Woke up crusty this morning. I\u2019ve had what we used to describe as the \u201ccreeping crud\u201d for about a week now. Started out as a runny nose, then moved to an itchy throat, and now it\u2019s become a nice productive cough. All of these have been relatively mild \u2013 but it\u2019s annoying as hell. In addition, we\u2019re now at a point where I fear H1N1 (hamthrax) when I stub my toe \u2026 so there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Really looking forward to the judo tournament tomorrow. I\u2019m hoping that the crustiness doesn\u2019t affect the competition. If I feel contagious, I\u2019ll pull myself out of the tournament. Infecting a bunch of international athletes just feels rude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went ahead and did the experiment of going into full \u201ctraining\u201d mode like a real athlete \u2026 and it\u2019s been instructive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First off: I think that athletes work really hard. My \u201cfull on training\u201d mode consisted of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* Exercising at least a little bit every single day, and working out seriously at least every other day
* No alcohol whatsoever
* Getting to bed by 11<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I already eat pretty healthy, but I made an effort to avoid the mid-afternoon ice cream sundae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result was startling. I was already feeling fit and healthy, walking around at between 173 and 176 pounds (I fluctuate by three pounds \u2013 even weighing myself at the same time under the same conditions every day). This morning I weighed myself at 167. That\u2019s at least four pounds of flab that just melted away under fairly mild training conditions. I can\u2019t imagine what would happen if I took these changes to heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are two reasons this might matter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* For my general health, I don\u2019t think it matters at all. By any measure (BMI, activity level, \u2026) I was already in awesome shape. I\u2019m moving around within a band of \u201chealthy weight for me.\u201d Also, to reassure people who might jump me for caring about BMI \u2013 I\u2019m the body type for which they created BMI. When I weigh 172, I\u2019m able to participate in the activities that I want to do \u2013 I don\u2019t get tired easily, and I\u2019m happy with how I look. Let\u2019s be clear: I don\u2019t give a damn about *your* BMI \u2013 but I\u2019m happy with mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* The other reason it might matter is that judo tournaments are broken up into weight classes. If I pass certain thresholds, I have to fight either much smaller or much larger guys. Those boundaries are 162lbs and 178lbs. So I\u2019m in no danger whatsoever of breaking either of those limits. I bet that if I was willing to really work at it, I could get down to 162 \u2013 but there\u2019s no point. I would rather feel strong where I am. I\u2019m also going to weigh in with my pants on. I may not even put down my gym bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t feel particularly better. I find that I wake up easier \u2013 having gone to bed earlier. I find that my endurance at the gym is quite good \u2013 but I\u2019ve always been able to keep up, mostly. I hate dedicated cardio workouts with a passion \u2013 so I have very little data on whether this has affected endurance at all. My body may recover from little bruises and sprains more rapidly if I don\u2019t pour beer on it \u2026 but I don\u2019t have the data to tell. The small-annoying-injury rate has increased in line with the frequency of workouts \u2026 so it\u2019s hard to tell whether I\u2019m healing faster or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Woke up crusty this morning. I\u2019ve had what we used to describe as the \u201ccreeping crud\u201d for about a week now. Started out as a runny nose, then moved to an itchy throat, and now it\u2019s become a nice productive cough. All of these have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1887,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions\/1887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}