Start Up Life Lesson #9: You Will Get Fat | Hacker News Reader

Start Up Life Lesson #9: You Will Get Fat

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28 pointsdebtkid30 comments

I realize this is just having fun, but I'm often reading this-or-that to the effect that startups are bad for your health. And, I just don't get it. Or rather, I suppose, I expect that anyone who thinks startups are bad for your health has never worked for corporate america.

Working a job was the worst thing I ever did for my health. Now that I'm at a startup, I get plenty of sleep and exercise and eat healthy, home-cooked vegetarian meals. And the stress involved in working for myself is so much less that that of working for a PHB... I could never go back.

In the last two years, I've lost 50 pounds. I recently completed my first century. I'm in the best shape of my adult life. I sincerely attribute all this to being my own boss and setting my own schedule. Am I really the only one who finds the startup life superior???

It's a balance thing. A lot of startup founders get into bad habits--all-nighters because they've just gotta launch that new feature (which they rush into production, it breaks everything, and then they have to stay up even longer to roll it back, or fix the problems), eating nothing but ramen and cheap takeout, because they imagine cooking takes too long (though I've found making simple meals at home is more time-effective, generally), etc. Everything takes a back seat to working, which I think is counter-productive. You can't sustain that kind of thing, and when you burn out, you'll burn out hard. If you don't sell the company within the "candle at both ends" phase (however long you can maintain that), you'll hit a brick wall and slow to a crawl for a while (you'll also probably look back on your code and wonder WTF you were thinking).

In short, I agree. You probably should view having your own company as an opportunity to live right, rather than an excuse to live terribly. Maximizing health and happiness is probably not a bad way to work towards success, as long as "happiness" does not involve lots of vacations and living beyond your (probably very limited) means.

Those bad habits would probably exist for most of those people no matter where they worked. Startup founders are a tiny portion of the overall population and in my relatively small, unscientifically counter sample don't appear to suffer any more from obesity than the rest of the population.

Obesity comes from people allowing themselves excuses. "I'm not going to work out today because I have to get this code shipped" would just as easily become "I'm going to just eat at McDonalds today because I have to get home to take the kids to baseball practice" if they switched professions/lifestyles.

Absolutely agree. My health has gotten quite a bit better since I started my own business.

"And the stress involved in working for myself is so much less that that of working for a PHB... I could never go back."

I found this to be exactly the reverse in my case. Even when the company I work for has problems with payroll, the stress is trivial compared to the stress of running my own business. I'm working an 8-5 job right now after years of startup/small-business life, and ~45 hours a week feels like a constant vacation.

I second that. Lost 25 lbs this year. Working from home gives me the ability to make my own food and therefore take complete control of my diet.

I didn't have any trouble staying in shape at my previous corporate job. Although the sitting around all day was really bad, it wasn't too hard to get into a daily routine that included 2 hours in the gym. Diet was only a problem until I found a place nearby that sold huge subs for $3, for whenever I didn't prepare my own lunch.

Sickness (eg influenza), alcohol, and lost sleep have had a far greater impact than work of any kind. YMMV though, I've never been overweight in my life and have never been a heavy/frequent drinker. Ultimately I think it depends on how you manage time and whether you prioritize exercise and diet.

I gained a few pounds when I moved from Austin to the valley and was getting a little soft in the middle. I stopped playing tennis and stopped cycling because I haven't met anyone out here who enjoys such things. But I recently took up running, as I already walk my dog every day and she doesn't mind going a little faster for a mile or two. And I've gone somewhat paleo in my eating habits: mostly raw vegetables and fruits, almost no processed grains and simple carbohydrates like breads and pastas, and lots of protein (I'm a vegetarian, so I've been eating more eggs and beans and nuts). I also got a Wii Fit, which didn't seem to have much impact on my weight, but I am getting more exercise (and my pushup and situp count has increased under the kind tutelage of Miyamoto). Anyway, my pants are fitting nicely again. I've gotta fix the buttons on a couple of pair, as they suffered under the cruel tyranny of the Fat Joe regime.

I'd read about the hundred pushup challenge on reddit (and the many other "I bet I could X 100 Y" challenges, which are equally inspiring), but I figured since I don't actually like doing pushups I'd content myself with the 20 or so that I can do now, and do a bit more balanced workouts a few times a week.

"... but I figured since I don't actually like doing pushups I'd content myself with the 20 or so that I can do now, and do a bit more balanced workouts a few times a week. ..."

Sounds pretty reasonable.

