26 floors

I finally made it! Without any ceremony, but with a great deal of huffing and puffing, I struggled my way up to my apartment building's 26th floor yesterday. And yesterday was a fasting day! The effort left me breathless and dripping with sweat, but I had finally managed to traverse one full staircase without stopping. And from now on, the staircase will be my unit of measurement. I will do one staircase for six sessions (two weeks, three times per week), then move on to doing 1.5 staircases (i.e., one staircase + 12 floors—not 13 floors because some of the early floors are double-sized). 

That will take me up to my September 16 doctor's appointment, where I hope to learn that my heart has gotten a lot stronger, and that, just maybe, I can stop taking some of the pills I'm on. (I suspect, though, that the cautious, conservative doctors will be reluctant to take me off my meds for another few months yet.) Right after that, the night of September 17, I'm off to the east coast for the September 18 start of my walk down the east coast. I expect to lose a few kilos during the walk—maybe not as much as before, given how much weight I've lost already—but when I get back to Seoul, I'll be even lighter. The challenge, as always, will be to see whether I can keep on losing weight once I'm back. The weight-loss curve has been flattening over the past few weeks, so my attitude now is "slow and steady wins the race."

Meanwhile, I get to enjoy the fruits of my burger-making labors today as I wolf down two double bacon cheeseburgers on keto buns (which came out better this time, possibly thanks to the addition of a bit of oat fiber instead of more almond flour). Expect photos.

I just looked at my workout calendar, on which I also wrote some fitness milestones. I was amused to see that I had written, in the space for September 2, that my weight ought to be down to 110 kg by then. I'm way past that particular goal. And I'm ahead of schedule on some other goals as well, but definitely behind with the strength training, and my right shoulder continues to bother me. Strength will have to wait, I think, until sometime next year. Meanwhile, I'll do what I can with my resistance bands and dumbbells.

With the east-coast walk interrupting my staircase campaign, I expect I'll have to dial back a bit upon my return: I won't be doing any stairs for about a month. So: remedial stair work for the first week that I'm back, to make up for de-training, then back on the regular schedule. I might also branch out and start walking the staircases of the Yangjae Creek again; I haven't done that in years. My only fear there is that I might have balance issues on those stairs, whose "banisters" are basically made of loosely dangling rope. Well... one thing at a time.