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This is a topic near and dear to my heart. As a freelancer, I sit in my apartment sounded by as much high calorie food as I want that is scientifically optimize
by davidscolgan 8y ago
This is a topic near and dear to my heart. As a freelancer, I sit in my apartment sounded by as much high calorie food as I want that is scientifically optimized to be as tasty as possible, I have a job that requires zero exertion or even leaving the house, most of my work interactions are online and otherwise I'm alone all day.
This is the exact opposite that the human mind is adapted to, and I'm relatively convinced that in order to be effective in the modern world you have to take an actively counter intuitive path through life. It's hard to be healthy, to be productive, to be social, since the works just isn't set up to make it easy now.
I haven't fully solved this for myself, but I have shifted from being hard on myself for eating a whole chocolate bar in one sitting to asking myself how can I make it harder for myself to find myself in the situation that I'm eating a whole chocolate bar?
As some things I've read have suggested, one way to get lots of willpower is to make any other option impossible. So, don't bring candy bars into the house, pay for a gym membership so I'll feel reptile brain loss aversion for not going, etc.
Especially for an entrepreneur, it seems like a critical thing is just getting out of the way of yourself.
- saagarjha 8y ago> one way to get lots of willpower is to make any other option impossible. So, don't bring candy bars into the house Not everyone has this luxury. My office has a shelf of candy that's restocked every couple days. I think I've put on at least five pounds since I joined two months ago.
- geomark 8y agoAt a company I used to work for one of the project areas had an (in)famous "wall of sugar" as they called it.
- steve_adams_86 8y agoUnhealthy office food is the worst. I have a hard time avoiding it. My house has absolutely none of that stuff because I know it's a weakness... Then I go to the office and 'accidentally' eat two granola bars. 400 calories of oats and HFCS later and I'm still hungry.
- rosser 8y agoAt my employer, we joke about the "freshman 15" — the 15 pounds you'll gain in your first year there from all the junk food. Fortunately, I also work remotely, and am much more judicious about my snacking choices.
- davidscolgan 8y agoYeah and it sucks. There's a convenience store right outside my apartment that now sells chips and ice cream. I eat more of those now than I used to. My Android phone will not let me uninstall the YouTube app, and I've been watching more YouTube lately. My point here is that the modern world almost seems to be conspiring against healthy living, both mentally and physically, so whatever you have to do to be healthy is worth doing. I've played around with various web blockers, and finally got around this YouTube on phone problem by installing both a blocker app and also using the adb command line tool to manually edit the hosts file to also block YouTube in the browser which required unlocking the bootloader and accidentally wiping my phone. But now, I can't watch YouTube on my phone and it's wonderful to not have that temptation now. I don't know what the answer is to community junk food. I'm at home with parents this week and I was gifted junk food, which I was grateful for but also a little sad about.
- davidscolgan 8y agoI've wondered if software can also be the solution here. Can you make an app that appeals to my emotional lizard brain and prevents me from eating candy and browsing the internet? That's something I'd pay for.