I want so badly to go to sleep right now

post-format: "html" post-tags: bodybuilding, insomnia post-mood: sleepy post-music: Concertino for Percussion and Wind Ensemble, David Gillingham

Although there's definitely more mass on my chest, I'm impatient to grow faster. Starting next workout (the day after tomorrow), I'll be adding reverse-grip bench press and seated landmine presses to my workouts. I just can't do anymore sets of close-grip incline bench press, and I shouldn't do any more sets because the lack of fatigue in my chest suggests that the exercise isn't efficiently targeting my chest. At the same time, it's heavily targeting my arms (and, supposedly, joints and connective tissue), and I don't want or need that. I could be using more arms for something else, like more pullups or chinups (I can do only one of these at a time with full range of motion, that is, pulling myself up from a dead hang).

I've tried the reverse-grip bench press in the past, but the awkwardness of the exercise and the difficulty of progressing in terms of the amount of weight I can lift with it pushed me to give it up. The awkwardness made the lift dangerous, and it seemed that I could never lift more than twenty pounds. Lifting heavier will make it even more dangerous. I tried the exercise again tonight, and it seems that the difficulty with progression lies with the exercise's reliance on wrist strength. The wrists being made of small and generally not-much-used muscles, strengthening them will take some time, but I'm willing to put in the time now that I have the proper technique for this lift and the motivation of having hit a brick wall with other bench press variations.

The results of my blood work show that my liver is working normally. I'm not at all surprised. Still, I'm going to have an ultrasound of my liver and then a phone appointment with the liver clinic the day after. I don't know what the point of all this is. The liver clinic wanted me to have either a face-to-face appointment or a video appointment, but I refused. Last time I went to that goddamned hospital (which is three counties away), I ended up stranded miles away from home because of the unfavorable bus schedule. I also had to pay sixteen dollars round-trip to get there and back. Way too expensive. So I'm never going to that hospital again.

I want so badly to go to bed right now, but I know that I won't be able to sleep if I do so, and I'll risk not sleeping at all tonight if I do so. Oh, and that reminds me, I sent my sleep diary to the VA sleep psychologist a couple of days ago. In response, she mentioned that I still seemed to have insomnia (NO SHIT!) and said that she could offer me no other suggestions except CBT, which I'd rejected during our video appointment last month.

So I basically wasted my time keeping the diary and lost sleep unnecessarily (I eliminated the late morning hours of sleep I'd been getting because she'd advised me to consolidate my sleep into one block after I'd told her that hours passed between the sleep I got at night and the sleep I got in the morning).

Would rather be a hardgainer

post-format: "html" post-tags: bodybuilding, feminism, diet, insomnia post-mood: tired

It's gonna be a while before my triceps are strong enough for me to reverse bench press weight sufficient to develop my upper chest.

I abandoned my daily three-hour walk early yesterday because I got sick of the screaming kids and people blocking my path. There were two or three different soccer practices happening on the field around which runs the track I walk on, and there was an unusual number of parents and onlookers/other youth hanging out on the track. I mean I guess I haven't been walking the track long enough to really know what's unusual, but it was more crowded than it's been since I started except for when I showed up at actual games.

This episode made me notice that I've been sick of the noise and people looking at me as I walk by. Just sick of being around people in general. So I wanted to try a different track, a less crowded place, and that led to my discovery of a hiking trail at the edge of town this evening. Nice. Isolated. But I'd have to leave earlier in the day to spend much time on this trail because I can't see my way along it for long after the sun sets. I've been taking my walks between 5 and 9 pm. I can't really take them earlier because I can't spend long in the sun without getting headaches, and the earlier part of the day is when I lift weights.

My feet hurt from standing all day + the walking, but I don't want to sit down. I want to keep studying at my computer. I was in the last third of a ferocious German vocabulary-building session when I noticed the time and stopped to compose this post.

Something great has happened. I've somehow got my number of daily meals down to four. Fewer calories without too much hunger. I think it's the walk that's done it; I don't feel much hunger when I'm exercising lightly.

I've had to add carbs to my diet around the walk. My typical low-carb, high-protein meal, especially after the walk, leaves me feeling like I need more.

War exists because of men. Never forget that. Of course there are people who'll say that women too would wage war if given the chance...but there's no evidence whatsoever that that's true. Honestly, I get the sense that there's been a grave misapplication of the concept of "sexual equality," that people take it to mean that we should think of men and women as if we're psychologically and behaviorally similar.

Since consolidating my sleep into one short block has done nothing for me, I've drifted back to my two-phase sleeping pattern: I sleep from around 3 AM until 8 AM, then again somewhere between 9 AM and 11 AM. The melatonin hasn't really helped me sleep more; it just makes me groggy. It might be the reason I'm able to get a bit of extra sleep in the later hours of the morning, but I'll find out tomorrow whether that's so because I'm going to stop taking the pills.

I took up the three-hour walks to lose fat. Although I've lost any noticeable amount so far, my thighs are noticeably harder, and they weren't really soft to begin with, just covered with a layer of fat. It seems that my body prioritizes putting on muscle over losing fat. I think the opposite would be easier for me to deal with. Being a hardgainer just means eating a ton and exercising heavy and hard. That I can do, that I have the motivation for. And there's plenty of high-calorie food that would help me if I struggled to put on weight. But losing fat is much tougher.