I have been training consistently for over four weeks now.

Which means it’s been four weeks of near-daily cardio, strength training, personal training, sweating, tracking, and making objectively good choices.

And I have not lost a single pound.

Not one.

Not even one of those courtesy pounds you’re supposed to lose in the first week or two just to seal the emotional contract and keep you from rage-quitting in a huff. No symbolic gesture. No goodwill deduction. Nothing.

There have been a few flirtatious half-pound moments — those brief, intoxicating mornings where I step on the scale and it’s down just enough to spark hope. The kind of hope that makes you think, Ah. There it is. The system works.

But within a day or two, the scale snaps right back to where we started, as if to say, Psyche!!!

And it’s not as though I don’t have a little extra onboard, either. By “a little,” I mean I could comfortably divest myself of about forty pounds and still be what I’d generously describe as fluffy around the edges. There is no shortage of inventory here.

Given how extra-special cold it was last week (most days hovering below 0°F), I briefly considered setting the scale outside so it could reflect on what it’s been doing to my morale.

This is, I realize, the part of the story where people usually say things like “muscle weighs more than fat” or “trust the process” or “your body is just recomposing.” And maybe that’s true. I am definitely stronger. There are measurable gains happening… just not the emotionally gratifying kind that involve smaller numbers and celebratory jeans.

While the scale has been uncooperative — borderline hostile, even — the rest of my body has been far more forthcoming with feedback.

Specifically: everything hurts.

Here’s some context. During this same stretch of time, I’ve had my first few sessions with my personal trainer, and I would like to formally apologize to every muscle group I have ignored for the last forty-nine years. For two days after each session, I was sore in places I didn’t even know were capable of having opinions. On the upside, I am discovering entirely new muscle groups through pain, which has turned out to be a very inefficient anatomy course.

Because ’tis the season, if anyone reading this is shopping for a belated Christmas gift: all I want for Christmas is ibuprofen. Preferably extra strength. Possibly in bulk.

What this experience clarified very quickly is that what I thought was “working hard” and what is actually working hard apparently live in two completely different tax brackets.

As a brief aside, during my first session my trainer asked me to hold a full plank for as long as I could. I held it for just over two minutes, which she described as “very solid.” I am choosing to accept this as objective proof that something is working, even if the scale is pretending not to notice.

In response to all of this uncertainty — the unmoving scale, the soreness, the creeping awareness that this is going to be much, much harder than I initially planned — I did what any reasonable person would do.

I built an Excel spreadsheet.

Specifically, I built a multi-tab Excel model that maps ascent equivalents for each of the five workout programs I use on my elliptical, cross-referenced against time, resistance, ramp profile, direction changes, and the machine’s general habit of lying to me when it thinks I’m tired.

And yes, I am aware of how this sounds.
And yes, it is extremely nerdy.
But in my defense, I trade eight for pay as a research analyst, and when confronted with uncertainty my primary coping mechanism is aggressive quantification.

My elliptical is an early-2000s Precor EFX 546 of questionable integrity that I received as a gift from — and named after — my neighbor, Gary. Gary (the elliptical) provides plenty of numbers, but very little context, so I took it upon myself to document every incline change, resistance shift, cadence cue, and moment where the machine is almost certainly making things up.

This does not make the workouts easier, but it does make them knowable, which is (psychologically speaking) my comfort zone.

At this point, I am seriously considering writing a small Python script to automate my calculations, because manually converting elliptical fantasy units into real-world vertical gain feels inefficient. If I’m going to overthink this, I would at least like to do so reproducibly.

Naturally, this led to additional spreadsheets.

Plural.

I now monitor every jot and tittle of my workouts and track them holistically against the recommendations in Das Trainingshandbuch from Alpin8. This, naturally, sent me further down the geektastic rabbit hole, where I began looking for other Everesting training guidance — comparative plans, alternate philosophies, cautionary tales, leaked PDFs. Anything.

What I discovered after several hours of diligent searching is this: there are no pirate copies of the 29029 training manual anywhere on the internet.

Anywhere.

Given the web’s unrelenting enthusiasm for leaking proprietary content (including documents that absolutely no one asked for), this feels deeply suspicious. I am now convinced that anyone who signs up for 29029 is required to sign a rock-solid NDA. Possibly notarized. Possibly written in blood. Possibly accompanied by a ceremonial vow acknowledging that what happens on the mountain stays on the mountain.

IronHike, on the other hand, does provide a downloadable training plan in the form of a tidy, no-frills, fourteen-week PDF that is shorter than the Alpin8 manual and leaves… a lot to the imagination. It reads less like a comprehensive guide and more like a firm nod in your direction, as if to say, “Here’s the outline. You’re an adult. Good luck and let us know how you do.”

In fairness, this is completely on brand.

Where Alpin8 offers structure and pacing with a distinctly European confidence that you will, in fact, take responsibility for yourself, IronHike seems to operate under a more spartan philosophy: you will either adapt or perish. No glossy explanations. No warm reassurance. Just a plan, a timeline, and an implied shrug.

To be clear, I am not complaining. I have a training manual. I have multiple training philosophies. What I am attempting to do is combine approaches: my actual Alpin8 plan, IronHike’s minimalist “godspeed” model, whatever limited public Everesting wisdom exists, and whatever dark, proprietary knowledge lives inside the 29029 manual — all in the hopes of increasing my odds of being among the 70–75% of people who actually finish this kind of thing.¹

Mostly because that means 25–30% do not.

And as an analyst, I would very much prefer not to become a statistic.

The silver lining is that my trainer is currently signed up for the 29029 event at Mont-Tremblant this summer, which means she presumably has access to this mythical manual. She has not shared it with me (see: blood oath), but I remain hopeful that some of its high-dollar wisdom is quietly baked into our sessions.

From what she’s mentioned, their training includes an alarming number of step-ups performed on a box roughly 15–20 inches tall to simulate a 40% incline.

And by alarming, I mean 500+ per day.

PER LEG.

My exact response to this information was, “holy shit.”

Will I ever get there?
Magic 8-Ball says: Reply hazy. Try again.

So yes — after four weeks, the scale hasn’t moved. But I have, and I continue to.

For now, that’s going to have to be good enough.

If nothing else, I am now surrounded by data, experience, and people who will stop me from doing something deeply stupid out of misplaced confidence — which, historically speaking, is when I require supervision the most.

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Progress Report (Generously Defined)

Category	Status
Total training days	TWENTY-F%#KING-EIGHT.
Strength work	16 sessions
Climbing/Endurance work	26 dedicated climb or endurance sessions
Distance covered	73.89 miles
Vertical gain (now powered by actual math)	26,780 feet 92% of the height of Mount Everest (And, shit, it only took 4 weeks!)
Calories burned (probably hypothetical at best)	12,316

1. Completion rates for Everesting-style events vary, but most sources land somewhere between 70–75%. I am choosing to interpret this not as “one in four people fails,” but as “risk mitigation is now part of my personality.” ↩︎