Down to 35

 And that many situps in a row was a struggle. Oh, well. I still did my 50, for everything, and went to work for a VERY full day. My blood ketones were at 0.6 again this morning; frustrating, but at least it's still reasonably above non-keto levels. FedEx managed to screw up again; they claim to have delivered a package to me, when they've done nothing of the sort. It's frustrating. But anyway, I should begin my formal triathlon training program next week, or the week after at the very latest. If the week after, next week will mostly be long treks carrying the bike, and a swim or two to get more used to the beach and the associated routine.

I've got just over a week left on keto. I'm looking forward to a baked potato. Rye toast with butter. A good truffle. That sort of thing. But the benefits are clear and undeniable. I've been solidly below 190 for over a week, and I think there is a path here to maintaining and even improving that. Perhaps a sort of stepped approach. I could imagine setting 180 as a baseline for myself, and 190 as a hard limit, with more significant steps taken the closer I get to that limit. For example, if I went over 182 or 183, I could simply take note and be more careful, or add in a workout. At 185, I could start intermittent fasting. At 187, add in a whole fast day. That sort of thing. But the first thing is to see where I'm at in a week, and how well I can maintain or improve that once off keto.

40 becomes 41

 Consecutive situps without a break, that is. And 41 was difficult. But that's the point, isn't it? 42 is next.

Tomorrow (which is sooner than expected) I should receive my combination swim buoy and paddleboard. With it, I can do swimming exercises that focus on just my arms (by holding the float between my knees or ankles to keep them afloat) or just my legs (by resting my chest on the float). The training plan I've chosen is broken down mostly into 25-meter chunks, or multiples thereof. The only problem with that is that the ocean doesn't come with tidy distance markers. I've considered simply assuming each stroke is one meter, but that begs the question of what to do during leg-only portions. I could, potentially, bring some sort of float and anchor and mark a 25-meter point myself. That might also give me some practice aiming for a given point. And, of course, there's nothing stopping me from using the same float to mark 50 meters, or any other distance, later. On the other hand, if I just use a conservative estimate for distance, like 1 meter for every swimming stroke, or 1 meter for however many kicks, then I'll be getting a better workout than otherwise planned.

I should also be receiving a tow float/backpack shortly. If I carry my fitness watch inside it, I should be able to get a decent distance estimate, since it will never be submerged and therefore should never lose the GPS signal. So I could use that to "calibrate" the various strokes. I'm also curious about what to carry in the bag. At some point, I'm going to have my cell phone with me. Is it better to try to lock it up on shore, or trust it in the tow float? Should it go into a redundant dry pouch inside the float? What about my keys? It's something to think about.

The good and the bad

For some reason, which remains a mystery to me, I dropped out of ketosis this morning. My blood ketones were only at 0.6; that's the first time in over a month they've dropped below 1.0, my personal cutoff mark. I ate very little in the way of carbs yesterday; I ate rather more than I should have on Monday, while still heavily drugged, but I was well in the ketosis range as of Tuesday morning. I can't let it get me too down; fasting to force myself back into deep ketosis is tempting, but unwise.

Saturday marked the last time I did my morning stretches and strength training. I decided to do as many situps at once as possible, then do more as I was able until I reached 50. Once I could do all 50 nonstop, I'd proceed to higher totals numbers. I barely managed 30. But today, after several days off, I made it to 40 without too much struggle. So that's encouraging. I'll see what tomorrow brings.

I bought some pipe insulation today, and a strong bungee cord with clips on both ends. I padded my ALICE backpack frame, and fiddled around trying to use the bungee cord to lash my bike to the frame. I think I've got something a little more workable, but I doubt it's the final iteration. It would be nice to have two or three clips, hooks, or other attachment points that I can quickly and easily tie the bike and frame together with, along with one "final" point that I can cinch down to lock the bike in place. More experimentation is needed.

Back in the loop

 If I had readers, they may have noticed that I was incommunicado for a few days. Trip to the surgeon, a short convalescence in the hotel, and I'm back on my feet.

