Which activities in life brings you the most fun?

[ourkid8]

13 hours ago, Castanza said:

 

What kind of mileage are you putting out in a week? I've been trying to shift my running focus to longer clips the past two months from 3-5 to 7-9. Most of my workouts are on trails though. 

last week I was at 61km/week and I am slowly ramping that up. In Oct before tapering I should have it up to ~90km / week. 
 

It’s still a large jump, take it slow while ramping up. If you are on strava, let me know and we can connect offline.  

Edited July 25, 2023 by ourkid8

[Castanza]

10 hours ago, ourkid8 said:

last week I was at 61km/week and I am slowly ramping that up. In Oct before tapering I should have it up to ~90km / week. 
 

It’s still a large jump, take it slow while ramping up. If you are on strava, let me know and we can connect offline.  

 

Very nice, that's some solid distance. I've been too lazy to setup a Strava account. Just using the base metrics on my Garmin for now. Typically only run 2-3 days a week as I primarily lift or do CrossFit. 

[Cod Liver Oil]

@spartansaver I love the ATG stuff and the focus on the ends of range of motion.  Lots of good stuff happens there. Lift, sprint, ATG, Attia zone 2 stuff, family soccer, lots of variety. Going to try rucking and training the 400. Bouldering is fun.  All that stuff gives some valuable perspective on our investing life. If investing requires stillness and sitting on hands, the skin bag needs regular airing.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Cod Liver Oil

[Gregmal]

[Ulti]

[dwy000]

2 minutes ago, Ulti said:

C'mon man, give some context.  Where is this?

[Ulti]

Ansel adams wilderness , part of the Sierra National…. We did a 7 day wilderness backpacking…. Lots of route changes … area is dynamic ( including Yosemite)

[Longnose]

Love backpacking

[nwoodman]

2 hours ago, Longnose said:

Love backpacking

 

 

Nice hang  

[nwoodman]

3 hours ago, Ulti said:

Ansel adams wilderness , part of the Sierra National…. We did a 7 day wilderness backpacking…. Lots of route changes … area is dynamic ( including Yosemite)

 

Stunning! Is this part of the John Muir Trail?  Doubt I will ever get time or permission to do one of the big triple crown hikes (AT, PCT, CDT), but the JMT is at the top of my hiking bucket list.

[ValueArb]

Tinder

[Ulti]

On 8/2/2023 at 10:15 PM, nwoodman said:

Stunning! Is this part of the John Muir Trail?  Doubt I will ever get time or permission to do one of the big triple crown hikes (AT, PCT, CDT), but the JMT is at the top of my hiking bucket list.

Not part of the JMT though it runs thru the Sierra’s and meets the pct

in Northern Yosemite above Tuolomne… Triple crown hikes are beyond my pay grade at this time , but doing a 10 ish day trip is definitely doable . And there are companies out there that can help you with your hike

or JMT segment 

Half Dome at Sunset

[james22]

Fun or not, some things seem a good investment.

 

Regular exercise, quitting smoking, drinking in moderation, watching your weight and eating plenty of fruit and veg are all simple things that make a huge difference to your biological age. There's a roughly 15-year difference in life expectancy between a person who does four of these five things and someone who does none of them.

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/your-body-can-be-younger-than-you-are-heres-how-thats-possible

[Cigarbutt]

10 hours ago, james22 said:

Fun or not, some things seem a good investment.

Regular exercise, quitting smoking, drinking in moderation, watching your weight and eating plenty of fruit and veg are all simple things that make a huge difference to your biological age. There's a roughly 15-year difference in life expectancy between a person who does four of these five things and someone who does none of them.

https://www.sciencealert.com/your-body-can-be-younger-than-you-are-heres-how-thats-possible

Yes, there is a lot of data that confirms this:

-Simple things can make large differences over longer periods, especially on a cumulative basis (similar to compounding of retained earnings)

-The return on basic lifestyle change investment very likely shows a diminishing return on incremental effort/focus and it's unclear if going into 'fancy' methods does any good, as an independent variable

An interesting aspect is that not only is lifespan lengthened by 10 to 15 years but this longevity gain likely correlates strongly with healthspan too.

 

Simplified graph supported by good data, peer-reviewed and reproduced in different contexts etc:

There is a 'natural' experiment going on now that also supports these conclusions. Cancer rates in younger cohorts are rising which is too bad because cancers occurring in younger people tend to be more aggressive. The rise in cancer rates is linked to many variables but adverse lifestyle changes very likely have been contributing to this unfortunate development.

So i guess there are at least some areas where being a contrarian is a good investment strategy but sometimes one has to be patient? The human brain is so much geared towards immediate satisfaction.

-----

Personal note: i played a softball game tonight and was the oldest person on the field (excluding umpires).

There is also a building amount of data showing that spending too much time in front of a screen is negatively correlated with healthspan  so let's call this mental gymnastics?

Edited August 21, 2023 by Cigarbutt
spelling and addition of stupid thoughts

[james22]

10 hours ago, Cigarbutt said:

Simplified graph supported by good data, peer-reviewed and reproduced in different contexts etc:

 

Are we really less healthy until 30-40?

 

Does that reflect infant mortality and the like? It shouldn't.

[Cigarbutt]

7 hours ago, james22 said:

 

Are we really less healthy until 30-40?

Does that reflect infant mortality and the like? It shouldn't.

The graph is derived from more solid data starting from age 40 and older. The slope of the graph line for those aged 40 and less is sometimes depicted as horizontal. For the younger age groups, the line is more conceptual than factual and depends on definition and the way data is collected (surveys, longer term follow-up etc). For example, if healthspan is defined as disease- and disability-free and if you include walking speed and the amount of weight one can carry for the ability component, one can reasonably conclude that the score would tend to increase during development (early years). Anyhow, i think it's a moot point.

-----

Anyways, the idea of this thread is to have fun and, if high levels of physical activity, strict diets and living like a monk are not your thing, it's been shown that increasing step counts in increments of 500 is associated with a significant reduction in cardiovascular mortality both in men and women, particularly in older age groups. To each, his/her own.

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Personal note. It's also been shown that moderate to high intensity exercise can be useful although the health benefit is less clear. Then it's a matter of personal taste. This AM, i went for a 214-minute intense activity and my wife just invited me to go play tennis which is likely to be intensely fun, although slightly less physically demanding.

[james22]

2 hours ago, Cigarbutt said:

Anyhow, i think it's a moot point.

 

Sure, just curious.

 

Certainly depicting the slope as horizontal until 40 is more intuitive and less distracting.

[Cigarbutt]

2 hours ago, james22 said:

Sure, just curious.

Certainly depicting the slope as horizontal until 40 is more intuitive and less distracting.

You are correct. Even if a peripheral issue, i apologize for the potentially misleading part of the graph (for the topic discussed) as i did not appropriately look at all aspects before putting the graph as a reference.

There was no conscious intent and, as explained, there are potential reasons for the part of the graph that can be found distracting and less intuitive. Many people studying this issue ((dis)ability component of health) have an interest in sports physiology and training. Typically when looking at performance, you get something like this (here is long jump but you get a similar phenomenon in all athletic sports, especially those with a large aerobic component ie long distance running):

As you can see, the shape of the curve is similar to the one i had included in the initial response. This additional info does not negate the fact that you pointed out correctly that there was an inadequate part in the info i provided.

PS One of the things in life that brings me the most fun is to be proven wrong, thank you.

[james22]

Ha. When I think healthy, I think the ability to recover from a hangover.

 

 

[Cigarbutt]

22 hours ago, james22 said:

Ha. When I think healthy, I think the ability to recover from a hangover.

i sense that you want to conclude this sub-discussion in a decent way but your last comment underlines that fun activities are a form of compromise.

You may find interesting that there is data that help to quantify the "price" paid for fun.

There is that recent Veteran study that suggests (along the line of basic lifestyle changes that you mentioned earlier) that combining 8 lifestyle changes at age 40 could result (likely overestimated to some degree because of study methods) in a close to 25-year increase in lifespan (also healthspan to a large degree).

So this kind of data can be used to estimate the 'price' of periodic hangovers. For example, using the following graph, the third line from the bottom (in purple) corresponds to the potential incremental gain in years (lifespan) if periodic binge drinking does not occur. Of course, hangovers can occur with 'reasonable' drinking (quantity and frequency) so that the number of years lost from periodic moderate hangovers after 40 is about 1-3 and, after 60 about 1-2 and maybe the pleasure of occasional alcohol relative over-consumption is worth it?

[james22]

41 minutes ago, Cigarbutt said:

i sense that you want to conclude this sub-discussion in a decent way but your last comment underlines that fun activities are a form of compromise.

You may find interesting that there is data that help to quantify the "price" paid for fun.

 

The eight habits are: being physically active, being free from opioid addiction, not smoking, managing stress, having a good diet, not regularly binge drinking, having good sleep hygiene, and having positive social relationships. . . .

 

Overall, the results showed that low physical activity, opioid use, and smoking had the biggest impact on lifespan; these factors were associated with around a 30-45% higher risk of death during the study period. Stress, binge drinking, poor diet, and poor sleep hygiene were each associated with around a 20% increase in the risk of death, and a lack of positive social relationships was associated with a 5% increased risk of death.

 

https://nutrition.org/these-eight-habits-could-lengthen-your-life-by-decades/

 

Actually kind of encouraging.

 

Stress, poor sleep hygiene, and a lack of positive social relationships aren't fun, opioid use and smoking might be, but not once addictive, and low physical activity isn't any more fun than being physically active. Needn't make any compromise when addressing them.

 

Binge drinking and a poor diet are the only things that really have a fun cost.

[formthirteen]

On 8/23/2023 at 4:35 AM, james22 said:

being free from opioid addiction

  

On 8/23/2023 at 3:37 AM, Cigarbutt said:

quantify the "price" paid for fun

 

In this day and age, who still needs life-expectancy studies, especially when Trainspotting was released back in 1996? Does history repeat itself?

Edited August 26, 2023 by formthirteen

[Cigarbutt]

On 8/26/2023 at 5:55 AM, formthirteen said:

  

 

In this day and age, who still needs life-expectancy studies, especially when Trainspotting was released back in 1996? Does history repeat itself?

What a disturbing movie which shows extremes of pleasure as well as extremes of hardship (maybe not a totally balanced view with even some tendency to glorify drug use?). The toilet scene/metaphor is...interesting, even enough to have an olfactory hallucination with nausea just from watching...

Anyways, it's not clear what you mean by history repeating itself (heroin overdoses as an essential cause of death has come down lately with deaths for 'synthetic' opioids, especially fentanyl showing a rising trend with no signs of slowing down). US data:

-----

Anyways, lately, it's been possible to come up with synthetic alternatives that are highly potent (both ups and downs) and that seem to connect very strongly with pleasure/fun brain centers which derive from a long evolutionary process (to survive, reproduce etc) which did not 'forecast' such an option in nature. i guess 'we' will eventually adapt.

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Anyways most people posting in this thread seem to go for more measured forms of fun.

 

 

[formthirteen]

On 8/28/2023 at 11:57 PM, Cigarbutt said:

Anyways, it's not clear what you mean by history repeating itself

 

I meant: why do smart people perform studies that don't need to be repeated. “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.”. You are what you eat, do, think, believe, etc.

 

I have chosen to do sports for fun, not drugs. Drugs are a form of escape for people who can't or won't choose life without drugs. It's difficult to avoid alcohol though. Technically alcohol is a depressant of the Central Nervous System (CNS). Sorry, now I'm rambling. Time to do something fun... Choices.

Edited August 30, 2023 by formthirteen