mzarate06

I've always been deliberate about having sufficient water intake, but supplementing electrolytes on top of that made a small, but noticeable, difference. I take a small amount by pill w/each meal (along w/a multi-vitamin, etc.), and via powder form in my water or beverage once a day. I feel more refreshed and focused while at work or at the gym, and I no longer experience muscle cramps (I never had them frequently, but being deliberate about electrolyte intake has removed them entirely).

So, while the study focused on 'hydration', it's worth remembering that doesn't comprise of water intake alone. My performance and focus on sufficient water intake, while ok, felt inferior compared to sufficient water intake + electrolyte supplementation.

Python took some getting used to, but the more I used it the more strongly I began preferring its lack of things like curly braces, semicolons, even parenthesis in some cases. Because of that, python feels more concise, human-readable, and more efficient to write, than PHP.

I like both languages, and still rely on PHP for a lot of web work, but for data science or ML I do end up enjoying my time with python.

One of my martial arts instructors had a memorable saying for that - "train today, so you can train tomorrow." His point was similar to yours - he often had to temper enthusiasm for hard or over training in favor of consistency and longevity.

Regarding the garage gym - I did something similar and agree it's an excellent health/life investment.

I avoid back squats due to injury, but I do have a station for belt squats, a flat bench w/olympic bar, hex bar for dead lifts, an assortment of plates/dumb bells/kettle bells, all on gym mats. Having a gym next to me has provided excellent motivation to get out of my desk chair 3-4 times a week to use it. I dropped 25 lbs this year thanks to consistent routine, and my body and day-to-day feel so much better; less joint aches, better sleep, and more energy, mental clarity, and confidence.

To tie that back to OP's question on self care, avoiding burnout, etc. ... I'd say it's worth paying attention to mentions of physical fitness and exercise in this thread. Staying physically active and taking care of your body helps protect against some of the negative mental states or outcomes these kinds of threads try to avoid.

Likewise on the controversy - my favor toward integration tests tends to get replies in favor of unit tests instead, in which case I'll say I understand their benefit and use them too. E.g. sometimes a method or class that handles some computation needs more coverage than what an integration test typically provides. Maybe the class or method gets called within an API, where inputs or contextual data are well understood. But it might also be called from back end jobs, or by code written by internal data teams where inputs or related data are more nuanced. In such cases, it's worked well to mock the class and go to town with various input or edge case data that might fall outside the perview of an end-to-end test.

   - stubbornly devote majority of their time to coding, despite negative feedback of their leadership
   - be consistently unaware of their calendar, to the point of developing a reputation for forgetting commitments
   - insisting on being involved in every meeting, or being noticeably insecure when they weren't
   - lack ability to execute on medium or long-term goals or visions
   - being noticeably insecure when they were no longer the most experienced on the team

Good leaders I've worked for didn't just understand that, they embraced it. They also had enough supporting experience, intuition, and team respect to execute well on it. They showed not just acceptance, but perhaps later even a level of mastery, in their new role.

Which is all to say, one adapts and grows into an effective leader. And their leadership, in turn, grows into a distinguishing signal for team effectiveness, maybe even team happiness too. B/c of the teams I've worked for, I stuck w/good ones for longer than I would have expected largely due to positive environments fostered by the leaders at the time. I also left bad leaders earlier than I would have liked, despite having good relations w/teammates in general.

That's to say some consultants are very strong engineers, in the general sense; very capable in various roles. While others might possess a sufficient narrow skill set. E.g. maybe a front-end React dev, or data engineer assisting with integrating parts of a data pipeline, or a SQL consultant helping trouble shoot database performance issues. Other times, a team covers both bases (high degree of skill breadth, and depth), but lacks time to devote to all pressing issues.

So consultant relationships are formed for any number of reasons; they need not be an expert, necessarily.