What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

I reversed diabetes with diet alone by doing my own research[1], taking charge of my health. I lost 180lbs in the process. No exercise (disabled). Very much a work in progress.<p>I&#x27;m not rejecting the importance of exercise for health - I follow the general principal of eating to get healthy, exercising to get fit - but I think we skip over the absolute tragedy that is the Standard American Diet at our peril.<p>Recovering from the consuequences of three&#x2F;four generations of preaching the lipid hypothesis[2], as fast as we damn well can, is the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thefatemperor.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2015&#x2F;9&#x2F;5&#x2F;fat-emperor-productions-present-the-kraft-interview-decoding-diabetes" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thefatemperor.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2015&#x2F;9&#x2F;5&#x2F;fat-emperor-produ...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lipid_hypothesis" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lipid_hypothesis</a>

I think it&#x27;s amazing the way we&#x27;ve completely sidelined physical activity - not exercise per se, but any physical activity - in our western lives. Unless you live without a car, there is no requirement for you to walk more than 1000 steps during the day. Wake up, drive to work, sit at your desk, drive to a restaurant for dinner, drive home, plop down on your couch. Rinse, repeat.<p>Even if you do decide to work out, it tends to be the first thing you drop when you don&#x27;t have time. Or you worked late. Or you forget your gym clothes. Or you&#x27;re just too exhausted to go.<p>We used to be active, our jobs required motion, we had to walk or cycle to work, or even take public transportation - which requires you to at least walk to the stop and back.<p>Now we literally sit on our asses, day in, day out, and wonder why so many people are obese.

Just to avoid confusion, not <i>all</i> clinical depression is <i>fully</i> treatable by exercise; I&#x27;ve known several people who were severely depressed while also being non-car-owning regular cyclists.<p>Sometimes antidepressants are required. Sometimes therapy is required. Please avoid turning this into &quot;why don&#x27;t you just exercise&quot;.

Just in case you need to read this again, exercise changed my life. It simply get rid of the fatigue. Dont take drugs to stay awake, go run half an hour (it really doesn&#x27;t take more than that to feel tremendous effects).

Went from 320 pounds to 260. Back problems basically go away unless I have been sitting a really long time. After I go to the gym I feel great no matter what day I have had. Since I haven&#x27;t died I will just rely on the stats in the article.

I agree with the article but put it differently.<p>To say exercise lowers depression, disease, and death normalizes inactivity.<p>You can define normal how you want, but I prefer to think of exercise as normal and that lack of it contributes to depression, disease, and death.

Ah yes, let me just conjure up some motivation to get rid of my lack of motivation.

There is a simpler explaination to this: If you spend a few hours doing some exercise (changing cloth, showering, going to the sport area) you are not sitting alone, as usual in front of a display or in your couche. It distracts your mind from your negative thoughts. Also beeing able to walk normally and without pain, going up stairs etc. is a good and normal feeling. When you get older and those basic things stop working, that really sucks. Or being overweight when &#x27;normal&#x27; things become tedious.

I&#x27;m a great fan of my daily walk. So not saying this is necessarily wrong.<p>But there&#x27;s no theory! e.g. mental health isn&#x27;t understood, so whether exercise is of lasting benefit in that department is unclear. Consider that people pay good money to <i>sit</i> for a week or more to try to elevate their well-being. Consider that athletes have their fair share of mental health issues, and that even top athletes live less than 3 years longer than average. (Which seems like a small difference.)<p>Consider that people who move about constantly will eventually drop dead of heart failure:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dancing_Plague_of_1518" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dancing_Plague_of_1518</a><p>Examples such as this are perhaps misleading edge cases. But theory would give some insight into <i>why</i> they are misleading. At present we are blind.

For those still unconvinced, I&#x27;ll add another anecdote to this thread.<p>Morning exercise completely cured my intractable insomnia.

It&#x27;s great to have a dog that will be walked every day on every weather. Ok if you have a cold it&#x27;s not such a great thing but as a desk worker you must go out and walk at least one hour per day around.

I&#x27;ve moved from an apartment to a house, which means I have two staircases I traverse daily, a small lawn to mow, and a few other things like that.<p>It&#x27;s amazing to me what even a slight bit of regular activity can do. It just feels good to be even a little active on a regular basis. I feel so much more ready to move.

Exercise does nothing to lighten my mood. I hate exercise in virtually all forms. Never experienced the &quot;runner&#x27;s high&quot; or any kind of apparent dopamine production (not saying it didn&#x27;t happen, just that I don&#x27;t ever feel better with exercise).

