What are your thoughts on exercise and

the current suggestions and

recommendations around exercise?

Well, I'm glad you asked this question.

I think I've been thinking about this a

lot. I did a podcast on the current

exercise guidelines, and I think they

need to be updated. I think they're

they're not good enough. And and it it's

important for people to realize how

these extra exercise guidelines were

formulated and what they mean. So,

typically, you'll hear exercise

guidelines 150 to 300 minutes a week of

moderate intensity exercise is good for

optimal health or 75 minutes to 150

minutes a week of vigorous intensity

exercise, right? So, they're basically a

two-to-one ratio, right? Twice as many

minutes for for moderate intensity as

vigorous intensity. What is defined as

moderate versus vigorous? That's also

important cuz it's different across

different studies.

In these guidelines, it's basically

moderate intensity is you're walking.

You're moving with intent, but not

really really fast. You're walking

You're walking at maybe a fast pace, but

you're not jogging and you're not

running.

That kind of activity would be

considered moderate. Vigorous would be

considered jogging, running, swimming,

cycling. So, the kind of the kind of

activity where you're actually moving

fast with intent.

Why do we have this two-to-one ratio?

Where did it come from? Well, it all

came from energy expenditure. You burn

twice as many calories if you're doing

vigorous intensity exercise as you do if

you're doing moderate intensity, right?

So, if you're walking 1 mile, you'll

burn x amount of calories. If you jog

that mile, you'll burn twice as many

calories. That's where these guidelines

came from, the two-to-one ratio, right?

Weight loss, energy expenditure, but

that's not necessarily what's important

for reducing cancer mortality, reducing

cardiovascular related mortality,

reducing all-cause mortality, right?

These guidelines

use that data this two-to-one ratio of

energy expenditure, and then they looked

at other studies

and [snorts] said, "Okay, how much

exercise is required to reduce

cardiovascular rate of mortality or all

cause mortality?" And they kind of like

connected the dots. By the way, these

studies also were using

questionnaires. They weren't actually

measuring how active people were.

A new study came out and I did a journal

club podcast on it because is the study

that I felt was so important that we

wanted I wanted to break down all the

components of the study with another

scientist [clears throat]

and talk about them because it's very

important. So, journal clubs typically

in science, you have them in my career,

it was, you know, sometimes it was once

a week, other times it was once a month

and and someone you choose a study

that's important and you break it down

and you talk about the results and you

talk about the methods and talk about

what the findings mean. That's what a

journal club is and it's essentially you

choose a a journal and a publication

within that journal and it's a it's a

club. You have different scientists that

are talking about it. Why did this

warrant a journal club?

Because I think the study basically

is

is strong enough data that it's implying

we need to change our exercise

guidelines, at least the messaging of

them at the very least. And I'll tell

you why because I talked about these,

you know, these guidelines, how they're

formulated, they're using

questionnaires, they're not measuring

anything. Well, new study came out, not

only did it measure physical activity

through these accelerometers, it was

able to measure how active people were

and the type of activity whether it was

I I mentioned moderate versus vigorous,

they also they also measured light

physical activity. That would be

considered walking around your house,

kind of doing that kind of light

activity, not necessarily going for a

walk or going for a run.

And they looked at

deaths from different causes of disease.

They looked at deaths from all causes.

So, all cause mortality, they looked at

cancer-related deaths, they looked at

cardiovascular-related deaths, they

looked at type 2 diabetes, they looked

at heart attacks, right?

And what was so profound was that what

we found, what they found, and what we

now know is that everything changes in

terms of how important vigorous

intensity exercise is.

It's so much more valuable than we

thought. It's not two to one. So, if

we're looking at all cause mortality,

you know, dying from all causes, cancer,

respiratory, anything related that's

non-accidental,

for every 1 minute of vigorous intensity

exercise, you had to do 4 minutes of

moderate intensity, and you had to do

like 100 to 150 minutes of light

exercise to get the same reduction in

all cause mortality. For every 1 minute.

>> For every 1 minute of vigorous intensity

exercise. It gets better, okay? For

every 1 minute of vigorous intensity

exercise to reduce your death from

cardiovascular disease, you had to do 8

minutes of moderate intensity and 200

minutes of light exercise for every 1

minute of vigorous intensity exercise.

It's huge. To reduce your type 2

diabetes for every 1 minute of vigorous,

you had to do 10 minutes of moderate

intensity, or you had to do again,

you're in the 100 150 minutes to 200

minutes of light exercise.

To reduce your risk of dying from

cancer, for every 1 minute of vigorous

intensity exercise, you had to do 4

minutes, about 4 minutes of moderate

intensity. And for light, it was like

it was almost not even not even not even

happening. I mean, it was like 250, 300,

like you had to just a ton of minutes,

unbelievable amount of minutes, okay?

