Ask HN – What do you do to stay fit while working? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN – What do you do to stay fit while working?

21 pointskzisme41 comments

While working in the tech field (misting sitting) how does everyone stay fit or active, or maybe how do people get to a state of fitness?

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Tldr; eating salads

In the past I did crossfit. I enjoyed the short time commitment: 30 minutes, 3 times a weak & it allowed me to become very fit. However, I hurt my hip & have never wanted to go back to that level of extreme exercise for fear of further severe injury. I'm not a paid athlete & don't really need to be that fit.

In the past I've tried 2 types of dieting that made sense to me and each worked very well: Zone & Atkins. The catch is that Atkins is hard to sustain with little variety and a lot of temptation; while the Zone is enjoyable & not hard to stick with but you must be active much more so than when on Atkins.

For the last 2 years I've been very fit, with no more exercise than random walks and general stretching every few days. I got married and my wife, and now I, eat a salad before almost every meal. It's had an astounding affect on me. I still eat the yummy, high calorie high carb goodies, but much less than before. Btw, my wife makes amazing salads, nothing too exotic but nothing too boring.

From a Texan who eats his fair share of BBQ, salads can be very enjoyable.

This might not work for you but it works for me:

I do intermittent fasting (16 hour fast and an 8 hour feeding window) every day. I workout in the last hour of my fasting and then eat my biggest meal of the day.

My typical schedule goes like this: -My last meal (usually a protein shake or cottage cheese) right before 9:00pm. -I wake up and have tea -At 11:45 I head to the gym and workout for an hour or more -At 1:00 I eat my biggest meal -For dinner I just try to have a regular sized portion of food

I try to keep my protein and carb intake around the same amount of grams and keep the fats somewhat low. On the weekends I fast, but I don’t workout and I try to lower my carbs (this usually doesn’t happen though).

What I really like about working out at lunch is that I get away from the office and it makes me feel focused and fresh for the rest of the day.

Keto and stronglifts 5x5

I can eat what I want (as long as it's not carbs). So all the bacon and eggs every morning.

And then it's 20 minutes of weights 3 times a week.

Seriously so easy, and pretty much hardly any effort but great results (went down from a 34 waist to 28). Lost over 14kg and in perfect BMI.

I use "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe. It's 45 minutes of barbell training 3 times a week and lots of dairy products.

I've been at it for 2 years and squat 85kg and bench 65kg (3 sets, 5 repetitions). I obviously haven't become a competitive powerlifter but not bad for a nerd who never gets off the couch otherwise. Never got hurt either.

I've been told with more muscle you can keep your eating habits and not get fat; it seems to be true. I cut potato chips and sugary soft drinks but kept burgers, pizza and beer. Works fine.

Gym three times a week, which includes half an hour of C25K jogging (two weeks from the full half hour!) and strength training (alternating upper body, core, legs). On the off days, my wife and I play disc golf or go for a walk. This is with a ~9 hour workday plus a one hour commute both ways, while my wife's schedule is a ~13 hour work day plus a one hour commute both ways. It gets tiring but we're seeing results.

Look into a YMCA membership if you have one near you, it's a bit more expensive than a plain gym membership but there's a lot of value in it. For example, you can usually use any other YMCA for free outside of a 50 mile radius of your home club, and our club has what is essentially a free outdoor waterpark available to members during the summer.

We also did a Whole 30 a few weeks ago which caused me to make some permanent changes to my diet (mostly cutting out carbs and avoiding sweetener / sugar whenever I can). I lost something like 15 lbs on it.

'State of fitness' makes me think of cardio, treadmills, etc which for most non-fat people is non-optimal. Kenyan marathoners are fit but a strong wind will blow them over.

The optimal view is 'state of strength' since strength is the most important physical attribute, and certainly gains even more importance the older we get. Strength allows the body to operate optimally. People who partake in resistance training have less instances of death across any reason; accidents, illness, disease, even violence (you have a better chance of surviving a gunshot, for example, if you are strong which makes sense), etc.

I'm 54, and I do 2-3 workouts a week on the compound lifts like squats (always do your squats), overhead presses, deadlifts. I also do prowler and farmer walks for HIT. I also play basketball and tennis once a week. I have never felt better.

