Originally Posted by
Digitalfiend
It makes you wonder if running is harder on the body than cycling. I'm not a runner so I wouldn't know.
Out of curiosity, do you know what your body fat percentage was around the period you experienced a/fib? Have you always been fit? Were you an endurance athlete in your teens?
I was a football player and discus thrower in high school, but it was in the '60s, before cardio fitness was "discovered" (my dad used to walk a mile to work, and when he turned 40 his doctor told him to stop because he might have a heart attack. He ignored the advice and lived to 83...). Don't know my fat percentage when I went into fib, but it had been as low as 11 percent (had it measured for a story back when it was a rare thing to do). I weighed 204 at that time (I'm 6'4") but had gained 25 pounds before the a. fib.
I've always tended to exercise in spurts, six months on and two months off, but was fit and working out regularly when I converted to AF. It happened almost literally overnight, and several attempts to convert me back to sinus rhythm, including electroshock, failed. My younger brother, a former big-college basketball player, went into fib at almost exactly the same age, so there's certainly a hereditary thing there, but who knows who has that and who doesn't? He passed a dozen sports physicals, and I was a Special Forces Medic in Vietnam. Nobody saw anything until we broke down.