- run 5x per week every morning (~30 miles a week; more if I'm training for something)
- stretch, dynamic before, static after. Essential to prevent injuries
- weight lift 3x per week (bi/tri, chest/upper-back, abs/lower-back/shoulders)
- take rest days
- sleep 9-10 hours a night, going to bed at the same time (EDIT: every's needs here are a little different)
- eat 1 salad per day
- eat lots of fruit (apples, pears, banana's, raspberries, cantaloupe, etc)
- avoid processed foods, and overall eat healthy
- keep stress levels low (figure out what stresses you and then you can manage it)
I use to be very obese (5ft 10in, 240 pounds), but lost the weight through calorie restriction about 10 years ago (6ft 0in, 160 pounds now, muscular, etc). Later I got into running which made me much healthier. That begot eating healthier, which eventually begot weight lifting. Now I can do some crazy stuff, like run up all the stairs in Porter Square. You feel like superman all the time.
The human body needs maintenance. Like a car you can abuse it in the short-run and it's still gonna run. But eventually it catches up with you. Problem is, if a car dies at mile 100,000 because you didn't change its oil often, you buy another car; but you can't buy another body.
It takes time to get into a healthy lifestyle. One-step at a time is the right approach. If you're overweight, focus on calorie restriction. If you're a healthy weight but want to get fit, pick an activity that you'd enjoy. Some people like solitary stuff (running), others like social (team sports or workout classes). If you're not eating healthy, get a book about nutrition and change your diet (Google "Nancy Clark"). You'll eventually find that one healthy step leads to another.
Lastly, keeping healthy is like having a second job. Carving out time and prioritizing it is key. You'll find that friends, employers, bosses, spouses, what-have-you, try to steal this time away from you. You've got to fight back and remember that you're investing in your future. Especially with jobs; would you rather be rich, prestigious and unhealthy, or poor, unknown and healthy? A "good" job or startup will let you be all the good and none of the bad.
('course he probably was 16 years old when he was obese or something)
Interesting theories about posture though. I have no idea if that affected it or not.
Downside: No grains, beans, dairy; that means no coffee, no chocolate, no soy, no cheese, no bread or noodles or pastries. (Plus sides: bacon, sausages, eggs, figs, dates, walnuts.)
I gradually fell into this diet by carefully noting which foods made me feel bad ~15-30 mins after. I did this over a process of many months starting sometime in February. Finally, just a few days ago, I concluded that I was basically drifting into Paleo of my own accord, and for me to be at my best I had to go from reduced intake of the banned foods to complete removal. I'm still going to cheat every now and then, but I know I'll feel it every time.
Also, I would say experiment with dairy. Dairy makes me feel great. Full fat yogurt is a fantastically cheap and healthy central component to a meal if it agrees with you (I think ethnicity is relevant here). Yogurt has minimal lactose. So what if cavemen didn't have it.
[1] http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%201-2/Lactase%20map.gif
[2] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/LacIntol-World2.pngCoffee is a bean, as is cocoa. I can manage pretty well with beans most of the time, but they're doing something that I can't pinpoint yet. It's an iterative thing, and when I cheat it's an opportunity to learn more about how those things affect me.
It's very important with the paleo stuff not get caught up in what I've seen aptly described as "food reenactment." Honey and many starchy roots are technically "paleo", but you should still mostly avoid them. Brains and colon meat are definitely paleo, but you can't feasibly purchase them. "Paleo" is a good starting principle but in the modern world it's insufficient and you have to go with the research and what works for you.
A more balanced meal would involve a box with pre-cooked meat(I like boiling up fresh sausages in olive oil, it's very easy), some veggies, and a fruit item. Right now I'm able to work from home so I don't really have to plan ahead like that, but it's the obvious next step.
As a corollary, if you have an active hobby and any sort of drive to be good at it, you will train yourself as such. So if you take up say rock climbing and like it, then you will get lots of exercise as a direct result of climbing, and lots more to train yourself to get better.
You've really got to think through a route and learn the sequence of moves that'll get you to the top. And then, once you've got a route completely figured out, the gym changes it on you and throws a new problem in the way.
Highly recommended for people who like to work their brains while they exercise.
It is not an easy choice.
I'm spread very thin at work between support, sysadmin and development. I do my best work on focus stuff (development and production sysadmin) at strange hours after several cups of tea, and am unhealthy on this count.
The food advice I've seen elsewhere here is good. Avoid sugar and starch (chips are tasty but terrible), always have breakfast. I used to be one of these geeks who didn't have breakfast, I've no idea how I survived. Some food in the morning is critical. Vegemite on toast (it's popular in Australia) is a killer breakfast - easy and consistently good.
