Daily exercise


(Sarah Herlihy) #1

Along with changing my diet i am trying to change my over - exercising tendencies and gym obsession to something a little more balanced. I need this in my life with a full time job and two children. What exercise does everyone do daily? Do you ever have a day where you dont do anything? How do you overcome the guilt of not working out for a day?


(Carpe salata!) #2

None.
All of them.
I have another piece of bacon.


(Sarah Herlihy) #3

I love this! If only damn brain would follow suit.


(Sarah Herlihy) #4

P.s Might go eat some butter.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #5

A good place to start might be to acknowledge the existence of the studies showing that exercise contributes nothing to weight loss. It has many other benefits, yes, but not that.

You don’t need to jump to the other end of the spectrum and become like me—i firmly believe I get enough exercise simply by jumping to conclusions, lol. But you might want to examine your motives for all that exercise.

If your primary motive is weight loss, you should find (barring some unusual metabolic quirk) that the pounds come off with no effort on your part once you enter nutritional ketosis. If your goal is metabolic health, then you should find great benefit from a certain level of exercise, but it certainly need not dominate your life.

On the other hand, I certainly know that it is possible to engage in healthy behavior for less than healthy reasons, and depending on what your reasons are, you might need help looking at and dealing with such motives. No shame in that, a lot of us find ourselves in such a place.

The point is that you are entitled to do what you need to for a healthy life. Embracing the keto way of eating is one way in your power to embrace health.


(Carpe salata!) #6

But seriously, I might take a run for the bus every few days. I call it high intensity interval training, it’s supposed to be good to keep the mitochondria working.


(Sarah Herlihy) #7

Your replies are always so logical. Thankyou for taking time to write that. Makes perfect sense. I am one that must move and do a few things but i really want a balanced life where the ritual of exercising isnt playing on my mind constantly and eating into all of my free time.


(Allie) #8

I walk every day, lift weights most days, and occasionally do yoga (this I would prefer more of but only so many hours in the day). Even on my days of doing nothing, I still walk miles because my dog always needs his walks regardless of my schedule.


#9

I play hockey one night a week, take walks with my wife, an occasional 3-5 hour weekend hike, and some body weight exercises. The only thing I really stress over missing is my hockey night.


(Tim W) #10

Great questions, I’ll take a swing at a few answers for you:

  1. I vary my exercise on my current goals and my workload for the day. If I’m going to be outside moving heavy things, I don’t worry about my scheduled lifting session. If we are going for a long hike as a family, I skip the long run.

  2. I take Mondays off, the most I’ll do is a slow walk to the library or something similar, but I don’t consider that exercise, I love to walk and I do a few miles on a daily basis no matter what other exercising I’m doing.

  3. At times, I’ve taken my “normal” workout days off for vacation etc. I don’t feel guilt because I know that I’m working out for health and longevity and to enjoy life. If I am skipping a day of working out to enjoy life, isn’t that the purpose? It doesn’t make sense to work out so you can feel good and live a long/prosperous life, and then feel guilty when you take a day or two off to enjoy feeling good and enjoy your health/mobility/relaxation. If you simply can’t do that, you might be an endorphin addict.

Bottom line, why are you working out? Your exercise regimen should support that goal. If you don’t have a “why” then think on it. Are you working out in a certain manner just because you’ve fallen into a routine and you don’t want to change/disrupt it (I’ve been there)?

Are you comparing yourself to the amount of working out you see others doing on facebook etc (take time off of social media?). I quit using a program that gave you points for exercise when I realized I was doing “just a little more” to maximize points, not for maximizing health.

What standards are you holding yourself to? Are those standards realistic in light of everything else going on in your life? I have a slack job and kid is older, I have lots of time to work out but I have MANY other hobbies and interests as well, just because I could work out three times a day, I’d never do that because life is too full and that would take too much energy away from other things like family care, reading etc. In addition, the more you workout, the more recovery time you need and “might” impact longevity. Having read as much as I can about blue zones and longevity etc, the most common exercise mentioned is walking…

So:

  • Answer your “why am I working out”
  • Decide on a goal to reach (xxx miles a week, xxx growth in biceps, xxx pullups etc)
  • Decide on how to reach that goal
  • Realize that the purpose of working out isn’t to work out, the less you can do to achieve the goal state above, the better, the more time and energy for your family, less is more!
  • Schedule your workouts around your life
  • Be flexible, if life gets in the way, that’s what its there for (living!)
  • Don’t compare yourself, your workouts, your gains to ANYONE else, especially random strangers on the internet
  • Enjoy life! Enjoy your family! Enjoy your health!

