After waking
Within 60–90 minutes. Sit down for the hot item, or take 2 bananas if you are late. Empty stomach into an 8:00 lecture is a big part of the all-day flatness. Zero is the failure.
Standing rules
Eat on time. Sleep about 7 hours.
The job is regular eating, not a diet. Fat loss waits until the after-class crash is milder. No calorie number.
Three anchors
Midday
Do not skip lunch. Most days that is mess around 13:00–14:00. Monday is tighter, between SnS and DCHD tutorial. Tea or coffee is not lunch.
Evening
One dinner plate after the walk. Do not skip it to save calories. If the day was messy, the recovery is the next anchor, not a smaller dinner and not a punitive workout.
Breakfast, once eggs are on
From Tuesday 29 Sep. The counter is 2 eggs, or 2 bananas, or 1 of each, plus the hot item when you sit.
- Eggs only when you sit down.
- Late: still go to mess and take 2 bananas. That stays true after eggs start.
- Paneer when there is a choice: Sunday lunch (paneer kolhapuri), Wednesday dinner (matar paneer), Friday dinner (kadai paneer, or egg curry).
- Mess chicken stays off. Outside chicken is optional.
The dinner plate
- Dal, plus one carb: rice or roti, not both heaped.
- Paneer, egg, soya, rajma, or sprouts when the board has them.
- No sweet, no fried side, no puri piled on rice, no second serving.
Skip the fried or chaat snack: fried idli, samosa, pani puri, popcorn, papdi chaat, dahi wada, a packet item. Tea or coffee only after lunch.
If you miss mess
Breakfast
2 bananas if you can still grab them. Otherwise milk and a banana, an egg sandwich, bread and eggs, or any protein plus carb the canteen has. Within 60–90 minutes of waking.
Lunch
Any full plate, roll, or rice meal. Tea or coffee alone does not count.
Thin protein day
Dal and veg only, no egg or paneer left: add a canteen egg or paneer snack, or outside chicken at dinner if you want it.
Sleep
About 7 hours. An all-nighter is not extra study time.
| Night | Lights out | Wake |
|---|---|---|
| Sun, Mon, Tue, Thu | 23:15 | 7:15, before an 8:00 class |
| Wednesday | 01:00 | 8:00, before Thursday’s 9:00 class |
| Friday, Saturday | 01:00 | about 9:00 |
Saturday 26 Sep is when lights-out becomes a focus. The times above are the target from the start. Weekend is the same floor otherwise: meals, a 10–15 min late-morning walk, no sport.
The walk
- Every class day: 10–15 minutes this fortnight, after the last class or lab. The longer 15–20 minute version waits until energy is steadier.
- Pace: you can talk.
- Home or a campus loop. Between-building walking does not replace it.
- On a future cycle day, the ride replaces this walk. Do not do both.
- No 10k-step target, no running, no HIIT, no second session to punish a heavy meal.
Easy cycle, Wed 7 Oct at the earliest. 20–25 minutes, conversational, instead of the walk, and only if all six focuses have landed. No intervals and no hills for time. A repeated miss pushes it to the next Wednesday.
Three tasks
The mental piece is fewer open loops, not a mindfulness course. From Monday 28 Sep, after the last class or the walk:
- Write at most three things for tomorrow. Assignments, labs, one personal thing.
- A fourth thing waits. That is the point.
- Boring is allowed: eat breakfast, a writeup, the walk.
- Then stop planning. No journaling habit, no long meditation, no second system.
If rumination is loud, the next useful move is still food, the walk, and the three items.
What a day is
The floor is the plan. If you are too tired to train, you still do the floor. Do not train before 8:00 classes. Thursday starts at 9:00: use the extra hour to eat and leave, not for a 6:00 session.
Do not stack a second workout or a second walk to make up a missed day. One training block is the most. Strength starts with the on-ramp on Thu 1 Oct (Thursday and Saturday), then Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from Tue 13 Oct. The strength plan.
Not this fortnight. Football, tennis, and the silent room circuit stay off. Sunday becomes a sport day after 4 straight weeks of 3 strength sessions.