UK have deals at the moment to get cheap bicycles through work. Also everyone's broke, so gyms are less busy, which has worked out well for me.
here's why: "athletic" folks in my mind are those who play running sports such as frisbee, soccer or bball. Even just pickup, which is low stress and to some extent low motivation, require stamina of 1-2 hrs. Athletic folks are comfortable going on half hour runs a few times a week. Quadrupling that running time to 2 hrs is a small matter of stamina and psychology. Assuming you're not running a half marathon to win, there's no need for physical destruction.
i'll happily play frisbee for 2 hrs (with water breaks, hard sprints and down time on the line), but get bored running. training for a half-marathon was a great experience mostly because of the mental zen aspect. you get into a zone...it's wonderful. i'd come home, lie down for a bit, eat a great breakfast, and do some excellent coding.
running in the half-marathon was exhilerating. there are so many people, and there's such a great sense of accomplishment afterward. having the goal of running a race--however long--is excellent motivation, too.
(the link you provided contains so many questionable methodologies and conclusions that i can't take it seriously)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=733166
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=783074
Summary: 100,000+ person study found that men who ran two or more marathons per year were 41 percent less likely to suffer from high blood pressure, 32 percent less likely to have high cholesterol, and 87 percent less likely to be diabetic than non-marathoners. Those who ran only one marathon every two to five years also had significantly lower risk for these conditions than non-marathoners.
Other studies link long-distance cardio with neurogenesis, increased life expectancy, and more.
Compared to whom? Serious racquet sport competitors? Power lifters? No, compared to couch potatoes with lousy diets. Well no shit. That's not the point.
In terms of life expectancy, endurance athletes such as marathoners and cross-country skiers live about 2 years longer than sprinters, 4 years longer than power lifters and 6 years longer than the general populace.
http://www.mdconsult.com/das/citation/body/163630869-2/jorg=...
Why didn't they just look at dead olympic athletes? That would be an interesting and potentially worthwhile study. Actually, I know why: that study would have been hard work whereas for this garbage all they had to do was plug a canned data set into some silly unverified pharma model they tweaked for their own agenda.
http://www.theheart.org/article/243897.do
Endurance sports can mess up your heart rhythm.
Here's the first google result for "runners die young": http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/ehn273v1.pdf
"The current report demonstrates a high prevalence of advanced coronary atherosclerosis and myocardial scar formation in see- mingly healthy marathon runners aged >50 years."
From your links: "Heidbüchel's study included only a small, highly selective population of endurance athletes, predominantly cyclists, who engage in a particular type of strain, with preexisting arrhythmias."
So even when you specifically searched for "runners die young", it came back with a paper that states that marathon running is part of a healthy lifestyle and then goes on to talk about possible risks for those who race without sufficient training or who are trying to undo decades of unhealthy living. Over half of the participants were former smokers. The paper does not in any way claim that "endurance sports can mess up your heart rhythm" nor is the quotation you took out of context representative. In fact, it said:
"Marathon running is part of a healthy lifestyle. There is overwhelming evidence for the cardiovascular protective effects of physical activity."
What is it with this? What ax to grind is so important that it's worth posting misleading, disingenuous summaries of research you find by googling for your already chosen conclusion? As I asked last time, Can you refer me to any peer-reviewed research linking sprint training or weight training with equal or greater benefit in any of the health indicators that Paul Williams's 100,000 person study found distance running improved?
I don't have an ax to grind. I literally don't want people trying to get in shape to waste large amounts of time and hurt their knees and so on doing long distance running when it is so much inferior for losing weight and maintaining fitness. I want to steer them in the right direction. They will have so much more success training in other ways.
It is common knowledge at this point that interval training, sprints, and properly done strength training produce all the same cardiovascular health benefits as distance training but without the repetitive stress and other physiological stresses of long distance. Also without the huge time investment. Also with much better body fat percentage measurements. You can use google as well as I can.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/for-heart-health-sp...
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health-news/2008/11/01/sho...
The studies I've referred you to are the largest, the most rigorous that have ever been done to date on the topic. They are not "observational garbage".
>You can use google as well as I can.
Well, that's the thing. My knowledge comes from readining actual journals and having doctors in the family who can interpret them. You're the one googling "runners die young". In fact, the actual study behind your NYT link paints a different picture than the NYT article did. See the conclusion:
"We conclude that SIT is a time-efficient strategy to elicit improvements in peripheral vascular structure and function that are comparable to ET. However, alterations in central artery distensibility may require a longer training stimuli and/or greater initial vascular stiffness than observed in this group of healthy subjects."