I hit the gym two or three times a week to lift heavy (e.g., squat, deadlift, overhead press) and go for a walk most days. The walks are hardly a breakneck pace—I'm carrying on a conversation, stopping to check out wildflowers, and observing what's going on around me. Both are fun and contribute to overall fitness, but in different ways.

I need to think a lot at my job will get up and wander around regularly.

Food wise, paleo-style eating seems to help with energy levels and staying lean. So does getting eight hours of sleep every night, which doesn't happen frequently enough.

I'm not a fan of steady-state cardio. It seems to hurt muscle mass and contribute to belly fat and joint pain.

I'm 41, 5'8", 175#, 32" waist, 40" chest, and recently squatted 315# for a single and have deadlifted 430#.

> contribute to belly fat.

Do you have any references on cardiovascular activity directly causing a layer of fat growing on your gut?

"Relationship between stress hormones and testosterone with prolonged endurance exercise." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15618989

More importantly: looking in the mirror. Even though I'm older, I'm leaner now doing zero steady-state cardio than I ever was running/biking dozens of miles a week.

Everyday, I do 100 pushups - 50 when I wake up & 50 before I go to bed. It takes 2 - 3 minutes from your day so you have no excuse. If I have extra free time I'll go swim at the local pool.

Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) does a really awesome podcast on which they discussed fitness/well-being one week[1]. The main takeaway is in order to become and more importantly stay healthy you have to change your mindset to always be thinking about what you eat.

1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A1rpGGqYew

It should be noted that some people get severe tendentious from high reps of pushups/pullups. But even low reps have benefits over none at all.

Very good clarification. I am indeed someone who got serious rotator cuff tendinosis from doing 100's of pushups a couple times / week. Took about 18months to fully heal, and my shoulders still aren't quite as good as they originally were.

Some people can definitely get away with doing tons of pushups, but I am not one of them!

Gym two to four times per week after work, and squats and pushups every morning. I can't do 50 pushups, but I can do more today than I did yesterday, and not as many as I'll be able to do tomorrow.

As for pushups at home:

- Do as many as I can.

- Rest my arms by doing ten squats.

- Do as many knee pushups as I can. This is my "bonus round," that gives me more improvement than I can get with just strict pushups. Most days I can do one, sometimes two more strict pushups than the day before.

Join some type of team or club sport, either one with people you already know or get to know. Going to the gym by yourself will get monotonous unless you're really motivated. Getting in shape is easy when it feels more like a social obligation than a physical burden.

I joined a small soccer team that was always struggling to get enough people to play each week. I suck at soccer, but I knew my presence was way better than playing 1 or 2 players down.

If you live in NYC, my trick is to go to a gym that in on the way home from work, but not the same stop as my apartment. Then I just force myself to always exit the train at that stop even if I really don't want to go to the gym. Once I've stepped off and the train leaves it's either go to the gym or wait 15 minutes for a new train.

YMMV but I've never not gone through with a workout once I've stepped off that train.

great idea! I'm going to try this

It really does work. I'm actually in the best shape of my life right now.

Force yourself to go to the gym on a regular schedule and work out for an hour a day M-F. Before work, after work, whenever. Just schedule it and do it.

For me, the key has been to realize that I'm not "wasting" or "losing" the time I spend at the gym. I feel like shit when I haven't done any physical activity, so I'm investing a few hours a week so that I can get more done in the normal work day.

My usual fitness routine: Weightlifting for strength, 3 times a week. Hatha yoga at least twice a week. Bouldering whenever I feel like it (unlike the other stuff I don’t try to make bouldering a routine so if I feel like not doing it, I won’t). This seems to work good for me.

Also, not eating shit food, mostly by avoiding the centre of grocery stores and shopping at local stores and farmers markets as much as possible.

>Hatha yoga at least twice a week.

Does that work for you? I would have thought one has to do yoga pretty much daily to maintain the flexibility to be able to do the asanas. Depends partly on which asanas you do, of course. Saying it because yoga exercises some muscles which are not often exercised by other types of workouts.

