all the way up to the bar even from standing on a stool and jumping, and the descent doesn't feel very controlled. But I know that at my age (44) progress will be slow so I will give it at least a month of two to see if it starts feeling better.
If negatives are totally not working then you'll have to change the angle of your pull to reduce the force needed.
Step one is get some rope. Loop the rope over the bar, then lie down under the bar holding onto the rope one end in each hand. Keep your back and legs perfectly straight, and pull yourself up by pulling the rope back. (Ideally you're going to be pivoting on the heels with the rest of your body kinda planking). Initially you'll probably only be able to lift up your shoulders an inch or two off the ground, but then you can work on lifting higher and higher as your strength develops. In the long run you want to be able to pull your hands with the rope all the way back to your chest. Once you get this working (aim for sets of 3 or 4 sets of 10-12), then the negatives will be very doable.
FWIW, I'm going to be 44 this year and while recovery for a lot of stuff takes longer than in my early thirties or twenties, it's still very possible to gain strength in a reasonable amount of time. Don't give up!
You can also do this with a sturdy table. Lay on the floor and reach up to grasp the edge of the table; have your feet under the table if you want to use an overhand grip, or with your head under the table for an underhand grip. Start with negatives until you get to the point where you can pull yourself up to the table from the floor. Try not to headbutt the table (too often).
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I did more negatives today. I am not 100% convinced it's going to be a useful excercise just because of my higher BMI. I can't get myself all the way up to the bar even from standing on a stool and jumping, and the descent doesn't feel very controlled. But I know that at my age (44) progress will be slow so I will give it at least a month of two to see if it starts feeling better.
If negatives are totally not working then you'll have to change the angle of your pull to reduce the force needed.
Step one is get some rope. Loop the rope over the bar, then lie down under the bar holding onto the rope one end in each hand. Keep your back and legs perfectly straight, and pull yourself up by pulling the rope back. (Ideally you're going to be pivoting on the heels with the rest of your body kinda planking). Initially you'll probably only be able to lift up your shoulders an inch or two off the ground, but then you can work on lifting higher and higher as your strength develops. In the long run you want to be able to pull your hands with the rope all the way back to your chest. Once you get this working (aim for sets of 3 or 4 sets of 10-12), then the negatives will be very doable.
FWIW, I'm going to be 44 this year and while recovery for a lot of stuff takes longer than in my early thirties or twenties, it's still very possible to gain strength in a reasonable amount of time. Don't give up!
Ha, I actually have a suspension system, I just need to dig it out of the baby's closet sometime when she's awake! I've been meaning to do that because I'm getting bored of doing sets of 15 with the 52 pound barbell. (It doesn't go any higher but I could break it down into dumbbells if I want, and each dumbbell could be up to 52 pounds.) That's a good idea, thanks for the suggestion.
I’m impressed that you’re motivated to work out at home… I usually am not. The exception is my rebounder/mini trampoline! I love this thing!!! Been using it since January. An easy way to bounce out some of my 20k steps a day.
Where do you put the trampoline, you might ask? In the livingroom, because I decluttered the couch years ago! 😂
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I did more negatives today. I am not 100% convinced it's going to be a useful excercise just because of my higher BMI. I can't get myself all the way up to the bar even from standing on a stool and jumping, and the descent doesn't feel very controlled. But I know that at my age (44) progress will be slow so I will give it at least a month of two to see if it starts feeling better.
If negatives are totally not working then you'll have to change the angle of your pull to reduce the force needed.
Step one is get some rope. Loop the rope over the bar, then lie down under the bar holding onto the rope one end in each hand. Keep your back and legs perfectly straight, and pull yourself up by pulling the rope back. (Ideally you're going to be pivoting on the heels with the rest of your body kinda planking). Initially you'll probably only be able to lift up your shoulders an inch or two off the ground, but then you can work on lifting higher and higher as your strength develops. In the long run you want to be able to pull your hands with the rope all the way back to your chest. Once you get this working (aim for sets of 3 or 4 sets of 10-12), then the negatives will be very doable.
FWIW, I'm going to be 44 this year and while recovery for a lot of stuff takes longer than in my early thirties or twenties, it's still very possible to gain strength in a reasonable amount of time. Don't give up!
Ha, I actually have a suspension system, I just need to dig it out of the baby's closet sometime when she's awake! I've been meaning to do that because I'm getting bored of doing sets of 15 with the 52 pound barbell. (It doesn't go any higher but I could break it down into dumbbells if I want, and each dumbbell could be up to 52 pounds.) That's a good idea, thanks for the suggestion.
