Ask HN: You're fit and you work startup hours (9+), how do you do it?

I work 80 hours a week, and I&#x27;m happy with my social life and fitness level. To be and to stay fit you need to eat right, exercise and... have good genes. Nothing you can do about your genes, but here&#x27;re little hacks that helped me to not only stay in shape, but also lose 20 lb in 6 months and maintain it. There&#x27;s nothing new, it&#x27;s very easy, but you need to be disciplined about this.<p>1) Eat 4-5 small meals a day with plenty of veggies and protein. Exclude any processed food and ANYTHING with corn syrup. Read the ingredients. If there are words that you don&#x27;t know - don&#x27;t eat it. I never starve, never diet. But I also don&#x27;t eat more than I need. If you drink alcohol, try to stay away from beer and cocktails. When I drink socially, I usually either have a glass of wine, or go straight to hard liquor (cognac, tequila, vodka).<p>2) Work-out 3-4 times a week (every other day) for only 20-30 minutes. To be effective you can work out with you weight: push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups crunches, etc. The key is to go with no breaks, and do 3 sets to maximum repetitions, while alternating different exercises. When I&#x27;m short on time, I do 10 pull-ups, 20 jumping push-ups, 30 jumping lunges, 40 sit-ups. And I repeat the cycle 3 times without breaks. It takes me 15-20 minutes. Then I shadow box, or, stretch, or lift weights, depending on my time and mood.<p>So, this routine works well and doesn&#x27;t require much time.<p>P.S. And have lots of sex! It&#x27;s kind of &quot;refills&quot; your social and exercise points all at once. :))))

I cycle to work, 10 miles each way. Plus try to do 25 to 50mile rides one day at the weekend.<p>I wouldn&#x27;t say I was that fit though, and though my thighs are pretty rock, I&#x27;m not muscled elsewhere. I&#x27;d love to also have the energy to swim at lunch, but I&#x27;m too busy and tired generally.<p>Cycling is good as it is actually a bit quicker than the tube, and is a great place to clear my head.

Ive a 30 min walk round trip to work and normally manage to get an 60&#x2F;90 mins of exercise in the gym&#x2F;football about 3 times a week. I eat pretty healthily but drink probably more than your average bear (though prob less than your average Irishman!).<p>However, I think 9+ hours a day is crazy and if you think you&#x27;re being effective for 9+ hours then you&#x27;re mad. However, I do think its possible in short bursts (about 3-4 weeks absolute max).<p>I&#x27;ve worked in startups for about six years so have plenty of personal experience in this.<p>Anyway, here&#x27;s your latte.

Finding an extra hour a day isn&#x27;t difficult if it&#x27;s important to you.<p>6 am wake up, finish work out around 7, get to work by 8, get off work at 6 pm meets all your requirements and is very reasonable.<p>You can squeeze that hour in by preparing food in advance 2-3 times a week to cut down on cooking time, taking a few hours on the weekend to do cleaning &#x2F; grocery shopping so you don&#x27;t need to during the week, etc. There are infinite ways to optimize your time to squeeze an extra hour a day for a workout.<p>No excuses if you want it.

I am a student but I have classes Tuesday through Thursday, and than I work nights on Saturday - Monday.<p>During the week while I am at school I usually will wake up 5 am on Wednesdays, to run with my neighbor. I don&#x27;t even have class till 5 pm but I get up and run. It really clears my mind up and starts the day off right. I usually will run on Saturdays or Sundays depending on my schedule, I always try to run 3 or 4 times a week but sometimes I cant.<p>Sunday - Thursday I will do push ups and some core exercises, like planks and etc to work the core. To make sure I do it, I X off that day and write the number of pushups I did, so I can see how I am doing at the end of the week and to check my progress.<p>I am now buying fruits and veggies and making salads for my lunches for each day of the week, I usually will prepare them at the beginning of the week to make it easy as throwing tuna into the salad and leaving for class.<p>It is basically the same thing a lot of people have said, at first it seems like a hassle but now I am in the routine and its nice. I love feeling good and eating well. The hardest part was starting though, I was out of shape and it sucked but it has gotten a lot easier.