I repeat, Can you refer me to any peer-reviewed research linking sprint training or weight training with equal or greater benefit in any of the health indicators that Paul Williams's 100,000 person study found distance running improved? I seriously doubt it, because I've scoured every journal I have access to for comparative studies, and every one of those studies found greater longevity and fewer lifestyle diseases in endurance athletes than in speed or power athletes.
Do share.
I hope you know what I mean by observational and understand how it's a worthless way to develop understanding. It's for forming hypotheses.
Resistance training reverses aging in muscles: http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleUR...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_ea...
Short bursts of intense exercise every few days could dramatically cut the risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, according to an expert.
"If we can get people in their 20s, 30s and 40s doing these exercises twice a week then it could have a very dramatic effect on the future prevalence of diabetes."
Strong people live longest (I post this despite acknowledging it is also model derived garbage): Jonatan R. Ruiz and his co-authors tested more than 8,000 subjects aged 20 to 80 for muscular strength. They grouped individuals into three categories of strength and found that the age-adjusted risk of cancer was 17.5 per thousand in the weakest group, 11.0 in the middle group, and 10.3 in the strongest group. The weaker groups also had higher blood pressure, higher cholesterol, more cardiovascular disease, and more of them had diabetes. (Cancer Epidemiological Biomarkers Prevention 2009;18(5):1468–76).
>the actual study behind your NYT link paints a different picture than the NYT article did
No, it incidentally raised a question, just as the previous link about heart rhythm problems in cyclists raised a much more strongly indicated question about exercise induced damage.
1. Try to eat breakfast; the reason here is two-fold, first is that it's good for your metabolism and the second is that it helps if 5. fails.
2. Eat Smart; the brain likes omega-3's but the omega-6's will kill you. 'Healthy' is very different for 'smart', you want foods that help increase your efficiency and concentration, not make you run to the toilet every 5 minutes because you're downing pro-biotic yogurts and bran muffins.
3. Weightless exercises; I'm guessing everyone here has a few extra pounds on them, squats and crunches can be done anywhere and at any time, you don't need to lug around a few 20lb weights to get your sweat on. If you do it frequently it can help boost your metabolism.
4. Get a good sleep routine, being exhausted can kill an entire day of productivity.
5. Avoid alcohol (at least before 5pm), alcoholism seems to be a non-genetic inheritable disease in writers, so try not to have a drink in the morning. Make sure you observe #1, because forgetting #1 and #5 means you're hitting the bed by 11am.
6. relax a little, play games, read some HN, but don't slack off. It's good to keep your stress levels down, not only does it help your creativity and productivity, but you also don't have the urge to break #5.
7. this follows on from #6, but is much more important in the long run, having a day off helps prevent a burn out, AKA writers (coders?) block.
9. Drink tea not coffee. Research shows that coffee can increase stress, decrease work performance and can decrease your confidence in your work. Tea however decreases stress, not only through drinking it but due to the ritual and the time taken to make it (you don't get a tea maker, you get a kettle and have to wait, waiting generally means relaxing).
Overall I just try to be productive and hope that in the long run I don't end up an alcoholic like 1/2 of writers.
I guess you've never been to the DMV.
1. Always eat breakfast
2. Don't eat past 9pm
3. Get 7 hours of sleep
4. Walk 30 minutes a day
5. Shop for food on the outer walls of grocery store
6. Drink 60oz of water a day
> 5. Shop for food on the outer walls of grocery store
Haha, I never thought of it that way, but that is good advice and a great way of putting it (all the processed food is in the middle), you still have to be careful though of things like milk, which although it's one the outer wall, generally isn't a good thing to take. I always go for the almond milk and avoid regular milk like the plague.
I also shop at local grocery markets to get local food, and things like local, organic eggs from chickens that eat grass and crickets and don't spend their lives pumped full of hormones, living in their excrement.
If you need the calcium for osteoporosis or whatever then there's better sources, up to and including supplements.
When much of the USDA and other governmental bodies are either made up of food company lobbyists, or are influenced by them, it's hard to know what the truth actually is.
For reference, see:
http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/corrupt14.php, "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, Food Inc. (film)
However, there is research, you can google it. Here's an article that talks about it, and links to some studies at the bottom: http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/linda_folden_palmer.html
There's lots of other seemingly-quackery stuff out there, but from what I can tell the main issue is that no one has funded what you're looking for: a long-term, controlled, peer-reviewed study of the effects of modern (non-raw) milk. My guess is because a lot of companies with a lot of money who already exert a lot of power over governmental bodies and grant-givers, don't want such research done.
But, if you're willing to read what's out there, just google it:
Since I'm posting on this thread, I'll go ahead and share two other health secrets: Practice Система and massage. Causing pain, and removing it. Human touch is important!
