If you have been watching the World Series at all, you have seen these Viagra commercials where there is a guy out in the middle of nowhere when something happens. Now what I don't get is what this has to do with Erectile Disfunction and your need to get your junk working when you are driving through a desert. In the Carmaro commercial there is at least a mechanic there, so if that is what he is in to, more power to him. Another one, involves a truck pulling a horse trailer getting stuck in the mud. A little Cleopatraish, but nowadays with the internet, people can get into some weird crap. The one that blows my mind is the boat one. Because when you are sailing out in the middle of the ocean by yourself, you could really use a prolonged appearance from your "first mate".

On top of this gem of brilliance, the commercials are all tinted blue. If you listen to the end of the commercial whne it is giving the warnings, it reminds you that you may experience abnormal vision. (It also mentions that if Mr. Pesky sticks around for more than 4 hours you might have an issue, unless of course you are on a boat by yourself or have a pair of horses handy.) If you don't recall, the abnormal vision is that you see everything tinted blue and can't distinguish between blue and green. Yeah I can't make this up. In fact it is suspect some actor crashed his airplane because of it.

I am guessing we are to believe that these guys are on Viagra, because ... well ... everything is blue. They are out in the middle of nowhere cruising around, very much like that nightmare you had in junior high boy when you were asked to write on the chalkboard in front of class. I am curious "What kind of perverts they are marketing to?", and the more obvious question, "How come there still isn't an over the counter version?". 

I am sure you have it too maybe to a greater or lesser degree than I do, but inside your head it exists. Whether or not it is contagious, I can't tell you. It seems like it is.

Akrasia is "the state of acting against one's better judgment", and some of you are thinking you might have that. I am not talking about those nights when you have had a few and you decide that not only should tell your boss how you really feel about them but you should throw in what you think about their wife too. (Although presumably, that is related and nine times out of ten akrasia is what got you telling all like a drunken Gossip Girl.) Today I am more focused on the times that you have the ability to make the right decision and chose not to.

One of the biggies for me is procrastination. I know that I need to do something, and I know that not doing it will be bad for me. For whatever reason, I don't do it anyway. It doesn't apply to everything. I make sure my kids are taken care of, but cutting the grass can invariably wait. Not indefinitely, of course, but I will wait until the grass is twice as hard to cut because my poor lawnmower is choking on the waist high grass like a smoker during a 10K. If you haven't figured it out, I am probably supposed to be doing something else right now. Hey at least I am not on Facebook right now.

The other nemesis is my diet. I can give mini lectures on Glycemic index and gluten sensitivity. I can even tell you how much better I felt when I stick to my zone/paleo diet and why you should too. I can tell you how my recovery times are greater and that I was able to do more work at the gym and at my job because I was clear headed. I can explain the low acid and low inflamation diets and how they can help you avoid pain and soreness after a tough workout. And I can do all that while eating german chocolate cake with coconut icing and drinking a beer. I am okay with veering off the diet once in a while, but it seems like there is always a good reason. It is a holiday, it is a birthday, there is a party, it is Gregor Mendel's 189th birthday. Whatever the reason, there is always a reason. Sometimes I can't even get it right with something as simple as, the next day I feel better if I drink red wine instead of beer. There is a clear alternative, but I don't take it. Part of me believes the adage, "If you crave it, you are probably allergic to it on some level" because that seems to be the case especially with gluten. On an aside, arkrasia doesn't seem to affect my exercise regiment nearly as badly as my diet. The two seem to flop, meaning I eat better and exercise less, while traveling(sometimes they both go to crap while traveling too, but normally they don't).

Don't get me wrong, I am not a total wreck. I get most things done in a reasonable amount of time, and I am not morbidly obese. But when it comes down to the choice, I sabotage my ability to lose another 20 pounds or get yard of the month. The articles I found talk about having discussions with yourself about the values of doing what it is you are avoiding and how they link up into the big picture. They also discuss understanding the dichotomy of the long term self (frequently more rational and goal based) and the short term self(generally less goal based and hedonistic). So based on their strategies, I am going to try reminding myself how doing the right thing fits into the vision of future Nate, and fracturing work into smaller packages so I don’t delay as long.

I think their research is strong on understanding what the problem is, but it is weak on their solutions. I am going to give it a try and I will let you know what I find, heck I might even write a book about it, but I won’t start on it until tomorrow.

