Rest/recovery day

Sunday has been my recovery day for quite some time now. Monday is the "first day of the week", both for my job and for my exercise schedule. So Sunday is the last day. And if I haven't achieved my goals by the end of Saturday, I don't try to push myself on Sunday. I either achieve my goals or I don't, but Sunday is a rest day. I think it would be too easy to exercise every day, even pushing myself extra hard trying to get that last mile in for the week, and that's a recipe for injury.

This is my last week in ketosis, for now. I find myself eating two meals a day, or even one, instead of three. Maybe there is something to this long-term satiety thing, but I don't feel it. I think I'm just less inclined to cook three meals a day. Before, a meal might easily be yogurt with granola and preserves, or some simple vegetable-only tacos. But now I'm cooking bacon or steak or eggs most of the time. I made a dozen hardboiled eggs yesterday, and several of them made my lunch today, but I would need a significant shift in my approach if I were going to do this long-term. In any event, I want to finish this week out strong. Next week? Roasted potatoes, tacos of some kind, and milk chocolate await.

First brick a success (mostly)

I managed a 15-mile bike ride followed immediately by a 2.7 (okay, 2.69) mile rune. The transition took 4 minutes, but I was locking my smartphone in my home, etc. So not too bad. I was finished by 0945, but I waited until 1200 to eat for the first time in the day. That was probably a mistake; I had gone without food for about 16 hours at that point, with a heavy workout. Really, what hurt me was probably eating a large-ish meal after all that; if I had had something light and then something more substantial a few hours later, I would probably have been fine. As it was, I just had a stomachache for a few hours. Blood ketones were at 7.0 and glucose at 64; the highest and lowest, respectively, that I've seen them.

It was easier to get running than I expected. You might think that running without my pack is a lot easier, but when I was running with the pack, I never really noticed it. It's designed very well, and I packed it (mostly) carefully, so it rarely gave me any bother. It was nice to have the things in it; money in case of emergency, my phone, etc. Now, I just go out with my house key, smartwatch, and $20 in a keychain pill bottle tied to one shoe. Today I ordered a pair of RoadId emergency identification tags; one will go on the smartwatch and the other on the running shoe that doesn't have money on it.

Anyway, overall the brick went well. I biked well over the distance and ran nearly the distance for a sprint tri. An olympic is a one-mile swim, 25 mile bike, and 6.2-mile run; I feel like I could manage the bike and run with another month or two of training. I'm eager to get into swimming; I'll need a lot of work.

Accidental intermittent fasting

So because of life today, I didn't eat breakfast. Around noon, I took my blood ketones; 5.7, well into ketosis. Indeed, rather past simple dietary ketosis and into therapeutic territory. Around 1300, I finally got a chance to eat, some 16 hours after I had last eaten. I wasn't really hungry, but I'm not sure I'm fat adapted to the point that it's safe to go for long periods without food. But now that I've had dinner, I'm looking back at my daily log and seeing that I've eaten fewer than 1200 calories today, despite having burned over 2,600. I don't feel hungry at all; if anything, a little over full. I've felt that way a few times over the past week or so, even though several days I've fallen short of my calculated fat intake. I'll have to revisit the calculations and modify them; I don't want to lose strength training progress from insufficient protein, but the current models simply have me consuming too much food.

Tomorrow is my first proper brick, with a very short rest between bike and run. I'm hoping for around a 15 mile bike, and then a 3-4 mile run. We'll see how it goes; I'm not going for time, just completion.

Ketosis success!

I got my blood ketone meter working (PEBKAC), and my blood ketones are 2.7 mmol/L. For reference, dietary ketosis is generally regarded as starting around 0.5 and heading on up to 3.0, beyond which levels are therapeutic (for example, as a treatment for epilepsy), then they get dangerous. So I'm comfortably into ketosis territory, after only 11 days. I'm quite pleased. I intend to continue for probably another week or ten days, just to see how my body responds, and then eat a more normal (i.e., "I'm allowed to eat carbohydrates in significant amounts") diet for about a week.

I also managed to find a few of the sundstrom pandemic kits for sale. Apparently, someone bought a whole bunch of them, and is returning them unopened; good enough for me. I bought enough to equip my immediate family. I'm not super thrilled with the fact that they take a single filter: the moldex 8000 I managed to order for myself takes two (the filters are similar, but I don't know if they're identical). Anyway, I should have them all in the next two weeks, and I'll send them out to my family. If nothing else, it's peace of mind for me. And I'll have my moldex and a few accessories to experiment with.

