How to Eat Fried Worms

     If you have never read the book 'How to Eat Fried Worms', I would highly suggest you do. As an adult it should be a fairly quick read. The basic premise is that a boy must eat fifteen worms in fifteen days. Yes, it is a bit disgusting but it is really funny and it also shows you what you can accomplish if you have enough drive. Sadly, this book is one that is often banned for some stupid reason. Now, of course, that will make you really want to read the thing but honestly there is nothing really offensive in the book; nothing lascivious or weird except the 'eating worms' part of it. Why am I talking about this book which many of you may have already read or will never have any intention of reading? Let me get to the point.

     You would think that the real challenge in the book would be eating worms everyday but that's not really it. The true challenge arises when he has to make sure that he eats that worm before midnight because if he doesn't he won't really be eating a worm a day and that messes everything up. I, personally, have found myself empathizing with the main character, Bobby, quite a bit as of late. With my new drive to be the best me I can be (read previous post), I try to squeeze in at least one workout a day. Some days it is very hard to squeeze everything in under the line. If it is a good day, I can squeeze a 20-30 minute weight session in the morning and 20-30 minutes of plyometrics or cardio in the evening or vice versa. During a very busy day I am happy to be able to pull off one of those and get some brisk walking in at work. Now there are days, due to time constraints and early meetings, I can't get the early set in and must pile it all up for an evening set.  The worst days are ones where there are early meetings and late obligations and these days find me trying to pound out as much as I can at around 10 o'clock at night. This is very bad jou jou.

     The rare but undesirable late workout has a very bad effect on me: my metabolism is so revved up that sleep becomes one of those things other people do. The good part? I get to catch up on infomercials. Yay for me. The worst part? After all that working out and not sleeping I have now succeeded in building muscle but have stopped all physical processes that cut fat. Sleep cuts fat. I should say that reasonable sleep cuts fat. Sleep also helps repair damage that happens after exercise. All that running, extending, weight training and box jumping tears muscle fibers. So when you lose sleep the body has less time to clean up the mess and rebuild itself in a stronger fashion.

    Now you think I would buffer this with perhaps a little more sleep in the morning but I have recently acquired the disease of waking with the first light just like my father and my aunts and uncles. I need no alarms, I am just wired that way now. It's fantastic! (where is the sarcasm tag???). So 5:45 or 6AM, I am up and at 'em, reading posts, feeding animals, mixing protein shakes and working out. Don't get me wrong, I like all of those things - mostly.  I will say that the workout is so much harder to get motivated for in the morning after a late workout. Now I could skip but it is the principle of the thing; I made myself the promise to eat the damned worm and I am going to eat it damn it.

    I guess the whole point of this post is that you should eat friend worms and wake up at dawn. Wait...uh no. The whole point is to get your sleep and to stay driven but mostly get your sleep. After a very busy week of running around I got 10 hours of miraculous sleep Sunday morning and the weird thing is that I felt I had just walked out of some fantastic slimming machine. That told me that my metabolism was up from building muscle and that my body had fed off my own fat like it was at an all you can eat buffet. I looked good and I felt good. It pays to let the sandman do his job.

   Next Week: 'Where the Red Fern Grows' and its impact on drop sets and interval training.