elementary mistake

Did I say I'd be fasting from Wednesday to Wednesday? Oops. That's eight days, plus Thursday morning before the doctor's appointment. I meant I'd be fasting from Thursday this week to Thursday morning next week: seven full days plus an extra morning. A bit more reasonable, that. It's like those day-counting problems in math: Johnny was on vacation from the 12th to the 17th—how many days was that total? If you mentally say, "12 + 5 = 17, therefore he was on vacation five days," you're forgetting to count the 12th as part of the answer: he was on vacation for six days. I made the same sort of mistake in my earlier post.

In other news, I did my 2.5 staircases tonight, having neglected to do them over the weekend. It was arduous work, but not as hard as I'd thought it would be. In fact, I'm thinking I want to get 3.0 staircases over with this week, early in my fast, so I can immediately go back to doing only 1.5 staircases. I'll be doing the stairs every day from here on in as a way to strengthen my heart and help lower my blood pressure, but I don't want to faint while I'm on the steps. So: will do 2.5 staircases again this coming Thursday, but Wednesday and Friday, I'll do only 1.5 staircases.  Over the weekend, probably on Saturday, I'll attempt 3.0 staircases before going on a longish walk, then from Sunday to Thursday next week, I'll do only 1.5 staircases a day (along with my usual 140-minute and 80-minute walks). As I noted earlier, 1.5 staircases proved to be enough to improve my cardiovascular fitness for the long walk; I was able to tackle a slew of hills with little trouble, with only one or two massive hills actually leaving me out of breath. Doing 3.0 staircases routinely strikes me as overkill, not to mention insane. At the same time, I did set 3.0 staircases as my end-of-year goal, so I still need to reach that goal at least once before December 31. We're almost there.

With all the body fat I still retain (body recomposition is another fitness goal for 2022), I think I ought to be all right in the energy department once I officially enter ketosis—which I finally will. As I've contended previously, I don't think I've ever entered ketosis before (maybe I'll finally buy that ketone counter), but with a seven-day water fast, ketosis is inevitable, and I've got a lot of fat to burn. So I'm hoping I don't become too weak and fatigued over the course of this fast. At worst, there ought to be a one- or two-day slump, after which I expect to switch to fat-burning mode and begin cleaning up my body (via autophagy).  Many people report becoming more alert and energetic while fasting. Here's hoping that that's me, too.