Archive for December, 2006
Dan on December 17th, 2006
About 35 hours into polyphasic sleep I realized I wasn’t prepared well enough. I didn’t have enough to keep me busy and the motivation to pull through. I woke up from my 2AM nap today very tired. I had trouble falling asleep for most of my naps and hit REM in very few of them. I could have kept going as I managed to make it to 5AM before giving up. At that point I made the decision that I need to prepare better before continuing.
I want to work on my new website idea but I still haven’t come up with a domain. I have a few in mind but I’m being very indecisive. I have a few other things I want to do but they require reading and learning, both of which are very hard when you’re awake at 3AM and feeling very sleep deprived. I have the first season of the X-Files and the game Farcry to keep me distracted from sleep but they only go so far. I want to use at least some of this extra time constructively but I just didn’t have things ready to go.
I’ll be starting again sometime this week. I want to spend the next few days getting things together and planned out before the next round. I also want to start taking frequent naps to get used to them again. Last year when I did polyphasic sleep for the first time I had no trouble falling asleep. I’m not sure what has changed this year. Overall it was going pretty well until I took that 2AM nap. I wasn’t feeling very tired beforehand but I knew it was going to be tough to get up. By having a short core sleep at night (4.5-6 hours) and taking a few naps during the day I hope to eliminate my napping troubles. I don’t mind sleep deprivation during adjustment due to having less than 3 hours of sleep but I don’t want poor napping to extenuate it.
Structure and routine make the adjustment period easier and I didn’t have that in place. Today I’ll be coming up with a plan for all of my free time during the first week of adjustment. It will be designed to be as constructive as possible while allowing me to pull through the tough 2AM-6AM time period without much thinking.
On a side note the dream journal is going well. I haven’t had much to write in it but I make sure to record if I don’t remember dreaming anyway. I’m logging when I go to bed and when I get up, any dreams I have, and how I feel after waking. At first I wasn’t very clear in my recording. For example, last night for my 10PM nap I wrote “Started dreaming about being on a ship.” I think my recollection of that dream was poor but I could have been less vague. The problem is that when I wake up I may recall the dream well but translating those thoughts onto paper isn’t easy for me to do when I’m half asleep. I write a few things and feel like it will be enough to remember the dream again but it’s gone a few minutes later. I’m learning what works as I go. I hope to get to the point that I’ll automatically wake up and write down the time and a detailed description of my dreams.
Dan on December 15th, 2006
It’s that time of the year again. The birds have flown south, nice cars are packed away in garages, and winter vacation is upon us (or more specifically me). I have 5 weeks off of school with some projects I want to start and TV / movies I want to watch. It’s time to polyphasic sleep again! I learned a lot the first time around so I’m trying to avoid making the same mistakes twice. I will not be taking any extra naps or extending them. Instead of slowly phasing it in with core sleeps and naps I’m jumping in head first. Last night I slept 6 hours and I took my first nap at 6pm. I got some light sleep but not much. I’ll be following the same nap schedule I started with last time on the 2, 6, 10 hours. Meals will be an hour or so prior to naps. This is so I can exercise and drink my post workout shake right afterwards.
This time I may play with some stimulants to see if they help me get through the tough 2AM stretch. Caffeine may help since it tends to last 3-4 hours. Ideally I could take a 200mg tablet before my 2AM nap. Since it takes 30-35 minutes for it to take effect the caffeine would help me wake up and carry on to the next nap. This isn’t something I’ll be doing at first, possibly towards the end of the first week if I think it is absolutely necessary. I don’t want to have as many oversleeps as I did last year.
In my final sleep post back in June I mentioned that my monophasic sleep had been reduced to 6-7 hours a night. That lasted for months, up to the beginning of November or so. It slowly increased until it hit 8 hours a night again. I’m hoping this month of polyphasic sleep will get that hour back when I reenter monophasic sleep.
Another plus to polyphasic sleep is that I will again have plenty of free time to write in my blog. I’m also starting a dream journal today. This will be a written log of any dreams I experience and remember. I’ll be doing it the moment I wake up. I hope that it could help prevent oversleeping and extended naps and possibly improve the likelihood of lucid dreaming.
I will be posting frequent updates on how it goes, at least one update a week. The rest of the week I will be posting about fitness, investing, and whatever else is on my mind.
Dan on December 14th, 2006
Today marked my last day of school in the fall semester. I’m not sure what my grades were for all of my classes but I expect that my overall GPA will be at least 3.8. More importantly I am now on vacation until January 22, 2007. I now have plenty of free time to pursue other interests such as polyphasic sleep, cooking experiments, my new website, and more. Watch for posts in the near future addressing each of these topics.