I ride to and from work and at lunchtimes every work day. I probably do at least 30km a day with 500m climbing. Here&#x27;s how...<p>Block out 2 hours of your calendar at lunchtime every day. That&#x27;s a non-negotiable slot for your exercise. Do something you love (for me its mountain biking) that makes it easy to motivate yourself to get out (having a group of similar minded friends helps too).<p>Work to 6pm - there&#x27;s an extra hour that takes you back up to 8. For me after that is home and family time. If I need another hour I can work 9 to 10 or 10 to 11 when the others are in bed. It&#x27;s a good quiet time to get a lot done without interruptions.<p>But here&#x27;s the thing, I don&#x27;t often need that extra hour because, having got out and cleared my head at lunchtime my afternoon is so much more productive that if I was stuck in the office all day.

It takes ~6 weeks to form a habit. So all you need to power through is 1.5 months of consistent exercise, then you will feel weird when you don&#x27;t exercise.<p>I&#x27;ve found the best way to get through the first 1.5 months is to go through it with someone. Get a partner to go to the gym with. Find someone who also rides their bike to work. Join a running&#x2F;fitness club that meets early in the morning several times a week. Etc. It only takes about 30-60 min to exercise enough to be fit.<p>Also, keep in mind that your mental health depends on exercise. You won&#x27;t burn out nearly as quickly if you are physically active. Exercise makes the startup life much more sustainable.

There are 24 hours in a day. Assume you don&#x27;t have kids.<p>sleep: 7-8, eat&#x2F;shower&#x2F;shit: 2, commute to work: 1, chores&#x2F;shopping&#x2F;errands: 2, work: 9 ... you still have 2-3 hours left.<p>That ought to give you 45 minutes or an hour 3 times a week easy. +Weekends. You can work at your business even more (if you can manage that..but if you aren&#x27;t really working, why?) and still make the time for fitness.<p>The point is... fitness generally isn&#x27;t a time issue. It&#x27;s a time management&#x2F;motivation issue. Maybe cut out some video games or screwing around on the internet? Oh, and watch what you eat.

I would like to say that my business is my top priority. But it’s not. Taking care of myself – body, mind and spirit – is. But when I take care of myself then the other parts of running my business fall neatly into place.<p>Three times a week I meet my personal trainer at 7AM for strength training. I usually dread having to wake up this early and it doesn’t come cheap either. But I know that the money, time and effort I spend here at the gym will let me sustain the crazy output needed to keep my startup running afterwards.

I use myfitnesspal to track all of my calories and workouts. I work 6-12 hour days, and usually take 1-2 days per week off. I workout 30-90 minutes 5 days a week doing HIT training. I&#x27;m in great shape, feel great look great.<p>Its a pretty simple mathematical equation: if you are trying to lose weight, just calculate your calories + energy burned, don&#x27;t eat too many bad carbs, bad fats and eat lots of protein, fresh foods, and get fresh air.

Well, you just do it ! It&#x27;s just a matter of priorities - you can always find an extra hour every other day, or go to the gym during lunchtime (that depends on the country you live).<p>Also, a very important thing to remember - staying fit is as much about eating right as it is about physical training. And eating right takes no extra time as compared to eating bad (but it may be a bit more expensive, again, depending on the country you live in).

I bike to work 1 hour each way, five days a week. (15 miles per day, 75 miles per week) It forces me to exercise (need to commute) and keeps me awake and fresh at work. I also eat right.<p>Ask yourself, do you want to get fit or get ripped for the ladies? They are really very separate things.

I go to the gym 4 times per week for an hour. I make the time for it. Healthy body, healthy mind. There needs to be period of times which you escape reality, as in no connection to the working world, no phones, nothing. The gym is that time for me.

One word. Burpees. But seriously, you do circuit workouts similar to crossfit, you can get away with working out for about 30-45 minutes. Just get the most out of that time instead of having to spend all day at the gym.

3-4 Days&#x2F;week I get up at 5:15am, work out 6-7 (Crossfit), and I add in a weekend day too (30+ minutes of endurance&#x2F;cardio).<p>Eat lots of vegetables and lean meats, lightly processed.<p>I work out of my house, so I have 0 commute.

Track caloric intake (I use myfitnesspal.com &#x2F; rippedrecipes.com (shameless plug)<p>Do crossfit 5 times a week... rest takes care of itself.

This hasn&#x27;t been mentioned in the comments below, but I think that enjoying your work and being deeply inspired by it makes a ton of difference. When I love my job I find that I interact more with people, snack less, find the energy to do more sports, more often, deal better with the stress, sleep better, etc. When I hate my job, I snack more, move less, etc.