Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - The Last Podcast You Ever Need To Hear About Exercise | Shannon Palus

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Five takeaways from a year's reporting on fitness, and why this journalist says it's time to go easier on yourself.Shannon Palus is a features editor at Slate covering heath, science, and human interest. In 2023, she edited Slate's year-long fitness column, Good Fit, about exercise. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times' Wirecutter, Scientific American, and the Atlantic. In this episode we talk about:How this conversation changed the way Dan thinks about exerciseWhy you shouldn’t drive yourself crazy following the latest trends about health and fitnessWhy tracking your workouts isn’t always helpful - and remembering that there is always the option to “go slow.” The importance of remembering that exercise is not one-size-fits-all Related Episodes:Can You Get Fit Without Self-Loathing? | Cara Lai — Ten Percent Happier How to Stop Obsessing Over Your Body and Eat Sanely in a Toxic Culture | Virginia Sole-Smith — Ten Percent Happier Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/shannon-palusAdditional Resources:Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/installSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. How we doing? You are about to hear an interview that has helped to change the way I think about exercise. Particularly on two scores. First, the idea that I have to go hard in every workout, which research suggests is not actually true. And second, the internal bugaboo I have had, sometimes subconsciously, around trying to get back the body I had when I was younger, which has caused me untold misery. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Those are just

two of the takeaways and I should probably back up and tell you who my guest is and why she's here. Shannon Paulus is a features editor at Slate and she covers health, science, and human interest. Last year in 2023, she edited a year-long fitness column at Slate called Good Fit, all about exercise. And she wrapped up the whole thing with an article called The Last Exercise Column You Ever Need to Read, in which she talks about the five most important lessons from her year-long dive into the science and psychology of exercise. In this conversation, we cover what she learned, including her new belief that the true benefit of exercise is not about losing weight, it's about boosting your mood. But what she learned about healthism and the fallacy that our health and fitness is entirely within our control,

why she says we should not drive ourselves crazy following the latest science, even the oft repeated advice to take 10,000 steps a day. Why you don't need fancy equipment, why tracking your workouts is sometimes a bad idea, how she came to the conclusion that it's time to ditch the mirror, and much more. Let me just say this episode is the third interview in a series we're running right now called Get Fit Sanely. We are exploring everything from longevity to motivation to the benefits of laziness. If you missed the first two episodes,

go check them out and we'll have more of the series coming up. We'll get started with Shannon Paulus right after this. But first a little BSP or blatant self-promotion. Want to let you know that we just restocked the merch store over on danharris.com. We've got sweatshirts, t-shirts, baseball hats, tote bags. Some of them are nice and clean and just say 10% happier. And some of the stuff has my signature profanity on it. I also want to say that my wife, Dr. Bianca Harris, oversaw all of the aesthetic decisions on this so you can have some confidence

that the stuff is good, high quality, looks good, etc., etc. Go check it out, shop.danharris.com, shop.danharris.com. Also want to tell you about a course that we're highlighting over on the 10% Happier app. It's called Healthy Habits. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal and the meditation teacher Alexis Santos. It's great stuff. To access it, just download the 10% Happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% dot com. That's one word all spelled out.

Hello, I'm Emily. And I'm Anna. And we're the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And just a warning, our latest season will feature a lot of accents. Can I just check what accents? I can't tell this story without going all in. Okay, I'm scared to ask, but can you give us a clue? Why I'm Ant?

Oh, Ant-and-or-de? I'm afraid not, and it's not Alan Shearer either. I am talking about a young woman, plucked from obscurity, who rose to become Neershin sweetheart. A woman who's had a lot of surnames and has ditched them all to become just Cheryl. Love it. Girls Aloud fans strap in we're gonna follow Cheryl from her Girl Band Glory days getting together with Ashley Cole and the many scandals and humiliations that followed not to mention a near-death experience. Oh she's been through a lot. And she has needed every ounce of her northern grit to see her through. I promise you it's going to be an emotional rollercoaster.

Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Saruti. And we are the hosts of Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Red-Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. From Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdoch saga. Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Short Hand, which is just an excuse

for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like. We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction. Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior. Like, can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill?

And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts and access our bonus shorthand episodes exclusively on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple podcasts or the Wondry app. Shannon Paulus, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to have you. Let's just start high, high level. Tell me, what was the Good Fit project?

What was it and why did you do it? Yeah, so Good Fit was an exercise column at Slate that ran for the duration of 2023, and we were trying to help our readers find better ways to exercise. I mean, everybody's got exercise columns. What did you think you had to offer that was new and different? So a lot of exercise columns that are out there are, one, following exercise news.

So saying, oh, there's a new study that says if you bounce on a trampoline standing on your head, you'll increase your immunity and live longer. And it was done in 10 people in Finland. And here are four tips to take home. And here's how to do like the trampoline head exercise so you too can boost your immunity. It's a very silly example, but you know, like giving very specific instructions based on studies. And then the other thing is, a lot of columns focus on how to exercise to lose weight or get abs

or, you know, 10 workout moves to fit into your wedding dress, that kind of thing. So we set out to do a column that was based in science, but not following kind of the play-by-play. There's a new study in a journal, and this week it says exercise helps you live longer, and the next week it says, oops, exercise doesn't help you live longer.

We were really trying to take a science-based view of exercise, but one that was really pulled back. And an important component of that is a lot of columns out there focus on, you know, exercise to make you look good and exercise to make you healthier, based on metrics like weight, waist size, years you live, and we said, okay, but exercise fits in and enhances your life on so many more like axes than those. Like, it helps you set goals, it makes life worth living, it can put you in a good mood. Maybe one kind of exercise kind of bums you out, but another is gonna help you find a new

community of friends. So we wanted to take a wider view of exercise. As you probably know, we run an occasional series on the show. And this interview is part of the latest installment of this series, and the series is called Get Fit Sanely. And it sounds like you had the exact same idea. Yes. Yes, the exact same idea. And I like that you said occasional series because that gels with some of the goals of good fit. We ran it for one year only and it was pretty popular, but we said, we're not going to keep trying to find new angles into exercise week after week for eternity, like until

slate blows up. We're gonna do a limited run and then we want readers to stop reading slate exercise columns and go out and try stuff. What would be enough to get you to revive the series? Would it have to be some significant advance in the science, a new understanding? Oh, that's an interesting question. I would say that I could see myself coming back and doing this column again in like 10 or 20 years under a different cultural landscape of fitness

when something has replaced Peloton, some way of exercising has replaced jogging. People are finding events to rally around other than marathons and pickleball. For me, good fit was a column about the culture of exercise as well as the science of exercise. And the science of exercise actually changes pretty slowly. So, you know, maybe in like 20 years, some scientists will be like, I think probably not, but some, you know, maybe it'll be like, Oh, that's stuff we

