[AndrewMoffat]

It's a trade-off for me. For the most part, exercising every other day has good short term and long term benefits for my productivity. But sometimes, just saying "fuck it", not eating, not exercising, and blasting through code for a few days gives serious short term gains.

It's not sustainable, and I've now learned when to quit, but the gains I get during those periods get are something exercising and being healthy just can't measure up to. Maybe I'm delusional

[cjus]

I don't think that's delusional - the same approach has certainly worked for me - when it's been necessary. Sometimes you just have to go into crunch mode and make shit happen.