The spring semester will be my last at Monroe Community College. I’ll be graduating with AS degrees in business administration and computer science. I’ll be applying to “real” colleges soon to pursue a BS with a double major in economics and finance or something else business related. My target school is Columbia, with the University of Rochester as one backup. I believe my other backup will be George Washington University but I’m not 100% on that yet.
I recently had a personal revelation in regards to school. A month or two ago I started thinking about what I want to do when I graduate from MCC. All of a sudden it hit me: school isn’t about getting a degree or a job, it’s about thinking and learning. It had been building in the back of my mind for quite some time but finally broke through all at once. When I first entered college in 2000 at Rochester Institute of Technology all I wanted was the piece of paper that said I had a degree. I didn’t really care about the process, just the end result. I think that was a big part of my failing the first time around. I wasn’t interested in college, I was interested in getting out of college. Unfortunately that’s a very common way of thinking among our colleges and universities today. The original concept has been watered down and lost at may places of higher education. Students don’t realize that it is the process of getting the degree that is important, not the degree itself.
That has completely changed for me. I’ve decided to shoot for the moon and apply to Columbia not just based on its high level of respect but because it is an old institution based on old concepts of what college is all about. I want to experience college, not just pass through the halls of famous old buildings. Had I felt this way the first time around I may not be where I am today.
Dan on December 10th, 2006
Last year I posted my goal of forming a diet and nutrition plan based on Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. I wish I read it years ago! It gave me a complete understanding of how to properly organize meals and eat correctly. I’ve followed it now for a bit over a year and I’ve never looked back. Sure, there have been plenty of days that saw the consumption of foods from the list of things you should never eat. However, even on those days I still followed most of my meals.
So what does my current diet look like? I eat 6 meals a day for a total caloric intake of about 2350 kcal. Over the past 2 months I’ve raised and lowered my total intake. For over a month I was eating 2500+ kcal a day. That was a bit much so I lowered it to 2350 kcal. For my current activity level I find this to be just right.
This isn’t to say that I’ve been very strict. I was strict from when I started in November 2005 to the end of March / beginning of April. At that point I was reintroduced to my nemesis: jellybeans. Jellybeans are one of my favorite food products. Easter is prime jellybean time. I had decided that I would enjoy a few of the little balls of sugar since I had been so strict for so long. The problem was “a few” meant an entire bag in one sitting, and multiple bags per week. I had gone for so long without sugar I forgot how good it was and over compensated. That goes to show how important cheat meals can be.
From that point on I continued to follow my nutrition plan but cheated a lot more than I should have. I’d go for a few weeks without any cheating and then I’d hit the candy hard. Over the past few months I’ve gone way overboard, eating all kinds of junk food. I have developed the bad tendency of eating an entire package of something in one sitting. I never used to do that but for some reason I do now. I knew I would gain fat with the plan of losing it again before spring. At this point I think I’ve gained enough fat. I started at about 140 lbs and about 10% body fat at the end of summer. I’m now about 150 lbs and 18% body fat. Those body fat numbers aren’t necessarily accurate as they came from a scale and not calipers, but they illustrate how eating the wrong foods in excess can impact your body.
I’ve begun figuring out how I’m going to get rid of this excess weight, my “cutting plan” so to speak. For the next two weeks I’ll be sticking to my current 2350 kcal diet with some minor cheating allowed. I’ll be visiting my parents the week of Christmas. As such, there will be travel, Christmas dinners, Christmas junk foods such as candy and cookies, etc. I will still stick with my meal plan but won’t be strict. I want to spend that week enjoying myself, my family, and food. January is when the fun begins…
January 1, 2007 will be the beginning of my cutting plan. My diet will be reduced to 2200 kcal with very restricted cheating, limited to one meal per week and only within my total 2200 kcal guidelines. Those calories will be distributed as 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat. I will continue to follow the Max-OT workout plan that I’ve been following since February. I’m currently hitting the gym 5 days a week with 2 days off. That will be changing, with 5 days of lifting and 2 days of cardio as I was doing over the summer. If after 2 weeks I don’t notice much loss of fat I’ll cut my diet to 2100 kcal. That should be plenty low enough to see results. If not, I’ll continue cutting out 100 kcal a week until I see what I want. I’m aiming at losing at least 1.5 lbs of fat each week, with a total loss of 15 lbs of fat. My overall goal is 8% body fat. While I could lose it quicker than that there would be greater muscle loss, which I want to avoid as much as possible.
One thing I haven’t discussed much is my supplementation plan. I’ll be writing an article about supplementation in the future but I’ll cover my current and future plans here. Currently I’m taking a cheap multi-vitamin, a fish oil cap (for Omega 3s), 2 green tea caps (EGCG and antioxidants), 2 500mg Ester-C caps (immune system boost and antioxidants), 3 CLA caps (promotes greater muscle gain vs fat gain), 4 Z Force caps (ZMA + test boosters, questionable), and 2 25mg DHEA tabs on workout days (test booster). I always make sure to research supplements before I try them. Pubmed is your friend. I was taking Diesel Fuel before as a thermogenic and metabolism booster, but they recently changed it and added a lot more caffeine and Yohimbe. I didn’t want to take it regularly because of that, but I’m considering adding it back in at least a few days a week.
So that’s where I stand today. I watch my diet closely and know what everything I put in my body will do. Measuring and tracking everything comes naturally now. I’m not sure how I managed without doing either for 23 years of my life.
Dan on December 3rd, 2006
Seeing how it has been nearly a year since my first goal was posted I thought it would be suitable to review my goals. I haven’t looked at this list in quite a while and the results are mixed.
Goal #1: Sell One Item A Day
This goal was short lived. I did manage to sell off a lot of my extra junk over the past year, but not one item a day. I probably have enough stuff to get rid of that I could continue this. Not a high priority, but something I could start doing again.
Goal #2: Write A Blog Entry Every Day
This is another goal I followed for a while and then gave up. With polyphasic sleep I had plenty of time to blog. After I was done I lost all that extra free time and lost some of my interest in the site. I don’t plan on posting EVERY day, but I do plan on posting frequently again. I have plenty to write about.
Goal #3: Attempt polyphasic sleep for a minimum of one month
Goal #3 was accomplished. I followed polyphasic sleep for a month. When I went back to school I had to switch back to “normal” sleep because of my long schedule. Towards the end I was having frequent oversleeps. An interesting side effect I found over the past year is that my “normal” sleep went from 8 hours a day to 7 hours. Over the past month and a half or so it slowly increased back to 8 hours. I’m going to try to get another month of polyphasic sleep in once this school semester is over. That should give me time to work on some projects and possibly get that hour back again.
Goal #4: Between my personal net worth and the value of any companies I totally control I have a total worth of at least $1 million by the age of 30
Goal #4 was very ambitious. Making $1 million in 5 years is no easy task. Over the past year I’ve been met with a number of setbacks. My biggest investment had a bunch of issues. Overall I made quite a bit off of it but I was relying on it for income when they ran into trouble. They had to freeze accounts for a few months and I lost 40% of my principle. I was forced to take money out of my trading account to pay the bills. Fast forward to a month ago. I sold my investment property that never worked out. I paid off the bills, put some cash in my bank, and have the money to open another brokerage account.
I would love to have a high net worth at 30, and I think it’s still possible, but it is no longer as important to me. I will have that money at some point but it may not be as soon. I will outline what has changed in a future post.
Goal #6: Fix My Diet
Goal #6 was completed last year. I will be making another post about my diet and exercise but I’ll summarize here. Overall my diet has been good. Over the past month or two I haven’t been as strict but I still follow the basic guidelines.
Goal #6 2: Exercise
Apparently I numbered 3 of my goals 6. I never caught that before. Anyway, this goal was specific to my exercise goals. I met them. I was at about 10% body fat all summer. I decided I wanted to ease up on my food restrictions and bulk up so I started eating a lot more in October. My body fat is a lot higher now, around 17%. I plan on cutting in a few months and losing it all again.
Goal #6 3: Forex Investing
I had planned on developing a trading strategy and using it to earn a decent return. I did develop a few strategies that work but they require trading at times I’m not usually available. I haven’t made any trades in a while. The last few I made months ago were based on news trades and were profitable. I may do more news trading in the future. As I’ll cover in another post, I’ve taken an interest in economics and that can help predict the outcome of a news release.
Goal #7: 5 Year Financial Goals
These goals still stand. I’d like to have my income come from passive sources in 5 years.
Goal #8: Achieve a minimum GPA of 3.8 at my new school.
By the end of this semester goal #8 will be achieved. Last semester I got one B and the rest were As. I’ll probably get all As this semester, bringing my GPA up from 3.7 to 3.8 something.
Goal #9: Ambidexterity
I haven’t done much with this goal. I still write with my right hand at times when I’m bored in class. My handwriting is at a low elementary school level with that hand. Next time I’m at a store that has them I’m going to check out children’s handwriting books. This is a low priority goal so I haven’t put much effort into it.
There you have it. I’ll be outlining some new goals soon. The results from this past year have been mixed. How did your goals turn out?