Some of the Articles I found:

If you read only one, I recommend this one- http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/10/11/101011crbo_books_surowiecki?currentPage=all

http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/07/15/how-to-cure-deep-procrastination/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StudyHacks+%28Study+Hacks%29&utm_content=Netvibes

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Eric/Overcoming_Akrasia.shtml

If you didn’t already know I recently went in to have my body fat and VO2Max measured. I was interested in my level of fitness now almost two years after I started working on not being a big fatty. I also did it as a baseline against which I can measure my progress this year. I am pretty serious about my fitness now and wish I would have done these tests back when I could give a crap.

Overall I would recommend getting this done. It costs $160 here in Houston at the Memorial Herman Sports Medicine Institute.  They dunk you in a tank and weigh you under water, then you run on a treadmill while wearing a mask.

If you are considering starting a fitness regime I recommend this in addition to taping yourself, weighing yourself and taking before pictures. All of these things are important tools to help you measure your progress, but I especially appreciated seeing my lactate threshold, and VO2Max. These measures are more than how much fat you have, they show me how fit I am. I will be keeping track of these new measurements as well.

My Results

So the results were a bit surprising. I thought I was a bit fatter (assumed I was closer to 27%), but I wouldn’t have guessed that put me in the 20^th percentile.  I thought I was pretty fit in that area, but I guess 8 out of 10 of you aren’t carrying as much body fat. 

My VO2Max was a huge surprise. I didn’t expect it to be that high, and did not expect the 80^th percentile.  This is especially high when you consider the fact that VO2Max is based on your weight. In fact a reduction in my weight will result in a big jump because the measure is of the volume of air divided by the time it took to consume it divided by your weight. If my math is good that means if I lose 13 lbs, I will have a VO2Max over 50.

The Lactate Threshold seems pretty good to me and I didn’t know what to expect. The doctor was impressed with this number and he told his assistant that this is because I do CrossFit.  The doctor seems to think it was even more impressive because I did a workout that morning so I was releasing more CO2 than normal.  He asked how intense it was and I didn’t know. When I told them that I did they laughed, and said it wasn’t normal. (See link http://bit.ly/i9Ga7B for workout.) He said this would lower my lactate threshold but possibly would not affect my VO2Max. He said the hot wings from Hooters 30 minutes prior were a bad idea and probably made the test suck really bad, but wouldn’t affect the test results either.  Lesson learned, next test I won’t be doing that.

The Flexibility Test was thrown in for free, so I knew ahead of time I was going to suck at this one. You bend to touch your toes and she is like whenever you are ready stretch. I said, "I am stretching". Well she said she would give me a ten but that I should probably work on it.

I think the answers are pretty clear about which direction I go from here. My level of fitness is good and the amount I am working out isn’t bad either. I could stand to do more and I will do more, but I am not slacking too much. My big issue is my diet. I eat too much, too often and I drink a lot of beer.  I knew this was an issue, and so I have already started eating better.  I will be doing this test again, and I will let you know how it goes.

I tried a new gym on Saturday and man am I sore today. I am walking around like I sat on the business end of a broomstick. Needless to say it didn't take too much creativity to poke(ha ha) some fun at Nathan. It is all for a good cause, a healthier me. The last time I was this sore, it was largely in part due to an English-accented weight room devil named Paul Disbury. Paul has a magical power to convince you to do things you know you shouldn't do. He would somehow convince you to do 10 more lbs, 10 more times for 10 minutes than you had planned on doing. Then he would torture you while you did it with comments like,  "Let's do negatives!" or "Hold the last one" or "That isn't your sex face is it?". It was all in good fun, and I think part of the pleasure for Paul is at the pub later when we cursed him with every step.

Well this new gym would do Paul proud. I have been looking into it for a while and waited until after the new year because it is not the cheapest. I went for my introduction class and was not disappointed. To give you an idea of the caliber of the class, one of the female instructors was demonstrating pull-ups for us when her shirt came up a bit and showed a bit of a spare tire. The other instructor leaned over and told us that she was about 3 months pregnant. Great. I can't do one pull-up and she is lifting two people. I imagine these would be the same workouts Paul would come up with if you gave him a few rudimentary tools and asked him to create a torture, I mean exercise program.

I will certainly be heading back, as soon as I can walk. You can read about the theory of the gym at Crossfit, or you can read about my gym at www.atomiccrossfit.com.

I give you the Crossfit mascot, Pukie the Clown.

Updated: They posted several pics of me!