[sainib]

Bear with me. It may sounds little cliche, may be mildly cheesy.

I had a self realization and received the advice from myself during one of my "zen state pondering" that - being in the best shape of my health with improve EVERYTHING by 10x in my life.

A technologist for 24 years. Almost got my last product startup acquired in 2014 by a (back then) 500 million USD company. I have been obese for 15 years.

I have lost 30 pounds in last 4 months and now lifting and working out 4 days a week(I try 5 days). I look forward to working out now. I feel so much more energetic and elevated state of awareness. Everything is already so much better.

[vl]

I’ll add to this advice: work out every day. It’s way easier to do it this way. If you go for few large workouts, it’s easy to skip and easy to slip. With small workout every day you know you have to do it and it can’t be pushed out from the schedule.

Corollary to this, remove friction for starting a workout. I.e. get equipment to your abode/office so you can start working out in 2 minutes.

And also: there are a lot of great work out sessions on YouTube. Dumbbells, yoga, stretching, etc.

And also also: if you don’t know where to start, just pay for personal trainer.

[heresjohnny]

While solid advice, working out everyday can lead to overtraining. Happened to me and it’s not fun. Doing some yoga every day: yes. Heavy squats: no, please no.

[robcohen]

Overtraining is a concern, but I’ve previously done 7x per week heavy weightlifting and it’s fine so long as you cycle through different body parts and listen to your body. In the Marine Corps I’d usually work out 3x a day 5 days a week and 1x per day on the weekends. Granted I was in my 20s then, but I think what matters more than “preemptively not overtraining” is just listening to your body. Most people go way too heavy for their goals. I’ve found that’s really unnecessary and counterproductive, but exercising often is fine.

[generalenvelope]

Emphasis on listen to your body. Plugging because I'm such a big fan, Barbell Medicine has changed my life in terms of understanding training/injury risk based on actual evidence. If you haven't tried it, highly recommend RPE based training. It's refreshing to realize that you don't need to go super hard to make serious progress. And like you're describing, it can often set you back. There's a fatigue cost to every stimulus and it's all about balancing those to get the desired adaptations.

[polishdude20]

Another thing Ive learned from them is that if something hurts or I have pain that isn't caused by physical damage, it's most likely fine to lift. Usually lifting actually helps any back pain.

A few weeks back I tweaked my back just while laying down for some reason. Hurt like hell getting up. Next day, still painful, did some light squats. During the squats the pain didn't get any worse. So I added more weight. Less pain. More weight, less pain. Until I got to my working set for the day and nailed it. The back pain got better and it was all fine.

Now the lifting may not have had any effect on the pain. It could have just gone away on its own. I'll never know. But the point being that the pain didn't indicate a structural damage that was dangerous. Lifting probably also helped my mind make that distinction.

[generalenvelope]

Hell yeah. Austin Baraki's "Aches and Pains" article is great, as well as the YT video "4 step for managing pain in the gym".

I've had many similar back pain experiences to yours. Bio-Psycho-Social model for the win

[nextlevelwizard]

Usually when people tell me they are going heavy more than 3 times per week they usually arent going that hard, just because it is hard to recover that fast.

[vl]

My strategy is to go for variety. I do weights one day, cardio other day.

[quickthrower2]

YMMV: For me the physical relocation and access to lots of equipment is important. Twice a week weights suits me fine. Not saying I am right but saying there is no one way

[VeninVidiaVicii]

It doesn’t sound as cliche as you think — in my opinion the problem is prioritizing yourself over your productivity.

I’m a geneticist with a unique set of analytical skills that keeps me tied up in dozens of projects at a time, and my health is always the thing I let slide.

Whenever I finally decide to workout, I tell myself, “I’ll never let that much time go by between workouts again.” Then invariably, I don’t have time.

How did you overcome that?

[emadabdulrahim]

They way I overcame that is by realizing that working out is essential to my mental health. I wanted to level up my baseline of overall well-being so that my worst days are not that bad. Which means I can bounce quickly from setbacks. Where in the past I'd have recurring periods where find myself spiraling downwards.

Working out keeps me sharp at work which is cognitivly demanding and requires high levels of creativety and problem solving. From that angle, I take it seriously as core part of my day and my identity.

Overtime I started to enjoy doing hard thing in and of itself. Which is changing my life beyond what I could imagine.

[vl]

Do a small workout every day and do it first thing in the morning.

This way you know you have to do it every day and it takes priority above everything else - if you don’t have health, how are you going to do other stuff you want to do?

