#health

Things are such a persistent mess. My car got towed again for unpaid tickets, need to deal with that. Pete Alonso got his 300th home run at Citi Field as an Oriole, and the fans stood and cheered for their own team losing. Learned my older kid has a heart murmur, which I guess is normal and common but makes me so angry. It would be so on-brand for the best person I know who does everything right to drop dead while I persist. My last living grandparent was the one who sat in his armchair chain smoking and being miserable.

Chatting with him about his appointment with the cardiologist and the fight his mother and I were having about it, he said it's a stupid situation and I said that life is a series of stupid situations and he said "No, life is a test to remain faithful to God." I was moved. I know he got that idea from me. I'm lucky he listens to me rather than watches, and hears rather than feels, which was the trap Isaac fell into when Jacob put goat skin on his arms and neck to steal Esau's blessing.

I owe work and money to so many people. It's overwhelming and it's always going to be this way. Nothing is ever going to be any better and one day I'll be old and look back on this era and wish I could live it again. I am going up to Schuyler Falls Sunday night to spend a few days in a cabin. Poor little rich boy.

Over the lent of 2025 I decided to be characteristically crazy and go on a monk-like diet.

For 46 days I consumed nothing, not even water, except for after sundown I would make a porridge from 4 cups of water, 1/4 cup pearl barley, and 1/2 cup of lentils, along with a slice of peasant loaf I would buy at Le Fournil, a French bakery on my corner. With this, I would have 750 milliliters of water to drink.

I went from 170.1lbs to 133.6lbs, saved a bunch of grocery money, and the only minor downside was that whenever I stood up I couldn't see for a couple of seconds.

I didn't necessarily look great with my shirt off, but nobody sees me shirtless anyway, so no big deal; I liked the way I looked dressed. Slim rather than gaunt.

But that particular lent was right before a big trip to France and Morocco, so in the midst of this drastic weight loss, I had a couple of suits tailored, bought some nice slacks, and none of them fit now (I'm currently 177lbs).

I have a black tie weekend in 31 days, so I picked the fast back up yesterday (though I had coffee and water throughout the day) but without the bread, since I didn't have any. I made a plan to run down this morning and pick up a loaf, but then it occurred to me that the whole point of a peasant loaf is that it's simple to make.

I had flour, and salt, and (surprisingly) a leftover packet of yeast from some recent project I can't recall. So I mixed them together, and did the usual dance of adding more water because it was dry, then more flour because it was goopy, and on and on, but then tossed it in a bowl, covered it, and went to bed.

When I got up this morning, just like our savior, it had risen (see pics). It was a bit too wet and didn't hold a form like I would have liked, but I tossed it into the oven at 450 with a pan underneath it that I poured boiling water into for steam.

It didn't get quite as dark as I would have liked, but it looks promising, and held a decent shape.

Will see how it turned out after sunset...

29 days until 5k

Garbage day. Did five minutes on the treadmill and just noped out. Can't say why exactly. Was it harder than any of the days before? Did I just not have the mental capacity to push? Who knows. But honestly it's a relief. I had six days in a row where I went further/longer than the preceding day which created a constant pressure to do more. So I'm glad I failed today so anything tomorrow is an improvement. Besides, for the 7th day in a row I got up at 5:30 and went down to the gym.

Weighed in at 178lbs this morning, a not-insignificant leap. But I've continued pigging out with Sammy here. Oh well, losing weight is easy. Much easier than this. Weighing 160 by race day would be a breeze compared to running 3+ miles and I could do it without getting out of bed.

Ah well, very grateful for the day. Waking up in a cool apartment in the East Village with Sammy in his bedroom. It's a dream.

34 days until 5k

The alarm this morning jolted me out of such a deep sleep I didn't know who or where I was for a couple of seconds.

Yesterday I brewed a pot of coffee with 1.5x the usual grounds, then I put it in the freezer until a lot of ice formed, and I drained the liquid into another container, presumably removing water and making something more concentrated. Did this two or three times and put what was left in a Gatorade bottle in the fridge. Took a shot of it when I got out of bed then went to the gym.

Was surprised to see a red-tailed hawk perched on a fence in Tompkins Square Park. I don't remember seeing one here before. He was tracking a rat blithely strolling in and out of a bush.