I do CrossFit for exercise, which I first heard about right here on HN, thank you very much. Unless you already know exercise technique really well, I would recommend actually joining a crossfit gym rather than just doing the workouts from the web. They'll teach you how to exercise correctly and safely. Do you know how to squat properly? Probably not. :)
I'm over fifty, out of shape and haven't exercised since I graduated high school. I've been going to CrossFit since this July, and I now jog six flights of stairs up and down at work (at 5,000 feet in Denver), and the workouts that wiped me out in the beginning are now merely really difficult. You don't have to be a jock, they scale everything to your ability. I'm really pleased. Check it out. Probably more than one near you.
At this point, I'm suffering from T-rex syndrome. Massive, muscular legs, good overall health, and very little upper body. I started 100 pushups a while back ago, then dislocated a shoulder. I'm about ready to start it back up again. Pushups were really working my core and arms. Cycling and pushups seems like a good start at full-body workout without a gym membership.
Oh yeah, and watch what you eat, I guess.
We may be complimentary hackers in this sense, so I'd like to expand on this sentence of yours.
I don't exercise very much, but be it good genes or not, I'm very healthy--ahem, as far as I know, where'd I put that piece of wood..?
From my years of exposure to the topic, what I've found is that your last sentence deserves far more than a sentence dedicated to it. For some (and only some) of the reasoning along this line of thought, see the TIME article "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin": http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857,00.ht...
To stay healthy, I try my best to eat healthy. This means buying as many organic veggies that I can satisfactorily afford, and cooking and eating them at home. If you want to have a delicious and healthy dinner, don't go out, make it yourself at home. Besides saving money on the food and gas, you'll have yourself a healthier meal and you'll be doing the planet a favor. It'll probably taste better too.
Although I don't really think of myself as one, I'm typically a vegetarian as well. Meaning, I'll eat meat, but only if that meat was organically produced at a local farm. As such meat is hard to come by at the store, and completely nonexistant at the restaurants near me, this tends to be a very rare occasion indeed. Avoiding meat not only means that I spend less money on my groceries, but it also means I'm helping the environment, and am healthier as well (as a result of what "industrial meat" is).
Of course, discussions on healthy eating, and food in general, shouldn't fail to reference the movie Food Inc. and the book that inspired it: Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma". If you haven't read that book, or seen that documentary, you may disagree with what I've said, and there's a decent chance that what you're eating is going to put you, and a decent chunk of American society, in an early grave. ;-)
The whole "organic" thing doesn't strike me as any sort of requirement for being healthy. If you think it helps, good. But having grown up in a Nebraska family where a good wholesome meaty meal that probably came out of a feed lot 20 miles away, I can say I've seen plenty of people grow to be slender, muscular and very healthy without adopting the organic/granola/veg*n mindset. However our species got where we are, everything between our teeth and our colon is configured for a balanced diet of meat, fiber, legumes, grains, and veggies. And that's what I eat.
My great grandfather did the same. He croaked at age 107.
Factory farming is a relatively new phenomenon that has swept the country in only recently, and with phenomenal speed.
>> In the 1930s, 24 percent of the American population worked in agriculture compared to 1.5 percent in 2002; in 1940, each farm worker supplied 11 consumers, whereas in 2002, each worker supplied 90 consumers.[23]
>> The number of farms has also decreased, and their ownership is more concentrated. In the U.S., four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs and 50 percent of chickens.[24] In 1967, there were one million pig farms in America; as of 2002, there were 114,000,[25] with 80 million pigs (out of 95 million) killed each year on factory farms as of 2002, according to the U.S. National Pork Producers Council.[23]
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming
And that wiki article is missing a lot of information that's mentioned in Pollan's book and the film Food Inc.
Eating: "Eat to Live", mostly produce:
http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Live-Revolutionary-Formula-Sustain...
Exercise: jogging, stairs, body weight exercises:
http://www.amazon.com/Pushing-Yourself-Power-Ultimate-Transf...
Heavy hands:
http://www.amazon.com/Heavyhands-Walking-Book-Leonard-Schwar...
Perhaps the hacker's favorite (this is hilarious, but it really works):
http://www.amazon.com/P90x-Extreme-Home-Fitness-Horton/dp/B0...
EDIT: Also, thanks for posting this! You inspired me to finally set up the pull-up bar I bought last week. Having it outside the bathroom will hopefully prod me into starting up again.
I train for competitions, and I take it seriously. My strength training tends towards the Crossfit style.
Strong Lifts follows the same philosophy as SS, but has modified the workout some. The stronglifts site does cover nutrition (calorie/protein intake) to some extent, which SS does not.
