Exercise is a smaller part of the weight loss puzzle than people tend to think. 500+ extra calories is a lot of exercise. But it can make life better in general, because endorphins are awesome.
Weight loss starts in the kitchen. And the human body isn’t designed to lose fat. It’s designed to store it for when it can’t get any food. So it will fight you tooth and nail (or more accurately fat cell and gut bacteria) to cling to the fat.
I don’t know what a runner’s high feels like, but I do know the feeling of an asthma attack.
As a kid I was very active doing sprints and riding bikes and a bunch of other stuff. Never, ever had a positive feeling after all of that activity based on having done exercise. If the things I was doing were not enjoyable on their own, I wouldn’t have done them at all.
As I get older and the aches and pains of exercise increased it has fallen away because the whole experience is fucking work. So much work with no immediate reward. I’m with you, where the hell are those endorphins?
Yeah, there are actually exercises that I generally enjoy, like table tennis. Issue is getting to a place with table tennis, finding someone of somewhat comparable skill level who wants to be there at the same time and is fine playing with someone with very little stamina, not injuring myself.
I tried jogging for a couple of years, but it’s just not fun and I never felt like I got a general happiness boost out of it.
For me it takes 4-7km of running or 15-25km cycling to get to the state where it suddenly feels like I can just go on forever. Of course that only works until the food I carry runs out or muscles start to hurt.
500 calories is about 40 minutes of running for me, if it weren’t for my running injury I’d be doing that about 5 days a week or like an hour bike ride on road (which is what I do now at zone 1/2). I think a lot of people are capable of working up to that, but that’s totally dependent on if they like it.
I was thinking more of maintaining fitness from youth and not weight loss. And out of highschool I don’t think this is like a crazy amount of exercise (one of my friends was running 100 miles a week in highschool, that’s crazy).
But if people have a fun way to stay active, that they enjoy doing. I don’t think obesity would be a big problem. I think encouraging a healthy lifestyle starts from childhood and I think access is a big part of that.
Depending on your current size, 500 calories really isn’t that much if you are doing something you enjoy. OTOH, exercise often makes you feel hungrier, so if you aren’t simultaneously watching that, then it doesn’t help.
Is it odd that exercise makes me less hungry? When I work out in the morning (30-45 minutes on my elliptical machine) before breakfast, I have no particular desire to eat. If I skip breakfast, I don’t really get hungry until lunchtime. On days when I don’t work out and try to skip breakfast, I end up struggling to think about anything other than food all morning.
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Exercise is a smaller part of the weight loss puzzle than people tend to think. 500+ extra calories is a lot of exercise. But it can make life better in general, because endorphins are awesome.
Weight loss starts in the kitchen. And the human body isn’t designed to lose fat. It’s designed to store it for when it can’t get any food. So it will fight you tooth and nail (or more accurately fat cell and gut bacteria) to cling to the fat.
You’re supposed to get endorphins from exercise? I must have been doing it wrong.
I don’t know what a runner’s high feels like, but I do know the feeling of an asthma attack.
As a kid I was very active doing sprints and riding bikes and a bunch of other stuff. Never, ever had a positive feeling after all of that activity based on having done exercise. If the things I was doing were not enjoyable on their own, I wouldn’t have done them at all.
As I get older and the aches and pains of exercise increased it has fallen away because the whole experience is fucking work. So much work with no immediate reward. I’m with you, where the hell are those endorphins?
Yeah, there are actually exercises that I generally enjoy, like table tennis. Issue is getting to a place with table tennis, finding someone of somewhat comparable skill level who wants to be there at the same time and is fine playing with someone with very little stamina, not injuring myself.
I tried jogging for a couple of years, but it’s just not fun and I never felt like I got a general happiness boost out of it.
I think you really only get an “endorphin rush” when you’re just starting with exercise and you over-exert yourself to pain levels.
For me it takes 4-7km of running or 15-25km cycling to get to the state where it suddenly feels like I can just go on forever. Of course that only works until the food I carry runs out or muscles start to hurt.
500 calories is about 40 minutes of running for me, if it weren’t for my running injury I’d be doing that about 5 days a week or like an hour bike ride on road (which is what I do now at zone 1/2). I think a lot of people are capable of working up to that, but that’s totally dependent on if they like it.
I was thinking more of maintaining fitness from youth and not weight loss. And out of highschool I don’t think this is like a crazy amount of exercise (one of my friends was running 100 miles a week in highschool, that’s crazy).
But if people have a fun way to stay active, that they enjoy doing. I don’t think obesity would be a big problem. I think encouraging a healthy lifestyle starts from childhood and I think access is a big part of that.
Yeah, that I can agree with. Maintaining is much easier than losing.
And it’s like one cream-filled donut on the food intake side of the equation.
But exercise, especially strength training, helps the work you do in the kitchen by raising your BMR.
Depending on your current size, 500 calories really isn’t that much if you are doing something you enjoy. OTOH, exercise often makes you feel hungrier, so if you aren’t simultaneously watching that, then it doesn’t help.
Is it odd that exercise makes me less hungry? When I work out in the morning (30-45 minutes on my elliptical machine) before breakfast, I have no particular desire to eat. If I skip breakfast, I don’t really get hungry until lunchtime. On days when I don’t work out and try to skip breakfast, I end up struggling to think about anything other than food all morning.
For me, it depends on the activity. Also, pre-intense exercise means I don’t want to eat a ton either.
Paradoxically, I find exercise makes me eat less, as long as what I’m eating isn’t just sugar.