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johns74 said:
I can't conclude that the cardiovascular improvements overcome the negative effects of reduced thyroid function (assuming both effects are true). Thus, the claim that exercise is overall beneficial is far from proven by the cardiovascular observations.

Well you've jumped from objecting to the practise of drawing long-term conclusions from studies to now objecting the results of specific research. Either way, it's getting off-topic so I'm going to leave it here.
 

4peatssake

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cantstoppeating said:
4peatssake said:
A healthy sedentary life is possible too. It comes down to choice and making what you wish to do work for you while maintaining optimal energy levels.

One cannot lead a healthy life while being sedentary. One of Peat's central ideas is that function begets function. The body needs to be exercised, not doing so produces atrophy and other stressors.
I disagree.

FYI, RP describes himself as "very sedentary."

I have often had a gallon of orange juice in a day, with 100 grams of other sugar, and didn't see any problem, even while being sedentary.

That depends on your size, metabolic rate, and activity, and the other nutrients, but I sometimes have more than that [400 G OF CARBOHYDRATE], including the sugar in milk and orange juice (and I'm about your size, and very sedentary). The fructose component of ordinary sugar (sucrose) helps to increase the metabolic rate. I think a person of average size should have at least 180 grams per day, maybe an average of about 250 grams.
 

tara

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I have not read Peat's whole body of work. I have read all the articles on his website, and read or listened to a number of interviews but probably not half of them yet, and only a couple of newsletters, and started in on the Townsend letters posted recently. I plan to continue. :)

HIIT involves short sprints with rests in between, right? 'Acutely intense' seems like exactly what Peat has suggested. It does probably have increased injury risks over gentler exercise (ask me how I know :)). I guess it depends on what level of intensity and duration (measured in seconds, not minutes) can be sustained without excessive stress for a particular person.

cantstoppeating said:
One cannot lead a healthy life while being sedentary. One of Peat's central ideas is that function begets function. The body needs to be exercised, not doing so produces atrophy and other stressors.

cantstoppeating said:
And btw, the use of "exercise" isn't taken to mean taking a stroll on the beach or playing tag with your kids. It's generally taken to mean "a specific stimulus in order to produce a specific adaptation". And given the way Peat refers to "exercise", it's clear he's referring to it in the context of physiology i.e. a definition like the above.

Wouldn't a more valid comparison be about how much movement and physical work etc people do in their day? Are you suggesting there is more benefit to just running round the park focussed on timed HIIT intervals, with than the same amount of running involved in a game? Really?

I somewhat rebuilt injured arms during my children's early years because I had to pick them up any times a day, and they gradually grew heavier. Unfortunately, I didn't keep it up many times day once they stopped needing me to, and now it's a real challenge. :) Not exercise right? But lots of moderate short concentric contractions, as approved by Peat, I'm think.

If taking a walk in the park and playing with your kids and any manner of other activities done for their own sake rather than as specific exercise to stimulate an adaptation do not count as exercise, and do count as sedentary, then I am fairly sure that by that definition of sedentary, it is possible to healthy and sedentary.

What Peat writes most about may be influenced by the problems he's seen and been asked to address. He has said that he has seen a lot of people who have driven their metabolisms down by overexercise. Maybe he does not see so many people that don't exercise at all, so he hasn't bothered to comment on it so often?
Or maybe he defines exercise as you do, and sees it as inherently pushing beyond comfort and into distress, and he therefore does see it as largely negative, compared with, say having a varied life that involves some movement.

Peat also talks about the downsides of meat, and recommends ways to ameliorate the downsides, but he still eats meat and considers it reasonable to have some in a diet, preferable to vegetable proteins.

My non-Peat understanding of the high level stats on the correlations between exercise and reduced mortality (and morbidity? can't remember - if I come across it again I'll try to remember to update) are that it makes a graph with the trough roughly corresponding to lowest mortality at about half an hour's brisk walk every day (give or take a little). Less exercise than that is associated with worse health, but so is more, going up quite steeply for people who do a lot more.

I also understand that prolonged sitting is a problem in itself, even if one follows it with an hours 'exercise' a day. Moving a little often makes a difference, even if it is of the order of getting up from the desk to go get something or talk to someone every half hour.

If people have plenty of energy, NEAT involves so much more movement than for people who are exhausted and depleted, too. Just wriggling more in one's seat, standing taller, stretching, gesticulating, etc, and so maybe could count as sedentary, though they move quite a bit.
 
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4peatssake said:
cantstoppeating said:
4peatssake said:
A healthy sedentary life is possible too. It comes down to choice and making what you wish to do work for you while maintaining optimal energy levels.

One cannot lead a healthy life while being sedentary. One of Peat's central ideas is that function begets function. The body needs to be exercised, not doing so produces atrophy and other stressors.
I disagree.

FYI, RP describes himself as "very sedentary."

