Hacker’s Guide to Getting in Shape

My measurements:

[BEFORE] As of 9th of December 2006, here are my measurements:

[AFTER] as of 3rd of February 2007, results are rather very impressive:

From birds-eye-view, this has been my formula for success so far: “Motivation with clearly defined goals executed with correct nutrition, cardio (aerobic) and weight training.”

As it is well know and documented, nutrition is a greatly important factor to achieving your fitness goals. However, combined with cardio (aerobic) and weigh training, results are exponential!

1. Motivation and Goal setting

The first thing that greatly contributed to my success so far has been my “Motivation”.
Peter Parker in Spider-Man Movie, has a six-pack? Well heck, I would like a six-pack too. Taking a proactive stance here is important. As Stephen R. Covey in his book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” says “Be Proactive”, I decided to be proactive and turn the “I would like to…” into “I will…”. So once I had a mental picture in my head what I want to look like, next I needed to set some realistic goals. Both long term and equally short term goals are important. (Long-term represents a big picture and short-term goals build and show progress of the big picture.)

My Goals as of 9th December 2006:

Goals like: “I want to be skinnier” or ‘I want to be bigger” are no good. You like numbers? I do. This is a good place to put some to paper. Bring up a Python interpreter and play with some numbers, if you are lost now, Excel spreadsheet will do.

2. Nutrition

This has been by far the most difficult part for me. I think if it hasn’t been for my Motivation, this part would probably fall flat on its head and in turn pull my overall results with it.

Genes are what makes us unique. With that said, it is very important to understand that there is no nutrition recipe that will work for everyone. (No magic here.) So, for example, when you friend tells you that what he eats and quantity he eats, is what makes him pickup muscle, it won’t necessarily work for you. I have determined that I am dairy product sensitive. My body doesn’t seem to digest it well. So I take less dairy products and replace it with other foods that will still give me the relevant results and keep me healthy.

You may be thinking at this stage: “But does this mean no more junk food?”
Well, the answer to a great extent is Yes. As Tom Venuto says “There is no magic pill if you want a body for a lifetime”. It also very much depends on your body type. Due to our uniqueness, some people can eat anything and still have Peter Parker six-pack. Unfortunately that are the gifted few, for the rest of us, proper nutrition will be a must.

As a hacker, I still love pizza of course. Make no mistake I still eat it, however in much smaller quantity and less frequently. I will go into the nutrition topic (general and my nutrition plan to date as an example) in greater detail in my up and coming weblogs.

3. Cardio (Aerobic) training

Cardio is the first form of exercise that I kicked off with. Italian friend of mine, Carmine, has been keeping fit for some time and has been doing quite a bit of running. I live in Cape Town, South Africa. It’s a beautiful place and has some great spots for running along the seaside. So I decided to join him. We started running 4 times a week. To target body fat, we ran at a slower pace for no more or less then 40 minutes. (As a hacker I love gadgets, so yes I got myself one of those Running Computers that reads your heart rate, uploads the data to an online Web Service where then you can do some analysis. Love it. ) I advise you to get one. It has different sport zones, depending what you wish to achieve. Like targeting body fat, enhancing aerobic power, etc.

I did a lot of running for the first month, as I was quite a bit overweight. (4 to 5 times a week.) Combined with good nutrition, the results reflected very quickly and that’s great addition to my existing motivation!

I can’t stress enough how important it is to monitor your body. Am I loosing too much weight now, but also muscle in the process? (Hmm, that means I might be doing too much cardio but not enough weight training.) This type of self-talk is very important.

For hackers with high metabolisms (You eat a lot but you are always skinny), you may need to do a bit less cardio of course and focus more on the nutrition part and the weight training to pile on some lean muscle mass. I’ll get into this topic in greater depth in up and coming weblogs. See the below Final words note for details.

4. Weight training

Ok, now this is a fun part. Well at least I though it would be until I woke up the next morning after my first weight training session. Ouch, but nonetheless after only first few days of training, it would take longer for my muscles to fatigue. I was getting stronger and still am by the day. There are number of books on weight training. I started of with the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book titled “The NEW Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding”. Must say that it’s a bit too intense for an average hacker like myself. I just did less of what he advised. I do weight training 5 times a week now for a maximum of 30 to 40 minutes. (I mean 30 to 40 minutes intense training and not chatting to other fellows in the gym.)

Through my journey so far, I have determined that heavier weights, less repetitions (reps) per set seem to work better. Firstly I finish quicker, and my muscles get nicely swollen up (pumped). Next, I found that after about 2 weeks of lifting same size weights, my muscles get used to it and don’t get a work out that one would expect. Muscles hit a bit of a plateau. So to break it, every week I go a bit heavier then previous. This really works wanders. Another thing to note is to change up the exercises you do once a month. At the moment I have 2 routines and I switch then once every 4 weeks. In the up and coming weblogs, I will spend more time sharing more information on weight training, what’s my weight training routine and schedule, reference to some good weight training books, etc.

Final words

Ok, just to clear up a few things just in case some are tempted to flame me for some reason or another. Firstly I am not associated with any fitness, health or supplement business. I am completely doing this out of my own will and determination. So if you do have remarks, comments or suggestions, feel free to comment, as I would greatly appreciate you honest feedback. Secondly, I am really enjoying this healthy change in my life. I feel better then ever. I certainly hope many of you will take this as a positive influence and take a proactive stance on better fitness and health in your own life.

Finally, I would like to take a few words to recap on the important things to remember here.

If you were to take anything from this weblog I would say take this.

“”"

Formula to having a six-pack like Spider-Man, Peter Parker, is striking a good balance between Nutrition, Cardio (Aerobics) and Weight training. Combination of “the three” results in exponential results!

“”"

Thank you for taking time to read this weblog and I hope you found it interesting and useful to some extent. Add this site to your RSS reader if you wish, as I will be publishing follow-ups in the coming days.

Up and coming weblogs:

• Motivation and Goal Setting in Detail
• Nutrition Explained - Hacker2Hacker
• What to do when you don’t feel like exercising - Tips and Tricks
• Cardio (Aerobic) training explained
• Weight training explained
• Realistic way to fit it all into your daily schedule

Note that on each weblog I will attach my own progress results. How close am I to achieving my goals, etc.

Peace out to all my fellow hackers.

-Alen