Microblog Memes

For most of the last 5 years I've been cycling 2 or 3 hours a day and spending about 45 minutes a day at the gym and I still have plenty of time for fun and socializing and whatnot while also getting 8 hours a day of sleep. This is possible for two reasons: 1) I semi-retired from my job as a programmer and I'm now a school bus driver, which takes about 4.5 hours a day (it helps that I live a half-mile from the bus lot, otherwise the job involves twice as much commuting as a normal job); and 2) I don't watch movies or television. For my money, #2 is the biggie -- spending hours a day watching movies and TV shows is such a massive time sink. I'm not judging people who do it since I just stopped enjoying it years ago, not because I'm consciously avoiding something I like in order to free up time.

Unfortunately, two months ago my parents' health took a nosedive and my father died and now I'm a nearly full-time caregiver for my mother. I haven't ridden my bike or been to the gym during this entire stretch. So if it makes anyone feel better, I'm no longer in the category of insanely fit older dude myself. But it is possible, at least.

It's pretty easy if you're not on social media and don't invest time into things that aren't aligning with your goals. I.e. I eat very basic food, I moved close to my work, I do chores while winding down for the day, etc.

Yes but my commute is 10-15 minutes by bicycle, and my kids are all adults now.

I prioritize making time for sleep, exercise and sex in my day, and let everything else work around those. So some of my exercise comes from commuting but I do also do yoga about 4 hours a week and try to lift weights at least once.

When my kids were young, NO it is impossible to do alone. Even if you do have carpool help and aftercare and all, it's hard. There were years I had to get up at 5 and run to get exercise and other years it was the gym at 22:00 after a night class. But I have always found that it works better if you make your priorities (exercise needs to be one of those) and make a commitment to do those.

I usually have had jobs that were more than the 40 hours, and am NOT a work hard play hard person at all. But if you have one of those 8 hour a day jobs and sleep for 7.5 hours and take half an hour on each end of that to get ready and (critically important) don't have some hours long commute, there's plenty of time in the day. I remember when I first got a job that ended at 1700 and having time to cook, feed everyone and go to yoga, or hustle to the 1730 Jazzercise class after work and then still have time to make supper after, instead of feeling so terribly rushed all the time.

Now my day is: wake up around 7, leave for work around 9 after a nice leisurely morning. Work 9:30 to 6:30 (18:30) ride home and get ready for yoga, go exercise and come home and make supper by 9 (21:00), eat and have a Pokemon go walk or read or listen to music, (I cook, my husband takes care of the dishes after) then get ready for bed and try to sleep 23-7, sometimes this is midnight to 7 but I do need a solid 7 hours, too much sleep is migraine trigger unfortunately but I sleep well and soundly for that 7 and wake up pretty naturally. It feels like a balanced life.

ETA: I forgot to add, we do the grocery shopping Friday evenings, at a complex that has restaurants and bars and a Ben & Jerry's, go out for one drink or a restaurant meal then get groceries then go home, so we can treat it like a night out not just an errand. And most weekends are free of work, though we do each have busy seasons with 7 day weeks for a few weeks - during his busy season I do more of the cleaning and we get more takeout meals, during mine we get more takeout or he or the kids will cook. And we outsource the cleaning and have some essentials on auto-ship. I know that work and exercise aren't the only things you have to do in a week! But we don't do them on weekdays usually.

I really don't think that's possible if you're neurodivergent and unmedicated. There are too many bees buzzing in our heads to be that productive.

I'm not big on side projects, but I've made fitness into my fun, so those blocks get partially combined.

I actually think that's kind of key when it comes to fitness - you need to find an activity you actually find enjoyable, otherwise you're always going to be struggling to keep it up. I used to force myself to go running many years ago even though I hated it, and that predictably didn't go very well. Then I re-discovered biking, which takes very little mental effort for me to want to actively go out and do, since I like doing it so much. I've since started to find running actually fun, but it was a bit pointless there for a while

You don’t have kids obviously.

15 minute a day fitness program. Designed to be done with no equipment except a stopwatch.

https://leisureguy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/rcaf_xbx_5bx_exercise_plans_text.pdf

Actual exercises are in the back of the book.

No, all this at once is not possible with any worthwhile kind of focus

Working double shifts for that sweet sweet high deductible health plan or an hour per day at planet fitness, so hard to decide

My wife, i don’t know where she gets the energy. Up by 6, does her work, hits the gym, goes out with her friends, i don’t get it

The trick is not trying to force them into every single day. You do some stuff on your free time and some during the weekend