Why are the general population resistant to getting fit?

[briansnail]

I

t's always been something that's puzzled me that so many people live with very poor levels of fitness and strength and seem to regard any small amount of exercise as being beyond them.

I am reading a new book by Tim Spector. The chapter is titled "On your bike".He is apparently a bigwig from London University.Usefully Dept of Nutrition.He says being people are urged in Gyms a mantra "Cycle more,Cycle faster".He says it is not productive coz:

Genetics:This will ultimately seal the fate (or doom of the over 40 cyclist,whatever one does.

Burn its NOT calories in/Out:70% will go normal maintenance of brain and other organs.20% will go to burn.However he crucially points out that 10% of this only is burnt by extra exercise.He is another Prof who has studied the Hazda tribe in Tanzania.They walk for ages and ages but burn as much as we do.A lot of time is sitting around for them.So their total burn matches ours.The reason we might? be slightly fatter is processed food.

Is there any hope YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!

Another economics magazine out this week in front of me points out.Top brand high quality bicycles are now chiefly made in China and finished in Taiwan.However exports mostly go to Europe.In China the population is going down.The kids are not cycling.They are playing with computers and smart phones.Cycling has strong competition.

More good news -it gets better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a boom in older RETIRED Chinese cycling .Entrepreneurial new tricycle makers in China report they just can't keep with demand.
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I ride Brompton,Hetchins 531

[Jon in Sweden]

"Want" is the crucial word.

You said she doesn't like cold. If she's also said that she'd like to be able to swim in the lake, I'm sure your advice would work. But if she's happier snuggled up under the duvet* with a mug of hot chocolate and the heating on full, then I'm not sure those words are painting an enticing picture of winter activities.

*Which I believe is a Swedish word!

I think we've hit the crux of the matter, and how it relates to the original topic of this discussion.

For me (and I'm odd, and I know that), if I see that I have a physical issue with something, I will try to fix it. So if I'm too weak, unfit, unflexible or whatever, I'll seek to find a way to address it.

If I had such chronic and life affecting issues with the cold that I avoided cold drinks, I would seek to find a way to address it so that it was no longer an issue for me. That would be my primary want.

[Jon in Sweden]

Burn its NOT calories in/Out:70% will go normal maintenance of brain and other organs.20% will go to burn.However he crucially points out that 10% of this only is burnt by extra exercise.He is another Prof who has studied the Hazda tribe in Tanzania.They walk for ages and ages but burn as much as we do.A lot of time is sitting around for them.So their total burn matches ours.The reason we might? be slightly fatter is processed food.

Is there any hope YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!

I generally like listening to Tim Spector but I strongly disagree with this, and any empirical observation of sports people would quickly deconstruct his arguement.

I do 15hrs of intense exercise a week, I would estimate. This is cycling and weight training.

I also do 30-40 hrs of what would be considered gentle/moderate movement/exercise through work, walking the kids to school, table tennis, hiking with the wife, skiing, ice skating, picking blueberries, chainsaw work etc etc.

For the last 6 months (as I've settled into a steady resistance training programme alongside my cycling), I have averaged 6500kcal a day. Some days it's 8000kcal and it never ever drops below 5000kcal.

In times gone by, I have had periods of inactivity (driving forestry machines, no structured exercise at all) and my metabolic rate drops. I will sustain my bodyweight (currently 102kg, but has been 107-110kg most frequently) at 3500kcal.

The daily cost of my exercise regime is about 3000kcal. This is simple to demonstrate and certainly not 10% of my caloric intake.

If I was to be generous to Tim Spector, I would say that for the general population going to the gym 3 times a week for an hour won't have much of an effect on calorie intake. But it's all proportional, and if you train more or are more physically active, you will need more food. Physiological efficiencies might get you so far, but if I relied on those, I'd have the build of Chris Froome.

[Jdsk]

That's basically the standard advice given to newbie wild swimmers in the UK who want to swim at colder times of year.

"Want" is the crucial word.

You said she doesn't like cold. If she's also said that she'd like to be able to swim in the lake, I'm sure your advice would work. But if she's happier snuggled up under the duvet* with a mug of hot chocolate and the heating on full, then I'm not sure those words are painting an enticing picture of winter activities.

*Which I believe is a Swedish word!

Duvet comes from a French word, but the modern British habit may well come from Sweden, via Terence Conran.

