"Dancin' in the Dark, Middle of the Night," "Dancing on the Ceiling!" (1997 & 1986)
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
According to my Garmin watch, I fell asleep at 9:08 PM and woke up at 11:10 PM. I do remember being up around 11:30 PM. And while I tried to find my way back to weaving dreams, I just could not!
So, now at 1:10 AM, what do I do? I write and turn on my "radio:" This is Music: 1986. First song? Something About You by Level 42. OK, so that's an '85 song, but it gets me.
Now that I am below 200, I am taking things to the max! I am observing everything in my life and optimizing! I'm going Back to the Future (1985)!
ChatGPT
Come mid-August, my $20/month ChatGPT subscription will be over. It's a handy tool to pull from the toolbox. There's not a day that I don't use it extensively. Past prompts like:
Query 1: "What are the benefits and drawbacks of Scentbird?"
I was debating if I should extend my Scentbird. Yeah, I did hang up my prior subscription, but I was so delighted that my shipment FINALLY arrived that I renewed it for August.
Ehh, but I have since felt regret.
It is too expensive even if it is for designer colognes. The price is the equivalent of paying $214 for a 3.4 oz blindfolded. I do like Confession of a Rebels' Better Than Your Ex though it doesn't stick around for long. Tommy Bahama's Maritime Triump is a little too sweet for me.
What is queued for August?
- English Laundry's Midnight Gold (bergamot, mandarin, patchouli, sandalwood, musk)
- Tru Western's Yellowstone Ride (raw bergamot, crisp clary sage, smoked whiskey, charred vanilla, rough cut tobacco)
Query 2: "What scales does Kelly Hogan like?"
Weight & Bodyfat %
I didn't have to use ChatGPT to find this answer. My wife emailed Kelly directly! I already knew about her leanings toward the Vivitar Body Analysis Digital Bathroom Scale. Now I prefer my medical scale that I bought in 2015, but I am hoping this thing will have the same level of accuracy, but more importantly, I want the fat analysis. I used to have one that was like a console controller that proved pretty useless.
Glucose & Ketones
While I was unsure of her take on glucose & ketone testers, Kelly also suggested the Keto-Mojo, a device that tests blood for both glucose and ketones, as featured on Dr. Boz's for her Blood Glucose:Ketone ratio:
- < 80: Weightloss - Might get autophagy
- < 40: Repair of Immune System - Solid chance of autophagy
- < 20: Goal for Cancer Patients - Best chance of autophagy
And I watched this amusing bit on a recorded live stream from Dr. Berry and his wife about Kelly's take on Great Value burgers.
Blood Pressure
Finally, I also went with an Omron upper arm cuff blood pressure monitor, a practice I once did all up to my time in Alaska, but didn't board the plane with it.
These days, I only wish I had taken all these numbers daily since my carnivore kickoff. That said, this is the place on the scale where I'm amping up things for effect. I am NOT going to hit 182 again and think it is a win.
It is @163, 1995 or bust.
Query 3: Best Supplements
I already do 32 oz of coffee which optimizes caffeine intake. But, green tea and ECCG keep popping up time and again. Thus, I'm going back to 2018 and bringing that to 2024! I'd welcome drinking sencha again, though that perk doesn't hit until I hit @189. Thus, instead of paying for a month of ChatGPT, I am hip throwing Andrew Jackson onto a bottle of Green Tea extract with 45% EGCG.
Move
And AccuRadio's '86 selection now plays the helluva selection from '84, Bryan Adams's duet with Tina Turner, It's Only Love from '84.
You can live without the aggravation
You gotta wanna win, you gotta wanna win
You keep looking back in desperation
Over and over and over again
OK, it has moved to Sledgehammer. I can do that.
Yesterday morning, for a 52-minute cardio workout, I worked the backyard over with a weedwacker before putting the mower through its paces. Later that day, I spent an hour on my walking pad (another Kelly Hogan suggestion off her Amazon list).
Earlier this year, I had a 39-day streak of hitting my target of 10,944 steps, my best since I started counting in 2013. Yesterday was checking off Day 1 of challenging that record. Incidentally prior to that event, I haven't crossed that 10,944 threshold since July 1. You'd think that sort of thing to accomplish in a day would be trivial. But ya cannot be a slap-happy slacker and pull it off.
Perhaps, the place I find my mental space can be best defined by a November '07 episode of Battlestar Galactica *entitled *Razor:
Sometimes, we have to leave people behind, so that we can go on. So that we can continue to fight.
Sometimes, we have to do things that we never thought we were capable of, if only to show the enemy our will.
Yesterday, you showed me that you were capable of setting aside your fear, setting aside your hesitation, and even your revulsion—every natural inhibition that during battle can mean the difference between life and death.
When you can be this for as long as you have to be, then you're a razor. This war is forcing us all to become razors because if we don't, we don't survive. And then we don't have the luxury of becoming simply human again.
It's about one thing: Going the Distance (1976).