Anecdotes can be motivational, but they don't mean a whole lot. I've lost over 50 lbs in the past year and a half or so, and I really don't feel any different most of the time. I do have more endurance for things like running, but I don't enjoy exercise so I do it rarely.
Much of the psychological benefit of exercise comes from increased testosterone. This happens by stimulating muscles. Try to develop a regular routine for things likes squats and pullups and see if that doesn't make you feel better.
Me too. I've lost about a hundred, and now do running events.
My life has improved by a lot. Stress is now mostly gone and manageable. I'm way confident, and feel relaxed.
This mostly due to the exercise, but it is just amazing.
My skills (in everything) have just sky-rocketed. Where it would take me months to code anything, now I can just do it in days. It is really amazing.
All these anecdotes about people losing weight as a good way to improve your life- sort of assume everyone has weight to lose. What if you are healthy and athletic already? Do we miss out on the benefits of "feeling great about myself after losing 20, 50, 100 pounds"?
I would recommend some kind of "zen" type of meditation as well. It doesn't have to be the religious type (i.e. the lowercase Z suffices) but learning to stop thinking and accept the present moment for what it is without preconcieved notions can be incredibly useful for spotting assumptions when one is thinking and, consequently, for improving the quality of ones thoughts. It also helps with planning for the future and analyzing the past. Bad assumptions seem to be at the root of most stupidity and zen style meditation is excellent for learning to cope with them.
Will get onto that, cheers! I reward myself for publishing a blog post by allowing myself to play with my Tumblr theme and these kinds of aspects (I'm more comfortable with code than writing). Thanks for the nudge!
Funnily enough, I listened to Jeff Atkwood from Stack Overflow yesterday who made the same point implicitly - he and Joel Spolsky had a big community around themselves when they created Stack Overflow and got the initial traction that way.
I have been talking about the importance of exercise with joel. You need to be able to operate at peak both mentally and physically if you want to have serious result in your startup.
I've lost 20lbs, and I have never felt more effective.