Movember

So, I had a somewhat decent post started up on the benefits of adequate sleep, physical recovery, and food that makes your body happy. However, given that said post was in no small part inspired by my work schedule these past few days, my motivation to fully develop and finish it bonked out. I’d known for awhile that this stretch was coming and so accounted for it in my training, setting up this week—my training week goes from Saturday to Friday rather than Monday to Sunday—as a mini-off period (meaning mostly foam rolling, some light activity with the dogs, and one day to test my meager 1RMs on the three big lifts) sandwiched between two two-week spans that would normally flow together. It was just that kind of schedule where I knew going in that I would be short on sleep, and what sleep I did get would be haphazard (relative to my usual schedule), leaving me utterly dependent on caffeine to get through the end of the hoo-hah. Even over a couple days of offset/interrupted/short sleep, here’s what happens to me:

—My thirst mechanism goes haywire, meaning I’m always thirsty, no matter how much water I drink (even to the point of bloat).
—My hunger mechanism also goes haywire. Even though I’m able to control this to a degree (usually because of the water bloat), I’m still never satisfied, though crunchy munchies seem to help somewhat.
—Those two issues obviously have a fun effect on my, um, internal processing clock, and it takes a couple days after resuming my normal sleep schedule to get that back on schedule.
—I break out like a high school freshman. I have no idea why. It’s just on my face, and it’s not pizza-esque, but invariably, I get three or four pretties to pop up.
—Did I mention that my mental drive kinda craps out? Though I had some opportunities, I did exactly zero reading. I hate that.

A shift from early to late has a muted yet still noticable effect; a shift from late to early is borderline sadistic. Guess which one I’ve been doing? Yeah… I will say that my disdain for most store-bought bread deepened over these few days since sandwiches tend to be the most nutritionally-complete food I get. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know I’m not the biggest fan of grains in general; however, awhile back, I did discover some bread I could get into for the times I do eat the stuff. I hadn’t picked any up before this crunch at work, so I had to make do with the other stuff in the house, and sleep issues notwithstanding, I felt more blah than had I used the bread I like (it’s happened other times when errands are put on the back burner for whatever reason). Yes, Ezekiel is more expensive, especially in recent financial times for most people, but then, I’ve come to appreciate quality of food more than the cost, to the point of cutting back elsewhere to make sure I put a higher quality of fuel into my body. It makes a huge long-term difference in your physical health and mental sharpness. Well, at least it does for me. Too bad more people can’t/don’t take notice (even Ross got in on this one).

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Now, for the main point of this post. I was planning to hold off on talking about this until closer to the end of the month, but I figured I’d go ahead and throw it out there in hopes of getting another blog or two to promote it before it starts. I found out about Movember—that’s November with an “m”—on another blog recently, and considering how lazy I usually am about shaving (hey, working in radio has its benefits), I figured this was a pretty simple yet cool thing to do. Basically, Movember is an effort to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues, namely prostate cancer (only nine months or so until I get my first check… joy…), through the growing and grooming of moustaches throughout the month. Personally, I’m not sure if I’ll do just a moustache (unlikely) or a full ‘stache and beard-type thingy (more likely), and then if I’ll groom it or just go wild.

I’ll post a weekly picture of how things are progressing during November, starting with my clean-shaven mug (may be on Halloween since I’m taking off for Charleston, South Carolina, the first week of the month). Whether that’s in blog posts or on a separate page (similar to my liftSTRONG stuff) has yet to be determined, but then, I have a few days to figure all that out. Unlike the issues I had with getting a liftSTRONG donation page set up, Movember provides one, so I’ll be updating that soon and continuously throughout next month, but I’ll post my increasing furriness here first. I’m not looking for a donation goal—or even donations at all—but of course, any would be appreciated. If nothing else, feel free to leave snide comments both here and there (once I get it all set up, of course). I’ll write a follow-up post or two with whatever decisions I make to get everything nailed down, even if that’s to direct you to a separate page.

By the way, I’ve added some new blogs and websites to the right-hand column, so check them out (I’d recommend a read-through of Further Fitness).

Body bits: “cardio” isn’t ALL bad (just please keep it to a minimum), this definitely belongs in a “WTF?!” file, Steve Cotter is not of this world, Mike goes old school on squats and face pulls, good push-up and trunk flexion progression programs, exercise is actually *gasp* good for your knees (and most everything else), more on rapid weight loss, stiffness versus shortness, the way to distinguish sports injuries on TV, more truth about unstable surface training, how to stay fat (part 1), greasing the groove before a lift, Eric’s hodgepodge, what sitting all day can do to you.

Edibles: eat like it’s your job, ten steps to a “square foot garden” (mentioned and linked here before but not so succinctly as this), Weight Watchers pushes Twinkies (no, seriously, they are), the meat of metabolic typing, the do’s and don’ts of vitamin D, yummy fat, more fun and games in supplement advertising, the final part of Lyle’s interview for Body Improvements.

Mind matters: test your visual mind control, Thoureau fitness (see what I did there?), exercising depression (take special note of the article linked in that post), building relationships through exercise, THE INTERNET IS GOOD FOR YOU!!! (here, here, and here—I must be the smartest person alive).

Kiddie corner: Nothing to see here. Please move along.

General health: you might as well get and stay healthy because chances are you’re not going to be famous, Joe laments the fitness industry, “credit crunch” insomnia, weight-loss surgery may reduce cancer risk, your tongue and you, some roadblocks to opting out of Medicare.

Geek-out:
—Transportation: closing roads may cut congestion, Toyota microcar on the way, iPod (ick) and Bluetooth (eh) are taking over cars, cars may become cell phone dead zones, the back end of car production, Lotus wins alt-fuel race, the golden age of trains, airlines say no to porn, windowless airplanes.
—Nature: all life uses relatively the same amount of energy, the loneliest organism on Earth, earthquake simulation video, Kilauea erupts.
—Tech stuff: free nationwide wifi, microscope on a chip, go go Gadget climber, new MacBooks still too expensive, how to camp and travel with less gear, climate modeling better than financial modeling, new tech for telescopes.
—Miscellaneous: Women Against Fantasy Sports (you should be duly impressed that I’m refraining from comment… for now… black widows…), a beautiful new theory of everything, happy anniversary to the Prime Meridian and Big Ben.

Git r dun:
—Bill on Jack.
—Eat boring and have an exciting body.
—Someday versus today.