Tomorrow, I'll be volunteering with my CERT team. I plan on taking a long, indirect bike ride there: that will be my second ride of the week (ignoring commuting and errand stuff). Looking forward to Saturday's brick, especially now that I know I'm well into ketosis.

An interesting find

Some time ago, when all of this COVID-19 business began and masks were in short supply, I wondered about the possibility of making a mask that used extremely simply pieces of material as a filter; for example, the discs of filter paper commonly used in laboratories. I was wondering about it in the general sense, not just as regards this particular pandemic. Well, one thing led to another, and the idea went on the back burner. Today, looking around at various masks, I came across a "flu pandemic kit" by Sundstrom Safety (a Swedish PPE company). Their kit contains a mask, a P100 filter cartridge, and a large number of "pre-filters" (just simple paper discs). They claim that the pre-filters can just be changed once a week and the main filter can be disinfected with a 5-minute soak in rubbing alcohol, so that the kit (and presumably at least a few gallons of rubbing alcohol) can last one person 18 months of daily use at a 99.97% effective filtration rate.

Also interesting to me is the filter connection. The filters are squat cylinders, or thick discs, whichever you like; they simply pop into a rubber ring the same diameter as they are. They have the inhalation valve built in (so it gets replaced whenever you replace the filters). Also, since the connection is the full diameter of the filter, you're not putting up with the flow restriction of a narrower connection (some gas masks have connections as small as one inch in diameter). For someone sitting at a desk or whatever, it wouldn't make a lot of difference. But for someone trying to have a brisk walk, do exercise, or perform manual labor, that extra flow could be very useful. I hope to order a few kits once they again become available, and send them to family members. For some reason, I'm about the only person in my immediate family with no respiratory problems.

For myself, I ordered a Moldex 8000-series respirator, which accepts two such plug-in canisters. I also ordered a few filter pads and the necessary retaining rings for them. Hopefully, they will give better performance than the neoprene exercise mask I've been using while exercising. We'll see.

Keto orange mousse?

I think I've mentioned having had some success with keto chocolate mousse; it's basically whipped cream and cocoa, sweetened with monkfruit, with a bit of vanilla extract for good measure. I just got done making a batch that's flavored with homemade orange extract; I'll try it tomorrow. It seems promising.

Today was the first run of the week. A bit over 5 miles; this mask thing is not pleasant. But it must be done. I am looking around for masks that won't get saturated with perspiration quite so easily; this one becomes extremely difficult to breath through after about 3 miles. I removed the stock filter and replaced it with a cloth one. I keep thinking I should just give in and buy a proper industrial half-face respirator, but I don't imagine those are a dream to breath through either. What's particularly frustrating is that nearly all cartridge-based masks don't filter the exhaust; why would they? Oh, well.

Tomorrow is another strength training day; I should also try to get in a bike ride if I can. I'll also be biking to work on Friday; I can make the trip there longer than necessary for some extra training value. If I run on Thursday, that puts me in a decent position to get in a brick on Saturday.

I've spent a lot of time reading about fulltime RV living, van living, etc. It appeals to me; the inherent minimalism of it, the capacity to be entirely self-contained. Perhaps the two biggest issues for me are 1. finding a place to live for more than a day at a time in the Boston area, so I could be even reasonably close to work and 2. the fact that most of these arrangements involve a vehicle. If I could find the right spot, I think I could be perfectly content staying put for months or even longer. A boxy trailer would make a decent shell, for a lot less cost (upfront and maintenance-wise) than a van, truck, or RV. Then again, that would probably be even harder to find a parking place for. What would be really great is a gypsy-style vardo; fat chance parking that within twenty miles of MIT.

My keto-mojo meter arrived

And boy, am I disappointed. I tried measuring my blood ketones, twice, and they came back as "low" and "0.2 mmol/L", respectively. Given that I've consumer less than 20 grams of carbs per day (total not net), and burned an average of well over 3,500 calories each day, that seems unlikely. The strips were brand new, and I set up the meter and calibrated it to the strip batch according to the directions. So I tried testing my blood glucose (also with new, branded strips), several times, and every single time the meter claimed the strip had already been used. So either the meter is screwed up, or the company themselves (who I ordered from directly) are sending me defective strips. Or both.

