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6 weeks is worth it

I thought this article about the impact of exercising for 6 weeks was interesting. The article basically claims you won't look any different after six weeks. That may be, though I suspect it has a lot to do with how sedentary you start out as and how much you exercise. However, looks are only one piece of the puzzle. How you feel about yourself and your fitness level are another. At the end of the article, it discusses an individual who decides to take up running:

On April 18, 2005, he had his last school board meeting � he�d decided not to run for any more terms. Eight days later, he went out for a run.

�After half a mile, I had to stop and walk,� Mr. Reilly said. But he kept trying. A month later, he could run three miles without stopping.

He may not have looked any different, but I'm sure he felt different, and his internals obviously changed in some way to facilitate being able to run 3 miles. I'd expect the average sedentary individual who was average weight, overweight or even slightly obese to be able to build up to a 3 mile run in 4 to 8 weeks of regular exercise. Again, they may not look any different, but they'll probably feel different.

When I start exercising regularly after a layoff, I feel better mentally and physically almost immediately. Lately, B and I have been climbing a local mountain on the weekends so I can get in shape for Pe*ru. We've only been doing it for 4 weeks, but B times us every week, and I'm doing it faster than when we started, and now carrying some weight (in the form of water bottles).

8:33 a.m. - Feb. 09, 2009

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partisan politics

CNN on what the Congression*al Budget Off*ice (nonpartisan) has to say about the stimulus package:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the measure is likely to create between 1.3 million and 3.9 million jobs by the end of 2010, lowering a projected unemployment rate of 8.7 percent by up to 2.1 percentage points.

But the CBO warned the long-term effect of that much government spending over the next decade could "crowd out" private investment, lowering long-term economic growth forecasts by 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent by 2019.

It's interesting to me to see in plain type the obvious - that we will be feeling the repercussions of this, for better or for worse, 10 years from now, and that the chosen path of action will be one opposed by half the lawmakers.

8:28 a.m. - Feb. 09, 2009