Exercise can change your life. Excuses might kill you.

It’s been well-known for many decades that exercise benefits our health.

We knew from studies in the 1950s comparing London bus drivers and London bus conductors who lived in identical environments, except that bus drivers were sitting all day and the conductors were standing,

The heart disease rate among the drivers was twice that of the conductors.

However, recent research has revealed new insights into how profound exercise can be for the human body.

A recent study examined rats—a sedentary group and a group that underwent eight weeks of aerobic training on a treadmill.

The results?

In the words of one researcher:

“The thing that we were really surprised to find was that the rats turned into almost different beings. Exercise was that potent. Every single tissue we looked at was something completely different from before. It changed the entire molecular makeup of the individual organs of the rats in a very positive direction.”

And that was in just eight weeks.

Americans could take a lesson from these researchers and their rats.

Only 46.9% of American adults meet the recommended guidelines for regular aerobic physical activity. 

Only 24.2% of adults meet the recommended guidelines for both aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
Even worse, 25.3% of Americans are physically inactive on a daily basis.
Knowing what we know about the benefits of exercise, these statistics are disastrous for long-term health outcomes.
Someone recently told me that they didn’t have time in the day to exercise. I scoffed at this notion, knowing how people waste and abuse time.
We all have more time than we think. We simply fritter it away on mindless nonsense, meaningless pursuits, poor decision-making, and a lack of planning.
Exercise is far too important to fall victim to our inefficient use of time.
When I suggested that 20-25 minutes per day is all you need to meet the recommended guidelines, they scoffed again. “It’s too cold to walk or jog, and there’s no way I could get to a gym every day.”
“What about dancing?” I said. “You could dance to six or seven songs per day in your kitchen, and that would be enough to meet the recommended guidelines. You don’t even need to do it all at once. Maybe dance to three songs before dinner and three songs after dinner.”
“Be real,” they said.
I stopped arguing. I didn’t know them well enough to pursue the point, but more importantly, some people simply don’t want to exercise despite the adverse health outcomes associated with inactivity. In response to their lack of desire, they create fiction about their lives that allows them to rationalize not having the time or energy to do so.
These are the “Yeah, but…” people of the world.
The people who have an excuse for everything.

I try to avoid these people whenever possible. They are annoying and implacable. Sadly, in this particular case, their “Yeah, buts…” will dramatically increase their chances of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, osteoporosis, depression, and anxiety.

Also premature death.

Dancing in your kitchen for 20-30 minutes per day seems like a small price to pay to avoid these adverse outcomes and perhaps live a longer, healthier life, but then again, I was apparently not being real.

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