It's a yard mowing Saturday, two hours of riding the John Deere around the yard. You might think that this sort of thing is relatively labor-free when it comes to exercise, but it can be a bit of a core workout as my yard has all sorts of slopes throughout—and I didn't want to smash against the iPad on my back. Since my phone is loosely put together, I chose to bring along my old iPad and backpack from my PhD days so that I could listen to Spotify. Yes, who knew that the same backpack I'd walk through the streets of London, Prague, and Plzen would 6 years later be worn as I mowed a country yard in Tennessee.

While I had my alarm set for 4AM, I elected not to go because I wanted to start the yardwork at 7 so as to slide in before the rain. It was hard to gauge if I could go through a 2-hour cardio workout followed by another 2 hours of yardwork. I've done it in the past, but that was in context of being in rhythm with my workouts, something which I have yet to achieve in this fresh start.

After further consideration, I'm going to keep my resistance program in the 2nd hour of my morning workout. There's the physical benefits of it, the aesthetics, mental toughness development, etc., but I find value in it as a change-of-pace approach. Yes, I could slowly lose steam through cardio, but I like the idea of a jolt of something else after an hour of cardio—even if that something else has cardio integrated into it.

While it was a challenge in of itself: I manage to resist the sweet call of slumber at 4AM after succumbing to the initial 3:50AM call to action. I don't know why it's more challenging this time around, though it seems to be this combination:

• A 5 something-to-6PM cardio last night;
• A 2nd day of intermittent fasting—last meal @ 2:30PM;
• My muscles are still healing.

Today's treadmill and elliptical workout absolutely wrecked me. But even amidst it, I recognized that if I keep pushing, I'll be more enhanced to do greater later. And honestly, what am I doing working out if it's not pushing me? How effective can it be if I didn't feel this way? If it's not, I might as well be dunking Oreos and slamming crullers back on a direct flight to the North Pole to be this year's Santa.

I'm considering on pushing my resistance regimen into the next six-weeks. In practice, I've done just that as in this week, I've only had my chest workout and even in that, I hit muscle failure. And while I applaud the benefits of a resistance and cardio program, I'm want to kick things off by developing stamina over strength gains. And c'mon, I'm on a heavily restricted calorie diet: ain't no Hulk traps gonna come out of that!

If I'm honest myself, while I like to maintain a strong structure, muscle gains are for cosmetic purposes only. I can't think of anything where I need more strength. But, I guess we can't ever have TOO much strength.

No, as I stated in The Plan, I want to run. I'll always be a broad-shouldered guy—that's a genetic gift. I'll never be one of those rail thin guys who are a lunch or two away from starvation. What I need to do is develop my capacity to run and drop significant, unnecessary mass to further extend my range. Weightlifting isn't the best approach at this time, though I do like it in addition to whatever I'm doing, so if I carved out more of my time, sure. However, to do it in lieu of my cardio is not the most effective approach. The past few days, I've had cardio morning, noon, and night. I suspect I can only keep this output for so long, so I may add resistance then.

I woke up throughout the night. One of those times was my scheduled 3:50AM. I sat at the side of bed, crescendoing to engage another 4AM workout and...experienced how sore my body felt from last night's impromptu session, and promptly fell over and sunk into the depths of my soreness.

I woke up again at 6 and regretted my weakness. Who says we can't train through the soreness? As the failure faded from the day's light, I climbed aboard the elliptical and charged ahead at a frenetic pace, falling behind from the gains I could of had that I can never have again.

To the right column, I've added a link to The Wall. Typically when it comes to training, walls are a bad thing. For me, The Wall, is a place where I post my dailies: achievements that energize me, or if a misstep occurs, a reminder to watch out for missteps as they seek to eviscerate their victims in the shadows of a blurred alleyway—how many times have I failed from this lack of awareness! Currently on The Wall (though expect things to change), I list my calories, macros, and daily steps to 7:30PM.

Yes, I'm back on FitBit. It's not a primary approach for me—that's diet of course, and it's not even a secondary source as that's my 4AMs, but think of it as more of a tertiary process of calorie burning—simply squeezing a little bit extra out of my day, finding moments that I could move instead of sit. Weightloss itself is just a long series of small investments that pay off: 100 calories here, 100 calories there. Adding a FitBit is analogous to that mindset.