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Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

#91

Post by enduser »

I lift weights 3 days a week, first following the program laid out in the book Starting Strength and more recently following "The Texas Method" as described in Practical Programming for Strength Training by the same authors.

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...

Re: Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

#92

Post by keefe »

It's important to realize the body is a machine : you have particular protein, fiber and calorie requirements. Meet them. I take a protein shake every day and a large quantity of veggies and skimp on carbs. I make sure to keep in mind caffeine is a drug and I monitor my dose. I do pushups and situps and as soon as my damn knee heals, I am back to running.

Re: Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

#93

Post by mattiss »

aasarava wrote: post #80
mattiss wrote: post #32

Get hobbies that correspond to the lifestyle you want to lead. If you aren't having fun, you won't keep with it. 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.

Climbing is a great sport for hackers. Each route up a wall presents a problem in need of solving -- and often, brute force won't help you. 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 bra…

Be careful though, it will take over your life! I am constantly battling between working 100% on getting a startup off the ground and selling all of my possessions, buying a van, and driving around the world climbing.

It is not an easy choice.

Re: Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

#94

Post by redcap »

Zak wrote: post #75
tyrmored wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can't have too much emphasis. Red Bull and its ilk will pretty much destroy your nervous system -- even one a day is probably too much.

Please explain how (with links to sane sources if possible).

Not a sane source but a personal anecdote:

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.

Re: Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

#95

Post by listic »

keefe wrote: post #92

It's important to realize the body is a machine : you have particular protein, fiber and calorie requirements. Meet them. I take a protein shake every day and a large quantity of veggies and skimp on carbs. I make sure to keep in mind caffeine is a drug and I monitor my dose. I do pushups and situps and as soon as my damn knee heals, I am back to running.

The thing is, this machine doesn't seem to have any indicators to an untrained eye.

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.

Re: Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

#99

Post by listic »

What sort of reading on health do you recommend for a newbie that wishes to learn how to stay healthy? I'm beginning to worry about my health, but I'd hate to just follow some or another fad diet, even if recommended by fellow hackers. First, I wish to understand how my body works.

Re: Ask HN: How do you stay (somewhat) healthy?

#100

Post by listic »

[deleted] wrote: post #98

[deleted]

> Drink as much water as you can: helps flush the body, a hydrated body is a happy body

I heard of this too, but I wonder: isn't there such thing as drinking too much? If anything, I suppose it puts high stress on your kidneys and washes away salts.

> Cook your own food: know the ingredients, the less you eat the more you will enjoy it and want it to taste better

This is so that you won't eat too much, I suppose? Not everyone has such problem. Besides, maybe the things I can cook myself are not the healthiest ever.

> Spice up a salad (we have molars for a reason): a vinaigrette and some almonds or walnuts are great

This is so that you will be able to eat more of it, I suppose? Again, I don't have such problem as I taught myself to really like salads. Besides, vinegar kills white blood cells.

I am afraid, as fine a community as we might be, in questions of human health most of us are clueless. So we'd better not expect that sharing and following such fads gives more benefit than harm.

I'd better go with established sources of information on health issues.

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