105.5

I'm now down to 105.5 kilograms (232.6 lbs.), according to my scale. That's very good news. This puts me officially at pre- and post-Switzerland weights when I was in college (sophomore and senior years). Now, if I could get down to my Switzerland weight of 90 kg (about 200 lbs., junior year abroad), that would be sweet. Can I do that by the end of the Newcastle Diet? Unsure. But I'll give it a try. 90 kg is the official goal weight, but 80 kg lurks in the background as a possible revised weight, just to be sure I've dropped 10 BMI points from where I started pre-stroke, from 34 to 24, on the heavy side of "normal" weight.

This coming week, I ratchet up the stair work to climb to the 14th floor, so that ought to help me continue to lose weight. I'll stay at that level for three weeks before ratcheting up again, this time to the 20th floor. We're getting close to 26 floors, which is about as high as I can go inside my building. (Technically, I could start at the B5 level and walk up to the 28th floor, but the 26th floor is the last habitable floor, and everything below B1 is parking garages, so for whatever reason, I tend not to count these as floors. Maybe I should.) I'm calling the B1 to 26 climb a "full staircase." After that, I'll be doing 1.5 staircases, then 2, then 2.5, then 3 full staircases, which will involve 30-some minutes of intense cardio. Once I hit three staircases, there shouldn't be any questions any longer about the strength of my heart.

It took me a year, while living in Switzerland, to go from 230-ish pounds to 200 pounds. I expect that getting down to 90 kg, or even to 80 kg, will take me about that long once I'm off the Newcastle Diet and eating a bit more normally on the days I do eat (recall that I'll be fasting three days of the week).

I'm happy that I'm continuing to lose weight, but I can see the process is becoming more difficult as my body continues to resist weight loss. I watched an interesting video by a professional physical trainer who says that "starvation mode" is a myth, and what actually happens in the body is more properly termed "metabolic adaptation." I think the point is a semantic one: whatever you call it, the body slows metabolism once it realizes it's no longer getting as many calories as it used to, making further weight loss difficult.

Ultimately, I'll be switching to a gentle keto. There'll be less focus on calories and more focus on macros. I doubt I can reach the insane levels of fat that the keto diet requires, but a greater focus on proteins and vegetables can't be bad, right? Plus: keto burgers and pizza and pasta! Weight loss once I'm off Newcastle will doubtless slow down, but by this time next year, I might be down as far as 80 kg. Fingers and tentacles crossed.