Anyway, today was fairly mild; stretching, strength training (slight increase in the weight for lying dumbbell extensions), and a couple moderate bike rides. I bought a raspberry pi 4 and a cheap wifi router. I'd like the get the raspberry pi to connect to an external network with its onboard wifi, then provide an internet connection via its ethernet port to the router. Then, I'll have the raspberry pi direct all traffic through NordVPN or a similar service unless otherwise instructed. I also want to get a SATA hat for it and connect several high-capacity hard drive to it; by running SnapRAID, I should be able to achieve a capacity of (drive size)x(number of drives-1) while retaining single drive failure tolerance. Add in some automated drive diagnostics to warn of probably impending failure, and a solid power supply for everything, and I should have a high-capacity, fault-tolerant file server and VPN-protected internet gateway. Any device that connects should have protected traffic and access to my entire file collection. If I get just a bit more ambitious than that, a USB MicroSD adapter could be left hooked up; periodic backup of the system's boot card to that card means that, even if the boot card itself fails, it can just get swapped out with the backup. Even the raspi itself should be relatively easy to replace. Hopefully, I can fit all this in an ammo can; small, portable, robust.

We'll see.

A very mild day

No stretching, no exercise except a short walk to go buy a few things, no weight lifting, nothing. Sundays, as always, are my day of no exercise; just recovery. According to garmin connect, I burned over 5,700 calories yesterday, and that leads to the heart of the issue I'm having with the keto diet. Even at relatively moderate levels of exercise, I'm struggling to consume as many calories as the diet says I should. Particularly when it comes to fats. Mixing butter into coffee and tea, eating chocolate mousse that's mostly just whipped cream, it's just not adding up. I'm going to keep going for at least another week, but if I find my weight lifting performance is starting to suffer, I'm going to look into either seriously modifying or abandoning the experiment entirely.

I packed up the puzzle for my niece and nephew; one brown parcel and 16 individual envelopes. If just one of them gets lost in the post, a significant chunk of the puzzle will be missing forever (the company does not replace individual pieces). That makes me wonder about a business idea I had some time ago. Imagine getting an old map case and filling it with assembled puzzles, then offering to sell individual pieces to people that have lost them. You could probably charge a fair bit for a piece; I expect most people would pay half the cost of a new puzzle. All you need to do is sell two pieces and you can buy a new copy to keep things going. Seems like the perfect business to employ a few elderly folks.

Anyway, tomorrow is Memorial Day. A holiday, which right now isn't really a significant thing. Back to the routine; stretch, strength, cardio. The usual. I am running rather low on fire cider; I may have to break in to the new batch before it's fully aged. I may also have to look into making it in larger amounts; a very large glass vessel would be in order.

First brick

I met up with a friend of mine today. His lady friend was also there (girlfriend? Maybe?). Very nice young lady. Anyway, I biked to the meeting, a bit over ten miles. Then we ran two 1.8 mile laps in a park (I think a state park). Very satisfying, but hillier than expected. So that was my first "brick" (two cardio exercises done in immediate succession to prepare for a triathlon, usually bike then run; b, then r, hence BRick). They also apparently have swimming areas there; I could easily make this park my own mini triathlon spot. Get there (however that happens; bike, bus, whatever), then go for a swim, bike home, and go for a run from there. With the single limit that (assuming I use that one park) the bike ride has to be at least 8.7 miles, I can make this as flexible as I want. I can swim as many or as few laps as desired, I can make the bike ride longer to just about any point, I can make the run any distance I choose.

The jigsaw puzzle I mentioned yesterday is complete. Surprisingly, my cat barely interfered. Tomorrow, I'll get the necessary envelopes and postage to package the puzzle into chunks and start sending them off. I was careful to split the puzzle up so that each chunk could be added onto the existing work even if the previous chunk had not yet arrived (except the first one). The first chunk is the upper left corner, and will get sent with the box. The next chunk is the one immediately to the right of the first, but the third chunk is immediately below the first; that way, even if chunk 3 passes chunk 2 in the mail, it can still be added directly on to chunk 1. It makes me wonder about the geometric implications of such things, but it's too late for me to think deeply on the matter. Perhaps tomorrow.

