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Staying In Shape vs. a Busy IT Job Schedule?
tnok85 writes "I started a new job ~7 months ago at a very large company working a 12-hour night shift (7PM-7AM) in a fairly high volume NOC. Our responsibilities extend during the night to basically cover everything but the most complex situations regarding UNIX/Windows/Linux/App administration, at which point we'll reach out to the on-calls. I live 1.5 hours away as well, so it turns into 4-5 15 hour days a week of sitting still — throw in almost an hour to get ready to leave, and a bit of time after I get home to unwind and I'm out of time to work out. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure I have a very slow metabolism, ever since I was a pre-teen I would gain weight fairly quickly if I didn't actively work out, regardless of how much or what I eat. (Barring starving myself, I suppose...) So, how does somebody who works a minimum of 60 hours over 4 days, often adding another 12 another day, and sometimes working 7-10 days straight like this, stay in shape? I can't hold a workout schedule, (which every person I've talked to in my history says is necessary to stay in shape) and I can't 'wake up early' or 'work out before bed' because I need sleep. Any thoughts/opinions/suggestions?"
What kind of miracle solution do you want? Its easy...
For a given workday, after N hours work and M hours sleep, is anything left? if yes, make the decision to work out or to fuck off. If not, then wait for your days off and work out hard. Also decrease caloric intake.
There is no other solution (aside from changing work schedule).
http://www.crossfit.com/ - works very well and can be done almost anywhere with little or no equipment.
Seriously, walk around. Get up, and stretch. Take a walk at lunch. Take the long way through the halls. Eat properly - high fiber, high protein. Sneak into a side room and do wall pushups. Use your imagination - imagination and intelligence is what makes geeks awesome. Use your gifts.
You have certainly painted the situation in such a way that you feel you have no time to do anything except sleep, eat, and work. If working out is a major priority to you, perhaps you should be looking for a less demanding job?
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Move closer and/or bike into work.
It's rewarding and fun, and a little bit of biking every day goes a long way toward staying in shape.
Well, the biking is fun, the moving sucks.
Working those hours, in a night shift, that far from home, seems to me like a terrible long term arrangement. You'll cut years off your life. It'll make sure you can't get even a semblance of a social life. As a support job, it might not even pay enough as to allow you to see it as a temporary sacrifice for a better lifestyle later.
Look for another job, pronto.
I've been in your situation and there are only two possible solutions:
-get a new job
-move closer to your existing job.
Honestly, those are hellish hours and frankly I think you're insane for working that much. My honest answer, as someone who works out 6 days a week but works a pretty normal 9-5 is that, if I had your job, I wouldn't work out either.
You are working/commuting too much. IMHO, you should be looking to first reduce your hours spent working/commuting. With the schedule you have laid out, you dont have time to properly work out and its not good for your mental health either. The body and mind need rest to operate well, by throwing in physical exercise, you are only going to become more fatigued.
Good-bye
If you are looking for some basic things the 100 pushups, 200 squats, and 200 situps work pretty well and do not require much. Even a bike trainer to use while watching tv de-stressing at home would be great. Outside of that you will need to fight for some of your life back. Get time from your boss, make time! Most companies have small gyms at work see if you can get one floated past committee.
Get a bike rack, a bicycle, a good headlamp and some very reflective clothes.
Map a bike route from your worksite to a terminus about 6 to 10 miles away (where you can park your car). Optimize the route for safety and speed.
Drive your car to the terminus every day and ride your bike into work in the morning and back to your car in the evening.
This isn't rocket science; pick one or the other.
(I suggest you pick the health, and loose that job)
___ I don't respond to Anonymous Cowards, and I Never Mod them UP.
I realize that you have a relatively insane schedule, but go back and read your comments. They are nearly all self defeating. Working out regularly is like quitting smoking - it's something YOU have to want to do for yourself and your own benefit. You'd be amazed what a simple set of adjustable dumbbells and a weight bench will do when used for only 20 minutes a day 3 to 4 days per week. Throw in some form of cardio on your days off from lifting, and you're doing far better than most of the general public.
Also, if you are truly serious about staying in shape, take a good look at your diet. Years ago I switched my diet from overly processed starches and red meats to include more whole grains, skim milk, water, whole fruits and vegetables, and green tea. My energy levels easily doubled. The amount of time I spent sick dropped.
Seriously, if you truly want to get in shape, you will make time for it. All it takes is making it a habit, which will probably require a 2 month investment on your part, whether you feel like it on a given day or not. There are days when I don't feel 100% like working out, but once I get about 5 minutes into my routine, I am up to the challenge.
Want to lose up to 57 lbs in one year?
Can't find enough time to get to the gym?
Spend lots of time in front of a computer?
Are you a stupid douche bag with no sense for practicality?
If you answered Yes, Yes and Yes and Yes and Yes and Yes, then welcome to the solution...the Treadmill Desk.
Whale
Meth. I have yet to run into a fat meth-head.
I commute to work on a bicycle almost every day. That's 2x11 Km each day. Some of my colleagues have longer commutes.
