mapping out the week

I have to spend the next few days being super-strict, given Sunday's indulgences. We're back on schedule and on track for 800 calories a day, but the office party is this coming Friday, so I'm thinking I might handle that by simply not eating on both Thursday and Saturday. There's a risk in not eating on Saturday, because that's the day I do my long walk, which has now become a weekend tradition, rain or shine. I've done the Bundang walk while running on fumes before, and the experience was not pleasant. The walk is doable when you're in a state of inanition—survivable, but it's otherwise an experience I wouldn't recommend.

I'm also turning my attention more toward the question of metabolism. The fact of the matter is that I was cursed with a very slow, sluggish metabolism, which is why losing weight is a struggle. Simply increasing my walking is not necessarily going to help, either, so another option—aside from intense HIIT training—is to start including more muscle-building exercises into my calisthenics routine. I've already been concentrating on bodyweight calisthenics because it's practical, and I don't want to have to buy a bunch of gym equipment. I did recently purchase those gym rings (which will see use in a few weeks), but aside from that, I'm trying to keep things minimal. Also, the local park has plenty of equipment that can be adapted to my needs.

Increased muscle means increased metabolism. Increased metabolism means increased fat-burning, including while sleeping. The price for increased muscle, though, is that you have to maintain it, so once you commit to a muscle-building path (I'm talking only about muscle-building and not bodybuilding), then you're on the path for good (or, I suppose, you can let yourself go). I watched one girl on YouTube talk about her weight-loss journey (video here), and how she ended up getting involved with bodyweight calisthenics. I'm interested.

So I'll be adding more exercises to my current simple routine in the hopes of building muscle and being able to burn more fat off my stubborn body. As Dr. Sten Ekberg says in his YouTube videos, some of us are born with slow metabolisms while others can burn fat with almost no effort, and "that's life." Nothing to be done about it except to force the issue by forcing the body to become a fat-burning machine.

I've already found some videos showing exercises that look easy enough to do, so I'll be starting off with those and, when I hit another plateau, I'll change routines and/or add more exercises. So it's going to be (except for Friday, I guess) a week of discipline as I get back into the swing of things. Seven more weeks to go on the Newcastle Diet, and I have no intention of having a week where I report to you that I've lost zero weight—especially if my goal weight is now 90 kg (about 200 lbs.), which is what I weighed my junior year in college.