My Current Exercise Plan

Warning! You can get hurt if you fast wrong, or exercise wrong. Seek paid professional advice.

I’m 6 feet tall, I have a mesomorph, asian build. Since I started measuring, my weight has hovered between the low 80 Kilograms (at my heaviest, about 6 or 7 years ago) and low 70 Kilograms (at my lowest 5 years ago, and at the moment). According to my scale my body fat percentage is below 22%, and I carry 56 Kilograms of muscle. I’ve been training for 12 years and fasting for 7 years. I’ve been an Ovo-vegetarian for 3 years.

This year, I’ve consistently hit 7 days of intermittent fasts a week. Adding a few drops of good fats into the morning coffee was the difference maker (MCT, coconut oil and such). I get by for 4 or 5 days with a small, non-processed lunch and dinner. On 2 or 3 days I allow myself a junk lunch or/and a dinner. The goal is to keep the blood glucose levels consistently low, to avoid glucose spikes, and to increase fat utilization through supplementation, diet, and stress control (meditation).

My gym is conveniently closed on Sundays. So the best way I can sustainably train on weekdays is to steal 20 or 30 minutes from my evening to workout with my dumb bells and my pull up bar (seen below, in an abandoned room at my place, in its full glory). On Saturday, I work out at the gym. The time commitment is approximately 2 hours (this includes the travel). I’m pleased with my progress. The goal has always been to lift safely, without having to count on a spotter, and not push myself beyond what I can push myself on the worst day.

Here’s my current workout plan,

• Pull ups 8x5x4/5 (body weight)
• Hammer curls 12x3 (30 KG, total)
• Bicep curls 12x5 (40 KG, total)
• Deltoid/Chest press 12x5 (30 KG)
• Dumbbell deadlifts 12x5 (40 KG)
• Ab crunches 15x3x3/4 
• Bench press 8x5 (50 KG)
• Incline Bench Press 8x5 (40 KG)
• Dips 6x5 (body weight)
• Sometimes I use the Lat isolation machine at the gym.
• Lugging and walking once a week (approx).
• 15 minutes of HIIT (ish) exercise biking when I can find the time.

I’m planning to find a way to do some cardio at home on a regular basis soon (skip rope, and a boxing bag appeals to me). 

The Trial, by Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka’s "The Trial" is one of the most read modern philosophical works. And no other book of this type has left as much of an impact on me since Albert Camus’s The Outsider. Coincidentally my copy of the book [1] has a blurb by Camus that claims the story “Offers everything and confirms nothing”, and this is a fair assessment. 

This story needs to be considered with the knowledge of Kafka’s life story, and constraints of his time in mind. Unlike in his time, we have better access to information, and standards of living that have improved across the irreconcilable ideological lines. So I find it hard to think the fate of an accused individual in our time would be as dire as that of Josef K, the story's protagonist. But that doesn’t mean Kafka's generous, painfully won advice is not relevant. Here’re my top takeaways from the book.

Warning: Kafka’s life lessons are not applicable to most people. Follow the advice of your parents, and the advice found in your religion as interpreted by qualified elders.

1. Kafkaesque is applicable to many different social systems, not just inefficient bureaucracies. Kafkaesque is discussed through the story’s description of the court, and the parable of the official who started throwing advocates down the staircase to prolong the proceedings (p. 95- 97, and 127). It is mentioned in multiple places (including p. 150) that the court and K’s case are not referring to the regular judiciary or cases tried in them. The court and the case is used as an analogy. It can be used to analyze social systems that pass judgment on matters that are of extreme importance like an individuals gender identity; or systems that decide trivial matters like a person's suitability for a referral. 

2. If you’re unfortunate enough to be accused by a Kafkasque court, you have three resolution options (but the third may not be an option for all). Even if you’re innocent you should settle for an apparent acquittal or prolong the proceedings. But these options come with a set of repercussions and rules.

3. The parable of the country-man and the doorkeeper suggests one of the main rules may be the agreement to play doorkeeper to others (p. 171).

4. Another important rule may be to understand assignments presented to you on ongoing cases; carrying them out based on your position, and detaching from it once your assignment has run its course (p. 95). 

