Exercised

Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding

By: Daniel E. Lieberman

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

If exercise is healthy (so good for you!), why do many people dislike or avoid it? These engaging stories and explanations will revolutionize the way you think about exercising—not to mention sitting, sleeping, sprinting, weight lifting, playing, fighting, walking, jogging, and even dancing.

“Strikes a perfect balance of scholarship, wit, and enthusiasm.” —Bill Bryson, New York Times best-selling author of The Body

• If we are born to walk and run, why do most of us take it easy whenever possible?
• Does running ruin your knees?
• Should we do weights, cardio, or high-intensity training?
• Is sitting really the new smoking?
• Can you lose weight by walking?
• And how do we make sense of the conflicting, anxiety-inducing information about rest, physical activity, and exercise with which we are bombarded?

In this myth-busting book, Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a pioneering researcher on the evolution of human physical activity, tells the story of how we never evolved to exercise—to do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health. Using his own research and experiences throughout the world, Lieberman recounts without jargon how and why humans evolved to walk, run, dig, and do other necessary and rewarding physical activities while avoiding needless exertion.

Exercised is entertaining and enlightening but also constructive. As our increasingly sedentary lifestyles have contributed to skyrocketing rates of obesity and diseases such as diabetes, Lieberman audaciously argues that to become more active we need to do more than medicalize and commodify exercise.

Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology and anthropology, Lieberman suggests how we can make exercise more enjoyable, rather than shaming and blaming people for avoiding it. He also tackles the question of whether you can exercise too much, even as he explains why exercise can reduce our vulnerability to the diseases mostly likely to make us sick and kill us.

Its all worksouts

I'm a biostatistician that focuses on healthy aging. This book encapsulates my current beliefs on exercise better than I could have described myself.

Fascinating dive into what we’re meant to do based on anthropology

Highly recommend Exercised to anyone who is interested in discovering what people are evolutionarily meant for and how exercise can help stave off some modern day health problems that stem from a mismatched environment.

Lieberman Hits One Out of the Park

He knows his material. An expert’s take on why we fail to exercise — at all or enough. Put yourself in a life that closely mirrors our hunter / gatherer ancestors and you’ll only just begin to figure it out. Technology and modernity is the enemy that’s keeping us from our potential. Progress is anything but.

Best to listen walking

Dr Lieberman shows why moving the body throughout life is essential even if we evolved to be lazy. I recommend the books on nutrition and health by Dr Joel Fuhrman and by Dr. Michael Greger to read along with this book.
Plant food plus exercise is vitally important for health and aging. Audible helps me move because I try to listen while exercising, being rather lazy myself. The cover illustration is perfect.

Great for the exercise need

A great background to help us understand where our urge or lack there of, to exercise comes from. Written in the wonderful easy way that makes Daniel Lieberman such an easy read/listen.