How To Double Your Productivity (Day 14 of Day 90)

The title of this article should instead be…

“Slacking Off After A Victory, Battling Complacency — The Enemy of Consistency and Bringing Things Back In Order”

That’s exactly what happened.

By 11:40 PM India Time, I had submitted my MBA assessment on Sunday night.

I had already finished the assignment by around 5:30 PM and I did one review.

The review would make me terribly sleepy but I did it between 6:30 PM — 7:45 PM, then took a break for dinner.

And then post dinner and a walk later, I once again did the review and hit the submit after all plagiarism checks were done.

It was an enlightening experience.

The experience made me so delighted that I actually ended up staying up until 1:15 in the morning watching TV instead of going to bed.

Net result — next day’s sleep and wake up time was affected.

I woke up at around 7:30 because my body had gotten accusstomed to that time, but I still felt groggy and wanted to go back to sleep.

I tried doing yoga because I was a little sore, but then the body just didn’t continue on.

Post shower, there was this thought of when to go and when not go to Tiruvannamalai for a Girivalam and I spent nearly an hour contemplating when and not to go.

Eventually when I decided to leave, it was around 1 PM.

I left a few items at home including my overnight oats. I opened and reopened the door multiple times for phone, helmet (forgot the overnight oats).

Then found out that Cat had soiled the verenddah and it required a clean and I took care of that as well.

With all that done, by the time, I reached office it was 2:05 PM.

However, I picked things up from there, tried to be productive and stretched as much until 8:45 PM in the night before I left for home.

I did keep my fasting routine.

However, due to a rain, the temperature had gotten me and I was down with the cold.

I attended meetings until 12:00 and then I spent nearly 1:15 min playing around with the Excel Tracker to imrpovize my habit routine.

At night my wife challenged me that I would not stick to it and that’s exactly what happened.

This is what I tried doing..

While it was all nice, it made very little sense to add percentages and how much is missing etc.

Bottom-line to lose weight and get to my outcome of 78–80 odd KGS with minimal body fat, I need to:

• Fast for 116 days with OMAD or 18 hrs and 6 hrs of eating
• Maintain a calorie defict for 116 days
• Walk, 6000 steps for 116 days
• Exercise in the form of high intensity interval training (or 40 minutes of exercise and more for 116 days

Starting 1st August 2023:

These are my stats:

Fasting — 7/9

Calorie deficit — 9/9

High intensity interval training — 6/9

Walk, 6K steps/more — 6/8

My weight as on 9th August is 91.0 KG. I have broken the plateau and am nearing the 90s.

I am not certain if I can hit 88 Kgs by Aug 20th because I believe what’s happening to my body is body recomposition.

If it’s just pure weight loss, body would have tried to shed the weight using calorie deficit alone. This happened to me when I went from 86–72 Kgs in 2016–2017 which was driven by training and dieting (not fasting).

I felt my energy levels also dipped, my strength dipped, etc during that phase. My growth hormone may also have dipped.

But the theory back then was you drop your weight off first because its easy to do and then build the muscle.

However, this time around, I think because of long hours of fasting, the body is learning to stimulate growth hormone, testesterone and other things that will preserve muscle and is trying very much to burn fat only.

The result is it does not shed weight that too quickly or easily.

Anyway now coming back to what happened Monday night, I woke up by 6:00 AM.

I had put a fleece on top of my bed to make me feel warm, but that heat woke me up at 5:45–6:00 AM.

I started speaking to my wife about the business, about what I could do — because I felt really sick and tired.

We spoke for nearly 2 hours, most of it was productive and conducive towards an outcome maybe a short bit of it on a relaxed manner.

However, by the time, she went it was around 815.

My intention then was to skip the exercise and try to do work and then order some food, eat, take a nap and function again.

However — that was the BIGGEST mistake I did.

I should have at least gone on and done a simple cardio workout.

Productivity breeds productivity.

Slacking breeds slacking.

That’s exactly what happened.

I couldn’t sleep, only tossed around.

Nor did I do work because I could not focus and I wasn’t in a state able to focus.

The entire day went like that with slacking, and I also broke the fast early with a dosa and idly.

I only worked in the evening, and that too without any sustained levels of focus.

In the night, I was like I should go to Tiruvannamalai tomorrow, but when I hit the sack and 11:00, I didn’t get sleep and woke up until 1:30, drinking a glass of milk and eating some biscuits and eventually going to bed.

I actually felt like ordering a burger, but delayed that and had a milk and biscuits. That was a positive thing I did.

Next morning, woke up at 07:40 ish, cleared the garbage, returned to bed and spoke to wife.

But around half hour mark, felt I had enough and got going.

I started my workout around 09:15 — and finished it by 10:00.

Then I took a shower, cleaned up house, cat has put poop once more (have to clean up).

I did inhale.

But I am drowsy and unable to sustain focus.

I am going to order lunch now so it comes in at around 1:30 pm, eat it and take a nap.

I won’t be able to sustain a fast today.

I’ve ordered and had a bunch of calls trying to figure out an OTPfor income tax e-verification which led to not much being done.

However, it’s time and I conclude.

My KPIs for today:

• Walk 6K steps
• Ensure focussed work second half of the day
• Clean up that cat nonsense
• Get more protein