I enjoy it a lot, and consider that in Finland there is a ton of bicycle paths, so one doesn't need to risk his/her life while cycling.
Of course, if you're in most of the US or Canada, you're shit out of luck, but there are some cities that are cyclist-friendly even in North America.
BTW, as a general comment about your life: I think your lifestyle is deeply fucked. You basically don't have a life. If you are married, you are sacrificing not only yours, but your wife's and your children's life as well. You'll die just like the rest of us, buy you'll wonder where did your life go.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
TAPEWORM...These little suckers will keep those pesky pounds off with minimal effort.
Weight loss is a matter of willpower, but it's also a matter of having the right technique. All the willpower in the world won't help you if you're doing the wrong thing. And weight loss isn't about exercise (at least for me), it was about eating right.
I spent two years running 30 miles a week, and eating bad foods. I lost 15 pounds in 2 years (and wore my knees out in the process).
I spent six months eating healthy food and weightlifting 2 days a week. I lost 30 pounds in 6 months.
Notice the difference.
1. Cut out sugar, flour, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes from your diet. They spike your insulin and give you that gnawing hunger.
2. Give yourself 3 skip meals a week where you violate the first rule, but not too much. Only a bit.
3. Eat a portion of white meat two meals a day. It slows your digestion, and keeps your body from starving itself of protein.
4. Eat salads, fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts until you are full (but only after eating your protein.
That's really all there is to it. No secrets. For the first two months, my "exercise" was reading the newspaper in the sauna and I lost 15 lbs in that time. I did start weightlifting after a few months, and have almost doubled my benchpress and legpress weights in only 4 months. My waist has gone from a fat 40" to a loose 34". I feel like a million dollars.
But "Move or Die" can mean many things. First you can move your body: exercising in the simplest ways. Walk a mile when things are slow. If you have time to do push ups and sits ups at work, then you have time to walk as well. Work out every day you aren't at work. Accept that your life is about Work and working out and that you don't have time for anything else. If something else is getting in the way of working out, then accept that working out isn't important enough. unless you're willing to do the second or third move.
Next "Move where you work": you have to decide if you wish to continue working at a company that appears to have no concern about your physical or mental health and well being. The Company may not care if you're burned out and dying from heart disease in 20 years, but you should be. If you can't do the first or third "Move" you have to decide if the loss of physical health is worth the financial compensation you get.
Finally: "Move where you live": If the first two options aren't viable, then perhaps you should consider that a 90 minute commute is insane under these circumstances. I personally have an hour commute after a 9 hour day. And I'm seriously considering moving much closer. If you're in a house that's devalued because of the economy, then it sucks, but you have to decide if the financial hit you take from moving (and remember, you'll save a ton on gas every month not driving that 100+ mile trip every day).
In the end if your health is that important for you, you'll have to figure out what sort of move you want to make, and if none of them are viable, then accept you'll be slowly dying until you change your mind.
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
There is no mystery to weight loss. Turn in your geek card if you believe you spontaneously gain weight while eating less than your energy requirements.
3500 kcal (aka Calories) above or below your your BMR + activity level corresponds to 1 pound gained or lost, respectively.
If you're 30 years old and 5'10" at 200 pounds, with a sedentary lifestyle, then your BMR is about 2000 kcal/day, and your activity level brings that to about 2400 kcal/day. If you eat 100 kcal/day more, you'll gain a pound in about a month, but if you eat 100 kcal/day less (or just run 3.5 miles/week), then you'll lose a pound in a month. If you do light exercise a couple times/week, you'll probably burn about 2750kcal/day and lose 3 pounds/month.
That feeling you get that you're "starving" yourself is a product of the fact that you've conditioned yourself to eat when you feel stressed. Learn to tell the difference in hunger and stress. Drink lots of water, take your vitamins, and get plenty of fiber. Focus on eating "filling" foods with little caloric value.
I'll leave it as an exercise of geekdom for you to figure out the rest. You have to earn back your geek card, OP.
I have been working night shift in a NOC lately, myself. Deep into my 12 hour shifts, there is almost nobody in the building, so I can do laps. I carry my blackberry which will yell if I actually have to respond to an outage. I'm never more than 30 seconds away from my desk while I do laps. It's also easy to do jumping jacks, pushups and situps while with line of sight to my desk. Add in the occasional jumping jacks, and I'm oddly enough probably getting myself in better shape since having started this schedule. Go figure.
Of course, there is also the days off. I could theretically use those for excercise. I used to be in the habit of jogging when I had a working iPod because I could listen to education audio books while I ran. Now I can be at work while I run. I think I feel silly if the only thing I'm doing is running. As much as I know it is important, I don't really feel it is an accomplishment on its own.
Also, be careful with what you eat. Quantity is obviously a concern, but quality is a huge factor as well. On this schedule, I never really have time to cook the days that I work. The result is that I eat more burgers than would be ideal since that's the most convenient thing. When I'm at work, I often microwave frozen TV dinners or cans of soup with enough sodium to preserve an elephant. I'm trying to make a point of sticking to fruit juice instead of energy drinks, making the TV dinners the 'healthy' option, and at least squeezing in enough time to eat something better than a burger on my way home from work.