said about protein and strength training. Like we've had a weird breakthrough. So that would be interesting. a weird breakthrough. So that would be interesting. But just if how exercise fits into our cultural conversation shifts, then that would be a reason to revisit it too. So your essential view, and you stated this explicitly in a series of columns, is that we're in the midst of a glut of information. And you don't want to add to that unnecessarily. We don't want to add to it. Yeah. We're gonna go through the five bottom line lessons, the five takeaways that you that you really arrived at writing many of the columns

for it but let me just stay at a high level for a second. One of the things you talk about is that and here's a quote quote from you, or from the series, a lot of what we've been taught about fitness is actually diet culture wrapped in spandex, which is a great line. Can you unpack it? Yeah, so I think kind of a top line that a lot of people have about exercise

is that it's something that helps you lose weight. Or if not lose weight, like get abs or get a certain kind of a waist. And the thing is that exercise is actually a pretty poor way to lose weight. It's very hard to lose weight in general. Exercise can fit into weight loss plans in some ways, but in general, exercise is not going to live up

to the promise of making you into a different shape of human being. And I think we're promised that by a lot of exercise products, even when they're not saying specifically, this is going to make you hot. Like, if you take Peloton classes, they're talking about mood and strength and making time for yourselves. But the instructors look a certain way.

And kind of the implicit message is like, you too can like, maybe like have some little slice of this Peloton instructor hotness if you do it enough. And that's just like not true by and large. I run marathons and the first time I ran a marathon, my friends were like, you're losing weight, you look great, it's the marathon, and I was like, no, it's because I'm going through a breakup with a long-term partner and I can't eat. It's not the marathon. All right, I have so many questions here. This idea that exercise cannot get you to lose weight

or change the shape of your body, I mean, I have so many feelings about, and so much sort of small T trauma in my own life around trying to wrench my body into a certain shape and it being frustrating and unconstructive and, you know, leading to self-loathing and all that stuff. Having said that, I do know that if I do certain types of exercise, certain types of weightlifting, swimming, for example, I can see a change in my musculature.

So it's not true that exercise has no impact on our bodies. Right. That's fair enough. Yeah. And I would agree with you that like I went through a hot yoga spurt all winter, my abs look a little bit different. And certainly there are bodybuilders out there or people who get in shape for Marvel movies, who work out with a personal trainer for two hours a day

and revise their diet. I think the thing that can feel frustrating as a consumer of exercise media and exercise products is the promise is to be born into like a new type of person or a new shape with like, you know, the CDC recommended 150 minutes a week and like generally eating fruits and vegetables. So, yes, you can alter the shape, but it's not to that extreme level. What's your view on whether we should be trying

to alter the shapes of our bodies at all? Oh, that's a very big question. I personally think people should do whatever they want, but I would say that I would pitch to people that the main benefits of exercise are not in altering the shape of your body. What are the main benefits? The main benefits are probably unique to each and every person,

but it can have a huge impact on your mood. It can give you a sense of purpose and a goal. It can take you away from your computer. It can help you learn to fail at something in a safe environment where the stakes are zero because you know if you don't run that 5k in under 30 minutes, under 25 minutes, under 20 minutes, doesn't affect your income, your relationships, anything you can learn new skills. Maybe I'll say a little bit about my view on trying to change the shape of your body,

which is a work in progress. And just see how it goes down with you. Sure, that sounds great. Meaning my view is a work in progress. But I've been deeply influenced and I've said this many times on the show by a woman named Evelyn Tribble, who is the Progenitor or co-progenitor of something called intuitive eating which you can think of as a anti diet meaning The data show she would argue that dieting is usually a good predictor of future weight gain

that's a tie. It's don't work generally and that instead of trying to wrench your body into a certain shape, you should make peace with your body, have a good relationship with your body. That doesn't mean resignation and eating Fritos in perpetuity on the couch. It means tuning into how does your body feel when you eat certain foods?

Can you learn to listen to your body in a way that you know when you're hungry and know when you're full and not eating for emotional reasons? Can you have a sense of what's good for you based on the data and science around nutrition, but not rule out entire groups of food because you're labeling them in moral terms as sinful. And when it comes to exercise,

can you move because it confers the benefits that you just listed, but not with the agenda of conforming to a certain rather random aesthetic standard that has been sold to us through the culture rather than underlying measures of health, which are what really matters like your blood pressure, your resting heart rate, etc. etc. So I really believe all of that, and yet I notice sometimes when I'm exercising,

I am looking at my body with a, you know, critiquing the fact that X area doesn't look the way it looks on my favorite Instagram influencer or whatever it is. So that's happening, but I think the same part of my brain is really trying to turn the volume down on that and exercise for the reasons that you've listed, not because I'm trying to conform to societal standards

that are unrelated largely to true underlying health. Right, I agree with all of that. And I wanna point out a little caveat to exercise doesn't change your body because it does. Like if you lift weights, you will get more muscles and like I can notice when I'm running a lot that like my legs like looked a little different, but it's not like, oh, they suddenly like,

look like a supermodel's legs. It's like, oh, all of this running, I just feel my body getting stronger. I notice if I'm shaving with a razor, the terrain is different. And I think that often when we think about what it means to be a marathoner or to get really into strength training, we don't think about our bodies just kind of shifting on their own slightly organic axis, like because of our genes and because of our history and everything. And we think about them sort of edging more towards that fitness model, which doesn't necessarily happen. I will also say that when I can kind of turn down

the volume on that stuff of like, oh, my abs after months of yoga don't look like I think yoga abs should look, when I can turn that down and ignore that and just really focus on how I feel after a workout or after when I'm in like a mode of like learning something new or like a training cycle for a marathon, I get what I call exercise goggles, which is I can look at myself in the mirror and like literally think that I look like better than I did previously. And I don't know if that's endorphins or what,

but it's like a nice little side effect. I agree. I find this so tricky, especially somebody who's a public figure. I spent decades on TV and now I'm putting my face all over Instagram and whatever the fuck. So I am looking at the way I look, but I also feel like that's so stupid.

