How much exercise do you get / how fit are you?

I've voted 300-360 minutes (up to 6hrs) per week; this is usually 3hrs of 5-a-side football (Monday, Thursday, and Friday evenings), plus about 3hrs of cycling at weekends. On Tuesday I rode 100 miles in one day though, which took 7hrs+, but I missed football on Monday and we'll have guests on Sunday morning, so this week it'll be about 12hrs, but could have been as much as 15.

I'm pretty fit these days. I've lost a stone in weight in the last year, and turned quite a lot of belly into muscle on top of that. I want to be fitter, though, I want to lose another 6lbs and be trimmer around the belly. Maybe I should do some sit-ups.

I forgot that I've just stated doing an hour of physio in a gym for my dodgy knee every Monday morning. I guess some weekends I ride less, though, so time is probably about the same.

I try to get about 3 to 4 hours of exercise a week. This takes the form of brisk walking (I probably could hold a conversation because I have powerful lungs from singing, but not many people can keep up with me when I'm walking, walking, walking.)

I can't fucking stand exercise, I hate all forms of sport - watching it or hearing about it in any way makes me want to slam doors in people's faces. Exercise bores are probably even more tedious than travel bores or religion bores in the great scale of bore-hood. I do not give a fig about being "fit" and I want to blow raspberries at even the idea of physical fitness (so long as I can propel myself up and down the coast path, who cares what my body is doing or looks like) and I would hold no truck with it at all

EXCEPT

And that is a giant except. Walking is the only damn thing in years of trying every imaginable thing (drugs, therapy, meditation, medicine) that makes the SLIGHTEST dent in the problems with my mental health.

So I hate it. But I do it.

Pilates class once a week, one hour. and then once or twice at the gym for elliptical machine and swimming laps on weekends. I walk a lot, too.

I'm moderately fit.

voted 300-360, though that may be a conservative estimate. I do a 90-minute workout @ my gym 2-4 times a week (mostly cardio & a bit of upper-body conditioning), and I go trail-walking/jogging at a nearby nature preserve for 30-60 minutes, 2-4 times a week.

Though I'm still a bit overweight, my cardio endurance levels are ever-increasing & I maintain a healthy heartrate & avg blood-pressure. In terms of body mass, I'd definitely like to be more fit. I'm getting there, but it is hard-won.

My routine is enjoyable enough (esp the trail stuff), but I would much rather be road-biking. Ironically, I have a very nice bike that has been sitting around collecting dust this year b/c I'd like to get to a certain weight threshold BEFORE I ride it regularly - hence the cross-training rituals.

Since moving, I cycle 20 mins each way to the station every day, so that's not too bad. Been trying to eat less and more healthily (only over the past week or so) and I already feel like I've lost weight.

btw congrats on yr century, mouthy!

240-300 I voted, though I think maybe selling myself short a bit. I go running about 3 times a week, time can vary though. I walk loads, and very briskly always.

I exercise because it ensures I don't get fat, but probably above that because it keeps me happy mentally and focussed in general. The more I exercise, the happier I am. I actually want to introduce something else to my routine, a competitive sport like tennis or squash maybe.

I hate running. I really really hate it. I kind of hate walking too - too slow!

I do miss going to the gym though. When I worked in town, it was so easy to take advantage of a membership cos I could just pop down after work or during lunch, but now that I commute the last thing I feel like doing after getting off the train is to go and get changed for the gym. I found myself going less and less, and so ended up quitting cos it wasn't worth the cost.

I ran for a bit a couple of years ago, did a sponsored 5k in 29 minutes, but found the pain/reward ratio nowhere near enough to carry on. My brother in law, who I did the 100 miler with, is a serious marathan runner though - he's done loads of halfs and about three full marathans in the last 12 months.

I adore cycling and playing football. Really deeply emotionally love them.

Interestingly, I have next to no interest in watching other people cycle, i.e. le Tour etc. I got stick for not watching the finish on Sunday from various friends...

Marathon.

Cycling is fun. I'm thinking about investing a bit more time in my bike because it's an ATB with massive fat trudgey tyres that just drag along the road. Might get some Schwalbe road tyres as the other day I got overtaken by some guy on a Brompton who wasn't even breaking a sweat. Embarrassing.

I can't fathom why anyone would ride on a road in anything other than skinny tyres, or with suspension. Mountain bikes are called that for a reason; they're massively inefficient on tarmac; you work harder and go slower.

never been more of a wreck.