This is a UK article, and I&#x27;m going to post a UK-centric, male-centric comment (as a UK-based man), but I suspect my comment applies to both genders, and to many health systems around the world.<p>I don&#x27;t doubt exercise is extremely valuable, and that everyone should be following the advice in TFA. However, I am starting to think that lifestyle recommendations are a way for a public health system to wash its hands of its responsibility to actually, proactively care for people. As in: “Well, we&#x27;re sure you can make changes on your own to improve your health, so just go and do your bit while we quietly neglect to do ours&quot;.<p>Yes, you should exercise, and eat right, and not drink too much, and sleep right, and not stress too much. You should do as much as you reasonably can in all these areas. But if you&#x27;re looking to &quot;defy depression, disease and early death&quot;, you&#x27;d also better learn a bit about the way your health system operates, and the common issues it is inclined (presumably for cost reasons) to ignore.<p>I&#x27;ve written in past comments about thyroid conditions, which are a big deal, and can easily go undiagnosed for a long time (due, basically, to cost-driven neglect). I&#x27;m becoming aware of more issues:<p>1) Testosterone: I’m a middle-aged man and I’ve been complaining to my GP for months about feeling weak while exercising, and about sleep disruption. I’ve been doing my own reading, and have just discovered that hypogonadism (inadequate testosterone levels) is incredibly common amongst middle-aged men:<p>“Hypogonadism affects ap­proximately 40% of men aged 45 or older, although less than 5% of these men are actually diagnosed and treated for the condition” [1]. Even discounting the fact that the author of this article declares that he consults for pharma companies, that’s a staggering statistic. So why given my symptoms do I have to ask my GP to check my testosterone levels, rather than him having ordered the test months ago?<p>2) Prolactin: it seems a very significant fraction of the population (e.g. 6-25% of the U. S. population) have pituitary tumours, forty percent of which produce prolactin [2], which is a sex hormone. There’s evidence that people whose prolactin levels are in the upper normal of the physiological reference range, suffer from insulin resistance [3] and have significantly increased risk of mortality [4]. Oh, and prolactin stimulates the immune system and high levels are associated with autoimmune diseases [5]. I had a test done for prolactin levels recently (I requested some tests to check for hypopituitarism), and levels came back quite high but in the normal physiological range (see above, of course). GP response: “no problem, levels are normal”. Which is true, in that I appear to be suffering from quite normal disease that the health system intends to do nothing about.<p>Bottom line: Do your homework, folks. View your health service as a resource, a gateway to services. When it comes to chronic conditions and diseases of old age, you (or nobody) are the principal investigator.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bcmj.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;testosterone-deficiency-practical-guidelines-diagnosis-and-treatment" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bcmj.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;testosterone-deficiency-practic...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Prolactinoma#Epidemiology" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Prolactinoma#Epidemiology</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;28384295" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;28384295</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;22843444" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;22843444</a><p>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;16411065" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;16411065</a>

Exposure to weather conditions, hot and cold is also critical.

Improv.

These articles are such exquisite forms of class warfare that it approaches the sublime.<p>1. Upper class people seek to differentiate themselves from lower class people by status markers (like reading the guardian)<p>2. In the past, food was scarce, so upper class people were fat when lower class were lean, hence terms like &quot;rubinesque beauty&quot; or the figures of Botticelli&#x27;s art.<p>3. Now food is common though, so the status marker is to be thin, because being thin shows you have leisure time to exercise, (you try being on your feet for 12 hours a day and then going to the gym), have money to eat the right kinds of food, and have the good form to have discipline not to eat when you need comfort (or in general need comfort).<p>4. but it&#x27;s not enough to do it, the upper class needs their virtues reinforced.<p>5. Since the upper class is atheistic due to the lower class being religious (unless they are the right kind of religion, something either punishing to follow or neo-atheistic as it is), we must focus on the atheist&#x27;s heaven, good health.<p>6. Your virtue in being thin is rewarded through lack of depression, disease, and long life! Your priestly newspaper has given you a scientific sermon.<p>Think about this. Why is this article in the Guardian, who I&#x27;m willing to bet already exercise, eat well, etc? Wouldn&#x27;t it be in the Daily Mail instead, if the point was to convince people to exercise? That&#x27;s because it&#x27;s there to reinforce the idea of exercise and thinness as a status marker among the Guardian readership. The same thing happens in lower class media too, on different subjects, but the upper class usually never even gets how they are being led around.