Hate to Exercise?

                                         
If you hate to exercise, that’s completely cool and understandable, lots of people do.

Even if exercise has health benefits, that doesn’t mean that anyone is required to do it, or that exercising creates some sort of health guarantee wherein you are immortal unless you get hit by a bus.

Besides, there are lots of things that are shown to improve our odds for health and we can choose some of them if we want, but aren’t all obligated to do any of them.

When we insist that people “owe” society healthy habits it very quickly becomes a slippery slope. If we “owe” society exercise do we also "owe" it 8 hours of sleep a night? A vegan diet? A paleo diet? To quit drinking? To not go skiing or play soccer or anything else that could get us hurt?

Who gets to make these mandates?
I recommend that people not try to tell others how to live  unless those others are super excited about haaving someone else telling them how to live.

We are constantly lied to.

• We are told that exercise will lead to weight loss when the research suggests no such thing.
  
• Lied to that exercise won’t make us healthier unless it makes us thinner.
  
• Lied to that we have to do hours of specific things in order to get benefit from it.

Those things aren’t true.

The research simply shows that:

• about 30 minutes of moderate activity about 5 days a week can have many health benefits for many people, and
• that people experience health benefits with less movement than that as well.

That doesn’t mean that we owe anybody exercise, and, again, it doesn’t give any guarantees when it comes to health.

The post above consists of excerpts from a recent article by Regan Chastain, author of the book:

Fat: The Owners Manuel – Navigating a Thin-Obsessed World with Your Health, Happiness and Sense of Humor Intact.