So you put "Don't eat delicious things" higher up the chain that he does.
And then you still burn a huge chunk of free time accomplishing no tangible thing in exchange for a dubious assurance of a fractionally longer life.
I used to be in much better shape than I am now, but my life was miserable. Exercise did not make me feel better, coming to terms with my life and my environment and having some control over my situation made me feel better. My opinion has been that the "workout high" is more about having control over yourself and your situation than any real lasting benefit.
Anecdote: I've been running 40-50 miles a week, tried various diets, but I still was chunky. Last two months I run 5-10 miles a week, eat sugars and crap but I record everything and eat around 1200-1500 calories a day. I've lost a crapload of weight.
Yeah, I'm also a 6'3'' and I was 220 in March so I'm probably grossly undereating but after a week of hunger and headrushes you get used to burning fat (I also drink coffee) for energy and feel great while losing weight.
Well done! At 6'6", I've lost 25 lbs in 3 months (from 252 to 227) strictly from keeping my calories between 1200 and 1700 per day. This includes a high intake of alcohol and otherwise I eat the same crap I always have - just far less of it. Although, now that I'm beginning to plateau, I guess I'll have to start going outside to play a little more often to get rid of the next 20 lbs.
You can eat delicious things. Just eat less of the same thing.
The only reason you'd have to give up certain delicious things is if you were a strict vegetarian -- eating a low-calorie vegetarian diet and getting enough protein isn't rocket science, but it doesn't leave any room for splurging on empty calories.
You already said you enjoy outdoor activities. Isn't that exercise? If you limit the definition of exercise to joyless and repetitive activities with no intrinsic interest, then I have to agree with you that exercise is not worth it.
"You already said you enjoy outdoor activities. Isn't that exercise? If you limit the definition of exercise to joyless and repetitive activities with no intrinsic interest, then I have to agree with you that exercise is not worth it."
I agree with this statement, but I'm responding to the article's specific brand of exercise, not exercise in general. Personally, I am on a slow downward trend in weight because I'm making an effort to do things I like and pick and choose my foods more carefully.
I am just tired of people like the poster, who literally play both sides of the fence in one article ("I demand credit for the effort I make to make my body look this way" vs. "I am not a health freak.") I also find it funny how inevitable the course of those posts are. It would have a been a good article if he hadn't made the transition from descriptive to prescriptive, but he did and here we are asking, "Why on earth would I inflict LL Cool J on my ears in 2009?"
I am just tired of people like the poster, who literally play both sides of the fence in one article ("I demand credit for the effort I make to make my body look this way" vs. "I am not a health freak.")
I sympathize with the poster. I'm tired of people treating me like a freak just because I care about my weight and have actually accomplished something in that direction. I used to be a mess (5'9" and over 200 lbs, on a relatively small frame) and now I'm much better -- still overweight, but in better shape than some of my friends. That creates some resentment for people around me who are self-conscious about their weight. I'm expected to completely avoid talking about my efforts to get in better shape. It's not a matter of demanding credit; they simply don't want to hear that I have to work at it! When I have a beer with them and they ask me how I'm feeling, they don't want to hear that I had a good run this morning, or that I feel bad because I had a bad run. Okay, fine, I get it, I won't mention it.
But what can you really do? You can't do a Jedi mind trick when you wheel your bike into work. "This isn't a bike. This is just something I found in the parking lot, after I parked my car." What do you say when somebody asks what you were doing when they left you a voice mail earlier? "Uh... stuff. Yeah, I was doing stuff." When somebody asks you why you didn't eat all the fries that came with your burger, are you supposed to lie and say you didn't like them? There's no way to completely hide the fact that yes, you are trying to do something a little different.
Plus, the same people who get annoyed when I talk about my struggles with my weight feel free to talk about their own. They want to talk about their efforts at diet and exercise as if it's normal, but we have to pretend that mine are beyond reasonable. Never mind that the only difference between us is that I'm twenty pounds overweight and they're fifty pounds overweight. I'm supposed to remember that if my lifestyle were normal, then that would reflect poorly on them, so we have to pretend that their lifestyle is just one or two small tweaks away from being totally healthy, and my lifestyle is the product of an eccentric, overenthusiastic, probably unhealthy interest in fitness. What? I'm still freakin' twenty pounds overweight!
I'm not trying to be a freak. I'm just trying to be NORMAL, trying to live a lifestyle within the bounds my body is engineered to tolerate. I'm just trying not to eat so much food that it harms me. I'm trying not to live a lifestyle so sedentary that my body doesn't know how to cope with it. That's all.
I've never in my entire life saw someone get looked down on for exercising or riding a bike to work. Are you sure it's not your imagination? Do you happen to say it in a tone that may suggest a "I'm better than you" sort of attitude? If not it might be time to cash in those friends for normal people because that's a very strange and destructive attitude for them to have and, in my experience, quite uncommon.
I don't even say it, usually, and when I do say it, I'm sure my tone reflects the fact that I'm eternally dissatisfied with my efforts. You can't win. If you're satisfied with yourself, you're obnoxious, and if you're dissatisfied with yourself, you're implicitly criticizing anyone who does less.
I've found that I generally just don't enjoy physical activity. It just isn't pleasant much of the time, particularly on days where I'm already tired. The only way that I manage to get a good amount of exercise is by biking to work. I can sort of trick my schedule by overlapping with commuting time. If I had to drive to work and the gym I just wouldn't go to the latter.
I now bike about 50 miles per week and my appetite is enormous. I start getting hungry about 3 hours after eating, and if I have lunch at 12:30 I can actively seeking food around 5:00, walking to other buildings just to get a handful of chips, i.e. I don't eat just because it's there. I'm also pretty tired in the evenings after the ride sometimes. I sometimes wonder if it's worth it.
Don't give up, keep exploring possibilities. Would holding a cute person in your arms make physical activity fun? Try dancing. Does nature or landscape photography excite you? Go hiking. Like shooting things? Play paintball. Want some self defense skills? Take up martial arts. Like flowers? Take up gardening. Use your imagination to combine interests and activities.
Vigorous biking burns a ton of calories, and if you avoid junk food it can really be a chore to eat enough, in my experience. This spring I was riding about 100 miles a week, and I had to eat about 3300 calories a day to maintain my weight. Most days I ate 3 or 4 breakfasts before I started to feel fully awake and alert for the day.
And then you still burn a huge chunk of free time accomplishing no tangible thing in exchange for a dubious assurance of a fractionally longer life.
I used to be in much better shape than I am now, but my life was miserable. Exercise did not make me feel better, coming to terms with my life and my environment and having some control over my situation made me feel better. My opinion has been that the "workout high" is more about having control over yourself and your situation than any real lasting benefit.