I need to get more exercise.
(presses F5)

xxp

From my experience, when I used to ride, I wanted the option of being able to go off road. I started riding (like most people) on bmx on which you can shift between road and land with ease. Switching to a road bike, which is really unversatile, was unappealing. And when I first switched to mountain bike in the mid-90s, my bike allowed me to switch back and forth really easily. However, by the time I bought my next bike in the mid-2000s, even baseline mtbs had gotten really fat-tired and heavy and suspensioned out. The majority of my time was spent riding on the road at this point and man, did it suck!

At this point up to 4 hours a week just of running. Needs to be closer to 6 though. Stupid injuries.

But I also do a couple of hours of physical therapy, which sort of counts. Not including all the walking I do.

20 mins walking to and from work every day, 40 mins cycling to a life drawing class once a week, other random walking and cycling in evenings/weekends, occasional (once a month or less these days) long bike rides on or off road. Two or three activity holidays a year, walking, cycling, snowboarding. Voted 150-180 mins a week, it's not enough to get in shape for those holidays which tend to leave me feeling completely shafted.

Thinking of getting a turbo trainer even though I hear they're totally boring. No chance of me going to a gym and the amount of cycling I do drops to near zero in winter.

240-300 a week these days.

For the sake of discussion, how do you get it?

180 minutes or so of weight training plus an hour and a half+ of dog running.

Do you consider yourself to be physically fit?

Yes.

Do you want to be fitter?

Of course, but only so many hours in the week. I'd like to bike part of the way to work, but archaic rush hour train rules prevent that. :(

Do things like the Olympics or the Tour de France or the European Championships make you want to exercise more?

Not really (that's kinda like watching aliens exercise) but things like the CrossFit games (where people are engaging in similar activities to what I do just more intensely/better) do.

Do you prefer watching sport to taking exercise yourself, or vice versa?

Like both.

I bike back and forth to work, 8 miles each way, every day - since March 10 of this year I've only driven to work twice. Some mornings I'll add a few miles by detouring and coming in along Lake Erie, so it's basically a minimum of 16-20 miles per day. On the weekends I try to put in at least a 20 mile ride; last weekend it was 30. I've got a charity ride of 170 miles coming up Aug. 3-4, and a century ride in NYC on Sept. 9. So I'm getting anywhere from 300-400+ minutes a week.

Other than the cycling, though, I do literally no other exercise.

people are not really going to be counting walking as moderate intensity exercise itt are they

anyway i usually do around 5 hours running or working out

Do I consider myself to be physically fit?

Sort of. I definitely have some good endurance. But I hate when people say that since I've run marathons, I must be fit or that I can eat whatever I want. Not really, there's always room for improvement and I would like to be fitter, faster, and less injury prone. In many ways becoming more fit has been detrimental to my health. Aches, pains, repetitive stress injuries, mental and physical fatigue.

Why do I do it? I like competing, mostly with myself. Running a distance faster than you have before is such a rush. I like covering long distances using just my feet. I don't do it for health.

I am sluglike.

i would like to get totally ripped thatd be awesome and sexy

ive gotten better abt eating healthy over the last year or so, i used to just eat whatever all the time

people are not really going to be counting walking as moderate intensity exercise itt are they

i walk incredibly fast, if you go 3/4 miles at a good pace it definitely becomes exercise.

im sry u cant count walking

i totally hoover up the kale now as they say across the pond

its just like we have to draw the line somewhere

i mean walking is good for you and all but you cant count it

I can walk the 5 miles from my office to my house (all uphill BTW) in just under an hour and fifteen minutes. I would probably be able to do it in an hour if it wasn't for other pedestrians and stupid traffic lights/roundabout systems. But that's besides the point, as I don't depend on snarky idiots on the internet to tell me what was exercise, I depend on the way that my body and more importantly my brain feels afterwards.

i'll count whatever the hell i want xpost

i included "reaching" in my estimates

plus the foot tapping i do while at my desk

Per week, I generally do 60 minutes of yoga and between 45 and 90 minutes of cardio activity at the gym. Which is not a lot, but I did barely anything before a couple of years ago, so I feel like it's progress.

snarky idiots, how does yr brain feel right now

I hate exercise. OK that's not true but the things I like doing are all things I can't do on a regular basis. I just got a pedometer and am trying to walk 5 miles a day so that's at least something (shut up, JS). I am also starting yoga classes soon or at least before the Groupon I bought expires.

the point is if youre actually trying to get in shape counting walking is just a way to deceive yrself, if youre going to do moderate exercise aim for periods of intensity in there, instead of walking which is light exercise maybe occasional reaching moderate

intense exercise is best tho

Lagoon is half-right, walking 4-5 hours a week isn't moderate exercise, no, it doesn't exercise your heart in the same way. That said, it's way more perambulatory activity than I get in a week, and is probably better in the long run than a gym regimen + sitting on your ass.

