Brent, I am not athletically fit. I was crippled for about a weak late in October from trying to snag a ground ball along the first base line in wiffle ball with a ten-year-old. I’m a piece-of-shit.

I can spar for hours and train for longer than many much fitter young men simply because I am relaxed in combat training situations.

Now, thanks to Rick putting me on a paleo diet 16 months ago, I have maintained a 175-pound weight [which is 30 pounds over my optimal fitness] for the past 9 months after losing 54 pounds in 2 months.

Let’s review my fitness efforts since August:

-10 days with Rick, walked 4 miles per day and used light dumbbells for an hour every second day

-5 days with Electric Dan, walked 2 miles a day and sparred for an hour or more every day with Dan

-2 months with Bob, walked a mile or two a day and worked 4-10 hours a day, ranging from berry picking to chopping out a tree stump with a mattock.

-a week in Oakland writing and drinking in a hotel

-In Portland, I try and limit my walks to a mile a day since crime is so much more a feature of life than it used to be. Twice a week I walk home alone, drunk from a bar. The rest of the week I either hit the bag in the garage where I sleep, or use the nice set of dumbbells in 6 weights and once a week spar with someone. This low activity level has me limiting my diet more and also focusing my weight and bag training on rehabbing my various injuries.

-When I get to the Cascades, I expect to be hiking 7 miles a day into the mountains with the Colonel’s dogs and doing shadow stick exercises and splitting wood in his barn. During those two months I hope to lose 10-20 pounds, as I lost 15 there last year.

My time on the trains constitute a restful limbo of reading and relaxing and fasting.