While I had disabled my 3:50AM wakeup call from Siri, I was awoken at 4:30AM. I fell out of one of those dreams where we would do anything to climb back into it. It was one of those dreams of being with someone who on this side of wakefulness is out of reach. And the thing about dreams is that they are so vibrant, so ALIVE, that to suddenly be ripped from "reality" is unsettling. I sat on the side of my bed and shook it off, felt the pain in my first steps, and pulled on my workout Vibrams.

Sometimes we need a rhythmic cardio session in the dark to work through things. Wednesday is cardio-centric for me and while some ab work was scheduled, I chose not to in this workout return week.

I climbed aboard the elliptical and in apropos audio fashion, Daft Punk's One More Time met me randomly.

And when it comes to being "out of touch" or "out of time" or whatever Hall & Oates recapitulation best defines, my thoughts fall to my Tech Noir expedition at the turn of the year, when I plugin into the SNS mainframe—although, clearly, I'm not completely disconnected as I've got this site, though, this doesn't function much more than a system log with a Gantt chart. And there's little to be done to bridge the eternal gap.

But don't confuse the intent of my weightloss vivacity as a deliverable for Tech Noir week. While it is important to reconnect, ceteris paribus, on March 4, my numbers indicate that I'll have unracked enough fat where I'll feel comfortable for the increased load of a running regimen. It's not that I cannot run now—I even did a little bit of jogging this morning—it is a pursuit that I want to go after, but I must resist advancing its development simply because of the real threat of injury.

In my attempt to finish up a Netflix series, I stayed up past my 7:30PM bedtime—WELL past it. I knew the consequences, but I figured with one last day of the service remaining, I would just push off the morning workout for later in the day.

And I did. Sorta.

It was a mistake. The garage was a bit hotter than my pre-dawn workouts back in early July. I thought I could pick up right where I left my last chest workout. I even made a mistake by adding 5 lbs MORE than my last dumbbell flys, which that alone might have tanked my performance.

I didn't get through my regimen. It's a really simple one, 4×12 each of dumbbell press and flys, in the following scenarios: incline, flat, and decline, with a 30 second rest on the elliptical between sets. But, as I was fighting through the fatigue with the decline sets, I found myself performing flys instead of a 2nd set of presses, and couldn't press...and just exhausted. I hit the showers and could barely lift my arms up as I regretted not taking that 4AM.

But, despite the lack of capacity, it's good to return to working out. I needed something to exert against the inertia of that big ol' granite ball. Today has been a win, even if by a slim margin.

The biggest challenge I have in this diet reset is dealing with the hunger with respect to an intermittent fasting approach. I don't recall having my last meal at 2:30PM each day being much of an issue last spring. That diet was different, as among the differences, it also included a lb of romaine a day.

It's one thing to shift from one food source to another, quite another to make the swing to...hunger pangs. Even in the discipline of fasting, I only have to deal with that 2-3 days and the appetite is gone. It's not something I wish to experience night-after-night in this transition. Perhaps in The 5th Expedition, it can be something I can integrate into my regimen.

I don't necessarily mind returning to romaine. Yet still, I may abandon an intermittent approach if it risks my success. What good are the gains I can achieve with that approach if it blows up the entire system?

This may be a resolution in the short-term, but I don't know what to do overall. Yes, in this project setting, this solution works, but what seems to compel me to seek ill-fitting solutions? Why do I grab low-density nutrition sources to meet hunger? In fact, I don't even view my selection in terms of how it helps me; I just view them in terms of finding pleasure. And that is systemic to the human experience.

All that I can do is push those things—that which provides pleasure in company of low-density nutrition—away from ease of access. Although without amenities such as DSL or cable Internet, a benefit of living out in the country is that I'm far away from any sort of pizza delivery or Chinese takeout.