Yup, needed yet another reminder. Exercise bores totally are worse than religious bores and political bores put together.

how swOle are you

5 miles of walking a day is p good erica! its more the counting walking by time that i was objecting to i guess, like running and walking dont really go into the same time basket

I do about 2-3 hours of weights and 1 hour interval training. I'm not in that great shape though because I eat and drink everything in large amounts and work at a computer

Yup, needed yet another reminder. Exercise bores totally are worse than religious bores and political bores put together.

― I want to smother him in electronic butter. (White Chocolate Cheesecake), Thursday, July 26, 2012 9:17 AM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk maybe dont post on the exercise thread if you dont want to hear peoples boring opinons abt exercise, yrs are prob too fascinating to be itt anyway

xposts yeah i agree with you sort of lag, but i run so i'm not depending on walking, i just know that it's something i go out of my way to do. i often go for a long walk after a long run. feels good.

walking is better than nothing

voted 2-3 hrs of exercise, but what it is depends on outdoors weather and whether or not i'm biking to work/social events (then it's more). running/walking/biking for the most part, preferably outside, preferably alone.

started to exercise more when i thought about it exclusively as mental health activity (vs physical health/anything having to do with weight)

ya i mean walking is great, like i said i was just objecting to counting it in this context, i dont think it does anyone any favors

i kind of disagree with the first post, that running is "moderate exercise"

x-post Yeah, it's a lot but it's doable. Basically I'm just walking every I can and at night with the dog and stuff but if I do it all day (walk to bus, take stairs all day, walk at lunch, 20 min walk home from train, 30 min walk with dog etc) it adds up. 5 miles is the goal but most days it's been about 3. When it gets cooler I'll be able to do more.

I would go to a gym but I've honestly don't think I've ever felt as uncomfortable anywhere as the couple times I've gone to one. I wasn't the kid on the sports team. I was the dork reading and making mix tapes and playing my violin. I know it's probably all in my head but it just feels really weird to me to be in a gym. It's also boring. I like doing stuff outside where I can look at interesting things while doing it.

Govt leaflet I took that quote from describes "brisk walking" as counting as moderate exercise. Strolling to the shops I wouldn't cunt, but if you're hitting 4mph, which Cheesecake is, that counts, definitely. I walk fast and average about 3.7mph across town when I've tracked it.

I would like to get a bike but I think I'm too absent minded and would probably do something stupid and get hit by a car in the first week. I'm too clumsy and don't pay attention to my surroundings enough to ride in a city.

Ronan; jogging at a pace you can talk at is moderate; running at a pace you cannot talk at = intense.

Riding is arguably a really good way of addressing / fixing that clumsiness and lack of attention to surroundings.

ive never been to the gym in my life - you could do cycling on bike paths erica their are plenty of them around boston iirc

At my age I really need to get back into yoga to stay flexible. I used to do it years ago and always felt great afterwards. There's a studio that opened up not far from my office that has an introductory offer of $100 for unlimited classes for 60 days, I should grab that up.

x-post - There are. Esp in Somerville. Hmmmmm. I really like bike riding! I will think about this.

Can I just say: interval training is the best, give it a shot.

i am not a sporting type either erica, i get it!

i would like to dance more, personally. maybe this winter.

not "dance more personally", more humanoid dancing

About thirty minutes of moderate exercise a day: sit-ups, crunches.

Since moving I haven't gotten back into a gym routine. I have a couple of 35# kettlebells at home and I'll do a set of overhead presses every time I walk by but nothing sustained.
So my exercise level depends on what I'm doing at work. Some days that's a lot of weight carried and some cardio, some days it's driving around.

I'm not fit and want to be, trying to control my diet and get back to the gym.

I never had the coordination to play 'real' sports at a decent level - I was a decent offensive lineman until everyone else had a growth spurt and I didn't hit 6' until my senior year but I was still slow. I vaguely follow the major ones and I watch baseball and boxing/MMA.

Don't give a shit about the Olympics/Tour/etc. - more interested in stuff like lighter-weight strongman (there are weight classes! not everyone is 430#), adventure races and how jealous I feel every time I read Outside magazine.

I answered "I get more than 7hrs exercise a week", so nerrr.

I do somewhere between 5 and 6 hours a week running (mostly commuting to work and back) and then a whole bunch of just doing stuff (walking the dogs a couple of times a day, plus playing football and other things with my kids). Also spend about 5 or 6 hours a week working at my allotment too, which I would never normally count as exercise but it's mostly pretty physical (hey, it's a big plot on a really steep hill). Would ideally like to fit in a few bike rides on top of that cos I prefer mountain biking to most things, but there's just never enough time.

