The “Break it Down” Blog

Is it possible to stay fit in the I.T. industry? 8, 10, 12+ hours infront of a monitor all day long? Endless streams of RSS feeds, emails and instant messages? How am I suppose to get out for a jog, the gym or play some tennis when incomming requests that require my attention are endless? So far, I haven’t quite figured out how to balance the two and have pretty much opted up until now to not make time for my health.

The problem for me, with I.T., is that communication is instant and constant. No one is calling you and leaving a message to get back to them the next day. Every communication I get needs some sort of immediate reply, not a delayed reply the next day or next week. The other issue with I.T. is that it’s fairly easy to pick up extra work besides you 9-5 or main job. While the opportunities presented in I.T. are truely a blessing it does play havok with free time because you do bring your work home in a manner of speaking. Any time you are infront of a computer, it’s work time. Got email? It’s probably work related. Got an internet connection? Check your email… might have something you need to do in it. There is nothing wrong with the work of course, it’s just that it presents opportunities to ignore other things (like going to the gym).

It would be a lie if I set the work was perpetual, of course it’s not. It’s like anything else. There are crazy times and slow times. So what about the slow times? Why not go work out then? Good question. My problem is that during slow times, since I am already infront of your computer, it’s too easy to hit up Digg and see what is going on or maybe visit IMDB to see what movies I should pay $9 to go see that night or hell maybe I just want to read through Edmunds.com and drool over some cars that I will likely never buy. The ability to find something, anything, that is interesting is limitless. Hell go to Google Images and type in “interesting“, you’ll find lots of stuff to learn about or just oogle.

I have a friend, let’s call him “Grant“. We’ve been friends for a long time (since middle school). If I had to describe Grant in one word I would say “disciplined”. Grant is in I.T. He has been since he was able to crawl I imagine… real technical guy, loves detail and smart. So why does Grant look like Paul Walker, eats like a gazelle and works out 2 times a day and I can’t do laundry on my abs even if I wanted? Well it’s all about his discipline. He looks at 30mins of free time between work and thinks “sweet, just enough time to go for a jog!” while I and many others look at that time and think “sweet, just enough time to check Digg/Penny-Arcade/etc. and look for something entertaining”. He goes to lunch with co-workers and thinks “I need clean fuel for my body to burn so I can kick this day’s ass” myself and others go to lunch likely thinking “I’ve had a busy/hard day and I want to treat myself to something yummy”. I would point out that “yummy” (1lb burger smothered in cheese with fries) and “clean fuel” (roasted chicken or fish) are polar opposites. It’s all mental. I’m not suggesting that to be fit in I.T. you need to go to the gym on your lunch break, but switching out your visits to TGI Fridays for Fish and Chips 5x a week for a 1x a week visit and then bringing your lunch the other 4x should give you benefiits over the next few months that you can start to feel.

As I’ve gotten older my desire to “look like a model” has become less and less motivation to hit the gym for hours a week. Back in middle school/high school and the beginning of college that motivation was all I needed. I wanted to be stronger and more muscular than everyone around me. It was a mix of part alpha-dog and part “touch me, I’m sexy”. As time wore on through college and I started to get more level-headed about my outlook on life that single motivation slowy died away. Each time I tried to get back into the gym as I passed age 22, it was harder and harder to stay motivated. It seemed like everyone around me was bigger/stronger/faster and I just didn’t care that much anymore. 3 months at the gym no longer packed on the muscle and melted the fat like it used to… that was depressing and led to a lot of “Screw you guys, I’m going home” days for me.

This feeling of “screw it, what’s the point” went on for years, I’d say 3 years before I started to notice another side effect of not eating well and not excercising: mentally I was slowing down. I felt myself getting dumber. Newer technologies, frameworks and concepts were harder to grasp. The biggest problem was I noticed my level of concentration or ability to stay focused on a task or idea was getting shorter and more flighty. What the hell was happening? I could deal with not looking like a movie star, but now my biggest assest was starting to dull. I was getting scared. I now have a gut and I was getting dumber? Holy shit, I’m going to be wearing a beer-stained wife beater and sporting a huge mullet in no time. I knew I had to do something about it, but what? And was I scared enough to stick to whatever I decided to do or was this going to be attempt #153 at getting in shape?

It was around this time I started going back to the gym and boxing. I noticed immediately (I’m talking the next day) I was sleeping like a baby, had more energy during the day and was thinking clearer. Thank god, I can deal with chubby, I can’t deal with dumb. I started eating better and in about a week I felt like I was burning high octane fuel (even though I was still eating fairly poorly) and life was good. Unfortunately after 2 months of this and noticing that my physical results were not what I expected given how much effort I was putting in, I started to get a bit discouraged, but still didn’t give it up. What derailed my completely was I.T.

