Things have settled down for me. Do I feel like I've had a heart attack? They tell me I have and it nearly killed me. They say it's not even the first! I had the symptoms–chest pain, shortness of breath, and cold sweats, but I feel those things sometimes when I am in rhythm with Cayenne in our salsa dancing. But never have I felt that dreaded impending doom, the sort of thing involves a dystopian future of a totalitarian technocracy.

Regardless of my reflections, this is my reality. I am in a holding pattern, weeks away from surgery, gazing across the landscape of eternity.

I'm young in this space and relatively fit—there's reason to expect a positive outcome. Still, there's a path to mortality; my time on this Earth in this context doesn't seem as locked in...truthfully, have I ever had that? The older we get, there's a revelation of the fragility of life; when we're younger, it's all "hot fun in the summertime."

I abhor my recent glucose/ketone numbers. The recent additions of heavy whipping cream, cream cheese, and aspartame abominations were a fail, even in the case of the former two, it was in a controlled context as applied as a pre-measured oopsie cake. As to those sugar-like waters, who KNOWS what those chemicals do. And it violated my rule of consuming things that are sweet regardless as to printed calories. My own numbers reflect something screwy with it all. We just don't get somethin' for nothin'.

My numbers from the bloodwork yesterday were not a resounding success either, but mirrored my hospital values: heart failure impacts kidney health.

Another night is passing where sleep is elusive. Not that I don't plug in a few of the checkmarks, but gone are the nights where I lay in bed and soon find myself refreshed at dawn's light.

No, my darkness panics me. I gasp for air as white-knuckles cling to life in each deep breath.

Once upon a time in 2024, following my Mark Wahlburg morning lifts, I took long walks. My rest days were 3 miles, my online days were 5-7 miles. More exotic walks featured Yale Road Park to be within eyesight of Germantown Rd.

Throw some music on and beat the sun to the punch; I could pile the miles up.

Fast forward to these days: YEARS worth of cardio have seemingly vanished off of the books! I gas out before I even break a sweat! There have been times when I needed a breather after walking across my house.

In competition, I have always prided myself in my ability to dig deep, manhandle my opponent, and gain advantage. In high school, I was even nicknamed "The Supersacker" for my ability to sustain long bursts of rapid movement throughout my shift. It was all about VITALITY.

These days, I am absolutely humbled. From my window seat in the ICU, I contemplated the thinly-gowned, elderly men who walk beside their nurses and do a lap while pushing a blank wheelchair.

And I saw the reflection of that senior with his own unsteady footsteps.

Once again back in my room, I shuffled over to sit in a chair, tapping out after an hour. What happened to my core? There was no gradual decline in my abilities, no slow march of atrophy to the sea. No, I just blinked out of existence.

I challenged myself...1...2...3 laps. With a picked-up pace, I passed the windows of my peers and lamented that for some, this was as healthy as they would ever get—mouths agape, staring vacantly at a barren TV. I refused that life. I raised my hand and declared, "No, I do not allow that."

Change of Heart

Yesterday's start to The 41st Expedition was inauspicious. Typically, each Expedition has its own fanfare, its own passion.

I just did not feel that way. I did not have the future's roadmap. In fact, instead of forging ahead, I let my mind wander to conceive what it would be like to make a big run through ol' Blue Bell and a buffet of Litte Debbie's straight out of Collegedale, Tennessee, a place where I gotta think it a merry ol' town indeed! Or at the very least, a town whose denizens are all hopped up on sugar.

I felt defeated.

Recent events had fallen in such a way that 2023's existential malaise from a year ago began to curse me. "What's the point?" I wondered to myself if this compromised heart negated the visions I once visualized.

After 294 days, I felt like the streak was coming at a swift end. My willpower had wasted away at the hospital, where I was alone and criticized for my strict ketogenic diet.

It made no difference that carnivore is largely responsible for my 143-lb weightloss. No, I did not sit at The Cool Kid's Lunch Table; I reject red meat is bad; I reject fat is bad. It is more than theoretical:

I AM THE PROOF IN THE PUDDING.

Imagine being surrounded by a team of doctors and having to defend yourself in a weakened state in the ICU. "So we want you to disavow what you followed for years," adding from a toothy grin that drips with condescension, "You will now be a Zen Buddhist."

Imagine then having a dietician assigned to you in this place to tell you to eat 90s fare and then later finding out that you agreed to this!