Main reason I do it is enjoyment, but find that setting performance targets is a good long-term motivator. I do like watching sports too, but I kind of hate myself afterwards for wasting time doing so.

Brisk walking totally counts as moderate exercise in every NHS definition I've read, as long as its at a certain speed, raises your heart rate etc. Walking to the shops or round the office doesn't count and that's the sort of thing people do count when they're scrabbling around to try and reach a total.

Lech, I like dancing. My friend has been trying to get me to take Zumba classes for over a year now. She keeps saying it's just like dancing and not exercise at all but it's still a class and the couple people I know who are into are SO INTO IT that it makes it seem a bit weird and cult-like.

Can I just say: interval training is the best, give it a shot.

― Ówen P., Thursday, July 26, 2012 9:26 AM (19 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya intervals, plyometrics etc, intese is better than moderate, you get faster results its invigorating and not nearly as difficult as people think because its short bursts, tho obvs especially when youre first starting you should be extra vigilant to not injure yrself as the risk is def higher

Personally I don't count walking. No problem with other people consider it though. Its all relative, it may be an intense activity for some.

voted 90-120. conservative guess. All cycling, though I would like to get back to free weights. It's rising at the moment; weaning myself off public transport to dodge olympic chaos.

Never really been something I bother about - would always rather be doing something else that isn't exercise, and was carefree about drink, fags, rich food, etc, but over the last year I've sort of ended up healthier/fitter than I've ever been, though it all feels a bit happenstance or accidental - gave up smoking, became increasingly attached to my bike, dieted to lose a chunk of weight that I'd picked up over the last decade without really noticing before, cut down on meat substantially (ethics rather than health reasons), girlfriend is tt so I don't drink much now. In my head I'm still a cheerfully dgaf fags & booze & crisps man, but really that is just not my life now.

can watch football, cycling, random olympic stuff (also snooker, lol fitness) but I have no real memory for it; it has little depth or real joy for me and it doesn't make me want to get involved. Sport conversation has never worked with me either, although I like reading about it. I'll read the sports section of a paper, happily. It's like a never ending drama about stuff and people that don't matter much to me.

xxxpost

there's an Aqua Zumba class in the pool at my gym that defies description

omg aqua zumba?! I would probably try that tbh. I like anything in the water and that just sounds ridiculous enough to be worth it on many levels.

aqua zumba taebo

As long as you are getting your heart rate up for a good amount of time, it's exercising.

x-post lol

Ronan; jogging at a pace you can talk at is moderate; running at a pace you cannot talk at = intense.

but if you go further the intensity increases

i can talk even a p good clip

i like to chat

Tell that to the government.

But it's a good point; we were only averaging 13.5ish mph on Tuesday, which is not outrageous given that I can clock 50 miles at 15mph+ on a good day, but we did it for 7 and a half hours near as damn it, and it was pretty damn intense by the end.

the speed i can talk at when running is def not in the same category as brisk walking

idk abt britain but around here the government is not the first people id turn to for health advice

http://i.imgur.com/BKBp1.jpg

make sure to eat plenty of bread kids

Like I'm going to take health advice from someone who doesn't even know what the NHS is.

im not from yr country!

Flag Post Permalink

As long as you are getting your heart rate up for a good amount of time, it's exercising.

― Jeff, Thursday, July 26, 2012 8:36 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^
what i've always wanted to know is whether or not people who work very physical jobs -- landscaping, construction, moving, cleaning, etc somehow accomodate their metabolism for that?

im guessing national health service tho, that would be the government right

it's kinda standard that the further you go the tougher it is, like, obviously. i normally run alone but if i do go with others the talking stops after a mile or two.

best shape of my life right now!!

Out of shape folks can lose a good deal of weight walking several miles/day. Moderate exercise seems fair enough to me.

I exercise every day for an hour or so. I go to the gym on weekdays, sometimes on the weekend. It's conveniently in the same building where I work. It's very easy to make it part of my workday where I'm free to go down when I want. I'll either lift weights or use the cycling machines. At weekends I'll do an hour walking. Sometimes I'll do this after work too, doubling my exercise for that day. It's become a habit and if I don't do it I feel something amiss. I do consider myself fit. I don't have athletic aspirations, just that I want to be free of aches and pains and to keep a healthy weight. It's a good way to get out of the house when I have nothing else going on. Get out in the sun and fresh air at the park.

<i>I would go to a gym but I've honestly don't think I've ever felt as uncomfortable anywhere as the couple times I've gone to one. I wasn't the kid on the sports team.</i>

This was me when I started (mid-30s, skinny guy). I was really self-conscious being there, not knowing what to do. Over time I realized that no one is looking at me and judging. They are all there doing their own thing and have respect for anyone making the effort to look after themselves.

people are not really going to be counting walking as moderate intensity exercise itt are they

OK, that gets me down to 0

alright im sry all u walkers carry on i was just taking issue w/the word moderate walking great for you and enjoyable imho

really, since I live alone and am carless the biggest workout I get is carrying armfuls of groceries from the supermarket 4-5 days a week.

if we're talking about the ways we've been raised (sporting, nonsporting), i was an active nonsporter. when i was little i enjoyed scouting, dance classes, and goofing around dancing to records with my friends. i was nervous and moved around a lot, ran up and down the stairs a bunch of times for no reason, stuff like that. i did not play sports, but i was rarely idle either. (reading is not being idle). being physically active is something i need to do or else i will be crazy and unbearable to be around and unhappy inside too. which is a lot of blablabla to reinforce the mental health benefits of exercise.

carrying groceries! that's another one. i carry my body weight in groceries up three flights of stairs at least once a week, usually more once i have my stupid school bag.

Fuck man, walking's the only form of exercise I like, and do regularly – every day for an hour. I come home all sweaty! Feels legit. (OTOH I live in the desert.)
I had started when my scooter got stolen – had to walk a mile each way to get the bus to work. My friend who is a total fitness freak – state cycling champion, marathon runner pushed her 8-yr-old daughter to do a kids' triathalon – was really proud for me. "How does it feel to be more physically active than 80 percent of Americans?" she asked of my walking 2 miles a day. It feels good, I tell ya! And imo THAT is how you should talk about people who walk for exercise. I'm listening to her.

xps

fine! walking is wonderful, its just not in the same category as running, all you poor wounded walkers jeez

I think it is like exactly the same thing but you just do it slower.

lol its a quite different set of movement even tbh

Sometimes I also swim, I can only dog paddle and I want to learn how to do it 4 legit. I like it, I sometimes poke at my leg muscles like awwww yeah. They're not big but they also are big compared to the past. When I was 20 I crashed my car, started walking everywhere for the first time ever, had extreme calf pain all the time. Went to the doctor and he said it was because I had "extremely underdeveloped calf muscles." Which was supremely embarrassing and also no longer the case. THANKS WALKING.

Also I started wearing heels while I walk around at night, gonna pretend that makes it some kind of resistance training har har.

how could i forget
hiking: #1

gbx said on some thread that exercise actually has to be something you like doing, which was a huge epiphany for me! I have so much baggage from PE and I really just hate most sports.
Another thing that will motivate me to exercise is an extremely kind, incredibly gentle, flirty guy, shallow but true.

That energy comes from somewhere ;)

(no creepo)

Depending on the week, 3 hours to 4.5 hours in the karate dojo, plus maybe another hour or two of "moderate intensity" training and yard work at home. I checked the 180-240 option.

I pass as fit among people my age, but I want to be fitter. Right now I'm trying to ramp up my training so that, when the fall term begins and our university club recruits some new members, I'll be ready to keep up with them.

My approach to fitness has changed a lot as I've grown older. It took a long time to understand that I will never again heal or gain muscle mass as fast I did in my 20s. Everything I do now is focused on maintaining a fitness level that allows me to train the way I want and on rehabilitating my ever-varying collection of injuries. Sometimes that means working out with lower intensity and increasing the frequency and duration of training. I've also learned to vary my workouts rather than repeating the same routines all the time.

I love watching sports on TV, but it doesn't increase my inclination to exercise as much as it does my beer and snack consumption.

Highland
Ballet
Biking
None of which are strictly regular or targeting cardio or w/e. I'm pretty haphazard about all of them, and really the strength & fitness training for the dance classes has to be done OUTSIDE the classes. Sooooo I should probably ideally take pilates or lift weights or do something else as well but fuck it, these are the things I like doing.

I don't look very fit, though, because I drink a lot of beer and eat cheese. At least I'm assuming that's why.

I need to buy a jump rope.

that's a good idea
i have one! i should get it out

I wish it were always summer and I could always bike to the beach and swim for 4 hours and feel gloriously tired but deserving by 5pm. Also that I didn't have to go to work, ever, in this fantasy land.

I don't know what I'm going to do in the fall.

