Oh, you totally should get more exercise, and they are right to tell you that, although maybe they would have better luck if they came across as more helpful. But I’m a slug too and I can breathe ok; I just can’t run very far. I still vote asthma.
Is there any reason to think that more exercise will be good for her?
More exercise is generally good for most people, which is one reason. Aerobic exercise tends to increase aerobic capacity, and decreases the risk of plenty of chronic diseases.
Alicorn admits she doesn’t get much exercise, so she’s clearly not in the tail of people who already exercise strenuously enough that more exercise would be harmful. Light exercise like I suggested is very unlikely to do any harm, and could very well even help her symptoms by improving her endurance.
By way of clarification, I do not intend to blame Alicorn for her symptoms. I understand why she might feel that way, and I regret that she has been made to feel dismissed in the past. My suggestion that she see a doctor and ask about asthma is much more urgent and important, so I want to reemphasize it rather than get stuck on the question of exercise.
Alicorn has implied that she isn’t completely sedentary or bedridden—she goes out walking, and sometimes gets seriously out of breath. Is there any reason to think that more exercise will be good for her?
Not exercising is a problem for anybody regardless of whether they have a breathing problem or not. It raises your chances of obesity, which later on can lead to lots of nasty consequences, and I think sedentary people show an increase in certain chronic diseases (heart disease for sure, type 2 diabetes possibly but I don’t remember for sure) regardless of weight. In that sense, more exercise would be good for Alicorn.
That being said, I think it’s misleading to say it would directly fix her mystery respiratory problem. (Even if it turns out to be asthma...exercise doesn’t cure asthma and can even trigger it for certain people). It might improve the symptoms in the long run. It might not. There might be another way to improve the situation enough that she can exercise.
I’m half convinced. However, I keep reading that inactivity is unhealthy regardless of whether it is fattening. Therefore fat people have good reason to try to resist the tendency to inactivity induced in them by their fatness.
So: why are fat people inactive? My only tentative guess is that it is difficult for them to move their bodies, and they respond to the difficulty by moving less. This suggests the following possible remedy: strength training. With stronger muscles, your body feels like less of a burden, and so you are more likely to move around.
So: why are fat people inactive? My only tentative guess is that it is difficult for them to move their bodies, and they respond to the difficulty by moving less.
Very plausible. Also, fear and embarrassment could be factors. Several of my heavier friends have told me that they don’t like to go to the gym because they feel self-conscious surrounded by fitter people. This is probably also true of, for example, jogging in public; they are afraid of people watching them and judging them (“Look at that fat guy/girl trying to run!”).
Yes, this was the basis for a Jerry Seinfeld comedy routine: “We need to have a pre-gym, a gym-before-the-gym. A place where you can get yourself fit enough to be comfortable going to the regular gym.” (And this actually isn’t far from the reason for the success of the franchise Curves.)
I was strongly voted up a while back for making the above point and then suggesting we have the analog website for LessWrong—a place where people can learn and discuss this stuff without being intimindated by those who know more.
The study (which needs significant followup to create usable results) could have a number of interpretations, including:
*conclusions not fully supported by the data
*obesity leads to less enjoyment of motion
*obesity leads to fewer social opportunities to engage in sports
*low socio-economic status leads to obesity and to inactivity (due to insufficient access to parks, to parents who force you out of the house, etc).
*People don’t record their activity levels every day, so their estimates are colored more by measurable factors (body weight) than by unmeasurable ones (how much they actually moved).
Valid point. I’ve read that for sedentary people, starting an exercise regime is a poor way to lose weight. I still think it’s an excellent way not to gain weight in the first place...children who active, who remain active as teenagers and young adults (and don’t grossly overeat) probably won’t put on the weight in the first place. I did an energy-expenditure study that showed I burn nearly 3000 calories a day, mainly because I can maintain an ‘intense’ level of exercise for an hour or more, whereas someone who is unfit and overweight already probably can’t and so wouldn’t burn nearly as many calories. Muscle mass also burns more calories at rest than fat tissue, so that someone at a high level of fitness can eat more even on days when they don’t exercise.
The moral of the story: I’m going to put my kids in one physical activity after another (like my parents did with my siblings and myself) until they find one they can stick with, and I’m going to try to keep it a part of family life. After all, it takes far less willpower to maintain a lifelong habit than to start a new regime once you start putting on weight.
I was in exactly the same situation when I was 15 before I was diagnosed with asthma, probably worse since there were a few days where I could not even walk up stairs because my lungs would seize up instantly. My doctor told me to try exercising more in spite of me having a low BMI, being unusually active, and having asthma, since the drugs which are available for people with asthma mainly treat the symptoms. If you want to avoid needing them in the first place, increasing your stamina is the only fix.
