Apparently smoking isn't as bad for you as we used to think.
Not that it's less bad than we thought it was. It's just that the latest research points to the fact that, apparently, having a poor diet is worse for you than smoking is.
So smoking may have gone down a notch on the bad for you scale even though it is no less bad for you than it was before.
And did you know that sitting is the new smoking?
So if the old way of thinking was that smoking was the worst for you, followed by a bad diet and then sitting, is the new way of thinking that sitting is the worst, followed by bad diet and then smoking?
These are the things I think about while swimming at 5:30am.
The whole thing started as I saw a hair drift by under me as I swam. I don't usually see anything in the pool when I swim other than water and other swimmers. Thanks at least in part to my non-prescription, semi-fogged goggles that I look through.
So I saw that hair and then I wondered what else was floating in the pool that I didn't see. And whether it was bad for me to be swimming in the pool so much. Whether the benefits of swimming were somehow diminished by the damages of immersing myself in a hair-filled, cootie-infested chlorine bath.
Then I got all grossed out and tried to change the subject in my head so I didn't start gagging.
And so the subject changed to other things that were bad for me. Like smoking which I don't do so it's not really causing me harm but it is bad for me and therefore I would never take it up.
But sitting is the new smoking and I sit on the couch at night blogging about my healthy lifestyle. Which might not be as healthy as I think it is because a good part of my week is spent either swimming in a chlorine-filled pool or sitting on my duff.
That's about the point at which I got back to the wall after my 400m pull and was told that we were going to do 50m sprints. Thank heavens for tough workouts - they keep me from thinking too much.
It's funny that the medical experts and the fitness media say that we sit too much and yet we also sleep too little. I guess all that lounging about is just slightly too active.
ReplyDeleteI have a hard time accepting the sitting thing. My boyfriend sits literally all day unless he's sleeping (he uses a wheelchair) and he's healthy as a horse. I know it's a completely different context but I wish they would differentiate between active and sedentary sitting. Just my two cents lol
ReplyDeleteIt's true that smoking may not be as unhealthy as having a really unhealthy diet. However, I still believe the most important way to remain healthy is a healthy lifestyle. Sitting around and just being there is also unhealthy, if it’s too much. I think that’s what the researchers are trying to tell us. :D
ReplyDeletePaul Larter @ Vapetime UK