Because what am I measuring myself against? I'm measuring myself against arbitrary standards set by people who do not have my best interests in mind. And also based in a cultural history that has many, many toxic tributaries feeding it. For example there's a bunch of research to show that our obsession with thinness was a reaction against in the 1800s against the bodies of black women. So I mean I'm not sure that's the only reason why we're obsessed with thinness but yeah you see where I'm going here like I both find myself judging the way I look

and therefore judging the way other people look in ways that I think are just deeply unhelpful and think the whole enterprise is unwise. I agree with all of that. And I want to kind of set that aside and say, it's nice to feel like you look nice and it's nice to feel like you look nice, and it's nice to feel like you look strong. And I don't think that you can 100% divorce those things from the history

and the beauty standards and whatever celebrity is setting the pace with all of this stuff. But just to bring it back to exercise a little bit. For me, going for a run is an action that makes me feel like I look better, whatever it does to my brain. Getting ready in the morning and putting on eyeliner and blowing out my hair also makes me feel like better about how I look. This is really hard to articulate,

but I think that sometimes if you can kind of turn down the volume on like that like objectively do I look good today and just feel like how do I feel? Am I taking actions that make me feel good at my body? Like when you work out, when you do grooming, not for everybody certainly and like that's great, or if you want to do more stuff. Does this make sense? Yeah, I mean, let me see if I can sum it up and maybe add a little topspin of my own, because I think you're on to something here. But I want to make sure I understand. Yeah. One of the quotes I often come back to is from Esther Perel, the great couples counselor and psychotherapist who I absolutely love and admire look up to Some things she says are not problems to be fixed but dynamics to be managed

and what I'm hearing you say is yeah, it is true beauty standards are completely fucked up and based in Arbitr arbitrary rules and sexism and racism and lots of other isms that we generally don't want to take part of. And that is the world we live in. And they're deep in our molecules, these standards. And so it's okay to feel good about the way you look after exercise or not exercising or after sex or after the proper grooming.

It's okay to feel good. It's good to feel good about yourself, even if the beauty standards are corrupt at their core. And so it's like kind of two things being true at the same time. You don't want to buy, you want to, you want to red pill yourself and not take the beauty standards too seriously and it's okay to feel good about how you look. Right, and I think for me, when I really like,

can tune down the like objective beauty standards and kind of just tune into how I'm feeling, exercise can offer a way for me to just feel better about myself in general. And that translates to seeing myself in the mirror and being like, yeah, cool. Like, and that's a very like sort of internal feeling. That's the opposite of like peering at your abs

and being like, is this like changing enough? Like, you know, what are the proportions of my face looking like today? It's like the opposite of that super analytical lens. I think we've landed at a spot of sanity here. So thank you for thinking that through with me. All right, now let me ask you about some examples of bullshit that you turned up in your year-long project.

Myths that you were able to bust. One of them is that we need 10,000 steps. Can you say more about that? Sure. The idea that we need 10,000 steps, that actually comes, that was a marketing idea. I think it originated with a pedometer in Japan, and, you know, they thought 10,000 steps, that looks nice on this little pedometer, let's do that. And I have to admit, I'm not up on all of the back and forth of like, I

feel like out of the corner of my eye, like every other week, I see a news story that's like, actually, 10,000 steps is the right amount. Actually, 7,000 steps is enough. Actually, you can get away with 6,000 as long as you're doing HIIT exercises on Tuesdays. The point is that it seems like this really like, it sounds so objective and so like it's very easy to wrap your head around, but it's not as concrete scientifically as you would hope or at all, and it's not going to make or break your exercise routine. So Hillary Frye in one of her entries for the column, she talks about

she hit a step goal of 10,000 steps a day. And it was just kind of like forcing her into this idea that like, Oh, I have to be working all the time for this to be working. And she was like, and then I lowered it to 6,000. And, you know, she didn't like, doctor, doctor read all the studies, she was just like, this is more realistic. And this is what's going to help me get moving every day, rather than making me feel like I'm going to go out and do this like punishing thing all the time. We had some experts on the last time we did the Get Fit Sanely series on this show. I think it was the first time we ever did it actually. And they said 8,000 steps. My wife got me a new Apple watch. And so I have been loosely looking at my steps and kind of non-obsessively thinking,

I don't even think that's etched in stone, the 8,000 number, but loosely thinking it's a good reasonable North Star. Am I walking enough on a daily basis? How does that sound to you? That sounds generally about right. I think that the key here is not etched in stone and having a goal that's gonna help you incorporate movement into your day in a way that works. I too will kind of thumb through the steps counter just to see where I am.

I also have days where I sit at my laptop all day and do work, and then I go downstairs to the gym next to my apartment building, and I get on the treadmill, and I haven't figured out a way to, like, or I don't even care to, like, sink myself to my step counter when I'm on the treadmill, and the are like abysmal and they don't worry about it. I would say that getting overly prescriptive about whatever step school you set if you set one is the worst possible thing to do though. Yes. You don't want to get obsessive over it.

do though. Yes. You don't want to get obsessive over it. This is another problem not to be fixed but a dynamic to be managed I think which is it's good to know what the latest scientific consensus is about hours you should sleep or steps you should take or calories you should burn or amount you should exercise. It's good to know it but it's also good not to get obsessed about it, obsessed with meeting it all the time. That is a bit of a tricky dance. Would you agree? I would agree.

And also I would push back a little bit on the idea that you always have to be like up on the very latest scientific literature about how many steps you should get, because like I kind of know how much sleep makes me feel good. I know we all have bodies, we all feel what's happening in them. I know that you're supposed to get about eight hours. I know that too much sleep is also going to backfire. But I think that the average person doesn't have to

be tracking each development in their research because it's all kind of coalescing around the same thing, which is that you should move your body. You should do it for, you know, the CDC recommended amount is 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity. If steps helps you track it, that's great, but like, you're not gonna make or break your life your life by getting 2000 more steps every day or not. You could drive yourself

nuts though. Yes. Two things. First of all, I just totally agree with you. And I was not meaning to indicate that everybody should be up on every little jot and tittle of the of the scientific research because science is, if properly understood, an argument taking place in public and getting too hung up on every new study is likely to just drive you crazy. You want to kind of generally understand what the consensus is and then do your best with it in a way that does not lead to obsession because obsession is what you want to avoid. Well there are two ends of the spectrum you want to avoid. Well there are

two ends of the spectrum you want to avoid. Doing nothing, being sedentary and being obsessed. So it's about trying to, you know, in Buddhism we talk about the middle way and this really is I think what I'm trying to nudge people towards. Coming up, Shannon Paulus talks about how to handle all of the advice about fitness that gets thrown at us in the media all the time. Why you don't need fancy equipment to exercise well,

why tracking your workouts can actually add unnecessary stress, and why pushing yourself to have a purple face at the end of your workout actually may not be wise. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season we're going to be exploring the life of Margaret Thatcher. The first female leader of Britain. Her 11-year premiership completely overhauled British society. The political legacy of Thatcherism is both pervasive, but also controversial.