I would do some research on your own first before starting a routine. There is a lot of controversy as well as misinformation about the topic.
http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-beginner-strength-tra... http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-2nd-Mark-Rippetoe/dp...
My friend, who has been working out for much longer, has been doing the usual mix of machines and an overly creative mix of free weight exercises (the type personal trainers love to show off).
Being about the same body type, I've progressed much faster then he has. I've also found it easier to stick with it because I have a well researched workout plan that is dead simple.
There's a starting strength dvd set that's much more accessible then the book which I highly recommend when you starting lifting the heavier weights where proper form is really important. I learned the hard way after having lower back and shoulder pain, which is gone now that I know how to lift properly and started doing dynamic stretches.
More recently I've started following the Zone Diet and doing a medicine ball workout 3 days a week (lifting MWF, med ball TuThS). Google "med ball 400".
After a year of that I'm starting to look like a heroic Greek statue (my wife likes that), I feel awesome, and my productivity is through the roof. All in 30 minutes max per day (with one day a week off).
I bike around town, walk a lot, and run occasionally. I find that the strength training makes running and fast cycling easy when I do it.
http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-2nd-Mark-Rippetoe/dp...
Over the last two years, I've done: rollerblading, soccer, jogging, P90X, tennis, frisbee, golf (driving range), swimming. I'm far from good at any of them, and I do occasionally go for a couple of weeks or even months without doing much, but I figure every bit helps. Fun is the key - as well as doing as much as possible with friends.
P90X is great for someone looking for a hardcore solution - it's hard, but it WORKS, if you actually stick with it (it's not a small time investment). I only did it for about a month, and I could feel the difference - now that winter's coming, I might start it up again.
- uses a lot of the body, upper and lower
- low impact, doesn't aggravate any of my injuries (eg knee)
- not weather dependent (running track gets icy in winter around here)
- high tech, you can race others over the web
- good online community
- accessible (for me, they have several machines at the gym)
It sounds obvious, but it is really difficult. Avoiding social eating and resisting the urge to clean my plate has been one of the hardest things I have ever endeavored to do, but it has vastly reduced my digestive symptoms.
- Watch what I eat. Go for high-fiber low-fat foods. Nothing fancy here - stick to low fat and high fiber and your diet generally doesn't require thought.
- Photography. I hate exercise for the sake of exercise, and have never been able to commit to a gym schedule despite many tries. My photography, though, keeps me walking and biking a lot, all over the city. The quest for the next great picture keeps me moving, and that's pretty awesome.
The only concern for hackers would be strain on the wrists. If you have wrist problems climbing probably isn't for you, but personally I feel like climbing has strengthened my wrists and actually been beneficial.
On top of that, I am pretty sure climbing is the best full body workout you can do. I am in the best shape of my life at 25.
If anyone is near the MD/DC/VA area and needs a climbing partner, chime in.
I was a jittery mess for the two months I had a 3+/day habit.
I did find this:
http://www.springerlink.com/index/1185172kt700868t.pdf
Which has as a lead "Energy drink consumption has been anecdotally linked to the development of adverse cardiovascular effects in consumers, although clinical trials to support this link are lacking.", but there are some interesting observations in it.
And this one:
http://www.modern-psychiatry.com/taurine.htm
and this one:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet...
Of the not-so-sane sources this one seemed a bit more balanced than most:
http://brianx.com/nightlife/energy-drinks.html
What the hell is 'taurine' ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine
Enjoy the read.
I stayed up all night before my sub-thesis due date finishing it off thanks to Red Eye (red bull analogue). I had so much of it that I was literally shaking late into the night.
In general my caffiene intake is zero - my theory is if you drink it every day it has less of an effect than when you really need it. I rely on willpower most of the time if working late.
I haven't looked at evidence in years, but the gastrointestinal and heart rate effects of even higher levels can be remarkable. I remember medical journal articles (Am J Psychiatry, i believe) referring to it as "caffeinism" - since the mental-alertness benefits habituate, but not the autonomic stimulation.
Like with any mind-alteration: exercise caution. Listen to what your own body tells you.
So, apparently I have Crohn's Disease. I found that out because the Red Bull irritated my digestive system so much that I had my first flare up and ended up in the hospital – twice. That was three years ago, and I'm only just now starting to recover from it. I'm getting my energy back, I can drink and eat more food, etc. Except I have to take immunosuppressant medication to keep the Crohn's controlled, which means I get sick (cold, flu, etc.) extremely easily, and I stay sick a lot longer. Also, I've had a ton of radiation exposure due to all the CAT scans, etc. I've gone through.
So, next time someone tells you Red Bull (or whatever) is bad for you, don't just shrug it off like I did. Our bodies are fragile machines in a delicate balance. Upset that balance enough and the machine goes haywire, and it's pretty hard to find spare parts.
