I realised those around me lead a sedentary life when...

[T42]

Sounds dire, L CC.  And I'll admit to being smug: reaching my age after 40 years of T2 diabetes with most of me relatively intact (famous last words) has that effect.

Genetics or sudden immune-system uprising?  We have at least one friend who developed crippling arthritis over a couple of years.  And another with Crohn's disease who was only diagnosed two years ago, after it had made him more or less unemployable.


ETA: and I do have a busted oesophageal sphincter and chronic acid reflux that'll probably give me oesophageal cancer in a year or two, so I'm gathering rosebuds these days.

[FifeingEejit]

Pre-covid Mrs A and I went on a cruise to Alaska. I’d never set foot on a cruise ship before, and to be honest, I enjoyed the novelty. Most of our fellow cruisers were Americans and they were large people, width wise. They ambled slowly around from treat to treat. Hardly surprising if the cruise ship life style floated their boat. The entertainers were flown out to the ship by helicopter and they were all good, I enjoyed seeing Alaska, too.

Nevertheless, it was surprisingly pleasant to get back to the UK and mix with much thinner people who moved briskly and purposefully about their lives. Today I think it’s different and we have become more like our large and languid neighbours.

Underweight, Overweight, Healthy Weight, Obese and Morbidly obese are health concepts unrelated to but often confused with the social perceptions of what is "Fat" or "Large" which is polluted horribly by body type.
They have complications, such as acid-reflux and the like which leads to other problems as much as the strain on the CV system does.
But you can be in the healthy weight range living on a diet of chocolate and alcohol.

Mountain walking is a diffirent fitness and most people are not used to walking in that type of terrain and make poor choices in placing feet and staying in balance whilst moving quickly. Works lots of the smaller muscles, ligaments and tendons, ones that cycling don’t really hit.  Lots of interesting ways up and down Ben Nevis if you get off the tourist path. Men’s and Women’s records to summit of Ben Nevis and back to valley floor are both below 1 hour 45 mins.

A lot of people are using walking poles in the mountains, a trend since the 90s. Reduces load on knees by 30% when descending, I remember reading years ago.

^^^ This

Cycling legs will get you up the hill, poles will help get you down.
I buggered my right ankle properly in Glen Nevis and further buggerment of right knee combined with lots of cycling means I've lost almost all my hill fitness. It's bloody hard getting back into the hills with such imbalance in the legs for the exercise and coming down even with poles takes forever when every step down needs to take care not to over stretch the achilies. But the physio has sorted out a replacement for the knackered bits in the foot, my balance is oft amused over by others until they try and do 15 seconds 1 footed balance on a pillow and catch a ball 15 times while standing on same foot on the floor, I've almost graduated back to being able to balance on it with my eyes shut which is where I was after ankle buggerment #2
The achilies will apparently take forever and doing exercises that shorten calfs and hamstrings like walking and cycling don't exactly help.



I started quitting alcohol in my mid-twenties, but very bady for eating shite, but that's linked to other issues I need to work on.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I suspect the root of all this is car ownership. Saw a school friend reduce his activity level after he got a car aged 17. The effect on him was visible, and those effects will be compounded year on year for the activity that is cancelled by the car.

I've never owned one. I didn't make a choice to avoid cars, just never needed one; I've always lived in places with decent public transport, and at age 20 I realised I could cycle 10 miles in one go and feel fine (and since then considered that a transport option).

And changing work habits. I became quite unfit when I gave up teaching and got a respectable office job. Partly because I now only went to one place rather than from school to school, but I think even more so because I was now sitting at a desk all day rather than sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, walking around and so on.

Modern society is geared up to encourage folk to be sedentary.  I despair when articles appear telling folk that 6,000 steps and not 10,000 is all you need and then another with 4,000, not 6,000.

As long as they express it steps per day, I doubt it makes any difference. How far is that, either in distance or time? If you're measuring steps, you're either already keen on keeping fit/sport/similar, or on doctor's orders.

Jeez the level of smug in this thread is huge.

Isn't the whole forum smug?

[chrisbainbridge]

But increasingly the evidence is that we “burn” about 2300calories per day irrespective of how much exercise or not we do. Very counterintuitive but almost certainly true.

The problem is that our food is now designed for us to consume >> than 2300 calories.

I think that we only need 150 extra calories per day to put on a stone between 20 and 40 years of age.

