Another Friday! The end of resistance for the week and when I get to refill my vitamin organizer. A little bit of a shift for this upcoming week as my diet changes for The Third Expedition—specifically, bringing choline back into the supplementation as I taking the eggs out in a return to veganism. Additionally, I think I'll be stopping by VitaminShoppe for Green Tea extract, though like my iodine, it may come in liquid form.

Again this morning, I had tension as to whether I should continue my quiet time or begin working out at 4AM. I came to the conclusion (again) to train, as mental energy waned. I squeezed a lot into the time I did have—more from Beeke, readings out of Job, a couple of worship songs, but I feared that by extending it another hour, it wouldn't be as fruitful.

Cardio was ok, though it was rough getting it off the ground as I got sick from the tannins. I knew I couldn't drink 2 cups of my Darjeeling on an empty stomach, but 1 cup has always been ok...until today. Weight training was fine—I increased the weight on the DB triceps extension. I also tagged a little bit of abs on the end, as I'd like to get back to doing abs 3 times a week.

I've had a luxury for the past couple of nights: diet drinks—a Diet Dr. Pepper then and a Diet Coke yesterday. Clearly, diet sodas are not the bastion of health. But, it shouldn't impact my weightloss objectives. Now, I read blogs that claim bits about insulin, but without showing the research, it might as well be just another spurious claim on a blog. There's so much of that out there, but I guess it's because publishing content online has such a low barrier to entry that you'd trip over it.

Now I've heard and I'm sure you have heard as well about the correlation between obesity and diet drinks. But, it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? That people might recognize that they don't want added calories, so they drink diet. And without any extra calories to spare, they don't grab that 5 gallons of Pepsi. Yet with drinking diet soft drinks in of itself without a radical lifestyle change, no progress will happen. It is like the drink never happened; unless it specifically replaces a high calorie drink, why would we think it would make an impact?

It's now less than three days from my The Second Expedition‘s weigh-in. I look forward to seeing how the events of these past six-weeks culminate onto the scale. On Monday, whatever the weight is, I'll take a moment to celebrate since it's gonna rock, then I'll move on into my cardio, forging ahead into The Third Expedition.

It was another solid workout for me today. At 3AM, I steeped a cup of black tea and went through my daily reading in Beeke's text along with my place in the Bible, spent time in prayer with a few worship songs—check out my Yellow Highligher Spotify playlist for a bevy of them. I really ought to explore that genre more, though I hesitate with the large inflow of experiential-focused music—it's no longer about truth and worship but actually comes off a bit with a New Age seasoning. And while I enjoy groups like Demon Hunter, mewithoutYou, etc., they are more of a commentary on life, than actual worship music. Skillet, incidentally from Memphis, sometimes has worship and sometimes has material for a great workout. Oddly enough, despite the Memphis connection, the only time I saw them in concert was at the Cornerstone Festival in Illinois back in 2004. Awhile back, I read that the lead singer, John Cooper, comes up with songs while on his treadmill—makes sense. I've liked their albums along the way, including their last one: Unleashed Beyond (Special Edition):

I was tempted to forego my cardio in lieu of extending this quiet time, but I knew my focus was becoming blurred. And, I knew how important it is to put that cardio in. I really do need a 2-hour routine to make sure I put in a good workout. I feel best when I leave a workout with a drenched shirt.

The cardio I've been doing of late is 10 minutes on the treadmill followed by 10 minutes on the elliptical—alternating the direction each minute. My reasoning is that it takes around 8-10 minutes for my body to get adjusted to a cardio machine, so when it does, I change it. I'm still not running on the treadmill, but I do keep it cranked up to 5.5%. In fact, I did a little bit of 6% today. Thus, in lieu of speed, I just keep cranking it up for intensity. My left foot complains a little, but not enough for me to change my routine yet.

It was another Back day for me. I increased the weight on my dumbbell front raises. It began feeling a smidge too easy. The 2nd hour went by much faster than I anticipated.

Speaking of anticipations, I'm really excited about Monday. While I think I'll get very close to beating the percentage of weightloss from The First Expedition, I don't have the zeal of my earlier approach. I really don't know where I'm at, but I think it'll be tough to beat out that initial water loss from the introduction. A truer comparison would be between The Second and Third Expeditions, which is something I will do. But, we'll see where I am in comparison come Monday. I don't see how the weekly math will work out in my favor, but who knows? Clearly, my BMR has dropped though I have tried to combat that with more caffeine. I guess I could have tried strapping the equivalent of the weight loss from The First Expedition to my body, but it would just be physically awkward to carry around my 40lb dumbbell.

I'm pushing back my re-emergence onto Facebook a couple of weeks. While I initially planned 22 weeks in advance, with regards to continuity, it just makes sense to have a fourth six weeks, to have The Fourth Expedition. In practice, there's not a whole lot of difference between September 3 and the September 17. And it gives me an additional two weeks to put some solid work in. But, I'm under no illusion that my work will be done come autumn. I won't even be done with the cutting phase. I do reasonably hope to be under 200 by that time, but it depends on how Monday's weigh-in goes and how my body transitions thereafter. I'm looking forward to The Third Expedition's diet and I expect that it will tear into the weight loss.

I'm still developing its cardio program. As much as I prefer the resistance, the focus must remain on cardio while the ol' iron is a secondary driver. Depending on the status of my feet, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to slowly incorporating a condition program for running. Months ago around the turn of the year, I set up a schedule that begin in July. It still may be too early to engage it, but I don't have a problem with exploring it.

I've been enjoying my return to mindmapping. I began using Freemind around 2004. It's older now, but It remains the same program as it ever was and it can't be beat to capture a flurry of thoughts.