Keto blog – Unlike many of my readers, I can eat pretty much the same 5-10 foods on a rotation the rest of my life and be happy.  Some of the people I talked to get bored with keto and they are worried about variety.  Well, there is no limit to the amounts of food you can have on keto!  Mostly, you learn about substitution.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you strike out.

One problem I run into with OMAD is getting enough calories.  My cousin the other day was texting me about this and I pretty much laid out what I do during the week.  Some days I might hit 2000 or so, some other days I’m hitting 800.  The questions I’m asking myself:

  1. Are my caloric goals for the week met?
  2. Am I over training?
  3. Am I too hungry?
  4. Am I forcing food into me?

I do OMAD M-Th.  Within that, I have 500-900 calories on Monday and Wednesday, and as much as I can eat on Tue/Thurs.  My meals on Tue/Thurs are usually pretty massive, but these are usually salad-based.  You have no concept of how big these salads are.  I LOVE to eat – and when you are putting down 6-10 cups of romaine with 1/2-1 pound of meat with some cheeses and tomatoes, you really stuff yourself but then realize you may have only had 800 calories.

I try to do a 36 hour fast from Thursday dinner to Saturday morning.  It doesn’t always happen, but I do it because of how goddamn good I feel when I wake up Saturday AM.

Saturday and Sunday are between 2200-3000 calories.  I try to eat 3 meals each of these days, but I also do 1-3 hours of training each of these days, so my caloric needs and recovery foods needed are far higher.

During the weekdays, I get a little hungry over lunch, but it very small and passes within 30 minutes.  On my “fasting Fridays” I get pretty hungry from 5-6:30 or so, but then that passes and I fall asleep with an empty stomach and it’s not growling or anything.

 

So right now I’m training for a 5k on Thanksgiving in York, PA here.  Like 5,000 people run this every year.  So I’m dialing up my running from 2-3 times a week, and I am running distances of 2-4 miles routinely, at different speeds.  This morning in a few hours, I’m going for 4.25, but if I feel good, I’m going to try for 5 miles.

Of interest with training when on keto – recovery.  Ensure that after you exercise, you have plenty of salts and potassium.  If your electrolytes are too far out of whack, well you don’t want to know what happens then.

 

The 5k leads me to setting some goals and defining them.  Part of my process is to set lofty goals.  It fuels me.  It latch on to these and then I get dialed in.  It’s how I spring out of bed.  It’s my “joie de vivre”.  Sorry, I took a couple years of French and barely remember that.

 

So with that, let me lay out some goals I got going on:

