Restricting diet and no excercise

You are likely to live a longer and healthier life if you are in good physical conditions. It's odds, not guarantees.

Tell them to Google "skinny fat" - that's how they will end up, which is not even visually appealing, especially without clothes.

There are also MANY health benefits to exercise- even just walking a bit or moving around a bit. Exercise is associated with lower risk of heart disease and stroke, cancer, Alzheimer's and many other things. But GottaBurn is right that it doesn't have to be in a gym.

I like to think... what you don't use you lose!

About 6 months ago my mobility had gone so bad, I had trouble sitting down and getting up, and getting up the stairs was a huge deal everytime. I climbed slowly one stair at a time and it was very painful.

I worked hard and consistently, but most of all, very progressively. I can now squat completely, and I even run up the stairs. I actually make it a point to run up the stairs every single time because I don't take that for granted anymore. I still struggle with high impact activities, but I focus on doing what I can to keep maintaining what I've got, and hopefully improve slowly along the way.

Strengthcamp001 wrote: »

I see so many people (specially young women) restrict their diet to maintain thier body weight but they never exercise , even some of them haven't even set foot in a gym their whole life ... any long term negative health effects of doing this ?

You don't need to do structured exercise to exercise. Brisk walking, running around the backyard with your kids, having a physical job. I've never been in a gym, but I do home workouts. No one I work with and most of my friends wouldn't know I take a brisk walk every morning and do DVD/YT workouts several times a week.

Being inactive certainly has health disadvantages. But you don't have to go to the gym to be active.

Strengthcamp001 wrote: »

I see so many people (specially young women) restrict their diet to maintain thier body weight but they never exercise , even some of them haven't even set foot in a gym their whole life ... any long term negative health effects of doing this ?

Hmmm. Lets see... negative health effects of no exercise at all...

increased risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, mental disorders, mobility issues, problems with joints, bones, muscles. Just off the top of my head.

But hey... at least they will be the right weight.

Not needing to go to the gym in order to be active has already been covered. I just want to touch on people choosing to be completely inactive simply because they don't like exercise/activity or they're busy watching TV or knitting or what have you.

In the past few years, I've seen an increasing number of people in my life suffer for their inactivity and lack of resistance training. These are generally older friends/relatives who are increasingly "creaky", inflexible, having trouble getting around, being diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis, have spouses who require minimal levels of physical assistance which they are too weak to provide, etc. Now, I am not bashing these folks. For a long time, all of these issues have been ascribed to "getting older." But there is now enough research and enough anecdotal evidence to show that aging doesn't have to come with years--decades!--of frailty and incapacity. Can we always 100% avoid it? Obviously not. But I really urge everybody to not take what their bodies can do for granted. I fear that this may be one of those things that people brush off until it affects them but it's become a soapbox issue for me.

Strengthcamp001 wrote: »

I see so many people (specially young women) restrict their diet to maintain thier body weight but they never exercise , even some of them haven't even set foot in a gym their whole life ... any long term negative health effects of doing this ?

Sure. I'm 62 and female, and I see the long-term results of inactivity in women around me, my age and older. Muscle mass tends to decrease with age and inactivity. Low muscle mass has lots of consequences, one of which is slightly lower TDEE, so keeping weight off gets gradually harder. Low activity level correlates with higher risk of osteoporosis, which correlates with shortened lifespan (and more unpleasantness along the way to that mortality). Straight women tend to live longer than their male partners, and those with very limited physical strength have fewer options about how and where to live, need to hire more services done (or rely on family and friends) rather than being able to do lots of things themselves. Heart disease of various types is common among older women, and more likely among those with lesser cardiovascular fitness. People with poor fitness and body composition tend to have more body aches and pains more often due to imbalances and stresses on their bodies. I could go on and on.

But you know what's worse? Overweight or obese plus inactive. At least the people whose behavior you question are keeping their body weight down.

And you said nothing about nutrition, and sensible eating/drinking generally, which also has long-term health consequences. I know some people who've stayed moderately active, maybe even kept weight down, but don't get proper nutrition (usually too few veggies/fruits for good micros and fiber, large fraction of calories from carby/fatty highly processed foods, sometimes insufficient protein especially among women, too many calories from alcohol, etc.) . That also has long-term health consequences.

It's all important.

Proper calories for weight management + adequate macros/micros/fiber for nutrition + regular exercise (ideally strenght + cardio) for fitness = best odds of long term good health.

Well I am going to play devils advocate here. How could the OP possibly know that the young women never exercised or went to the gym? I know the statement is they kept to body weight by a restrictive diet. But maybe they in-lined skated, or were into martial arts, or did barn duty, or did some type of volunteer work that was physically demanding? Millions of people are active and healthy who have never stepped inside any type of gym on a regular basis.

