Reconfiguring my Time Management

Time management is one of those things that Information Technology has made a fundamental requirement to living and managing day-to-day tasks (and it's a shame that Time Management is not a required course for everyone in IT). I consider myself fairly good with my own time management but lately I have been feeling as though the ratio of stuff getting done to the stuff I want to do is growing further and further apart. My todo lists always seem to be growing and never getting any shorter. Prioritizing and feeling as though I'm making progress on a day-to-day basis feels like a continuous, never ending up hill battle. I'm putting out the fires, but not building new cities.

When I read Sid Savara's "More Important than Money - Paying Myself First With My Time" post, I was incredibly encouraged by the fact that his observations of time and valuing time were almost identical to my own. I have always felt that it makes the most sense to start the day early; to get the things that matter most to you done early so that if you're wiped out at the end of the day, it's OK.

I'm somewhat of an organization freak and having things organized and structured helps me get things done. I don't like creating a schedule because schedules constantly change. Instead, I like creating time-goals so that I'm aware of approximately where my time is going. To start, I created somewhat of a framework for my weekly time:

Monday - Friday
2 hours - Personal Hygiene / Breakfast / Dinner
2 hours - Fitness/Yoga
3 hours - Commuting
8 hours - Work / Lunch
2 hours - Personal Projects / Reading / Writing / Learning
7 hours - Sleep

Saturday - Sunday
2 hours - Personal Hygiene / Breakfast / Dinner
2 hours - Fitness/Yoga
8 hours - Sleep
8 hours - Personal Projects / Reading / Writing / Learning
4 hours - Outdoor & Other Activities

While creating this outline I was surprised to discover how little time I have left for personal projects, reading, writing, and learning during the week. Those things are, of course, what I enjoy doing most and yet they make up only a fraction of my available time. Admittedly, I'm only spending about 1 hour a day on fitness right now, but I consider fitness to be of utmost importance and the highest-value item on the list. Also, I tend to get less than 7 hours of sleep and usually spend the time on personal projects, but sleep is an important part of health too.

Now that I've developed this outline for my time, I'm going to put it into practice and see how I can tweak it.

The Importance of Breathing Through Your Nose

Have you ever wondered about the importance of breathing through your nose vs breathing through your mouth? While searching the Internet for an answer to why the cold air seems to freeze up my chest and make breathing very difficult, I stumbled across The Science of Breath. The section on Nostril vs Mouth-breathing had this to say about cold air:

And, moreover, such incorrect breathing admits cold air to the organs, thereby injuring them. Inflammation of the respiratory organs often results from the inhalation of cold air through the mouth.
...
Not only do the nostrils serve this important purpose, but they also perform an important function in warming the air inhaled. The long narrow winding nostrils are filled with warm mucous membrane, which coming in contact with the inhaled air warms it so that it can do no damage to the delicate organs of the throat, or to the lungs.

The author says that many diseases can be attributed to the habit of mouth-breathing and says that smallpox, which killed many men-of-war in foreign countries, did not kill a single "nostril-breather"; it only affected those who breathed through their mouths (though I can't help but wonder how he obtained nostril vs mouth-breather data).

I have observed that I breathe through my mouth most the time. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen I had asthma that was bad enough to make climbing a flight of six stairs difficult. I suppose the habit of mouth-breathing could have formed when I had asthma: Since my lungs needed to get as much air as possible, I subconsciously developed the habit of always breathing through my mouth. (The asthma disappeared when I stopped eating dairy and started exercising.)

What other implications could mouth-breathing have? Of all the organs in our body, the brain uses the most oxygen. What organ is closest to the brain? The nose! Could breathing through our nose somehow provide our brain with a little extra oxygen, thereby increasing its function? When I breathe through my nose, my head automatically feels better; my brain feels clearer and refreshed with every breath. I don't feel any of that when I breathe through my mouth.

I'm going to start doing daily breathing exercises and make a conscious effort to breathe through my nose. The Summary of Techniques and Exercises section of the aforementioned site has some incredible breathing exercises (try a few!).

