How Do You Stay Healthy?

Sorry to hear/read about your pain.  

I'm 52 and using an inversion table helps stretch my lower back and neck to alleviate splitting headaches. Years of high impact martial arts, leaning over a car as a mechanic, and sitting at a desk doing computer programming and databases has caught up to me.

I've also started walking at my doctor's advice as an alternative to jogging. My neighbor, wife, and I try to go every other day now and worked ourselves up to 14K (roughly 9 miles). It takes several hours, but is very calming and my mind can wander about story writing. I live in Michigan, so for this winter I have a recumbent bike, treadmill, and rower. They've been collecting dust for years, but I'm planning on using them now.

I exercise my back every day. Normally that's with manual labor, but if I have nothing going on I'll do two sets of Superman. That's all it takes to keep my low maintenance body running, apparently.

Sometimes I'll eat a salad.

I drink lots of coffee, eat lots of cheese as cheese makes everything better (toasted cheese sandwiches, pasta, cheeseburgers- this morning I'm sitting eating a ham and cheese croissant with my black coffee) and while I used to exercise, I need rotator cuff surgery so at the moment I never exercise. Every year I just buy a stronger pair of reading glasses from the pharmacy. Its not so much a keeping myself healthy as watching the slow decline....  

I work in finance/accounting for my job that pays the bills. Pretty sedentary, for the most part. Fortunately, I have a standing desk, which raises and lowers with the push of a button. I use that quite a bit throughout the day and will be sad when the motor finally wears out, but then I'll just make my company replace it.

Also, I wake up at 4:30 every morning and hit the gym before work. It's mostly weightlifting, but I also use the treadmill, elliptical, and stationary bike once or twice a week. In a normal year, my wife and I will take at least a couple week-long backpacking trips, and we use our kayaks as much as possible. We're mostly plant-based eaters in our house because, deep down, we identify as hippies.

I'm not by any means in great physical shape, but like @gideonpsmith says, it's all about raging against the inevitable decline of our carbon-based machinery. Honestly, I'd probably get way more writing done if I just let my health go to hell, but I'm just too concerned about it to go that route. Lots of health concerns in my family history, so it's something I'm trying to stay ahead of for as long as I can.

I just got back from a seven mile walk where I kept beating the ground with iron clubs. When I'm writing I get up at least once every hour and walk around the house, stretching and flexing before sitting down again.  

Sleep, diet, and exercise are my go-to trio (although I am almost always slacking on one or more of them). 

I'm an attorney with a busy practice and always doing writing projects on the side, but I make a point to sleep at least 6-7 hours a night; jog, walk, hit the punching bag, or some other cardio for half an hour or more most days; and eat foods that are rich in energy and don't leave me overtired (e.g., fish, nuts, fruit/berries, veggies, complex carbs, etc., as opposed to sweets, red meats, chips, etc.) 

Maybe five years back, I noticed in Mason Currey's book, "Daily Rituals" that walking or some kind of cardio (including low-impact cardio like biking or swimming for bad joints) featured in a huge percentage of the daily routines of those famously productive artists, philosophers, writers, etc. I certainly find that staying in motion promotes a lot more energy, creativity, and mental clarity for me. Most productivity books I've read pretty much swear by cardio too as the gold standard in boosting mental energy and productivity, which is nice since cardio is also just all-around healthy. 

The point being, to me staying healthy is a way to serve the craft. The two aren't in competition; they're partners. I write better when I feel better, and I feel better when I'm keeping up with the sleep, diet, exercise trio at least to some extent. 

Lumbar pain is no fun. It's encouraging to see you're making the best of it! 

I deal with my back issues by trying as best I can to lift with proper form (not always easy with squirming kids), stretching, and occasionally visiting a chiropractor.  I run three times a week, ride my recumbent fitness bike twice, and do weights twice.  Except when I do a long run I keep a loose calorie limit.  Right now I weigh the least I have since I was a teenager.

One day I'll be able to resume a normal sleep schedule, and then we'll see where I am.

I guess its official. I am the least healthy member of the forum  

Does a bottle of wine in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other count as a balanced diet?

Asking for a friend. 

Posted by: @pdblake

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Does a bottle of wine in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other count as a balanced diet?

 

Asking for a friend. 

certainly sounds healthier than a bottle in each hand... ? 

@storysinger I love those walks but prefer going off-trail into the woods and along shore lines.