I agree the best of all worlds is eating healthy, being a healthy weight and being active in some type of physically fit type of activity. I am now getting back to really being active more on cardio side as I am working on losing weight. And yes strength training via PT soon. But sometimes some of us have to delay or stop entirely due to injury or other issues.

My real left field comment, is we as a civilization keep coming up with more and more ways for people to walk less, move less. Think of the moving walk ways in airports, escalators everywhere. And now all the battery or electric operated standup scooters popping up in large cities (number of them in the USA).

jemhh wrote: »

Not needing to go to the gym in order to be active has already been covered. I just want to touch on people choosing to be completely inactive simply because they don't like exercise/activity or they're busy watching TV or knitting or what have you.

In the past few years, I've seen an increasing number of people in my life suffer for their inactivity and lack of resistance training. These are generally older friends/relatives who are increasingly "creaky", inflexible, having trouble getting around, being diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis, have spouses who require minimal levels of physical assistance which they are too weak to provide, etc. Now, I am not bashing these folks. For a long time, all of these issues have been ascribed to "getting older." But there is now enough research and enough anecdotal evidence to show that aging doesn't have to come with years--decades!--of frailty and incapacity. Can we always 100% avoid it? Obviously not. But I really urge everybody to not take what their bodies can do for granted. I fear that this may be one of those things that people brush off until it affects them but it's become a soapbox issue for me.

You and @AnnPT77 and a few others have been beating this drum since before I got here. You make a good enough case that I've been doing more and different kinds of exercise to help me age well. And I've repeated it to friends in the offline world. I hope you know your doing good.

Ive never set foot in a gym, im 50 and have the physique of a bodybuilder, my weight is up n down , i diet, to keep active i walk, i dont run my knee wont allow it now.
My job is driving a lot, i shouldnt look like i do, work that one out !

Look, sometimes you can only make one big change at a time. And tbh if you’re going to try to fix a problematic lifestyle diet isn’t a bad place to start. I know exercise is great but trying to get ahold of my (very out of control) eating was probably the best place to start.

Aside from that, physical injuries make trying to understand what exercises you can do a challenge. And being obese made these things harder for me. Not impossible mind you, but yes it’s harder. Trying to exercise often left me with another injury so I wasn’t getting great reinforcement. These came from systemic issues that probably wouldn’t have been that bad had I never been obese, and taking weight off of my joints through diet makes it safer now. Not totally safe, but safer.

I think I’ve even seen it recommended here before sometimes to lose weight before throwing yourself into trying to be fit to prevent injury. I don’t think it’s always bad advice. Especially if you’ve come from a very sedentary lifestyle (like me).

One thing I really don’t see discussed here is how overwhelming learning new things like how to eat and exercise can be when you’ve never done it before. It takes skills with planning, foresight, energy, sometimes math, sifting through a lot of misinformation and trying to figure out a) what’s true and b) what actually applies to you. Even if you’re very intelligent in other areas, this can feel overwhelming. Food and lifestyle can also be very personal, emotional, and a real sore spot for those of us who have ‘dropped the ball’ or never really had it to begin with.

If you can start with one thing & it’s effective, it’s not a bad thing. It’s a start. A diet change is a good start. Complaining that it’s not enough to be perfectly healthy is a recipe for overwhelm and giving up, imo.

elizabethmcopeland wrote: »

Often, our goals aren't things that actually serve us and our health. We can have the tendency to control something that gives us quick visual changes but won't help us be better or more capable people in the long run.

We have to do the hard things to learn, challenge ourselves, and grow. The obsession with constantly becoming or maintaining smallness as an end to itself is problematic when you think of the fact that the human body is amazingly good at coping and we should do things to encourage our bodies to remain healthy in that interesting state of flux as we grow and age.

Specifically, I'm talking about developing muscle mass as you grow older to help with independence and capability (there are a few articles out there talking about how we should prioritize that more), which...you can only do through weight training (even if it's body weight stuff) and eating enough to sustain that development.

The bolded is not strictly true. Weight training is the most efficient and effective way, but it's not the only way. Anything that taxes your muscles enough to make them stronger can add strength and muscle. Weight training is fastest and has more ability to take you to your genetic maximum potential, but it's not the only route to functional strength.

Among the most capable and independent older women I've known were old-school farmers. They never lifted a weight, but they worked

I have a few nice li'l ol' lady muscles myself, just from rowing . . . rowing really, really a lot. (I'd have more if I enjoyed lifting, lazy hedonist that I am.)

holycrosser wrote: »

Ive never set foot in a gym, im 50 and have the physique of a bodybuilder, my weight is up n down , i diet, to keep active i walk, i dont run my knee wont allow it now.
My job is driving a lot, i shouldnt look like i do, work that one out !

Any pics of this "bodybuilder physique"? I'm curious as to what this type of physique looks like to you.