But as this assault continued, I looked over to my right at my food tray. My attention faded from them and I internally asked,

"Why was there sugar?"

"Why was there margarine?"

The main and side dishes all featured sugar. This is NOT a species-appropriate diet! There is something fundamentally wrong with this picture.

If the multinational monolith Kellogg's anoints something as heart healthy, is it?

Do I ignore its corporate interests?

Do I push aside its foundation not of health, but born out of Seventh-day Adventist vegetarianism rhetoric?

Doctors peddling processed packages—where were they when I journeyed along this path of metabolic health?

Where were they 143 lbs ago?

I didn't lose 10 lbs...
I didn't lose 30 lbs...
I friggin' lost 143 LBS!

I alone accomplished this, not that wretched low-salt, high-sugar, rigor mortis abomination of theirs that clanks 'neath the moon!

I am the one, the only one
I am the god of kingdom come
Give me the prize (the prize)
Just give me the prize (the prize)

Queen, Gimme the Prize (1986)

I DID NOT follow their diet protocol, one that features OATMEAL for breakfast, something I did away with years ago for the kids because of midsection weight gain.

I DID NOT eat their banana pudding.

No, Ancel Keys continues to haunt the mainstream, a place where fat is bad and sugar is good. "Quick—somebody toss me a Snackwell...so I can throw it in the can."

Somehow, we got too big for our britches, rejecting foods that humans have flourished on down through the ages. Only when we began adopting a life of grains and farming did we become a less powerful species.

Yes, I had a STEMI heart attack. It is that classical correlation vs. causation. But, it is not intellectually honest to lay blame on carnivore for my incident any more than it would be my choice to wear color for the first time this year. Folks who leap to that conclusion have got a strawberry Nutri-Grain® Breakfast Bar and a Cheddar Cheese Melt with Pretzel Bread Hot Pocket® to sell me.

No, my now 295-day diet could not make up for all the time I spent recklessly binging my life away...or my 237-day...or even that 637-day run. All of these runs came after my 336-lb physique. I have lived a reckless consumption life of 1000s of days.

Even in that line graph since 2018, all of that rollercoaster-riding up the scale had nothing to do with a ketogenic approach. The plaque buildup can be faulted toward the Twinkie, not the ribeye.

No, I cannot turn my back on what got me here on this platform of fitness. I am not subject to the rigors of inflammation. I am not held back by the irons of diabetes.

Sugar is bad. It is the killer in the room. Carbs are sugar. Carbs kill even in the smile of the dietician.

Something New

Once down, I have risen again. I am Legolas and Tauriel at Laketown; I am Thorin at Erebor's breakout.

With The 41st, I have decided to run something new: 1) I am going off coffee; 2) changing my macro percentage; and 3) implementing flavored water.

THAT coffee plant has been a thorn in my side and something I could never shake. They even offered coffee each morning in the ICU! But, as I waterfasted in smiling defiance (or at the very least out of fear of sugar), I was able to cut off coffee cold turkey.

Initially, I thought about bringing my butter coffee back once I got home. It has been the driver of my high-fat carnivore! But after watching this video with Katie Kelly & Kelly Hogan, I began to consider a 60%/40% macro experiment, making a break from my long approach of 87%. The thing is, it is a LOT of food. For the day, I wound up with 1780 kcal, about 500 calories less than what I typically eat.

But look at the amount:

• Butter - 4 tbsp
• Beef Liver - 5 oz
• Ground Beef - 8.3 oz
• Eggs - 4.5 oz
• Salmon - 4.9 oz

That is a LOT of food! And at 155 grams, it's double the amount of protein I eat per day!

Lastly, as part of my now defunct reward program, I was going to allow myself flavored water as a marker for drawing close to the target weight. I pushed that tool up to combat the risk of snapping my streak while also flushing more fluids through my system.

First night? I am GLAD I did!

Walmart's Clear American Sparking Water is crazy sweet and definitely a callback to 2020. The elixir just sits on my tongue. There's an orange cream that is outstanding. I've resisted this in the past because just the thought of sugar can ratchet up insulin production, but I am in such a place where I'm breaking glass and pulling my tricks out of my bag.

Now what lies ahead, I do not know. I have been shut down from even picking up this MacBook. But this year isn't over—Superman isn't dead. You can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to drop to 163 lbs this year even if medication unknowns swirl around my feet.