CrazyEngineer.net

I’ve had a rather unpleasant personality issue for as long as I remember: not following through. I’d get inspired and start a new project, but always seemed to abandon it for some perfectly sensible (and rationalized) reason. I thought for awhile this might mean I was manic-depressive or had ADD (which is still possible) but I think the real problem was that I entered most of these projects with unrealistic expectations of the outcome. So as the project progressed and I realized the expectations were unrealistic, my energy faltered and I moved on.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I finally completed a “project” that I have long struggled with, abandoned and renewed several times over the course of years, and thought I would never finish.

I hit 175 lbs yesterday.

That’s 85 lbs, 12 inches of waist, and 11.4 BMI points gone since I left college back in 1999. And since this was actually one of my New Year’s Resolutions (and one of the most common resolutions that no one keeps for that matter), I’m doubly proud of myself.

Some people I haven’t seen in a long time have described me as “gaunt”. I totally do not understand that because I still have a nice little gut and love handles. Compared to the super-sized, hawaiian shirt mammal I was, I am sure I do look gaunt. But I’m not about to blow over in a stiff breeze.

And now that I’ve hit a good weight, it’s time to trade the fat that’s left for muscle. The lifting program I have been following has just been revamped into a 3rd edition and I really like the changes. Stronglifts 5×5 is an awesome program. Mainly, because it’s easy to learn (only 5 different exercises each workout) and it’s only about 45 minutes 3 days a week.

The other issue I have to consider is whether or not I should keep going. My Prolonging Health book for longevity extension recommends that a BMI below 20 is optimal for long-term health. That works to be another 30 pounds or so. I’m not sure if that’s really possible for me, especially if I’m trying to put on some lean muscle (also important to longevity). Losing 30 pounds and trading even more fat for denser muscle would probably shrink me so much that everyone would worry that I had manorexia.

I think goals for next year instead would be a body-fat percentage below 15% or being able to bench press 135 lbs (a 45lb plate on each end plus the barbell itself).

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with sleep over the years. It’s always been a rollercoaster, short fits of nighttime sleep, followed by a long 9-10 hour crash, then normal 8 hour sleep for awhile, then the shortening of sleep in a quest for more time during the day, crash, repeat.

However, now with secure office space, I have finally been able to implement a new sleep schedule. It isn’t as hardcore as the Uberman sleep schedule, but it does allow me to pick up a few hours a day. It’s a bi-phasic schedule, also known as an afternoon nap.

Radical, I know. But here comes the science!

Humans have a sleep cycle of about 90 minutes. That means left undisturbed, the body will naturally go through some number of cycles while it sleeps, and then wake up on it’s own. The first 60 minutes or so are increasingly deeper levels of sleep. The next 20 minutes is REM sleep, followed by a few minutes of very light sleep, then the cycle repeats. Being awoken in the middle to end of a cycle will make you groggy and disorientated because this is when your deepest sleep stage and your REM sleep stage (both of which are needed to repair and recharge your body) occur. Which means when doctors say you should get 8 hours of sleep, they’re actually screwing you up by waking you in the beginning of a new cycle instead at the end of a complete cycle.

Try it sometime, take a nap in the afternoon and make sure you are not disturbed and try to block out the sunlight. You’ll awaken on your own some multiple of 90 minutes after you’ve fallen asleep.

The other fun aspect of these cycles is that your first cycle has the longest period of deep sleep. Deep sleep is responsible for hormone regulation and tissue repair, not to mention that the strongest effects of sleep deprivation are from inadequate deep sleep. Your deep sleep stage actually gets shorter as you repeat cycles. So your fourth sleep cycle of the night is doing less for you than your second sleep cycle of the night which is doing less for you than your first sleep cycle.

Conversely, REM sleep length actually increases each cycle, with the first cycle having the shortest REM stage of the night. REM sleep is when we dream. It’s needed for processing emotions, memories, and stress. It is also believed to be vital to learning and developing new skills. However, if REM sleep is disrupted one night, your body will go through more REM the next night to catch up. Not to mention that you can actually dream during other stages of sleep. If you are sleep deprived, the body makes up your deep sleep deficit first, then your REM sleep deficit.

So I’ve broken my sleeping into two sleep periods. I take a 90 minute nap around 1:30 PM in my office, then a 4.5 hour nap (3 sleep cycles) at 1:30 AM. This way, I get two first cycle deep sleep doses (which easily equal the deep sleep contributed by later cycles in the same sleep period). While initially I might short myself on REM sleep, my body should adapt by moving through the early sleep stages quicker to get to deep sleep and then REM sleep to make up the deficit.

Despite my many years of being a morning person, I’ve actually been able to make this switch quite easily and I now get all my quiet work time at night. Then I’m able to get up rested with the rest of the family to start the day.

Here’s the first post of an exciting new category on the site: hacking the CrazyEngineer for better health and longevity.

Today’s big decision: which multivitamin to buy?

Really not as easy as you would think. Crazy Mother-In-Law gets the Nutrition Action Newsletter that is full of interesting stuff. They just did a whole section on multi-vitamins, and there is currently some debate going on over whether a daily vitamin is necessary for everyone (or if it may even be harmful).

The biggie everyone is looking at right now is folic acid. Some studies have linked high intake of folic acid to higher rates of colorectal cancer and colon polyps. Pretty much every multi-vitamin has a significant amount of folic acid in them. Now, you want to be taking a high level of folic acid if you plan on being pregnant because it can prevent early birth defects affecting the brain and spinal cord. But, since I’m not the one bringing embryos to term in the family, folate is less of an issue for me and it is recommended that I take a multi-vitamin every other day to limit my folic acid dosage until new studies are able to shed some light on the issue.

I also wanted to make sure the multi-vitamin did not have iron in it (for reasons I’ll get into later). So, going by these to big constraints and the newsletter’s recommendations, I purchased a bottle of Walgreens Once Daily for Men (same stuff at half the price of One A Day) and a weekly pill case with four time-based containers per day. No reason old people should get all the cool medical accutriments.