  1. Weight.  I’m currently 240.  I’m trying to hit 226 by Thanksgiving.  All of this running and being dialed into my diet should get me close to this.  Christmas is another 4-5 weeks after Thanksgiving, so I’m shooting for 220 by then.  I’m currently in a 38 pant and XL shirts.  Looks like Christmas might have me swimming in them then.  I’m shooting for 6 pounds of loss per month, and with keto, the fat loss is pretty linear.  What isn’t clear is usually my water weight and muscle weight.  Keto has been good with preserving my 161 or so pounds of lean body mass.  My end weight goal is 185-195 or so with about 165 pounds of lean body mass.  With that rate of loss, I’m hoping to hit my FINAL GOAL in May 2019.  That will be 2 years and 9 months of changing my life to take off about 180-190 pounds – the right way.
  2. 5k – my first 5k will be the Turkey Trot in November 2018.  5000 people run, and my goal is to finish 3750th or better.  I’d like to not finish in the lower quartile, and based on my numbers today, I think this is doable.
  3. Indoor tri – in February, I plan on doing the indoor triathlon I did 10+ years ago.  This is 10 minutes of swim, 30 minutes of bike, then 20 minutes of run.  I feel at this point I will be 215ish and think I can finish in the upper half.
  4. May 2019 – Goal date.  Shooting for 185-195, probably at 190.  This is the goal weight date, but I feel I might have another 6-12 months of finalizing my body composition after this.  Adding a few more pounds of muscle, carving a few more pounds of fat, etc.
  5. Military – so I’ve gotten about 200 rejections so far.  I expect nothing less, at this point because none of the major branches have yet to update their guidelines to reflect what passed in the NDAA for 2019.  Essentially, the NDAA removed age limits so you don’t have to retire by 62 – meaning the “20 years in by 62” is no longer needed.  See section 501.  Additionally, it allowed people to be direct commissioned up to the rank of a Colonel, which is section 502.  However, what I’m seeing from the Army Direct commissioning is they are taking E-5 or higher and using them for consideration.  For the past 40-60 years, the Army has done direct commissions for doctors, lawyers, chaplains, and even engineers and public affairs officers.  Typically, this would send the professional to a 5-6 week officer school, then at some point send them to a BOLC for 12 weeks or so.  I’m hoping by May, they have changed their policies by then.  I plan on walking in around 190 pounds with about 15-17% bodyfat and in incredible shape.  At 240 pounds, I can run 4 miles, bike close to 30 miles, and swim a mile – but my pushups aren’t terrific.  I have some room to grow.  I feel another 50 pounds will significantly improve my consideration.
    1. Army officer (reserve), traditional route – The Army is the only branch of the military where you must do basic prior to Officer Candidate School.   So in the Air Force, if you want to be an officer, you go directly to an OTS.  So – in the Army, you have boot camp for 8-9 weeks, then OCS for 12 weeks, then some form of BOLC for another 12-16 weeks.  Yeah, not  really possible for me at this point to miss that much work.  This is all in like a 6-8 month window.  Additionally, OCS caps at like age 35.  Not really possible to miss like half a year of work, even if they would let me in.
    2. Army officer, direct commission – Age is listed at 41- Again, you can be DC up to colonel (with recent NDAA changes not reflected yet in Army policy), but someone like me might have a chance for captain, maybe.  To put it into perspective, I believe the lowest rank a doctor joins at is captain.  Depending on experience, they can join as a major or Lt. Colonel.  For the lawyers, doctors, and chaplains, they can usually join up to age 45/47 and I recently saw a Navy doctor joined at 63.  Take a look at this page – cyber is now the 4th way to join with a direct commission.   Another obstacle – while the JAG, doctors, and chaplains can all join with direct commission into the reserves, the cyber path is ONLY for active duty for 3 years, then reserves for 5.  Some of the articles I read seem to point that this will at some point change to reserves as well.  So – this might be something that I keep in mind for 1-2 years after my May deadline if not possible.  This route DOES look like there’s a crack – not much, but a crack.  The first 2 they picked for this were enlisted.  So, unlike going to the civilian path for doctors/lawyers, they seem to be doing direct commission from those in the enlisted ranks, for now.   To be honest, I don’t care about rank – it’s just I’m gauging where I might have a shot at.
    3. Air Force/Air National Guard officer – this also seems possible, but I’m up against age limits here.  They are listed at 39, but it’s because you have to have 20 years in by age 60.  With the NDAA changing, this might leave a crack open.  With this, it appears that you go to an officer school for 9 weeks in Alabama.  It’s not clear what the training requirements are needed afterwards, but the AF seems to split this over several years so a working stiff like myself isn’t hit with 3-4 months or training right away.  Additionally, there’s a wing in Baltimore for cyber.  This might be the best chance I have, if age is permitted.
    4. Navy – no chance.  First of all, they do direct commissions, but they are ONLY looking for computer science with cryptography.  That is not my wheelhouse by any stretch.  So – no possible chance here.
    5. Marines – no chance.  They have a hard limit of 28 to join, no chance no how to join them.
  6. Triathlon – looking for my first “real” sprint triathlon to be August in the Lititz, PA area.  It’s 300m of swimming (in a pool, outdoors), with 15 miles of biking, then 3.1 miles of running.  I am really not cool with open water swimming at this point, so this seems to be a nice happy medium.
  7. Adult baseball – I got some facebook advertisements for an “old timer” league in the area, over 40.  I would like to see what it’s like to play baseball in great shape, where I can steal bases, leg out an infield single, and be extremely mobile for fielding.  My last year in legion, I hit .389 with a few homers while being about 235-240.   It would be interesting to see how this is when you’re 40-45 pounds less.  I am interested in playing one season to see how I do then hang em up forever.  I still have a decent arm, but my body doesn’t recover too well these days!

 

So – that is my next year of goals.  I think at this point next year, I’m going to see where I’m at and come up with some more “big goals”!!!

 

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