Well there's been quite a few studies so far that have made it clear that not getting enough sleep can reduce your cognitive function (read: your BRAIN, man!), decrease the strength of your immune system, impair performance on a myriad of skills tested, score higher correlation with all kinds of diseases mental and physical, and contribute to making you fat.
Since sleep deprivation's been the cornerstone of my life for the last 18 years or so, I find all this very interesting. My little shoulder angel says, Imagine how different your life might have been if you'd slept more so your brain had worked even better, if you'd had more energy, less fat, and been healthier! My little shoulder devil responds, Yeah, and you wouldn't have got a friggin thing done, either.
So recently, Cheri Mah of Stanford U authored a paper on a study done on six basketball players at Stanford, healthy student males. To make a long story short, they measured these guys for sprinting times and free throw accuracy on their normal sleep schedule, and then on one that included "as much extra sleep as they could get." The abstract is totally unhelpful about how much this is. 15 minutes more? 3 hours? 6 hours? Well anyway... "more." Perhaps the full paper has how much more.
When getting "more" sleep, sprint times were faster, and free throws were more often accurate. The players also said they had increased energy, better mood during playing, and less fatigue.
Wow. Beautiful! Sleep's the best drug since sleep.
I've seen this referenced on a few blogs and websites, including Krista's. I decided to make a note of it here because the last week my body has been demanding a FULL night of sleep. If I don't get it, I have very little warning before my body will just crash in the day, and I end up sleeping on my lunch hour and after work, totally screwing up my schedule and, of course, resulting in my not getting stuff done I had planned.
I understand that at 41 -- I'll be 42 in September -- I'm not a spring chicken, and sleep deprivation and all-nighters and things like that get way more difficult as most people age. But my body's utter DEMAND -- and taking it whether I'm agreeing or not -- for SLEEP accompanies my beginning to work out. And I'm not even working out all that hard! I realize timing can be coincidental. But I don't think it is. I think my body is basically knocking me out flat before I have a chance to stuff sufficient caffeine down my throat to keep us both awake -- me and my body ;-) -- all night so I can "do stuff".
So I'm not getting much done. But I'm sure getting more sleep!
Showing posts with label body changes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label body changes. Show all posts
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Feng Shui Closet
I didn't have much workout planned for last night after I got off work, and I went and rocked my abs slightly on the Bean and considered The Closet of my weights room. I'd wanted to assemble a new desk, but wasn't sure I had all my tools, which are in the closet, hopefully, somewhere. The closet has been the catch-all for too many things over time, no matter that I tried to keep its scope limited. As opening the closet displayed, it looked more like something out of a comedy movie, where anybody smart would close the door immediately before 500 items came crashing out upon them.
A couple weeks ago, or especially prior, I would never have considered tackling this, or even beginning. When you don't have the energy to make it more than 30% through any project, never mind its cleanup, you learn to just avoid projects altogether. Everything gets worse before it gets better of course, so that'd just leave you with having made things much worse. But last night I had the feeling that it was time to start on it. One area at a time; whatever I could do. My goal being to get through one region of the closet, and get everything cleaned up and my weights room returned to its normal clean spacious self, by the time the night was over.
Half a dozen big porcelain dolls of the kid went to live on her bed. Wrapping paper in the tubes, after I tried to store it in a variety of ways, got tossed in frustration. All gift bags and folded wrapping paper got condensed into a single big bag. Then I had an entire top shelf, one wall to the other, of binders and envelopes. I realized that these were put there in spring of 2000 when I moved here. Binders filled with stuff I created or collected for interests I had -- guitar, songwriting, handwriting analysis, some other things. The envelopes held tons of stories I wrote around age 18-20 and typed laboriously on my little manual. Four yearbooks from the dark ages... and tons of photos.
I spent most the night putting photos in the many big binders I had for them, to organize them. I couldn't have sat on the floor so long or done this previously, and it felt so novel that I was actually accomplishing something. But it was rather sad to look at the last ten years of photos, from my kids' life, and hate every photo that had me in it. When I looked at photos of times when I wasn't huge, I was happy to have them; it was a pleasant reminder. Everything else, I just grimaced and wish that I didn't have to keep it at all, which I only do because my parents rightfully insist that someday my kid or grandkid might want to have pictures of me when I'm gone. Yearbooks from a teenagehood of utter misery. And pictures of my stepmother 'doing things' with my kid that I haven't been able to. It ended up being a rather emotional night.
But that part got done. The closet still has a lot to be worked on, another night. I figure, this is one corner of the house, I will just gradually work my way through the house. If I work on something almost every night, it shouldn't take more than a few months before I'm through even the garage (a nightmare of epic proportions).