In good years, I can add 1-2 nights a week of several hours of dancing, out, but the good soul nights seem to have packed up for a while. ;_;

voted 2 hours but it varies a lot - most of it is just walking a couple miles most days as part of my commute, or to get around. I walk very fast/briskly so i think it counts. i also go hiking whenever i can but that's not a regular routine thing.

i'm definitely not in great shape. i managed to drop 40 pounds my last year of college with absolutely no exercise/lifestyle change whatsoever, and i'm still completely clueless as to how it happened, but i was only able to keep it off for a year or 2 before it came back.

during winter i get about 8-9 hrs/week, summer i get 9-14 hrs/wk. intensity duration also varies with seasons.

i'm able get so much time because i ride my bike to work about 1.5-2 hrs per day 3 or 4 days/week. that accounts for a lot of the volume, and at least half of that commute is really low intensity, like brisk walking. but really, timewise it costs me an extra half hour/day, because my commute takes ~1.25 hours/day by car or bus or rail.

if i had to rely on just separate "workout" times to get my exercise, well...my attitude would be pretty shitty.

I'm really out of shape, like so badly that I get breathless walking up four flights stairs to work, so I've tried to get back into 'exercise' in the couple months. Swimming twice a week, exercise bike a few times a week. 30 min per session at 'moderate' I guess. I'm lazy. I'd really like to start playing badminton again but don't have anyone to play with. Riding a real bike instead of a stationery one would be nice too, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. Hiking appeals but not really an option in London.

I don't really feel like it's made much difference. When I can run up the stairs in the office and not break a sweat I know I'll have made it...

I dunno how to answer this question if I have to follow lag00ns rules cause I pretty consistently walk about 5 miles a day on weekdays and maybe 10 on weekends but I've also started going to the gym again recently most days of the week. I think I prob get enough exercise but I still worry about how much of the rest of the day involves sitting.

You can't fool your body with artificial exercise. It's the same karma with orgasms: your body knows when you climax via masturbation, and removes five minutes from your life as punishment. Climax via intercourse, though, and your body rewards you with an additional five minutes of life. I won't bore you with the technicalities, but this is all down to the reward system built into your neurotransmitters; noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus can't be fooled. They'll only shoot chemical prizes through your lateral tegmental field for a good reason.

It follows that it isn't enough just to organize an exercise schedule and put your body, literally, through the motions. No, what you have to do is recreate in your life the kinds of stimulae that make exercise necessary, and have done for millennia. These are the basic adrenal reactions to shocks and threats which provoke your "fight or flight" responses. You must organize - but at the same time, if you follow me, not-organize - events which frighten the living daylights out of you and make you flee for your life. Only in this way will you actually earn the norepinephrine surge your body saves to reward the successful completion of a life-preserving sprint.

This is difficult in our bovine modern environments, because humans have reached the top of the food chain. But with a little resourcefulness and imagination we can find danger all around. Slip into the tiger compound at your local zoo, locate a lawless favela, or set yourself the goal of reaching the central reservation of a busy expressway and you will soon know real fear. These near-death experiences will get your cortical norepinephrine pumping, sending impulses to your limbs that say: "Flee! Now! Genuinely! Shit!"

Remember that if you survive even just five minutes under fatal conditions, your lifespan increases. By five minutes, in that example.

i read a story about two ice cream store operators that lost a ton of weight just eating ice cream (and stressing about opening an ice cream store)

"In the store’s first few months, Godby and his business partner, Sean Vahey, scooped from noon to 9 each night, ate nothing but ice cream, traded the leftover brownies for cocktails at a dive bar called Dirty Thieves and still lost weight. Since then they’ve hired eight employees and — hazard of the job — each gained back the 10 pounds they’d lost."

oh i guess it was only 10 lbs. that's still good for ice cream and cocktails!

you can lose weight eating anything as long as you dont eat v much of it

i don't really count walking as proper exercise but i'm fairly sure that walking eg from central london back home (erm i guess this is about 9-10k?) at my ridiculous pace is beneficial in some way. anyway i run for about an hour, about 13k, once a week, and i do resistance exercise for about an hour each 2-3 times a week. i don't really "measure" my exercise in terms of setting goals or timing myself, it's kind of the space in my life i go to get away from doing that; but basically when i feel that my current distance/reps or whatever have become "easy" i up what i do gradually. occasionally, less often than i'd like, i play tennis too.

