Day 860 Record Keeping
Day 832 Fixed Meditation (30 min)
Day 706 Writing (3 rounds of 30 min)
Day 246 Rowing (30 min biking, 30 min walking)
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Eating
Day 84 Pantry Check
Day 82 Recording
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Early to Rise
Day 15 Bacon & Water 71
Day 15 Sleep Recording 70 (11:50|12:15|11:30|12:30)
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Great sleep, good wakeup. Woke up at 7:30, then fell back asleep. Should have just woke up anyways, but it worked out.

Barcelona Biking

Since it was such a gorgeous day, I decided to go to the beach and walk and bike instead of sticking to my strict habit of rowing.

The city bike share is really handy. Got my card which allows me to take a bike from one of the bike stands and cycle for 30 minutes.

It’s super handy because I don’t have to worry about having my bike stolen or finding a good place to chain my bike up.

I used to bike a lot when I was younger. It was one of the few things that was my go to for complete relaxation. The last 8 years I really haven’t gotten back into it - the last 2 years it was mostly because I was bouncing through cities and countries that often didn’t have such a bike programs and for some reason I didn’t feel like the short period of time justified purchasing a bike. I had a bike in Korea, but only at the very end of my time there, and it wasn’t the greatest city to bike through.

Since there’s also a great beach nearby with great accessibility, bike lanes, a boardwalk, etc, and it’s summer, the siren song of the outdoors is once again calling to me like it did so long ago. I want to be an outdoors person again - it’s one of the big identity changes I want to make with this project - so it makes sense to change up my long slow cardio days once in a while.

Slavish devotion to routines is very compelling to me because it works, and deviations have often resulted in extreme disruptions to my self improvement. For someone who has struggled for so long to make changes, and is finally doing it because of that devotion, the fear messing it all up is understandable.

But this project isn’t just about ruthlessly accomplishing skills and changes robotically; it’s also about using productivity to live life more fully.

I think both sides - adaptability to take advantage of opportunities like this and extreme regularity are needed for true success. It will be interesting to see where that balance lies.

Either way I had a fantastic time completing my “rowing” habit today (I’ll have to rename that again!).

I have been really frustrated with weight loss lately. My eating has been good, my workouts have been great and I’ve been making progress. But it’s slow, and it’s hard to trust in the system when the metrics you have aren’t foolproof.

The New York Times and several other outlets have been publishing stories like this on the contestants of the Biggest Loser, and oddly enough it makes me feel better.

The conclusion seems to be that the bodies of contestants actively fight such weight loss. A majority of the contestants had, after as long as 6 years after the show, gained the weight back.

The article focuses more on the body’s slower metabolism, but this article and a few others also lightly touch on behavioral changes. It’s the latter that I tend to concentrate on, whether it’s as applicable or not.

To me, radical changes, especially in dieting, don’t seem to cross over to long term change. I had a lot of success with eating earlier in this project, but ultimately even close to a year of behaviors weren’t enough to stick.

The goal for me isn’t short term, and short term can be years. The goal is permanent behavioral change, and that can sometimes take a long, long time. Which is exactly why I’m taking my time introducing change in this recent identity-based approach to eating.

As at many points in this project, it feels horrible. You see other people succeeding in all sorts of different directions quickly, and the urge to just do it all out is difficult to ignore. But I know I’m not like these guys, who showed immense willpower both during and after the show.

“This is a subset of the most successful” dieters, he [Dr. David Ludwig] said. “If they don’t show a return to normal in metabolism, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

The answer for me: None. I’m hoping that the excruciatingly slow approach is the answer. There really isn’t an option for me, not while maintaining other behaviors. And that is oddly uplifting because it forces me to trust this system I’m creating.

Will it work? Only time will tell.

Day 860 & Barcelona Biking

After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight →