Squat, Deadlift, Press and Bench a lot of heavy weight. OLY lifts as well. It's the only thing that's helped deal with stress.
Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
381–390 of 785 posts
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#382For me, it was 100% weight lifting and dieting (aka: exercise). Pretty much everyone here has mentioned this, but I don't think anyone has really explained just how incredibly life-changing it can really be. I've been programming since I was a kid. Spending most of my time at a desk eating Doritos and fast food wasn't really the best choice. I spent most of my 'good years' as a young guy being really overweight and h…
Oh wow, you weren't joking. I've been lifting weights since I was a teenager. I'd only consider myself an intermediate, but pretty good on strength scales and general fitness. At 180lb and 8%-9% body fat, I was expecting to see someone well behind me in terms of physique. Not so much.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#383Taking a sabbatical. I was burnt out from working, and I was getting that "unfulfilled" feeling, feeling a little lost. I took a 2 month "trial" sabbatical, then quit my job for good after coming back for a few months. That was a few years ago and I'm now on my second sabbatical. I'm poorer financially of course, but much richer personally, having a more positive outlook on life, and most importantly much, much happier.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#384Switch jobs. Was in the same company for 8 years. Learned everything they had there, liked everyone. But decided try to interview a few places, due to my buddy nagging me, so gets some credit. But once I started, got some good offers, a good raise and now like the new position. Thinking back, I should have done in maybe 3 or so years back.
It is just that there is so much stuff happening in technology that it is almost a disservice to yourself (if your goal is to explore and learn new things) to always just stay in one place. It also happens to be one of the best way to get a good salary bump.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#3853 things for me: 1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. 2) Sleep, I'm getting close to 40 and the last 2 times I pulled all nighters I ended up deleting pretty much all the code I wrote from 11pm onward. 3) Occasional Fasts. I normally fast from 6pm until noon the next day but I now do one 3 day fast each month. I think th…
Any meditation tips? I've gone through multiple fits & starts but I just can't keep my mind from wandering.
Bikram Yoga. I can't live without it even though Bikram the man is an asshole.
It's an open-eyed moving meditation. I love my 90 minutes of tech-free simpleness where I don't think, just react.
I can't recommend trying for 3 days straight enough.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#386Exercise, though others have said that. Personally, I'd say that the thing that changed my life for the best has been Not Giving Tech Support. When I was a teenager I was kinda miserable because some people abused me for tech support. You know, it's nice to give favors, but at some point you're fed up of reinstalling every computer in your block every 6 months. People stop you on the streets and the first thing they…
I am still in college (not so old) and I can relate to this.
A new variation is "I/My friend have this awesome app idea and we need a IT guy to code it out. Can you help?"
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#387Eating in the morning. Started at 25 years old. Never did before.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a doctor and sample size of one. What worked for me was resetting the rhythm itself, by under-eating over long periods of time, 2 weeks at least, up to 1-2 months. I keep telling myself hungry is the new normal, and in the long run it becomes the new normal. Under-eating is not even that hard if one goes mostly veggie, that is eat fruits / veggies / eggs / cheese / yoghurt / fish and skip sugar / meat / pasta / b…
I can do that during the day. How do you prevent yourself from having midnight snacks? I sometimes "sleep eat" -- Very bad habit that I NEED to spare.
If I'm fiending for late night snacks, it means I should have eaten a proper healthy meal hours before. It's easier to start from 3 proper meals, with fiber and vegetables, and cutting out sugar, and then go from there to skipping meals. If you are still on sugar, low-fiber carbs, and high calorie meals, then it's just going to be really hard to transition to fasting.
To me the transition order is:
Sugar + Simple carbs + High calorie meals -> No sugar + Complex carbs + Fiber + High calorie meals -> Smaller meals + letting yourself get hungry for an hour before you eat -> Skip a meal -> Skip multiple meals
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#389For me, it was 100% weight lifting and dieting (aka: exercise). Pretty much everyone here has mentioned this, but I don't think anyone has really explained just how incredibly life-changing it can really be. I've been programming since I was a kid. Spending most of my time at a desk eating Doritos and fast food wasn't really the best choice. I spent most of my 'good years' as a young guy being really overweight and h…
That's impressive. Nice job.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#390How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtua…
I'm trying to get myself to enjoy gaming again. I can't seem to just relax and play a game without thinking I'm wasting my time. It's also hard to get the same high in a game that I do when I solve a bug or add a feature to whatever project I'm working on.
Ha, opposite of me. I've been glued to Pokémon games (SoulSilver, Alpha Sapphire) all day outside of work. I give my personal projects a few hours on the weekend.