Sometimes when I spy the various colors of code in the IDE vs.code I dream of starburst fruit chews (the pinks, the yellows, the greens, the purples)….Perhaps coding was not meant to be healthy. There are long hours hunched over the monitor screen tweaking fingers over keyboards and popping juju fruits one after the next. Debugging is laborious and the diet excruciating… this is life.
Coding will most certainly make me fat. I binge. I try to solve problems but the one I ignore most is myself. I need a coding diet and I need to cut and burn calories. But reducing calorie intake through diet is only half of the equation. The other half is increasing calorie burn by exercising, or Yoga, or Tai Chi, or kickboxing…anything as long as it will at least keep staying moderately physically active. It’s basic math in the end — calories in minus calories out.
It’s a reasonable set of clues to being a healthy coder: eat less, exercise more, stay away from the fruit chews. Programmers try it more analytically than the average joe, but it’s nothing you haven’t heard a dozen times before. The problem is getting off our collective butts to do it. So how make the time and effort you ask when under a deadline?
They say the first month is the hardest to get the workout in- commit to at least a month is good advice. There is no quick fix for fitness and weight loss (especially for computer people), well none that will last. You can use scales to keep track of your weight, but don’t jump on them every day! Fitness is not a case of jumping on a device. One good way to measure fitness is to go mountain biking. Head out and come back when you’ve had enough. See how long you were out for, as you get fitter you’ll be out longer and ride further. After that one month the 20 min round the block can soon turn into 3 hours exploring.
Trust the juju fruits will go away. Trust the belt line will slim. You’ll be a better programmer and happier, healthy, and successful.
get it in gear ya’ dummy