So who was the woman behind the policies? Wow, what a titan of modern British history, Peter. It's kind of intimidating, actually. We spent days, days recording this one. And to just to cut it down there is so much that happens over the course of Margaret Thatcher's life that we've had to think really hard about what we can include. And this is of all the characters we've done so far the one who's had the most personal impact

on my conscious waking real-time life. I mean I lived through her, I was born under her, I'm a Thatcher baby. That's going to be set to dance music, so follow Legacy now from wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge entire seasons early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Peyton, it's happening. You're finally being recognized for being very online. It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated.

And correct. You're such a Leo. All time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions, if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second, then join me, Hunter Harris, and me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondry's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mass, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to.

We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the b-sides. Don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother to many. Follow, let me say this on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

Listen to episodes everywhere on May 22nd, or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app on Apple Podcasts. Before we get back to the show, just a reminder about the Healthy Habits course over on the 10% Happier app taught by Kelly McGonigal and Alexis Santos. To access it, just download the 10% Happier App wherever you get your apps.

A term that you introduce in this series that might get us to think about the dangers of obsession, the term is healthism. What does healthism mean? So healthism is a term that was coined by a sociologist named Robert Crawford in the 1980s. And he was really pointing to a proliferation around health advice that was happening in

newspapers and magazines. And I think you can see that proliferation today, like 10 ways to get flexible, like forward steps to like, yeah, trampoline your way to better immunity, to use the totally made up example from earlier. And that idea was really that we as individuals are the ones controlling the knobs on our health all the time, and we really have a duty to ourselves to be super tuned into those knobs at all times. So I want to live longer, I should start jogging. I want to lose weight, I should do this type

of exercise. I want to be happier, I should consider the pros and cons between antidepressants and taking up swimming. And his point was really that our health isn't entirely up to us. Our health is also up to our larger environments, what's going on in the world, what's going on in our communities, what kinds of healthcare we have access to, if we can afford to see a doctor, if we can afford to switch doctors if, if we can afford to switch doctors if our doctor isn't listening to us, if we can pay out of pocket for a specialist

when something is going wrong. One of the most important things I've learned in my own personal life when it comes to health is that sometimes being able to pay for a specialist appointment with an expert in a field, that can make the difference between getting the treatment I need and getting a five-minute appointment with someone who's like really over scheduled and really doesn't know how to meet my needs. So all of that stuff that has nothing to do with exercise. I think a really good example of healthism was

during the pandemic, you know, weight was a risk factor for having a worse outcome with COVID. So you would see doctors and articles saying, oh, you should lose weight to improve your outcome with COVID. And it's like, it's not untrue that it's a risk factor, but the larger issue isn't someone's like, it's not untrue that it's a risk factor, but the larger issue isn't someone's weight. The larger issue is that there's a virus

spreading uncontrolled around the globe and scientists have not yet found a vaccine. And like, the thing that you have to do right now is like, hunker down for the vaccine, not like try to stop eating chocolate. I think that's an excellent point about the fact that we place so much responsibility on the individual for health. And some of that is absolutely reasonable, but there are so many other variables that are beyond the control of

any individual. Their genetics, their access to health care, their access to healthy food, whether there's a pandemic, you know, pollution in their area, access to nature in their area. I mean, there's so many other variables and I think it's just important to keep that in mind and to provide some context and perspective here. And it kind of leads me to another observation that I don't know if it's true. It feels true to me. And I don't know if it's an original idea either.

Maybe I stole this from somebody else, but I just don't remember who it is. But I feel like, and I'd be interested to hear if you think this is true or at least close to true, this massive increase in emphasis on optimization, especially among men that we've seen in the last 10 years where, you know, and I've, I've been that guy tracking my calories. I haven't ever tried to, I haven't gotten obsessed with achieving ketosis, but you know, I played with that tracking my sleep, tracking my steps, working out for a certain amount of time per day working out for a certain amount of time per day

Meditating for a certain amount of time per day and tracking my streaks. It's just like this optimized Quantified self or quantified ego a little stock market that you're running all the time. What's my resting heart rate? What's my heart rate variability? it feels to me like that in some ways is variability. It feels to me like that in some ways is unconsciously a reaction to the increasing atomization and social isolation of modern society where you can't rely on the larger world. Communities have been decimated, organized religion, civic organizations decimated. We are bombarded with disturbing information in this super intimate way on our phone so the world seems less safe and of course it seems less safe in part as well

because we have less social support. And so optimization, taking the onus onto yourself, getting as fit as possible seems like a means to achieve agency in an increasingly scary world. Anyway, does any of that land for you? That really resonates with me, yeah. It's, we live in increasing precarity, both real and felt, just from the news

bombarding us all the time, and I definitely feel that. And I think for millennials, especially like when home ownership is really tough and interest rates are out of control and you got to worry about not buying a house in an area that's going to be flooded in your lifetime and. Like, well, you can control the meat sack that you walk around in every day, or you can feel some illusion. I think it is an illusion, too. Not totally an illusion, because it's good to eat well.

I think that dipping into tracking stuff can be a helpful way to get a read on how things are going, but marrying yourself to it in this very tight way can be a way to find control. In some ways, I think it does become a little bit like astrology in a way where, you know, like obviously it's not totally made up. Like it's a science column, I'm a science editor, but really just like over-indexing like, well, I heard on this podcast that 8,000 steps is right,

so I'm gonna get 8,000 steps and like all is gonna be well in my life. I know people aren't thinking about it that reductively, like they're not stupid, but that's kind of, that feels like an underlying thing for me. And of course you can do all of that stuff and you can still become chronically ill, you can still get cancer, you can still get hit by a bus.

All true. Kind of dark. So what, and dark, but you know, I don't know, by a bus. All true. Kind of dark. And dark, but you know, I don't know. Pointing out the truth, whether it's not inconvenient or not is actually, I'd rather be aligned with what's true, whether it's dark or light, because it actually, that is real empowerment. And it's freeing, because it's like,

well, you go for the length of run you enjoy going for, not for like the one that some paper says you should go for. Yes. Yes. In intuitive eating, there's a lot of talk about gentle nutrition, meaning having a background ambient sense of what the scientific consensus is about nutrition, but not freaking out about it. And I think that's what I'm hearing you say about exercise. Yeah, it's good to kind of know and maybe you kind of want to track once in a while, but you don't, you have to be gentle about it because you're gonna drive yourself crazy. And there is a thing, a real thing, called orthorexia, where you get an unhealthy obsession with getting healthy.

Yeah, My colleague, Heather Schwedell, who's a writer at Slate, wrote a piece for the column about trying to do happy baby, the yoga pose correctly. She said her spine when she was in happy baby and yoga was popping up in the wrong way. She went on this whole quest to fix her happy baby form, which is like an oxymor quest to fix her happy baby form,

which is kind of like an oxymoron, because it's happy baby, it's supposed to be happy. And this yoga guy was like, you have yoga-rexia. Like, this whole question is like, I think she did get some tips in the end, if I remember correctly, but it's like getting too locked in to doing the yoga pose correctly can be bad. I asked earlier about examples of bullshit that you uncovered or myths that you busted.

