This morning's workout was again based on the Jumanji routine. More specifically, today was all about the chest. My interpretation:

• Fire up the 90s era music: 1997 this time
• 5-min bike warmup
• Standing Cable-ish Flys: 7 sets with 15 reps
• Incline Flys: 4×15
• Hammer Press Incline: 3×10
• Flat Dumbbell Press: 3×12
• Superset: Flat Dumbbell Flys & Pushups to failure 4×12
• 30-min treadmill
• 15-min bike to slide into 6am

I don't have a standing cable fly machine—who would in a home gym, well, who would without some serious investment in their overall gym space...well, unless they just had a crush on that one particular exercise. I kinda pulled it off using one arm at a time with my Bowfex, though its fraught with its own tension with a range of moment. But, it warmed things up for me, even if the seven sets for each side took FOREVER. And it was better than nothing as my alternatives actually are already in the routine.

Everything went as planned until I was lit up by the superset of db flys and pushups. I finished my first set, got down to push up, and...nothing happened. Tried again. I watched my arms violently shake. I thought to myself, "Is this really happening? Am I faking it?" No, I met the criteria of the exercise: pushups to failure with 0 reps. I knocked out the rest of the fly sets and knew I would feel the pain tomorrow.

My iPhone's 4am broke the silence. I popped out of bed and chuckled. Today is my first day of training. This morning began with some light sweeping after yesterday's clean out of all my woodworking tools and wood. Though there is more work to be done, I wanted to jump right into my workout.

I have a modest home gym; it doesn't have everything I'd like, but it has all the features that I need right now: a dumbbell set, treadmill, a Bowflex, a recumbent bike, a healthy amount of floor mats, a flat bench, a Wavemaster, and a paltry gathering of barbell equipment—to be fair, I've always preferred dumbbells over barbells. Oh, and there's that 100lb Everlast bag in the corner whistling that old R.E.M. tune. I guess it's a shame I've traveled so much over time, because I would have tripled the amount of equipment with everything I've had to get rid of.

Yet, what I have is fantastic: I can do cardio, resistance, and work on my martial arts. Along with working within my own abilities, I'm finding that the key to success is creating a space that I WANT to visit. I mean, who wants to toil away in a place they'd just rather not be? And what do I like? Music of course! I've got a stereo receiver in my gym with an Amazon bluetooth attachment where I can feed Spotify from my iPhone. So with a selection from 1999, I hit it hard...

I haven't developed a program yet. That's not to say I ran wildly around my gym and randomly did reps. I've got resistance planned M-F; this morning, I followed the Rock's Jumanji back schema that can be found here and here. Since I don't have a Roman chair, the only thing I couldn't do was the hyperextensions. My plan is to adopt his workout into my own program inasmuch I have the equipment to do so for the sole reason of...fun.

After the resistance sets, I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill before cycling the last 10 minutes into 6am...which is a segue into my next approach: I want to build up my stamina and drop the weight to comfortably begin a ChiRunning program on July 1. It's not particularly complicated, I will just be following the half marathon and full marathon programs laid out in Dreyer's Chi Marathon so that by April 2019, I will run in the local one. Beyond that, for year snow, I've had this vision in my head of returning to Memphis to simply run in the cool spring air of a Saturday morning.

Of course, there's a series of steps to just get into a place where I can begin training twelve weeks from now. But, I'm got a little magic out of 1995 up my sleeve...

I'm now into the seventh day of my diet. I feel the best I felt in years—being powered full of nutrients will do that. Unlike fasting where I'm on that ol' friend the scale every morning, I've actively made the decision to wait for the six-week mark. There's no benefit to weigh at this time; any weight loss at this juncture won't motivate me—it can't touch anything I can do in the first week of a fast; it won't be a 20+ lb drop. Clearly, as I have greater expectations, leaping aboard that scale would only be disappointment, DESPITE how AWESOME I feel, so there's a threat it would whittle away at this big momentum. When it comes to fasting, it is like making weight—event driven. I had hoped to grab that aspect and then wrangle it down into what I'm doing now, but that bull threw me. Simply, a consistent offense cannot rely on a hail-mary on every possession. Hence, this diet will rack up more points than my experience with fasting (if we're talking in terms of pounds on a scale).

So, I won't be weighing in tomorrow. I'll be posting that result on May 14.

I feel lighter on my feet, quicker in my action...and younger—listening to country, pop, and alt from the 90s might influence that. I've been doing the early-to-bed, early-to-rise bit which has led to a couple of good things: sleep and gym space.

Sleep. During 2018's fasting, I generally slept between 2-4 hours a night with the occasional 6-hour Saturday night. Mentally, I operate fine on 4-hour nights, but from what I've read, the body requires it for all sorts of wonderful things including weightloss—I know, counterintuitive! "Call now and just for three, easy installments of $29.99, you will learn how to sleep to lose weight!"

My gym. As I've been getting up by 4AM, I've used that time to spend a couple of hours for the past two days to bring my gym back online. I'm blessed to have two garages; while one has served as my woodshop and gym, it never operated well in both capacities. So, I'm clearing up the disarray and will be moving my tools, workbench, and wood stack into the other. ‘Cause there's nothing that can blow up a workout like sawdust.

On the subject of training, I purposely have held back this first week. I felt it wise to not introduce too much change. For me, it's about managing momentum and expectations. As much as my spirit begs to rage into the new system, with experience I know that fire, while awesome when employed, is on a short timer. That said, I'll be introducing a training regimen into this upcoming week for those 4AMs where I'll tap into that unbridled zeal on a micro level.