I’m impressed that you’re motivated to work out at home… I usually am not. The exception is my rebounder/mini trampoline! I love this thing!!! Been using it since January. An easy way to bounce out some of my 20k steps a day.
Where do you put the trampoline, you might ask? In the livingroom, because I decluttered the couch years ago! 😂
Ha, it can be difficult but it helps that I have my 14 year old son as a workout buddy. I actually started doing it Fridays before work because he said he wanted to work out and that was when we could do it together! And then even when he was away for spring break, I was like, well, if I get up and work out it will feel SO FAST because he isn't here to take turns with, so that was motivating even though normally I wouldn't be able to do it without the accountability partner!
A trampoline sounds so fun!
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Just doing planks, squats, push up and pull ups and that is 90% of the muscles
I mean, sure, but pull ups take equipment and especially if you need assisted pull ups, which a lot of women do! I used to be able to do a couple of pull ups but that was after practicing with the assisted pull up machine at the gym until I saw that my app was calculating my 1 rep maximum as my body weight. Now that I've gained a bunch of weight (doing fertility treatments during a global pandemic that was coincidentally a year of family tragedy will really do that to you) it is simply out of the question. I have a neoprene barbell so I've been doing barbell rows as my "pull" exercise.
Maybe I should get one of those giant bands so I can do assisted chin ups at home- I do have a chin up bar- but they do look awkward...
I have a pull up bar in the kitchen doorway (because teens) and while I can do pull-ups unassisted, the way to get there is to do negatives. You can stand on a chair, hold on in the top position, and gradually drop down using your muscles as much as possible to go down slowly. It’s also an amazing stretch to just hang there. More advanced stretch is hang from one hand, then the other. You don’t have to fully hang either, can be on a chair.
Another concept for getting unassisted pull-ups is something called greasing the groove. Basically you are rehearsing the movement slowly, standing on a chair or stool or milk crate if necessary to take weight off.
Second the concept of negatives. I've helped several people develop the strength to do pull-ups from being able to to zero to 10+. All started with them holding the bar, jumping as high as they can go, and slowing the descent. You don't need special equipment.
Fine, fine, I did some damn negatives. IMO the pull up bar IS special equipment! Our house has no place it can be permanently installed and it also cannot be conveniently stored due to our house being an older one with limited storage and quite small for our family size. I drug it out of the basement and up the stairs and hung it from the bathroom doorframe upstairs. I can't jump that high so I had to stand on a stool and have my teenage son move it for me as I descended (additional logistical challenge).
I did exactly 3, in place of one of my sets of barbell rows. At my age (44), I am cautious of injury. Did not enjoy but at least it was something different! The teenager did two sets of negatives.
When our kids were little, I built a pull up bar in the back yard. Two 4x4 wooden posts, a bit of bag concrete, a piece of black pipe (ioron) and two caps for the pipe. Drill holes in the posts at the desired heights.
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BMI is very outdated. I am a tall adult man and weigh 230 lb and my BMI says I am overweight. I ran 10 miles on Saturday and religiously get my steps in. BMI is a one size fits all solutions that neglects so many other aspects of health.
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BMI is very outdated. I am a tall adult man and weigh 230 lb and my BMI says I am overweight. I ran 10 miles on Saturday and religiously get my steps in. BMI is a one size fits all solutions that neglects so many other aspects of health.
If you are sedentary I think it tracks reasonably well. If you carry muscle mass, it's pretty messed up.
I'm 6' tall, 204 lbs, have a 32 inch waist, 43 inch hips, and (since I've been doing extra training and watching my diet for an upcoming Jiu-Jitsu tournament) have visible abs. According to BMI I'm overweight. :P
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Good point. Most people live a sedentary lifestyle, so it probably covers a lot of bases.
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Yeahhhh BMI is a crappy metric for a lot of reasons. For one thing, the cutoffs for "overweight" and "obese" were based on the sizes of people in the population, NOT a number where statistically more problems start to occur. So people who are overweight or maybe even on the low end of obese (not looking it up right now) in some studies actually have LOWER rates of all cause mortality than thinner people.
There is a movement afoot to separate "obesity" from "clinical obesity," where the latter would be fat people who also have diabetes, high blood pressure, joint pain, or some other weight-related problem. Someone like me would just be fat, NOT "clinically obese" and would therefore be a low priority for obesity treatment. (Okay, I do have some joint pain, but, like, I'm 44. It would be kinda weird if I didn't have joint pain.)
