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The Least Amount of Exercise Needed To Extend Life
Toe, The writes "Of particular concern to couch potatoes, gamers, and anyone who spends an inordinate amount of time sitting and staring at a screen is how little exercise can I do and still receive a benefit. A new study entitled 'Minimum amount of physical activity for reduced mortality and extended life expectancy: a prospective cohort study' answers this important question. The conclusion: 92 minutes of moderate activity a week can extend your life by three years."
...in which I'll have to exercise? Oh, let my sweet death come.
Bad nerd, get back in the basement and stop talking nonsense.
+1 Disagree
... does masturbation count? Because I'm going to live forever at this point.
I've heard this expressed in terms of weekly calories expended in heart-raising exercise, i.e 2000. Walking, running, biking (3x miles), etc. doesnt matter so much as long that many calories are burned. Neither whether its compressed into a couple of long sessions or divided into many ten-minute mini-sessions. In fact it recommended to choose the most pleasant form of cardio to you so can you can continue to do to for 50 or 70 more years.
This data comes from the "grandfather" of the exercise boom Dr. Kenneth Cooper. He wrote a book called Aerobics in 1968 promoting endurance exercise over the then-popular calesthetics. He ignited the running boom by putting the on top of his 60-point-week exercise classification system. Running gets you there in the shortest time.
Above 2000 exercise calories a week the situation gets murkier. You get additional, but diminishing longevity results up to about 5000 calories (50 miles walking/running). After that the main effect is improve sports performance, not longevity. Dr. Ken even claims that too much exercise may create more oxidative waste than the body can eliminate and then decrease longevity. But this is a minority opinion and irritates the ultra people.
As someone who works out on a regular basis (an hour or two on most days), I will let you in on a little secret: working out is fun.
Sure, when you first get started, it feels tedious. Pointless, even. But once you start seeing the changes in your body, it becomes addictive.
For instance, most days, I can't wait to get done with work and hit the gym. Ever heard of the runner's high? Working out makes you feel great when you're done with it -- you feel euphoria when you're working out, and a feeling of accomplishment when you're done with it. But the trick is to keep at it.
In the short term, you'll feel more awake, sleep better (deeper REM sleep), and eat better (seriously, once I started working out regularly, I just started craving a wider variety of food than I'd usually eat -- more vegetables and protein, less carbs).
After a few months, you will see serious physical changes in your body that, if not anything else, helps with your vanity. :-) Plus, there's nothing quite like having a girl check you out -- it's a great feeling. As my wife is wont to say, there's nothing that women like more than a buff geek. Beauty and the brains -- can't beat that.
You can do it for any number of reasons, but you will eventually get to a point when you'll be doing it because it is fun. Once you get there, you'll look back and wonder why you didn't do it all these years. Trust me, it's worth it.
...you get old when you become less active.
Statements like that quoted in the summary are pure silliness. On average, exercise will tend to extend life expectancy, but that is certainly not the whole story. Plenty of exercise, proper nutrition, and stimulating thought will improve quality of life for many years leading up to death. Those years are the time to enjoy the life you have.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"