My body still has that bizarre insistence on heavy sleep. I had nightmares last nights, as did my little girl (who got lucky with my good mood last night so was sleeping beside me), and we even frightened in bizarrely parallel ways in our dreams last night, as if the same elements played out in different ways for each. I'm probably just venting stored biochemical (repressed emotion). I haven't been eating enough, as usual, but it's not just preventing my losing weight; at this point I am 8 lbs. heavier than I was ten days ago. Go figure!
I'm trying not to get freaky about it but it's kind of difficult. I'm surely not working out enough to gain significant muscle yet, and although I have a slight bloat it's no more it seems than it was a week ago yet my weight is like 4 lbs higher than then. So I just have no idea what's going on. I'm telling myself to not be hysterical and just keep on, don't go off the eating plan (whatever plan it might be, at this point eating period is enough of an accomplishment), keep working out, and trust that things will get better somehow. I have a measure point this coming Sunday. I better have lost some kind of size or I'm definitely going to be upset!
A couple weeks ago, or especially prior, I would never have considered tackling this, or even beginning. When you don't have the energy to make it more than 30% through any project, never mind its cleanup, you learn to just avoid projects altogether. Everything gets worse before it gets better of course, so that'd just leave you with having made things much worse. But last night I had the feeling that it was time to start on it. One area at a time; whatever I could do. My goal being to get through one region of the closet, and get everything cleaned up and my weights room returned to its normal clean spacious self, by the time the night was over.
Half a dozen big porcelain dolls of the kid went to live on her bed. Wrapping paper in the tubes, after I tried to store it in a variety of ways, got tossed in frustration. All gift bags and folded wrapping paper got condensed into a single big bag. Then I had an entire top shelf, one wall to the other, of binders and envelopes. I realized that these were put there in spring of 2000 when I moved here. Binders filled with stuff I created or collected for interests I had -- guitar, songwriting, handwriting analysis, some other things. The envelopes held tons of stories I wrote around age 18-20 and typed laboriously on my little manual. Four yearbooks from the dark ages... and tons of photos.
I spent most the night putting photos in the many big binders I had for them, to organize them. I couldn't have sat on the floor so long or done this previously, and it felt so novel that I was actually accomplishing something. But it was rather sad to look at the last ten years of photos, from my kids' life, and hate every photo that had me in it. When I looked at photos of times when I wasn't huge, I was happy to have them; it was a pleasant reminder. Everything else, I just grimaced and wish that I didn't have to keep it at all, which I only do because my parents rightfully insist that someday my kid or grandkid might want to have pictures of me when I'm gone. Yearbooks from a teenagehood of utter misery. And pictures of my stepmother 'doing things' with my kid that I haven't been able to. It ended up being a rather emotional night.
But that part got done. The closet still has a lot to be worked on, another night. I figure, this is one corner of the house, I will just gradually work my way through the house. If I work on something almost every night, it shouldn't take more than a few months before I'm through even the garage (a nightmare of epic proportions).
My body still has that bizarre insistence on heavy sleep. I had nightmares last nights, as did my little girl (who got lucky with my good mood last night so was sleeping beside me), and we even frightened in bizarrely parallel ways in our dreams last night, as if the same elements played out in different ways for each. I'm probably just venting stored biochemical (repressed emotion). I haven't been eating enough, as usual, but it's not just preventing my losing weight; at this point I am 8 lbs. heavier than I was ten days ago. Go figure!
I'm trying not to get freaky about it but it's kind of difficult. I'm surely not working out enough to gain significant muscle yet, and although I have a slight bloat it's no more it seems than it was a week ago yet my weight is like 4 lbs higher than then. So I just have no idea what's going on. I'm telling myself to not be hysterical and just keep on, don't go off the eating plan (whatever plan it might be, at this point eating period is enough of an accomplishment), keep working out, and trust that things will get better somehow. I have a measure point this coming Sunday. I better have lost some kind of size or I'm definitely going to be upset!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Body Changes; Workout Frequency
Last night I noticed an occasional phenomenon. I wonder if this is because I am so new to the weight lifting thing.
In one case, I was doing this set and it wasn't hard at all until I'd done like 6 reps, then the last two were very hard. I barely finished 8 reps each of three sets. Then after resting a bit more I decided to try more. A rocking song was on. And suddenly, it was like it had lost half its weight. I still had the muscle scream around rep 6.5 on each set, but as I was lifting the weight, it just seemed so... well, just so NOT heavy the way it had been the first three sets. It made me wonder if there is such a thing as a 'second wind' in weight lifting like in running.
