Crush, Commit, or Cancel v1: Sleep Masks, RTD Protein, and Creatine

Three things I tried this month — one I can’t sleep without, one I buy by the case, and one I’m done wasting money on. Crush, commit, or cancel.

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):

• A $15 sleep mask outperformed every fancy recovery gadget I own — and there’s real cardiometabolic science behind why darkness matters.

• Nurri is the protein Goldilocks: 30g per can, recyclable, and the easiest way to backstop the 30/10 Standard on days life blows up your meal plan.

• Creatine gummies are a tax on convenience you don’t need to pay — the powder is the identical molecule for a fraction of the price.

• Practical over perfect: the right tool is the one you’ll actually use on a chaotic Tuesday.

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Each month I take three things floating around dad-fitness — a supplement, a workout, a trend, a study — and I’m either crushing on it (worth trying), committing to it (a proven keeper), or canceling it (hyped, but the evidence doesn’t hold up). Think kiss/marry/kill, but for guys whose date-night dinner hits 40 grams of protein.

A nod to Melissa Urban, whose “Kiss, Marry, or Kill” Substack segment inspired the format. I’m just running it through a dadbod filter.

Crush: Sleep masks

I avoided sleep masks for years. It felt like sleep virtue-signaling, and falling asleep has never been an issue for me. Then my wife packed one for a recent trip — hotel rooms have so many rogue LEDs blinking from every device, the under-door light, the gap in the less-than-blackout curtains — and I was sold by night two. Three weeks later, I haven’t slept without one. Even in our bedroom, which is already pretty dark.

The one that Emily picked up for me is the Mavogel cotton mask — it has little molded cups that hold the fabric off your eyelids, so nothing presses on your eyes. Game-changer compared to the cheap satin ones that smush against your face all night.

Here’s why it matters more than you’d think. Your suprachiasmatic nucleus — the master clock in your brain — uses light to set every downstream rhythm in your body: melatonin release, core body temperature, cortisol patterns, even hunger hormones. And it’s sensitive. In a Northwestern study, a single night of sleeping under moderate room light (100 lux) versus a dim room raised participants’ nighttime heart rate, dropped their heart rate variability, and bumped up their insulin resistance the very next morning.[^1] One night. You’re not just more comfortable in the dark. Your body recovers differently.

Worth noting: that study used room-level light, brighter than most bedrooms. But the mechanism runs the same direction at lower doses, and the fix costs fifteen bucks. Easy yes.

Bonus use case: daytime naps. I sneak in two or three a week, and my old solution was draping a t-shirt over my eyes like a guy who passed out on the couch. The mask is the grown-up version.

Commit: Nurri

If you caught the podcast I did with Michael Easter, we talked about these at the end. I’ve been drinking Nurri for two years — back when they first launched at Costco, before they were on every shelf in America. There isn’t a week that we don’t pick up a case or two at Costco.

30 grams of protein. Comes in a recyclable aluminum can. Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and now coffee (haven’t tried the coffee yet). The strawberry is the best strawberry protein drink I’ve had in years. It ranks at the top for ready-to-drink (RTD) protein beverages. 30g of protein hits the bullseye. When you compare it to CorePower, it’s the protein Goldilocks — not 24g, not 46g, but 30g, just right.

My 15-year-old has a personal record of seven seconds to drain one.

This is exactly the kind of boring, sustainable tool that earns the Commit slot. Hitting the 30/10 Standard at every meal is way easier when you have a 30-gram backstop in the fridge for the days when life detonates your meal plan. Travel days. Between-meeting bridges. The kid’s soccer practice that runs an hour long. You toss one in your bag and you’re covered.

Portable, tastes really good, the ideal protein dose. Nothing to overthink.

Cancel: Creatine gummies

I’m not a gummy guy in general — gummy vitamins usually come with a sugar tax, and the dose per gummy for any supplement is almost always lower than it should be.

Creatine gummies are the worst offender. To hit the 5-gram daily dose that actually moves the needle on strength and power output, you’re chewing through a fistful of gummies — and paying a steep premium over plain creatine monohydrate powder. The molecule is identical. Your muscles cannot tell the difference between the gummy and the unflavored powder.

The pitch is convenience — no shaker, no mixing. I get it. But I inevitably have a protein shake of some sort each day, and it’s pretty easy to add in one scoop of creatine.

Creatine monohydrate is one of the most studied supplements in existence. Don’t pay a premium to put it in candy form.

What would you crush, commit, or cancel this month? Hit reply or comment — best ones could make my next issue.

[^1]: Mason IC, Grimaldi D, Reid KJ, et al. “Light exposure during sleep impairs cardiometabolic function.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022;119(12):e2113290119. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2113290119