Any file brought up on UPF probably has lost all body sense of calorie intake before they reach their teens and will inevitably be fat. The question then simplistically is how we restore that relationship. Ozempic for life?

[fd3]

"How not to die" and "The China Study" both point to more plant based calories and less animal based calories.

[Pickled Onion]

But increasingly the evidence is that we “burn” about 2300calories per day irrespective of how much exercise or not we do. Very counterintuitive but almost certainly true.

I heard this on The Infinite Monkey Cage. It is certainly counterintuitive, but it explains why I managed to stay on the overweight/obese boundary despite cycling 70 km every day commuting. I only lost weight when I cut down to one meal a day (breakfast: porridge)

The explanation was that if you don't exercise you burn off the same calories as stress/anxiety, so that burning off those same calories as exercise was very good for you, but didn't mean you burnt off any more calories.

[JellyLegs]

I don’t know about those around me but I recently realised lead a very sedentary life for large chunks of time (desk job, lots of working from home) and a very active life for short bursts which probably isn’t at all good for me.  I struggle to control my weight. If I don’t work at it, I naturally put on around 3kg a year, year on year.  I can control that with more regular exercise or by checking my diet and cutting out the snacks and especially the bread which seems to be my nemesis.  I seem to have a pretty hard limit, weight wise, above which my fitness level drops quite significantly and quite quickly and a few niggly but not serious as yet health issues start to appear.  For me, below 76kg is fine, above 80kg is most definitely not fine.  Currently 82kg so some work to do til Xmas to shift a bit of weight.

[HTFB]

But increasingly the evidence is that we “burn” about 2300calories per day irrespective of how much exercise or not we do. Very counterintuitive but almost certainly true.

I do doubt this. The energy burnt has to go somewhere and if you are burning them while sedentary you will be sweating and panting just as much as if you burned them doing exercise. We eat about 40% more, on average, than the recommended 2,500-odd calories but we also under-report what we eat by a third, so the error bars are enormous. You can't conduct these studies by simply asking people what they eat.

(Amusing thought: at rest, most of our energy consumption goes into maintaining body temperature. But it doesn't make much difference whether you are burning the calories yourself or whether they avoid being digested and instead get metabolised by your gut flora. The microbes will be releasing heat from the food exactly as efficiently as your own body could. and that heat will warm you just as efficiently, being equally inside you.)

[sojournermike]

But increasingly the evidence is that we “burn” about 2300calories per day irrespective of how much exercise or not we do. Very counterintuitive but almost certainly true.

I do doubt this. The energy burnt has to go somewhere and if you are burning them while sedentary you will be sweating and panting just as much as if you burned them doing exercise. We eat about 40% more, on average, than the recommended 2,500-odd calories but we also under-report what we eat by a third, so the error bars are enormous. You can't conduct these studies by simply asking people what they eat.

(Amusing thought: at rest, most of our energy consumption goes into maintaining body temperature. But it doesn't make much difference whether you are burning the calories yourself or whether they avoid being digested and instead get metabolised by your gut flora. The microbes will be releasing heat from the food exactly as efficiently as your own body could. and that heat will warm you just as efficiently, being equally inside you.)

I am also slightly unconvinced by this, although it is clear that all exercise calorie use is not additional to base usage.

The guy bacteria is interesting. I took the younger to Newcastle Uni before the summer and one of the talks was from a lady working on gut bacteria. She suggested that something like 10% of our energy is provided by bacteria digesting fibre and releasing sugars (iirc but could be wider classes of compound) that we can absorb and use for energy.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Funnily enough a considerable number of people in my street actually ride bikes for various purposes and are not overweight!

[Tim Hall]

Jeez the level of smug in this thread is huge.

This.  Good luck with hip op (whenever that may be).

[Wowbagger]

After yesterday's Stoutness Exercises (see Wowbagger's Weightlifting) I am noticeably in pain today. I don't think a 69-year-old body is meant to do the sorts of things I was doing yesterday. Well, under the natural order of things, 69-year-old people would be very few and far between.

Today, I will be mostly adopting a sedentary lifestyle.

[ian]

Smug is asking a cycling group about this... but generally, people are different and some will have issues, innate or otherwise, that make being active challenging, so group-level prescriptions always sound a bit harsh, and of course they're generalizations.