By the way, you may find that reducing your level of exercise actually leaves you feeling better long term, you’ll have more total energy daily, more creativity, more juice to do those things you might not be doing because you put so much time and energy into working out, just to be working out. Take some time off, see if your desire to do those “things on the shelf” come back.

Best of luck!


(shawn) #11

I used to be a gym rat, spending 1-2 hours at the gym not including shower/dressing/drive time. The only thing I miss is the sauna and steam room. Now, I walk or run with my dogs daily, go to belly dance class once/ week and practice with the troupe I’m in a few times/week. I lift weights at home (basic deadlifts, squats and presses)2x/week for 45 minutes for strength and bone health. This is the only thing I do that’s not recreational, and I blast metal to make it fun.:metal:t3: I do weekends hikes and stand up paddle boarding when there’s time. Since changing to a mostly fun routine, there is no guilt if I miss a day, except for the dog walks, and they are the ones that make me feel guilty.


(Mark Rhodes) #12

@Sarah_Herlihy After accepting everything I thought I knew about nutrition was inaccurate by adopting KETO I began to think that what I knew about fitness and health could also be. SO I began to dig and found Body by Science. After reading the book I could find no fault in the authors prescriptive training program and so as of last week, after years of miles on the road and 8 hours in the weightroom weekly, I adopted the once a week ( okay every 5 days for me- I am really addicted to lifting) approach. So far so good.

https://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Strength-Training/dp/0071597174


(Tim W) #13

I did the same thing!

Turns out, there is a TON of misinformation about exercise and fitness too, surprise surprise!

The “big money” (gyms, sports apparel, those that sell us shit) want us to think we can’t be healthy/fit/our desired weight, without their shoes, their gels, their fancy watches, their gym memberships. Once I came to terms with that, and realized that my wife was losing pounds through diet and not exercising on a regular basis (lots of walking) I started to slow down a bit myself. Luckily for me, I’ve also left a high stress job and don’t need as much exercise as stress relief these days, I am blessed!

To add to this and maybe get into an anti-gym rant, I was interviewing for part time trainer positions at my local gyms, they didn’t give too shits what cert I had, they wanted to know how much experience I had in sales. I asked one interviewer what I should add to my resume to increase my potential value to them, what course should I take next, he said screw the health/fitness/diet/nutrition based stuff, take something focused on sales. Another gym wouldn’t even process my application since I don’t have +1 year of sales… FYI

/rant


(Mark Rhodes) #14

Yeah. In the nineties I studied exercise physiology for training. What my professor taught me was enough for me to give it up as a second career! That these clubs really do not sell health but an ideal of health. What is important is first signing the contract. Doesn’t matter if the person comes in, the equipment stays “fresher” if most members do not use it. Second was to sell all the gadgets and supplements behind the counter and third was the trainers.

My current problem is NOT TRAINING. Ugh. I love the feeling from lifting all those hours. But I also tired of not making the progress all the “recipes” said I should. I also kayak and bike ride but changed my attitude with these to no longer taining but doing a leisure activity. I hike more with the dogs in the woods and continually feel better- along with Keto!

What does your strength training program look like these days and do you think you are getting a better result?


(Ross) #15

Back in the mid 1990’s took some classes from a Russian guy named Pavel Tsatsouline for $20/each. Best classes I ever took & I only wish I’d listened to him about diet. He was pro ketogenic diets for weight loss even back then.

His education was Soviet/Russian and he clearly felt that most of the “fitness wisdom” in the USA was profit motivated & for the benefit of the corporation. In Power to the People he even shows how common gym rat “12 rep sets” were really developed by the fitness industry to promote maximum throughput in gyms using nautilus equipment.

For weight loss, Pavel claimed research at that time indicated that 15-20 min of exercise per day maximized weight loss. Anything after that had nearly no impact on weight loss results.

Pavel also made it clear that rest was very important to results. I have found it more difficult sometimes to take time off when needed than to continue to work out.

