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| Member |
Anecdotal only, but the fat farmer I knew died of a heart attack when he was about 75 years old. A couple years before that, I stopped by the side of the road to help an elderly farmer obviously suffering heat exhaustion. A younger farmer, maybe 45 years old, died picking tomatoes, and he was slender as a reed. The lesson, for me anyway, is that if you don't train to a level well beyond your normal daily activity, then you're open to risks when you exceed normal activity, even slightly. Some good, all-around exercise seems the safe bet to me. If your job or lifestyle keeps you sedentary, or if you do a lot of lifting, try walking or biking to round it out. -------------------------- Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -- H L Mencken I always prefer reality when I can figure out what it is. -- JALLEN 10/18/18 | |||
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| Member |
I understand what you are saying, but wouldn't you be exposing yourself to the same risk pushing yourself during a vigorous exercise session as during an unplanned tire change? The tomato picker example must have either had an arterial plaque break loose or suffered an aneurism. Either way, it was an underlying weak spot in his system that would have manifested itself when certain limits were exceeded. BTW: The non-exercising colleague I referred to in the original post was not a full time farmer. The farm/woods work was a day or two per week prepping the land and trails for hunting. | |||
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| Staring back from the abyss  |
I just have this to say - I spent all day yesterday digging almost 200 feet of trenches through rocks and partially frozen packed gravel with a tamping bar and an entrenching tool. This morning I almost couldn't get out of bed. Gawd I'm getting old. Now where did I put that bottle of Aleve? ________________________________________________________ "Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton. | |||
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Nosce te ipsum |
I bet the older guy has a better diet.
Naproxen is my choice. 2x a day for three days when I really screw up my back. | |||
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| Member |
A "laborer" means "someone who thinks their job, doing "useful work" is just as healthful as a "structured exercise routine." I have been a laborer (construction/remodeling), and let me assure you, I had no control over what needed to be done each day, and I couldn't take days off if I had a minor injury or inflamed shoulder. As for "calories in, calories out", that only controls your weight. You can be fat, but in pretty good shape, or skinny, but fragile and sickly ( and vice versa, of course). Stress/recuperation cycles is the basis for all exercise physiology. If you are not controlling them, you may be leading a very happy and productive life, but as far as improving your health and fitness, you are "wasting time". Of course some people are lucky enough that their "useful work" job mimics a general total-body workout. I just can't think of exactly who that is right now.. "Crom is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, 'What is the riddle of steel?' If I don't know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me." | |||
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| Member |
Believe me, I am no expert on exercise, but it seems to me that one would build up gradually, beginning with simple and easy stuff. My girlfriend is in a physical therapy program for COPD-type problems, and shares the hospital's gym with cardiac patients. That's the way they do it, and if she misses a couple sessions, she drops back a couple levels. When I raced bicycles, if I couldn't train during the winters here in Northern Illinois, I'd start out at half the distance and less than half the speed I was doing the previous fall. Yes, your unplanned tire changing scenario could lead to severe consequences for an elderly, out-of-condition person. -------------------------- Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -- H L Mencken I always prefer reality when I can figure out what it is. -- JALLEN 10/18/18 | |||
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Nullus Anxietas |
I'd agree with that, except the "You can be fat, but..." part. Excess fat is increasingly linked to far too many ailments for me to consider that to be true.
Arguably worse than wasting time. You may be making yourself more unhealthy. Was talking to the manager of my fitness club, yesterday, about how I was now down the four days to hit my fat loss goal and win the Challenge. "You could come in tomorrow and hit the treadmill." Nope. I put in a very physically intensive week this week. Bumped HIIT on Monday; cleared snow in freezing-ass cold, with it blowing like snot on Tuesday; bumped weight training up fairly significantly on Wednesday; major snow-clearing again on Thursday; bumped weight training again both Friday and Yesterday. I need a day of recovery if I'm going to hit the ground running on Monday. It would do no good at this point for me to run myself to exhaustion. Bad for my health and bad for my immediate goal. I need recovery time to build.
