While today remains in the first week of December, I cannot but think of the month's last. Because of this enduring diet, a streak that has now extended for 171 days, I can place 2020 with its Fellow Fours brethren of 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and all of their emotions therein, as a year that has impact on today and the years that will follow.

And while I anticipate with open arms mixed with a tinge of anxiety to whatever my return to social media will look like (I suspect a focused approach), I recognize the wisdom of my avoidance of Net News for most of the year, especially as I began to follow ever so hesitantly that which everyone thinks is so important...* sigh *...I find it's trivial with its trivia. And there's just these waaaaaay out of balance emotions expressed via emotionless avatars. "Check your eyebrows, folks! If there's tension there, simma down!"

I can credit that application to all the meditation work I did earlier this year, something I'm reminded of as I gaze intently at this sea & sand candle next to me.

I suppose all of this stems from the simple fact that time is mostly a bunch of filler between bubbles in time. As such, should my soul growl in these irrelevant spans? Or worse, detract from the bubble? That's the weird characteristic of the bubble: generally, you don't know you're in one of those special moments until you leave. But, I gotta admit, having furrowed eyebrows over something that has nothing to do with me has never been a bubble. It has all been just packing material.

The 17th Expedition is upon me! It's Day 2. There was no post yesterday because there was no website. I considered another WordPress return, but that transition is...well, not worth the time, an online journal as this is. The great thing about Jekyll as a CMS is that I can leave and walk away with text files and not squeeze it out of a database—and it's more legible than an HTML tag circus, too!

Before I move completely into The 17th, I'll share the results of The 16th Expedition: 7 lbs. Yes, six-weeks of keto with some 1100 calorie misadventures thrown into the mix with workout session after workout session (before the core injury) and all I have to show for that 42-day span is SEVEN pounds.

It's not so bad...there's an asterisk here.

For the first 33 days, I lost 3 lbs. I basically ran into a wall for the first 22 days of November. No change.

On November 23, I began eating beef when I was hungry and eventually took out coffee, butter, and even eggs. Where did carnivore take me? In 9 days, I lost 4 lbs. I lost more weight as a carnivore in 9 days than I did in 33 with my prior approach! And it wasn't like I took a binge break and was loaded with water weight!

So, yesterday, I came in at 237, tying my lowest weight for 2020 on March 25 from a semi-starvation diet. Now the question is: on December 30, will I suddenly weigh 40 lbs heavier, like what I did earlier this year on that 1000-1200 kcal diet, or did something fundamentally change with the approach I took after my lesson? Stay tuned to find out on New Year's Eve!

The 16th Expedition: 20⚡25 is in its final hours of the countdown to tomorrow's weigh-in.

As such, I have reached the last song of the Expedition, which in practice, was the first song of this Expedition's workout and is singular apart from the rest. It's sort of a The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning by The Smashing Pumpkins type of situation.

In developing the OST for The 16th Expedition, I broke from my trend of looking forward and give a glance to my past. It is a rock representation of titles that once played a role in my life for workouts. In turn, I applied the queue in these last six weeks EXCLUSIVELY during my bag training. The roster has its own narrative to share as it plays out my life 20 to 25 years ago (1995-2000) while also being double-threaded with ages 20 to 25 (July '98 to July '04). Perhaps more of an erudite approach than what is necessary for smashing a bag (or a pumpkin for that matter), but nevertheless, it works for me and I work from it.