The Science of Self-Help

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Day 317 & Complete Willpower Drain

Day 317 Record Keeping
Day 286 Fixed Meditation 
Day 232 Bodyweight Exercise  (5 rounds, Tabata)
Day 159 Writing (did not do)
Day 332 Eating = 72
Day 89 Work = 61 (did not do)
Ok sleep, great wakeup.

Complete Willpower Drain
Today I experienced a really severe willpower drain.

I woke up, pretty well rested. I did my meditation, then moved on to bodyweight exercises. I did 5 rounds of Tabatas, 20 seconds on as fast as possible, 10 seconds (stairclimbers, air squats, jumping jacks, jumping lunges) and got really really tired. 

That feeling of carb/willpower drain was really powerful - I really had no urge to do anything, so I attempted to watch some funny shows. Then I made a big breakfast - fats, protein, veggies. Then I grabbed a coke thinking that sugar would replenish my ego depletion. Unfortunately the only thing I had available was diet coke. I tried to monitor to see if I felt a replenishment.

A little bit. Slowly got up to a 3-4/10 on willpower.

I couldn’t concentrate on anything - the starting inertia for writing was just insurmountable today, and that meant that work didn’t get done either. It’s now 10 PM, and even though I had a carby and cheaty dinner (Fish and Chips at a pub), my will hasn’t seemed to have returned as much as I would’ve liked.

Lydia suggested that I should take the weekend off. She asked me when the last time I had off from this project was….other than when I was too busy from traveling or sick that last time was March 22nd, 2014.

Mind you, it might just be because I had a hard workout. It might be that I need to stagger or shift things if I’m depleted. Or it might be that I need to have a carb heavy day and drink a post workout shake with dextrose to recover.

I’m going to monitor how I feel tomorrow. But I might very well take the weekend completely off entirely - call it a tactical rest weekend.