A GP friend tells me there's a broad split in her patients, the unhealthy and getting unhealthier, and the 'professionally' healthy (people like me with their gym memberships). It's most defined by socioeconomic background, of course, but younger people are getting less healthy than their peers, especially in the poorer groups. Younger people apparently don't want to be told that they're on a course for chronic ill-health either. It correlates with driving and jobs that rarely require any physical activity, a significant number of people do zero exercise. There's also a cohort of middle-class worried, who are ostensibly in reasonable physical health, but turn up with diagnoses they want confirming. Anyway, once upon a time, she would have prescribed words for all these. Go do something active, get outside, find a hobby. These days, no one wants to hear that. Anyway, like many GPs she's counting down the days to a patient-free early retirement.

I got heavy after a significant road accident, which meant – as I lived in the US – I spent years effectively driving between massive portion sizes. Sometimes I had to walk across a parking lot, though I tried to avoid it. Finally had enough of getting breathless at the thought of a walk and my body continuing to wobble for five minutes after I'd walked down the stairs. No magic formula, cut down on the crap food (but no actual diet) and start regularly exercising. These days I do a good hour of proper aerobic exercise every day (swim most days, hike at the weekend), but I balance that by eating and drinking well, I'm not living off lettuce.

I have a niece who won't walk the five-or-so minutes to see her grandmother, she has to drive. She claims walking makes her legs hurt. She's 21 and other than her weight in good health.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Funnily enough a considerable number of people in my street actually ride bikes for various purposes and are not overweight!

Jeez the level of smug in this thread is huge.

This.  Good luck with hip op (whenever that may be).

A few years ago I was cycling in the mountains with a group.  One of us had two artificial knees and was cycling up hills without difficulty or any  discomfort over and above the norm.  If he took it slowly his age was as good an excuse as he needed.

Smug is asking a cycling group about this...

Funnily enough a considerable number of people in my street actually ride bikes for various purposes and are not overweight!

It only occurred to me after reading this topic.

One neighbour who cycles was taken to hospital in the November of the first lockdown. We thought it was COVID but it was in fact a brain tumour (he is youngish).  He's made an excellent recovery (hopefully permanent) and returned to cycling, albeit not at the same level. 

Cycling is definitely a good thing to do and not smug at all!

[Wowbagger]

Partly prompted by this thread, Jan and I had a short walk (40 minutes or so) in the park today. It's the first time for quite a while, and I could definitely feel that it was making me slightly breathless. Good in that it's by getting your pulse & breathing up that you lose weight, but bad in that I've allowed myself to become a real lardarse again, when 15 months ago I was a lot lighter.

Even then, my paces for the day are only slightly above 6000.

[De Sisti]

Gosh, I don't walk (apart from to the shop at the end of the road for a newspaper or a few misc
items). However, I do circuit training once a week, use my concept2 rower once/twice a week
and cycle two or three times a week.

[Polar Bear]

As I sit here catching up with the news, email and family social media I feel guilty as hell for not getting off my arse and going for an early walk.  To make matters worse mllePB has just got herself out of the door for an early leg stretch.

Coffee and lethargy make good sofa fellows.  🤔

[Cudzoziemiec]

18 months ago I had a heart attack, which was ok,

The second phrase does not usually follow the first! I hope you can carry on some cycling and walking etc.

[Kim]

Gosh, I don't walk

Me neither; it makes my legs hurt.  One of the things I'd tell younger-me if given the chance would be to own a bicycle (with proper luggage) rather than struggling with Knees.

Apart from the lack of pain and vastly reduced shoe-wear that came with re-discovering two-wheeled transportation, it might have improved my asthma (it's hard to tell how much, because the smoking ban came in at around the same time, and that definitely helped).  What it didn't do was cause me to lose weight.  But that's just as well, because for most of my life the issue has been keeping it on.  The chubby period of vaguely decent mental health from about 2005-2015 is the anomaly.

Cars are definitely bad for you, thobut.  After all, if it wasn't for cars I'd be able to walk without my legs hurting, and probably be a bit more competent at breathing.

[tatanab]

18 months ago I had a heart attack, which was ok,

The second phrase does not usually follow the first! I hope you can carry on some cycling and walking etc.

Sorry Cudz.  I deleted that post because I thought it was diverting from this thread.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Jeez the level of smug in this thread is huge.

I can't walk for more than 10 minutes without pain.

I'm really quite obese.

I have a RHR in the low 50s and do at least 30 minutes vigorous exercise every day.

Sometimes, the luck of the (genetic) draw fucks you over. In 2017 I walked each of the 3 peaks. By 2022 I couldn't walk more than 5 minutes without pain and needed a stick.