I hate the gym. I hate running. I hate treadmills. As always, from the second I started it I wanted to quit and knew I wouldn't be able to do as much as I wanted. Yesterday I managed 10m30s at 6.5mph and felt like I could have kept on a fair bit, so today I'd thought maybe I could manage fifteen minutes, but I knew pretty early on it wasn't going to happen. Felt worse than yesterday, but still powered through to have at least some improvement and stuck with it for 11 minutes. Exercise playlist went through Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk, Godzilla by Eminem, Go Speed Racer Go by Ali Dee and the Dekompressors.

Used some of the machines after that. Weighed in at 174.3 when I got home. Less than yesterday but negligibly. The amount that could be accounted for by a glass of water.

Yesterday I had a protein shake for breakfast, two pre-cooked chicken thighs with some frozen onion and pepper slivers for lunch, then there was a cookout at church after the evening service where I had two hamburgers, then a small sundae, which I would have foregone but the Grace Church Women's organization put together the sundae bar and twisted my arm.

Picked up baby carrots and pickles on the way home since my understanding is you can eat all you like of those and it has no meaningful impact. Planning to stick more or less to the same diet today.

35 days until 5K

To be clear, I recognize that 5Ks are not a big deal. My older son ran one without any prep and finished in 26 minutes, which is probably beyond my capabilities, even with over a month of preparation. But it's still more than I've tackled before, so we'll pretend it's a big(ish) deal.

That said, I've had periods in the past where I woke at 5:40am and went to the gym every weekday. It's been at least a year since I've gone with any consistency, and a couple months since I've been at all. My routine lately has been getting out of bed just in time to put a shirt on, get the kettle going for the French press, and slide into my morning stand up with nickel slots for eyes.

On the flip side, I'll be up until 1 or 2, in bed scrolling TikTok or Instagram with Roku TV playing in the background.

So last night, I set my alarm to 5:30 with very little conviction and prayed with similarly little conviction that God would give me the inclination to rise with it, if I felt like it. To my astonishment, when the alarm went off, I said "well this won't be any more appealing tomorrow" and I got up and dressed and walked to the gym, just a couple blocks away.

I didn't have high hopes. 10 minutes at 6mph has always been my absolute bear minimum baseline, which I should be able to do at any time (though I remember working up to it when I first started messing about with treadmills in 2021), so I set it to 6.5mph, and ran for 10m30s.

I could have pushed for more, but opted to not kill myself on the first day back. Hopped onto the chest press machine after, then came home. Had a pot of coffee, protein shake, vitamins, showered, shaved, dressed, Duolingo, Bible reading (Colossians), and now sitting down to work.

Like anything else, I hate getting up early, I love having gotten up early.

Weighed in at 174.6lbs this morning. Not terrible. Would love to be down to 160 by race day, but not focusing too much on weight loss. Tracking it anyway...

Day 3 of a routine centered around waking up at 5:50 and going for a run. The first day where I didn't wake up exhausted, having got to bed at a decent time; woke up before the alarm, in fact.

But still wondered what the point of it was.

I've also had a ritual of a morning shot of apple cider vinegar mixed with turmeric and cayenne and ginger syrup. Why? They're supposed to be beneficial. They upset my stomach.

Why do anything? My genuine desire in the mornings is to lie in bed and play Two Dots until my morning meeting, then work until the day ends, then lie back down. Sure, it feels like a waste of a day, but do a couple of pre-dawn laps around Tompkins Square Park magically elevate it? What is comfort worth?

Closer to 5k every day 💪

Managed to push through to 13 minutes / 1.5 miles on the treadmill this morning. As I often do, tried to analyze why I wanted to stop. Sort of vaguely uncomfortable, lungs a bit tight maybe, but my heart rate wasn't up much, no soreness. I really do think it ultimately comes down to boredom.

Had a really late lunch so no dinner, then read about "intermittent fasting" which I keep seeing ads for, and evidently it can just be limiting the times during which you eat, so that your body has more time to burn stored calories rather than just always burning the fresh ones coming in. Apparently one approach is "8/16", where you only eat during an 8 hour window, and then not for the other 16 hours of the day. Seems easy enough--so I'll try sticking to 9-5.

As such, hit the gym on an empty stomach this morning and weighed in at 156.5 vs. yesterday's 161.5. Bit surprising, but probably just an effect of being on an empty stomach.