Of course, before you can exercise at all, you need to either find effective medications, or exercises which you can manage without killing yourself, but I don’t understand your reaction to Molybdenumblue.
Tangentially, your symptoms do seem to match asthma well to me. I would recommend asking for tests next time you see a doctor.
Of course, before you can exercise at all, you need to either find effective medications, or exercises which you can manage without killing yourself, but I don’t understand your reaction to Molybdenumblue.
I think his comment came across as kind of snarky (“oh you should totally...”) and that might be why.
I think his comment came across as kind of snarky (“oh you should totally...”) and that might be why.
Oh dang girl, I’ve sent you PM’s about how I use my vagina and you still call me he? I think I just won the least feminine woman on the internet award or something.
Heh, I wasn’t insulted. I got into the habit of keeping my sex on the down low when I was playing WoW (because being conspicuously female gets you a lot of bad/icky attention and is only worth it if you play it for special treatment, which I didn’t want), so I don’t tend to spray a lot of girly text-pheromones around. That’s all I meant when I said I won the least feminine woman on the internet award. Definitely didn’t mean you were unfeminine, or un-feminist, or anything like that.
Whoops. I think more to the point, I don’t always remember who has what username. I’m a bit that way in real life too: I don’t always pay attention to who I’m talking to when I get onto discussing ideas. (I’m not sure if you meant “feminist” or “feminine” but I’m neither so that’s fine.)
I understand both of their arguments, but the emotions involved are incomprehensible...
I suppose I would have said nearly the same thing in Moly’s position, and would not have predicted that I was being offensive. It would be helpful to be able to empathize with peoples emotions, but I am apparently horrible at it.
My doctor told me to try exercising more in spite of me having a low BMI, being unusually active, and having asthma, since the drugs which are available for people with asthma mainly treat the symptoms. If you want to avoid needing them in the first place, increasing your stamina is the only fix.
I was diagnosed with asthma just over a year ago. (The only symptom I’ve ever had is that in winter when I get a cold, I cough for the rest of the year unless I go on steroid inhalers). My lung capacity dropped by 22% when I did the methacholine challenge test (inhaling an irritating chemical) but I barely noticed it. This is probably related to the fact that I started swimming competitively when I was eight, and my lung capacity is already much higher than the average for someone my height and weight. (I don’t know if I could have reached this point if my asthma had started before I began swimming, though. Ironically enough, I’m pretty sure my current asthma is caused by too mcch chlorine exposure over the years, and I’m considering taking a summer off from lifeguarding to “detox” myself enough that I can test negative on the asthma test.)
Me too. I get cold easily if I stay still, but even just walking briskly makes me start to sweat. I think this is one of those thigns that you can train with practice; the more you exercise, forcing your body to overheat, the better your body gets at efficiently disposing of the excess. Also getting used to it probably makes it less unpleasant… That being said, I hate exercising indoors on a treadmill or elliptical for precisely this reason. Biking outside is great in the spring and fall months, when my wonky thermostat actually works to my advantage and makes it possible to bike across the city on a −5 C morning.
Also, have you ever tried swimming for exercise? It has the benefits of burning a lot of calories without bringing your heart rate (and out-of-breath-ness) up as high as the same intensity exercise on land. Also if you hate the feeling of being sweaty, which I do, a nice temperature-controlled pool helps a lot. My brother’s asthma has improved drastically since he started swimming competitively...swimming does a lot more for your lung capacity and breath control than other activities of the same intensity.
Swimming in a temp-controlled pool is great on the overheating front and is the only known form of exercise where I am not bothered by sweating. However, pools tend to be either (A) indoors, with stiflingly enclosed humid environments where I can’t breathe comfortably (I sometimes have to stick my head out from behind the shower curtain when I’m in the shower, for reference, and didn’t like being in indoor pool environments even when I was kid and didn’t have clinically significant breathing issues) or (B) outdoors, and open only during the day, such that I have to either wear texturally-obnoxious sunscreen or crisp up like a rasher of bacon. Arranging to swim is also inconvenient—it requires changes to my state of dress, a new venue, etc, twice. Typically it is expensive, in a way that going for a walk is not.
None of these difficulties are individually insurmountable, and if all I had to do was one of living with humidity, or putting on sunscreen, or changing clothes twice, or going to a new location twice, or paying money, I’d get over it. I imagine that I’d swim a lot if I had a pool at my home, which would reduce it to a clothes-changing inconvenience if I swam in the dark. But I do not have a pool at my home.