Any other examples that come to mind? Yeah, one of my favorite columns was Pilates doesn't give you a Pilates body. It was by a current Pilates instructor. And she talked about how she got the most compliments from her students when she was like drinking a diet coke for her lunch. And she went into the history of Pilates and talked about how a lot of dancers do Pilates.

And so that's why we associate Pilates with like long and lean, beautiful people, because that's the population of people that got filtered into classes and started teaching. So I think about that one a lot. I also, in kind of a silly column, Hamilton Nolen wrote a little screed against exercise equipment. And his whole thesis was you don't need to buy anything to exercise. You can just go out and press your body against the equipment. And his whole thesis was, you don't need to buy anything to exercise. You can just go out and press your body against the earth

and do pushups and run down the street. And he kind of took it to like a comical place, but I think that it does have that truth of like, you don't need a super fancy treadmill to work out. You don't need to buy the soul cycle bike. You don't have to have the latest thing. Like you really can start by existing in the world around you. Let's click on that for a second, because I did mention that we were going to talk

about the five takeaways that you, Shannon Paulus, arrived at after editing and also writing for this column for a year. And number two on that list was, you don't need to buy anything. And you just talked about it a little bit. I have a Peloton bike and some weights and a few machines and an elliptical in my gym. Am I a moron for having spent the money on all that?

I would say that if you went out and you were like, I'm gonna become an exercise person. I'm gonna add the Peloton to my cart. I'm gonna add the elliptical to my cart. I'm gonna clean out this area of my home. I'm gonna have a new habit and everything's gonna go great. Like that, that's kind of the wrong way.

And you don't need as much stuff as you think you need. Might be the less humorous formulation of that. And one sort of like, analogous statement that I have to make there is that paying for someone's expertise can be better in some cases than paying for a piece of equipment. So going to a personal trainer, going to a yoga teacher, and doing a private lesson, all very expensive things, but really just learning how to use the machinery of your own body rather than

buying the like $3,000 treadmill Often can be a more worthwhile investment That's a really good point and I have found that when I'm willing to pay for individual attention I get injured less frequently because my form is better. Not that I'm obsessing about doing a happy baby correctly, it's more like I'm just not, you know, throwing out my shoulder because somebody's taught me how to do, you know, a bench press the right way, etc., etc. So if you could be less of a dummy than me and buy and spend much less money money on or no money at all on exercise equipment But spend a little bit of money on how to do

bodyweight exercises in the proper form and You're good to go. I think is what you're saying Yeah, and I mean, I think it's a balance between the two if you really love running on the treadmill Which I do and you're not like me and you don't live next to a blank gym that costs 15 bucks a month. You can go out and buy a treadmill for your home, but you can very easily go wild on the buying stuff side. I've spent a lot of time thinking about treadmills. My last job before Slate was at Wirecutter, for one of my articles I tested treadmills.

And I very much came away with the sense that all you really need, if you really do want a treadmill, you know you'll use it. You know it's going to enhance your life. A $400 model is going to get you a lot of the way there. And you don't need to spend over a thousand many thousands of dollars on a treadmill. That sounds like sound advice. We're going totally out of order in your five in your five takeaways but you you mentioned experts hiring an expert. Number three on your list and by the way we still haven't done number one,

but number three is experts are often bringing their own baggage into what they tell you. Can you unpack that baggage to be cute? Yeah, experts have their own ideas of what exercise should look like and how bodies should behave. I ran a column by a former personal trainer, and she said that she realized after she quit being a personal trainer, her name's Sarah Kerchak, and she realized that she had been bringing her own obsessiveness into some interactions with clients, like really being like,

oh no, your elbow should be like this. No, no, no, not like that. Like this. Like, your form is off when, you know, maybe... their body wasn't just gonna move in the way that she thought it should move. And maybe what was helpful for a client in a given scenario wasn't really drilling down into form, but like...

helping them get the big picture hang of something or making sure they had a good time in class. And where that came from was her like own obsession with her own form, she realized. So she was kind of passing that on to clients. And again, you know, maybe you're going to see a personal trainer because you want that really specific help with form. I think that it's really important to know though that any fitness instructor or trainer

that you're talking to, you know, kind of like doctors, they're not, they know a lot, but that person is not the be-all end-all. You can take some of their advice, you can leave other pieces of it, you can say, this person just has a weird idea of what they think our goals should be here, and I'm going to go find someone else. Yes, that sounds, again, to use this word again, very sane and very both and. Yes, form can be incredibly important. For example, it took me about a year to figure out how to do a freestyle swimming, which I'd been doing wrong my whole life and learning that was worthwhile because now it'll hurt myself and I have this whole type of exercise

I can do that is easier on the body easier on my knees and all that stuff So it was worth doing that because I'm a little bit What's the word I'm trying to say, from a coordination level, it just takes me a long time to learn, but I'm so glad I did that. And I've also gotten mobbed up with certain exercise gurus in my world who had goals and agendas that I think were based

on their own childhood traumas or whatever the hell. And I ended up adopting views of the world or goals that really weren't mine. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think, like, collecting against injury is a little bit of a different bag. Like, you know, everybody should listen to their physical therapist to maybe a greater extent than the random exercise guru. But, yeah, I think it's important to to like, when a spin teacher is telling you

to crank the resistance up because that's what's going to make you feel happy, like, sometimes yes, sometimes maybe not, or maybe like, whatever type of class they're teaching isn't your type of class. They're just people too. Speaking of spin, what vastly improved my experience on Peloton, and this is scalable too, and I think any type of exercise where you're looking at a screen and you're getting numbers about your performance, your speed and your output and all that stuff, what vastly improved, ironically, improved my experience and it improved my performance,

was turning off those fucking numbers. Yep. Yeah, I don't run with a watch. I have a Garmin watch. I don't use it regularly, because it drives me nuts. And, oh, I think I wore it for a half marathon about a year ago, and you can actually see it in so many of the pictures that were taken by like marathon

photo or whatever during the race. I'm like looking down at the watch. Like I can't stop looking at it. And it's like, that's not good. Yeah, it's and I think people have really variable experiences with it, but like it's flypaper for me. Yes, fly paper is perfect. So for me with Peloton, if I'm trying to hit what I think are the right numbers early on,

