My silence on my workouts doesn't mean they met a premature end; no, I am in my laboratory, mixing various compounds and isolates. This morning was an Abs & Cardio and lemme tell ya, I am BEAT—even 90 minutes after its end! I planned it to be a lighter day with my 5-min coffee alt, 25 minutes of ab work followed by 70 minutes of cardio. Even my mind feels a little woozy.

I thought my gym was adequate for everything I wanted to do. Yet, there is a piece of equipment that I really need. I considered rewarding myself with it once I hit a future weight, yet it is a tool to actually get to that weight. Last night, I bought an incline bench off of Amazon. I've been using the incline setting on my Bowfex—it's wobbly and technically doesn't lock in place. It's fine for its intended use, but fails as a replacement. With a delivery that will be just in time for Arms Friday, my incline bench will allow me to add spider curls which were impossible otherwise. I've run across several routines that I would have liked to have added, but couldn't. For example: I'm curious to try out situps on the decline setting.

The next purchase wasn't a necessity, but serves to augment my core. It also slides into what I feel is the best approach to training, that is one that is organic to your life (I'll write more on this at a later date). I bought an exercise ball that will be a tool for my gym space and hopefully will be effective replacement for my office chair at the computer.

I've been feeling physically the best I've felt in 13 years; I'm positive and happy. I'm a flash mob dance of one...inasmuch my introvert psychological makeup fails to suppress—oh frak it, I'm all about Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself. It's funny how ramming nutrition down our throats makes us an instant Popeye.

I begin the third week of my nutrition program (and 2nd for training). Now, some might detract from my diet by saying its boring. You know, when I needed food for entertainment, there was something fundamentally flawed with that whole...ugh, stinky stuff, lemme just throw it into the back of my truck and take it to the dump. I'm not saying having tasty food is bad, rather it's the mindset—as if all my life is just a Pac-Man-ian doughnut-driven universe. If hanging out at a Chinese buffet was the point of life, I would actually like butter—yes, I HATE butter...sour cream...cream cheese...lard...mayonaise...and it took until college until mustard didn't give me the creeps; it still can come off a bit like nails on the chalkboard. I've always found eggs largely revolting unless they're overcooked; brown is best. The bridge to veganism is a short walk for me. That said, I love my beef jerky; I am afterall the top 1% with Neanderthal DNA. The Smithsonian got my portrait just about right.

I don't know where I'm at on the scale. I'm curious of course as I'm at the 1/3 milemarker before my first weigh-in on the morning of May 14. Honestly, it doesn't matter because it's going to take care of itself. There's no place for it go other than down. Though it once was prime, my focus isn't about a number, but cutting all the fat so I can count my abs...4? 6? 8? Who knows? Check out next____, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

I'm now eating vegan of course, but I'm not someone who places the beast atop the creation. I believe in a certain order for nature, and that generally says that there's a place for everything to live and be happy. But, my workshop isn't one of those places. So, I had another mouse contestant fail last night. Now, if he was the one who deftly snagged the peanut butter off my other four mousetraps without tripping the trap, well, lil' Icarus got too cocky. However, I suspect that the weekend's champion reaped his rewards. While I've been using a successful kitchen trash can, as there's been a litany who jump in for funzies with no bait, I'm going to add a 5-gallon bucket to the contest to see what results I can pull off. I might try cooking some carbs like rice and set in the snap traps to see if I can get better results. So far my obstacle course has netted 4 mice in 5 nights (80%) and the snap traps have been 1 in 3 nights (33%)...

...but, it's a new week, and the obstacle course was the first to put points on the board. 1-0.

Today

As I've continued in these days, it was a 4AM morning. It wasn't to rush out and do flys or anything; I cycled a 5-min warmup on the bike, but that's more of a coffee alt than anything else—no, this morning was simple: to be. I went out on the front porch and looked deep into the night sky. I walked upon the highway and stood across the double-line and grasped the stars. I stood there for a moment and reflected how I could never do that on Union Avenue back when I lived at Georgian Woods or near the corner of Union / Cooper while on Linden. There in Memphis, it was hard enough just to see the stars, much less the expanse.

While I rest from my 5-day resistance regimen, I had a workshop cleanup slated for this morning. I chose not to, sans one thing; let the reader know: CARBS KILL. It amuses me that while on my low-carb diet, I use carbs (peanut butter) to kill mice. One of my traps is akin to an obstacle course TV show: the mouse must climb a wooden beam up the trash can and walk across a clothes hanger that perilously suspends above a watery death to reach a smattering of peanut butter on a spinning Pancho Cheese Dip cup. Two failed this week, but I really don't know their attrition rate after this morning. You see, I set up four conventional mousetraps. Three of the four had the peanut butter licked clean. The fourth...well, he won't be coming back for next week.

Friday

Not that I have been entirely resting since the end of Friday's routine. After doing piecemeal maintenance on my John Deere x500 this past week, I finally got to fire her off a couple hours before sunset. It was the first cut of the season and I wanted to knock it out before this weekend's coming storms. For the future, I just might picked this timeslot: it was great to mow after the passing of the sun—the gusts of breeze were inviting. And toward the end, I opened it up and flew. I don't know if it was my diet, my training, or that I wasn't running it like I usually do around noon, but I didn't feel taxed afterward like I usually do. All my life, I've grinded it out with nature while the sun was at its highest. I stumbled across this approach simply out of time-constraints.

Saturday

I drank my coffee alt. I heavily considered spending time Saturday morning on improving my cardio. As that will increasingly be a focus in these upcoming weeks and months, I chose instead to spend my 4-6AM time slot to clean up and re-organize my gym now that all of my workshop things have been removed. Consequently, it is even more inviting—even more my personal haven. I've got 36-inches between equipment, which seems ideal to me. I look forward to using this space as I'm implementing a program specifically for me as I include each exercise for a specific reason, as opposed to the general shotgun approach I suspect most train, the "I do it because it's good for me?" mentality. If you don't have a specific goal, you're just gnawing on peanut butter.