Eat cleanly ("if it doesn't go off, don't eat it", etc).
Exercise: a mix of weights and conditioning; I favour short, high-intensity workouts for conditioning, with steady-state aerobic running occasionally for variety. Others have mentioned crossfit which is certainly good -- I've been basing my workouts around http://www.rosstraining.com for a while, with great results. Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 routine is great on the weights side of things, and you can find most of the info on it in this interview: http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_train...
Routines help; as a hacker it's likely you have at least mild obsessive-compulsive tendencies (maybe that's just me, but it seems common in hacker friends too). Being obsessive means that you're less likely to skip a workout, eat badly, go to bed at irregular hours, etc.
+1 for the mental relaxation (including rest/deload days if you're exercising seriously) mentioned by others as well.
Diet: Lots of plants, ~15% of total kcals from meat (very little red meat, more chicken + fish), ~15% kcals from dairy. I'm not exact about it. Eating a diverse group of foods, getting good amounts of fiber, yogurt, and complex carbohydrates helped shed some pounds.
Exercise: 30-45 minutes 3 to 5 times a week of time spent running at 60-80% of max heart rate. body weight exercises focusing on core strength (a good resource for those here http://www.combatfitness.co.uk/ ). Stretching, yoga, whatever, stretching is exercise too. I also go sprinting and lift weights via dumbbells to get some more in.
Meditation: Lots of different ways to do this. I picked one that worked for me and moved on to other things. I started doing muscle relaxation techniques, since I'm sitting so often. More on those here: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/relaxation-technique/SR0000...
I lost 50 pounds over the past year and a half--feels great. :)
Food: I eat mostly vegetables, rarely red meat. Typical meals are: Breakfast (2 egg scramble with pepperjack and salsa; with some juice), Lunch (sliced turkey, pepperjack and a tomato on whole grain bread, with some fruit), Dinner (usually some sort of vegetable stir fry, pasta vegetable combination, or rice and beans with vegetables). Between meals I either eat some fruit or some cereal or granola with soy milk or yogurt. Throughout the day I drink lots of water and usually some juice.
Caffeine: I am in love with tea my default being loose leaf jasmine green. Coffee is a rarity. Red bull is never an option.
We are alike sir, I just wish I could cycle as much as you do. The great thing about tea is that unlike coffee, the caffeine high is subtler and is spread over a longer period of time. As I can't be bothered to steep the loose-leaf tea I just go with Tazo's Earl Grey in the morning; highly recommend that brand if you're into bagged tea.
That might be a tough pill to swallow for the hacker news crowd, so here are things I did to fix my health, and lose 30 pounds while I was still in startup mode:
- pilates fixed a lot of back and flexibility problems
- break up the work day in to two halves. between those two spend an hour walking or working out at the gym
- walk, bike or skateboard to work. My job is 4 and a half miles away.
- swimming
- sprinting at the track
- I tried to stand up and do work whenever possible.
- Used one of those swiss exercise balls instead of an office chair
- avoid the typical beer & pizza binges after a release
- avoid eating all "office food" (chips, pretzels, candy, soda, etc)
- cut out sugar and most refined carbs, except for special occasions like when grandma bakes cookies. but even then, only eat a couple and give the rest away.
- eat salads, berries, almonds,lean meats, egg whites for most meals.
- started drinking seltzer. I love carbonated drinks, but most of them are bad for you. Seltzer is great, it's just carbonated water. Now I don't drink soda and drink about 1/10th the amount of beer I used to.
- bought a blood sugar meter. It turns out with all the carbs and sugary stuff I was eating I was making myself pre-diabetic. After 2 months with limited carbs and no sugar, my blood sugar was down to 70-80. (instead of 100-120)
- one day a week don't use the computer at all
- weekends try to spend at least 8 hours outside, cycling, biking, walking around
- make friends with people outside of internet messenger
- spend less time on hacker news!
I try to hike and boulder whenever I can find people to go with me. I really wish we had a rock climbing gym here. If we did, I'd probably be there every other day as my current climbing spot is a 30 minute drive followed by a 30 minute hike in. 2 hours transit isn't really worth it for me unless I have a couple buddies with me.
I'd definitely suggest yoga to anyone that wants to build some core strength and calm their mind. It's a lot more difficult than it looks.
I was a vegetarian for about 5 months, and some of those habits have stuck around (less fast food, more fruits and green stuff). I should probably get back to that, seeing as how I've never felt better than when I wasn't eating meat.
Basically cook your own food, don't sit around all day. This at least works for me, but I think I have a high metabolism or something.
