A Sedentary Lifestyle

[Energizer]

Somebody mentioned in this forum that Ray likes to walk and sawing ☺

Yeah, I like walking too, in forests.

 

[Vegancrossfit]

Even commuting to the office + grabbing a take out lunch involves walking for about 40 minutes total (home-streetcar-office-lunch spot-office-streetcar-home) and that makes a significant difference compared to the utter sedentariness prior to work reopening.

crazy how fast health goes down the drain in the absence of mobility.

 

[JohnA]

They might mention (off the top of my head): vague references to high-pulse during exercise being intrinsically good for some reason, while also mentioning that their lower resting pulse is also good (mainstream view probably leans more in to the idea that lower pulse is better, going off the whole "rate of living" theory or etc. maybe); might mention "inverse relations" between those who are somewhat active and living longer vs. those less active and dying more often; might mention mental benefits of those "feeling better" or "reporting better" results from initial testing; and also might mention things like bodyweight, bodyfat, BMI, and incidence of "heart disease" or such (which of course doesn't say much -- just being lean and able to run a lot isn't exactly proven to be any sort of irrefutable health pinnacle).

Scientists such as Nick Lane and Daniel Lieberman have done a really good job explaining that aerobic exercise isn't efficient as a means for weight loss, but - alongside diet - it's the best tool to optimize mitochondrial function and energy metabolism (which is the main goal of RP's teachings).

Bird flight and human extended-duration exercise (running, hunting and gathering, etc.) are two of the most aerobically taxing activities in all of the animal kingdom. The evolutionary changes that birds and humans have evolved to optimize their aerobic functioning explains why birds and humans live longer than they would be expected to live for their size.

Some birds are lucky and don't lose their aerobic capacity from lack of use. They literally can be sedentary for a long period and then still be ready to migrate. Birds don't need exercise to stay fit for epic flights

Hawkes suspects that birds don’t need exercise because they are simply better built than humans for getting ample oxygen to their muscles. When birds breathe in, air goes not only into the lungs, but also into internal air sacs that provide a continuous supply of oxygen to the lungs. And because they fly at high altitudes, bar-headed geese also have evolved hearts that can beat faster, thinner lung surfaces, and more efficient hemoglobin than other birds. These geese, says Hawkes, “are so good at getting oxygen and using it well that they are already fit.
...

Humans, particularly those enjoying the excess calories of a Western diet, may have to work hard to stay fit because we did not evolve to be long-range migrants or even constantly active, suggests Christopher Guglielmo, a physiological ecologist at Western University in London, Canada. “If you don’t need to run around, why maintain [fitness],” as that costs energy and can cause oxidative damage, he points out.

Humans, unfortunately, lose this aerobic capacity (and the accompanying metabolic and cardiovascular benefits) with disuse over time. You can obviously over-exercise, but not exercising at all for long periods of time is also bad.

 

[lilsticky]

I think sedentary lifestyles are a sign of a high serotonin personality, and thus almost always tend to be unhealthy. But I think it's also important to distinguish the absence of sedentary from the excessive workout culture of today. You have people stuck in traffic jams on their way to a gym so they can ride their stationary bikes, lol. This lifestyle can also breed the high serotonin personalty. I think both the lack of movement and exercise are unhealthy. Instead, healthful activities would be walks in nature, gardening, recreational sports, etc. Even workouts that rely on body weight resistance (pushups, situps, pullups, etc.) are probably okay. But I'm not sold on all this cardio and iron pumping culture of today.

EDIT: also, fwiw, many centenarian cultures around the world show a surprisingly low level of exercise in comparison to western populations.

ray said he's been sedentary for years and he's the reason people are even using this word

 

[Vegancrossfit]

We do have lots of studies that show that high rep “iron pumping” can be as effective as low reps. 20+ reps as effective as 8. Which one is much easier on the nervous system and the body at large? Undoubtedly the former.

 

[Amazoniac]

- Substantial skeletal muscle loss occurs during only 5 days of disuse