5. Other rules may be to communicate allusively (p. 153), through symbolism (p. 102) and other covert ways. 

6. Some may show disingenuous enthusiasm to help the accused knowing they can’t be acquitted, and knowing they might end up becoming their slaves. Like when Block became Advocate’s slave (p. 152).

7. Kafka implies it’s better to be an accused innocent man. As doorkeepers may miss out on something important (p. 172), but the general message is it’s better to appear innocent (Glaucon’s position in Plato’s The Republic).

"Sometimes one simply felt astonished that an average lifetime was long enough for the acquisition of the amount of knowledge one needed to work here with any degree of success." The Trial, Franz Kafka.

 

[1] - Idris Parry translation, Penguin Classic 2015, Indian Sub-Continent Print.

Sympathy for Frankenstein's Monster

Why I wrote the story?

Late last year I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I imagined the monster in the original story as an Indian or a Sri Lankan who had been plucked from his roots at a young age, and had grown up in Victorian England. Never quite being able to earn equal status among the natives regardless of how good his English or his mannerisms were. I thought, if someone like that was supernaturally favoured, how would that bygone society react? I doubted it would have put their way of living on hold just to accommodate a foreigner (regardless of how much he proclaimed he was a native). I imagined they would have vilified him, oppressed him and cast him out. 

I abstracted two central social issues from the original story,

1. The importance and the complexity of helping individuals stuck in-between cultures.
2. The existence of exceptional situations where an individual's reproductive justice needs to be looked at as social justice, or as a basic good as described in the natural law theory [1].

As a lower middle class citizen who was affected by the socio-economic impact of incidents such as the easter bombings (2019), the pandemic (2019 - 2022), and the economic crisis (2022 -2024) that left over 25% of the country's population below the poverty line [2]; I could easily relate to men who would have wanted to start a family during the past 5-6 years, but couldn’t because of financial constraints. I thought if there were millions who were socially and financially affected, couldn’t there be at least one exceptional situation that was not unlike the situation Frankenstein’s monster faced? I thought it would make a good premise for an original retelling.

Though I’m fortunate in many ways; I was also motivated by the need to share my own opinions on structural injustice men with similar backgrounds as I do face, while we're going through it, as opposed to talking about it later. The Sri Lankan diaspora is often accused of this offence by the some who claim they never said anything while they were here.

What is the book is about?

The book explores the relationship between oppression and men’s reproductive justice. How poverty, and marginalization leaves some men powerless against defamation, and sexual coercion that leads to reproductive injustice, exploitation, mental abuse and physical abuse. The story does this using the main Frankenstein plot, where the monster is a Sri Lankan, and other sub-plots built around characters in a fictional slum in Maradana. 

According to the Mariam Webster’s definition, feminism is about opposing inequality that’s based on gender, that it’s not limited to women. [3] The story is pro-feminist because it’s against inequality a large segment of men face because of their gender identity. It also explores intersectionality of the causes of inequity through examples. 

What was the publishing process like?

I started with the general idea of the story in December, 2024 and worked on it over the Christmas holidays and the weekends over the next couple of months.

As I was working on a low budget, I couldn’t justify paid editorial or copywriting support, and being a novice to the Sri Lankan literary scene, I couldn’t secure unpaid support. But I did manage to get valuable feedback on the story, and the end-product through unintentional involuntary beta testers. The feedback was incorporated and the first edition of the book was finally sent out for print a few days ago. 

Where can you buy a copy?

The book will be available exclusively at the Barefoot bookshop [4], post Awurudu holidays. It’s priced at Rs. 1800. 

The book is not for everyone. So I’ve included a comprehensive trigger warning section at the beginning. Please go through it first before deciding to purchase it.

[1] - https://youtu.be/r_UfYY7aWKo?si=YG3MnXqDTZgeNDeh 

[2] - https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2024/04/01/sri-lanka-s-economy-shows-signs-of-stabilization-but-poverty-to-remain-elevated 

[3] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism   

[4] -https://barefootceylon.com/collections/bookshop