Savings, Longevity and the Year in Fitness

Everyone needs to ride a bike everyday. For fun, recreation, to work or gym or out to eat. Stay healthier riding bikes everyday

Readers comments are always informative, often distressingly so, and a number of commenters here felt the need to detail their justifications for their inactivity, which for some was pain and injury. How many of these have this pain and injury due in the first place to their physical inactivity? That equation eludes these excuse-makers.
I think people should be happy, even if that means sitting on the sofa all day eating snacks. However the line is drawn when these people expect sympathy, or worse, that the cost of their choices becomes a burden for others, whether it be the relatives they live with, or taxpayers in general.
Scant attention is paid to the mental condition of those who go out of their way to self-destruct via sedentary and dietary choices, then when the piper needs to be paid, demand others step up to rescue them in some way or another.
Writers of articles such as this seem bafflingly unaware that the reasons people don’t exercise or eat clean is due to emotional problems, not physical. Overweight is not a physical problem, it’s a mental health issue.

I admittedly at 50 years old, swear by exercise. The thought of being sedentary is not an option. My wellness in body mind and spirit simply rely on it. It is integral to my lifestyle and outlook on this life. This fact is invaluable, beyond the monetary savings. That said, there are very few ailments which do not benefit from exercise. Those patients whom I serve who age most gracefully have all implemented some semblance of movement into their lifestyle. I simply feel it is inevitable that you will face a health professional who will recommend you get more exercise. So why wait?

I would never argue against the benefits of exercise, but I am not fond of formal exercise using an exercise facility. I do enjoy walking or biking which are among the best exercises. My parents and grandparents never did any formal exercising, but had active lives for the most part. My Mom lived until she was 99 and drove her car until the age of 95. Her mother, who gave birth to eleven children, lived until she was 95. My Dad passed away at 83 from a heart condition. He was a heavy smoker until he had open heart surgery in his early 70's. My maternal grandmother, who lived until her early 80's, died of cancer. My two grandfathers lived until their mid-80's and died of natural causes. Both of my children and their spouses are into healthy exercise routines. There are many factors which impact longevity in addition to exercising (i.e., your gene structure, healthy eating and achieving a happy life). Maybe exercise is more important today because of the stressful world we live in.

Everybody can spare 30 mins a day to exercise.

If you can't spare 30 mins, you can spare 5 mins. Five minutes of high intensity work out (even if it's in your bedroom, with your work clothes on) is beneficial.

If you work at Walmart, how about you do a wall sit during your bathroom break? Or hold a plank while talking on the phone? Or do as many push ups and sit-ups before you go to sleep?

Americans love to make excuses. I have no sympathy.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

As I get older, I exercise less for aesthetic reasons (looking good), and more for functional. When you move your body, push yourself to sweat, increase your heart rate, and sometimes to exhaustion,
The benefits are: improved alertness, thinking processes, relaxation, better digestion, sleep. Our drive to always seek comfort means we don't do the the work (out) to reap it's benefits.
The point about more blood to the brain is telling - more fuel to work with.
Exercise DOES improve quality of life.

How do we know people sedentary people don't have a condition to begin with?

How much do people spend on sports injuries?

Oh, honestly! My ex-wife has a BMI over 50 (before she went on a diet it was 60).

She's going to live till 100!

We know for a long time that health is wealth in various forms; some of us from our very child hood have been indoctrinated to exercise not by words but by examples. My father who is in his 98th year, led a very physically active life most of his life even though he had a desk job for half of his life. He did yoga (including shirsasana, standing upside down on his head), played badminton (a vigorous sport) swam once a week, jumped up and down in the same place in his room, walked every working day to the bus stop and changed buses and walked in between stops. He did receive an on-demand world class medical care from his employers but not a single costly heart procedure, or joint replacement, just one most common surgical procedure, cataract removal in both eyes. He is a nonsmoker, although very occasionally in company of peers he would smoke a cigarette after a lunch or dinner. While one cannot attribute his longevity to his physical activity alone it has contributed to it. He started off with normal genes as evidenced by a sister living in Memphis and a brother, formerly in the Indian army living in Mumbai who are also living in their 90s but both were physically active in their younger days. All the rest of his 5 siblings are no more. The point I am trying to make is that we now know what is being proved by biomedical science based evidence as referred to by Ms Reynolds, strongly supports physical fitness in our population will contribute to overall savings and longevity.

