The importance of exercise and feeling good. How much?

PeaceandLove

How much do you exercise, what and how much a day? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY.

ThailandTom

I exercise every other day, 40 minutes of intense weight lifting and then 20 minute of cardio work. I think it is more important for ones health to have a totally sound, healthy and peaceful mind than a healthy body, but exercise if done correctly has very little negative connotations if you do not become attached to a notion of self

Mr_Serenity

My real religion is the gym. Dudes I don't even know gesture me there just because they see me like every other day. There is this big black guy there built like MR T. He is the personal trainer everyone wants because not even Captain America could mess with this dude. I call him Big Daddy. My goal is to get as buff as him, or pretty close.

I ask him to recommend me machines for several areas, and I do what he tells me. Eventually I'll pay him for a few sessions. L.A. is all about looks. It's either that or money, so I aim for both. Enlightenment don't really mean anything if you're broke and alone where I'm from. The bums out here could be enlightened. I've met some nice bums.

zombiegirl

not at all. my job is incredibly physical. it's an off night when i don't break a sweat. my shifts range from 5-7 hours long. i was thinking about starting a weight lifting regiment, however.

PeaceandLove

I saw this Yoga master.. he said you can't have a sound mind without a fit body.. care to comment

being

I agree.. everyone who wants to take care of their body and thus mind should at least go for a walk several times a week, if nothing else.

Mr_Serenity

I saw this Yoga master.. he said you can't have a sound mind without a fit body.. care to comment

When you look good you feel good. That tends to be pretty much universal truth. But you can also get to the point where you can feel good, even if you don't look that great and I think with that confidence people start to think you look a lot better than you really do. It's rare to find people like that. Where you know they can improve on a lot, yet they're very confident and really wise characters that you will always remember. It's like people that smile with broken teeth, yet they're confident and cool enough to where it doesn't matter.

Lots of yoga masters are very superstitious, they're by no means perfect. I know one myself who has loads of crazy sounding beliefs. So sure there is some truth in looking good makes you wiser or more intelligent, but by no means is it absolute.

Jeffrey

I do an exercise short each morning as part of my awareness practice. Pushups or riding horse stance, low stance that exercises thighs. Stretches. Punches or Kicks.

When I am having trouble sleeping do to mania I will be in an exhausted state but unable to sleep. At this time I eat something with complex carbohydrates. So I don't wake up. Before that I do cardio until very exhausted, which for me is short!

I do feel better and have lost a small amount of weight.

Spock

I cycle to work, race now and again, swim and do yoga.
I practice mindfulness during exercise.....it helps me perform better and stay relaxed when racing.

ownerof1000oddsocks

Being excessively muscular, working for appearances etc, is the equivalent of having ten thousand posts on an internet forum.

Sure does look good, but it doesn't really get you anywhere. That said, it is OK for people to let of steam, do some posturing, show off etc, and you will get a pat on the head for doing so.

It is beneficial to do some REAL flexing mentally and/or physically, which is probably what the op is getting at here. That is to say that you will study, you will run up a hill, you will brush your teeth, cut down on sugars, generally have self respect without showing or having something to prove.

Right, where was I..

Whoknows

Exercise is pretty important, the relationship of mind and body is intricately linked. A poor state of health will generally result in poor meditation. eg eating too many fatty foods is very bad for meditation. Exercise can leave the mind relaxed and it can often lead to quite successful meditation. A lot of walking can be good as well, one of the most beneficial times in my meditation was when I had to walk 3/4 hour to and from the train station in relative empty streets, in these situations I ended up practising walking meditation.

As to actual exercise, I try to walk every day for about 1/2-1hour, I train at karate once a week (would like to train more) and teach once a week. When I teach I do my best to participate myself though its not as intense as training. My spare time seems to end up as reading dharma books or meditating instead of exercising though.

being

So sure there is some truth in looking good makes you wiser or more intelligent, but by no means is it absolute.

You are clearly twisting the purpose of physical exercise. It's not really only about looking better for most people. It's mostly about feeling good purely from the effects of physical exercise, which have nothing to do with how you look.
Physical activity clears our mind, makes us feel more energized opposed to sluggish mind and overall weak feeling. It can help better our sleep, strengthen our immune system, better our mood etc.

Exercising only for the looks is just pure vanity. But of course it can help people, who aren't very confident etc. So I'm not really saying no-one should exercise for looks only.

Mr_Serenity

Being excessively muscular, working for appearances etc, is the equivalent of having ten thousand posts on an internet forum.

Sure does look good, but it doesn't really get you anywhere. That said, it is OK for people to let of steam, do some posturing, show off etc, and you will get a pat on the head for doing so.

It is beneficial to do some REAL flexing mentally and/or physically, which is probably what the op is getting at here. That is to say that you will study, you will run up a hill, you will brush your teeth, cut down on sugars, generally have self respect without showing or having something to prove.

