Marie commutes daily by bicycle to the chemistry lab where she works.
Sorry for taking things a little too literal here, but most people (that I know of) work 5 days a week, have 2-6 weeks off per year, and call in sick something like 5-15 days per year, plus there may be some nationwide holidays on top. That leaves us with a range of around 210 − 245 actual commuting days or 57-67% of all days of the year. There are also likely days where rain/snow/wind cause Marie to get to work some other way, so effectively, even somebody who pretty much always takes the bike to work, will still end up at something like 50% of all days, but would probably tend to describe it as “everyday”.
I’m not so much intending to criticize the example here, just point to the fact that such simplification makes it rather easy to delude oneself. I thought of myself as someone who takes the bike to work “almost always”, yet when I actually tracked it, only got to around 100 days per year which was somewhat surprising.
Maybe the recommendations already take this into account however, and exceptions (even a lot of them, as naturally tend to happen) are tolerable as long as “the typical week” goes according to plan?
This is a very thoughtful point, Markus. And frankly, my example did not take this into account… I guess that it actually can help to track one’s exercise habits (as you did) and – in case these don’t meet the recommendations – adapt the strategy. For example: If you observe that on average you take the bicycle only on four out of five workdays, then plan one additional session on the weekend.
Thanks for this! Very useful.
One tiny nitpick:
Sorry for taking things a little too literal here, but most people (that I know of) work 5 days a week, have 2-6 weeks off per year, and call in sick something like 5-15 days per year, plus there may be some nationwide holidays on top. That leaves us with a range of around 210 − 245 actual commuting days or 57-67% of all days of the year. There are also likely days where rain/snow/wind cause Marie to get to work some other way, so effectively, even somebody who pretty much always takes the bike to work, will still end up at something like 50% of all days, but would probably tend to describe it as “everyday”.
I’m not so much intending to criticize the example here, just point to the fact that such simplification makes it rather easy to delude oneself. I thought of myself as someone who takes the bike to work “almost always”, yet when I actually tracked it, only got to around 100 days per year which was somewhat surprising.
Maybe the recommendations already take this into account however, and exceptions (even a lot of them, as naturally tend to happen) are tolerable as long as “the typical week” goes according to plan?
This is a very thoughtful point, Markus. And frankly, my example did not take this into account… I guess that it actually can help to track one’s exercise habits (as you did) and – in case these don’t meet the recommendations – adapt the strategy. For example: If you observe that on average you take the bicycle only on four out of five workdays, then plan one additional session on the weekend.