On Saturday, I broke from my diet rhythm; I didn't break my diet, that is, a night-long orgy of provocative fat, sensuous sugar, and that ever so seductive salt.

No, I didn't do ANY of that!

However, I DID miss out on my daily meal of spinach, broccoli, and sauerkraut. While that meal is a big contributor to my nutritional approach, I didn't miss out on much. In a context where my net carbs dipped hard from 20.8 to 13.5 g, it amuses me that the biggest hit was...sodium. I only ingested 81.7 mg, the equivalent of walking into a Pizza Hut.

Saturday was a bit of a travel day for me. I estimate I clocked in a total of around 180-190 miles in my truck. I went down to Greenbelt Park in Memphis to toss an Aerobie and followed that up with time spent in my Tiger jersey watching my alma mater take on UCF. I spent 1½ around the Liberty Bowl before the game started, took in the 1st half, and all but the last 2 minutes of halftime until it began to rain, so I headed out the door with us up 30-17. I'm not responsible for any lack of scoring thereafter in that 31-30 defeat! I drove home the entire time shrouded by the rain.

While in the Memphis area, I spent time visiting my old haunts: my childhood neighborhood, the Wolfchase mall, and the nearby Target among others. It's funny: though I really do miss those days of old and wish I could capture them and bring them to the present, while I was physically within those familiar spaces, it was surreal—they didn't feel like my home; they felt different. I was reminded of the Hickory Hill era circa the late '90s—as it has been sang, "Where is the life that I recognize? Gone away."

I grew up in that area and watched how a quiet intersection of Germantown Rd and Hwy 64 became a traffic-congested commercial center. What was once a pine hill with a train caboose, became a mall in the spring of 1997. I remember, for I skipped my college classes that morning on its first day. There was a time when I did an opening stint with the Store of Knowledge and two Christmas tours with the World of Science, '97-'98 and '98-'99. I even kept the job for funzies for about a month into my new job as an intern with Kraft in March of that year despite it paying half of what I made in my new job.

None of that is around anymore, of course. And that mall no longer feels like my mall. And to my wide-eyed surprise, when I drove by the Raleigh Springs Mall area, that area and the old Service Merchandise on the corner across from it was just flattened out—not even the parking lot remained. Just this dirt expanse. Malls invariably die, of course, and this mall had significance for me way back in the '80s. Even later, on the day I turned 16, I drove up there and bought a pair of Dan Post, black cowboy boots for $150―that's like $255 in today's money. Perhaps my last purchase at the mall was for a tux rental for my senior prom. It was never a surprise to me that the mall would spiral downward, but nevertheless, I didn't expect to see it wiped off the face of the planet.

I drove by the old K-Mart building down the street, remembering how I played my first NES there, absolutely blown away by how Super Mario Bros outclassed my Atari. Down the road, the Super K-Mart that had replaced it has been abandoned.

And while I loved my time downtown as I've had some great memories made there around that park—and OF COURSE my time at the Liberty Bowl for the University of Memphis has made such a HUGE impact in my life both personally and professionally—its stadium even feels the same as '96 and '97, sans seating and jumbotron upgrades—I was dismayed how I felt about what was once my hometown of Bartlett. It feels the same but it doesn't...it didn't feel like home. It is just a two-dimensional representation of what I once knew, for the depth of a third dimension of living emotion was noticeably absent.

The next day as I was doing some chores around the house, I spent a moment gazing across a cotton field as the cool autumn breeze swept across my brow. I realized I'm glad I live out in the country.

In recent days in west Tennessee, we've reached those beloved autumn temperatures. From the calendar flipping to fall up to these days into October, it has been far too hot to label it anything like autumn. But here we are, the temperatures of training. Ahh, it's more than that of course.

I really do love this month—not for its ghoulish aspects. I'm not against the macabre in of itself, either, for even before the popularity of The Walking Dead, I was a fan of the zombie genre and mowed down a lot of bad movies/books for my fix. I just loved considering its practical application and it as a societal metaphor. No, it's the specific calendar date that is in play here.

Perhaps I wear the mantle of my father's disdain for Halloween, as the first of our name, my grandfather, died on a Mississippi River barge explosion on October 30 when my dad was 12, just days before his 13th birthday. In like manner, I don't view Valentine's Day like everyone else as I buried my father on that day. Now, I don't feel the same about Easter despite my Mom dying two days after it on 2015, but it's the specific nature of the holiday's celebration of the resurrection that makes the difference.

While I do really like the concept of Día de Muertos, I celebrate Reformation Day on October 31. That's the game changer. It's not a superficially fun holiday and puts things into context, which is why its superior to Halloween. But hey, if there's an opportunity to toss a couple bags of discounted candy toward my kids way, all the more better.

Perhaps I appreciate this time the most as a bridge. Sure, sure a bridge to workout and reach my fitness goals into 2019. But, I value it more as a bridge to Thanksgiving, as that holiday is the threshold into the Christmas season. It's funny, as kids, we were always all about the surprise of the toys while hitting those landmines of gift wrapped socks. Today, who cares about presents?

From Thanksgiving leading up to New Year's Eve, it is a celebration that parallels Dickens' A Christmas Carol as I warmly consider the past, present, and future; it is as if all events merge into one space. I love the music, the decoration, and the movies. I like how the workplace takes a backseat and is no longer the chief end of man. Yes, yes there's that cloud of consumerism that mucks everything up and funnels food into that mouth-smacking marginal utility as the dribble of greed drips down a greasy face, but, that's what other folks do. For while I start thinking about The Season before retailers do, I don't have the glint of the ecstasy of gold in my eyes.

As the year wraps up in the Christmas season, my eyes look toward 2019...get your New Year's resolutions together, folks, I'm coming...

I'm reminded of past days, those moments when I ask myself did they actually happen; those instances in which even while in the moment, I'll take a step back and ask myself, "how did I wind up here?"

Today, I'm referencing the Czech Republic, for Tuesday's weigh-in was the same as it was upon my return from my education abroad, though that context was after water fasting for 4+26 days. The +? It was a brief interlude at this McDonald's followed by a couple of selections at a Tesco Express that has since been replaced by a Cycle Republic (cute) near the dorms I stayed at in London—before classes started during the leadup to the Olympics, I spent 4 days just minutes (on foot) from the British Museum.

However unlike today, from a practical perspective, weight loss from water fasting is never sustainable and in the final analysis, fails as a vehicle for weightloss. That said, water fasting excels at discipline development.

Weightloss is simple: expend more calories than are consumed so as to draw from reserves. Weightloss optimization is when things get creative. And you don't need 3 easy installments of $19.99 to get there.

An aspect of Europe that I really wish we had in America is the ease to travel across the continent and within the cities by foot. From the Highlands of Scotland to Poland to Rome to Normandy, aboard bus, train, tram, and ferry, my shoes have been everywhere, man. If I was a citizen, I'd have no need to own a driver's license.

This mobility propels an agenda of remaining in a condition that supports it. Sure, the western diet grows worse in proportion to food labs market cap—maybe one day we as people will make the leap to choose foods not based on taste aggrandizement, but to amplify nutrition— c'mon, who are we kidding? UTILITY MAXIMIZATION!

But all that aside, would we have the volume (in numbers...and in practice) of these behemoths orbiting the Walmart aisles if organically, people were more mobile? It's not like weight gain is an overnight failure. It's many little things that build up the adipose ick. And frankly, it is a sad state of affairs that retailers make available electronic carts to trolley their customers around the store. Clearly, they have not incurred a handicap, for these not-so-jolly giants from the fruitless fields of Velveeta and the Dewed Mountains of Doritos would have brought their own vehicle or a frakin' crutch if a leg or two were out of commission—though the cardio involved in an upper body workout of pulling oneself to a store would be spectacular! But, no, they plop down into the machine's groans as they dispossess their humanity upon that death knell ride.

Worse yet is what we all have realized, yet do not recognize: we all drive living rooms with plush seating. We waddle from our homes, plop ourselves into our recliner, drive to work, just to plop down into our chair with lumbar support with the occasional waddle to the snack machine. Plop, plop, plop: the drumbeat of America.