projection

If I'm losing barely 1.0 or 1.5 kilograms per week now, which is what you'd expect on a normal diet, then it's doubtful I'll even breach the 100-kilogram mark by the end of this diet unless I try something radical. I have several options.

As I already discussed, I could start implementing the T Diet now, skipping meals on certain days and risking devastating psychological effects in the process (what I'm doing is already kind of depressing). I could go the David Goggins route (a gentle form of it, anyway) and increase my exercise load by a significant amount, thereby guaranteeing radical calorie deficits and weight loss. This is possible, even with a hurt shoulder, thanks to the arrival of my exercise bands and dumbbells. My shoulder hurts, but it still has a limited range of motion, so I could add resistance exercises to my routine.

I could also simply fast for several days in a row, although this isn't an option I'm seriously considering. I did a five-or-so-day fast a few years back, and it nearly killed me. I might fare better now, what with having lived a restrictive life for the past seven weeks, but it's still not something I'd gladly embark upon, despite the proven benefits of long fasting.

I'm thinking I might try a modified T Diet in which I skip meals on either Tuesday or Thursday (I'd still have my Saturday-morning shake), having only broth on one of those days. Broth breaks a fast, as it turns out, so technically, I wouldn't be fasting. But a liter of clear broth has far fewer calories than any meal, so for me at least, it would be a radical reduction in calories, and it would take any two-day average of calories down a few notches. (A true fast is what they call a water fast, in which water is the only thing you can consume during the fasting period.)

My body has been fighting me this entire time. It liked being fat, and truth be told, so did I. Being content is my thing, and while I think contentment is generally a virtue, when contentment becomes hard to distinguish from complacency in the face of obvious danger, it's no longer virtuous.

It occurs to me that I could also accelerate my stair-work schedule by doing stairs on Saturdays. Saturday is already a hard day, given that that's the day I do my long walks. And thanks to the hot weather, I try to do those walks in the evening, which leaves me with morning hours during which I could do stairs. The way things are scheduled on my calendar now, I do a certain number of stairs every three weeks, then ratchet up. I've gone from five floors (which felt like hell) to ten, then to fourteen, where I am now. After fourteen floors, I'll do twenty floors, then twenty-six (a full staircase), then 1.5 staircases, then 2 staircases, then 2.5 staircases, then finally 3 staircases, which is where I max out. Three staircases is a bit over 30 minutes of exercise on stair day, which will finally provide me a cardio benefit comparable to what I do on walking days, but with much greater intensity. And by doing stairs on Saturday, I can accelerate my progression through the stair schedule, still ratcheting up every six sessions, but now doing stairs three times a week instead of two.

So maybe I'll try all of that this coming week: (1) have a broth-only day on Tuesday or Thursday, (2) include resistance-band exercises as part of my daily routine (a polite nod to David Goggins), and (3) start doing stairs on Saturday mornings. If I follow Goggins's advice, I need to do a ton of reps for every exercise I do. This gets your heart and lungs going and makes you work up a sweat.

Will I scale all of this back once Newcastle is done? We'll see. I've gotten used to the idea of working out in some way, so I might want to stay on track with the increased exercise load. As for the dieting, I'll be going full keto (except on cheat days) and following the Fung-based T Diet regimen (which means skipping meals three days a week), so that's already part of the plan. Sorry, Brother Body, but no mercy.