I like this interview with Dr. Kenneth Cooper: The father of aerobics still works out five days a week at age 92. Here are his expert tips

I love these reminders:

  • being fit and staying that way requires habitual, near-daily practice for your whole life:
    • “Fitness is a journey, not a destination. You’ve got to keep it up the rest of your life. You can’t just get it and store it.”
  • people used to think exercise was crazy and actually BAD for you
    • people crave conformity and try to enforce it. It makes people uncomfortable when anyone integrates something atypical into their life that they know intuitively or even with science to back them up will be good for them. Somehow the mob and even doctors will try to talk you out of it, saying it is somehow “dangerous” and SICK (or will lead to sickness) even when it goes so totally against common sense.
  • within my lifetime, it was normal for people to question women SWEATING and RUNNING as unladylike or even specifically harmful to their bodies (like your uterus could fall out)
    • SEXISM IS BAD FOR OUR HEALTH, not moving our bodies in athletic ways

I disagree completely with his suggestion that the number one thing we should do is try to fit into a “healthy” BMI. BMI is BULLSHIT.

What I am taking away from reading this:

If you know something is good for you and integral to your well-being, it is necessary for you to integrate it into your DAILY LIFE — to do it ROUTINELY — and plan on doing it forever. In order to do that people will often call you crazy, but that doesn’t mean you are wrong. On top of doing the work, you have to be able to detach from what other people think and not question what you already have determined is best and healthy for you. Your daily life, routines, priorities and standards will set you apart from other people who probably will be dead before you have evidence that your way made/makes your life better than if you settled for conforming to whatever is normal and expected for the times and people like you, especially if you are a minority.