I either get hurt because I'm not fully warmed up yet or I wear myself out. But if I go really slowly, I have to turn the numbers off. I have to get rid of the flypaper in order to do this. But I have to, so I have to shut the numbers off on the screen. And then I just do what feels good for my body for the vast majority of the exercise. And then toward the end, if it feels good, I push harder. And I end up in a better place than I would have been

if I had been tracking the numbers all along. Yeah. It can really add to the anxiety and really take you out of the experience. Okay, so again, we're working through the five things that you took from this Good Fit series that ran on slate throughout 2023. We've hit numbers two and three. Let's go back and hit number one, which is go slow. What does that mean? So many, many people work out too hard. They think that, I'm gonna use running as the example here, but this applies to basically anything. They think that I'm going to use running as the example here, but this applies to basically anything. They think that a run that's worthwhile is one coach who I spoke to for my piece about slow running said,

you know, my clients think that, or she used to think that you go for a run, you come back huffing and puffing and sweaty, and that means you had a good run. And that's not the case. For the piece that I wrote on slow running, which was one of the first pieces we ran in the column, I talked to coaches who are really into what is called polarized training. And that's the idea that actually 80% of your workouts should be really, really easy. And the other 20% should be really, really hard, and that you should really lean into the easy days, like go maybe embarrassingly slowly,

run a pace or cycle a pace or whatever that, you know, you wouldn't want to brag about on Instagram, and that's gonna give your body just the volume and the mileage that needs to complete an endurance event but even run a 5k. And it's going to give you the kind of active rest to really go hard on your hard days. Now polarized training is its own little school of thought in the exercise science world. And a lot of scientists argue about like, should it be 20% hard and 80% easy or 50% easy and 20% moderate and 30%

or whatever it is. But the message that I got from talking to all of these folks is that the average person really associates like a good workout with going hard when I think across all of these schools of thought it's something like 40 or 50% of your workouts should be pretty easy to kind of give your body time to recover and just get like gentle mileage in. mileage and that's the first time I've ever heard that I assumed that breathlessness and exhaustion was what was required. You want to get some I mean it's again it's a balance like you want some of those tough workouts but pushing yourself to the max every time is a recipe for burnout, like physically and emotionally. I'm just trying to think like, how would that work for me? So I try to cross train because I get hurt so easily.

So I swim, run, do the elliptical, do Peloton or from the city and I can have access to a soul cycle. I'll do that. And I lift some weights and once in a while I'll do like a metabolic workout, which is like, you know, just like jumping up and down and do that, that kind of thing. So I try to really mix it up. Are you saying that on 40 or 50% of these days, I should just be going into any given workout without trying to add in some high intensity intervals or trying to hit a certain number or that I should actually just be doing it

for the sheer joy of movement? Yep, yeah. And I mean, it really depends. Yes. If you're not having a leisurely swim like once a week or like doing a leisurely like session on the elliptical, consider doing that. I also think like we're not professional athletes. We do things in our lives that aren't working out.

Like if you're walking around New York City a lot and that's part of your like suite of movement that you do. I walk my dog a lot. I'm not sitting there with a little notebook being like, 40% of my workouts have to be slow. Like, you know, there should be some easier components to your workouts. And I think that like, this is like, I'm picking on Peloton because I love it

and because I use it so much and I know it so intimately. This is one of I'm picking on Peloton because I love it and because I use it so much and I know it so intimately. This is one of the problems with the app and with programs like SoulCycle. And you know, I used to go to Equinox all the time when I lived near an Equinox. All of the classes that you take at Equinox is like, they really are geared around pushing you and making you feel like you got a good workout. It's like Peloton does have recovery runs and I like them. And if you're listening Peloton, you should make more recovery runs. And they do cool down runs.

So like there are things out there, but and maybe this is like part of my fault, too, like when I go to any of these resources, like kind of what you're expecting and what's on offer. Gym classes, apps, workout guides is kind of this like you're expecting and what's on offer, gym classes, apps, workout guides, is kind of this like, you're going to get a good workout. And I think that we have to be really like more expansive on what that means. Steven Seiler is the researcher who is behind polarized training. I believe he lives in Norway now.

He grew up in the States and he says he got to Norway and he was like, Oh, people will just go out for like two hour bike rides, like kind of leisurely bike rides. They'll stop and get a snack, talk to people, see things, and they'll come home and that will be their workout. And it's sort of this idea that like exercise is something that you do in the course of your life and not this thing where you're like gonna go down to the basement gym and like punish myself. It's interesting to watch my mind during this conversation because I'm really resisting it. Intellectually, I completely buy it, so I'm not resisting it intellectually. It's just I have always thought of exercise the way you just described it.

I'm going to go to the basement gym and punish myself and exhaust myself so I can get a good night's sleep, which probably, which often doesn't happen anyway. But the only way I can measure whether it was a good workout was the purpleness of my face. Mm-hmm, yeah, like no pain, no gain. That's where it's like actually doing things that are relaxing or it doesn't even have to be whole relaxing, like when you're doing long runs to train for a marathon or an ultra,

you can still have kind of a painful goal in mind, like 10 mile run, 15 mile run, 20 mile run, but you're not supposed to be doing that 20 mile run as fast as you possibly can. It really is about getting it in gently sometimes. So there are all kinds of schools of thought around training that like sometimes you push for the last bit of a run or whatever.

I wrote the column about slow running at the end of 2022. And I was training for an ultra marathon at the time. And I don't think that I would have been able to finish training for the ultra had I not like thought about this in this way, had I not like been told about this slow running thing by researchers. Cause I would go out to Prospect Park in Brooklyn and I would have training runs that were like four hours long on a Saturday, two hours on a Sunday.

That's such a long time. Like if you're worried about the pace and being like, Oh, I should be like huffing and puffing or hurting. like run is not going to get done. It's such a long run. And that's such an extreme example. Most people are not running six hours. I'm from, I do not spend most of my life running six hours a weekend at all. But I really like had to get into this mindset of like, sometimes the purpose of my run is to like, support my body

on a very long run and make it as gentle of an experience as it possibly can be. One of my friends, I won't name her because she hasn't given me permission to name her, but she's part of a family that we often take vacation with and her kids often make fun of her because she runs really slowly. And I think I've never made fun of her to her face, but I think in my mind, I was like, she's what is she even doing out there? But she's got some, she's got innate wisdom in many, many ways.

