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Over the years, I've tried to pay careful attention to the relationship between what I eat, what I do and how I feel. Let's talk about some of the core ideas that I think have made a difference for me and can make a difference for any other person. I also host a tech burnout recovery workshop.
360° NeuroMuscular Stimulation
Realize that strength represents an electric signal sent from the brain to the muscles, muscles of reasonable size and efficiency then contract to create vascular force.
Optimal muscular development comes from intentioned, intense and prolonged neurological stimulation that causes repeated activation of precise muscle groups.
Heavy weights, as frequently used in a gym have a tendancy to cause joint, ligament and tendon damage while over developing already developed muscle groups and under-developing minority muscle groups, all of which creates conditions ripe for injury.
Restorative Muscular Development
Realize that most of us modern tech type workers have, will and did spend the bulk of our waking hours using our bodies in ways that antagonize anatomically correct movement.
As much as many of us might want to look like a fitness model, realistically speaking if we can combat the damage we do to our bodies we are well on our way to feeling amazing.
A handful of exercises and 20 minutes of consistent exercise a day can have a dramatic impact on restoring the bodies natural posture and muscular balance.
Consistency, Reality and Change
Realize that the body doesn't necessarily change, it adapts to what it believes reality to be.
If reality involves crazy diets that frequently change, crazy workout routines that frequently change or any major fluctuation through a spectrum of extremes, the body gets very confused.
Small, consistent fitness routines and small, consistent changes to diet, feedback cycles that span 6 - 8 months can have a drastic impact on what our bodies believe to be reality, which itself can facilitate phenomenal change.
Oxygen, Sunlight and Sleep
That is right, Oxygen, Sunlight and Sleep, humans need a lot of all three, too little of any of them and fitness basically becomes impossible.
A gym is frequently a place full of weights, full of 'cardio' machinery that lacks direct access to fresh air and oxygen (I'm painting a picture here...).
Realize that not sleeping enough contributes heavily to memory loss, depression, lack of mental clarity and frequently causes the body to stop regenerating itself, one of the bodies' most amazing features.
HappyEating
Possibly the only things we really know about eating are that humans can and have subsisted happily on almost every diet imaginable except the 'Western' diet, ie, processed sugar, poor quality animals, excessive alcohol, narrow genetic food spectrum.
Favor a diverse diet that encompasses all the food groups with a preference for none, avoid refined sugar, avoid liquid calories, favor wild, organic and free range foods as much as possible, spend time eating with people you love and make the consumption of high quality, nourishing meals a cornerstone of your life.
There is no dietary solution for not enough exercise, the human body was made to move, so, go out, move a lot, and then move some more.