Almost as if "obesity" never actually was a disease in and of itself...
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Yeahhhh BMI is a crappy metric for a lot of reasons. For one thing, the cutoffs for "overweight" and "obese" were based on the sizes of people in the population, NOT a number where statistically more problems start to occur. So people who are overweight or maybe even on the low end of obese (not looking it up right now) in some studies actually have LOWER rates of all cause mortality than thinner people.
There is a movement afoot to separate "obesity" from "clinical obesity," where the latter would be fat people who also have diabetes, high blood pressure, joint pain, or some other weight-related problem. Someone like me would just be fat, NOT "clinically obese" and would therefore be a low priority for obesity treatment. (Okay, I do have some joint pain, but, like, I'm 44. It would be kinda weird if I didn't have joint pain.)
Almost as if "obesity" never actually was a disease in and of itself...
AAAAAGH triggered
Joint pain is not normal, something is wrong
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Joint pain is not normal, something is wrong
I mean, I guess so, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it is (a) obesity related or (b) something that can be effectively cured, and I don't think I know anyone over 40 who doesn't have some little aches here and there. I've done PT, I have braces, my range of motion is normal so I just let it ride. The pain is intermittent, minor and activity-related.
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We took our pull up bar down when we repainted the living room, but when it was up - I have these heavy duty fat rubber bands that I'd tie onto it and use to help with pullups.
Also: joint pain for me started at around 40. Not just frozen shoulder, but achy knees, sore back, etc. It's just easier to get injured, and you cannot just ignore that shit like you could when you were younger.
Like, if I ignore my sore knees and run on them - I'll be unable to run for a few weeks. ASK ME HOW I KNOW. But if I take it easy for several days to a week, then I'm fine.
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I was your age (~44, so 10 years younger than I am now) and training for my ~5th marathon. Started to get knee pain DEEP in the knee if I did a full bend (like sitting on your knees). I have good knees, always have, but have also had various injuries/pains associated with endurance running. I casually saw a PT and unbelievably her response was just that after a certain age, “don’t do that anymore. Don’t bend your knee all the way.” But someone else overheard this and took me aside and told me the exercises to do. The point is your joints are supported by complex chains of muscle, fascia, tendons. A knee, ankle or foot problem could be caused by your hip, heck it can be caused by your neck or shoulder!
Of course, DO NOT run or push through this kind of pain. I too have made this mistake, and paid for it in YEARS of not being pain-free and developing bursitis.
One of the excellent points in Born to Walk (not a flawless book, but I love this point) is that the injury rate for amateur running is WAY too high. And he says, the number of people getting stress fractures is ridiculous. (Thankfully have never had that.) A stress fracture, according to him, is something that starts as a small muscle knot that you IGNORE for months. He says your bones are so strong, that for them to begin to develop hairline cracks means you ignored something wrong for WAY too long.
Also the newest science is finding that the cure for osteoarthritis (not rheumatoid) is MOVEMENT, explosive in fact. You create the necessary lubrication by using the joint.
Kneesovertoes guy on YouTube is a treasure for this kind of info. He’s in his 30s, and has his almost 70 mother running sooo fluidly and fast thanks to his exercises.
Final point, I personally think that we grow into our body our whole life. For some reason (emotional?) I had bad back trouble from teenager to early 40s! I haven’t had back or hip trouble now for 10 years. Every problem our body gives us is something we have the opportunity to try to solve. Not saying it’s easy, but achey joints is telling you something is out of whack. I have ZERO aches, I’m closing on a decade of menopause, I feel younger and fresher than ever. The human body is not meant to decay due to disuse, but our extreme comfort/EXTREME sedentary life and extreme overstimulation mentally (which causes bad stress*) is causing fast aging in some people.
*bad as opposed to good stress, since stress is necessary for growth
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@Fru-Gal - Ahh, we are talking about different kinds of pain.
I'm a devoted Jazzerciser and they have a new program that I am referring to as Jazzercise for Women in Decline that has an emphasis on that explosive movement! It is kicking my ass.
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Oh and this belongs on my aging thread, which I plan to turn into a book, but don’t get distracted: Do not confuse visible wrinkles or whatever with aging. For example, while I’m boasting about how great I feel, there is no doubt that in pictures I look older than I did 10 years ago. But guess what, THAT IS MEANINGLESS.