Incidentally, I took a pulmonary function test a couple weeks ago. The guy who administered it wasn’t technically qualified to say so, but he thought everything looked normal, and if my GP agrees, the next step is probably to assume I have a heart problem.
Incidentally, I took a pulmonary function test a couple weeks ago. The guy who administered it wasn’t technically qualified to say so, but he thought everything looked normal, and if my GP agrees, the next step is probably to assume I have a heart problem.
Agreed that swimming is massively inconvenient, which is one reason I’m trying to start running more...once I move on from working at a pool, it’ll be even less convenient since I won’t already be there in a bathing suit anyway, or be able to swim for free. (There is one interesting thing I’ve noticed about myself...I find it massively inconvenient to take a shower at home, whether before bed or first thing in the morning...for the most part I only shower after teaching swimming lessons or after a workout. This is ok because I’m in the pool nearly every day for some reason or other.)
I wish I had a pool at my home...oh I can dream.
Just a heads-up: pool ventilation varies. I’ve swum at several dozen different pools over my life, and some were awful, with the air hotter than the water and ridiculously humid. Some were excellent. Any big Olympic-size pool that hosts competitions tends to have better ventilation than your local neighborhood pool for kids and old ladies. Saltwater pools tend to have better air quality too, if there are any near your home. And lakes and rivers in summer are my favorite, although I have pretty low squeamishness and I know some people are more bothered by weeds, mud, fish etc.
Incidentally, I took a pulmonary function test a couple weeks ago. The guy who administered it wasn’t technically qualified to say so, but he thought everything looked normal, and if my GP agrees, the next step is probably to assume I have a heart problem.
Also, have you ever tried swimming for exercise? It has the benefits of burning a lot of calories without bringing your heart rate (and out-of-breath-ness) up as high as the same intensity exercise on land.
My experience with swimming is that simply being in water strains your lungs more (as you have to displace water to inhale air). Simply going to the pool and talking to someone while in up to your neck is probably good lung training, but until she can do that comfortably and without attacks I would recommend against trying laps or other sort of exercise.
My experience with swimming is that simply being in water strains your lungs more (as you have to displace water to inhale air).
That’s probably where the long-term benefits of lung capacity come from. Aquafit (where your head doesn’t go underwater) is pretty low-intensity compared to on-land aerobics, and you don’t overheat so much so it might be preferable for her. On the other hand, something like breaststroke is a good way of training yourself to breathe rhythmically while exercising.
Oh, you totally should get more exercise, and they are right to tell you that, although maybe they would have better luck if they came across as more helpful. But I’m a slug too and I can breathe ok; I just can’t run very far. I still vote asthma.
No, I should bloody well not get more exercise, because when I do, I can’t fucking breathe. Understood?
(Also I overheat, really easily.)
Walk. Start slow. Exercise indoors. You know the answers here. Advanced COPD patients still need to get out of bed and do physical therapy.
Sorry I made you mad, of course, but it doesn’t change anything.
Edit: downvote wasn’t me
Alicorn has implied that she isn’t completely sedentary or bedridden—she goes out walking, and sometimes gets seriously out of breath.
Is there any reason to think that more exercise will be good for her?
How much do you actually know about the subject?
More exercise is generally good for most people, which is one reason. Aerobic exercise tends to increase aerobic capacity, and decreases the risk of plenty of chronic diseases.
Alicorn admits she doesn’t get much exercise, so she’s clearly not in the tail of people who already exercise strenuously enough that more exercise would be harmful. Light exercise like I suggested is very unlikely to do any harm, and could very well even help her symptoms by improving her endurance.
By way of clarification, I do not intend to blame Alicorn for her symptoms. I understand why she might feel that way, and I regret that she has been made to feel dismissed in the past. My suggestion that she see a doctor and ask about asthma is much more urgent and important, so I want to reemphasize it rather than get stuck on the question of exercise.
Not exercising is a problem for anybody regardless of whether they have a breathing problem or not. It raises your chances of obesity, which later on can lead to lots of nasty consequences, and I think sedentary people show an increase in certain chronic diseases (heart disease for sure, type 2 diabetes possibly but I don’t remember for sure) regardless of weight. In that sense, more exercise would be good for Alicorn.
That being said, I think it’s misleading to say it would directly fix her mystery respiratory problem. (Even if it turns out to be asthma...exercise doesn’t cure asthma and can even trigger it for certain people). It might improve the symptoms in the long run. It might not. There might be another way to improve the situation enough that she can exercise.
Recent studies have suggested that obesity causes lack of exercise, rather than the other way around, and that’s why we see the correlation.
Got a cite? (Not that I disbelieve you, I find it highly plausible—I’m just curious.)
here is an abstract for a longitudinal study that suggested childhood obesity leads to lack of exercise and not the reverse.