Starting the P90X Workout Routine

A few days ago a friend told me he was starting the P90X workout program. (I remembered seeing an infomercial for P90X and thinking it would be an interesting routine to try, but I knew nothing would convince me to buy something I saw on an infomercial.) I've always used my own self-designed programs or followed 30-day workout routines that I find in health magazines. However, it's a new year and I need a new routine.

When I inquired how much he paid, he said he downloaded the entire thing free. Doh! Why didn't I think of that!? A quick search of mininova.org and a day's worth of downloading later and I have 4gb of videos and the entire P90X program on my laptop.

Having a workout routine (any routine, really) is important to maintaining a consistent level of difficulty and for maintaining consistency. The P90X routine has a lot of variety, including things like yoga, kenpo, and plyometrics, so I'm going to stick with it for the next 90 days. I strongly agree with the methodology it preaches: constant changes in the workouts are necessary to keep your body constantly adapting and growing. I just finished the Back & Chest + Abs routine and all I can say is wow. I can already feel the results just from the first workout!

flaab.com – the wrong kind of motivation

Flaab.com is a website that allows you easily create a motivational goal to lose weight. The site authors say that they "employ the two greatest motivators known to the human race: Money and Humiliation". Having lost over 70lbs myself, I know first-hand that money is definitely not a great motivator for losing weight and humiliation doesn't last long enough (as soon as you're in slightly better shape, everyone around you will start saying good things and you won't be humiliated anymore). The best motivators for losing weight? A slow painful, unhealthy, disease-ridden life of struggle inside your own body, and eventually premature death.

The Conclusion of my 48-hour Detox Fast

I just finished the longest fast I have ever completed. It's not really fair to call it a "fast", since I did eat brown rice twice during the 48 hours, but it was a detox fast. The experience was more eye-opening than I had imagined and although I felt a bit "out of it" for most of the weekend, I did end up with a much higher appreciation for food.

I'm considering starting a monthly weekend-detox to regularly clean my system. Since I'm vegan, you may wonder what toxins I could be cleaning out. Well, there are a lot more toxins in our bodies than you might imagine -- even toxins unrelated to food! An article titled "How Toxins Affect Your Energy Health" has a nice explanation:

It is nearly impossible to free your body of toxins because they are everywhere. Toxins can be found in the air you breathe, the food you eat, and your body can even create toxins from too much stress. Even if you can not get rid of all the toxins in your body, it is still important to reduce the level of toxins so your health and energy will not suffer. Your body is designed to handle small level of toxins on a regular basis; when there are too much toxins in your body at once, your body will start to breakdown and you may suffer from health problems, such as headaches, fatigue, nausea, sickness and chronic diseases.

Fasting is one of the many ways we can clean toxins out of our body. A detoxification fast usually consists of eating a single simple food that is easy to digest, such as brown or white basmati rice, and nothing else for several days at a time (of course you must drink water to stay hydrated!).

Calorie restriction has been shown to improve overall health and slow the aging process. The low-calorie Okinawa diet, for example, is thought to be a direct reason why a high proportion of Okinawans live to over 110 years of age.

24 hours into the detox fast

It's been a little over 24 hours since I started my detox fast. A few hours ago I ate a little brown rice and had a cup of herbal tea, but otherwise I've had nothing but water. I took a one hour nap late in the afternoon (something I never do) because my body really felt like it needed it. Besides the hunger and a slight headache, everything is going well. Let's see how tomorrow goes.

Starting a weekend detox fast

While using my laptop at a local veggie cafe, I overheard someone talking about doing an intestinal detoxification by fasting for a day or two and only eating a little bit of rice if necessary. I've decided to try it for the weekend. As of 9PM Friday evening, I will not eat anything, except possibly some plain brown rice, until 9PM Sunday. (The last time I tried fasting, I didn't last more than 20 hours, so lets see how far I get this time.)

Breaking Through a Plateau

Wow. That was an awesome workout! For the first time in months I actually had ton's of energy from beginning to end. I pushed through every exercise and challenged myself with heavier than normal weights. I'm not sure if it's the Zinc and Magnesium I started taking last week or the 5mg of creatine I started taking earlier this week -- maybe a combination of both. Either way, I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere. I finally broke through that plateau!