I have often had a gallon of orange juice in a day, with 100 grams of other sugar, and didn't see any problem, even while being sedentary.

That depends on your size, metabolic rate, and activity, and the other nutrients, but I sometimes have more than that [400 G OF CARBOHYDRATE], including the sugar in milk and orange juice (and I'm about your size, and very sedentary). The fructose component of ordinary sugar (sucrose) helps to increase the metabolic rate. I think a person of average size should have at least 180 grams per day, maybe an average of about 250 grams.

Just because Ray is sedentary does that mean you should be sedentary? Is Ray your picture of ideal health? If he jumped off a bridge, would you? You have to think for yourself.

If you disagree with me you're disagreeing with physiology. The body is designed to move, not to be sedentary. Being sedentary induces atrophy and resulting stress in the same way social isolation induces stress.

You should distinguish between Peat's ideas and his practise of those same ideas. If you notice any picture of the man himself, you'll see a large spare tyre around his midsection which indicates less than ideal health.
 
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tara said:
I have not read Peat's whole body of work. I have read all the articles on his website, and read or listened to a number of interviews but probably not half of them yet, and only a couple of newsletters, and started in on the Townsend letters posted recently. I plan to continue. :)

HIIT involves short sprints with rests in between, right? 'Acutely intense' seems like exactly what Peat has suggested. It does probably have increased injury risks over gentler exercise (ask me how I know :)). I guess it depends on what level of intensity and duration (measured in seconds, not minutes) can be sustained without excessive stress for a particular person.

cantstoppeating said:
One cannot lead a healthy life while being sedentary. One of Peat's central ideas is that function begets function. The body needs to be exercised, not doing so produces atrophy and other stressors.

cantstoppeating said:
And btw, the use of "exercise" isn't taken to mean taking a stroll on the beach or playing tag with your kids. It's generally taken to mean "a specific stimulus in order to produce a specific adaptation". And given the way Peat refers to "exercise", it's clear he's referring to it in the context of physiology i.e. a definition like the above.

Wouldn't a more valid comparison be about how much movement and physical work etc people do in their day? Are you suggesting there is more benefit to just running round the park focussed on timed HIIT intervals, with than the same amount of running involved in a game? Really?

I somewhat rebuilt injured arms during my children's early years because I had to pick them up any times a day, and they gradually grew heavier. Unfortunately, I didn't keep it up many times day once they stopped needing me to, and now it's a real challenge. :) Not exercise right? But lots of moderate short concentric contractions, as approved by Peat, I'm think.

If taking a walk in the park and playing with your kids and any manner of other activities done for their own sake rather than as specific exercise to stimulate an adaptation do not count as exercise, and do count as sedentary, then I am fairly sure that by that definition of sedentary, it is possible to healthy and sedentary.

What Peat writes most about may be influenced by the problems he's seen and been asked to address. He has said that he has seen a lot of people who have driven their metabolisms down by overexercise. Maybe he does not see so many people that don't exercise at all, so he hasn't bothered to comment on it so often?
Or maybe he defines exercise as you do, and sees it as inherently pushing beyond comfort and into distress, and he therefore does see it as largely negative, compared with, say having a varied life that involves some movement.

Peat also talks about the downsides of meat, and recommends ways to ameliorate the downsides, but he still eats meat and considers it reasonable to have some in a diet, preferable to vegetable proteins.

My non-Peat understanding of the high level stats on the correlations between exercise and reduced mortality (and morbidity? can't remember - if I come across it again I'll try to remember to update) are that it makes a graph with the trough roughly corresponding to lowest mortality at about half an hour's brisk walk every day (give or take a little). Less exercise than that is associated with worse health, but so is more, going up quite steeply for people who do a lot more.

I also understand that prolonged sitting is a problem in itself, even if one follows it with an hours 'exercise' a day. Moving a little often makes a difference, even if it is of the order of getting up from the desk to go get something or talk to someone every half hour.

If people have plenty of energy, NEAT involves so much more movement than for people who are exhausted and depleted, too. Just wriggling more in one's seat, standing taller, stretching, gesticulating, etc, and so maybe could count as sedentary, though they move quite a bit.

You went down a rabbit hole that completely missed the point of my posts.

It's about Peat dismissing forms of exercise because of their acute stress response. I argue that the forms of exercise he dismisses, which may have detrimental effects in the short term, actually produce long term net-positive effects.

One such example is HIIT, in which sprinting is one instance of it.
 

4peatssake

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cantstoppeating said:
4peatssake said:
cantstoppeating said:
4peatssake said:
A healthy sedentary life is possible too. It comes down to choice and making what you wish to do work for you while maintaining optimal energy levels.

One cannot lead a healthy life while being sedentary. One of Peat's central ideas is that function begets function. The body needs to be exercised, not doing so produces atrophy and other stressors.
I disagree.

