Day 8 (75 Hard)

On day eight, Tropical Storm Beta was now right overhead. It was raining pretty good, but I had no choice but to go out and walk all the same.

I brought an umbrella, but I only used it for the first part of the walk. At first, I was getting tons of drops on me from the tree canopy overhead. The worst part of that is that those drops were the conglomeration of many raindrops that had run together as they traveled down the branches and formed much larger drops before falling on my head. So, each time I got a drop from above, it was a great big one. After a while, those drops seemed to diminish, so I put the umbrella away, and dealt with the lesser wetness that came.

It was nice to be able to bring an umbrella. Since I'm only walking, not running, that's possible still. You can't really jog and hold an umbrella at the same time. 

The rain was almost the only issue when it came to walking in a Tropical Storm. There was way less wildlife out today, though. No rabbits today, few squirrels and few birds. The one other thing I came across was this:

Something brought this very large branch/tree trunk down. Maybe there was a little bit of wind. There tends to be gusts in Tropical Storms that double the usual intensity of the winds. I yanked this thing down and pushed it off to the side of the trail so that no one else had to walk around it just to be neighborly.

I was expecting not to see any other people out on my walk, considering that even the animals were smart enough to stay under cover. However, I did come across one other runner crazy enough to go out during Beta's wrath. 

As we passed each other, we did the usual nod, and said good morning, and the guy smiled big, laughing to himself, as I did the same. I'm certain he was thinking, "well, at least I'm not the only one crazy enough to be out here."

I was reminded of an old Nike commercial from just before the year 2000 arrived, when everyone was worried about the Y2K bug, and what might happen to our infrastructure if all the computers stopped working. One of the best commercials ever, and thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can show it to you here.

What an amazing commercial, huh? That thing must have cost so much money to make.

I wonder if that guy was remembering that commercial too as we passed each other by and said good morning to each other just like the did in the commercial with the giraffe running past them.

Anyway, ere is my log for the walk.

After walking, I got on the scale in for my big one week weigh in.

Last time, I started 75 Hard at:

Here's where I finished the week up at:

That's thirteen pounds on the nose. Of course, you have to remember that that weight is not just for one week. I didn't re-weigh myself when I had to restart last Tuesday. So, I don't know exactly what the first week of 75 Hard got me. I think by day five of my first attempt, I had lost about ten pounds, but then I ate a bunch of naughty stuff like brownies, croissants, and so forth. I know that I immediately gained back a lot of those ten pounds that I'd lost, as my body sucked back in all that water it had been shedding.

And that's the other thing to remember about losing weight. I had a big week this week, but it was all just water. You can shed water at any time, but I didn't get on this program to dump water. I got on this program to get healthy and lose fat. Part of getting healthy is achieving a proper amount of water in my body, instead of retaining it like a sponge, but the real important part is still to come. It's far into the future when I become fat adapted, and really start to make use of all that fat that I'm storing around my middle for a rainy day. 2020 is what you might call a rainy day if you ask me.

I finished up my fast at 39 and a half hours by eating my usual giant plate of bacon and eggs. Kind of short for me, but it doesn't really matter. It was in the general neighborhood. Every day that I eat, I have a pound of bacon and six eggs for breakfast. Gotta eat enough nutrients to get me through those 40 hour fasts.

Afterward, It was my weight lifting day, so I went out to the garage, and went through my lifting routine.

The garage isn't a very good backdrop for a picture. It's kind of embarrassing to see how messy it is. Looks like a hoarders house. Yikes.

The day at work was another crazy runaround-like-a-chicken-with-its-head-cut-off kind of day, as we covered the flooding around the city that Troopical Storm Beta caused. I didn't get around to reading my book until after getting home. At least it wasn't like yesterday night, however, where our show extended for an extra hour, and I didn't get home until quite late.

I had to read my book once I got home. I'm reading some books that I bought on Kindle about how to succeed at self-publishing. They are pretty daunting, to tell you the truth. As I read, I keep wondering where I'm supposed to find time to write when doing all of this other stuff. Hopefully, when I finish them, I won't feel so ready to give up.

So, despite the Tropical Storm, and the busy day at work, I still managed to complete day eight. Hooray, hooray. Only, what? 67 to go. Piece of cake.