I feel certain I’ve seen reference to a more recent study involving adults, but I haven’t turned it up yet.
I’m half convinced. However, I keep reading that inactivity is unhealthy regardless of whether it is fattening. Therefore fat people have good reason to try to resist the tendency to inactivity induced in them by their fatness.
So: why are fat people inactive? My only tentative guess is that it is difficult for them to move their bodies, and they respond to the difficulty by moving less. This suggests the following possible remedy: strength training. With stronger muscles, your body feels like less of a burden, and so you are more likely to move around.
Very plausible. Also, fear and embarrassment could be factors. Several of my heavier friends have told me that they don’t like to go to the gym because they feel self-conscious surrounded by fitter people. This is probably also true of, for example, jogging in public; they are afraid of people watching them and judging them (“Look at that fat guy/girl trying to run!”).
Yes, this was the basis for a Jerry Seinfeld comedy routine: “We need to have a pre-gym, a gym-before-the-gym. A place where you can get yourself fit enough to be comfortable going to the regular gym.” (And this actually isn’t far from the reason for the success of the franchise Curves.)
I was strongly voted up a while back for making the above point and then suggesting we have the analog website for LessWrong—a place where people can learn and discuss this stuff without being intimindated by those who know more.
If only the users of Curves graduated to regular gyms more frequently...
The study (which needs significant followup to create usable results) could have a number of interpretations, including:
*conclusions not fully supported by the data
*obesity leads to less enjoyment of motion
*obesity leads to fewer social opportunities to engage in sports
*low socio-economic status leads to obesity and to inactivity (due to insufficient access to parks, to parents who force you out of the house, etc).
*People don’t record their activity levels every day, so their estimates are colored more by measurable factors (body weight) than by unmeasurable ones (how much they actually moved).
I’d hesitate to read too much into this study.
Interesting. Thanks for the heads-up. I will research that now.
Whereas I dropped 13kg very quickly not by more exercise, but by a change in diet.
The whole area is a minefield of YMMV …
Valid point. I’ve read that for sedentary people, starting an exercise regime is a poor way to lose weight. I still think it’s an excellent way not to gain weight in the first place...children who active, who remain active as teenagers and young adults (and don’t grossly overeat) probably won’t put on the weight in the first place. I did an energy-expenditure study that showed I burn nearly 3000 calories a day, mainly because I can maintain an ‘intense’ level of exercise for an hour or more, whereas someone who is unfit and overweight already probably can’t and so wouldn’t burn nearly as many calories. Muscle mass also burns more calories at rest than fat tissue, so that someone at a high level of fitness can eat more even on days when they don’t exercise.
The moral of the story: I’m going to put my kids in one physical activity after another (like my parents did with my siblings and myself) until they find one they can stick with, and I’m going to try to keep it a part of family life. After all, it takes far less willpower to maintain a lifelong habit than to start a new regime once you start putting on weight.
That was harsh...
I was in exactly the same situation when I was 15 before I was diagnosed with asthma, probably worse since there were a few days where I could not even walk up stairs because my lungs would seize up instantly. My doctor told me to try exercising more in spite of me having a low BMI, being unusually active, and having asthma, since the drugs which are available for people with asthma mainly treat the symptoms. If you want to avoid needing them in the first place, increasing your stamina is the only fix.
Of course, before you can exercise at all, you need to either find effective medications, or exercises which you can manage without killing yourself, but I don’t understand your reaction to Molybdenumblue.
Tangentially, your symptoms do seem to match asthma well to me. I would recommend asking for tests next time you see a doctor.
I think his comment came across as kind of snarky (“oh you should totally...”) and that might be why.
Oh dang girl, I’ve sent you PM’s about how I use my vagina and you still call me he? I think I just won the least feminine woman on the internet award or something.
You are probably justified in being insulted that I completely forgot the vagina conversation was with you.
Heh, I wasn’t insulted. I got into the habit of keeping my sex on the down low when I was playing WoW (because being conspicuously female gets you a lot of bad/icky attention and is only worth it if you play it for special treatment, which I didn’t want), so I don’t tend to spray a lot of girly text-pheromones around. That’s all I meant when I said I won the least feminine woman on the internet award. Definitely didn’t mean you were unfeminine, or un-feminist, or anything like that.
Whoops. I think more to the point, I don’t always remember who has what username. I’m a bit that way in real life too: I don’t always pay attention to who I’m talking to when I get onto discussing ideas. (I’m not sure if you meant “feminist” or “feminine” but I’m neither so that’s fine.)
I understand both of their arguments, but the emotions involved are incomprehensible...