i pretty much hated and avoided exercise until my early 20s, not exactly being a sporty kid at school and probably internalising the fact that i "couldn't" do it. did token bits and bobs after university in a kind of non-committal "experimenting with the idea of exercise" thing. it was only when i went full-time freelance that i really started exercising regularly though - being able to go running during the day, with fewer people around, meant i could be less self-conscious about my terrible initial ability. and like i said, i built it up gradually. i think my motivation back then might have been to prevent getting fat, soon i realised how fantastic it made me feel both physically and mentally - it's really crucial to the freelancing lifestyle for me, there are many days where you feel you've achieved nothing and you're stuck in a dead end, and if you can get out and have a decent run or work-out, you at least feel like you've accomplished something. another motivation is how you can feel yourself improving - like wow i can do THIS now! and THAT! i didn't know i could do that! let's see if i can do even more! and also how you can see visible improvement - with my body type it's not as if i was ever at risk of actually getting fat but it's been gratifying to have ended up with a somewhat decent body. of course another motivation is the fear of, having put in all that effort to attain this level of fitness, letting it all slide if i don't carry on exercising.

i don't really have ambitions to become a super-fit exercise obsessive, i'm happy puttering along like i do. have thought about joining gyms in the past but tbh if i'm doing this well with free exercise i don't know why i'd spend that money.

walking is proper exercise!

I have two relatively young kids, which I think translates to a good deal of incidental exercise (picking them up, picking things up, walking them to school, etc.). When they get older, and I get older, I'm sure I'll have to start exercising in ernest.

I recently skimmed/read The Nerdist Way and I was surprised to find a full THIRD of the boot was about getting in shape, working out every day, hiring a personal trainer.

200 min of official exercise (run to the gym, do 20 min on the elliptical, do some free weights + machines, run back = 40 min x 5 times/week), didn't count any biking to get around, drumming etc.

i'm definitely in better shape now than i ever have been, pretty much.

i guess around 275 mins a week - mostly intense + weight training and some light jogging on off days if it's nice out

swim for 55 min at least 4 times a week and play raquetball once a week for about an hour and a half but lots of that is viciously complaining about my cheating opponent and other arguing bike to work 5 times a week ~15 min each way plus lots of other biking places i guess thats at least 7 hours? sometimes ill do pushups/chinups/situps for like half an hour in the morning but usually im too lazy

i don't really count walking as proper exercise

odd idea. try walking up more hills and get back to us.

I have def considered long walks in San Francisco to be a workout. Even moreso when a homeless vet in a wheelchair asked me to push him uphill.

I do zero exercise for the last few years, I hate my body and want to trade in for a robot body, being alive is ridiculous

otm, waiting for the singularity

I'm far from fit but btwn eating better and getting a physically active (if shitty) job, I've dropped about 35 lbs in the last 4-5 months. Could stand to lose another 30.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

About 1-2 hours a day but I haven't been working on my arms or doing weights. I lost a lot of weight working on the yard.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

y'all some healthy motherfuckers huh

Unless I see tracking data I don't believe you.

Well the first four results are 2x more than recommended levels, and 2x less than, including "not really any". So we're not all healthy by any means.

Interesting that barely anyone who gets barely any exercise commented on the thread.

yeah it's almost as if it's all tied in with narcissism in some way

Interesting that barely anyone who gets barely any exercise commented on the thread.

I'll speak up. I think I voted for 30-60 mins. I have a pretty full schedule, as already discussed on ILXors in a relationship: how many times a month do you do it?. It's really hard for me to carve out time to exercise. If I'm not feeling too groggy when I wake up, I'll go downstairs and lift weights for 20-30 minutes. This happens 2-3 times a week.

I uaed to walk everywhere and was actually underweight for most of my early adult life. I gained 60 lbs about 8 years ago when I simultaneously quit smoking and switched from retail to an office job. I'd like to get more cardio, and in fact have an exercise bike, but finding a good way to work it into my day has been difficult, with work, commuting, and the kids taking up most of my waking time.

Any suggestions on how to carve out time to exercise, I'm all ears. I'm sure it's like one of those things where I've put on blinders and am not letting myself understand how to do it.

I got sod-all exercise, probably less than 30-60 minutes a week, for quite a few years from about 2006 to 2010 (prior to that I'd played football for approx 2hrs a week for a few years; not as much as now, but just enough to not feel slovenly).

I fell out of playing football for various reasons, and for some reason I didn't have the time, money, motivation, or personal confidence to get back into it, or any othr exercise, for years. My fitness slowly declined and, although I didn't put on masses of weight, muscle turned into fat and my body shape changed. When it happens slowly, you don't notice.

Obviously I've got out of this, largely through cycling, but also through getting back into football again (initially that was more by serendipity, but now by conscious effort).

