Slashdot Mirror
How Do Geeks Exercise?
An anonymous reader writes "I have always been thin but all the sitting in front of the PC is taking its toll now that I'm getting older. I have begun to get a little heavier around the waist. I don't eat a lot but the weight seems to stay on these days. Most of the time I don't have the luxury of just getting out of the house/office. And being an introvert, I'm not enamored of the idea of exercising in full view of *shudder* people. I regularly do press-ups (60 per night) and sit-ups (30 per night) and some fetching and carrying, but that is all and these days it isn't enough. I need a solid and effective routine that will tone all my muscle groups efficiently. Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
chicks dig cyclist legs
almost as much as showing up in a $80,000 ride.
Just callin' it like I see it.
That reminds me, I need to run over some Critical Mass riders on Friday.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
1) OMG. I made a typo. Twice.
2) I am in the business. What exactly are you? I am a biomedical engineer. I understand body mechanics and physiology. I understand the nuances. But a nice ad hom anyway.
3) The equations still have predictive power, or they wouldn't have been published! I read the paper were Mifflin and his group described this equation. At least, I used the paper referenced here: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/51/2/241. The paper does not give any error estimates for the equations. It does say that the variables account for 70% of the variability of the data, but that does not mean that the equations are 30% wrong. It means that their equations are at most 30% wrong. And for them to be 30% wrong, it means that the variables already accounted for have no predictive power towards any other variables that account for the other 30% of the variability.
4) No, I am extrapolating. There is data there, even though the data is not drawn from the same population.
5) We do not know that he is very abnormal. He has claimed to be abnormal. I am claiming that those claims are bogus. Assume for a minute that he has an REE of 0 kcal/day. As I also stated elsewhere, a 380 lb man walking for an hour requires a lot of energy, depending on how he walks; but on average, he'd burn about 600-700 calories in an hour. 2 hours of circuit training and weights come out to roughly 2400 calories. That's a lot more than his daily caloric intake, even with an REE of zero. I used the REE value initially to illustrate quickly why his claims were fishy. But even if we throw those out, there is still a numerical disagreement. Are you going to try to say that he is burning fewer calories exercising than people think he is because he's overweight? All of those estimates come from understanding biomechanics and biophysics; the equations are much more predictive because they are derived from physical principles.
So let's sum up here. You looked at one part of my claim and then proceeded to "sink to my level" and provide a singularly stunning ad hominem attack. Bravo. I was a complete dick to some stranger on the internet based on cool hard facts and the heady, but oh-so-manly scent of my arrogance. Indeed I did bother to think about how much guff this AC has gotten for his weight, but I wasn't calling him a fatty; I was saying that his numbers don't add up. And I provided evidence, numbers. I didn't call him fat, I called him a liar. I never passed any judgment about his weight. Finally, when you called me on my "ignorance," I stated that regardless of his REE he would be using more energy than he could derive from what he eats. Whoops, why did you forget to talk about that?! As you should have read, I updated my claims with some numbers.
Now, I can dispense with the ad hominem attacks. I don't need them because I won. It was valiant of you to defend an overweight gentleman who claims to be actively trying to change his weight to no avail. I really empathize with the guy. I was a fat kid, and I know it took 3 years and puberty (mmm, testosterone) to slim down to a weight that I liked. But if he is working out like he says he is, and eating like he says he is, then he would not still be 380 lbs with a lot of flab.
It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.