walking

Question of the Day: Fitness Pursuits and Longevity

March 11, 2019 By Older Bolder Mark

I was at an event yesterday in the DFW metro where the question came up as to “what’s the very best fitness activity to promote longevity?”

Anytime someone throws out opinions about the very best anything related to individual health, physiology, and wellness, the little man holding the red flags in my head jumps up and starts waving like mad. Why? Because the very best anything (food, nutrition plan, exercise, etc) for a given individual depends of course on their specific health, wellness, fitness, metabolism and physiology, and even their beliefs and biases at the time.

That said, I shared a two-part answer to the question…

Physical Activity and Longevity in the Copenhagen City Heart Study

It just so happens that this week I came across this study in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings detailing the associations between various leisure-time physical activity pursuits and varying life expectancies in the study group.

The Copenhagen City study was a fairly robust one, following almost 9000 participants longitudinally over a span of up to 25 years for all-cause mortality.

The study was of course an observational one, meaning causality can’t be established, though in the analysis participants playing tennis gained 9.7 years of life expectancy compared to the sedentary group. Badminton aficionados gained 6.2 years, soccer players 4.7, cyclists 3.7, swimmers 3.4, with those pursuing “health club activities) following along at 1.5 years of life expectancy extension compared to sedentary folks.

The full study is behind a paywall and inaccessible for quick review; there are of course a number of questions raised by the conclusions drawn (diets, comorbidities, etc), including the authors’ inference that leisure-time sports with greater social interaction appear to be associated with greater longevity.

So should we all pick up tennis and badminton racquets after 40? Perhaps, though I’d argue there’s one fitness pursuit almost anyone can pursue at some level, and that probably offers the easiest to access longevity benefit for most of us…

Lace Up Those Walking Shoes

Count me among those prone to argue that walking, simple walking, something that most of us can readily incorporate into even a busy daily routine, may very well be “the best” fitness activity to promote longevity.

Back in July I looked at the debate of health benefits accrued from Walking vs. Jogging, and referenced a number of studies looking at health benefits from walking.

For example, even modest walking, done consistently, has been shown to invoke risk reductions for hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and hypercholesterolemia. Men in the 65-74 band experienced a reduction in all-cause mortality, increasing the more they walked. Even moderate walking was effective at improving glucose tolerance in a group at risk for T2DM. There are more links out to supporting data in the July post above, including several looking at injury rates in runners vs. walkers.

Bottom line, hacking longevity is a hot topic these days, and a fun one to ponder (now and then anyway). That said, unless one is willing to pick off the low-hanging fruit here – optimizing your diet, getting good sleep, managing stress, developing solid baseline fitness at least – jousting over the very best fitness pursuits via which to live long and prosper is probably barking up the wrong tree.

See you on the walking trail tomorrow…

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Older Bolder Links, Reads, and More 26 January 2019

January 26, 2019 By Older Bolder Mark

Keto and Nutritional Ketosis in the News This Week

Men’s Health Asks the Question: Can You Build Muscle on Keto? They take the long way around to get to the right answer…
You know nutritional ketosis is gaining exposure when celebrity trainers start whining about it.
Another high end ‘athletic consultant’ looks at NK safety in the lay press (NOLA.com).

Inquiring Minds Want to Know (Links and Stuff) 22 December 2018

December 22, 2018 By Older Bolder Mark

Things That Caught Our Eye This Week

Nutrition trumps exercise for bone strength.

Can intelligence buy you happiness?

In praise of free-range parenting. (A worthy read for both parents and grandparents.)

Obesity and cancer risk – quantifying the link.

T2DM reduces brain function in seniors.

Is the key to a longer life two X chromosomes?

Key nutrients support brain function in seniors.

Is Alzheimer’s transmissible? Interesting case study…

Our Recipes from the Week

Libby’s Honey Thyme Holiday Ham

Marinated Vegetables and Cheese

Older Bolder Holiday Mains: A Baker’s Dozen for Your Table

Apple Cider Vinaigrette

Foundation Series: Fitness Secret Weapon No. 1 – MOVE

July 31, 2018 By Older Bolder Mark

I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with a good friend from Montana.

He’s a very successful businessman with a loving family; though his principle business interest is commercial (multifamily) real estate, he and his two sons run an impressive grass-fed cattle operation in Montana on three fairly large land plots (they call them ranches up in that part of the world).

We’ve known one another for a lustrum or better now, and he’s been impressed enough with my body composition (and other) changes over the past eighteen months to himself jump on the Primal bandwagon. Working on his seventh decade of a very active life, he’s still out in the field six of seven days per week, though spends the bulk of his time behind a desk. He and his clan have additionally weathered a heart-wrenching tragedy this spring with the loss of a daughter-in-law.

After a rapid and for the most effortless weight loss for the first four months as a Primal guy, he’s been stalled now for the last two months and change. Even more frustrating to him was the fact that he felt his overall fitness level hadn’t changed radically since the New Year. So he called me Saturday afternoon, feeling just a bit defeated, and looking for some answers.

Time for a Bit of Long-Distance Detective Work

The first half hour of our conversation was spent with me mostly listening, prompting with a question here and there, but gradually a consistent story began to take shape, focused around two things.

One, and of lesser importance in the big picture, my friend had been consuming (too much) fruit (mostly South American in origin) on a near daily basis during the long Montana winter, which, pending where you happened to live in the state, persisted via a snowy, cold spring until late April or early May this year. This is another story for another day, but suffice it to say that fructose has been the undoing of many a concerted weight loss attempt.

Two, and perhaps most critically, my compadre hasn’t been moving enough. Yes, he’s busy, some days putting in 15 hours between desk, truck, and tractor, but we pretty quickly came to the same conclusion – he’s been far too sedentary coming out of winter and having dealt with the issues they faced as an extended-family unit this spring.

Back to the Basics with the Secret Weapon of Movement

One of the first things we did together was agree that movement – general, everyday, functional-task linked movement is a critical cornerstone for good health (and the Primal lifestyle). I reminded him that the movement we’re talking about here, the essential, get-off-your-butt and just move stuff, isn’t really what most would call targeted exercise or higher-level training (Sisson speaks to the distinction ably here), but really ought to be something we all think of as an essential, pretty much non-negotiable part of our day.

While for many a goal of 10,000 steps a day is ambitious, my friend noted that much of the tasking that he does “around the place” could be easily accomplished on foot instead of from the seat of a four-wheeler, truck, or tractor. Given the trials of the spring, and a generous spring runoff, he’d not be fly fishing much, though had two excursions involving hiking set up for this week (dang, that sounds like fun).

We chatted about ways to incorporate quick walks into his day, like a quick walk breathing in those glorious summer Montana mornings before settling in for the day’s work, a 10-minute stretch every two hours (or less) during the desk day, a 20-30 minute walk after dinner, and rewarding himself with at least one 2 hour or better hike each week to fish his favorite waters on the Big Hole River near his home.

We agreed that for him, a rational, baseline goal for moving in some form of low level aerobic activity (it works for most of us, too) would be in the 5-7 hours per week range, shooting for at least an hour per day or better (in a addition to his HIIT and resistance workouts he’s been fairly diligent with so far).

Bottom line, moving more is something we all can fairly easily incorporate into our day; it may take a bit of effort and reprograming and old habit or two, but the results build in quickly.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know (Links and Stuff) 28 July 2018

July 28, 2018 By Older Bolder Mark

Top of the Fold: Nutritional Ketosis

Crossfitters in Ketosis Lost Fat (tiny study, but interesting)

Nutritional Ketosis and Mitohormesis

Odds and Ends Worth a Glance from the Week

Low Carb Diets Improve Arterial Flexibility in Women

So Full Fat Dairy Isn’t the Boogie Man After All?

Walk it off, 280 pounds in 6000 miles

Blood Glucose Spikes in “Healthy” People

(European) football is medicine. Another suggestion to move, move, move…

Raising Kids Who Read

Interesting OpEd in the BMJ: Pills are Not the Answer

Our Recipes for the Week

Ring the Bell (Pepper) Salad
Versatile Vegetable Kimchi
Judy’s Grilled Salmon

Question of the Week 23 July: Walk vs Jog

July 23, 2018 By Older Bolder Mark

A friend forwarded this question on from an acquaintance of hers, and I thought it worth running through some of the thinking on walking vs. jogging, particularly for someone over 40, above their ideal weight, and not as active as they perhaps think they are…

From Carol –

…My daughter is home from college and has been nagging me for weeks now to get out and run with her in the mornings. She’s of course 20, a life-long runner, and extremely fit, putting in 27-30 mile weeks on average. I’ve had a very stressful year (death of a parent after an ugly cancer battle) and put on another 30 pounds, making me about 55 pounds over what I feel is my best weight.

I’ve been a walker in years past (about 3 miles five days per week) but not in the past year, though I’m playing golf (out of a cart) once every 10 days or so so getting a fair bit of exercise there. Otherwise I guess I’m considered sedentary given my desk job. My daughter is convinced that walking is basically of no benefit for weight loss or general health and that I have to run at some every day to regain my form, and it’s beginning to stress our relationship. I’m ready to get started but she’s rattled my confidence in my old walking routine…

Kudos, and Let’s Agree That Simply Getting Moving is Good

Carol, kudos to you for making the decision to get back in the walking game, and kudos to your daughter for wanting to help you along the way (even though she’s overlooking some of the proven benefits of walking).

And I’d bet the farm that your daughter would agree that, without even delving too far into the science, that simply getting moving (more than you are now) will be a very helpful action for you to take – whether that be walking, jogging, or actually running. And sorry, though I’m not currently an active golfer, having played a number of rounds out of a cart in years past, I don’t think that’s providing much at all in terms of true exercise benefit, though the sun exposure (with appropriate high-exposure skin precautions) is probably boosting your vitamin D!

Walking is Great Exercise and Has a Number of Health Benefits

Please reassure your daughter that walking has a number of proven health benefits demonstrated across widely varying age bands, and in fact, particularly for those of us in our fifth decades and beyond, offers these benefits without the baggage of running-induced injuries that often increase with age.

In addition, as you’re “getting back in the exercise groove” after a tough year and with a (recently) sedentary lifestyle, walking allows you to ramp up your exercise volumes with relative ease, with a reasonable goal of walking five of seven days per week (or more); thirty minutes per outing is good, an hour is even better.

What Does some Representative Research Suggest About Walking vs Running?

In this study, equivalent energy expenditures by moderate walking and running invoked similar risk reductions for hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and hypercholesterolemia; perhaps lesser so for coronary heart disease.

This study of men 64-65 looked the effects on health of walking (more than 2 hours/day, 1-2 hours/day, and < 30 min/day); the more they walked, the greater benefit (decreased mortality) was noted.

This study showed that moderate walking (8.6 miles/week) was very effective at improving glucose tolerance and nearly as effective as a much more aggressive (diet, moderate exercise, weight loss) approach in those at risk for T2DM.

This editorial in the American Journal of Cardiology made some interesting observations about the efficacy of running vs. walking, though appropriately discussed the much higher injury rates associated with running.

There’s a hoard of research supporting the premise that injury rates are higher among runners of all skill level levels and mileage/volume; for example see this, this, and this. And finally, some studies, such as this one, suggest that more aggressive (strenuous) jogging provides no all-cause mortality benefit over sedentary controls. (A topic for another day.)

Bottom Line: Lace Up Those Walking Shoes

Bottom line, resuming your walking program is a great idea, and will benefit you in a multitude of ways. (I’ve resumed a vigorous walking program myself this spring and summer, and have come to treasure my early morning/sunrise adventures in the countryside; I’d forgotten with what gusto birds sing as the sun comes up.) Perhaps your daughter might accompany you some days, as a complement to her running program, and allow some genuine ‘social networking’ before she heads back to school.

Don’t forget that your body composition is 80% or more what you eat, with exercise contributing 10% (more or less) to the equation.