With cycling, I used GPS software to track what I was doing quite quickly, and became keen on testing myself; riding further, faster, increasing my average speed and distance covered. As I got more and more into it, I found myself literally making time to do it in: getting up early on weekend mornings to ride rather than lazing in bed or getting up to write; going out for a quick spin for an hour in the evening after dinner. Things that I kind of assumed (or convinced myself) were essential and unavoidable became unessential and avoidable, and I stopped watching so much TV or writing so much online, put my Playstation away in a cupboard, etc etc, and turned that time into something else.

Obviously different people have different demands on their time, though; I don't have kids, and my commute is short, but (at least the latter part of that, for now) is a conscious life choice because I don't want to spend time outside of work getting to work. With kids and a long commute, that's going to make evenings difficult, but weekday mornings might be a possibility? I've read a couple of things lately about the idea of "social jetlag", which posits that sleeping in late on weekend mornings effectively puts your body into physiological jetlag and makes you tired for your days off; I've really found getting up early and going for a bike ride effective at keeping my energy levels up all weekend - I don't miss anything by not sleeping in, and in fact gain from it.

GPS tracking is pretty much why I continue to run.

I walk to work and back every day, which is a round-trip in the region of two and a half hours, but i should do more. I really enjoy running but find i get a recurring knee injury within about a month of doing it regularly.

I would be really tempted to join a gym if it wasn't so absurdly expensive. Even with a corporate discount, the one in my building at work is still something like £60 or £70 per month.

Yeah, it's incredibly addictive. A few of us have actually stopped setting up our monthly challenges this year, as it got rather silly at points (Rob went out for a 12-mile cycle at 11:15pm after I'd gone to bed on the last day of November just so he could pip me for that month), and we realised we weren't actually enjoying cycling as much as we ought to be, because it had just become about churning out the miles in order to win. We still all track our progress, but we've relaxed and ride for fun much more these days.

With kids and a long commute, that's going to make evenings difficult, but weekday mornings might be a possibility? I've read a couple of things lately about the idea of "social jetlag", which posits that sleeping in late on weekend mornings effectively puts your body into physiological jetlag and makes you tired for your days off;

Weekday mornings are when this gets done, if at all. I wake up at 5 and have until 5:50 to do normal get-ready-for-work stuff (breakfast, shower, shave, dress) and if I'm feeling the least bit perky, I'll head out to the garage in between each of those things and do dumbbell stuff, usually upper body stuff.

many xposts to ENBB - I did zumba for a while and loved it! I don't know that I have ever sweated so much in my life, it was kind of amazing/horrifying lol

of the exercise I've undertaken which is very little, zumba was probably the thing I enjoyed the most to date. gym near my house is offering classes, I need to investigate.

Any suggestions on how to carve out time to exercise, I'm all ears

We do stuff sometimes. On nice weekends we'll go hiking in a state park or something. My son likes to go jogging with me (I can put my little girl in a jogging stroller), but he can't keep up and so there are lots of rest breaks. I don't really count these as "exercise" because they are more leisurely and unsustained. They don't translate into weight loss, afaict.

Exercise a reasonable amount - cycle to work and get a swim in there on the way. But that's not why I wanted to post. Whenever I read things about fitness I'm reminded of Robert Louis Stevenson's comment about 19th C Dutch bargees - they're incredibly sedentary and somewhat portly and rubicund, but v healthy. Which is a way of saying that fitness is not the same thing as good health. Sure, activity is good, for mental reasons as much as physical ones, but although I'm v active and probably fitter than many people i know, I'm not healthy. So the division is brought home to me in that respect.

Physical activity is pleasurable, I think, in moderation, but I feel it's become a part of whatever nexus it is that involves living for as long as possible, eternal youth and a slightly fascistic notion of attractiveness (can you have slightly fascistic notions? dodgy concept - probably not). Fitness clearly plays a part in health, but who cares whether you're physically fit beyond being able to run for the bus? The extent to which pleasure in life is to be found in finding physical refinement through unpleasurable exercise or even pain is unbalanced I think. I enjoy cycling to work in the morning, and swimming on the way there, but if I didn't, I wouldn't do it.

wish i could swim to work

My wife and son took up kayaking this summer. Give him a couple more years of training, and there's a route he could kayak most of the way to school.

That would be awesome. Or oarsome.

Has been 5 hrs a week football and 1-2 hrs cycling this past couple weeks, summer mayne summer

At this point up to 4 hours a week just of running. Needs to be closer to 6 though. Stupid injuries.

― Jeff, Thursday, July 26, 2012 7:14 AM (9 months ago)

Happy say that I'm up to 7 to 8 hours a week now. All running.