Zinc and Magnesium

I started taking supplements of Zinc and Magnesium today (100mg and 400mg respectively) after reading that vegans (especially body-building vegans) generally have Zinc and Magnesium deficiencies. It's easy for me to notice the effect of slight changes to my diet (since I control my diet so well) and I'm really curious how the extra Zinc and Magnesium will affect my overall health.

Back to Bodybuilding

After a long break, I'm back to bodybuilding. In addition to lots of stretching and yoga I'm concentrating on full-body exercises like chin-ups, push-ups, and leg raises. Cardio always seems to die off during the colder winter months, but now that the warm weather is slowly returning I need to pick it up again. I've also started waking up earlier and my goal is to eventually start waking up before sunrise.

Even more difficult than maintaining a good diet and exercise routine is maintaining a good diet and exercise routine for very long periods of time -- I'm talking in years, not months. The past 9 years of my bodybuilding career, although mostly beneficial to my health, have been a roller coaster of workout routines and diets. Dedication, commitment, and sheer will-power made me the fittest I've ever been, but maintaining that physique indefinitely while being in a career that requires me to sit down will be quite the challenge.

Struggling to Maintain a Vegan Diet

Ever since I started working out regularly, I have been trying to eat more protein while maintaining a vegan diet. I've tried making soy, hemp, and rice protein shakes, eating more tempeh and tofu, and even eating more beans (though I must admit that the time required to cook beans and grains definitely prevents me from eating them as regularly as I would like). I don't know if I have a protein sensitivity or if I'm just not combining foods properly, but every time I increase my protein intake my body seems to reject it and digestion becomes very difficult.

I have thought about how much easier things would be if I could have EAS Myoplex shakes, cottage cheese, yogurt, non-fat chocolate milk, and other foods that I learned how to use to help with keeping protein high and carbohydrates low. Now that I have been maintaining a vegan diet, I feel like I'm starting back at square one; I feel like I don't know anything about diet and fitness because everything changes when you remove all dairy from your diet.

Earlier today I was actually contemplating switching back to a lacto-vegetarian diet, but then I remembered the promise I made to myself several months ago:

I was born a Vegetarian, but I will die a Vegan.

So to push these dangerous thoughts out of my head, that has become my new mantra. If maintaining a vegan diet means I need to spend more time preparing food and learning how to cook complete meals, then so be it. I was thinking, I should probably tattoo the word VEGAN on my body somewhere so I can simply look at it whenever I'm doubting my commitment to a vegan lifestyle.

Red Bell Peppers

As I was cutting these red bell peppers this morning, I was surprised when an open cut on my hand started stinging really bad -- as if I had been cutting onions or hot peppers! I knew it wasn't the water on the peppers because I just took a shower and I had washed my hands without feeling any pain at all. I'm guessing the pain was caused by the trace amounts of capsaicin found inside the bell peppers.

Red bell peppers, like their close relatives the hot peppers, contain capsaicin. Capsaicin is what makes peppers hot, however the bell peppers have a recessive gene that eliminates the capsaicin and allows us to eat an entire pepper without our mouth catching on fire.

Red bell peppers are an amazing food and contain a huge array of vitamins and minerals. They are very high in vitamin C (higher than oranges!), contain high levels of antioxidants, and have more beta-carotene than green or yellow peppers.

Hammering Nails Into My Lats

This morning I woke up to the worst pain I have ever experienced in my lats. I was unable to raise my elbows any higher than my chest without feeling extreme pain. It literally feels like someone is hammering nails into my lats every time I raise my arms. Here is the muscle in pain, the Latissimus Dorsi:

Then I realized that yesterday was my arm workout day -- a workout that I haven't done in almost a year. I did a total of 47 pull-ups and several other arm exercises, including the dumbbell decline triceps extension which also hits the lats. The pain is excruciating, but it tells me that my muscles are now in the recovery phase and that they will come back even stronger!

I decided to skip todays workout because I think at this point it will do more harm than good. You know I'm really in pain when I decide to cancel a workout. 🙂

Tired and Sore

My new workout regiment, and the changes I've made to my diet this week, are really having a draining effect. I used to get tired around one or two in the morning but now I find myself ready to collapse at eleven PM! It's now midnight and I'm still at the office--I just finished a 4 hour team discussion at work. I'm really looking forward to getting home and laying down on the hardwood floor of my new apartment.

