Movement
Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to
keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else,
you must run at least twice as fast as that!
–THE RED QUEEN, LEWIS CARROLL’S THROUGH
THE LOOKING-GLASSI’ve always been terrible at sports. The few summers my
parents were brave enough to send me off to camp, I
abstained from playing games like football, soccer, and
dodgeball and gravitated to archery, rocketry, and ceramics
instead. (When it came time for swimming, I was always too
shy to take off my shirt, an insecurity that I’ve thankfully
outgrown.) In high school, rather than join the basketball
team like many of my peers, I was drawn to computer
programming.
I became interested in the gym only when I learned
exercise could manifest as a stronger or leaner body. I
began to see both food and exercise as “code” to speak to
my biological programming. In retrospect, I realize that
many of the same feedback loops that drew me to
programming were also present in fitness, including the
ability to simplify my routine and debug problems. These
feedback loops provided enough dopamine hits to hook a
shy and introverted sixteen-year-old computer programmer
(and the increased attention from my female classmates
wasn’t bad either).
That exercise is one of the greatest known means of