Presentation: Mens Sana in Corpore Sano: Optimising Mind & Body

Location:

Duration

Duration: 
11:50am - 12:40pm

Day of week:

Key Takeaways

  • Hear one developer’s experience learning to live a healthier life and some of the solutions he came up to make meaningful changes in his life.
  • Understand that leading a healthier, happy life is about more than just willpower. There are several components that all affect each other. 
  • Learn that effective change can be much easier than you might have thought (or previously experienced) and approaches to get started.

Abstract

Our minds and bodies do not exist in isolation. Even the Romans knew that. What the Romans didn't know was how our modern lifestyles - especially in sedentary professions such as ours - would throw the balance between them into crisis! But when we talk about healthy lifestyles many people have a negative reaction. And no wonder! For years this label has been associated with miserable, restrictive, diets (which don't seem to work) and long hours of exhausting exercise (which doesn't seem to work). Is that really what we want to be doing with our lives?

It turns out it doesn't have to be like that. And there's no snake oil involved either! While it's still a quagmire of misinformation out there there is high quality information to be had. Sustainable, rewarding, changes to diet and vastly more efficient and effective ways to maintain good fitness levels are not only possible - but can directly impact our thinking ability and make us more productive as well!

How do I know all this? By applying all that I have learned to myself I lost over 50kg (around 8 stone, or 110 pounds) - going from almost morbidly obese to athletic - in just over a year: feeling better, getting sick less, and thinking more clearly - all while working long hours and raising a young family.

Interview

Question: 
QCon: Given a full-time development job (where you’re sitting at a desk all day), how do you ensure that you make the time to workout every day?
Answer: 
Phil: There is the short answer that you normally hear (which is absolutely useless) you have to make time.
You have to prioritize. You should not say “Well, I could do this, or I could do that.” What you should say is “I will do this, and I am cutting off all other possibilities. This is what is going to happen.” When you treat a decision like that, you have the right metaphor in your mind. It simplifies things because it liberates you from having to worry about it any more. When you take something important like how much time am I going to set aside for the workouts or whatever it is, well you made that decision and then that’s it. There are no other possibilities. You just do it. That has worked really well for me.
Question: 
QCon: What is the motivation for your talk?
Answer: 
Phil: I went through a big transformation myself. I lost 52 kilograms and completely transformed my health. I realized that in doing so, I ended up with a lot of information useful for other people. I see this talk as an opportunity to share something valuable. A lot of it is focused on the type of work I do.
Question: 
QCon: Can you give me a glimpse into some of the things you’ll discuss?
Answer: 
Phil: I will address the psychological side. I hope to show that it’s not about willpower and making yourself feel miserable. I will also cover a bit on the nutrition side. In particular, I will discuss the relationship between carbohydrates, proteins and metabolism. I hope to clear out some FUD about it and discuss how to exercise very efficiently. If you handle this right, you can actually get a very powerful workout in just a few minutes’ a day.
Question: 
QCon: Is there a super powered version of ourselves inside?
Answer: 
Phil: Yes. I went from being almost morbidly obese to relatively athletic. The difference in the way I feel was not just getting better. It actually felt like I almost had super powers. I think that feeling is still available to all of us. This isn’t just in terms of strength or fitness, but in mental productivity. It’s the whole thing. All of this is linked up and that’s the theme of the talk. We all have this available to us but most of us are not tapping into it because we are not making use of this information that we have, and I just want to encourage everyone to tap into that.

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