This week in review (3/3/24 - 9/3/24)

Body composition

Body measurements

Unfortunately no body measurements for this week. Since my lazy ass woke up in the morning, stripped, did my business, stepped on fancy-shmancy scale and immediately went back to sleep.

Lookout for next week’s measurement. I’m expecting the difference to be noticeable.

Observation

This week was an extremely stable week in terms of meals. No ‘episodes’ (relapses) to speak of. Thankfully.

Well, maybe there were a couple of days where I might have overdid with couple extra ice cream sticks (healthy-variant). But I don’t think I mind that all to much. It would account for at max 200-300 extra kcal.

All in all nutrition wise I was able to hit my macros consistently.

BMR

To recall our underlying theme of trying to figure out my BMR. I’m currently on 2300 calories and this week’s 0.65 kg drop suggests I’m getting closer to my BMR.

So this week I’ll be upping my calories intake by another 100 calories and see where that gets me.

Now, one thing I do very much understand and anticipate that one of these week (probably next, or the one after next) I’m going to touch my BMR and that week there’ll be no weight loss. In fact if I overshoot slightly with my meals/tracking, I might even gain weight.

But I want people reading this (and more importantly future me) to realize how important it is to extract that baseline benchmark.

In the near future, maybe 12 months from now, maybe 9 months from now, I need to turn the diet switch from “deficit” to “maintenance” to who knows maybe even a “bulk”. Thus, being able to adjust weekly macros to figure out this baseline number at any stage in life will be a valuable asset.

Lesson

This week’s biggest lesson would have to be persevering through any kind of excuse that your mind makes up to deter you from doing anything challenging (having a good workout, in this case).

Most of last week I had cold and felt a slight twinge above my right hip.

Now even though I didn’t feel the pain getting aggravated when I was working out, somehow my mind kept contemplating - taking a couple of days off from any/all kinds of physical activity and see if the pain subsides.

Well guess what? I didn’t miss a single day of workout and the twinge subsided on it’s own.

That said, I’m not being careless/ stupid. If I felt any workout was causing any kind of pain to increase in intensity, I would have definitely laid off.

Aside : Food for thought

Just as how I anchor the beginning of my day with workouts, I’m planning to bookend my day with reading.

One chapter at a time to begin with and then slowly ramping that up as I get better at this.

And just to ensure I stick with this I’d love to add which book I’m reading at the end of my this week in review series. (giving this a go; if I discontinue - know that the habit didn’t stick and kindly forgive!)

Conclusion

Lastly, I’m seeing more and more merit to a predictable day. A day when there’s fewer spikes in energy - mood remains stable AF, which ultimately translates to different kind of peace. I like that peace. I want that peace.

p.s. I’m half-way through reading IKIGAI. So in general, I’ve been contemplating a lot about my purpose, simple things that I do that I derive a lot of satisfaction from and about flow states.

I can safely say I feel very strongly now that working out has definitely become a BIG part of my IKIGAI.

That’s all for this week.

Until next time. Ciao!

— MM.

Current Book: IKIGAI (p. 76)