Originally Posted by M Levac

Bed rest used to be the prescription to combat illnesses.

Originally Posted by M Levac

Maybe what causes us to avoid exercise, also causes heart disease and cancer.

Originally Posted by kdill

It seems to me that there is a "virtuous circle" involving food, exercise and health.

Start by making better dietary choices, you feel better and are more likely to move. This reinforces making better dietary choices and more movement and a better subjective state of well being. The combination of the physiological aspects of diet and deliberate movement combined with the psychological component of a subjective state of positive wellness leads to health.

sit mens sana in corpore sano

Originally Posted by jschwab

I get all these arguments (marathon running is in a special category - I think most marathoners know they are taking risks and most are not prepared for the distance anyway)

But what about sheer survival? As an adult and a parent, I feel like it is a huge part of my responsibility to be able to function in case of emergency - to lift my kids and carry them to safety, to swim to rescue them if they fall in deep water, to get out of my own house in case of a fire even if it means I have to climb or jump.

I was swimming off a tourist boat about six years ago and I was the only person who had difficulty pulling myself back onto deck. If it was an emergency, I'd be out of luck or reliant on someone else being stronger and more capable than myself. I vowed to increase my upper body strength at that point.

At work, I lift very heavy boxes and often other women tell me I should not do it and they cannot because it's too heavy. Who then? Somebody has to be strong enough to do it - why should I foist the reponsibility on someone else?

My parents live 12 miles from me - in case of emergency I want to be able to make it to their house as quickly as possible, even if the streets are clogged with panicked traffic. That means running that distance. I recently read a memoir of a woman from NYC who lost alot of weight but she was still very out of shape. She took up running. The day of 9/11 her train was underneath the WTC when the first plane struck. She survived because she was able to get out and run from the collapsing towers.

I'm not saying I'm paranoid and tragedies are around every corner (some of you might read this and see it that way), but I would hate to think a fireman out there is busting his butt staying in shape so he can carry me out of my house and I didn't bother to make sure I was fit enough to get out myself. There are so many with true needs and physical limitations, why would I want to be an extra burden when it's entirely under my control?

Originally Posted by Altari

Like pneumonia. And polio. And depression. And poor circulation. And childbirth. And the post-partum period. OK, those last two aren't illnesses, but they're things that are greatly improved with movement.


Maybe it's our lifestyle in general. Must you go out and pump iron or run on a treadmill or climb up rotating stairs? Absolutely not. That's a silly modern invention to create movement in our industrialized, sedentary lifestyle. We did used to just move more. Hunting animals, planting/gathering fruits and vegetables, logging wood for winter, hauling water...even riding a horse utilizes muscles. Moving, in a natural and useful way, just makes you feel better.

Originally Posted by Nancy LC

This matter seems to be very black and white to people. Either exercise obsessively like a hamster running on a wheel all day or do nothing whatsoever.

Originally Posted by Seejay

Gyms have been around forever. it's just that the 70s started the "safe machines" Nautilus gyms. Before that, they were old time strongmen gymnasiums. And firemen and cops have always had their own gyms or worked out at home if they wanted to keep strong.

Originally Posted by mathmaniac

The one thing that machines give you is some reinforcement of good form, without needing a trainer to critique posture, etc. In this respect, they are valuable and, in the long run, cost-efficient.

Originally Posted by M Levac

I also think we used to be leaner, taller and more muscular. Exercise won't make us leaner or taller, but it might make us more muscular with the caveat that the diet must allow that to happen. Without the proper diet, we might as well sit all day long because muscles don't grow on sugar nor is protein useful in that respect when cells are insulin resistant.

Originally Posted by Seejay

If your body fits the machines. Sez me, a short fat woman who knows for a fact that many machines don't. In my fitness school's gym, the weight limits for the person using the machines are not posted and even the instructors don't know if the machines are rated for 250 pounds max (many are).

They are cost-efficient for the gym because they are more insurable. That was the big deal with moving to "training muscles" instead of "training movement." Exercise is inherently risky but the machines lower the risk.

Originally Posted by M Levac

What's wrong with sitting or lying down? We lie down for a large part of the day, then we sit all day long at work at school at the cafe in the car in the bus in the train at the theater at a basketball game at the ski-lift at the show by the fire at home or elsewhere, what's wrong with that? We've been doing this for ages. What would suddenly make it bad for us? A priori, there's nothing wrong or bad or immoral about sitting or lying down. In other words, there's everything right about sitting and lying down. So take that out of the argument, and let's get to the real reasons people must exercise.

Get stronger? Yes. Faster? Yes. More agile, more enduring, quicker, more alert, more coordinated, more skillful? Yes and yes. But more healthy, as in healthy versus ill? No. Bed rest used to be the prescription to combat illnesses. Why would it now be the cure-all to combat lethargy? It's costly energy-wise to exercise, so is it to heal. Lethargy isn't a result of lack of exercise, it's the other way around. So what causes us to be lethargic? I mean, isn't that the real question? I bet it's something in the food. Maybe it's the food itself. Maybe it isn't food at all.

Originally Posted by kdill

I think the spectrum idea is closer to the truth. Like many things, including food, water and oxygen, Goldilocks rules -- there is too little, too much , and just right.