Chicken jerky

I've made chicken jerky out of trimmed chicken thighs. The resultant jerky still has enough fat on it that rancidity is a concern, but that was as expected; it will be stored in the fridge and eaten relatively quickly. The flavor is quite good, and my next batchwill probably be made of chicken breasts.

I also made keto-friendly chocolate mousse, of heavy cream, cocoa, monkfruit sweetener, and vanilla extract. It was fairly successful, but is not something that should be eaten from the freezer. My various extracts provide interesting opportunities for flavoring; I intend to try a lemon variant shortly. In addition to the lemon and orange extracts that have been sitting for three weeks, today I started a lime and a raspberry. In a few days, when my bananas get nice and brown, they're get dehydrated (at least partially) and I'll start a banana extract.

Today was relatively easy; stretching, strength training, and trying to eat enough to keep up with my average caloric expenditure. Without carbs, that's harder than you might imagine. I'm losing weight at a rate of a pound a day (although that's likely to slow down soon), but I still find it difficult to even approach my daily amounts.

Something special came in the mail; a 1089-piece jigsaw puzzle showing a collage of 34 children's books. I worked for about 3 hours and assembled roughly half of it. I'll get it finished in the next day or two, then break it into 17 chunks. I'll send one chunk to my niece and nephew, along with the box. The rest will get sent, one at a time, every day or two. Neither of them have ever tackled such a large puzzle before, but I think they'll manage this one fine a bit at a time. We'll see.

Bulletproof coffee: a complete success

Okay, so not technically bulletproof coffee. I don't have any "brain oil" or whatever that weird MCT oil is called, and I do not intend to get any. For $45 a quart, it better cure cancer. So I really just had coffee with butter mixed in. And I was ready to be disgusted. But if you want caffeine and about a third of a pound of fat every day, you experiment. And I am glad that I did. This will be a go-to while I try keto. It's far too early to get any real kind of bead on whether it's working, but that's expected.

Today was relatively light; stretching and a run a little over 4 miles. During the first mile, I felt like I was going to crash for sure. But, slow and steady, I got it done. Saturday will be a real test; a 10-mile-ish bike ride followed by a run, probably 2 or 3 miles.

I also put the last ingredients into my fire cider. Now it's just a matter of waiting a month, straining it, letting it settle, and drawing it off. I also bought 24 ounces of fresh raspberries, which are dehydrating now. A pair of bananas will also get dried, once they're nice and brown. Both the raspberries and the bananas are going to go into separated jars with some watered-down grain alcohol to (hopefully) yield decent extract. I would like to have made chocolate extract, but I would find decent cacao nibs. Monkfruit in the Raw is an experimental zero-carb sweetener; hopefully, whipped with a bit of extract and some heavy cream, it will yield a zero-carb mousse. Time will tell.

Tomorrow, stretching and strength training.

Getting used to Garmin Connect

So strava (one of the big names in apps that track running biking, and swimming) is something I've used for a while. They've always irritated me, not so much with their constant badgering to subscribe, but with their endless irritating add-ons. Honestly, I would have subscribed just to get all that crap to go away. I don't care, and I never will, how fast I ran across such-and-such bridge compared to a stranger I will never meet. I get tired of getting to the end of a run across a new bit of the city I've never run across before, just to get nine new medals about how well I've done across arbitrarily defined and often stupidly titles segments. I e-mailed them to ask whether or not I could shut all that nonsense off if I subscribed' of course I couldn't. But they were getting my data for free (and it's got value), so I felt justified in taking the minimum services that I actually wanted from them for free. I want:

A. A record of the run/bike/swim, including start/stop time, speed, heart rate, elevation change, and maybe calories burned/average power.

B. That's it.

But now they've gone and screwed the whole thing up even worse. So, given that I've recently started trying Garmin Connect, and that it tells me all that I want to know, I don't have much to hold me to strava at all. So I'll be trying to download all my strava data, and letting them know it's very simple; if they can give me what I want, and nothing else, I'll subscribe for a reasonable price. Otherwise, I'll delete my account.