So I should have known that applies to this too, but clearly it does. Yeah, I learned about, I got into this like little world too, but clearly it does. Yeah. I learned about, I got into this little world of exercise following this woman named Kim Clark on Instagram. She was by track club babe and she has qualified for the Boston Marathon. She and her husband coach runners. The name of her running guides like fast fall, fast marathon, you know,

so you get the point like she's trying to get her runners to run really impressive times. And she would always post pictures of herself being like, just finished another run with my kid in the stroller at 12 minute mile pace. I finished another run with my kid in the stroller at 12 minute mile pace. And 12 minute mile pace is like, you know, that's pretty slow. And she was just sharing a lot about how important she felt those slow days were. So that really like, just actually just like seeing her talk about those slow times, it really like, I like to think I'm not that susceptible to social media, but it really just shifted my perception of what a good run can look like,

or what a run that is like helping you achieve a larger goal can look like. Coming up, Shannon talks about how your life and your body and your schedule will change over time and why your workouts should change as well. But we also talk about why ditching the mirror can be helpful. Summer is here and adventures await. Wondery and Tinkercast are teaming up to bring you a summer of wow with new episodes

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Okay, so we've gone through numbers one through three on your list of five takeaways after having spent a year writing for and editing this Good Fit series on Slate. Number four is, your schedule and body will change. Be open to rethinking things. Please say more. Yeah, so that was a really conclusion that came from editing a couple columns written written by Slate's editor in chief, Hilary Fry. She wrote a column for me, I think in the first half of last year, that was like, I figured my exercise routine out this time. And Hilary is a certified yoga instructor. Obviously if you go through yoga teacher training, you really love yoga.

And then she writes about how she would get into this boom bust cycle with exercise, when she would, you know, she'd go through a phase where she's always really gung-ho about getting on the mat and like learning new moves. And then she'd go through phases where she would just like not do yoga for like six months or even a year. So the first time Shiri thought things, Shiri thought things once in this column, where she kind of came to this like, what you were talking about earlier, this very like, I will try to move my body every day, I will be open to what that looks like. Sometimes it's going to be a jog. I have, you know, very like sort of gentle nutrition, gentle exercise goals of like

extending the jog from two miles to three miles. So that was the first column she wrote and I think all of that still holds really true. But then, in a follow-up piece that she wrote for me, she writes about going to the doctor and the doctor being like, you're going through perimenopause, you're approaching this big life change, and you really need to start incorporating more strength training, not just yoga, body weight, but actually lifting some kinds of weights. And also, you're not eating enough protein to support yourself through this change.

So she writes about really like having to add in that structure that she didn't have before and like do strength exercises to support herself as a woman who is getting older. And I think that, you know, that kind of applies to all of us as we go through different changes in our lives or like have schedule shifts or have shifts in interest or shifts in the results that we're getting from workouts. Being open to adjusting is really important. And I see this a lot with people who ran, were competitive in sports in high school

or college where like it's actually pretty hard for them to get back into the sport because they were used to having these really like very good times and now they're, you know, they're not 20 anymore and they're not training for a zillion hours a day. And I think it's a really important tentative exercise to just be accepting that things can shift. One of the biggest sources of suffering I've done is trying to get the body back that I had in my mid-30s. I had this glorious period of time in my mid-30s where I was not married.

I love being married, so that's not what I'm trying to say. You do more sitting on the couch eating ice cream when you're married. Yes. Yeah. I had very few responsibilities. You do more sitting on the couch eating ice cream when you're married. Yes. Yeah. I had very few responsibilities. I had an all encompassing job, but I could go to the gym for two hours a day.

And I was still in my mid thirties. So I was younger. I'm in my mid fifties now, or coming into my mid fifties. And I, what my body looked a certain way that really conformed to male beauty standards. It does not look that way now. And I have spent untold hours trying to get it back

until, you know, within the last five or so years when I realized that was a fool's errand and I was making myself and people around me miserable. And so it really, it seems like that lesson that I learned the hard way goes right at your point here. Things change, your body's gonna change. Adapt rather than cling to things that you can't get back. Yep, yeah.

And I have to be super conscious of that in my own workouts and with my own goals and You know that like it's it's just gonna be harder to Hit that marathon time or that half marathon time that you ran a decade ago Okay number five on your list of five takeaways is sometimes just stop. What does that mean? You don't always have to be working out. You don't always have to be working out at a certain intensity, taking a break,

if things are going down a path that you don't want them to go down. Or even if you're just busy, it is fine and it is actually healthy. That lesson came from one of my favorite entries in the column by Jen Miller, who loves running so much that she is in fact the author of a book called Running a Love Story. And she wrote about taking a break, I don't know if it was from running entirely, but certainly from training for things, after she dropped out of a 24-hour race

that was all about running as many four-mile loops as you possibly could in 24 hours. Very intense, she does that kind of thing all the time. But she had been recovering from an injury that she was kind of trying to push through, and it was a really muddy day, and she couldn't stop crying during the race and she was like, actually, I'm going to go back to my hotel, get a cheap shitty beer and like do a reset and figure out what's going on. And she writes about how she runs a lot because she enjoys it.

But she said in this particular instance, she was trying to do that race because she was craving that post-accomplishment feeling of, I've put in the work and now I can finally relax and sleep in, and go on leisurely walks with my dog. She writes about how you actually don't have to earn the right to do any of those things by working out hard, you can just do them.

And I really liked that, and it really felt like a nice corrective to a lot of the messages about, you know, pushing through things that we get. I think this is a quote from you, but you'll correct me if it came from one of your authors. The literature and the rest of the world will have all kinds of things to say about whatever it is you do,

but the best reason to exercise is really simple. Do it because you want to. Yeah, I wrote that. Can you just say a little bit more about that? I think that, like, I'm gonna go back to running because it's my exercise of choice. I have people say to me from time to time, like, oh, I should get into that. I wish I could get into that.

And I just don't think you have to. Like, I think that there's a lot of different ways to move out there. There's a lot of different ways to get the recommended amount of exercise. You don't have to do one set of exercises or another. If you decide you're not gonna hit 10,000 steps a day or 8,000 steps a day, it's really not gonna make or break you. If you decide you don't like doing HIIT workouts, if you never wanna run a half marathon, like we think of all of these really specific

things as being healthy, but in reality, you can get the health benefits from exercise and you can get the mood benefits from exercise from doing a lot of different stuff. And you don't have as much control over your health as you think you do. So doing what is gonna enhance your life on a day-to-day basis is as good a way to figure out what exercise you should be doing versus really trying to lock in on like the optimal spread of stuff.

Well said. We could leave it there, but I do wanna, I can't help myself because this stuff is so interesting. Just a couple more questions. Within that last answer, you used the phrase, I think something like the recommended amount of exercise. And I remember in our first Get Fit St. Lee series, we talked to Peter

Attia, who's a friend and I really like him, but he talked about exercise as being like the bottomless well of longevity potential. And that, you know, he was talking about how much exercise he does and I think it was like 14 hours a week or something like that. And I mean, I exercise a bit, but it's not even close to that. Maybe, maybe seven hours a week. Maybe. But that's like if you include the stretching.

