Canon's Diary

As usual, I wake up at 6:30 in the morning. According to my smartwatch, I slept for 7 hours and 45 minutes, and my BodyEnergy level has recovered to 50. Looks like I slept well. I open the curtains and let the morning sun in. Outside the window, I can see trains crossing the Kyoto Line and people heading toward the station.

Last night’s dinner consisted of a salad bowl and a rice ball, accompanied by a glass of Kakuhai (whiskey highball). The salad bowl included sweet potatoes, lotus root, barley rice, and slices of teriyaki chicken. It seemed well-balanced and relatively low in calories, which is why I chose it.

I’ve been managing my weight for the past few years. I injured the meniscus in my left knee, which began affecting my daily life, and the doctor recommended building muscle and losing weight. I learned from generative AI that as long as I consume fewer calories than I burn in a day, I can lose weight without too much strain.

Daily calorie expenditure is calculated based on basal metabolic rate and activity level. By entering my age, height, and weight into my smartwatch, it displays the numbers on the monitor. In my case, my basal metabolic rate is around 1,500 kcal, and with added activity, total calorie expenditure averages is around 2,300 kcal.

Calorie intake, on the other hand, is the total amount of food I eat in a day, so I’ve developed the habit of estimating the calorie content before eating. Convenience store rice balls and bento boxes always have calorie labels. For home-cooked meals and items without clear labels, I usually ask a generative AI, which can estimate the calories with fairly good accuracy. The advancement of technology truly knows no bounds. We now live in an age where AI kindly and thoroughly guides us on how to balance exercise with food intake.

On days when I practice tennis for three hours, I burn over 3,000 kcal, and I’m advised to increase my intake of protein and carbohydrates. When my knee was in worse condition, I was told to avoid tennis, but simple exercises like walking and squats were encouraged. So, during my commute to the Tokyo office, I used to climb the stairs to the 9th floor of the building instead of taking the elevator.

Although the doctor said the injury wouldn’t heal, I managed to lose about 10 kilograms, which eased the burden on my knee, and now it hardly interferes with daily life.

That said, there are still times when my cravings get the better of me. Like today, when the cafeteria served beef bowls with barley rice—I couldn’t resist ordering the large portion. It’s a habit I still haven’t quite kicked. But even so, unlike in the past when a large serving was my default, I now tell myself, “Just for today, a special treat.”

While I go about my days like this, I’ve also been steadily preparing for a new chapter in life. Yesterday, I found out that commuting by motorbike won’t be possible, so on my way home from work, I decided to try walking to the apartment I’ll be renting.

There’s a medium-sized supermarket near the office, and I walked through the residential neighborhood on its north side toward Settsu-Tonda Station. My apartment is on the opposite side of the station, so I had to cross the tracks, but there’s a pedestrian path under the station’s elevated structure. The ceiling is low, so I have to be careful not to hit my head. There’s a constant announcement reminding cyclists to walk their bikes through.

Once through the underpass, a single street runs perpendicular to the tracks—a quaint, slightly retro shopping street. After walking about 150 meters, I reached the Hankyu Tonda Station crossing. Here, my apartment is just around the corner. In this area, the Hankyu and JR lines run parallel, and this is the point where the two routes come closest together.

It takes me about 10 minutes on foot from the company. Unlike Naruse, where the neighborhood is built into the hills and full of steep slopes, this area is flat, so commuting shouldn’t be an issue.