The one reason these 100PU's have against them is the amount of work required to get to 100. Muscles take a long time to harden. A long time. To get to 100 a lot of people will give up. I notice this looks like a group activity. Nothing like group pressure to keep up. But a lot of hackers are in smaller teams or individual. It's also hard work. 20 a day no problems. It's not hard then to do another REP when the arms & shoulders are conditioned.

I'm no fitness buff but doing push-ups doesn't strike me as the thing for losing weight.

Push-ups are also horribly unergonomic - just see how guys in the video are arching their backs. Better to go to the gym and use a machine that isolates the excercise to the exact muscles you want while not straining unrelated muscles and joints in evil ways.

"... I'm no fitness buff but doing push-ups doesn't strike me as the thing for losing weight, etc. ..."

Nerd excuse.

A push-up is the simplest measure of ones fitness. You don't need a machine, someone helping you. It's not something you have to read a manual on or get coaching. Next to chin-ups and running what else do you need? :)

Gym machines don't exercise your stabilization muscles, and they only work one muscle at a time.

When you do pushups (if you do them right), you exercise your triceps, shoulders, biceps, back muscles, and your pectorals all in one go.

Calisthenics are amazing and completely underutilized in today's gym-heavy environment. Did you notice that the military doesn't use gym equipment at all? Ever wonder why?

"biceps, back muscles" how?

I'm sorry, I try very hard to avoid being the typical arrogant internet jackass, but I just can't not respond to that.

I'm an athlete first, and a technology worker second. And what you just said ("better to ... use a machine that isolates ... while not straining unrelated muscles") is the fitness equivalent of something that would be a top post on The Daily WTF.

That is almost exactly the wrong idea. I mean, so precisely opposite of correct information that I hope you didn't write that as a joke and I'm not getting it.

The only time isolation movements make sense is if you're already a very competitive bodybuilder who walks around with hundreds of pounds of lean muscle mass. Otherwise, isolation movements (especially when performed on machines rather than with free weights) are a genuinely terrible idea. At absolute _best_ they will make you gain muscle and lose weight vastly more slowly than you could. Most likely, they'll make you wind up with a chronic injury.

Please, please, please don't go to the gym and work on machines. Do compound movements instead. If you're interested in making physical improvements, go pick up Starting Strength. It's $30 and the author is an absolute genius.

[That was officially my first flame. I feel so hollow inside ...]

You're asserting that the average person starting a lifting regimen is more likely to injure themselves on a machine rather than with fundamental lifts like dead, bench and squat?

Push-ups give me a headache. I don't know if its the blood rushing to the head or the neck tension, but they are uncomfortable for me for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual excercise. Same thing for pull-ups, sit-ups or whatchamacallit.

Machines are comfortable while still maxing out my muscle capacity. They are the sole reason that I am now, after many years of repeatedly failing to start a weight regimen, enjoying gym excercise.

You are probably right in everything you said, since I know fuck all about fitness, but I know what I like.

Start-ups are great for your health, or at least mine has been for me. I don't have enough money to go out to bars all the time, so I don't drink much, and I would really rather pay rent than buy cookies at the grocery store every week. On top of that, I don't have a car, and since it's generally just about as fast to walk as to take public transportation, I might as well get some fresh air, I tell myself.

But maybe it's the stress that has so positively impacted my health. Yes, you read that correctly: stress has made me healthier. Work can be frustrating, leaving me feeling like a caged wild animal, ready to run 100 miles, wanting nothing more than to get away and to get away fast!

To be fair, it takes me a full week to run that far, but I'm still at a start-up, so I'm sure it will go by faster in the future. In the meantime, I probably won't be getting too fat. You don't have to, either.

Jobs don't make you fat, not exercising makes you fat.

When I was overseas I went to the gym twice a day; when I got back to the states and started working on our Startup, I went a couple times a week. When we moved to Boston to take part in YC I stopped entirely. My decline was accelerated by all-nighters, a poor diet and stress, but the root cause of gaining weight is... not exercising!

Changing jobs can, in some cases, cause a fluctuation in weight, but if you exercise regularly and take measures to have a good diet, then it really shouldn't matter. Just because there's an abundance of food doesn't mean you need to eat it! We're moving next week and since I am thoroughly disgusted with myself now, it's time to start hitting the gym promptly after that.

Final note: Push-ups aren't conducive to weight loss. And somebody tell all the people in that video to stop looking down while they do them! Ugh.

A caloric surplus is the root cause of weight gain...

I'm a huge fan of CrossFit. Short high intensity workouts, if you do them right they will kick your ass and get you in shape, and they dont take much time.