Despite the lack of daily practice I’ve found it has helped with my hip flexibility, especially when doing squats. All of my yoga sessions are at least 90 minutes each, some with intensive instructors, so that may be something to consider.

Cool, thanks.

I've got a simple flat weight bench, a 300lbs barbell set and combo squat stand/safety arm (for bench presses, etc) thing at home. Everything you need for typical "big move" weight training. Total cost: about $500 which is a bit less than an average year of gym membership.

Highly recommended if you have the space for it.

Also I do a lot of hiking as part of my photography hobby.

Living in London it is the space issue. That's why we pay for gym membership. Would so much rather have just have squat and flat weight bench.

I just started one small thing that's improved both my fitness and my work life -- reading a technical book when I work out on the elliptical.

Right now I'm working through Lisp In Small Pieces. It's not easy to read and work out, but I like the challenge and it works well enough that I'll keep doing it. Plus it keeps me from getting so bored at the gym.

On top of hiking, walking the dogs, bicycling and other after-hours hobbies, I keep a home made stepping box next to my desk. When I need to really think through something, instead of sitting or pacing, I do steps. Seems to help get the creativity working or serves as a good wake up if I'm getting that mid-afternoon drowsiness.

I work from home and have an elliptical runner in my office.

When I worked in an office, I biked to work every day and worked out in the gym directly after work.

Walk and talk meetings are great, so are taking the stairs. I still bike to meetings:) Just get a nice laptop backpack, while they're 'cool' looking, messenger bags killed my back on the bike.

I think it is better to get the exercise done before working.

Wake up earlier and go to the gym.

If you don’t like the gym do some pushups and crunchs and go running or do exercise bike for 30 minutes. Maybe it is hard the first weeks but if you get a routine it will become easier and you will feel energetic during the day if you do exercise when you wake up.

On Monday and Wednesday I go morning surfing. For that, I try not to schedule any meeting those mornings. If I can't hit the surf, I'll try to sub for a swim at my local gym. On Thursday I'll do weights at the gym, and the weekends a hike or some tennis.

Also I cook every day so that helps control what I eat.

Yoga three mornings a week.

Lifting during my lunch break, working out complementary muscle groups on alternating days.

Running or swimming on alternate evenings, unless I can find an opportunity to play Ultimate or slackline.

I also cycle as my main means of transport, or budget the time to walk (if it's under three miles).

I go to the gym every day and run for 10 minutes. It's not a long time but because it's so short it allows me to do it consistently. I've been gradually increasing the speed to the point that I'm running 8-minute miles, the fastest I ever have.

I work out 2 hours, 5 days a week via mix of core, cardio, toning, muscle. While I'm working out, I use the time to listen to music, podcasts, re-listen to some movies/TV shows. The key is to change your mental habits and build it up as a routine.

Diet is the most important. Highly recommended a paleo type diet. No processed foods or sugar. Forget counting calories. Just healthy whole foods. Meat, fruits, veggies, nuts, etc. No breads or sugar. Down 25 pounds. Works great for me!

Commute to work 3x week on a bicycle. Long rides on weekends. Lifting 1x / week.

Working on my diet as well, even though I'm already fairly lean. Trying to cut out all processed crap and just stick to real foods - paleo-ish diet.

Pushups and marine style crunches before going to work in the morning, a ~5 mile (one way) bike ride to/from the office, and don't sit around all day after work. I write software.

That and Wing Chun Kung Fu classes 3x per week

I use an exercise ball as a chair. Really tighten up the core. "Bonus" point is that the exercise ball is so uncomfortable I'm forced to stand up and take a walk every hour or so.

I go to the gym every day. I've found that I have to drive to the gym straight from work as, if I go home first, I somehow never make it to the gym.

Walk my dog twice a day, and also either swim or go for bike ride most days and also do pushups+situps. I work from home, which helps.

Powerlifting and rowing, and I make sure to use a workout tracker to measure my progress. And sleep, definitely sleep.

Golf whenever it's not raining or snowing.

I run 3-4 times per week, lift weights during those days also, and go walking 7 days per week. Even though I sometimes slack off during these routines, it's enough to keep me fit.

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