I discovere today that there is a free public beach within an easy 20 minute bike ride of my home. It's muddy, it's loud (given that it's all of a quarter mile from a commercial runway), and it's one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a while. This takes away any excuse I've had for not pushing harder on tri training. I only swam out perhaps fifty yards, but I really just wanted to see what the deal was there. It appears very underutilized (to be fair, I was there on a tuesday afternoon). I can easily see myself going for a leisurely ride to get there, swimming, going for a bike ride that takes me X distance to get home, and going on a run from there to return home. In short; I could run a triathlon on myself, of just about any distance, for the cost of a short bike ride beforehand. I've ordered a tow float that doubles as a backpack (or a backpack that doubles as a tow float); I can swim out with confidence, and perhaps carry my bike keys and my cell phone with me. I also came across a product called the "ruckraft", which claims to turn "any rucksack, or any size" into a load towable by a swimmer; they even have photos on their site of two people towing brompton foldable bicycles. I'm not sure that to think.

Oh, and my discovery today reintroduced me to a neighborhood that I had previously seen only once, some two years ago; a neighborhood with a restaurant that served me perhaps the best rice and beans I have ever had. And I've had a LOT of rice and beans.

Second day volunteering

 I've become convinced of the general superiority of my slightly longer commute route that does not take me over an active drawbridge, at least for trips to work. It's only a hair over 6 miles, so a mile and change longer, and it obviously doesn't come with the risk of the bridge getting raised. The roads are a lot less bike-friendly, but that's life.

Despite my minimalist tendencies, I find myself looking at electric kettles. Now that much of my diet is meal replacement shakes, I find myself making a lot more coffee, tea, and broth to drink. Probably 90 percent of the time I use my stove, it's to heat water. But I'd prefer to find a kettle made in the USA, and even articles claiming to review kettles made in the USA often turn out to be lying.

Tomorrow is a work day. We start late, around 10, and finish late. Then, a nice long weekend.

Plans changing, again.

So I got a 5 mile trek in yesterday, and 50 reps on each exercise. I was hoping to walk all the way around my town today, a trip of just over 6.3 miles, but the need for volunteers changed that. I will also prevent me from doing the trek tomorrow. But I got my 50 reps in again today, and I will again tomorrow. Situps are by far my weak point; the pushups and squats are relatively easy to hit 50 on. The lack of a trek today and tomorrow is somewhat made up for by the bike trips to and from work and around town.

I learned today that a bottle of keto chow, taken from the fridge, wrapped in a jacket, and placed in a backpack on a temperate day, stays quite drinkable for 3 or 4 hours. I'll be on a liquid-only diet for the next three days; keto chow, coffee, tea, broth, water, and electrolyte drinks only. I've been hovering within a pound of 190 for several days now (except the trip down to 185-ish that accompanied my ER trip a week ago), and I think the next week will put me squarely below that. Soon, I'll be a healthy BMI, and no longer overweight.

Shooting for a nice, long trek on Saturday.

Some successes, some failures

So today was a big fat zero in the exercise department. Which was mostly expected given that it's a Sunday, but I should at least have stretched. Well, the Sunday excuse won't exist tomorrow; stretching and strength training will be followed by another trek with the folding bike. In a few days, it will have been a week since my ER trip. At that point, I will go back to progressively longer jogs carrying the bike.

I managed to pump out my black water tank today. Apparently, there's a mobile operation that will come do it for free. Eh. At least I learned how to get the job done without external help.