Indeed. Whenever I've fallen off my schedule I always ramp back up gradually. I've found, the hard way, that's even more necessary now than it was 10-12 years ago. 10-12 years ago, trying to come back too hard, too fast would just net me exceedingly sore muscles. Now I injure myself. E.g.: I won't hit my maximum heart rate (whatever that now is) doing intervals for another three-to-four weeks, I expect. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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Member |
Three of the strongest people I ever fought with while policing were: Steelworker, the kind that crawls up and down those skyscrapers and handles actual steel and iron every day back in the day. Brick & Blocklayer, the one that stacks ten and twelve bricks in each arm as he walks up and down a plank to the scaffold, throws the bricks and blocks to the layer, etc, every day for a mighty long time. ...and a damn jack of all trade ferrier, blacksmith, pulpwooder, heavy mechanic who just got drunk and pissed off at a beer joint one night. These guys were gifted with natural strength, along with just plain out hard, heavy, strenuous work their whole life and just a little bit of liquor, a running around woman, and another smartass punk wanted to test their patience... You don't want to hurt these guys but there is just no other option other than a baton on the noggin. *************** "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." - Rudyard Kipling | |||
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The air above the din |
I have a fair number of manual laborers among my family and friends. None of them has/had the need or the time for a gym, and most were strong as the proverbial ox. I have a desk job; by way of comparison I am soft and sloth-like, even when "working out" and in "good shape." There will always be exceptions to the rule, and genetic predispositions, but generally, I'd think an occupation in physical labor would be as good, if not superior, to a gym rat for overall fitness. I think we're fat as a society because (1) we don't do manual labor anymore, and (2) we don't eat food anymore, but overly processed science projects. Just my $0.02. | |||
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| It's not you, it's me.  |
I've done both for long periods. Sure you can get a workout/break a sweat digging a hole or doing demo for a living. Both will make you tired. I'm a lifelong bodybuilder, triathlete, and part-time Crossfitter (when I get bored)...you can do all the labor you want, you'll never be fit as a person who's looking to get in shape ON PURPOSE. Sure, stonemasons and guys that work construction for a living might have a strong grip and have some strength in their hands and forearms, but most of them eat like shit and their bodies are just beat to hell. They're not fit. There's no substitute to gym style exercise and a healthy diet. There's just not. Physical work could be used as a supplement to gym workouts, but they're not the same. You might even say I'm more efficient at hard physical labor (which I love), BECAUSE I workout in the gym and have great cardio and muscular strength. If you're an athlete, you'll understand this difference. If you're not an athlete, you may not. | |||
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| Member |
You really need to reprase (and possibly rethink) this statement. Ond can be quite strong and fat but they are NOT Fit. A large belly is ALWAYS linked to excess fat surrounding the heart and that impedes heart function and longevity. To be blunt being fat means that you will not live to see 100 and most will have a heart attack before they reach 65. I'll also note that being fat is not due to a "slow metabolism" as many claim, it is due to the excess consumption of carbohydrates. As in too much bread, too much sugar, and too much of starchy foods. Basically what is killing the World with Obesity is too many candy bars, noodles, and too many french fries. BTW, I'm not carb perfect and am packing some abdominal fat but have lost over 50 lbs. in the past 2 years and have a current BMI of 22.5. Losing that last 15 lbs. or so to get rid of the belly would really suck big time because I'd have to give up a sandwich for lunch and the Klondyke bar after dinner as well as items like a bowl of cereal in the morning. However putting in about 8.5 miles a day walking, jogging, and working on an Elliptical plus weight lifting 2 days a week does allow me to keep my weight in check and my Aerobic fitness at present is rated as Very Good. Yeah I'm a bit of a gym rat now. Once you hit 60 you start losing muscle mass pretty rapidly unless you start working out. My plan is to build up as much as I can while I can so I can stay active for as long as I'm around. Here is a link that is worth reading for anyone wanting to lose weight and keep it off. It is also an excellent read for those facing type 2 diabetes or living with this condition. https://philmaffetone.com/2-week-test/ I've stopped counting. | |||
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| The Ice Cream Man |
Tell the "gym" fellow to go find a fat Amishman. | |||
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| Member |
I looked up the typical Amish diet. It said they prepare most foods from scratch, but it includes many of the "deadly" items like potatoes, corn, noodles, cereals, and baked goods, etc that are supposedly the root of all evil. | |||
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| Nosce te ipsum |