Myself, I tend to swim 2X to 3X per week and lift weight 2X to 3X per week as time permits. That may be more than I really need to do.

The swimming is not for weight management. Last summer I strained my rotator cuff when I did something stupid while trying to keep up with a guy 30 years younger & 30 pounds bigger than me on the weight bench. I couldn’t swim or workout at all for 3 months and when I did get back into the pool, what I could do was very limited. I didn’t gain any weight during that period while still eating LCHF.


(Todd Allen) #16

I have a genetic supposedly untreatable progressive neuro-muscular wasting disease called SBMA or Kennedy’s disease. I knew I had it from a young age and did my best to follow conventional wisdom to be fit and healthy - eating low fat mostly vegetarian and frequent high volume cardio exercise to exhaustion. Worked well in my 20s, stopped working in my 30s and was a disaster in my 40s when my decline was swift and brutal. A few nerves and muscles apparently died or are so far gone they will never recover to a significant degree. But for the past year I’ve done the opposite and I recovered so much I no longer think of myself as diseased, merely challenged.

I went keto and I stopped cardio type exercise. I take an intensely hot bath nightly before bed for my cardio workout and for the deep relaxation and excellent sleep it promotes.

Daily I do relatively low intensity activities like going for a walk with my wife and our dog. A year ago this was my intense activity as I was so weak I could only walk a few feet without collapsing.

Most of my muscle rebuilding I attribute to infrequent, short workouts of the highest intensity that I can muster. One day it might be sprints either swimming or biking, other days it might be resistance training of one of the upper body, trunk or legs. These workouts usually involve a few minutes prep to engage in maximal effort by remaining still while deep breathing and focusing mentally envisioning firing every muscle that I can recruit in the coming effort as fully as possible. Then I do a minute or two of effort, swimming or biking as hard and fast as I can, weight training hard and slow, shooting for 100% effort with nothing in reserve followed by enough time resting for the pain and nausea to subside, typically 2 to 3 minutes, such that I can do it again. On a good day I might make a 3rd effort. Done well it results in a growth promoting burn that lasts a couple days or more. And as long as I feel muscles burning somewhere in my body I am happy and I feel no guilt.

Although this works for me it probably is not optimal for others in great health capable of doing much more. But I expect it would be sufficient for many if not most people merely seeking fitness to promote health and longevity.


#17

Thanks for this. It’s on its way.


(Mark Rhodes) #18

Wow. I must say I admire your resilience.

The book I offered above by Little & McGruff clearly outline that that type of program, while not for bodybuilders, is superior to daily lifting. They get into the science of the muscle, how it take energy, how long it takes on average to completely recover and why hypertrophy happens. The produce study after study showing people of all walks of life make far larger gains working out less with significant more muscle strength and size to show for it.
They also produce study after study and some anecdotal stories of the detrimental effects of constant cardio.

Not only do they produce the science they then using their own facility employed it with thousands of people for good solid results. Basically their premise aside from recovery time is there are three types of muscle strand and the slow twitch and intermediate recover too quickly to engage the fast twitch. Lifting at 80% of max for 10 seconds positive, 10 seconds negative will exhaust all three muscle types sufficiently to elicit muscle growth.


(Todd Allen) #19

Thanks Mark. I think your book recommendation is excellent.

Doug McGruff, Martin Gibala and the work of several others helped me see the way I thought I was supposed to exercise was wrong for me, just as Peter Attia, Gary Taubes, Nina Teichholz, Jason Fung and a host of others helped me see the problems with following standard nutritional advice.

There’s increasing evidence the neuro-muscular aspects of my disease are the result of metabolic derangements that occur first and much like advanced diabetes it eventually leads to muscle wasting and neuropathy. My disease impairs mitochondria and results in increased ROS production and the stress induced by high volume exercise destroys mitochondria and eventually the host cells too. Fortunately it appears for me a modest amount of intense exercise produces a strong enough stimulus of repair and growth to exceed the damage caused by the exercise itself.

I don’t know if it has been studied, but I bet this style of exercise would shine in combating sarcopenia and neuropathy of diabetic seniors. The CDC found in 2015, >25% of 65 and older Americans have diabetes and nearly another 50% are pre-diabetic.


(Allie) #20

Todd I hope you get good results from adopting a keto lifestyle :heart: