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Given that obesity is sorta culture war related and in the news a lot, I figured this story would be relevant: Weight-Loss Stocks Soar After Obesity-Drug Study Spurs Investor Frenzy
I am more convinced than ever that these drugs are not only the future of wright loss, but similar to Paxil, is also going to a part of culture too and another tool or crutch to mitigate the downsides of modernity, except instead of social anxiety , it's too much food. We're sorta collectively inflicted this on ourselves, as victims of our own success. The pendulum if progress has swung so far towards abundance that we need modern technology just to try to undo it.
Of course, the drugs seem to work like shit compared to be an authentically mentally healthy human being. I expect that Wegovy and similar drugs will wind up similar on a number of dimensions. I genuinely cannot imagine preferring a lifetime of pill popping to just riding a bike.
Really? You can’t imagine why someone might prefer not to spend time on a bike?
Cardio is boring. I’m saying this as someone who grudgingly runs 3x a week anyway, because it is valuable. Much as I choose to drive instead of carrying my groceries, I’m not opposed to a technological solution.
Yes, really, I genuinely can't imagine preferring a sedentary life to a life with some chosen sport. I chose biking because I like biking, but it sure doesn't have to be biking - go swimming, do a hard trail hike, roll on a ju-jitsu mat, do Crossfit, play soccer, just pick something and do it. I cannot imagine someone experiencing the joy of fitness and mastery in a sport and saying, "no, I am too busy getting knowledge". The extent of how weird I find it is that I basically just don't believe people and think it's excuse-making for sloth.
Finally lifting to a point where I can empathise with this and the issue is that the reward is the wrong way round. Assuming someone who is unfit and bad at sports, your main experience of exercise is as a mist of childhood pain and humiliation.
You have to go through that, spending quite a lot of time and money doing something boring and painful before you start getting a reward. And if you don’t have people to help correct your form and technique you might not even get a reward at all. So it’s very easy for people either to conclude it’s not worth it right from the start; or do it for a couple weeks, conclude it’s horrible and doesn’t work, then quit, telling all their friends not to bother.
Personally I blame it on PE. If we taught it like we taught other subjects, paying even the slightest attention to children’s abilities and actually trying to improve them over time, a lot more people would be a lot more active.
For all that Mottizens complain about American public schooling, I'm surprised that American PE isn't criticized more. I won't say my experience was particularly bad, but I feel like gym class is quite possibly one of the biggest pain points in American childhood.
Not just American public schools. I went to a good school in the UK and the contrast between the high quality of the lessons and the low quality of the PE was pretty stark IMO. The PE wasn't shoddy, they spent lots of money on good facilities. But we used to call it Games rather than PE and I think that highlights the disconnect for me. It was intended to let the sporty children do well at sports and win prizes for the school. There was no real interest in improving children who were in the bottom half, or in physical health as such, and the exercise was very standardised. As a below-par child you learned very quickly how to fake being able to do 20 press-ups and stay on the parts of the team that didn't require lots of running around. If they had sat down with us and explained how you get stronger / fitter, and made any attempt to do progressive training, I think a lot of people could have had big improvements.
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I try to go to the gym to run every other day (or every third day), and try to mix in some HIIT here and there as well.
I hate it so much even when it’s less than 10% of my waking hours. If I could be perfectly fit without exercise, sign me the fuck up.
I’m the same way. I’ve exercised now for a while, 3x a week, lift, reformer pilates, run, and I hate all of it. I have never enjoyed exercise, I have never enjoyed the gym, the most I can say is that I feel mildly satisfied after I’m done, the same way I do if I order a salad instead of a cheeseburger and fries, maybe.
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