I suppose I would have said nearly the same thing in Moly’s position, and would not have predicted that I was being offensive. It would be helpful to be able to empathize with peoples emotions, but I am apparently horrible at it.
I was diagnosed with asthma just over a year ago. (The only symptom I’ve ever had is that in winter when I get a cold, I cough for the rest of the year unless I go on steroid inhalers). My lung capacity dropped by 22% when I did the methacholine challenge test (inhaling an irritating chemical) but I barely noticed it. This is probably related to the fact that I started swimming competitively when I was eight, and my lung capacity is already much higher than the average for someone my height and weight. (I don’t know if I could have reached this point if my asthma had started before I began swimming, though. Ironically enough, I’m pretty sure my current asthma is caused by too mcch chlorine exposure over the years, and I’m considering taking a summer off from lifeguarding to “detox” myself enough that I can test negative on the asthma test.)
Me too. I get cold easily if I stay still, but even just walking briskly makes me start to sweat. I think this is one of those thigns that you can train with practice; the more you exercise, forcing your body to overheat, the better your body gets at efficiently disposing of the excess. Also getting used to it probably makes it less unpleasant… That being said, I hate exercising indoors on a treadmill or elliptical for precisely this reason. Biking outside is great in the spring and fall months, when my wonky thermostat actually works to my advantage and makes it possible to bike across the city on a −5 C morning.
Also, have you ever tried swimming for exercise? It has the benefits of burning a lot of calories without bringing your heart rate (and out-of-breath-ness) up as high as the same intensity exercise on land. Also if you hate the feeling of being sweaty, which I do, a nice temperature-controlled pool helps a lot. My brother’s asthma has improved drastically since he started swimming competitively...swimming does a lot more for your lung capacity and breath control than other activities of the same intensity.
Swimming in a temp-controlled pool is great on the overheating front and is the only known form of exercise where I am not bothered by sweating. However, pools tend to be either (A) indoors, with stiflingly enclosed humid environments where I can’t breathe comfortably (I sometimes have to stick my head out from behind the shower curtain when I’m in the shower, for reference, and didn’t like being in indoor pool environments even when I was kid and didn’t have clinically significant breathing issues) or (B) outdoors, and open only during the day, such that I have to either wear texturally-obnoxious sunscreen or crisp up like a rasher of bacon. Arranging to swim is also inconvenient—it requires changes to my state of dress, a new venue, etc, twice. Typically it is expensive, in a way that going for a walk is not.
None of these difficulties are individually insurmountable, and if all I had to do was one of living with humidity, or putting on sunscreen, or changing clothes twice, or going to a new location twice, or paying money, I’d get over it. I imagine that I’d swim a lot if I had a pool at my home, which would reduce it to a clothes-changing inconvenience if I swam in the dark. But I do not have a pool at my home.
Incidentally, I took a pulmonary function test a couple weeks ago. The guy who administered it wasn’t technically qualified to say so, but he thought everything looked normal, and if my GP agrees, the next step is probably to assume I have a heart problem.
Thanks for the update.
Agreed that swimming is massively inconvenient, which is one reason I’m trying to start running more...once I move on from working at a pool, it’ll be even less convenient since I won’t already be there in a bathing suit anyway, or be able to swim for free. (There is one interesting thing I’ve noticed about myself...I find it massively inconvenient to take a shower at home, whether before bed or first thing in the morning...for the most part I only shower after teaching swimming lessons or after a workout. This is ok because I’m in the pool nearly every day for some reason or other.)
I wish I had a pool at my home...oh I can dream.
Just a heads-up: pool ventilation varies. I’ve swum at several dozen different pools over my life, and some were awful, with the air hotter than the water and ridiculously humid. Some were excellent. Any big Olympic-size pool that hosts competitions tends to have better ventilation than your local neighborhood pool for kids and old ladies. Saltwater pools tend to have better air quality too, if there are any near your home. And lakes and rivers in summer are my favorite, although I have pretty low squeamishness and I know some people are more bothered by weeds, mud, fish etc.
Best of luck, I hope they figure it out soon.
My experience with swimming is that simply being in water strains your lungs more (as you have to displace water to inhale air). Simply going to the pool and talking to someone while in up to your neck is probably good lung training, but until she can do that comfortably and without attacks I would recommend against trying laps or other sort of exercise.
That’s probably where the long-term benefits of lung capacity come from. Aquafit (where your head doesn’t go underwater) is pretty low-intensity compared to on-land aerobics, and you don’t overheat so much so it might be preferable for her. On the other hand, something like breaststroke is a good way of training yourself to breathe rhythmically while exercising.