Even those of us who dislike the outdoors and don't like working out in front of others can be fit. I'm writing this comment while on my own personal exercise bike. I get up early to bike for 45 minutes daily. I have my iPad and a book in front of me, and no one else around. Perfect. I add a bit of yoga most days. And no gym fee.

Again, this is documenting what nature has taught us for thousands of yr.

If you lead a healthy life with exercise, no drugs, no smoking etc. etc. you stand an excellent chance of living a long healthy life.

Why doesn't everybody do it? Simple, the nature of the beast. The person in paragraph two will be devoid of most of the carnal pleasures in life.

Use it or lose it? This is news?

Yikes. I am getting very tired of all of the life-style cures. Does everyone have to have a PhD before he/she knows how to say "I/we just don't know." First it was saturated fat; now it's refined sugar and there are the other sugars... lost of them. Exercise or do we mean active? Statins interfere with muscle formation? (Statins sometimes proposed as being beneficial fo all over 40.)
My 100 year old aunt has perfect health, eats cake for breakfast sometimes and has never sought out additional exercise. Her daughters have both had cancer. Go figure. Interestingly for most of her life she has had not weight problem She did have a bout of depression when she was in her 40s -- that's it.

I never exercise. The time I save affords me the luxury of working an extra two hours a day. Those two hours earn me 50 times the $2,500.00 projected savings. I understand that rats love to exercise, but rats don't have YouTube and are rumored to be terrible employees. Yhy? Because rats are vain and self absorbed. Rats would rather look good than be smart.

A person who exercises one hour per day from 35 to 80 has wasted 16,500+ hours, nearly nine work years. Most of the people I know who "work out" are terrible hypochondriacs always talking about their hamstrings, blood pressure and checking their pulse after a run.

Let's hope our new President will lead by example. No more basketball, running or mountain biking.

Remember Jim Fixx?

Life is a series of choices, we all make them from a particular viewpoint. Looking at everything from a single perspective of "this is good" ignores the myriad of other related matters. Extrapolating from petri dishes and mice to living rooms and human life is a huge leap of faith that can only be explained by, in this case, being an exercise fanatic.

Thank you for the reminder, physical activity as a 'lifesaver' and life-altering motivator for a more useful and active brain, not only reflective of a healthier life in our social intercourse...but also in our ability to introspect, and ponder about our place in the world, and feel as an integral part of nature, hence, committed to protect it and assure our survival by minimizing climate changes, and maximizing renewable energy, and fighting injustice no matter where and when it occurs. For all this, we need to be awake, not in a passive torpor brought about by complacency as a 'couch potato'...but by keeping active physically, in a hostile digital world begging for a passive retreat into social media virtual reality, a 'killer' if we ever saw one, a disengagement from the 'here and now', and a call for early disease and premature death.

tell a walmart employee who had to take the bus for an hour and half to get to work that they need to excercize more. What a ridiculous column..because that same employee needs to take the bus an hour and a half BACK to get home.
Lets stop subsidizing cars and oil and work on a walking based society that is energy independant. Then we can start to talk about how much you sit every day. Even my State office still subsidizes parking for our employees, encouraging daily traffic jams that plague San Diego. Just say no, you have to walk, you have to live close to work, or pay more.

As for me, I always loved my pet whtie rats (with their pink eyes). How disappointing to find the brown ones are really better guys to own. JGAIA

My extraordinary step-mother in-law turns 90 next week. She begins her day doing floor exercises in her living room apartment, and then on three of those mornings heads out to play tennis!

Thanks for this morning's inspiration to get out for my walk! The article did not mention it, but there are studies that point to a correlation between dementia and the sedentary life style. Scary.

The best decision I made after I graduated from college over 35 years ago was to stay active instead of watching television, going to sports events as a spectator, and taking up lap swimming as a way to stay active throughout the year. The swimming itself is very relaxing and, when I swim in the evening, a good way to finish off the day. During the summer it keeps me cool. I walk (while birding), bike, and try to stay as active as I can within the constraints of work and climate.