But the value of vigorous intensity

exercise is so much more than this two

to one ratio based on energy

expenditure, based on burning calories

that our guidelines were based on. It's

time to rethink them. It's time to tell

people, "Hey, if you're getting out and

you're going for a run, it is worth way

more than you think it is in terms of

reducing your your risk and your death

from that disease, right? Also, what was

really interesting about this study, and

this goes back to this exercise snacks

that we talked about before last

episode, is that because they were

people were participants were wearing

these accelerometers on their wrist,

they were they were able to measure

all physical activity. Let's say you're

you have a new puppy and you're

sprinting in the yard and playing with

them for a minute or 2 minutes or 3

minutes or whatever, not 30 minutes in

the gym, right? Or not 30 minutes on the

treadmill, but you're just a short

burst. Or you're playing with your

grandkids or your kids and you're

playing tag, whatever. Those moments

count. They really add up, and that is

also a take-home from this study and

other studies is that you can actually

get massive benefits from this

sprinting, the vigorous exercise

1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes. Women

that did 3 and 1/2 minutes of just this

vigorous types of exercise per day

lowered their cancer risk by 40%.

Yes, 3 and 1/2 minutes a day. This was

in women. Now, there's bigger studies

showing men and women that exercise 9

minutes a day, the short vigorous types

of exercise adding up, not 9 minutes all

together, but like a minute here, a

minute there, a minute here, right?

It adds up. 40% lower cancer-related

mortality, 50% lower

cardiovascular-related mortality. And

that's another big take-home from this

study that I really want people to know

about because

some people don't like spending 30

minutes or putting out blocking out a

30-minute time or an hour-long time to

go to the gym. They should. I mean, if

they want their peak span, that's what

you're going to have to do. But, if

you're just wanting to avoid disease and

be be, you know, health span, you know,

you can get that by doing these short

moments of

short bursts of physical activity, and

those count. And some people are like,

"Oh, thank God. Thank God I can do that

because I hate going to the gym. I'll

you know, they just won't do it. They

won't do it."

>> of people as well are caught up with

this 10,000 steps a day thing. Yes,

10,000 steps a day. What's that facial

reaction for people that can't see your

face? She looked up into the corner like

I'd personally offended her. Yeah, I

look, any exercise is better than none.

I want to just get that on the table,

okay? That's important. I don't want to

totally diss the 10,000 steps a day, but

I think that we need to ditch it. I

think we need to ditch 10,000 steps a

day and say 10 minutes a day. 10 minutes

a day of getting your heart rate up. You

can you can you can do body weight

squats, you can you know, play tag with

your kids or your grandkids. You can do

shorter bursts of it, but it needs to be

10 minutes. And if you get to that 10

minutes a day, 50% lower cardiovascular

rate mortality, 50% lower all-cause

mortality, 40% lower cancer mortality.

That is what you're going to get. 10,000

steps a day is not going to get you

that. We just talked about it. It's not

going to get you that, right? It's a

different ratio. It's not two to one

ratio. I imagine there's people thinking

you used three times that vigorous,

moderate, and light. We probably need to

quite clearly define

those definitions. Like, what is

vigorous? Right. Heart rate, is it or

Vigorous intensity exercise can be heart

rate, and it is heart rate in a lot of

studies that are done.

In terms of the exercise guidelines,

they don't use heart rate. They're using

movement. Like, when I say

accelerometer, I mean moving fast. So,

they're able to measure the acceleration

of your movement. And so, the way that

they're talking about it in these in

these exercise guideline studies is

moving fast. Moving fast would be

jogging, running, swimming, biking.

You're moving. Even

>> Stepper? Stepper would would stepper

would be moving fast. Even even weights

are moving fast. That's part of it, too.

Weights. You're doing You're doing

weights. Wait. Cuz you're cuz they're on

your wrist. And so, if you're if you're

doing bicep curls or you're doing, you

know, something with your with your

wrist that are fast, it's part of that

it's part of that equation as well.

Heart rate isn't the thing they're

measuring, but that's a consequence of

moving fast, basically.

>> is.

>> So, you want to be thinking about

getting your heart rate

>> If

Personally, when I think about it and if

I'm talking about it in the context of

these exercise guidelines,

I would say that heart vigorous would be

probably considered 70% or more of your

max heart rate would be considered

vigorous. Previously in my when I'm

talking about vigorous, I also talk

about high intensity interval training

and that's more like 80% of your max

heart rate or higher.

Very important for improving VO2 max and

cardiorespiratory fitness, but in these

studies heart rate was is more like a

70% your max heart rate or more cuz

that's you you can be jogging at that

rate, right? Jogging or running, that's

a big that's vigorous intensity

exercise. If you're below that, if

you're like, you know, 50% your max

heart rate, that's considered moderate

intensity. And then, you know, maybe

even lower than that if you're just sort

of

you know, walking around the house. I

mean, that's not even going out much at

all. That's light. That's considered

light.