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Tired of Being Tired

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Re: Tired of Being Tired

#91

Post by tluyben2 »

0x12 wrote: post #79
tluyben2 wrote: post #63

I travel between 3 countries, one of which is Spain. It really makes life a lot better; in the south of Spain people are so incredibly more relaxed that you first get frustrated with that, but rapidly take over that life style as being frustrated doesn't make much sense. Example: you can be in the supermarket, in a queue behind the cash register and no-one sitting there. You look outside and he/she is standing talkin…

This is all very true. But there is one big but. If you live like that you yourself will have it easy, but the economy as a whole will suffer and the weak in society will suffer disproportionally. The further South you go in Europe, the stronger this effect gets. http://www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/SpanishBusinessNews/4527/qua... Articles like that are not capable of conveying the differences between Spain, Portugal, Ita…

Agreed. But north and south are 2 extremes; I travel between Netherlands, France and Spain with a bit of Germany. The mix makes it great; TOO laid back has problems but having the Spanish feeling when working with clients in the Netherlands gives you great advantage and economic wealth.

I used to be NL only and this was very stressful; we have very large (for EU) clients which were pushing through projects at great speed and everyone was stressed. It made a lot of my colleagues and me physically ill. We used to work hard. In NL that's no longer the idea; it's a national 'thing' now that people (even big company CEOs) want to spend more time with their families and so work a lot less hours per week and still the economy grows. But that's something else (don't know why that is). The thing is that I always wondered why there was so much pressure behind every project, because, usually, after delivering the technical part, there is a lot of other work to be done which takes them months or years to complete after which the entire project usually gets binned because it's not relevant anymore.

Southern Spain teaches you that you can just tell those clients to stuff it; we deliver when we deliver and if that's not ok, then that's a shame, go elsewhere. Of course it's said in slightly different tone and SCRUM is used a lot but it works. Clients want quality, not speed. Speed is almost never relevant. Actually I have, in my 25 year software career encountered exactly 2 times it was time critical. Out of over a 1000 projects I managed or built. And 1 of those 2 times the client actually messed up the launch, not us. I never thought about this (stupid me) until I spent significant time in Spain; that made me see that there is always enough time for anything. Being in a hurry is just some lame excuse for not having a solid plan. If it just is done fast enough, the profits will come, right?

I have too many examples for this; few years ago we built a Facebook app for about $100k which HAD TO BE DONE in 3 weeks. Of course that's not possible, but he, we are up for a challenge and the specs were ok. So we slept in the office, worked ourselves crazy and finished it. This was 2006 or something, the app STILL is not launched.

Southern Spain taught me; if you are in a hurry, your plan sucks. But I'm making more money than I ever made doing projects the stressed way and so i'm contributing to the economy and making (many) jobs.

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#92

Post by orenmazor »

dredmorbius wrote: post #84
Evgeny wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that's being downvoted ... I heard multiple people (who do proper weight training) complain about the fact their jeans or trousers get worn fast because their hips are well-developed and sort of brush against each other when they walk. I bought a suit recently - the coat (jacket) fit perfectly, but they had to take like 10 cm off the waist of the pants, so I had to come back in 4 hours ... tells you a bi…

I'm actually getting to the point where my jackets no longer fit. My training is for strength, not mass, but you're still going to get a certain amount of hypertrophy. Unfortunately I seem to have developed this habit just as fashion trends are toward ever skinnier designs -- jeans, shirts, slacks, etc. I haven't quite gone to full bespoke clothing, but I'm considering it. Casual wear -- shorts and t-shirt -- still w…

the bit about body temperature is really interesting. I'm also much warmer on average when I regularly hit the gym. I thought it was just me.

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#93

Post by 0x12 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #91
0x12 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all very true. But there is one big but. If you live like that you yourself will have it easy, but the economy as a whole will suffer and the weak in society will suffer disproportionally. The further South you go in Europe, the stronger this effect gets. http://www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/SpanishBusinessNews/4527/qua... Articles like that are not capable of conveying the differences between Spain, Portugal, Ita…

Agreed. But north and south are 2 extremes; I travel between Netherlands, France and Spain with a bit of Germany. The mix makes it great; TOO laid back has problems but having the Spanish feeling when working with clients in the Netherlands gives you great advantage and economic wealth. I used to be NL only and this was very stressful; we have very large (for EU) clients which were pushing through projects at great s…

Customer control is a difficult issue. Of course everybody likes to pretend that their stuff needs to be done yesterday. But in reality, most things can wait for a day or two, or even longer. Too much of that and you do start to suffer and I think that is what is driving this, the fear to miss the window of opportunity.

I did some contract work and usually the speed with which I could deliver the solution was a key element in getting the contract. Making sure I charged a stiff premium for the work gave me the opportunity to get some 'down time' after completing a job and that helped me in staying balanced.

As long as you are swimming in work you are probably too cheap.

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#94

Post by tluyben2 »

0x12 wrote: post #93
tluyben2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But north and south are 2 extremes; I travel between Netherlands, France and Spain with a bit of Germany. The mix makes it great; TOO laid back has problems but having the Spanish feeling when working with clients in the Netherlands gives you great advantage and economic wealth. I used to be NL only and this was very stressful; we have very large (for EU) clients which were pushing through projects at great s…

Customer control is a difficult issue. Of course everybody likes to pretend that their stuff needs to be done yesterday. But in reality, most things can wait for a day or two, or even longer. Too much of that and you do start to suffer and I think that is what is driving this, the fear to miss the window of opportunity. I did some contract work and usually the speed with which I could deliver the solution was a key e…

I never realized I was doing it wrong :) And that it's either time/material with a fixed deadline or fixed price with a flexible deadline.