Last week I did a couple kinds of rear deltoid raises and this week, oddly, I couldn't really do any at the 10# weight. I finally dumped the weights, worried I would hurt myself, and I could not for the life o' me keep decent form, and just practiced doing nothing but my arms, muscles tense, decently far back (I couldn't get them far enough back with the weights), and I really felt it bigtime, this with no weights at all. Which is odd. I don't think it's possible to get weaker is it. Anyway, no big deal, moving on.
One thing about working out at this size is that a lot of exercises that are isolation exercises (working one muscle group) become accidentally compound exercises (working multiple muscle groups). Anything with a knee bend becomes compound for me because holding my body up with a bent knee is easier said than done. And one done lying on the ground on my side becomes compound as it takes both my legs scissored a bit to maintain balance against the lift. Some are just plain hard, like the seated rear deltoid raise requires scrunching over and putting the dumbells behind your legs; my body proportions are just in the way.
My weight continues to stay the same or rise slightly, despite that I couldn't be more lowcarb (or more low calorie for that matter) short of fasting. I am slightly bloated, I have a couple areas where I can totally tell how much fluid I am carrying; my fault, not drinking enough water. But I could swear my stomach seems smaller. Maybe I'm imagining it. Well, I measure again at the end of next week, so we'll see.
My goal for today is to get the big desk with sewing machine and boxes out of my room, and into the living room, and then get this slant-desk/table I bought for myself like a year ago, out of the box and assembled fully and put in my room. Now that I finally almost feel up to kneeling, squatting, getting on and off the floor, etc. the number of things that need doing around my house are suddenly starting to pop into visibility!
Every exercise I do seems to hit my back or obliques in some way. They are chronically exhausted muscle-wise. They don't hurt like being in pain or anything; I'm not worried that I am injuring myself, and I'm being pretty nice to them. It's just that even walking to the kitchen or opening the refrigerator uses them. I have been so insanely inactive for years that any movement is more than they are used to. Now I am not only working them out with weights, targeted no less, but everything else I do that moves me around more, affects them as well. My entire torso from under the shoulders to over the hips constantly is telling me, "Let's just go lie down or something" even when the rest of my body feels fine.
But my body is demanding sleep. I've operated on basically 2-5 hours sleep most nights for most of my adult life. I have permanent black circles under my eyes, and that doesn't even start on sleep apnea and being oxygen deprived. Well normally, I work on the computer, I can sit motionless nearly from the time I awake till the time I go to sleep. Lack of sleep sucks, but I make do, because it's the life of a single mom: you don't have time for stuff you need to do let alone want to do. But now, I can't seem to do that anymore. Since I started working out, it's like my body demands 8 hours of sleep. If I don't get it, I will be so utterly wiped out that I literally have to go back to bed, spend my lunch hour sleeping, etc. I've overslept twice for work, and took part of a day off once and slept on my lunch hour twice, just for sheer must-have-sleep in the last 7 days of work! This has never happened to me before, so although the timing could be coincidence, it happening just after I finally started working out with weights makes me think it is somehow related.
I have a really good dehydrator. Not the $30 round kind at walmart, but the $170 kind that is square. I'm thinking maybe if I made some of that homemade jerky I would always have something to munch on; maybe that would improve metabolic rate a bit, since I'm still working on -- and not yet fully succeeding in -- eating as often during the day as I need to. It just seems like there's probably a lot of carbs in any jerky mix that tastes decently. If anybody knows of a good recipe I'd be glad to hear it.
Lastly for today, I have a question. I was going to ask one person but couldn't find her email. I asked another but apparently didn't phrase it well enough to make sense. Maybe if I try again here I will eventually get more than one response and different perspectives are always good. The question is this:
Is there any reason why I can't work out more than one time a day on the same muscles, if I give that muscle group a full week to rest? In other words, if I do torso exercises on Wednesdays, can I do a workout in the morning, and early afternoon, and evening, same exercises, if I then am not working out that body part till next Wednesday? This week I am trying all my exercise with at least 10# (I went through 3, 5, 8, sometimes 10, last week when I began). Next week, unless there is some compelling reason why not, I intend to do my work out 2 or 3 times a day. Since I can't work a lot of weight or a lot of reps right now, doing the overall workout more times in a day is about the only way I can get more use of that muscle group in. There seem to be many opinions on how many days between working a given muscle set, a person should rest. But I haven't heard much about the idea of working out more than once in a day.
In one case, I was doing this set and it wasn't hard at all until I'd done like 6 reps, then the last two were very hard. I barely finished 8 reps each of three sets. Then after resting a bit more I decided to try more. A rocking song was on. And suddenly, it was like it had lost half its weight. I still had the muscle scream around rep 6.5 on each set, but as I was lifting the weight, it just seemed so... well, just so NOT heavy the way it had been the first three sets. It made me wonder if there is such a thing as a 'second wind' in weight lifting like in running.