I have mocha keto chow made with coconut oil for brunch. It's not bad; obviously, a pronounced coconut flavor, but I'm not drinking keto chow first and foremost for the flavor. It doesn;t taste bad, but flavor is not its primary selling point. I have a chocolate with coconut oil mixed up for breakfast tomorrow, as well as a mocha and a chocolate made with butter. I've yet to break into my first subscription box, which contains four weeks' worth. I'll probably let me subscription go another cycle, with a couple flavor changes, then either suspend it or cut it in half. It is undeniably convenient to not have to fuss about this or that meal much. A well-made salad is pleasing, and I look forward to being able to have dumplings again, but the ease of preparing and consuming all the food for a day with keto chow is undeniable. I can prepare the shakes for three meals and do all the cleanup in less than ten minutes. I'm thinking about staying on keto for another three weeks or so; that will make six weeks, and bring me to the first weekend in September. I should be stable and appreciably below 190 pounds at that point. I think I'll try to accomplish a major workout of some kind that Saturday; maybe even my first self-run sprint-length tri, if my jogs with the bike look good. Then I'll have a proper celebratory feast.

Farther and farther

Just over 4 miles today. I also managed the 35 reps of each exercise during strength training. I should stretch tomorrow, but there will be no cardio. I'm still undecided about strength training.

I decided not to preserve any of the food today. Instead, I just had the blueberries for breakfast (after the 4 mile trek), then a large salad for lunch and another for dinner. Incidentally, I've known for some time that grape nuts (or whatever store brand cereal is similar) are great for adding crunch to a salad, but the last few days have taught me that peanuts are another great addition. The rest of the produce will just get eaten over the next few days, with perhaps a few things getting preserved (the peaches and plums, in particular). Tomorrow, I may have a few boiled onions for lunch. Plenty of melted butter, salt, and pepper...boiled onions are truly underrated. I made an attempt at keto chow cookies; the results were, in a word, disappointing. I also got laundry done today, and cleaned the aft deck. That last was something of an accomplishment.

The idea of a bike trailer/charity food cart keeps returning to my mind. I see a lot of people on my treks. Some of them look hungry, and I know that I'm not seeing everyone. This morning, I passed an area I've passed the last couple days, but today there was a two-block-long line that seemed to end at a church. I don't know what they were queuing for, but it wasn't anything fancy, that's for sure. I don't know how to find out without being insulting.

Second walk around town

So a bit over 3 miles today with the folding bike. It was a good walk, and I saw a bit more of Chelsea. I got curious later in the day and looked up the city limits and some statistics. This is the smallest, most densely packed city in the state; it's also one of only three with a majority latino population. Fully 93% of the people here are either registered democrats or unregistered. Interesting.

A coincidence resulted in me getting a box of free produce; lettuce, green onions, white onions, parsley, celery, peaches, plums, thyme, mushrooms, yams, limes, and blueberries. I can eat most of it on keto. I consumed my last two prepared keto chow meals for breakfast and lunch today, so dinner consisted of two large bowls of salad, which was more satisfying than I had anticipated. Having all this produce puts me in a bad position when it comes to the whole "minimum stuff in the fridge" experiment, but I'd rather fail at that experiment than let good food go to waste. I'm going to give myself an out. With the exceptions of the lettuce and yams, I know how to dry all of these things very well. So if I start down the road of preserving all of them tomorrow, I'll let the lapse in fridge use slide. The plums and peaches need time to ripen anyway. The white onions can become onion flakes, the parsley and thyme dried and powdered or just crushed, and the mushrooms and celery sliced and dried. The lettuce (and the bit of fresh spinach I have left) will just get eaten as salads over the next few days. The limes will be juiced for salad dressing or drinks. The blueberries I will allow myself as a treat tomorrow, IF I do my full stretching, strength training, and get a good bike trek in. Today was 30 reps of pushups, situps, and squats. 35 tomorrow. And a solid bike trek; I mean REALLY solid. I did easily 13+ miles of biking today, and I'm anticipating little to none tomorrow, so a longer trek is easily manageable.

First trek with new packframe; a success

 Well, as much as can be expected from a first shot. The bike clanged a bit against the frame, so I ended up draping one arm over a pedal for most of the3-mile walk. I'm only doing walks with the folding bike for a little while; until I'm sure I'm fully recovered from the heat injury. I did a 3-mile circuit around my town. I haven't seen enough of it, and I feel like that's a disservice to my town and to me. I think most of my future trips will be in town for a little while.