An entire industry is designed to make you feel bad about how you look, distracting you from your purpose: refinement of FUNCTION. It’s all about how you feel. And if indeed the skin is all you care about, there are in fact rare examples of male/female icons who had all the weathering of age yet were revered for their beauty their whole lives, because their authentic vitality shone through.
I also need to write something somewhere about this dumbass concept of “pretty privilege,” which I am certain some marketer coined. Yeah, that must be the case because the whole concept of labeling something as “x-privilege” is only a recent phenomenon.
I had a similar insight into another false concern, the idea that women of a certain age are ignored (ignoring the fact that there are more women 50+ in power currently than ever before in the history of the modern world). I realized that the reason why some men are drawn to the young-uns is not the beauty… it’s the control. A 20-year-old woman is much less likely to recognize bullshit. A 50-year-old mom? She’s seen it all, don’t fuck with her. I am not going to waste a second of my life energy feeling bad that some creep isn’t following me down the street.
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@Fru-Gal - Ahh, we are talking about different kinds of pain.
I'm a devoted Jazzerciser and they have a new program that I am referring to as Jazzercise for Women in Decline that has an emphasis on that explosive movement! It is kicking my ass.
hahahahahha “… for women in decline” that is hilarious
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We took our pull up bar down when we repainted the living room, but when it was up - I have these heavy duty fat rubber bands that I'd tie onto it and use to help with pullups.
Also: joint pain for me started at around 40. Not just frozen shoulder, but achy knees, sore back, etc. It's just easier to get injured, and you cannot just ignore that shit like you could when you were younger.
Like, if I ignore my sore knees and run on them - I'll be unable to run for a few weeks. ASK ME HOW I KNOW. But if I take it easy for several days to a week, then I'm fine.
I 100% agree never ignore it, definitely rest a lot and make sure you sleep well, but also, try to fix the stuff that’s wrong. I am finally trying to fix my shoulder that I dislocated years ago and never did anything about. Sure enough I find some incredible PT info on YT that explains so much more than a doctor or PT ever did, and I’m starting to do those exercises.
Two other areas I don’t know enough about: Fascia and primal movement. The latter is really interesting because never before in history have we sat in such fixed positions as humans do now. Moving outside of the frontal plane is really key. Yoga helps a ton with this, all the twisting stretches.
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We took our pull up bar down when we repainted the living room, but when it was up - I have these heavy duty fat rubber bands that I'd tie onto it and use to help with pullups.
Also: joint pain for me started at around 40. Not just frozen shoulder, but achy knees, sore back, etc. It's just easier to get injured, and you cannot just ignore that shit like you could when you were younger.
Like, if I ignore my sore knees and run on them - I'll be unable to run for a few weeks. ASK ME HOW I KNOW. But if I take it easy for several days to a week, then I'm fine.
I 100% agree never ignore it, definitely rest a lot and make sure you sleep well, but also, try to fix the stuff that’s wrong. I am finally trying to fix my shoulder that I dislocated years ago and never did anything about. Sure enough I find some incredible PT info on YT that explains so much more than a doctor or PT ever did, and I’m starting to do those exercises.
Two other areas I don’t know enough about: Fascia and primal movement. The latter is really interesting because never before in history have we sat in such fixed positions as humans do now. Moving outside of the frontal plane is really key. Yoga helps a ton with this, all the twisting stretches.
Isn't that why yoga was invented? To counteract the pain caused by prolonged sitting (to meditate)?
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Joint pain is not normal, something is wrong
I mean, I guess so, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it is (a) obesity related or (b) something that can be effectively cured, and I don't think I know anyone over 40 who doesn't have some little aches here and there. I've done PT, I have braces, my range of motion is normal so I just let it ride. The pain is intermittent, minor and activity-related.
I am also turning 44 this year and don't have any joint pain. (I mean, unless I've been way overdoing it and hurt something.) Where are you getting the pain? Knees, shoulders, ankles? I've had to rehab a lot of injuries over the years that certainly would have caused joint pain if they weren't fixed . . . torn rotator cuff, broken wrists, broken ankles, sprained knees, broken/sprained toes and fingers, sprained neck, pinched disc in by back, etc. I am a really big fan of stretching and sensibly building strength throughout full range of motion to help recover from this sort of thing.
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Joint pain is not normal, something is wrong
I mean, I guess so, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it is (a) obesity related or (b) something that can be effectively cured, and I don't think I know anyone over 40 who doesn't have some little aches here and there. I've done PT, I have braces, my range of motion is normal so I just let it ride. The pain is intermittent, minor and activity-related.