So far this week I've been really good with sticking to my workout plan. I randomly picked one of the many workout routines I have saved in the memo list on my BlackBerry. I'll see if I can post it tomorrow. This week is mostly a warm-up to next week, which is when I plan to really get my workouts revved up.

Micro-dislocating Ankle Joint

I woke up last Monday unable to move my right ankle. It wasn't just stiff, it hurt. It was a very familiar feeling -- something I've had happen several times over the past few years. I'm not exactly sure what is happening inside the ankle, but it feels as if a bone has moved out of place, creating the same type of pain I have experienced after dislocating my ankle (of which has happened several times to both of my ankles).

Whenever this "micro-dislocation" has happened in the past, I was simply sitting down in a chair with my feet relaxed. Suddenly I would feel extreme pain in my ankle, as if it was slipping out. The pain wouldn't stop right away but would continue, even after I take pressure off the foot. I would quickly "push" it back into position disregarding the extreme pain, and after hearing a few clicks the pain would instantly subside. I tried this same technique after waking up last week, but it didn't work.

For the first few days, I had to limp around. It was too painful to walk normally. Climbing stairs felt awkward. After moving around for a few days with a dysfunctional ankle, my knee and hip started to suffer as well, since those joints were not being used properly. By Thursday, my ankle had become quite swollen. So, I iced it every morning after that and by Saturday the swelling was gone.

I forced myself to try and walk normally, but the pain was hard to ignore. I stretched it several times a day, but it felt as if there was something more than stiffness causing the pain. By Sunday evening, I was starting to wonder if I should have a doctor look at it.

This Monday morning I woke up and to my amazement, my ankle had returned to normal. I tried stretching it in several different directions which had caused extreme pain all week and I wasn't able to recreate any pain! Exactly one week: I woke up last Monday morning with extreme pain, one week went by, and then I woke up yesterday to discover the pain gone. I don't know how else to describe this other than a "micro-dislocation".

The whole week I was telling myself how I will start, and stick to, a regular exercise routine as soon as my ankle gets better. I didn't realize how fortunate I was until I lost the functionality of what I took for granted. What better wake up message than to be crippled for one week and then just as quickly be given another chance.

DNA is not Destiny

"Micah's DNA" by micahb37 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .

I have never believed that I was limited by my genetics, nor that I could not change my genetics. At last, epigenetics is beginning to prove that very fact: You are not your DNA, but you are responsible for it.

Our genetic makeup is influenced by our environment and those influences are inherited by our great-grandchildren. This makes complete sense! We know humans are very adaptable, so why wouldn't our bodies learn from not only our environment, but also from the effects the environment had on our ancestors? The only way for humans to maintain this adaptability through generations would be to inherit the effects the environment had on our ancestors.

Diabetes, cancer, autism, alzheimer's, obesity -- I believe with time we will discover that all of these are a direct cause-and-effect result of changes made to our epigenome by our diet and environment (including those changes inherited).

I also believe that each and every one of us is capable of curing any biological ailment (caused by our individual actions or inherited from our ancestors) by modifying our diet, environment, and thought processes. Additionally, I believe that collectively, this healing power can be amplified without limit.

Imagine a super-human. Someone with the ability to heal not only themselves, but others as well. Imagine a human who had the power to become anything or anyone he or she ever wanted. That person is you.

Read DNA is not Destiny by Ethan Watters and see how it changes your view of genetics.

Should I Run in Polluted City Atmosphere?

I've been living in the city (Cambridge, MA) for almost a whole year now and one of the biggest things I miss about living outside the city is the cleaner air. OK, the air in Lowell is not exactly clean but I can drive 10 minutes and be in the middle of a 1,000 acre state forest where the air is much cleaner. I used to do a lot of running before I moved to Cambridge, both indoors and outdoors, but now I feel afraid to run. I can smell the pollution in the air simply walking 10 minutes between my apartment and the office -- it makes the air dry and thick. I'm not one to quit simply because something is more difficult or because it doesn't taste or feel good. But when it comes to my health, I can't help but wonder, will running in polluted city atmosphere actually be worse for me than not running at all?