I managed to get some grocery shopping done. Despite the heat, I made a batch of keto chicken strips to freeze; one bag of chicharrones is insufficient for a dozen strips (what I get from three breasts). But six egg yolks is just about the right amount for that much chicken. I now have six egg whites; mint-chocolate keto chow cookies to follow.

Today was the second day of adding pushups, situps, and squats after my stretching; 25 of each. I think, for now, I'll increase by 5 each day until I either fail to complete the designated number for one of the exercises, or it is abundantly clear that I'm about to. Then I'll stay steady at whatever that number os for a few days before increasing it by 1 or 2 at a time, staying constant at any given number as necessary.

Got a new pack, and an important lesson

 Yesterday was a disaster. My bike ride was supposed to be 26 miles long (with a stop halfway to buy a surplus ALICE frame and pack), but I stopped just past 24 and all but collapsed outside a convenience store. Over the course of the next hour, I drank a half gallon of water, and finally slowly pedalled the last bit home. There, I hosed myself off, and promptly threw up. Over the next few hours, I dozed, drank water, and threws up over and over. I finally went to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with acute kidney injury. I spend the next several hours getting saline pumped into me. I was then released; I walked home, buying water and peanuts and beef jerky on the way (I wanted salt so badly), and finally got home around 3 in the morning, whereupon I promptly went to sleep. I felt bad enough this morning that I didn't even stretch. From yesterday morning to the point just before I went to the hospital, I lost 6 and a half pounds; that's nearly a gallon of water.

Ugh.

It's my own fault, obviously. I need to carry and drink a LOT more water on treks that long in the sun. Today, I only biked about ten miles, broken up into chunks. I took the bag off my ALICE frame and figured out a way to lash the folding bike to it; tomorrow, I'll take it on a walk and see how it performs. I'll also make sure to stretch. I've added a bit of bodyweight strength training to the end of my stretching; pushups, then situps, then squats. I started yesterday with 20 of each; I'll increase the number, slowly and carefully, until I reach a number I'm comfortable with. If I'm feeling okay, I'll also make a shopping trip.

Ride postponed

 So life happened, and I didn't go on my planned long ride today. But I will tomorrow, and in the process pick up a surplus ALICE pack. I'm confident I can modify it rather easily into a carrier for my folding bike. If so, I may be able to make a waterproof wrap for it to tow behind myself in a triathlon swim.

I'm cooking a bit more now. Today was a simple fish chowder; salmon, evaporated milk, a very small can of corn, dried onions, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. The entire thing came to about 1100 calories, but I didn't eat it all. I probably consumed around 1500 calories total today, including a shake. My big shipment of keto chow came today; I'm interested to try the chocolate toffee flavor with coconut oil. I weighed in under 193 pounds this morning. I may hit my intermediate goal of 190 by the end of the week, almost certainly by the end of next week. The end of next places me at four weeks of keto, with plenty of food to continue for a couple more weeks if I like. 185, and its associated BMI of 24, is in sight.

When I achieve 180-185, how should I maintain it? Stay keto all the time? No. Keto on again, off again? Keto, or some other diet, whenever I drift towards the upper end of the range? Intermittent fasting?

Well, anyway, I'm dropping weight. And my average resting heart rate is going below 60.

Not much of a weekend

 Pretty much useless, really. I mean, I got some stuff done. I did a load of laundry, I cleaned my kitchen out, I experimented a bit with some cooking, and I lost a LOT of weight (I'm sure some of it is water weight, despite me staying well hydrated; there's no other explanation for the amount I lost that quickly). Breakfast today was some artichoke hearts sauteed in olive oil and papper, then mixed with hard boiled egg chunks and some rice wine vinegar.