I am also turning 44 this year and don't have any joint pain. (I mean, unless I've been way overdoing it and hurt something.) Where are you getting the pain? Knees, shoulders, ankles? I've had to rehab a lot of injuries over the years that certainly would have caused joint pain if they weren't fixed . . . torn rotator cuff, broken wrists, broken ankles, sprained knees, broken/sprained toes and fingers, sprained neck, pinched disc in by back, etc. I am a really big fan of stretching and sensibly building strength throughout full range of motion to help recover from this sort of thing.
My wrists have never been the same since I had a baby over 40 (deQuervain's tensosynovitis). Sometimes my ankles ache. I did something to my elbow in the summer of 2023 pulling a car seat dolley through the airport and it's never been the same even after PT. Sometimes my knee aches while I'm jogging or in pigeon pose. That kind of thing. Nothing that affects my ability to do things (anymore- the left wrist was a big problem for a while but with long term PT, 2 steroid shots and months and months of bracing, it is now just an occasional ache), just things that I notice.
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Oh and this belongs on my aging thread, which I plan to turn into a book, but don’t get distracted: Do not confuse visible wrinkles or whatever with aging. For example, while I’m boasting about how great I feel, there is no doubt that in pictures I look older than I did 10 years ago. But guess what, THAT IS MEANINGLESS.
An entire industry is designed to make you feel bad about how you look, distracting you from your purpose: refinement of FUNCTION. It’s all about how you feel. And if indeed the skin is all you care about, there are in fact rare examples of male/female icons who had all the weathering of age yet were revered for their beauty their whole lives, because their authentic vitality shone through.
I also need to write something somewhere about this dumbass concept of “pretty privilege,” which I am certain some marketer coined. Yeah, that must be the case because the whole concept of labeling something as “x-privilege” is only a recent phenomenon.
I had a similar insight into another false concern, the idea that women of a certain age are ignored (ignoring the fact that there are more women 50+ in power currently than ever before in the history of the modern world). I realized that the reason why some men are drawn to the young-uns is not the beauty… it’s the control. A 20-year-old woman is much less likely to recognize bullshit. A 50-year-old mom? She’s seen it all, don’t fuck with her. I am not going to waste a second of my life energy feeling bad that some creep isn’t following me down the street.
Emphatically agree on all of this.
47 and no joint pain…if I start feeling anything below my knees when I’m running then I know it’s past time to replace my running shoes.
Yin yoga is great for stretching out all the tissues. I also swear by regular power/vinyasa style yoga but yin makes you feel like you’ve had a massage afterwards.
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Oh and this belongs on my aging thread, which I plan to turn into a book, but don’t get distracted: Do not confuse visible wrinkles or whatever with aging. For example, while I’m boasting about how great I feel, there is no doubt that in pictures I look older than I did 10 years ago. But guess what, THAT IS MEANINGLESS.
An entire industry is designed to make you feel bad about how you look, distracting you from your purpose: refinement of FUNCTION. It’s all about how you feel. And if indeed the skin is all you care about, there are in fact rare examples of male/female icons who had all the weathering of age yet were revered for their beauty their whole lives, because their authentic vitality shone through.
I also need to write something somewhere about this dumbass concept of “pretty privilege,” which I am certain some marketer coined. Yeah, that must be the case because the whole concept of labeling something as “x-privilege” is only a recent phenomenon.
I had a similar insight into another false concern, the idea that women of a certain age are ignored (ignoring the fact that there are more women 50+ in power currently than ever before in the history of the modern world). I realized that the reason why some men are drawn to the young-uns is not the beauty… it’s the control. A 20-year-old woman is much less likely to recognize bullshit. A 50-year-old mom? She’s seen it all, don’t fuck with her. I am not going to waste a second of my life energy feeling bad that some creep isn’t following me down the street.
Emphatically agree on all of this.
47 and no joint pain…if I start feeling anything below my knees when I’m running then I know it’s past time to replace my running shoes.
Yin yoga is great for stretching out all the tissues. I also swear by regular power/vinyasa style yoga but yin makes you feel like you’ve had a massage afterwards.
Do you have any links to yin routines that you really like? I've dabbled but not been fully happy with the few I've tried...
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I don’t…I have a couple of yoga studios near me that do really great yin workshops so I’ve never looked any up online.
It probably wouldn’t be terribly hard to develop some on your own though if you’ve done lots of yoga before. Just pick a series of poses and have some props and set a timer for 3-5 minutes for each one and see what works well for your body.