That's something so many people forget. "I don't care about exercise, if I die at 80 then so what" - Ok, but those last years will suck balls as you are trapped on a shell of a body. Quality of life matters almost as much as longevity.
I think about my grandma who basically hasn't had any semblance of quality of life in well over 5 years.
At first, about 5 years ago, she struggled to walk. Anything over 30 feet and she had to stop for a couple minutes to catch her breath. At the time, she was refusing to use a walker since she would say "Those are for old people!" as if she wasn't already 80 years old.
Of course, when you can't walk, you don't, and so everything gets worse. She eventually accepted that she needed a walker, but by then her knees had degraded so bad that even with it, she could barely move. Getting off the couch is an ordeal that requires two people to lift her up. She got dementia and is now basically bed-bound at a memory care facility.
She stopped living and began merely surviving a minimum of 5 years ago, likely closer to 10 years. Personally, I never want to live like that. If I get to the point where I can't do anything, just put a bullet in me or something. I'm not afraid of dying.
Until then, I'm hitting the gym 2-4x/week. Every time, at least 1,000 steps on the stair machine or 1.5 miles on a treadmill, plus some weights. I've only been going for about 3 months, hoping to increase my speed and endurance and turn it into 2,000 steps or 3 miles.
My grandpa would hike all the time, ski. Very active except resistance training. And got dementia in his 70’s. Once he stopped going outside for a few years he started to move like he was ten years older.
No. I am not saying that exercise is futile. It is as useful as conventional wisdom says. But the whole thread here (except the obligatory “but correlation, or causation?” crowd) seems to have forgotten the topic. Excercise is not enough. You also have to be not-sedentary.