And so I guess when I'm when I what did you learn about what is the right amount of exercise and what kind of caution and sanity would you add on top of that? Seven hours is still so much. That's a lot. I would say that for this column, we did not delve into what the optimal amount is in terms of the science of it. The CDC says 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity plus two days of some kind of strength training. An epidemiologist who writes for me frequently, Gideon Myrowitz-Kz, says 20 minutes a day, if not more, but 20 minutes, that's like really different from an hour a day. If you're using that as a baseline, that's in the realm of like you're going to get

the health benefits. I think that to go in the other direction, we kind of have this idea that like more exercise is better. And one of the things that Jen Miller talked about in her piece about like quitting midway through an ultra was if exercise, she didn't talk about like the aging stuff, but she was like if exercise were this like panacea for everything, endurance athletes would have these really amazing lives where they're just happy all the time. And actually there's evidence that like anxiety and depression is like more prevalent in those groups and like, you know, you can do a little like,

well, are you more likely to take up these extreme sports if you are? But the point is they're not walking around in a state of euphoria and wellbeing all of the time. It's like any other life choice. Running a marathon doesn't make you healthier. In fact, running a marathon can be a good way to damage your body if you're not taking the proper steps. Yeah, so I think that in terms of how much is the right amount,

beyond just following the general guidance and talking to your doctor and figuring out what it looks like to fit one amount of exercise or another in your life, like what you enjoy, really thinking about with apologies to the 14- exercisers of the week more is not necessarily better I would encourage people to think about why they're doing that amount and you could have a really good reason like I love working out it's fine yeah it's not automatically gonna make you better yeah in his defense I did press Peter on this and He said that he really likes to work out so sure yeah, and I think actually if my schedule worked I

Would work out that much myself. I happen to just like it and if you have the time like yeah we're getting down a lot during this day like it can feel good, but I We're getting down a lot during the day like it can feel good, but I Don't know if this line comes from you or from one of your writers, but it kind of sums it up well The lesson is clear. You can't outrun your problems and more exercise isn't always more helpful. I Think that's done Miller. Yeah Yeah, it's really true. One last question.

There was an article about how ditching the mirror can improve your workouts. Can you just say a little bit about that? Yeah, that was a wonderful article by Kylie Price, who's a young science writer. And she wrote about, there's a gym in Brooklyn called Form Fitness, a lifting gym that specifically like the owner set it up really intentionally so there are no mirrors or there is like there are one or two mirrors in the corner like for selfies but not mirrors that like are staring you down while you're working out.

I think that's the case like that's crossfit boxes don't have mirrors. A lot of yoga studios don't have mirrors. That's not like a wild thing, but, you know, we've all been to like, blink where I go, has giant mirrors. You cannot avoid your reflection. Like, when you're on the treadmill, you're staring at yourself. And in small studies, researchers have found that people might be more motivated when they're staring at the reflection.

Also, people look at posters of people with stereotypically nice bodies. They might be more motivated, but during the workout, when they're staring at themselves, but they also feel more stressed, which is you just don't want to be throwing it in the mix, and they describe themselves in more objectifying terms. And the really interesting thing is like, you can make an argument for mirrors that goes, well, if I don't have a mirror, how am I supposed to know that I'm doing this lift correctly

or this exercise correctly? And the trainers that Kylie spoke to said, well, like, having someone observe you and give you feedback or recording yourself and then looking at the recording later are actually both better ways because you don't want to be, like, craning your neck or, like, trying to, like, adjust everything mid-move

that that can actually backfire. And the overall point here is that like. The mirrors put. This reason of like working out for your body front and center, you got like really focused on like, this is what I look like and like, this is what I wish I'd look like, and it kind of I've learned to tune it out because like, I really like the blank that I go to. It's $15 a month.

It's really hard to beat. I've learned to just like tune out the reflection staring at me while I'm running, but it can be really distracting. Such an interesting point. And I had experienced that stress from all the mirrors, but not actually noticed that it was the mirrors causing all the stress.

So it was interesting to have it articulated so clearly. This has been great and I've learned a lot and kudos to you and Slate for doing this series. Is there something you were hoping to talk about that we didn't get to? Oh, that's a great question. There is one little point that I would like to make, which is that this actually comes from a piece

that predated the column. It was by Eleanor Cummins, who wrote about our obsession with super short workouts. You might have seen them in the New York Times, loves to publish these, a lot of news outlets like to publish these where it's like the seven minute workout, the four minute workout, the three second workout, you know, they get shorter and shorter and these stories are all based on little studies of people where it's like

you know, like 25 people did these like eight second moves in a lab and it turns out that you really exert yourself for the short amount of time, you can get the benefits of like doing longer workouts. And this professor of exercise psychology at Iowa State University, Pantaleimon Ekikakis, who's a huge critic of this way of thinking, like, oh, what's the shortest workout you can possibly do and how can you get the benefits in the smallest dose possible? One of the things he's really critical of is the study size that all of these articles are based on, where it's a really small sample size of people.

They're in this really unique condition where like most of us are not being like given instructions by a grad student while we're working out, we're kind of left to our own devices. And Dr. Eke Kakis said of these studies, you can discover wonderful things, none of which are true. And I just think that like, I don't want your listeners to like be discounting every piece of science that they encounter out there in the world. But just remember that like, not all studies are created equal. Not all studies are worth shouting from the rooftops about or changing around your life about. That's the process of science. Researchers do exploratory studies in small groups of people to kind of think about, like, the ways biology could work or what might help us later

down the line. Like, we're not supposed to be taking advice from them. Sometimes they're wrong. Well said. Before I let you go, can you just plug the Good Fit series and any other work you're doing over at Slate that you want people to know about? Oh yeah, okay. So Good Fit was a column that ran from January 2023 to December 2023.

You can read those essays from myself and a variety of contributors and learn some things that are wrong about the way we think about exercise, but hopefully, importantly, leave with a lot of cool ideas about what you could do to switch up your routine or change your perspective on things.

Yeah, so check those out. They're really fun. I can say that because I didn't write most of them. I just helped them be the shiniest version of themselves that they could be. So. Sounds like you're doing a lot of good work. So thank you for your time. Thank you for having me.

This was really fun. Likewise. Thanks again to Shannon Paulus. Don't forget to check out the other episodes in the Get Fit Sanely series. We'll put some links in the show notes. And don't forget to sign up over at danharris.com for my weekly newsletter in which I sum up what are for me the biggest takeaways from the week's episodes and also list a bunch of cultural stuff that I'm excited about right now including books, movies, etc.

Before I go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. We get additional pre-production support from Mike I Wombo Wu, an old friend of mine. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our managing producer.

And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. If you like 10% happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.