Back 'turn of the century, I worked my ass off several days a week in construction. And went to the gym to "even out" my body. Got down just under 10% body fat. No, all this was not for myself. I was back in college. A woman's design college with a night computer course open to men. All eight of us men had to endure the staring and small talk.  | |||
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| Member |
Have any of those women moved on to positions of power? If so, be sure you make your "metoo" claim. | |||
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| Member |
It isn't binary, "eat" or "don't eat". There also remain the issues of portions and proportions as well as activity levels. Yes, the foods you mentioned are crap with very little nutritional value (though anything home-grown will have more nutrients than mass produced and processed, even starches, grains). However, as 25% of a (reasonably sized) plate that is 75% meat and veggies eaten by a person 60% more active than an office worker...no issue. For the typical American, reverse all those numbers. Did you know the original food pyramid had the crap (grains) at the tip? Govt. in their benevolent wisdom felt that would make poor people feel bad because they can't afford a diet with veggies, fruit, and meat at the base...and bonus points for helping the massive grain lobby sell more product! So, they flipped it and thus the "official" "nutrition" guidelines weren't even an honest guide from the start. How many people have died due to this fraud? A fraud that is still perpetuated, didn't someone just say in the other thread that the USDA or FDA "guideline" is still to get 45-65% cals from carbs?  Excerpt by Luise Light who was a nutritionist at USDA and helped develop the pyramid:
http://www.todayifoundout.com/...vented-food-pyramid/ “People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.” –Chuck Palahnuik Be harder to kill: https://preparefit.ck.page | |||
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| Staring back from the abyss |
All this talk of the perfect foods, shit foods, the best diets, 9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, blah, blah, blah, just cracks me up. Granted, my family has some decent DNA, but I look at my grandfather as an example of how off their rocker the nutrition nazis really are. He was a meat and potatoes guy his whole life and died at 93, happy and content. Is he an exception? Not really. Good DNA helps, but as long as you eat a balanced diet of decent food, you'll live as long as you are supposed to. Spending time and energy analyzing your foods to the point of counting grams of carbohydrates is an idiotic waste of time. Eat whatever good food you like and stay active. That's the secret and there ain't much more to it. I had to take an undergrad nutrition course and the instructor was one of those nazis who was so out there that she swore up and down that if you consumed meats cooked over a flame you WERE going to die of cancer. Mind you, this crazy broad was a good forty pounds underweight and pale as a ghost. Great diet she was on.  That class started at 1300, so I made it a point to swing by Burger King and pick up a Whopper with cheese to eat during her lectures. ________________________________________________________ "Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton. | |||
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There is a world elsewhere |
I suppose it depends on your goals. If you are just trying to be at an ideal weight and in good shape, physical work is adequate. If you want to look like Michaelangelo's David, you probably need the gym. A well balanced breakfast being necessary to the start of a healthy day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed. | |||
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| The Ice Cream Man |
Eh, yes/no/maybe. 99% of what is pushed in "chrome and fern" land, is BS. Bodybuilders are notoriously weak. (They could do OK, if they changed over to a strength sport, as they had shed the lard, but they needed to be careful and spend time stabilizing joints/learning co-ordination.) Olympic lifters are the most powerful, strongmen might be the best all-around, for strength. Strongman training comes, pretty close, to "being a human forklift". Lots of work on various stabilizer muscles, with odd lifts, etc. An Olympic gymnast is probably ideal, if they didn't do the screwed up landings, which carry such a high risk of injury. A lot of this depends on mass. TMK, I don't know any long-lived SHWs. Even the fellows who do stay in training their whole lives, and aren't juicing, etc, just don't seem to make it too long. But I do know plenty of ancient ranchers/yoga types, etc. (Long-distance runners don't seem to age too well, either.) | |||
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| Member |
Good post. Pro or semi pro athletes aren’t perfectly healthy, they are going to be at an extreme of something. Very low body fat is not healthy either. I assume “SHW” means super heavy weight. A world class heavy weight class powerlifter will have the same health issues as a non-lifter of the same size in terms of heart disease etc. Once upon a time when I was in a special ops unit, I wasn’t that healthy...but I was fit and could perform. I was also chronically over-trained with too little recovery. Low grade cold all the time, aches and pains. Knowing what I know now, I’d eat better and find a way to get more sleep which would have really boosted my health and performance. “People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.” –Chuck Palahnuik Be harder to kill: https://preparefit.ck.page | |||
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