Jonathan

[Nearholmer]

Tog is definitely a Swedish word, but tog as in duvets isn’t, which throws another spanner in the bed.

[Jdsk]

Tog is definitely a Swedish word, but tog as in duvets isn’t, which throws another spanner in the bed.

Yes. Tog as in warmth rating comes from its previous meaning as clothing from Latin (including toga) via Old French.

Jonathan

[ed.lazda]

The calories in vs calories out issue is very interesting.

If you eat less than you burn, you will lose weight, and if you eat more you will gain weight. This bit is simple and fundamental, and remains true. You can't get around the physical laws of energy and thermodynamics. The fat person who says he eats nothing but still gains weight is, in effect, claiming to be a perpetual motion machine.

It gets complex when you factor in the body's responses. Thus, if your weight is static at a dietary intake of 2500 kcal / day, then reducing that intake by 500 kcal should, in the simple thermodynamic model, result in weight loss of somewhere around 2 kg / month. Add in 500 kjoules / day of exercise and this loss should double. But it won't necessarily work this way, because your body will respond in complicated and often unpredictable ways relating to burning and/or storage of energy and fuelling of work. Many people (myself included) who have a tendency to be overweight probably have a relatively efficient metabolism, but if you can somehow account for this in calories burned, and reduce your intake below this, you will lose weight.

[Psamathe]

Burn its NOT calories in/Out:70% will go normal maintenance of brain and other organs.20% will go to burn.However he crucially points out that 10% of this only is burnt by extra exercise.He is another Prof who has studied the Hazda tribe in Tanzania.They walk for ages and ages but burn as much as we do.A lot of time is sitting around for them.So their total burn matches ours.The reason we might? be slightly fatter is processed food.

Is there any hope YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!

Whilst I'd not dispute your Prof's findingsd it is also worth remembering how different groups of Homo sapiens have adapted to better handle their environment (inherited genetic adaptions) eg the Inca adapted to living at altitude having 30% larger lung capacity, about 2 L more blood volume and double the amount of haemoglobin. Tibetans adapt differently (inherited traits) eg whilst they have no more O2 in their blood than the rest of us, they have ten times more nitric oxide and double the forearm blood flow of low-altitude dwellers (nitric oxide dilated blood vessels). Assuming because we are all just human means we all have identical physiologies is unfounded.

Also did your Prof's findings show we are fatter because of processed food or is this you putting words in his/her mouth?

Ian

[Bmblbzzz]

Cold exposure is also very important in developing and maintaining brown fat reserves, which is vital for non-shivering thermogenesis.

The upshot is often quite comical insofar as I'll be happily working in a t-shirt at 13-14c and she'll have at least 5 layers.

I appreciate this is a bit of a side topic as far as the thread is concerned, but I'm wondering about this brown fat formation. I don't like cold. In fact I'm wearing 4 layers right now, just sat indoors (heating off). If I was doing physical work at 13 degrees, I expect I'd be in 2 layers, or maybe one and put another one when I'd finished. Of course it depends what the layers are (and the humidity, wind, nature of work, etc). But I grew up in a cold, almost unheated, house with drafty Victorian windows etc. Solid ice (not just frost) on the inside of bedroom windows in the morning was a not infrequent winter occurrence and sometimes it was solid ice. It doesn't seem to have really developed my brown fat!

[simonineaston]

I’d just like to add that I am super-lazy, have zero interest in exercise or sport, hate getting cold or wet and have never been to a gym (apart from once or twice in the early eighties when I think I had a vague unspecified ambition to gain a bit of weight and ended up spotting weights for one Stuart Goddard…)
And yet it simply wouldn't occur to me not to use my bike for all my local journies throughout my home city of Bristol. Interestingly, I do shifts at a food project across the other side of town and by coincidence, several of the folk who do likewise live close by. We all range in age, fitness and income, but I’m the only one who makes the journey by bike.

[Jon in Sweden]

I appreciate this is a bit of a side topic as far as the thread is concerned, but I'm wondering about this brown fat formation. I don't like cold. In fact I'm wearing 4 layers right now, just sat indoors (heating off). If I was doing physical work at 13 degrees, I expect I'd be in 2 layers, or maybe one and put another one when I'd finished. Of course it depends what the layers are (and the humidity, wind, nature of work, etc). But I grew up in a cold, almost unheated, house with drafty Victorian windows etc. Solid ice (not just frost) on the inside of bedroom windows in the morning was a not infrequent winter occurrence and sometimes it was solid ice. It doesn't seem to have really developed my brown fat!

