60+ minutes of exercise per day to maintain weight after age 50

[goldfinch]

Very good point, Pam. My mom lived in Manhattan car-free from her early 40s to early 50s and kept the weight off fine. She walked all the time. Once she moved back to North Carolina and to a car-based, suburban lifestyle, the pounds started coming on rather quickly, and she's never been able to get them off -- she's 78 now. She also quit smoking around the same time, which was certainly part of it, but the change from an active lifestyle to a much more sedentary one was obviously a major factor.

I recently read that one of the strongest correlations between the growing obesity problem in the US is the decline in smoking. The two track each other far more accurately than things like the growth of the fast food industry, lack of exercise, or portion size track weight gain. I thought it was interesting.

[tulip]

I recently read that one of the strongest correlations between the growing obesity problem in the US is the decline in smoking. The two track each other far more accurately than things like the growth of the fast food industry, lack of exercise, or portion size track weight gain. I thought it was interesting.

Curious; I'm not in agreement, though. I get that when you stop smoking, you gain weight. But I would bet that the obesity problem is not with people who quit smoking. It's the kids and people who never smoked who are obese. I would think it has plenty to do with cable TV, video games, and computers. And kids getting shuttled everywhere and not riding bikes and walking to school anymore.

[OakLeaf]

I wonder how far they took the correlation back. Is it just a myth that very few women smoked until after WWII? Because if not, then perhaps smoking delayed epidemic obesity, rather than quitting smoking caused it.

And come to think of it, I surely knew a lot of girls my own age who took up smoking to control their weight. So they started with the weight issues as pre-teens, before they started smoking. Again, a recent phenomenon.

[jobob]

A data point (a bit OT, admittedly): LeeBob was quite the skinny guy when I married him, and he stayed that way for several years. Then he quit his 3 pack a day habit. Within a year or so he was reaching tub-o-lard proportions. Sometime after that, he bought his first bike.

[Melalvai]

Exercise after 50, but not too much! "New Studies on Older Endurance Athletes Suggest the Fittest Reap Few Health Benefits"
No worries about me ever running faster than 8 mph! Or more than 25 miles per week!

[emily_in_nc]

Exercise after 50, but not too much! "New Studies on Older Endurance Athletes Suggest the Fittest Reap Few Health Benefits"
No worries about me ever running faster than 8 mph! Or more than 25 miles per week!

Nice...I certainly have nothing to worry about then, either! Thanks for posting the link.

[OakLeaf]

Meh. I read that. Just one of those things like Mark Twain's quote about how he got his exercise acting as pallbearers for his friends who exercised. Some people have nothing better to do than to offer "proof" that healthy behavior really isn't.

If you couldn't tell the story was idiotic from the outset, that absolute citation of a 7:30 mile cements it. That's quite a bit quicker than my PR 5K pace, enough to win AG in most of the 5Ks I compete in. I might be able to sustain 7:30 for a one-mile race ... but I've never tried it, and I certainly can't do mile repeats that fast in training. Now, I know plenty of women my age who *are* that fast, but for a 50-something woman, it's hardly an easy jog. For a 70-something woman, it's probably national level pace.

So, we're probably all safe. After all, look what happened to Paula Radcliffe! Painful surgery! Missing the Olympics three times! It could happen to you!


ETA: Runners World takes it apart: http://www.runnersworld.com/health/t...th-rises-again