Programming Is Bad For Me

Having just wrapped up my own personal low-budget Weekend of Code, I have come to the realization that programming isn't doing my health any favors. My typical code-writing session, which are waaayyy too few and far between lately, consists of me maintaining ridiculous waking hours, with painfully sporadic sleep; sitting on my ever-widening tush in front of my computer, rising only to find something processed, cheesy and/or salty to shovel into my face.

Seriously, the cycle goes something like this: think think munch type type nom Google type tweak reconsider nom nom nom type type scarf subroutine munch reference lookup pace pace ponder pace gobble type type type save eat eat execute runtime error curse nom nom scarf munch nom debug chow gulp refactor save devour hack hack swear nibble nibble regexp nom crash repeat

That's a rough approximation. The point is, I have this nervous sort of focus when I'm programming where if I'm not actually typing but working things out in my head, my body has to keep busy and what I always instinctively gravitate toward is eating. That, plus eight to ten straight hours of coding not leaving much time for exercise, plus the fact that what little sleep I do get is anything but restful because my brain CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THE CODE, equals damn, programming is bad for me.

It doesn't help at all that I'm a bad programmer, either. I mean, the project I spent all weekend on is something I should've been able to do in half a day during my junior year of college if I'd applied myself more and taken crap seriously. And why do I have to be such a perfectionist when I just barely even know what I'm doing in the first place? Sorry, that's the self-loathing coming out. I hate being so very out of practice, but my overall well-being won't take much more of me brushing up on my skills before I just keel over. I love programming, and all it wants to do is kick my ass.