I'm really excited about this post for I've been setting it up for awhile. I'm going to cover a lot of upcoming changes which will put me in a better position to answer those fundamental questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. I'm disinterested in changes for their own sake, rather I crave an approach where all the pieces interwork to reach a common agenda.

Spiritual

My spiritual quads, hamstrings, and calves have atrophied in this season of my life. It was never my intent, I just lost focus in that discipline of my life. It's a daily practice that I've neglected and I'm going to fix that in these days leading up to Reformation Day. I'm returning to my use of Logos Bible software. I have an awesome library on that platform, with a few selected titles and the Reformed Gold package.

Sidebar: Yes, it was just the other day when I announced my Desktop's move to Linux. I really loved my return to Linux Mint and specifically with Mate. Sadly, the Logos team has no solution for Linux other than to use its web app, which is a limited version of its desktop version and ONLINE, which, again, download speeds are an issue for me.

Physical: a Twist of 4 AM

While I've been experimenting with 7+ hours of sleep. I feel like it has stolen some of my momentum from my cardio. So, I'm bringing back 4AM. But, I'm overhauling it. While I still seek further cardio progression and weightloss, I also don't want to take away from family time, dissuade burnout, and provide additional opportunity.

The morning schedule is as follows:

• 4:00 – treadmill
• 4:20 – elliptical
• 4:40 – treadmill
• 5:00 – elliptical
• 6:00 – shower
• 11:30 – 30-minute lunch cardio

The Weekend:

My goal is to perform only an hour of cardio a day. However, I'd like to explore methods of cardio beyond my machines. In the spring, I'll be running at parks.

Mental Machinations: Business Research

Late 2003 into 2004, I evolved as an individual who just doesn't get amped-up over wealth. Some folks do, over cars, clothes, and "candy." Just not my style. That said, I do like money because it gives me options. The less I have, the more I'm boxed in; I don't like boxes. I like the freedom to consider strategy.

I'm finding a re-emergence of my interest in the discipline of business. While in the past, I shuddered at the driving point of capitalism—playing up greed/materialism—I recognize that this is the system in play, and any others right now is inefficient. Maybe 50 years from now, societal resource allocation will be replaced by automation through AI not subject to corruption. And while I'm dreaming big dreams, hey, there will be a great boon discovered in our solar system that will eliminate scarcity; perhaps we could upload our consciousness into virtual reality? Life is just a series of perceptions in our head, if that was manipulated, there could be extravagance for everyone...though wealth in of itself is a fool's game and even in a context where everything is a non-economic good, we would still have want. Oh, Ecclesiastes! Oh, how we still grasp that wind!

All that aside, I want to fire up my mental engines and explore the discipline of business. It's not an unfamiliar topic as I grew up in a small business home, earned a BBA, and later held an IT perspective in the private sector before going full-on university. There's been times I was a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. Yet, through this stretch of my life, I feel removed from business. I've got some great resources at my fingertips, and I would like to dive deep into those texts.

You see, I want to build something...some sort of successful organization. I know what I'm capable of; I know what I need to shore up. I can find some real success if I do my homework.

I've chosen to post the link to The Wall in the main menu of this site. There's no need to hide it on the sidebar—runs counter to its purpose!

Treadmill Calories

I've been wrestling with how to approach the discrepancy between my treadmill workout and my elliptical. As I've written recently, my approach to my workouts is not so much minutes based, rather, calorie goals to better fit my overall objective.

But the thing is, while my elliptical allows me to punch in my weight, my treadmill in an offline context does not. And clearly, I have an incentive to spend more time on the elliptical because the number difference is huge—why waste time doing something that's not burning as many calories?

However, I know that my treadmill numbers were not an accurate portrayal. So, after a little bit of calculation, I realized the treadmill just assumes a 155 lb weight, which is clearly arbitrary —incidentally my goal weight from a 30,000 foot view. A couple of weeks ago, my weigh-in was at 245. Adjusted for weight, it's over a 60% increase in calories burned. So, I went back to my numbers and fixed them for weight.

I weigh less than 245 now, no doubt in the lower 230s by now, but calorie burning is not an exact science anyway—it's not off by 60% at least!

Saturated Fat & Genetics

Yesterday, I referenced reading my 23andMe info. I also found I have a GG: for the APOA2 gene, making me produce less apolipoprotein A-II. As 23andMe states:

Your genetic result is associated with a 6% higher BMI on diets with more than 22 grams of saturated fat per day. Diets with the same number of calories but lower in saturated fat are not associated with higher BMIs in people with your result.

How does this impact me? In real world terms, if I had followed a high saturated fat, for example, straight up Atkins and kept my calories unchanged, in my last weigh-in, I could have quite possibly weighed 260 instead of 245 lbs. That is a significant difference!

I've been on Atkins a time or two, but I found it untenable. That said, the diet I constructed is low carb at 20.* net carbs and high fat, but of the 69.4 grams of fat, only 8 of it is from saturated fat, well below the 22 gram threshold.

When it comes to Atkins or any popular diet, I get a real sense that people follow them because they don't want to change the specifics of what they eat, yet expect change for themselves. But the thing is, our bodies are just the result of our actions. It's simple: if we eat the same, expect the same. And while I do believe a low carb diet is a successful approach to weightloss, there's a perception that Atkins is bacon, bacon, bacon, rack of ribs and STEAK! While the Atkins literature references vegetables, I doubt its adherents choose it for the broccoli. The results can be there, but health is much more than weightloss.

Who wants sick skinny?

Well, with regards to the ACTN3 gene, I'm a T:T. That is, I don't make a protein found in fasttwist muscles, a production that is common among "elite power athletes."

Good thing I find the rinse & repeat lifting of heavy objects to be a bore!

That said, NOT having it, has been demonstrated in mice to give them a 33% edge in distance before exhaustion with respect to the control. Plus: "among elite endurance athletes – marathon runners and rowers – the variant form of the gene is more common." That just might explain my perspective on those knuckleheads at the gym in town...

T:T is an uncommon trait to have as these are the percentages that possess it in relation to ethnicity:

• European: 19.4%
• African: 4.8%
• East Asian: 20.5%
• Latino: 27%
• South Asian: 36.6%

So, hey, I'm built to do well in cardio, so I just gotta drop weight to make myself less of a "power athlete" with all this extra "iron" I'm hauling around on my frame. It makes sense that I am genetically predisposed toward endurance—honestly, it's what I've always valued the most in myself and athletes—who doesn't love a Rocky montage?

It's such a SHAME that for the last decade+, it hasn't been until now when I've been able to find the zipper to this fat suit. More Genetics After reviewing my 23andMe data, I went into my AncestryDNA account to see any changes. An update:

Maternal

1. Baltic States: 32% 1st generation, Lithuanian grandfather
2. Eastern Europe and Russia > Poland, Slovakia, Hungary & Romania: 23% 1st generation, Polish grandmother

*Paternal

1. Germanic Europe: 18% grandmother
2. England, Wales & Northwestern Europe: 17% grandfather
3. Ireland & Scotland: 6% grandmother
4. Norway: 4% grandfather