Funny thing is how many people do not (want) to understand this. I now enforce this and we're still swimming in work with about 35% profit, which is excellent for consultancy work. I'm fine with that :)

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#95

Post by dredmorbius »

orenmazor wrote: post #92
dredmorbius wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually getting to the point where my jackets no longer fit. My training is for strength, not mass, but you're still going to get a certain amount of hypertrophy. Unfortunately I seem to have developed this habit just as fashion trends are toward ever skinnier designs -- jeans, shirts, slacks, etc. I haven't quite gone to full bespoke clothing, but I'm considering it. Casual wear -- shorts and t-shirt -- still w…

the bit about body temperature is really interesting. I'm also much warmer on average when I regularly hit the gym. I thought it was just me.

Look up EPOC: excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.

You're elevating your metabolism for up to 38 hours post-exercise (though the major effect is within the first 10 hours).

Adding muscle mass also increases metabolic activity, though it's a fairly small effect absent exercise and post-exercise responses, about 6-12 cal/lb/day, not the 50 cal that was being publicised for some time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_post-exercise_oxygen_con... http://www.drlenkravitz.com/Articles/epocarticle.html

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#96

Post by sliverstorm »

dualogy wrote: post #57
fleitz wrote: post #19

Couldn't agree more on this, throw out your alarm clock, it's killing you. Remove stress from your life, take a shotgun to stress and refuse to accept stressful situations / people. I've lost 100 lbs in the last three years, here's how and how much weight I lost (I tend to have long plateaus). I started on Nov 25, 2008: 285 lbs Nov, 08: First Step, got Divorced: Lost 10 lbs - 275 lbs Jan, 09: Job tells me I have to b…

Well sleep time for your body is "detox time". Body fat is one huge deposit of "toxines". This only gets burned when you "fast" / don't graze for a while and energy is obtained from those deposits. This alone would mean, more sleep = more burning. That's also why people doing one variation or another of "intermittent fasting" are getting great results, as they extend that phase well into daytime as well. I know I kno…

To be clear, body fat itself is not an issue, but many toxic chemicals are fat-soluable and thus wind up sequestering in fat stores.

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#97

Post by 0x12 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #94
0x12 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customer control is a difficult issue. Of course everybody likes to pretend that their stuff needs to be done yesterday. But in reality, most things can wait for a day or two, or even longer. Too much of that and you do start to suffer and I think that is what is driving this, the fear to miss the window of opportunity. I did some contract work and usually the speed with which I could deliver the solution was a key e…

I never realized I was doing it wrong :) And that it's either time/material with a fixed deadline or fixed price with a flexible deadline. Funny thing is how many people do not (want) to understand this. I now enforce this and we're still swimming in work with about 35% profit, which is excellent for consultancy work. I'm fine with that :)

> we're still swimming in work with about 35% profit,

You're still too cheap! Trust me on that, give it a shot and raise your prices until you get 'no' about 1/3rd to 1/2 the time you write proposals or until you have more than 20% unbooked time, whichever arrives first.

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#98

Post by kstenerud »

lemming wrote: post #78
kstenerud wrote: post #66

"By the time afternoon rolls around, you’re in caffeine withdrawal. This is often why people are sapped by mid-afternoon." Actually, no. You feel sapped in the afternoon because you need a 15-20 minute nap. That's normal. Take the nap and you'll feel energized for the rest of the day.

Actually, yes. I gave up coffee about a year ago, during a pretty stressful period during which I wasn't sleeping well. It is unbelievable how much better I sleep (and I seriously believed that it didn't affect me), and the second thing I notice is that I'm no longer tired in the afternoon.

Conversely, I've never drunk coffee, or red bull, or genki drinks or any of that stuff, only drink tea on social occasions, and gave up soft drinks a decade ago. I eat right and am active. And yet I often find myself feeling groggy in the afternoon. But if I manage to get in a 15 minute nap, I'm energized for the rest of the day. This effect is backed by numerous medical studies.

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#99

Post by nazgulnarsil »

phpnode wrote: post #83
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fat doesn't make you fat.

sure it does, fat is high in calories, an excess of calories are stored by your body as fat. Of course, it's possible to get fat by eating calorie dense but low fat food. But it's a lot easier to get fat eating fatty food because of the high calorie / high reward nature of it.

are you implying that high sugar foods aren't a bigger superstimulus than high fat foods? people consistently eat more calories worth of sugary foods in studies indicating that fat's satiety more than makes up for its caloric density.

Re: Tired of Being Tired

#100

Post by nasmorn »

Evgeny wrote: post #60
dredmorbius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you get seriously fit, your clothing options are somewhat constrained as well. Ask any squatter about buying jeans ... at your own risk.

It's a shame that's being downvoted ... I heard multiple people (who do proper weight training) complain about the fact their jeans or trousers get worn fast because their hips are well-developed and sort of brush against each other when they walk. I bought a suit recently - the coat (jacket) fit perfectly, but they had to take like 10 cm off the waist of the pants, so I had to come back in 4 hours ... tells you a bi…

Buy your next suit in Italy where they fully expect you to be thin but somewhat muscular.
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