Some new work opportunities, in addition to my 9-5, came my way and I couldn’t say “no” (or maybe I just can’t say “no” to opportunity?). So I started to work and work and work. Just like the lunch-mentality of “I work hard, I should have a treat”, I started to skip the gym, skip boxing and just come home to work or relax because “I had a hard day”. The days turned to weeks and months and next thing I knew I was back where I started again. Feeling crappy and doing nothing to stop it. Juggling the tasks became a chore because thinking in general was a chore. At one point I even thought I was getting a case of adult A.D.D. because my thought process was getting so flighty. I couldn’t think my way through algorithms without lots of notes and retracing of my steps. So I started to get scared again. The idea of going on medication for these completely self-inflicted anomolies was not going to happen. I can’t be a wimp like that and let my poor actions turn me into a marter.

I got scared a few times over the next year or so where I would start to jog or swim again for weeks or a month at a time and immediately feel better, but I wasn’t changing my eating habits and my motivations were still primarily physique-based, not in interest of enhancing my mental capacity. As time wore on this pattern repeated itself as my balance between looking good and feeling/thinking good slowly started to shift from a 90/10 split, to a 80/20, then a 60/40, then a 50/50 and so on to about now where it’s around 30/70. I know it’s different this time because I don’t want those “treat” foods anymore. It used to be a chore to eat at home and make my own lunch because it wasn’t “as tasty” as the food at the resturaunts we went to at lunch, but that time has finally passed. It actually happened last month, for the first time, I ate at home without thinking twice about it for a month straight. Then I stood back and went “wow… I wasn’t even thinking about it, it’s just that nothing outside sounded good enough to go get”. For this last month I have been feeling about 50% better than I was; not perfect yet, but a hell of a lot better. My life is more efficient now, I’m not wasting time in lines waiting for my food and I’m not falling asleep after lunch because I’m full of McDonalds anymore. I want to clarify that I’m not saying that outside food doesn’t take good, what I’m saying is that I finally crossed a point where it doesn’t taste good enough to me anymore to justify (a) the effort to go get it and (b) the feeling sluggish and dumb afterwards.

This transition was so natural and unforced that it really motivated me, more than I have been in a long time. It made me realize that you *can* be healthy in I.T. This is important, to me atleast, because I think somewhere subconciously I had convinced myself that staying fit in I.T. was hard because of the nature of the work. I realize now, it has nothing to do with the nature of the work… it has to do with the nature of the ME. Before I wasn’t willing to take the effort or make the time for a healthier life, but something at some point in the last month or two switched inside of me where I went from thinking “Wow those tasty fast foods are worth feeling like shit” to “I love life” and food went from a tool of comfort to some 3rd-level-ranking necessity that I need to take care of instead of the pinnacle of my day.

For those of you still struggling with the “treat” or “comfort” foods after long hard days of work, I’m not suggesting you have to stop and “have” to do this and “have” to do that. I’m just saying keep doing what you are doing, keep eating shitty food BUT in addition to eating those foods, start to pay close attention to how you feel afterwards. How do you feel in the afternoon? How do you feel at night? How are you sleeping? I noticed in the last year that when I eat poorly I toss and turn all night and wake up feeling exhausted, the kind of exhausted that no amount of coffee helps and you yawn all day long… I freaking hate that feeling.

I think over time you will subconciously decide if feeling poor is worth the taste of those foods. Forget excercise, I’m not talking gym membership here, I’m just talking about your food… and hell I’m not even suggesting you change it, just that you pay close attention to it and how it’s making you feel. Some of you will decided that it’s absolutely worth feeling crappy for the tastiness of a Double Quarter Pounder or a box of Krispy Kremes and some of you won’t. I’ve tried fighting the natural flow of my mental state by forcing myself into doing things like eating right or working out and it never lasts. The only time things have ever lasted for me is when the timing is right and it’s what I truely believe. My new motivation is my intelligence. I don’t want to crush anyone in a game of chess or solve 22/7 in my head, but I do want to have good ideas, make good decisions, have interesting conversations and be more aware of the complexities and beauty of things around me every day. That’s my motivation here, forget my six pack. Maybe some day, but not now.

I have no idea where I will be in a month or a year, but I know how I feel right now and in an attempt to make the best of it I’m going to run with it and see what happens. I’m going to go for a swim, get some sun by god if I’m not totally ripped and handsome by Tuesday, then I give up! (Digg this)