The day started out as one gigantic effort. Waking up in the morning I felt very sluggish, like a tremendous heaviness kept dragging me down, and gravity worked against effort I made. There was a weight that pressed on the top of my head which persisted all day.

Despite this, I still experienced intense cravings during the normal hours between 11a to 9p. These came in waves, though they diminished when I had to attend an escalation meeting mid-afternoon. In order to avoid some of the triggers when coworkers started prepping their lunches, I took a brief walk in the warehouse or checked on my accounts on the production floor. If I even smelled food, it was enough to get me salivating, so I had to get out of the area immediately.

The ride from work to home was also long, filled with temptations which I tried to blinder myself to. During the drive, listening to the radio became more irritation than pleasure, so I puzzled over the sense of heaviness and frustration that pervaded my day. I decided to stop and shop at my fave clothing store, Maurices, to see if the visit would provide some stimulation while getting to walk around for awhile.

It occurred to me that the previous day’s exertions may have sufficiently starved me of energy. (That transition from sugar-burning to fat-burning is rough!) I also didn’t get enough sleep. So now I have to be wary of the next exercise routine and be sure to get plenty of rest afterwards.

I also noted that once I was home I was exhibiting some signs of inattentiveness and sluggish response times. I was repeatedly dying at Diablo 3 and some conversations required too much effort to make decisions. Even playing with the kitties was quite exhausting, lifting my hands to dole out string teases was taxing.

I eventually decided to take 2 acetaminophen during the evening to relieve some of the achy heaviness. I also got into bed an hour earlier than previous.

Even though I felt too worn out to enjoy the accomplishment, I did experience a sense of victory in completing the 2nd day of fasting. 

Day 1 started at 151lbs.

Day 2 started at 147.8lbs. 

From today till my target date Sept 15 thanks to timeanddate.com:

Result: 119 days

It is 119 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 3 months, 27 days including the end date

Alternative time units, 119 days can be converted to one of these units:

• 10,281,600 seconds
• 171,360 minutes
• 2856 hours
• 119 days
• 17 weeks
• 32.51% of 2016

Currently, it’s an uphill battle trying to move the scale in the right direction. Every second, minute, hour, day and week of this wager represents a challenge.

I’m so hungry I could eat a kitten. 🙁 

I ended my first full 9 weeks (11 if you counted the duplicated weeks at the end) of Madcow and am working on a new program to improve muscle endurance.

It’s a bastardized 5-3-1 program in which I’m performing 5/3/1 sets of 5 reps while incrementing poundage on the weights.

For example, my program on day 1 looked like this:

• 5-10 min Stretches and 2 warmup sets of squats 
• SQ: 5×5@115#, 3×5@120#, 1×5@125#
• BP: 5×5@ 55#, 3×5@60#, 1×5@65#
• BR: 5×5@50#, 3×5@55#, 1×5@60# 
• Accessory such as assisted pullups

I started last week and found that the exertion is such that I can only complete two sessions a week. I was ridiculously sore coming out of my first week. My best hope is to increase muscle endurance so that I can ramp up to a standard 3 sessions a week. I am going very slow on the weight increments due to the larger quantity of sets.

I hope to do this for 4-6 weeks to improve overall conditioning, then reassess my progress, before taking up another round of Madcow (or whatever I decide on next).

Due to some off-plan decisions this weekend, I haven’t made any great strides in weight loss for my HealthyWager. I’m a little behind schedule if I intend to hit a GW of ~140# in May…which is made a little more challenging due to celebrations, movies, summer activities that involve a lot of eating, etc, during that month. 

I think I can say with relative confidence that most of my injury-prone days are behind me. A lot of hard work invested in our garden and yard in March has alleviated some of the issues I experienced earlier in the year. 

I am dismayed however to discover that my Wahoo Fitness app may be incorrectly reporting calorie burns to MFP when a long pause occurs during strength activities. I’ve reported the issue to Wahoo, but I will have to scrutinize the logs to ensure I’m not overestimating my calorie expenses.

Will this be the year I beat my previous weight loss records? I’ve signed up on HealthyWage.com to improve my chances of getting below 130lbs. Studies show that financial incentives are more likely to improve weight loss results, so this will be a good experiment to test the outcome.

My goal weight is 129.8 lbs by Sept 15. I have 6 months to achieve this goal with an extra incentive of winning $678. This pot includes the $450 I will have wagered for the course of this challenge. The wager is based on my risk tolerance for the amount wagered and anticipation that this is an achievable goal if I get my ducks in a row. An ROI of 50% is reasonable in my book.

I have two weeks left in this month, which I estimate to lose anywhere between 2-5lbs. Will check back in April to provide an update.

Oh and if anybody is interested in sweetening the deal, I stand to gain $80 per each referral that  signs up with this signup URL (you get $40 added to your winnings as well):

http://www.healthywage.com/referral/healthywager/name-your-own-prize/95670481300057

Happy wagering!