Sleep and sugar.

Sleep.

You know, I still can't bring myself to take sleep seriously. For myself, not others. And I've seen the data while I was in grad school. I know that poor sleep patterns and messed up light/dark cycles are connected to having your metabolism totally screwed up. How your body fuels itself is orchestrated by the gene called CLOCK. Nice acronym eh? Well clock genes are responsible for your circadian rhythm. They're turned on and off by light. They control when is the best time to utilize the food you eat. If they're all screwed up, then your body doesn't do a real good job of burning it's fuel. Mice with disrupted clock genes are more than chubby. They're obese, and insulin resistant. Sleeping enough and sleeping regularly is important. You want your body to be charging up for breakfast before you're awake because it knows the schedule.

And yea. Sleep is good for mental alertness or so I've heard. What's that study with the military recruits? That 20 hours of sleep deprivation gives you the same shooting ability as a person with a 0.08 blood alcohol? Did they ever do one with driving? My factoids are gumming up in the gears. I read it at one point, but I couldn't tell you.

Nope, I'm just not mature enough to tackle my sleeping issues just yet. Or to stop taking 3 hour naps in the after noon to make up for 5 hours of sleep at night.

On a second note, the holidays are coming. I say this ominously. My roommate has already been cooking up a storm, and I have participated enough that my sugar cravings have resurfaced. I'm anticipating having to re-curb them, which is always a pain in the ass. The only way I've successfully found to fight full on sugar cravings are to go cold turkey for a week or two, and then to only introduce sweet sugary goodness back into my life once a week. And it suuuuuuuucks. It sucks.

But once I get through that kind of detox, at least my body doesn't have to fight itself anymore. My taste buds revert back into finding sweetness in a much broader range of foods. And best of all, I'm not constantly jonesing for something sweet. I hate sugar cravings. They're constantly crawling and itching at you. Squirming around in your insides. Irritating as hell. Completely distracting. Can't stand it.

So I better do something about them now before the triple threat of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas roll by. If you count the left overs and the pre overs, then you can get a good four months of unrestricted access to anything and everything your cravings desire.

And since I know my limitations, I can only focus on one health related thing at a time it seems. I'm going to put snoozapalooza to the side. As long as I'm getting enough of it, screw the schedule.

Sigh. I hate to do this, but it's time for another weekly round of no processed sugary crap. I keep telling myself I don't have to like it, I just have to do it. Bah.