FYI, RP describes himself as "very sedentary."

I have often had a gallon of orange juice in a day, with 100 grams of other sugar, and didn't see any problem, even while being sedentary.

That depends on your size, metabolic rate, and activity, and the other nutrients, but I sometimes have more than that [400 G OF CARBOHYDRATE], including the sugar in milk and orange juice (and I'm about your size, and very sedentary). The fructose component of ordinary sugar (sucrose) helps to increase the metabolic rate. I think a person of average size should have at least 180 grams per day, maybe an average of about 250 grams.

Just because Ray is sedentary does that mean you should be sedentary? Is Ray your picture of ideal health? If he jumped off a bridge, would you? You have to think for yourself.

If you disagree with me you're disagreeing with physiology. The body is designed to move, not to be sedentary. Being sedentary induces atrophy and resulting stress in the same way social isolation induces stress.

You should distinguish between Peat's ideas and his practise of those same ideas. If you notice any picture of the man himself, you'll see a large spare tyre around his midsection which indicates less than ideal health.
Don't be rude nor insinuate I do not think for myself.

If RP has less than ideal health in your opinion, why are you here? To cause problems and argue with people?

I've observed an enormous amount of judgment of others and anger in your posts, particularly if someone disagrees with you. It's very difficult to have a meaningful discussion under such circumstances.

The first rule of the forum is "Be polite and respectful."
 
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4peatssake said:
cantstoppeating said:
4peatssake said:
cantstoppeating said:
4peatssake said:
A healthy sedentary life is possible too. It comes down to choice and making what you wish to do work for you while maintaining optimal energy levels.

One cannot lead a healthy life while being sedentary. One of Peat's central ideas is that function begets function. The body needs to be exercised, not doing so produces atrophy and other stressors.
I disagree.

FYI, RP describes himself as "very sedentary."

I have often had a gallon of orange juice in a day, with 100 grams of other sugar, and didn't see any problem, even while being sedentary.

That depends on your size, metabolic rate, and activity, and the other nutrients, but I sometimes have more than that [400 G OF CARBOHYDRATE], including the sugar in milk and orange juice (and I'm about your size, and very sedentary). The fructose component of ordinary sugar (sucrose) helps to increase the metabolic rate. I think a person of average size should have at least 180 grams per day, maybe an average of about 250 grams.

Just because Ray is sedentary does that mean you should be sedentary? Is Ray your picture of ideal health? If he jumped off a bridge, would you? You have to think for yourself.

If you disagree with me you're disagreeing with physiology. The body is designed to move, not to be sedentary. Being sedentary induces atrophy and resulting stress in the same way social isolation induces stress.

You should distinguish between Peat's ideas and his practise of those same ideas. If you notice any picture of the man himself, you'll see a large spare tyre around his midsection which indicates less than ideal health.
Don't be rude nor insinuate I do not think for myself.

If RP has less than ideal health in your opinion, why are you here? To cause problems and argue with people?

I've observed an enormous amount of judgment of others and anger in your posts, particularly if someone disagrees with you. It's very difficult to have a meaningful discussion under such circumstances.

The first rule of the forum is "Be polite and respectful."

Posting to just say "I disagree" without an explanation doesn't engender further discussion.

Again, I'm able to distinguish Peat from his ideas. Are you?
 

4peatssake

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cantstoppeating said:
Posting to just say "I disagree" without an explanation doesn't engender further discussion.
That's correct. It doesn't.

cantstoppeating said:
Again, I'm able to distinguish Peat from his ideas. Are you?
Knock off the judgment and insinuation. It's offensive and rude.
 
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I'm not plucking my responses out of thin air, or being rude for the sake of being rude, I'm replying to your comments:

4peatssake said:
If RP has less than ideal health in your opinion, why are you here? To cause problems and argue with people?

So one should only be on these forums if they believe Peat has ideal health?

How about separating what Peat says, which I largely agree with, with what he does which may not be in accordance with what he says. I'll leave this here since it's also getting off-topic.
 

4peatssake

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cantstoppeating said:
I'm not plucking my responses out of thin air, or being rude for the sake of being rude, I'm replying to your comments:

4peatssake said:
If RP has less than ideal health in your opinion, why are you here? To cause problems and argue with people?

So one should only be on these forums if they believe Peat has ideal health?

How about separating what Peat says, which I largely agree with, with what he does which may not be in accordance with what he says. I'll leave this here since it's also getting off-topic.
From my experience, he walks his talk. I perceive him as someone of tremendous integrity. He's been his own lab rat his entire life from what I've observed and studied.

I didn't say a person should only be here only if they believe he is in ideal health. I perceive, however, cognitive dissonance at the idea of him being unhealthy as it doesn't match my personal experience of him and his work. His energy levels just by the amount of fuel he burns are pretty outstanding. He's a tremendous example of someone who burns significant amounts of fuel while being sedentary.

I'd have a difficult time listening to someone who doesn't put into practice for the most part what they preach so to speak. It would be a misrepresentation of oneself.

I should also qualify that I'm not a proponent of being sedentary. But I can say I'd favor that over eccentric exercise.

I think movement is important but "exercise" is a modern invention that does more harm than good unless it serves a meaningful purpose and is not just some programmed activity.

Here's how Peat explains it. And what tara was speaking about earlier when she talked about how her arms were healed by her work as a mother.

Ray Peat said:
One of Pavlov's students, P.K. Anokhin, developed the concept of the Functional System in the 1930s, to explain the purposive behavior of animals. In the 1950s, Anokhin integrated the endocrinology of stress and adaptation into the concept, and F.Z. Meerson continued the work, concentrating on the metabolic and structural changes that protect the heart during stress. The simplest view of the conditional reflex involves the adaptation of an animal to an external signal, identifying it as the occasion for a particular action. Analyzing the Functional System starts with the need of the animal, for example for food, and examines the processes that are involved in satisfying that need, including nerve cells, a sense of hunger, knowledge of what things are edible, the muscles needed to get the food, and the digestive apparatus for assimilating it.

When an understanding of stress physiology is combined with the idea of functional systems, the adaptive meaning of the use or disuse of certain organs is given a concrete basis. Cortisol mobilizes amino acids from muscles that are idle, and makes them available for the synthesis of proteins in the muscles, nerves, or glands that are activated in adapting to the stress. The London taxi drivers whose hippocampus grows as they learn the locations of the streets are very good examples of the processes described by Meerson, Anokhin, and Lamarck, in which the use of an organ in meeting a need contributes to the development of that organ. The balance between growth and regression is shifted during adaptive behavior.

Exercise physiologists, without mentioning functional systems, have recently discovered some principles that extend the discoveries of Meerson and Anokhin. They found that "concentric" contraction, that is, causing the muscle to contract against resistance, improves the muscle's function, without injuring it. (Walking up a mountain causes concentric contractions to dominate in the leg muscles. Walking down the mountain injures the muscles, by stretching them, forcing them to elongate while bearing a load; they call that eccentric contraction.) Old people, who had extensively damaged mitochondrial DNA, were given a program of concentric exercise, and as their muscles adapted to the new activity, their mitochondrial DNA was found to have become normal.

There are probably the equivalents of constructive "concentric" activity and destructively stressful "eccentric" activity in the brain. For example, "rote learning" is analogous to eccentric muscle contraction, and learning by asking questions is "concentric." "No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings." Any activity that seems "programmed" probably stifles cellular energy and cellular intelligence.

When activity is meaningful, and is seen to be meeting a felt need, the catabolic and anabolic systems support and strengthen the components of the functional system that has been activated. Everything we do has an influence on the streaming renewal of the adaptive living substance.

There are many therapeutic techniques that could be improved by organized research, for example, investigating the interactions of increasing carbon dioxide, reducing atmospheric pressure, supplementing combinations of salt and other minerals, balancing amino acids and sugars, and varying light exposure and types of activity. The dramatic results that have occasionally been demonstrated (and then suppressed and forgotten) are just a hint of the possibilities.

If we keep our thoughts on the living substance, the pervasive ideologies lose their oppressive power.
 

tara

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cantstoppeating said:
You went down a rabbit hole that completely missed the point of my posts.

Well, I was having a bit of trouble following what key point you were trying to make, so I may have somewhat missed it, since you said a number of different things that I wanted to respond to. Got off on a bit of a tangent with you seeming to say that only activity designed to stimulate specific adaptive responses counts as exercise, and this kind of exercise is necessary for good health, disregarding as irrelevant most purposeful movement in most people's lives. You still seem to be disregarding this, and it still seems important and relevant to me. Some people get plenty of varied movement without ever doing what you call exercise, and that can often be enough to support good health.

cantstoppeating said:
It's about Peat dismissing forms of exercise because of their acute stress response. I argue that the forms of exercise he dismisses, which may have detrimental effects in the short term, actually produce long term net-positive effects.

One such example is HIIT, in which sprinting is one instance of it.

I think I did address the point you make here. My impression was that Peat would favour short intense bursts of activity, possibly including HIIT in the form of sprints or other preferably concentric-dominant exercise, in some situations, precisely because these stresses are acute and interspersed with recovery intervals, over chronic stress from extended periods of over-training, such as long distance running, etc. HIIT might provide a useful a framework for some people, but not for everyone - what is helpful depends a lot on what shape you are in.
Personally, my experinments with short uphill sprints a couple of years ago resulted in injured achilles tendons that have only recently and partially healed - they seemed to recover gradually during this last year of being sedentary. I understand that i made a mistake to do such intense exercise when I was not in condition for it.
 
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