My daughter said to me the other day that now she lives with me and sees what I actually eat, she genuinely thinks there's something wrong with me because I 'shouldn't' be this fat.

I've had my knee replaced and next up will be my right hip- the X-ray shows 0 gaps around the femoral head in the joint- no wonder it hurts.

RHR doesn't mean a lot; MrsC has always had a low RHR, but has no fitness at all.

I agree about the smug.

I spend very little of each day on my feet. I'm chained to my desk 12 hours a day. It is difficult to overcome that. I can't afford an electric sit/stand desk, and can't work all day at a standing desk due to childhood stuff.

[Kim]

I can't afford an electric sit/stand desk, and can't work all day at a standing desk due to childhood stuff.

Last time I looked (a few years ago, when barakta's b0rked in a spectacular manner about two weeks before the warranty expired), the motorised leg gubbins was surprisingly cheap when bought independently of the large slab of chipboard.  Worth investigating, anyway.

[barakta]

I can't afford an electric sit/stand desk, and can't work all day at a standing desk due to childhood stuff.

Last time I looked (a few years ago, when barakta's b0rked in a spectacular manner about two weeks before the warranty expired), the motorised leg gubbins was surprisingly cheap when bought independently of the large slab of chipboard.  Worth investigating, anyway.

Another option is Access to Work. Mr Charley, please PM me if you would like more info as it is actually pretty good for ergonomic assessments/stuff.

[barakta]

While I see the point people make about sedentary society, like Mr Charley and L CC I find it hard to see this thread because if you have or develop something that makes 'being active' difficult or painful, it is very very slow and difficult to get diagnosis and treatment on the NHS.

I'm currently looking at Sept 2024 (cos they're clearly having capacity/staffing issues, again) before ortho will remove the metal from my leg after my already delayed Sept 2021 surgery (thanks to staffing issues in 2019 and Covid) even though the surgeon's fellow has documented that the metal is causing pain and joint instability which is limiting my walking.

My surgeon and I suspect I have a torn labrum which will be 2+ surgeries to diagnose and find, and can only be done once the metal has been out for 6+ months. And they won't even look at my other leg which also has dysplasia and hurts like fuck if I walk/stand too much.

I've had severe mobility issues since 2018 and deteriorating mobility since my teens. At least now I know why. I no longer feel like I am bad, lazy, stupid, making it up, etc... It is clear my dysplasia has been very difficult to treat and at least one physio I greatly-respect says they don't think I'll ever be out of pain with it (pain meds don't touch it, and I've tried several).

My goal from my surgery was to be able to walk 3-4km a day without severe pain. I don't think I am going to get my goal. I can't use crutches cos of my arms. My balance and vision issues Do Not Help.

And unlike some disabled folk. I can't just cheat by driving cos I am not safe to drive. I'm not even safe to cycle without sighted assistance thanks to my balance related vision issues.

I'd love to be more active, but my hips are like my other joints "irritable".

[fruitcake]

I can see this thread has caused offence to YACFers who have limitations on their mobility.

When i started this thread, I really was thinking about those without physical disabilities who choose minimal physical activity.

It was primarily a thread about self discovery - i.e, realising that I differ from those around me, and how I didn't realise this until a few lightbulb moments when I saw my choices reflected in their reactions. I'd felt bewildered after talking people who believed that a ten mile bike ride was extreme (as with a colleague who seemed to think I was crazy for not using a car to get to work), or that walking for 45 minutes was extreme (as when I asked a stranger for directions in Hampstead and was advised that it would take a long time and that I had better take the tube). These were alienating experiences through which I learned that I am not like those around me (and they are not like me).

I was hoping to read similar stories and saw YACF as a safe place to discuss my journey of self awareness regarding my appetite for activity. The most concerning account I read here is the one about a doctor not recognising illness in a physically fit person because the doctor's expectation had been calibrated by the unfit. And that is disturbing, isn't it.

I'm also interested in thinking about the causes of sedentary lifestyles choices for the able-bodied - causes that may include car ownership, exclusively screen-based jobs, and other things. I'm still interested in what we might call 'the structural causes of inactivity', but perhaps that's a sociological topic, for a different thread.   

I may delete this thread since it looks like it's caused offence. I'm sorry to Barakta (whose posts I enjoy very much) for starting a thread that is hard to read, and I apologise to those forum members who read the opening post and felt belittled; that was not what I wanted, or imagined.