Right, where was I..

I agree that having so many posts on an internet forum is not really useful. BUT being fit, such as being muscular as a man is extremely useful. For me for example, I have never been a skinny guy. I always range between 185-200 pounds, 6 feet, so I have to maintain my muscle. I can't get to a "skinny" dude range. It's not really natural for me. Because I don't overeat and I work out 5x a week, but I can't get below 180, so I have to pack the muscle to overtake the fat.

People respect you more if you got all those muscles as a man too. Especially where I am from. Right now I am pretty muscular, not buff, but it is noticeable even with a lot of clothes. People do treat me better with all these muscles compared to when I didn't have them as big.

I live in Los Angeles, where looks do matter, and yes I can tell it's a huge advantage to look good in this city. The better you look and the more money you have the better people will treat you and the more friends you will have too. That's the reality around here. With that in mind, having the muscles as a male is extremely beneficial. Some guys look good very skinny, some guys don't. But I happen to be one of those guys that looks good with muscles.

Mr_Serenity

So sure there is some truth in looking good makes you wiser or more intelligent, but by no means is it absolute.

You are clearly twisting the purpose of physical exercise. It's not really only about looking better for most people. It's mostly about feeling good purely from the effects of physical exercise, which have nothing to do with how you look.
Physical activity clears our mind, makes us feel more energized opposed to sluggish mind and overall weak feeling. It can help better our sleep, strengthen our immune system, better our mood etc.

Exercising only for the looks is just pure vanity. But of course it can help people, who aren't very confident etc. So I'm not really saying no-one should exercise for looks only.

This is your truth. People have different truths. If you ask all the people working out at L.A.s Bally total fitness why they're doing it, 80 percent will tell you to look good. As they got tons of good looking men and women in there that do care about their appearance. Even when they look good they continue it for maintenance of their body.

Muscle aids in burning fat. And yes cardio does help you feel better, but it also burns fat. So the reality is people should exercise for health, for mind and for looks. There is nothing wrong with that. Especially when you live in a city so conscious of trying to look good.

Sure it's pure vanity doing it for looks, but so what? Better looks will get people around here more sex and better sex. They'll also be treated better on a daily basis looking that good. If you can't understand that it just means you come from a different environment.

Glow

For better or worse, looking good does indeed have evolutionary benefits. As Mr. Serenity put it "more sex and better sex" -- thus historically ensuring better chances of perpetuating your genetic lineage. Our brains are programmed to value (at least on a carnal level) certain traits that indicate better genetic fitness. Exercise has benefits that extend far beyond surface beauty, but the fact is that the current vogue of the gym rat lifestyle is largely the result of people operating under their baser instincts to attract mates. (Going back a bit further, modern bodybuilding evolved out of the Victorian insecurities about lost masculine vigor in a highly industrialized society. In either case, there is an underlying thread of a search for validation of virility and physical desirability.)

That said, Buddhism and spirituality aspire to transcend our baser programming. Whether this is realistic or desirable has been a matter of debate, but there are certainly benefits to be gained from detaching from the evolutionary meat-market mindset if you can manage it. In particular, a quality of equanimity and inner strength emerge when we have some semblance of disillusionment with sex. That doesn't mean we don't enjoy sex. But it does mean we aren't enslaved by it. Most of the people you see walking about are enslaved by their sexuality; this has implications beyond the occasional sexual indiscretion. It has been the inspiration for any number of sermons condemning sexuality, the perils of women, and poems about losing one's mind in love. And it is woven into the way in which we regard our own bodies: our attitudes towards our bodies, for the most part, are symptomatic of our sexual insecurities.

There is a classical teaching on the Eight Worldly Winds/Conditions in which the Buddha warns about becoming blown about by our tendencies to cling to pleasure and avoid pain:

"Monks, these eight worldly conditions spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions. Which eight? Gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. These are the eight worldly conditions that spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions.

"For an uninstructed run-of-the-mill person there arise gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. For a well-instructed disciple of the noble ones there also arise gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person?"

Zayl

I do about a half hour or aerobics and calisthenics after a ten minute stretching session. Then after more stretching I go for a run of varying lengths.

fivebells

I walk about two hours a day. (It's my main way of getting around.)

zombiegirl

I saw this Yoga master.. he said you can't have a sound mind without a fit body.. care to comment

for most people, i agree if you replace "fit" with "healthy". to me anyways, "fit" seems to imply a level of attractiveness. whereas to be "healthy" should imply a proper diet as well. let's not forget that proper diet is just as important as exercise.
i've also met people suffering from illness or disability that cannot exercise as most people do and i don't support the idea that they cannot have a "sound mind" as a result.

Zayl

Hmm well to me it is quite important to be both fit and healthy. I'm not trying to get fit because I think it looks good, I'm trying to get fit because of the utilitarian uses of a fit body.

...and because I'll look good.