I am usually a very busy person. When I’m not working on fiction or projects for clients, I’m usually fending off supermodels with a stick. They say, “Oh, Nelson! How do you balance being a genius with maintaining that Olympian physique of yours? Is it a genetic predisposition to greatness, or do you put forth an effort?” My usual response is to shake the ice in my empty glass in the international sign of “less talk, more refill.”
Truth be told, it’s a little from column A, a little from B. Seriousness aside, I want to discuss one of the most neglected topics in the Freelancing World. Your butt (I said what, what?). If you’ve been at this a while, it’s probably getting bigger. For some, a lot bigger. As I said, I’m very busy, but there is always time to improve your health no matter how busy you are. Read the rest to see how you can improve your fitness quickly and make massive gains for both your health and your career.
Why You Should
Drawing your income primarily through the internet guarantees one thing: you’ll spend quite a bit of time in front of a computer. Probably more than you would in a regular job. Along with that sedentary time comes a whole host of problems. One of which is rapid weight gain. With rapid weight gain, there’s diabetes, depression, heart disease, and more subsequent issues that arise.
Programmers are notoriously stereotyped as asthmatic, overweight nerds teetering on the verge of either dying from a massive coronary failure or going on a shooting spree after never finding that last critical bug. Okay, maybe that’s going a little too far, but it speaks of a problem that exists for all outsourced and freelance workers. Chances are, you don’t get enough exercise.
Aside from death preventing you from pulling a check, poor health can impact your career in other ways. Poor health will make you depressed and lethargic, so you won’t be as motivated to work as you would if you were healthier. Also, you can take all that money you made as a motivated, healthy person and use it to go out and participate in activities you couldn’t before. Go rock climbing, canoeing, or run in a marathon.
A marathon? That may sound pretty far-fetched depending upon your condition, but it’s entirely possible. People have gone from very poor health to running marathons before. It’s a matter of conditioning your body every day with just a bit of work.
When You Should
There’s a million and three-point-five excuses why you don’t go out and get a little exercise right now. One of the most common excuses is that you can always do it tomorrow. You’re busy right now, and you’ll get to it once this project is done. That’s not a very good excuse. Some of the people I’ve spoken to say that their version of taking a break is essentially going somewhere else to sit for 15 to 30 minutes. You could take that time and convert it to exercise time.
Another excuse is that you’re old/too far out of shape/a devoted Mac user/etc. You can still do it. It’s no excuse. If you are able to sit up in a chair under your own power and use a computer, you are very likely able to do some sort of exercise–possibly sitting up in a chair, laying down, and sitting up again.
How You Can
Push-ups. You heard me. Drop and give me twenty.
Some people can’t do a single push-up. That’s okay, you can still do push-ups (what?). Visit HundredPushups.com and read the information on that site. They have alternative exercises for people of all strength levels. If you follow the program, you should be able to do 100 consecutive pushups at the end of six weeks. Maybe a few more if you’re really out of shape, but the point is that you now have a plan to get into great shape quickly with comparatively little effort, no cost, and you can do it in your own home.
That takes care of the upper body. What about the lower body? Start walking. When you’ve done a bit of walking, start jogging. After that, start running. It’s difficult to get started, but it’s easy to set aside X minutes a day to run.
Here’s a tip: don’t worry about the distance. Just set a timer for X amount of time and run/walk for that amount of time at a pace you can handle. Like with the push-up program, you will notice quick gains in strength, and your speed and endurance will increase as well!
Even better, combine the two! On three days in the week, do the push-up program like it suggests. On those other days, walk or run. You will be amazed at what these simple activities will do for you. Try it out and ask questions in the comments here if you have any, and I’ll do my best to encourage you and provide you with any other information I can.
Other Considerations
Aside from shedding fat and adding muscle, you should also consider what you put into your body. If you’re anything like me, you drink coffee by the pot, not the cup. I’ll go through three pots in a few hours some times. Other times, I’ll go through an equal amount of soda. That’s even worse when you mix in the sugar.
Watch when you’re eating. It’s very tempting to buy a bunch of instant food or snack food that’s high in calories. It’s also very tempting to keep it within arms reach while you’re working and mindlessly graze all day long. Separate your work and eating, and it will help you immensely.
Watch what you’re eating. It’s like mommy always told you: fruits, vegetables, bread, meat, etc etc food pyramid can-I-have-some-candy-now? Follow the iconic food pyramid, and you won’t go wrong. Also, by cooking your own meals, you will save a lot of money and enjoy your meals since they don’t taste like microwaved cardboard.
Fit body, fit mind, better life, better career. It’s a chain reaction.
- Editing for Money II
- Community and You
- Superman and You: Rights and Creators
- oDesk Affiliates
- Head Down, Hands Up
Diet and exercise help a lot, but knowing your night-owl habits I’m not surprised that you left out the third part of the triangle: Sleep.
Most freelancers sleep either too much or too little. They’re either workaholics like you Nelson, or they go to the other extreme and sleep twelve hours a day.
Unless you have clients in vastly different timezones it makes a lot of sense to stick to a conventional day schedule whenever you can. Get up in the morning (and by morning I mean between six and eight, not 11:59 AM), and go to bed by about midnight if you can manage it.
If you couple that with regular exercise it will help a lot.
Dear Dr. Nelson,
Is a push-up the same thing as a push-over? The only thing I know about push-ups is that they come in two flavors…Orange and Raspberry. You’re right, though. Sitting for too long can be detrimental. Just yesterday I stood up after a too-long session in front of my computer and my chair came up with me. It was stuck to my rear end! At first I thought it was because I had put on some extra pounds that I hadn’t noticed but then I saw the glue dripping down around the edges and realized that my Cockatiel must have been sniffing again and had forgotten to put the lid back on the tube! What’s a person to do? Spanking does not work with Cockatiels and would likely get you in trouble with the ASPCA anyway.
I do understand what you mean, though. I am also a very busy person. When I’m not working on oDesk projects I’m usually occupied with painstakingly clearing the cookie crumbs out of the cracks between the keys of my keyboard (use a toothpick- it really works!) or occassionally I occupy myself (just for recreation you understand) with counting the raisins in a loaf of raisin bread or calculating the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie-roll Pop. (342, if you’re interested). So you see, I haven’t really time for beginning an exercise program. Do you have any suggestions for someone like me?