TN50#88, The Nightcap Pinball Effect, 12 September 2022

Hi Team,

Happy Monday and welcome to The Next 50 #88.  First off “Thank you” to everyone who replied to my “I Need Help” email from last week, if you missed it, check it out and reply!

I will jump right into one of the responses I received so that we can all learn from it.

*The responses below are from a great friend who kept me out of trouble so that I could keep him out of trouble in many interesting environments all around world.

See if you can spot the theme, it’s pretty tricky!

  1. What is the biggest hindrance to your healthy diet? Cocktail(s) at night leads to late night snacking
  2. What is the one thing that has the biggest positive effect on your diet? Family – wife shares similar philosophy, so we keep each other [mostly] honest. And a desire to teach / model good diet for kids.
  3. What is the biggest hindrance to you getting good sleep? Cocktail(s) referenced above – I “sleep” great…but I know it isn’t clean sleep
  4. What is the one thing that always helps you get a good night’s sleep? Cocktail(s) and a late-night snack!!
  5. What is the biggest hindrance to your regular Movement/Workout plan? I do pretty well here – except if I’m tired or not feeling great after cocktail(s) and late-night snack of something sugary
  6. What is the one thing that always has a positive effect on your Movement/Workout plan? Routine – amazing what you can do when your schedule doesn’t change frequently around a JORT cycle and random wacko deployments!!!!

Were you able to spot it, I’m guessing so.

Let’s go point by point with some general observations:

  1. Biggest negative EAT issue: A night-cap leading to late night snacking. On your EAT framework remember alcohol is recognized as a threat to the body so prioritization goes to metabolizing it as quickly as possible.  What that means for any carbs and fat also consumed is that they have a better chance of getting converted to body fat, yikes!
  2. Biggest positive EAT issue: Nothing but love for surrounding yourself with positive influence and a desire to model good behavior.
  3. Biggest negative SLEEP issue: A night-cap before bed. The fine young fellow who responded with these answers is the same fine young fellow that turned me onto the book, Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker.  So he knows first-hand that alcohol before bed does have a negative effect on overall SLEEP.  The good SLEEP we get when alcohol is in the mix is more like being tranquilized vs. good quality full cycle sleep.
  4. Biggest positive SLEEP issue: A night-cap and late-night snack. I am sensing a bit of sarcasm here, love it! Somethings to remember about snacks before bed:   Our core needs to cool off to promote the onset of good sleep, it can’t do that as efficiently if it’s trying to digest food.  B. The pancreas is basically turned down when melatonin starts floating around in the system, before bed time.  This also causes digestion to be sluggish and allows blood sugar to remain elevated throughout the night.  C. We rebuild and grow during SLEEP; we can’t do that very well at the same time we are digesting food.
  5. Biggest negative MOVE issue: feeling tired after night-caps and sugary snacks before bed! My friend likes to workout first thing in the morning.  The best time to prepare for a great morning workout is the night before.  In this case, and I have also been there many times myself, here is the way forward:  Drink water.  B. Drink black coffee.  C. Settle for B minus work.  D. Go get some!
  6. Biggest positive Move issue: Routine, having a plan, consistency, love it.

I used my buddies’ answers to take you all back to the basics of EAT – SLEEP – MOVE, the guy who’s balls I’m busting is actually kicking much butt in his life after the Army.  We could all learn a lesson or two from him for sure.

As always share the post with your team or anyone who might find it useful and let me know what you think.

Have a good one, Alex

PS – Yesterday was 9/11 and it seemed like just another day.  I brought it up to a few people at church yesterday and it was very obvious that it hadn’t crossed their mind until I mentioned it, I tell myself that this is one of the amazing qualities of the United States.  It totally makes sense that I might wake up and have the first thought, “Today is 9/11” while others would not.  One thing different about this year’s anniversary is that neither of the 2 primary AQ leaders who are credited with the attacks on 9/11 are breathing. Osama Bin Ladin has been dead a while and we took out Ayman al-Zawahiri a little over a month ago.  It took almost 21 years to put a missile down that a-holes throat, this is also one of the amazing qualities of the United States.