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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern Subscriber

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My physical and mental fitness momentum heading into 2021

I wrote a quick post on @leewynne's new Forem Flowstate on how I'm doing with personal health and fitness, and I'll be keeping up with my progress there.

Here is the post: https://www.flowstate.to/ben/heading-into-2021-with-some-momentum-d6h

I can correlate my personal wellness and productivity fairly directly with my physical fitness, and yet I allow myself to let it slide.

When people ask me what my main hobbies outside of computers, I want to talk about sports and fitness, which is my favorite type of hobby, but for most of the past decade it's always come a distant second to sitting in front of a computer.

So with that, I'm happy to say I have gained a lot of momentum on this front in the second half of the pandemic, after the first half was definitely the worst stretch for me in this regard.

I have the stuff, I have the desire and enthusiasm, and I think I'm excited to show off some results in 2021.

Follow me on Flowstate and let's get fit together.

(I'm @ben on Flowstate too 😅)

Top comments (25)

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simonholdorf profile image
Simon Holdorf

Funny, I've never been healthier and fitter since working from home 100% the time :D I love to work out, lift weights, and go for a run. Let's motivate each other on Flowstate, I've just created an account :)

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

For me, the first part of the pandemic coincided with a lot of work we had to do with Forem. Getting over some humps with work stuff has really allowed me to focus on fitness in a really healthy way. Going forward I really hope I can avoid scenarios where I don't maintain a healthy enough balance.

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juanfrank77 profile image
Juan F Gonzalez

I think is the same for me hahaha. I lost my progress in the first months of the pandemic but now I'm in better shape than ever!

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swyx profile image
swyx

nice work Ben!

i've also gotten serious about health in the second half of the year too.for me, it was getting a trainer, that really helped me be disciplined, at the cost of money. fortunately i have the means to make that tradeoff.

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stu profile image
Stu Finn

Love seeing this post!

I am right there with ya. Was in the worst shape of my life until September, when I saw a post from another dev that motivated me to spend the last year of my 30s getting into shape.

3 months in and I am on the best shape of my life and planning to keep it that way. Maybe I’ll have to hop over to Flowstate too...

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leewynne profile image
Lee

Hop over! The water is lovely and warm, unless you love cold showers 🥶

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heikokanzler profile image
Heiko Kanzler 🇪🇺

With the pandemic (which let us here Spain in a compete lockdown) I started with a small and very cheap excercise bike at home... over the months a rowing machine was added (again, a 80€ buy from Facebook market) and now I think I am bit addicted. It’s not that I lost weight that much or gained that Jason Stratham body, it just feels so good.
(Fun fact: I just came from a quick rowing session 😂)

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shadowphoenix profile image
Rose

Nicely going there Ben! I'm hitting up the swimming pool myself for the first time in 6 or 8 years. For some reason that works better for me than the gym, but everyone their own! As long as we keep moving.

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itsasine profile image
ItsASine (Kayla)

Getting a remote-first job at the tail end of October has motivated me to actually get my WFH routines in better shape around things like health and fitness. I've already leveraged Black Friday-ish deals to get better eating habits going for 2021. Depending on how that goes, then I'll add in exercise haha Better to change one thing at a time than to burn out trying to do everything at once.

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juanfrank77 profile image
Juan F Gonzalez

Yeah definitely 100%
Better to start with one little thing and then change another later than to be overly ambitious from the start. I've made that mistake several times already 😅

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jeffthorsen777 profile image
Jeff Thorsen • Edited

I often go to the gym. And recently I decided to do weightlifting. My friend recommended me to learn more about this kind of sport. After all, you can harm the body without calculating the load and exercise. He showed me the article so I could learn more about it. I hope I will see the results very soon.

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leewynne profile image
Lee

Great post Ben. I suffer from polarities. I'll go on a massive fitness and nutrition drive for 3 months, no sugar, no crap - train like a maniac, then I use it as a passport to then eat what I want for another few months.

I am getting better at it. I am also learning that certain situations act as a trigger for my peaks and troughs, the more I recognise and manage the disturbance the better I am getting at just trying to be well balanced.

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yaser profile image
Yaser Al-Najjar

Love to see the motivation about this topic cuz we, devs, have great simple routine: eat, code, sleep, repeat 😆

After 8 months, they opened the gym, and the news were shocking for me when I checked my body fats going from 11% into 18% 😐 it really SUCKS!

I got back in the game two weeks ago (I hope they don't close again).

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Quick plug for the Forem browser extension now that more of these Forems are rolling out....

Coming in 2021: Forem mobile app, and Forem shared authentication options.

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leewynne profile image
Lee

Using this now as a consistent part of my workflow, love it

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