It's certainly something that I need to read more about too. It's a fascinating subject for me personally, as all members of my family seem to experience cold differently. I am almost always warm, both in the way that I feel and to the touch. My older daughter complains about being cold, but is usually warm to the touch. My younger daughter doesn't notice the cold, wears less clothing and is usually cold to the touch. My wife is always cold, both in the way she feels and to the touch.

I think that there is a strong genetic component to it, as well as gender differences too. Amongst wild swimming groups, it's middle aged women of a higher BMI who seem most cold resistant.

I put my (limited) resilience down to a childhood of fishing at all times of year with insufficient clothing and also generally not taking food with me. I can tolerate short term extreme cold exposure very well, but cool down quite rapidly (I'm very tall and very lean). So for example, I was saunaing last night and between each bout, lay in the lake for 30-120 seconds in the hole we cut in the ice. I came out feeling wonderfully warm and envigourated, but if I wouldn't last anywhere near as long at those temperatures compared to many people I know. And that's with me doing it every week too and spending a lot more time outside than most people at this time of year.

I think tied to brown fat and non-shivering thermogenesis is base metabolic rate. From empirical observations, people who need to wrap up more when it's cold eat far less to maintain their bodyweight. Which is logical really. If you burn fewer calories creating heat then you don't need to eat so much.

[PH]

It's been touched on a couple of times in this thread but I don't think the mental aspect has been given enough consideration. When you're reasonably content with life it's easier to get motivated to put a bit more effort in for the added satisfaction. When getting yourself out of bed in the morning feels like a major achievement, and the day goes downhill from there, it's hardly surprising there's no motivation to do anything other than flop down with as much comfort food as you can cram in at the end of the day.
I've been both, unless you have someone to push you out of the door each day and will accept them doing so, I have no idea how you get from one to the other. But people suggesting you're lazy, or just need to put in a little bit of effort, really isn't helpful.

[Jdsk]

It's been touched on a couple of times in this thread but I don't think the mental aspect has been given enough consideration. When you're reasonably content with life it's easier to get motivated to put a bit more effort in for the added satisfaction. When getting yourself out of bed in the morning feels like a major achievement, and the day goes downhill from there, it's hardly surprising there's no motivation to do anything other than flop down with as much comfort food as you can cram in at the end of the day.
I've been both, unless you have someone to push you out of the door each day and will accept them doing so, I have no idea how you get from one to the other. But people suggesting you're lazy, or just need to put in a little bit of effort, really isn't helpful.

But this post is. Very well put.

And the whole thread would be a lot more helpful if it moved on to discussion of what's known and what isn't known about interventions that would improve the fitness and health of "the general population".

Jonathan

[al_yrpal]

Well, you could insist that all folk with phones install something like Google Fit monitoring steps and heart points given for effort and reporting to government quacks. But, thats a bit like 1984... Its got to be a carrot.
My diabetes nurse told me about a few of her patients with scary scores of 30, when healthy blood sugars were 4 or 5. These people stuffed their faces with donuts and fast food, morbidly obese and refused to do anything to help themselves despite the strong possibility of death. They were extreme cases, a drag on the NHS, but how to motivate them?

Al

[Bmblbzzz]

I am almost always warm, both in the way that I feel and to the touch. My older daughter complains about being cold, but is usually warm to the touch. My younger daughter doesn't notice the cold, wears less clothing and is usually cold to the touch. My wife is always cold, both in the way she feels and to the touch.

That's interesting. I've never been quite sure what the connection is between feeling cold/warm in yourself and to the touch. It would seem that, in your family at least, there is no connection!

I think tied to brown fat and non-shivering thermogenesis is base metabolic rate. From empirical observations, people who need to wrap up more when it's cold eat far less to maintain their bodyweight. Which is logical really. If you burn fewer calories creating heat then you don't need to eat so much.

I'm not sure about that. If you burn fewer calories maintaining bodyweight then you have more left over, from what you take in, for energy, whether that's movement or heat. But (and this brings us back closer to the main topic) I'm not at all sure that two people eating the exact same meal will get the same calories (and other nutrients) from it.