[roflyear]

Yeah not possible. Waking up to phone calls to fix things every day...

[croo]

I had the same problem and found that the extreme was the only thing that worked for me. What I mean is that for like 3 months make your first priority to work out. Not your second or your "one-of-the-important-ones" priority. Your first. Absolute first.

After 3 months your body will adjust and you will carve workout and built a habit that is easier to follow.

[vl]

There is no magic bullet, you don't have enough time to do everything and need to prioritize. To fit exercise in, you need to let something else go.

Doing it first thing in the morning is a trick to simplify prioritization. Do not check your phone until you exercised. Obviously go to bed earlier to get better sleep.

[sainib]

Thanks for your comments.

Over last 15 years, I have tried to loose weight and sooner or later I ran into - "I dont have time" or "this customer proposal is more important" syndrome. Derailed my effort. Before I knew I was back to or worse than where I started.

I feel different this time. Its almost as important as eating everyday to stay alive. As important as having work to earn bread for family.

Being analytical, I have tried hard to find whats different this time. I dont think I have exact understanding but here are some factors that I came up during my pondering .

- Something just triggers this mindset where working out becomes a part of you. Almost a necessary activity like taking a bath. You can skip a day or two but it starts to smell and feel like you MUST do it.

- I feel the trigger has one or more the following components : 1) WHO - You do it for someone. It could be you yourself, family, kids, grandkids, girlfriend. 2) You have a strong realization that LIFE is finite & You want to have a better and longer life. 3) You are FED UP with something.

- Goal setting & how your mind processes goals - In past, my goals had a finish line. Like - "I want to loose weight" or "I want to run a half marathon". I was able to achieve those goals and almost soon after that my mind was like: "That's it man. We are done. Lets go back to default mode" (busy work, less active life style). This time my goal is - I WILL LIVE REST OF MY LIFE IN A HEALTHY MANNER. There is no end date or finish line. The results do not matter. I dont have goals to loose 2 pounds every week. I just do what I need to do to live healthy.

- There is also realization that EVERYONE must go through pain and pay with money and time, for your health. You do it in Gym or Doctor's office. You chose.

- Accountability was a big factor for me. In past, I would start but drop off at some point. This time I hired a gym-owner fitness trainer (awesome guy). My net investment is less than 3K a year. I go to him 2 days a week. Just that will easily help me live at least a year longer (keeping all other factors same). Whats the value of one year of time for me? Priceless. 3K is dirt cheap.

I can go on. I have been taking notes in a google doc with a hope to covert that into a eBook someday. I have thoughts from so many different perspectives, that I feel can help others too.

[quickthrower2]

You have a limit of X projects so let it be say 20 instead of 30. Being fit means you will perform better at work on those fewer projects. Drop to 10 and train other people?

Other than that, I am trialing pen and paper for todos and exercise plans. I think this helps. Also see an exercise physiologist occasionally and that helps alot. A personal trainer you check in with every 4 weeks is similar.

Finally just see it as essential. You will die if you don’t do it kind of thing.

[kamaal]

>>I had a self realization and received the advice from myself during one of my "zen state pondering" that - being in the best shape of my health with improve EVERYTHING by 10x in my life.

This doesn't even have to be a theory. Being top physical shape today is a minimum requirement for top notch intellectual performance.

Read:

https://www.espn.in/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmaster...

They jog up and down the hills around the farmland,

At 5-foot-6, Caruana has a lean frame, his legs angular and toned. He also has a packed schedule for the day: a 5-mile run, an hour of tennis, half an hour of basketball and at least an hour of swimming.

"Physical fitness and brain performance are tied together, and it shouldn't be a surprise that grandmasters are out there trying to look like soccer players," Ashley says.

Viswanathan Anand, does two hours of cardio each night to tire himself out so he doesn't dream about chess;

Chirila does at least an hour of cardio and an hour of weights to build muscle mass before tournaments.

The next generation of rich, successful, with super careers and affluence will be people with Christiano Ronaldo like physique.

[rammy1234]

Awesome and is there anything particular you took to reduce weight ? Or was it a whole lifestyle change ?

[miketery]

Not OP. But I recently started calorie counting (I'm using MyFitnessPal, and decided to even pay the yearly sub). Its been immensely helpful in understanding the impact of various food on my daily calorie count, and showing me I wasn't getting enough protein (I now start my day with a scoop of whey protein).

[mattfields]

congrats. That's a brave admission, and it took some hard work.

Thanks for sharing :-)