I need to stop limiting myself when it comes to meals. There are so many options out there; egg dumplings, various soups, I think I can even make a stir fry work; mushrooms, pork, bamboo shoots, etc. I haven't come anywhere close to dropping out of ketosis; yesterday, my ketones were too high for the meter to accurately read, and my blood sugar was below 60. I ordered some coconut flour and some erythritol; I plan to try making a few kinds of cookies and bars, so I can have something more portable than liquid keto chow. I also need to step up my game when it comes to trying coconut oil. Tomorrow, enough keto chow to last four weeks will arrive; I think chocolate mint wafer cookies will be one of the first experiments.

   I recently bought volta brand magnetic charge adapters and cables. They're connectors that go into standard UCB-C or micro USB ports and turn them into (for the ones I purchased) charging and data capable magnetic connectors that mate with the cord from the company. This should seriously cut down on the wear and tear my phone's charging connector sees, as well as the headphones I'm expecting to arrive. I may try putting a bit of silicone sealant around the connector for the headphones, to make it more or less waterproof.

 Tomorrow is a weird work day. I go in to work at 6 PM and stay for 12 hours. I plan to make the trip in my longest bike ride yet; a full 25 miles, the distance for an olympic triathlon. I'll be wanting at least two meals at work. Perhaps I should bring in keto chow powder and some fat, possibly MCT powder, and seek about mixing up a shake at work. If that works, I can make up some packets of keto chow for work so that I can be ready for any contingencies.

Longest bike ride yet

Just a hair over 20 miles to get to work this morning, including some totally unanticipated, unilluminated, unenjoyable mountain bike trails in the pitch darkness, thanks to google maps and my early work start time. Makes me feel like I've accomplished something. Perhaps I can work up to the point where I run an olympic-length tri on myself once a week.

I tried freezing two bottle of keto chow to take with me to work, one to have right away upon arrival and the other for lunch. However, despite the fact that my frozen bottle of water was fully thawed but still pleasantly cold upon arrival, both bottles of keto chow were still frozen solid. Neither thawed out to the point of drinkability for several hours. Starting around 11 o'clock, I felt a bit off, with a headache coming on. I initially chalked it up to the calorie imbalance that day (I had burned over 1,800 calories and consumed around 600 at that point), but that doesn't hold water. In actual fact, the real reason was probably that I wasn't holding enough water; I just drank the one bicycle bottle right after riding, so about 20 ounces. After that, I was too busy to think much about water, so I was probably rather dehydrated. Early this morning, after stretching but before my ride (so about 3 AM), my ketones were above 3. I'm on day 11 of being well into ketosis, so my body should be well used to not eating every few hours or so. Indeed, I biked those 20 miles this morning having taken in no food or water at all for over 8 hours, and I felt fine (well, physically; the mountain bike path was mentally taxing).

Moving forward, I'll be experimenting with various methods of creating solid keto foods, so I can easily take them to work; it would be best if they were shelf-stable or easy to quickly reheat after being frozen. I may make them with keto chow; their website has a lot of interesting recipes. Incidentally, I did some math today; four bags of keto chow and 9 quarts of oil or fat provide for a 2600 calorie per day diet for four weeks. I think that those ingredients, depending on the packaging for the fat, could easily fit in a 5 gallon bucket. Imagine being able to have a month's worth of shelf-stable food in a 5 gallon bucket. Or in a milk crate.

What rides to record?

There have been more than a few bikes rides at this point that I haven't recorded. Some of them have just been short rides, others have been with my trailer, some have even been 5 miles or more but I haven;t recorded them for one reason or another. It feels as if I should come up with some metric to standardize things by. Always record when I bike at full effort? Only when going 5 miles or more? I'm not sure.

Anyway, today was fairly mild. I went to MIT for a COVID test. I feel a bit off right now, so this will be a very short entry. I'm above 1000 words per minute average reading speed on my speed reading course. Tomorrow marks 90 consecutive days learning Spanish. Good night, internet.

