from Hacker News

It's Fucking Impossible to Stay Healthy

by alpark3 on 10/25/23, 12:05 AM with 29 comments

• by swatcoder on 10/25/23, 12:22 AM

  It’s hardest to stay healthy when you’re trying to jam it into an unhealthy life.

  Are you sure you need that job? You’re suggesting 11-12 hours at the office every day, plus whatever your commute is. And apparently this job insists on you being continuously deskbound during that time.

  Your upper middle class peers may be doing the same thing, and you may feel obliged to that job because of some fantasies about where it might lead, but on the facts themselves it is grossly unhealthy to sit for 12+ hours in a row.

  You’re making an explicit choice to be an ambitious young urban professional (for an exploitative employer) rather than a healthy person. Maybe double-check that choice and make sure it’s the one you want to be making.

• by joegibbs on 10/25/23, 12:22 AM

  I think the problem is that you're just working too many hours. If you're getting into the office at 7:30 and leaving at 7 that's almost 12 hour days. Then you add an hour for commuting, another 30 minutes for getting ready in the morning, plus cooking, house work, sleep and you're basically out of time. If you were doing a 9-5 job instead I think you'd find it a lot easier, since you'd have another 2.5-3.5 hours to fit things into each day.

• by mindwok on 10/25/23, 1:29 AM

  When I was a student, it felt that time was pretty much infinite, it was just about what you decided to prioritise. After working full time for a few years, it quickly becomes apparent that when the obligations start rolling in, you have to start thinking about the constraints and what you really want to be doing. There's just not enough time in the week to do everything you want to do and it sucks.

  This is one reason I am a huge advocate for working from home. Yes, in office has its positives, but getting 2 hours back in my day lets me fit in walking my dog, going to the gym, cooking dinner...

• by sylens on 10/25/23, 1:23 AM

  The only advice I have to offer is to work out in the morning, before work. It seems like an insane task when you first consider it, but you quickly find you can establish a routine where you wake up, have some water or coffee, and then get down to it.

  After that morning workout is done, I feel incredibly energized for the day. More importantly, I find that it usually delays when I start to feel hungry by an additional 2-3 hours compared to days where I don't work out, which in turn helps with intermittent fasting. But most importantly, it prevents you from skipping workouts because you're too tired after work, or you have to work late due to an unexpected issue, or there's some other obligation you have to take care of. There's just fewer conflicts and distractions at 5 or 6 AM

• by dc3k on 10/25/23, 6:51 AM

  > The work-life balance isn’t terrible, but not great either. I generally get in around 7:30 AM and leave by 6-7.

  How is this not terrible? It is absolutely terrible. Whoever brainwashed you into thinking this is not terrible needs to be disciplined.

• by deepfriedchokes on 10/25/23, 6:29 AM

  Food is dopamine. If you’re struggling with cravings that’s your brain telling you it needs a reward to feel good, and if you need to take something to feel good, it’s because you don’t feel good.

  Consider therapy. With so many distracting sources of easy dopamine in the modern world it’s easy to become emotional disconnected from oneself without realizing it.

  Read Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke. She explains cravings like these and why they happen.

• by m463 on 10/25/23, 10:13 AM

  I found the book "the glucose revolution" to be super helpful with respect to diet for keeping myself sharp with constant energy levels.

  The idea is to prevent glucose spikes.

  if you prevent them your body will do much better. It will release less insulin and that means less damage and less food converted to fat.

  And spikes are followed by a crash, which is when energy plummets, attention wanders and cravings kick in.

  found this ppt with some of the ideas summarized (not by author):

  https://www.believebig.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Glucos...

  examples: - eat foods in order: first fiber, then proteins/fats, last carbs

  - walk 10 minutes after eating

  ...

• by armchairhacker on 10/25/23, 1:52 AM

  > The work-life balance isn’t terrible, but not great either. I generally get in around 7:30 AM and leave by 6-7. A bit earlier than the standard I think, but not overall not terrible.

  Everyone is mentioning the long work hours, and I'm also not surprised you feel too tired to exercise more than 20 minutes when you spend around 12 hours working + commuting.

  But also, are you working out and eating smartly? You mention intense workouts and not having energy, what about doing lower-intensity, longer workouts or a combination of the 2? And the only food you've mentioned is fast food, do you ever cook for yourself?

• by ianai on 10/25/23, 12:10 AM

  Be kind to yourself. No one's perfect. I’ve had the best luck minimizing friction starting exercise. That means it needs to be set up for me to go from “feeling good enough” to working out instantly.

• by the__alchemist on 10/25/23, 1:20 AM

  It sometimes does feel like a challenge. Including dimensions other than the work/life balance causing stresses.

  I'm 37 years old. Last weekend, I found out cooking with and drinking tap water set to hot mode is hella bad for you! Leeches heavy metals, brews bacteria, the works. I've been doing that every day for coffee, tea, pasta etc my whole adult life. Oops?

• by jitl on 10/25/23, 1:39 AM

  Don’t work 12 hour days. Try getting to work at 10am instead of 7am, or leaving at 3pm instead of 7pm.

• by Bimos on 10/25/23, 3:59 AM

  I spend 3 hours (2x(1h subway + 0.5h electric bike)) commuting and 9 hours at work everyday. Should I move to reduce my commuting time?

• by chipgap98 on 10/25/23, 1:33 AM

  The author is going through a major life transition as they move from being a full time student to a full time employee. Its not crazy that the stress of that change may impact their diet and weight. Also they are talking about 2 lbs over their typical weight.

• by skeeter2020 on 10/25/23, 1:22 AM

  Is this someone sub 25, who started in relatively good health, with no major underlying concerns, complaining how hard it is to stay healthy? Boo-fucking-hoo.