Thursday, October 21, 2010

A (semi) serious moment

I haven't been wanting to make too much of this, but lately I've been forgetting things. Today, I walked into a meeting of several of my co-workers, and I had to take a few small notes. One of those notes was to add my boss to the invite list for a meeting I'm having next week. As I stood there and looked at him for 30 seconds, I couldn't remember my boss' name. I literally had to look at everyone else in the room and think through their names before I could remember his.

And this isn't the first time this type of thing has happened of late. It's not like any of them are serious things, like I don't forget who or where I am. But I've been far more forgetful over the past few weeks of little things that I've never had problems with before. Maybe it's just the first signs that I'm getting older and a bit slower on recalling things. But these are all simple things that I shouldn't be having problems with. It could be a lot of things; stress, too much caffeine, poor sleep quality, or perhaps even the after effects of the header I took during the Landmine Classic.

The sleep apnea is the most likely culprit, as memory problems along with headaches are primary symptoms of the disorder. If that's the case, at least I'm already getting treatment, and I know what and how to help with that treatment. My current mask isn't working well, so I ordered a replacement mask this week that arrived today. This model is the best one I've ever had, and they simply were out of stock on them when I got my replacement machine. A mask that fits well goes a long way to helping get a good nights sleep.

If it is the apnea, that also helps explain in part why I've been having food and exercise motivation issues. When my apnea is affecting me, my motivation to workout is way down, and my food cravings go way up as my body fights to power through the lack of sleep. I tend to take the lazy way out on eating during these times as well, which only adds to my desire for junk. It sounds like a bit of an excuse, but when I've had problems in the past with this, these are the things I see happening.

It's funny in a way that there's a bit of a "catch 22" to all of this. To be less affected by my apnea, the best answer is to lose weight. But when my apnea is causing me problems, all I want to do is be lazy and eat. I guess the way to look at it is that it makes it that much more of a goal to overcome these extra challenges to lose the weight I want need to.

Notes:

 - I played a little NHL Slapshot to try and get in a little workout in the house, but I wound up not even breaking a sweat. I had meant to cardio it up with some Wii Boxing, but I couldn't find the darn Wii Sports disc. I wasn't motivated enough to hit the gym and swim, and it was too dark for the bike. I need to buy some damn lights next week.

- This morning I read a blog entry from my friend Mandy, who got up at 4:30 AM today to run. If she can do that, I can certainly run sometime this evening, and I will.

- Finally, a shout out to The Big Tuna, who has lost 30 pounds since July. He has done a lot more with his weight loss than I have this year, and in a lot less time. But there's still plenty of time left. My goal for the rest of the year is to get to where he is now. He's a little down about his first mountain bike ride ending in a DNF right now. Oh, but did I mention his attempt was at a 60 mile ride? He did 20 of it in his first organized ride, so to me that's ANYTHING but a DNF.

2 comments:

  1. If you are looking for a small light to wear when running or biking I highly recommend the RoadID Firefly. I use it for me and the puppy. Works much better than reflectors. If you do not have and ID tag for when you work out you might want to look into theirs as well. My husband and I both use them. I wear mine almost all the time so I always have identification on me no matter what I am doing. (no I do not get paid to promote them) Hope you have a great weekend and the memory problem improves.

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  2. Bar, Rach and I have been looking at RoadID for a while, probably time to invest in that, maybe fore Christmas.

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