How much exercise is too much?

Gerry Seymour

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Or a really complicated way of saying harden up.
Very cool. He overstates his own conclusion a couple of times, but mostly to make his point clearly. It fits what most of us know intuitively: we can go harder than we think, for longer than we think, through more discomfort than we think. Most runners are familiar with this; it's where the term "runner's high" comes from. We run through an early attempt by the brain to make us stop, and things start feeling easy again.

Now the trick is to figure out how to train the brain to stop trying to stop us so early.
 

hoshin1600

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Nice,
the information i have heard now is, it is the sugar that causes us so many problems. so i have heard, the sugar industry paid to finger point health issues at saturated fats and such.

 

Gerry Seymour

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Nice,
the information i have heard now is, it is the sugar that causes us so many problems. so i have heard, the sugar industry paid to finger point health issues at saturated fats and such.

The non-sugar (artificial sweeteners) are part of the problem too. They mess with the body's insulin response, because the body doesn't know when to expect actual sugar.
 

Buka

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That pretty much affirms everything I've learned over my career. Not that I needed any affirmation.

As for sugar, had the book Sugar Blues on the dojo bookshelf back in the seventies. Part of which states, "Heroin is nothing but a chemical. They take the juice of the poppy and they refine it into opium and then they refine it to morphine and finally to heroin. Sugar is nothing but a chemical. They take the juice of the cane or the beet and then refine it to molasses and then they refine it to brown sugar and finally to strange white crystals".

Been battling against sugar all my life. It has always been my heroin. Still is.
 

JR 137

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The non-sugar (artificial sweeteners) are part of the problem too. They mess with the body's insulin response, because the body doesn't know when to expect actual sugar.
And other things. They also reportedly mess with the hormones ghrelin and leptin. Those hormones control hunger and satiety, among other things.
 

Gerry Seymour

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And other things. They also reportedly mess with the hormones ghrelin and leptin. Those hormones control hunger and satiety, among other things.
I'd forgotten that (only barely knew it, really). Everything new that's found about the effect of artificial sweeteners suggests no drink containing them should ever be called "diet".
 

dvcochran

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Nice,
the information i have heard now is, it is the sugar that causes us so many problems. so i have heard, the sugar industry paid to finger point health issues at saturated fats and such.

Your mind controlling your own mind. I love that.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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After your exercise, if you

- don't feel like to exercise any more, you have exercised too much.
- feel like to exercise some more, but you force yourself not to, and you look forward to your next day exercise, you have exercised the right amount.

It's not how much that you can exercise today that's important. It's whether you will still keep up your exercise when you are 80 years old that's important.

You exercise because you enjoy of doing it, not because you force yourself to do it.
 

Gerry Seymour

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After your exercise, if you

- don't feel like to exercise any more, you have exercised too much.
- feel like to exercise some more, but you force yourself not to, and you look forward to your next day exercise, you have exercised the right amount.

It's not how much that you can exercise today that's important. It's whether you will still keep up your exercise when you are 80 years old that's important.

You exercise because you enjoy of doing it, not because you force yourself to do it.
I like the philosophy of that, but there are times I need to exercise, but don't want to. I mostly use exercises I enjoy, but sometimes the things I need to work on, I don't have an enjoyable exercise for them. I exercise in spite of those things, because I want to be able to be active and exercise when I'm 80.
 

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Interesting video. On the subject of hyponatremia, it is something we were dealing with ten years ago in the Army, trying to get leaders to stop pushing hydration through water. At one point, soldiers would receive negative counseling statements for dehydration if it caused them to have issues, especially if they were sent to the Battalion Aid Station. There were a few leaders that were so bad about it that we would put "electrolyte imbalance," on our paperwork, because we couldn't convince the leaders they were the problem. One of our Physician's Assistants came up with a cocktail of Gatorade and powdered electrolyte salts that seemed to get soldiers to feeling better, if they could choke it down.

On another note, just after the 5:30 mark, he shows a graph reputedly showing the number of reported cases of Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia. It starts taking a spike after about 1985 and climbs steadily after. Now, I'm one to always take graphs with a grain of salt (no pun intended). There is some truth to the quip that there are "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics." When I looked at the graph, the first thing that struck me was to wonder whether it accounts for increases in endurance events such as marathoning, triathlons, and more that have continued to increase in popularity over time, or the fact that many of those participating are no longer the ultra-fit types who would even try a marathon decades ago, as it came to be seen as achievable by the average person. Remember, correlation does not imply causation.
 

dvcochran

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Interesting video. On the subject of hyponatremia, it is something we were dealing with ten years ago in the Army, trying to get leaders to stop pushing hydration through water. At one point, soldiers would receive negative counseling statements for dehydration if it caused them to have issues, especially if they were sent to the Battalion Aid Station. There were a few leaders that were so bad about it that we would put "electrolyte imbalance," on our paperwork, because we couldn't convince the leaders they were the problem. One of our Physician's Assistants came up with a cocktail of Gatorade and powdered electrolyte salts that seemed to get soldiers to feeling better, if they could choke it down.

On another note, just after the 5:30 mark, he shows a graph reputedly showing the number of reported cases of Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia. It starts taking a spike after about 1985 and climbs steadily after. Now, I'm one to always take graphs with a grain of salt (no pun intended). There is some truth to the quip that there are "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics." When I looked at the graph, the first thing that struck me was to wonder whether it accounts for increases in endurance events such as marathoning, triathlons, and more that have continued to increase in popularity over time, or the fact that many of those participating are no longer the ultra-fit types who would even try a marathon decades ago, as it came to be seen as achievable by the average person. Remember, correlation does not imply causation.
Absolutely Love the quote. Perfectly true.
 

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