Elevator Pitch
Until I was 23, my health was an overlooked area of my life. I typically had an “I’ll get to it later” attitude, despite being overweight, depressed, and stressed to the max. All of this changed when I learned how to live a healthy life. Now, I want to help other developers do the same.
Description
Description
Until I was 23, my health was a very overlooked area of my life. And even the little regard I did have usually evolved into an “I’ll get around to it later when something hurts” attitude. I had gained a substantial amount of weight since starting my career, I was depressed, I wasn’t sleeping well, and I had a persisting fogginess in my mind. I didn’t even know some of these things were problems — they were simply realities I had accepted as part of my existence. And I really had no idea what to do about the problems I was aware of. All of this changed when I got someone to teach me about fitness and how to live a healthy life. Now, I want to help other developers do the same.
Abstract
Our bodies are like codebases — the more we take care of them, the longer they last and the more we get out of them. We all know what “technical debt” is, but what about “fitness debt?” Fitness debt is what we owe our body in order to be back in good health and get the most out of our bodies.
Unfortunately, it can be really difficult to know what to do about fitness debt — everybody and their grandma has an opinion on how to be fit, and if you’re searching for help, there’s so much conflicting information and a horrendous amount of bad information out there just meant to make a sale rather than help you achieve results. It wasn’t until I hired someone to teach me how to work out, eat healthy, and “rehab” my body that I actually achieved real results. Years of bad food choices, lack of exercise, sitting, and working long, stressful hours had really taken a toll on my body at only 23. I needed someone to come in and take a targeted approach and teach me how to learn (much in the same way we learn to code).
Just as there are simple steps we can take to lower the amount of technical debt we accrue in our code, there are simple steps that we can take to lower the amount of fitness debt we accrue in our bodies. This talk will focus on introducing some simple steps as well as providing information about going further for those wish to.
- How to identify daily choices that will affect our fitness debt
- Where to begin if you have no experience with fitness
- Developer-specific exercises and stretches you can do daily to get some of your mobility back
- What to do if you are ready to go further
Notes
There aren’t any prerequisites one should have to benefit from this talk. I’m giving this talk because I’m devoting my life to helping developers live healthier lives. I recently founded a company to this end, and I am so excited to share what I’ve learned so far on my fitness journey with other developers so they can do the same!