Life extension and exercise

Let’s do the math here.

A report today suggests exercising twenty minutes a day adds two years to your life.

They don’t say how long you need to exercise twenty minutes a day.

Twenty minutes a day, in a 365 day year, means 121.66 hours spend just exercising, or five solid days.

So you can live to be, say, eighty, or you can exercise and live to be eighty-two. But of those bonus 730 days, you’ve spent 400 of them sweating, netting you 330 days; so, a little less than a year.

Yeah, you get to be ALIVE those 400 days that you’re sweating. But the “two extra years” they’re promising, it doesn’t come without a cost.

I’ve always thought a more convincing argument is that exercise presumably lets you have a greater percentage of your life spent healthier than if you’d been more sedentary.