I will also second the rock climbing gym as a fun exercise too. While it is physically demanding it takes longer to get physically drained so that could be a consideration. (3 hours vs. 1 - 1.5 hours for racquetball).
* Do something physical. A lot of hackers seem to like martial arts. I do karate.
* Pick times to go to sleep and wake up, and stick to them. Even on weekends.
That said, I rarely drink, I don't smoke, I've never taken drugs, I drink a TON of water. I'm overweight but blood pressure is good and other signs are good (as of last full checkup). So I don't find the caffeine and chocolate addictions too much to deal with.
At least half the people round my way seem to be smoking, drinking every day, or carrying a lot more weight than me, so merely being "average" in the health department is OK for me right now.
I spend the majority of my waking hours sitting, either in lecture or at a computer. I counterbalance the sedentary nature of studying computer science by exercising at least 3 times per week, cooking simple and nutritious meals, and drinking copious amounts of water and tea.
(1) Make your diet decisions at the grocery store to remove temptation at home.
(2)Find exercise that you think is fun. I personally can't run for more than 2-3 miles without getting incredibly bored, but hiking for 30 strenuous miles over gorgeous terrain is enjoyable. So too is chasing a little black ball around a squash court or running after a frisbee. Each person will enjoy different kinds of exercise, but once you find the one you like it'll turn "having to exercise" into "getting to go _play_ <x>".
edit: used to be 4-court roller tennis with our dog on defense. my husband and i love to make up games. activity keeps my energy and spirits up, makes it easier to focus. plus, the walks are useful for us to discuss and plan for our startup. walking around is a great way to pull your thoughts together and be more creative. same with taking a dump or shower ;-)
So: I stopped eating crap out of habit. Ate less at each meal. Started walking/jogging/running ~2.5 miles 2 out of every 3 days.
Much improved. Not that hard (once I get my ass out the door), doesn't take a lot of time, good results. Now at 190.
I also occasionally play Wii games as well, often wearing wrist weights (depend on the game), jogging in place.
- walk up a couple flights of stairs, around the block
- do some yoga poses or pilates core strengtheners on the floor
- anti-RSI things: these powerweb and DynaFlex things I'm always shilling (they work, my wrists are ok after lots of pain)
How can you tell if you need more protein? Something else, like Omega-3 fatty acid maybe? How can you tell that you don't need carbs? etc. etc.
I would love to read up on this to get to know the workings of my machine better.
For example, after you finish a meal, do you feel like you ate too much? You probably did, and yet most people have it so ingrained into them by their parents to finish everything on their plate that they overeat, which messes up your body's metabolism (it thinks there's a glut of resources and converts to 'store fat for later' mode).
A past roommate used to have a huge problem with his skin, lots of acne and rashes and so on, until one day he had the flu so bad he couldn't get out of bed for a few days. His friends were literally bringing food to him at his apartment because he couldn't get off his couch. By the end of the week, his skin had cleared up. Within two days after recovering, his skin had gone to hell again. Sick again, healthy skin.
After analyzing it, he determined that the only significant change (other than actually being sick) was his diet. He made a list of all the things he typically ate, and introduced them back one by one. Turns out eggs, which are 'good for you', were an allergen. He cut them out of his diet and he's been healthier, sick less often, clear skin, and a host of other minor improvements.
If you eat something then your stomach feels upset, stop eating it. Get a little note pad and jot down what you eat whenever you eat it, or just make a note in your head. If you start feeling unwell (stomach, headache, etc.) 20-40 minutes later, make a note of what it was, and cut it out of your diet.
One day, just out of high school, I was cleaning up my desk at home and realized that most of the pop cans I had on my desk were half-full. I wasn't finishing my Dr. Pepper, even though I really liked it. Then I thought about it and realized I didn't really like it. I used to, but I kept drinking it out of habit. Still, if I wasn't finishing it, I must not like it that much. I stopped buying it. I've since cut out all canned beverages and fountain drinks. After a year or so, I discovered that I can no longer tolerate them. I've removed them from my diet, and now my body doesn't have the resistance it's built up to them.
I could probably build up a tolerance to them again if I wanted, but why would I do that? You shouldn't be eating or drinking anything you have to build up a tolerance to.
For your specific case, make some notes of how you feel, and then change things. Take a baseline, then add more protein. Take some Omega-3 supplements, remove carbs for a week or two, and see how it affects you. A step-aunt's autistic son went from unmanagable to a sweetheart by removing processed carbohydrates from his diet. No toast in the morning, no pasta in the evening, and suddenly his mother's living hell became a relative paradise.
