Comment by drewg123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drewg123 | Hacker News Reader

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When my son was born, he didn't sleep well, so I didn't either. My wife has a career and I was an equal partner in his care. It didn't help that I was working 80+ hours a week on something that was key to the success of the small company I worked for. Add in stress eating, and cutting out exercise due to perceived lack of time, and I gained 10-15lbs a year until my son was 4 or 5.

My son is 13 now, and its only in the last few years that I've really started to take care of myself. I've started exercising, stopped eating junk, and tried to make time for sleep. The result is I've lost 60lbs over the last few years, and am in better shape than I've been since highschool. However, I still don't sleep as well as I did before he was born.

My advice to new dads is: Take care of yourselves. Eat right. Don't cut out exercise to save time.

Honestly idk how it’s possible to afford the extra hour and a half for gym 3 days a week as a dad with a toddler

Honestly, you won’t. But until your kid is in full time school a 20-30 minute workout even everyday is eminently doable. Run around the local park, pull ups on a bar in the door way, press-ups, lots of exercises you can do to stave off muscular and skeletal atrophy which is what most of us at desk jobs literally suffer from due to chronic inactivity.

I totally agree. I had an elliptical machine in a nook outside my home office that I walked by every day. I wish I'd have just given up 30 minutes a few times a week rather than eating a bowl of ice cream. Maybe I would have only gained 20lbs and not 60.

You really don't need a gym. Get a pull up bar and some gymnast rings and just do what you can when the child naps. Even better add a bike trainer for cardio since you can't leave the house to run anymore either.

Caring for a toddler means being shackled to a creature that is entirely dependant on you, but there are still ways you can work in some self care while taking care of them.

I would definitely recommend going for calisthenic training with an emphasis on isometrics around young kids, rather than weights(equipment and prep time) or intensive cardio(too much time-on-task). Holding a bridge, squat-and-reach, or a downward dog for 30 seconds while the kid crawls around is feasible, and a few rounds of that daily will do a huge amount of good.

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