Anyway, I got a decent strength training session in today. There were also three bike rides, with the final (and longest) one after donating a double unit of platelets. My attempts at keto have thus far proven mostly successful, but I'm having difficulty getting my keto mojo meter delivered, so it's difficult to verify. Tomorrow I will be drinking a bit of OJ, mostly so it doesn't go to waste and to improve the uptake of my iron supplement, but I'll be running immediately afterwards, so all the sugars should get used immediately. I will be looking into making various types of jerky, to provide for a very low carb but high protein snack. Friday will involve no appreciable cardio, but Saturday should be my first brick (bike then immediately run) session. Oh, and I borrowed a friend's aeropress, so tomorrow may bring the first mug of bulletproof coffee.

First proper run in a long time.

Just over five miles, for what it's worth. Six months ago, I ran that twice a day as often as not, and more than a minute per mile faster, and laden. But a year before that I hardly ran at all. There is plenty of progress to be made, so long as I'm smart about not doing too much too fast. I know that running with a mask on doesn't give the same effect as altitude training (I'd need a portable hypoxicator for that, if such a thing even exists), but I do look forward to being able to run without any mask on with a clear conscience. Plenty of folks around here run with no mask on. Conclude from that what you will.

Tomorrow will be interesting. The morning will consist of stretching as well as full-body strength training, with a couple of medium-length bike rides in the afternoon, followed by donating platelets and a longer bike ride home. This is one of the (many) reasons I'll never run any sporting event at any significantly competitive level; I'm not single-minded enough. If you told me I could run the Boston Marathon next year and finish in the top ten percent, but I'd have to stop donating blood, I'd turn it down. Heck, I'd turn it down even if it meant I'd finish in the top ten people.

As regards other matters, I've cleaned off and reorganized my back porch (such as it is), reformatted a few long-overdue personal documents, submitted my final paper for my latest college course, and started another batch of fire cider. For anyone who doesn't know, "fire cider" is just code for "we soaked a bunch of stuff in cider vinegar". Mine consists of apple cider vinegar mixed with grated horseradish, chopped onions, minced garlic and ginger, peppercorns, lemon and orange zest, and a few hot chili peppers. After letting it soak for about a month, I strain it and let it settle; then I draw off the clear liquid from the top. That's the fire cider. What's it good for, you may ask? One shot of it will clear your sinuses in about two seconds. It's regarded by some as a sort of general tonic; I take a shot every morning and it wakes me up faster that coffee does. Speaking of coffee, stand by for the results of my first experiment with "bulletproof coffee" (coffee with butter in it).

Day one

I rather doubt that future posts will follow a similar naming pattern. Good thing, too; that would get boring quickly.

This is meant mostly as a personal journal. At some point, I heard or read that journalling can be good for you. I'm not sure why or how, but lots of things are good for me without me understanding the why or the how behind them. So I'll see how it goes.

I'm in the process of trying to improve my life. Last year, I built up my running ability to the point that I was routinely running 50 miles a week, almost always with a large backpack. While visiting my father for Christmas, I managed to injure my knee, and have been doing no appreciable exercise for the last four and a half months. Couple that with this shelter in place situation and the fact that I like to cook, and things are not looking trim. So it's time for a change.

My injury has healed. I own a bicycle (well, more than one; we'll get to that). I have the time, the inclination, and the motivation. I'm going to run a triathlon; my first will be either a sprint or an olympic distance. For various reasons, I don't want to fuss about with a lot of fuel, so I'm going to give a ketogenic diet a shot. I've bought a keto-moto ketone meter (it's not here quite yet), I've read about the various deficiencies and other risks, and I'm going to give it a go. So, starting today, this is how things look:

1. Strength training mondays, wednesdays, and fridays.
2. At least two bike rides and runs a week, preferably more. When swimming pools reopen, add two swims a week minimum.
3. Ideally, saturday should be a "brick"; the longest bike ride of the week followed immediately by a run.
4. Sunday is always off.
5. When the meter arrives, stick to strict keto; until then, focus on eating the non-keto food is the fridge (so it doesn't go to waste).

In theory, I should be able to transition to ketosis more or less completely within a week, possibly two. I won't stay there all the time; I plan to cycle out for about a week every month or so. When I know I'll be visiting family, I'll intentionally cycle out when I go visit them.

Today went well. Stretches followed by strength training, and a couple bike rides (I'm only counting them as one). Tomorrow, stretches and a very low-intensity run.