Last week I did a couple kinds of rear deltoid raises and this week, oddly, I couldn't really do any at the 10# weight. I finally dumped the weights, worried I would hurt myself, and I could not for the life o' me keep decent form, and just practiced doing nothing but my arms, muscles tense, decently far back (I couldn't get them far enough back with the weights), and I really felt it bigtime, this with no weights at all. Which is odd. I don't think it's possible to get weaker is it. Anyway, no big deal, moving on.
One thing about working out at this size is that a lot of exercises that are isolation exercises (working one muscle group) become accidentally compound exercises (working multiple muscle groups). Anything with a knee bend becomes compound for me because holding my body up with a bent knee is easier said than done. And one done lying on the ground on my side becomes compound as it takes both my legs scissored a bit to maintain balance against the lift. Some are just plain hard, like the seated rear deltoid raise requires scrunching over and putting the dumbells behind your legs; my body proportions are just in the way.
My weight continues to stay the same or rise slightly, despite that I couldn't be more lowcarb (or more low calorie for that matter) short of fasting. I am slightly bloated, I have a couple areas where I can totally tell how much fluid I am carrying; my fault, not drinking enough water. But I could swear my stomach seems smaller. Maybe I'm imagining it. Well, I measure again at the end of next week, so we'll see.
My goal for today is to get the big desk with sewing machine and boxes out of my room, and into the living room, and then get this slant-desk/table I bought for myself like a year ago, out of the box and assembled fully and put in my room. Now that I finally almost feel up to kneeling, squatting, getting on and off the floor, etc. the number of things that need doing around my house are suddenly starting to pop into visibility!
Every exercise I do seems to hit my back or obliques in some way. They are chronically exhausted muscle-wise. They don't hurt like being in pain or anything; I'm not worried that I am injuring myself, and I'm being pretty nice to them. It's just that even walking to the kitchen or opening the refrigerator uses them. I have been so insanely inactive for years that any movement is more than they are used to. Now I am not only working them out with weights, targeted no less, but everything else I do that moves me around more, affects them as well. My entire torso from under the shoulders to over the hips constantly is telling me, "Let's just go lie down or something" even when the rest of my body feels fine.
But my body is demanding sleep. I've operated on basically 2-5 hours sleep most nights for most of my adult life. I have permanent black circles under my eyes, and that doesn't even start on sleep apnea and being oxygen deprived. Well normally, I work on the computer, I can sit motionless nearly from the time I awake till the time I go to sleep. Lack of sleep sucks, but I make do, because it's the life of a single mom: you don't have time for stuff you need to do let alone want to do. But now, I can't seem to do that anymore. Since I started working out, it's like my body demands 8 hours of sleep. If I don't get it, I will be so utterly wiped out that I literally have to go back to bed, spend my lunch hour sleeping, etc. I've overslept twice for work, and took part of a day off once and slept on my lunch hour twice, just for sheer must-have-sleep in the last 7 days of work! This has never happened to me before, so although the timing could be coincidence, it happening just after I finally started working out with weights makes me think it is somehow related.
I have a really good dehydrator. Not the $30 round kind at walmart, but the $170 kind that is square. I'm thinking maybe if I made some of that homemade jerky I would always have something to munch on; maybe that would improve metabolic rate a bit, since I'm still working on -- and not yet fully succeeding in -- eating as often during the day as I need to. It just seems like there's probably a lot of carbs in any jerky mix that tastes decently. If anybody knows of a good recipe I'd be glad to hear it.
Lastly for today, I have a question. I was going to ask one person but couldn't find her email. I asked another but apparently didn't phrase it well enough to make sense. Maybe if I try again here I will eventually get more than one response and different perspectives are always good. The question is this:
Is there any reason why I can't work out more than one time a day on the same muscles, if I give that muscle group a full week to rest? In other words, if I do torso exercises on Wednesdays, can I do a workout in the morning, and early afternoon, and evening, same exercises, if I then am not working out that body part till next Wednesday? This week I am trying all my exercise with at least 10# (I went through 3, 5, 8, sometimes 10, last week when I began). Next week, unless there is some compelling reason why not, I intend to do my work out 2 or 3 times a day. Since I can't work a lot of weight or a lot of reps right now, doing the overall workout more times in a day is about the only way I can get more use of that muscle group in. There seem to be many opinions on how many days between working a given muscle set, a person should rest. But I haven't heard much about the idea of working out more than once in a day.
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