## <center>This Week’s Accountability Report</center>
 
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### Exercise:
***Seven out of seven days:*** I didn’t push or force myself at all this week. Despite that, though, without much effort or thought, I ended up exercising everyday. On some days, it was what I consider the bare minimum, and on others it was a little more than that.
 
As I’ve made mention of in past weeks, I do feel the need to make some changes in my exercise routines and begin pushing myself a little harder. The only thing, I think, that is keeping me from doing so is having a new exercise plan in place: a list of exercises that I would like to do with target reps and sets for each exercise.
 
I know what I need to do to take this next level, I just haven’t done it yet; and while I think it makes sense to say here that my goal for this week is to put together a new exercise plan and create an easy way for me to check it and record the results of my progress. I’m not quite there yet. So, for the time being, I am going to let things keep rolling around in my head while I continue moving in auto-pilot mode.
 
### Weight:
***78.2 kg:*** I really thought I was going to break the 78 kg mark this week, and I came close. One morning, the numbers on my digital scale bounced back and forth between 78 kg and 77.9 kg before finally settling on 78 kg.
 
78 kg, it seems, is my new wall. While I look forward to breaking this wall, I have noticed that I’ve been feeling thinner than usual lately and I’ve also noticed that I’ve been waking up hungrier than usual. While both of these things may not have any real meaning at all, they are comforting in a psychological kind of way.
 
I’m really happy that, without having to make any big changes to my diet and eating habits, I have been able to lose weight (albeit not very much), reduce the size of my waist, and also improve the way that I feel significantly.
 
### Looking Forward/Looking Back:
 
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Earlier in the week, I did it. I pushed a button. It’s not something that I normally do, but while looking for a video on YouTube, a commercial came on that seemed to be intended specifically for me.
 
I know. Algorithms.
 
Well, it seems like somebody, or some computer somewhere, finally got the algorithm for me figured out.
 
A young, muscular man with gelled hair that stood up sort of like a shark fin appeared on the screen of my iPhone. At first, I scoffed at him and skipped the ad. Then he came on again, and again. Finally I became a little intrigued and decided to listen to all of what he had to say.
 
At the end of his sales pitch, I had my doubts. He wanted me to click on a button and take a short survey about my exercise habits and body type so that he could help me burn fat and build muscle. I knew exactly where all of this was going and didn’t believe that he had any valuable advice for me, so I didn’t push the button that he wanted me to and I didn’t take his survey. At least, I didn’t do it right away.
 
Five minutes later, though, curiosity got the better of me and I took my phone out and began clicking away.  Age.  Height. Weight. Body Type. Exercise Habits. Etc. Before I knew it, I was watching another video by the same man that was specifically tailored to someone like me.
 
What I took away from the video was these three points.
 
1. To improve workout effectiveness, one must focus on muscle tension. For best results, meaning the most muscle gain, one must maintain a certain amount of muscle tension throughout an exercise. This means contracting a muscle/muscles, flexing a muscle/group of muscles, and relaxing a muscle/muscles at an ideal pace.
2. To really burn fat effectively, one shouldn’t starve oneself or worry about restricting one’s calorie intake. Instead, one should eat reasonable portions while loading their carbohydrate intake throughout the week, going from heavy carbohydrate days to days of little-to-no carbohydrate intake. Doing so, will supposedly help to increase one’s metabolism and create a cycle where one’s body uses its fat supplies more than it adds to them.
3. To really burn fat and build muscle, and to really take advantage of what is called the After Burn Effect (when your body continues to burn fat for up to 48 hours after a single workout) one should exercise using the HIIT technique *(High Intensity Interval Training)*.
 
I really don’t know the specifics behind any of these points, but each one of them intrigues me and makes me want to know a little more. Needless to say, the man with the shark fin hair had a series of videos, materials, and supplement, etc., that he was willing to sell me for a reasonable price, but I wasn’t interested in buying his product. What I would like to do, instead, is spend a little time researching and learning more about the details behind each of the three points mentioned above.
 
Maybe after I’ve looked a little more into each of these points, I will better be able to make an effective and challenging exercise plan for myself. So that is my goal for this week, to continue with my exercises as I have up until now, and to learn a little more about what shark fin hair man talked about.