Every day I see so many people, young and old, running throughout the city and I wonder if the health benefits they are experiencing are only temporary -- if by sucking down so many unnatural, unhealthy chemicals they're actually shortening their overall lifespan. I touched on this subject a few months ago in a post titled Dirty Air. I concluded the post by saying that a healthy lifestyle cannot be had while working where the crowd works. I don't like to believe things are impossible and I feel there must be some type of balance that can be reached -- perhaps a combination of indoor aerobic activity (rowing machine), indoor anaerobic activity (weight lifting), and various weekend outdoor activities when I visit Lowell on the weekends.

I also wondered if running at night, or early in the morning, would be more healthy than running during the day. I noticed the air smells much cleaner during the late evening and early morning hours. My own hypothesis is that when the sun goes down and the air begins to cool, all the warmer air (which was mixed with pollution from cars and buildings as well as heated by the sun during the day) rises up into the atmosphere allowing the cooler, cleaner air (cleaned by moisture in the air, currents, etc.) to sink down to the ground. If this is true, then running at night and early in the morning, before people start leaving for work, could be much healthier than running during the day. Are there any night runners (or early morning runners) out there that can confirm any of this?

But I never looked at the sun…

You know how when you look at the sun, or another bright light source, and then look away, everything you look at has a big bright spot that prevents you from seeing the details of what you are looking at? Well that happened to me today while reading an article on my laptop. The strange thing was, I never looked at the sun or any other "bright light source". I looked out the office window at brightly lit buildings, trees, and a clear blue sky, but the sun is on the other side of the building and not at all visible from the office.

It was quite disorienting, this fluctuating prism point of light that prevented me from even reading the text on the screen. My peripheral vision was fine and I could see the text directly to the left and right of where I was looking, but that wasn't very helpful -- I couldn't concentrate. I tried closing my eyes, flexing them by looking all the way to the left and right, and looking in the mirror to see if there was anything odd in my eyes. Nothing helped, and besides feeling a little dizzy when I got out of my chair, nothing else was wrong physically.

After about 10 minutes, the bright spot got bigger and moved slightly to the left. Now I could see the text I was looking at but there was this huge L shaped blurry spot everywhere I looked. Another 10 minutes went by, and the blurry spot moved further to the left and increased in size, eventually moving entirely out of my vision. By this time, I realized I had a bad headache and decided to do some quick Googling to see if I could learn anything about what I just experienced.

Apparently, those symptoms point to a sinus infection or other flu/sickness. This makes sense, since I have been battling a never ending cough for about a month now. The recommendation? Lots of sleep, water, and no stress. What have I been doing for the past month? I have been getting very little sleep, drinking lots of coffee to stay awake (caffeine results in dehydration), and trying to meet deadlines at work.

But no excuses. I am healthy, I have always been healthy, and I always will be healthy. Life is Good.

Atrophy

I wish I was sweating, thighs aching, looking up a trail not knowing how much further I have to climb. Rationing my water for fear of not having enough for the way back down, while worrying about, with every step, spraining my ankle.

Instead, I'm sitting slouched in a chair in a room without windows, breathing stale used air and staring at a radiation emitting screen, feeling my leg muscles slowly atrophy.

I may as well be sitting in a wheelchair, watching TV, waiting for death.

Tired, Pullups, and Scrambled Tofu

I don't know if its a problem with my diet, not getting enough sleep, too much caffeine, not enough carbohydrates, or a combination of all of the above! Every day I seem to be tired, especially around 8pm or 9pm. But, I can't seem to get myself to sleep that early.

Since I moved to the new apartment, I haven't gotten back into my regular workout program. However, I have been doing lots of chinups and leg raises on the pullup bar with ab loops in my kitchen doorway. I also took my DoorGym out of storage in Lowell and installed it in my bathroom doorway. I have the extension for it that allows for wide grip pullups and it works the shoulders and upper back like nothing else.

I was looking for breakfast ideas earlier today -- something different than my oatmeal with toast -- and came across this post on VeganFitness.net. The recipes blew my mind! My breakfast has never felt so dull! I went food shopping today and thought I bought everything I needed to make scrambled tofu, but I forgot the onions. 🙁