Brick success

Sunday was a day of extremely limited productivity. I eventually got going and got a few errands done; I bought lubricants for assembling the bicycle hub I've been overhauling, got a brush for my cat, and bought my groceries for the week. But that's about it.

Today was much better. I went for a bike ride (just under 15 miles), and then immediately ran a full mile carrying a bike. That bike ride is well above the distance for a sprint triathlon; the run is short by two miles, and of course there was no swimming at all. But this just adds to my confidence. I will also stress that, though my run was really more of a slow jog, I still have not obtained a backpack frame. So I'm running with the bike simply lashed to my back. I am confident that, once I do buy or build such a frame, my form and thus pace will improve. More important than pace, though, is distance. This is not something I'm doing for time; I want to complete, not compete.

I made keto baked chicken strips today; "breaded" with crushed chicharrones (pork rinds). They were surprisingly good. I had some for lunch and froze the rest; it will be interesting to see how well they reheat. I also marinated some chicken in aminos, liquid smoke, and a few other seasonings before cooking it in a generous pool of EVOO in an oven at 300F. The result made a tasty pulled chicken barbecue sort of concoction to eat on the last of my almond flour dinner rolls. Those rolls, incidentally, are a mistake I am not eager to repeat.

I bit the bullet and subscribed to keto chow. Usually, a 21-meal bag costs $70. If you subscribe, you get it for $63. If I make every meal with a half stick of butter, that comes out to $10.50 per day for meals. If you buy over $200 worth, you get free shipping. All told, that means that you can buy a month's worth for free shipping. The subscription options include 1,2,4, and 6 week intervals. So you could be one person eating nothing else and order every 4 weeks, or eat it for 2 meals a day and order every 6. I went ahead and ordered 4 bags to repeat in 4 weeks. This is working out well for me; I can prepare all the meals for a day, including doing dishes, in less than 10 minutes. I enjoy cooking, but it gets old to do it for just myself. Really, my only concern is that it's a perishable skill; if I don't cook for myself regularly, will I screw it up on the rare occasions I get to do it for others? Anyway, I ordered enough for four weeks. I also ordered a few samples of flavors I haven't tried yet. I set my calendar to remind me every four weeks to either modify or cancel my subscription. I anticipate I'll at least want to change flavors. Over time, I'll probably develop a substantial stock, since I doubt I'll be having it for absolutely every meal. But, in a way, that's a good thing. In theory, keto chow, shelf-stable fat of some kind, and omega supplements form a complete, shelf-stable diet. I could fit food for a month in a 5-gallon bucket. If my surplus gets excessive, I can cancel the subscription any time.

In any event, I'll see how it goes. Perhaps I'll end up subsisting on nothing but meal replacement shakes and a few cups of coffee or tea every day.

1 mile success!

This morning, I successfully ran a full mile carrying my bike. Thus far, I've just been lashing the folded bike to my back with some old nautical line. With this milestone past me, it's time to look for a proper frame. The local Army/Navy surplus store was more or less a dry hole; more and more, it seems like these stores are less "surplus" and more "new stuff that looks military-ish". I don't particularly want to order online, because I prefer to support local businesses, but when local businesses don't carry what you're looking for...what else is there? Should I pedal twenty-five miles to another store that may not even have what I want? It would be a good workout.

Shortly into the running portion of today's bike carry, I ran past my local bike mechanic. I feel very positive about this guy; he's friendly, he seems pretty diligent, he does good work, etc. He's always wearing a smile. I keep thinking about ways to help bis business out. I don't have a lot of bike work myself that needs doing, and some of it seems beyond his scope. I'm sure something will come to me.

I continue to enjoy disassembling various bike hubs and cleaning the parts. It's almost like working with clockwork, but somewhat less delicate. I find myself wondering how difficult it would be to make replacement parts in titanium, to get a lighter, stronger hub. It may even be possible to drill out holes in some of the parts, in order to make them lighter. Then again, even converting the entire hub to solid titanium would probably only save about a pound. I think I'll content myself with rebuilding hubs for now.