When in doubt, remove all the artificial, pre-processed crap foods from your diet. Shop, as one poster suggested, on the outside walls of the grocery store – meat, fish, poultry, vegetables. Try taking dairy out of your diet. Try taking sausages. I can't digest animal fats, so both of these are bad ideas for me. Same with bacon. Try taking things out. Reconsider everything in your diet, and don't be afraid to play around. Add things, remove things. Read other people's experiences. Make notes, and learn from them. Build hypotheses and test them. Approach it like a science experiment, because that's really what it is.
i think running 4 miles a day would be too distracting for me, but that does sound fun. i tend to exercise at night once i've gotten all my work out of my system, and i don't like to run at night. pool is open until 11pm though.
Summary: Eat clean 6 days a week, run/cycle/swim at least 2-3 days a week, and take a multivitamin daily.
Needless to say, both say that the other technique will lead to suboptimal results, and both say the science is on their side.
- no sugar if it wasn't grown as part of a vegetable or fruit
- get your heart pumping
- eat fat! not processed shit, but avocados and fatty fish like salmon!
- when you're doing your cardio, do it intensively for 6 seconds. then, take it easy for the next 9. rinse and repeat.
- water. you need it. you really, really need it.
and this doesnt include the regular walks we go on.
- eat crap one day, eat healthy other.
- don't own a car/walk and take the stairs rather than lift.
- avoid public transport (where possible).
- work hard.
- get a good full 4 to 9 hours sleep per night.
- do some light weights every other day (or when bothered).
- drink lots of juices and waters and avoid fizzy drinks.
- alternate drinking beer and shorts without mixers.
Also 4-9 hours is an incredibly wide range of sleep to prescribe.
Try not to overeat.
Definitely don't drink sugary drinks.
I'm jogging 3 miles a day every other day. Worked up to my first 5K over the summer (following "Couch to 5K" program, google it), hoping to work up to 10k next soon.
I chose this activity because it integrates my commute time and exercise time. Together, are about 120 - 150 minutes daily but separately they used to be anywhere from the same to 3.5 hours.
It doesn't have to involve jogging pants and running shoes -- you may do it barefooted and pajamas in the bedroom, before dinner.
Only broke this rule when working on a big deadline.
IMO people tend to severely overthink diet. It's pretty hard to be unhealthy when you exclusively eat good, real, whole, food. Diet fads come and go, and are often completely contradictory, but this guideline has always, and will always, be more or less true.
Vegans on the left, Atkins people on the right... drop your food religions and just stop eating crap! It's not that difficult.
If you're trying to lose weight, EAT LESS. You can eat the most extremely healthy diet in the world, if you eat a lot, you will get fat. That's how the body works. Again, it's not exactly rocket science.
Eggs and dairy are the best foods I know of. I normally eat four eggs a day (scrambled in lots of butter) and have a large glass of half and half, or sometimes I even drink straight up cream. Full fat yogurt is a fantastic food. I try to dominate my calories with saturated fat. The research is now clear that this is perfectly healthy. It's also a very efficient way to eat because I can very comfortably eat only two meals a day about half the time. Fat sticks with you.
Take vitamin d3 every couple of days. The research that has come out in the last few years on vitamin d is fairly shocking. Most people are deficient and it's a huge risk factor for infections and cancer. We are built to spend almost every day outside in the sun, generating vitamin d in the skin, but people don't do that now, so supplement.
As for exercise, sprint work and brief, intense strength training sessions are the best. Two 20 minute lifting sessions a week are sufficient exercise if that's all you can afford, but you must do it intensely. I frequently dry heave a bit in the shower after. Jogging and cycling are much inferior from a health perspective. You do want to build muscle mass and increase growth hormone and testosterone levels. Muscle buffers insulin. Jogging basically just burns calories and temporarily ramps up metabolism. It has minimal benefits compared to other forms of exercise. When I do go out biking and running I'm always amused by how fat the vast majority of runners on the trails are.
Don't take health advice from people who look like shit or work out like it's their job. I'm always shocked by the number of dough boys pontificating who get taken seriously. Demand a full body picture of anybody purporting to give lifestyle health advice, and if they pass that test make sure they aren't some freak wasting five hours a week working out. I'm 5'10 with a 29 inch waist, noticeable muscle mass, a six pack, and a very low body fat percentage. I spend at most two hours a week in physical activity and often nothing at all. I have turned a couple other people on to eating and exercising this way with very good results. Avoid starch/sugar, work out very hard infrequently and on an empty stomach, and you will get cut and healthy. The high saturated fat intake is optional, but I personally recommend it.
http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/6/28/1-eliminate-sug... http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/latest_articles.html http://www.arthurdevany.com/2005/03/an_introduction.html
Indeed. So ?
There you go, wiseguy.