Ask HN: Stay fit as a time-poor remote worker

kids, literally make your life that busy. Home gym would be ideal - unfortunately space is the issue there, I have about 1.5m2 available.

I've never been more fit in my life, personally. Built a home gym and also have an indoor rower in my master bedroom that doubles as home office. I also go for walks pretty frequently, always for an hour or so in the morning as soon as I get up, and then usually again at night. If you don't like the dark, I don't know what to tell you. I live in North Texas, and if I try to walk in the middle of the day during a summer, it's going to be extremely hot.

You claim elsewhere that you only have 50 free minutes a day. That seems like the root of your problem. You need more than that. Were you alive in the 90s? Remember Bill Clinton going for very public runs every morning through DC? There is no good reason you should be more busy than the president. Health and fitness is either an important priority for you or it isn't. There are no hacks that allow you to do it without dedicating any time to it. You're going to get old and your body will degrade. That either matters to you or it doesn't, but if you find it doesn't now but does in 20 years and you did nothing to slow the process down, it's not going to get any easier.

I have 30 minutes in the minute for a "warm up circuit" kind of workout in the bedroom or living room before I start working.

I also have intermittent stretching / mobility peppered in during the day (thanks to my Apple Watch's "stand" thing) I end up practicing things like head stands, hand stands, etc. whenever it's "time to stand".

After 5pm I go lift or do whatever classes (from yoga to boxing) are available for 30m to 1-2 hours, depending on energy levels.

I've only started doing this since February since lockdowns were over, and it sounds like I'm a gym rat, but I'm more fit now than I've ever been before. If it comes down to "finish/push an update" or "go to the gym" I'll just pick the latter, then clean up the feature later that evening. Definitely not prioritizing whatever-feature for my gym time.

I walked to work for 1 hour a day and it was hugely beneficial for my mental health, put a nice break between work and home, was able to do podcasts or study foreign languages.

After going full remote I had to force myself to replace that hour, it is psychologically a lot harder especially when the walk has no purpose. That said, you are a remote worker, so you ought to have at least 1 hour of (formerly commute) time to spend. For me, I go to the gym. It's easier to motivate myself to work out when I'm going to a specific place for it. I usually do it around lunch to break up the work day, 3x/week.

I think that this is robbing Peter to pay Paul, as a possible road to sleep deprivation, which isn't going to help the situation either.