Monday
VR Adventure:
A big ol’ Supernatural workout to start the day.
Food: 29 WW points
Weight: 187.6
Today’s Awesome:
This week we’re talking about urban farming! Back in the day, 90 percent of people in the U.S. lived on farms. Like, basically everybody. Now it’s around 1 percent. Urbanization isn’t slowing down. In the U.S., about 83 percent of people live in urban areas. Can folks farm where they live again? In a meaningful way? Let’s dive in!
For Your Consideration:
Tuesday
VR Adventure:
A bit of a Supernatural workout, and then, I got farther than I ever have in Until You Fall, my zombie knight game. I got to the final boss!
Food: 30
Weight: 187.6
Today’s Awesome:
There are tons of kinds of urban farming, when it comes down to it. Here is a giant guide/overview. You’ve got vertical farming (growing in buildings), hydroponics (growing in water without soil), aquaponics (we throw fish into the hydroponics), growing in freaking shipping containers. All kinds of cools stuff!
For Your Consideration:
Wednesday
VR Adventure:
Massive hard mode workout. Yeah, I’m pretty awesome.
Food: 32
Weight: 185.4
Yay! New low! Of course, I weighed in after the workout, but even before the workout I was at 187.0, so still dropping!
Today’s Awesome:
Let’s say you want more than a raised bed. Can urban farming be profitable? It’s possible, but like anything, it’s a business, with all its uncertainties, market finding, cultivating customers, and so on.
For Your Consideration:
Thursday
VR Adventure:
No VR today. Just walking and such for workouts.
Food: 31
Weight: 186.4
Nice, I didn't even weigh in after a workout this time. We’re just staying low.
Today’s Awesome:
Urban farming is about way more than profit.
What emerges is a nuanced picture. Urban farming likely won't ever provide cities with all that many calories. And the environmental advantages are … debatable. But urban farms can provide a bunch of other neat benefits, from bolstering local communities to (sometimes) encouraging healthier diets. They can also give city-dwellers a better appreciation of how our food system works, which is less nebulous than it sounds.
"We did find a lot of benefits to urban agriculture," [paper author Raychel] Santo told me. "But you want to be careful not to overstate things. If urban agriculture gets sold as something that will create all these jobs or feed entire cities — and then it doesn't — it could quickly lose support."
I can't do justice to the full paper, which is a careful review of the pros and cons of different types of urban farms.
For Your Consideration:
Friday
VR Adventure:
Another big ol’ Supernatural workout.
Food: CHEAT DAY
Weight: 187.0
Today’s Awesome:
Just a cool non-profit using urban farming for good.
For Your Consideration:
Saturday
VR Adventure:
No VR today, but we did go for a run for the first time in a long time. Went about 2 miles at a 13 min mile pace. Very slow, but all with no breaks, and the heart rate was lower, at around 140.
Food: FAIL DAY
Weight: 188.6
That cheat day really did a number on me. I gotta probably reel that one in so that I’m not eating four times as many points as I’m supposed to have in a day, which is what happened. Maybe I give myself double the daily points.
Today’s Awesome:
How about the big companies in vertical farming? Here is a recap of the news from 2021. Some setbacks, some growth. Not a big splash industry yet. Pretty nascent.
For Your Consideration:
Pixel flavored Coke tastes bad.
Sunday
VR Adventure:
A massive set of Supernatural workouts. Now, if I’m doing multiple in a row, I’ll skip all but the first warmup and all but the last cooldown to save time.
Food: 29
Weight: 185.6
Yeah, we did a workout first. Vanity metrics helped encourage a pretty massive workout though.
Today’s Awesome:
Meanwhile, and this is awesome, here are things in “ultra-urban farming” to lookout for. Including the go-ahead to start building an actual floating city in Korea. Singapore and Hong Kong are also featured, and I guess that makes sense for super dense city’s to need sustainable urban farming.
For Your Consideration:
Outro:
The moving average last week was 187.7. This week: 187.1. So hey! Overall we lost half a pound! Better than the loss of 0.1 - 0.2 pounds I’ve been losing lately. And we hit a new low! 185.4. That puts down almost 19 pounds since we started at 204. We continue our trek to 175. A little over 10 pounds away. We got this.