As somebody that used to be gym rat, i can say that the 100 pushups challenge is a bad bad idea.

You will just exercise only some parts of the body, and forget the rest. At some point, when I was working out a lot, i was obsesed with bench-pressing, and trained a lot of them. The result was an onverdeveloped chest, and triceps, while the rest was just more regular looking. It just made me look more bulky, but I don't think it made me anymore healthy.

I ignored my legs, and biceps, and at some point ended up injuring my knees, playing soccer, mainly b/c I just didn't exercise my legs as the rest of my body.

Lesson learned. You have to go to the gym, and do all the range of excercises, and not just one kind.

Not necessarily true. If the only muscle groups that get worked out are your pecs and triceps, you're probably not doing them right. Being able to do 100 proper pushups consecutively is no easy task and requires a lot of work from supporting muscle groups (back, abs, deltoids, quads and hamstrings to a lesser extent). Your core has to be strong in order to maintain the rigidity necessary to control the motion. Granted, if you plan on playing soccer, you'd still want to work your legs directly, but don't think that the rest of your body didn't benefit from doing all those pushups / benchpresses. However, those other muscles won't necessarily get as "bulky", as tension-type exercises don't generate that kind of result (think pilates).

I got chills reading your comment - there's a relatively new "100 pushups" meme on Reddit that was precipitated by a comment very similar to yours:

http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6nz1k/got_six_weeks...

As another former gym rat, 100 pushups isn't a bad idea at all. The ability to do 100 pushups will not make you "bulky" at all. It isn't the same thing as the guys who can bench press 300 pounds and only squat 180. Push-ups are a "core" exercise and if you do them right you're working everything from your pecs to your psoas.

Now, I totally agree with you that neglecting the rest of your body is a bad idea. Most men who are prone to being "gym rats" totally ignore leg exercises. If you're sitting down all day programming, your legs eventually will get totally screwed up, so it is a good idea to do something with them. If you're totally fat and out of shape, walking for an hour per day is more important than doing a bunch of pushups.

I also disagree with the guys in the article. If they gained a bunch of weight, simply doing pushups (even 100 at a time) is not going to burn off what they put on. I don't want to discourage them, because pushups can contribute greatly to overall health, fitness, and self esteem. But, if losing fat is what they are after, they need to stop stocking the fridge with free beer and soda and start a track club.

For me it really goes with stress. When things are running smoothly and I have a decent amount of free time, I sleep well, eat healthily, and work out regularly. When things are busy, and I have a huge to-do list, my stress level is way up, and there's tons of stuff demanding my time, I sleep less and poorly, I crave carb and fat rich foods when I'm stressed, and I have a much harder time taking breaks to workout, etc...

Right now I'm dealing with my first house purchase and a cross-country move on top of my normal work, and my health has taken a big dive. Hopefully once I move and things settle down, I'll get back on track.

Sweet, I just joined giveme27.com after reading this. Haven't done push-ups for a few weeks, but I saw that the site's high scorers were only at 60 and 40. Couldn't quite hit the #1 myself, but seeing others' numbers certainly motivated me to try harder too!

Really, it's all about balance if you're running a startup, a regular business, or working a 9-5. We all need something to create/maintain/release some energy besides sitting in front of a computer, and it definitely gives you more energy overall.

My personal fave is mountain biking, and I'm looking to get back into kickboxing in the fall (maybe now that I've said so publicly I'll be more motivated not to poop out on that statement ;)

Joining a recreational sports team is another good option, plus you get out and meet/hang out with people that way, which can be tough when you're in startup mode.

Here's an idea: YC ought to try a sports night where the startup founders all get together and play a bit...

I've probably put on about 60 pounds since starting up years ago. The ridiculous hours take it out of you and mean that you don't get to do the things you want to do.

I was very successful with the hacker diet years back, but even now I don't have the right combination of time and energy to successfully pull it off.

you know whats funny? I am actually now in better shape than what I was in when I started. Part of it is that, thanks to doing the startup I learned to multitask. And its fairly easy to get in shape if you multitask, we all need a break, so during the 1 hour I spend watching TV I also work out.

And I actually recommended that 100 push ups challenge(I'm up to 65 full fledged pushups, by which I mean you go all the way down hold, then go all the way up and hold), it really helps to get you into shape by getting you into the whole mindset towards working out. + its a huge confidence builder

The old 5BX plan worked wonders for me: http://www.oakengates.com/5bx/

Rather than get me fat, starting a company pushed me to build the body I'd always wanted.

There's a good chance of gaining (or losing) weight in any situation where your whole daily routine is shaken up, really.

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