I'm sure you figured out I was talking about golf. I walk when I play, using a pushcart.

I get exercise, I search through the woods for balls that took off in the wrong direction, and I fish from shore when my per-snicketty ball decides to take a swim.

So, there it is in a nutshell. Hunting, fishing, and exercise all in one outing.

My next goal is to use my hand-held recorder to learn to be like Martin Shoemaker and K J Anderson, write while I walk.

When you mentioned walking seven miles, I knew you were my kind of golfer.  

I'm pretty terrible at this. I go in fits and starts, sometimes doing a lot, sometimes not so much--but it's been more of the not so much for a little while now, partly a product of having moved home and losing my rhythm. Before that, though I wasn't great at it, I did at do some some trail walking on and off, with weights and occasional cardio mixed in--now, it's more the case of me doing sandwiches on and off, with more frequent crispy shrimp.

Really should think about fixing that. 

Summertime temperatures can crack 115F here. Now that autumn has made the great outdoors habitable again, I'm going for walks.

Posted by: @folkloremipsum

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Summertime temperatures can crack 115F here. Now that autumn has made the great outdoors habitable again, I'm going for walks.

We had this problem here too, so now I'm looking around for good places to walk. We knew where to go walking before we moved, but haven't explored enough to find good places here yet.

@doctorjest Mmmm. Sandwiches...

I did a twitter pole the other day and was pleasantly surprised to see how many fellow writers agree that exercise helps their creativity!

I was very sedentary until two years ago when I started just running out my front door because writing/querying anxiety was overwhelming. I've had a lot of focus problems growing up, maybe undiagnosed ADHD, but I've found in the past two years that tiring my body out is essential for my focus. So I run somewhere around twelve miles a week, I was at twenty before moving to Texas, but between getting used to the humidity, then our inferno summer I went down to ten and now I'm of trying to gradually get back up to twenty. I also train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu which I thought I'd do for a few months to get better at describing hand to hand combat, then I became addicted and now I'm about to get my blue belt and accept that cauliflower ear is in my future. With exercise my diet naturally followed because you just sorta feel better working out if you eat better. I do sober October every year to prove to myself I'm not an alcoholic ? and honestly, this year my sustained cardio has been so much more pleasant when I don't drink a diuretic the night before haha. So it may be a permanent cut out. 

I'm glad you brought up this topic, because I feel like my life, particularly my writing ability has really made a turn around in the past two years largely in part to exercise. I always feel so cheesy recommending fitness to authors who feel stuck, because I know what it's like to feel like you don't have time. But as a night owl, I never thought I'd be doing sunrise 5ks until I just did it one day, then got an hour of writing done before work and was like wow, this is sorta magic. Getting addicted to the feeling and productivity and not even thinking about weight loss was the most effective tool to sticking with it and I just so happened to lose around sixty pounds, and my chronic knee, hip and back pain sorta fixed themselves along the way. Still, when it acts up, I just switch to my laptop and stand at my kitchen counter to write. 

Reading through this thread is making me think I need to do more nature walks as I'm largely inspired by nature. Thanks for the ideas everyone!

Posted by: @krqueen_writes

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The point being, to me staying healthy is a way to serve the craft. The two aren't in competition; they're partners. I write better when I feel better, and I feel better when I'm keeping up with the sleep, diet, exercise trio at least to some extent

this is such a key point

Popping in -- anyone do Peloton? I'm StephCat67 on the leader board.

I don't drink alcohol and I don't eat mammals. I drink 1 glass of skim milk per day to lengthen my telomeres and improve life expectancy. Nearly every day I dance for 15 minutes to youtube videos. I have zero kinesthetic ability, but I think the cardio is good. I spend 15-20 minutes per day on my exercise bike. I walk around the house while listening to audio books. I do some yardwork and housework. There's always something to clean, right? Sometimes I walk outside, but I don't like the heat. Also, I'm very stealthy and don't like neighbors looking at me.

For the first time in my life I'm managing to meditate regularly. I went to a couple of local classes but that clashes with my running club, and I found that the Balance app has a free one year trial. I like it so far - it has quite a range of meditations to choose from. I'm hoping it will help.

I eat a balanced diet and don't drink alcohol either. It never did anything for me and is expensive too.

One thing I need to get better at is reasonable bedtimes. I have improved, but writing is one of those things that can keep me up until the early hours, especially those WotF deadlines which are 8am UK time.