Bicycle + generator + power cables + workstation = full shift work out...
Eric
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
I've know people who worked 28 or 32 hour "days". That is you just treat 28 hours as you circadian rythm. it means your sleep/wake schedule drifts from the day/night cycle, but it still overlaps it so you can have productive interactions with regular humans. IN your case since you claim you are working all the time, it's obviously not a big deal if you don't perfectly sync with others socially.
if you go to that cycle then you will now have 4 or 8 extra hours of wake time in which you can exsercize. you are actually awake slightly more of the time so it's a net gain for waking activity.
people I've know who did this find it sustainable for an entire year.
if you are really productive working 15 hours a day then you probably are a candidate for this regimen.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Seriously, I bought this thing when it first came out, and I lost 20 pounds in a couple months. I know it seems silly to think that such a non-game will hold your attention and keep you working out, but if you have a desire to work out and lose weight, it will help. If you don't really have an interest in working out, it probably won't hold your attention long. But if you do, it will teach you some basic workouts, and the videogame-esque style may give you that extra ambition to get to it.
With the schedule he's laid out, he barely has enough time to sleep. By my count, he's got just one hour a day to prepare meals, read a book, date...
You're going to get fat and lonely with a schedule like that, and the loneliness is only going to make you fatter as you try to fill the void with food, and the kind of food you'll have access to with only an hour to prepare and eat is not going to be very slimming, even if you use peapod.
If he can't change the 12-hour days, at least get a small apartment near the business, or even on premises. I guarantee that a company of any decent size is going to have an executive apartment somewhere that goes mostly unused. Even if he has to clear out half the time, that's still saving three hours of commute on every evening he can avoid going home. That's three hours you could be cooking, relaxing, working out, working out with a partner, keeping up on professional development, getting drunk, learning to sing... the list is literally endless.
Check the classified ads, also. Sometimes people are looking to rent a room, and the price is therefore pretty good (well, crappy for the sq. footage, but fine for "a place to get some sack time") They'll love you, because you won't even be around half the time, let alone making noise or commotion. Obviously, you need to be careful there, but it's not like you just start renting without even meeting the people first.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
That feeling you get that you're "starving" yourself is a product of the fact that you've conditioned yourself to eat when you feel stressed.
Actually, its a very common symptom of type2 diabetes, along with dehydration that gets worse when you drink sugar-soda, thirsty all the time, tired out, heavy central body buildup of fat, perhaps you have foot problems to some extent, etc... Conveniently the treatment for type2 boils down to lower carb diet, exercise, and lose some weight, at least at the start, which seems to be the treatment plan everyone else is suggesting for merely being fat. There are of course expensive pills that may or may not help you, but would absolutely make someone a lot of money.
Needless to say I'm not a (medical) doctor, although I can diagnose that anyone asking for medical advice on slashdot is obviously showing clinical indications of mental insanity. A MD can quickly and trivially check your blood sugar levels to either prove this or rule it out, more or less. Probably worth checking out. Probably a good idea to visit your MD before beginning an exercise routine anyway.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You will feel better in just about every way for however many years that you do happen to live.
...where there normally isnt. For some people, it's just a kitchen, but to a workout freak like me, I practice the refrigerator door pull, about 3 sets of 12 reps each, burn those calories. Open the door, you think it's just a 6 pack, but each one in that pack for the workout fanatic, means a hectic fast paced 24oz wrist curl for each wrist, about 3 sets of 12 reps each. Practice restraint by tensing the muscles to prevent unnecessary rushed gulping. You get the idea; just take another look around at the house...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Most of them are going to give you advice you can't implement. I understand where you're coming from and I can actually help you as long as you don't mind the possibility of looking slightly foolish at work.
You work 12 hours a day. I know that you aren't continuously engaged in productive work. No one is. So start there. Every 3 hours take a 15 minute break and do the following:
Set a timer for 5 minutes then do:
100x Jumping Jacks
50x Pushups
50x Bodyweight Squats
50x Leg Raises
50x Crunches,
50x Russian twists (Russian twist is going halfway up in a crunch, then turning left to right, each direction is one)
When you first start out you will probably not finish this in 5 minutes. It doesn't matter. Stop at 5 minutes. Go get some water, walk around for 5 minutes and catch your breath.
Now go eat an apple and a handful of peanuts or sunflower seeds or some other healthy snack.
When you eat lunch eat a sandwhich, or a big salad, or a chicken breast, not a bigmac or a whole cheese pizza. Keep a GENERAL IDEA of how many calories you are eatting and keep it somewhere in the 1600-1700 range. You don't have to be precise here, just don't knock down the Triple Whopper and you should be ok.
Do NOT drink sodas. You drink WATER. Nothing else. Vitamin Water or Life Water is acceptable, Powerade and Gatorade are not.
Coffee is acceptable, but not recommended.
Eat every 3 hours, a smallish meal, approximately 6 times a day. Your target is an average of 300 calories per meal, but it's flexible.
And if you want to know what makes me qualified to give this advice and why you should listen to me:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kintanon&search_type=
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji