DAY 25 — Two Beers, a Pizza, and the 34km Ride Becomes a Memory
The weight gain after exercise is one of the most psychologically brutal patterns in any fitness experiment, and today it arrived right on schedule. Yesterday afternoon, after the longest ride of 2026, the Eufy read 99.50 kg and the Hume Pod read 99.4 kg. Both scales below 100 kg. Both confirming the immediate power of 34 kilometres of cycling. Today, after an evening ride to the Chubby Frog pub for pizza and two beers, the Hume Pod reads 100.6 kg. The 1.1 kg drop that the ride produced has been entirely reversed — and then some — by the combination of carbohydrates, alcohol, sodium, and the simple mass of a pub dinner that arrived in the body approximately twelve hours before the scales had to account for it.
The data is brutal. It is also entirely honest.
Day 25 Data Summary
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 100.6 kg ↑ | Hume Pod |
| CPAP score | 72/100 | CPAP App |
| CPAP usage | 04:10 | CPAP App |
| AHI | 1.4 events/hr | CPAP App |
| Mask seal | Good | CPAP App |
| Mask-off events | 2 | CPAP App |
| Hume Band sleep | 8h 03m | Hume Band |
| Heart rate | 71 bpm | Hume Band |
| HRV | 76.2 ms | Hume Band |
| Stress level | 18.5 | Hume Band |
| SpO₂ | 94–99% | Hume Band |
| Body temperature | 35.6–37.0°C | Hume Band |
| Metabolic Momentum | 6 ↓ | Hume Band |
| Metabolic Capacity | 66 | Hume Band |
| Strain | 12 | Hume Band |
| Recovery | 51 | Hume Band |
| Blood pressure (avg) | 116/79 / Pulse 68 | BP Monitor |
| Cycling (pub ride) | 2.86 km / 16:25 / 10.5 km/h avg | Strava |
| Steps (as at 12:52) | 461 | Hume Band |
Yesterday’s Resolution (Hume Band)
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Mental Strain | 3 |
| Cardiovascular Strain | 27 |
| Muscular Strain | 9 |
| Sleep duration | 7h 21m (optimal window, zero sleep debt) |
| REM | 1h 57m |
| Light | 3h 58m |
| Deep | 1h 24m |
The Weight: What Beer and Pizza Actually Cost
The Hume Pod reads 100.6 kg with a red up arrow — back above the threshold that yesterday’s ride pushed it below. Yesterday afternoon’s post-ride reading was 99.4 kg. That is a gain of 1.2 kg overnight.
The mechanism is familiar from every previous disruption in this experiment: the Day 12 bottle of wine, the Day 13 social weekend, the Day 19 conference. Alcohol promotes water retention. Pizza delivers sodium and carbohydrates — both of which cause the body to hold water. Two beers and a pub pizza is not a large excess by anyone’s standards, but on a body that was already partially dehydrated from a 34 km ride in sunshine, the rehydration and food mass combine to produce a number that erases the post-exercise dip entirely.
The question — as on Day 20, when the conference pushed weight above 101 kg — is whether this represents the peak or the beginning of the descent. If the pattern holds, tomorrow’s weight will be lower as the body processes the sodium and the alcohol clears. The experiment has twenty-four days of evidence that these disruption-driven weight spikes resolve within 48 to 72 hours of protocol resumption. The fasting window resumes today.
CPAP: The Lowest Score in Two Weeks
The CPAP scored 72 out of 100 — the lowest since Day 18’s 81, and considerably below the 88 and 99 scores of the past two nights. Usage: 4 hours 10 minutes, with 2 mask-off events. The AHI, however, remains at 1.4 — consistent with the sub-2 range that has defined the past ten nights.
The short usage time is the direct consequence of the pub evening. Later bed, beer affecting sleep quality, and repeated mask removals during the night — a pattern Jean-Luc described as taking the mask off “many times.” The app logged 2 mask-off events, which means either the additional removals were brief enough not to register, or the mask was replaced quickly enough each time to count within the same event window.
The consecutive night streak continues — this is Night 16 — but the quality of compliance is visibly different from the nine-hour sessions of earlier in the week. The AHI at 1.4 confirms the therapy worked well in the hours the mask was on. The score of 72 confirms there were not enough of those hours. This is the same tension that has appeared repeatedly in this series: therapeutic quality remains excellent regardless of duration, but the overall score drops when the sleep window is compressed.
Yesterday’s Resolution: What the 34km Ride Actually Cost
The Hume Band’s “Yesterday’s Resolution” screen is a new addition to the series, providing a breakdown of how the body processed the previous day’s load. The data is illuminating.
Cardiovascular Strain: 27. Muscular Strain: 9. Mental Strain: 3. The 34 km ride registered as overwhelmingly cardiovascular work — as you would expect from sustained cycling at 19.3 km/h for nearly two hours — with relatively low muscular demand. This makes physiological sense: road cycling at moderate intensity is primarily an aerobic challenge rather than a strength one.
The sleep data from last night — measured after the ride, the pub, and the beers — is surprisingly strong. 7 hours 21 minutes of sleep, landing in the optimal 7–9 hour window with zero sleep debt accumulated. The Hume Band’s assessment: “a genuinely excellent foundation for today.” Sleep stages show REM at 1 hour 57 minutes, light sleep at 3 hours 58 minutes, and deep sleep at 1 hour 24 minutes.
That deep sleep figure of 1 hour 24 minutes is the highest of the past week — higher than any of the late-night sessions that produced 52 to 65 minutes of deep sleep on Days 22 to 24. The body prioritised recovery sleep after the biggest exercise day of the experiment, and it found the deep sleep it needed despite the beer and the later bedtime. The CPAP only ran for 4 hours 10 minutes, but the overall sleep duration of over 7 hours — much of it presumably without the mask — still delivered the recovery architecture the body required.
Blood Pressure: Mostly Green
Three readings this morning between 10:58 and 11:12: 113/76 (OK/OK), 117/78 (OK/OK), and 118/82 (OK/HIGH).
Average: 116/79, pulse 68. Two out of three readings entirely green. The third reading’s diastolic at 82 is marginally above the threshold — a single point — and likely reflects the tail end of the beer’s physiological impact rather than any sustained elevation.
The comparison with yesterday is instructive. Yesterday morning’s readings were 123/89 and 123/84 — both fully HIGH — before the ride brought them down to 108/78 and 108/74. Today’s readings, the morning after beer and pizza, sit at 116/79 average. That is substantially better than yesterday’s pre-ride figures despite the alcohol, which suggests the residual cardiovascular benefit of the 34 km ride is still in the system even though the weight has rebounded. The body remembers the exercise even when the scales do not.
Recovery: 51 — The Bill Arrives
Recovery has dropped to 51 — down from yesterday morning’s perfect 100 through yesterday afternoon’s post-ride 71 to today’s 51. This is the lowest recovery score since the mid-experiment readings, and it reflects the combined cost of the 34 km ride, the beer, and the short CPAP session.
Strain at 12 is low — the body is not being asked to do much today. Metabolic Capacity has settled at 66, slightly below yesterday’s post-ride 69. Metabolic Momentum continues its slow decline at 6, which is paradoxical given that yesterday included the longest ride of 2026 — but the momentum metric appears to weight consistency over intensity, and the rest days earlier in the week are still dragging the average down.
The recovery of 51 paired with the strain of 12 means the body has capacity available but needs rest to rebuild from yesterday’s effort. A lighter day — which today appears to be — is the right response. The 2.86 km evening ride to the Chubby Frog was transport, not exercise, and the body knows the difference.
The Pub Ride: 2.86 km to the Chubby Frog
The evening ride at 5:01pm covered 2.86 km in 16 minutes 25 seconds at an average of 10.5 km/h — roughly walking pace on a bike, which is what you ride when you are heading to a pub for pizza and know you have to ride home afterward. Maximum speed of 31.7 km/h was presumably a downhill section. Elevation gain: 17 metres. The route ran along Ermine Street in South Cambridgeshire.
This is cycling as lifestyle rather than cycling as exercise. The 34 km ride is what moves the metrics. The pub ride is what makes the lifestyle sustainable. Both have a place in the experiment. One of them comes with pizza.
HRV: Holding at 76.2
HRV at 76.2 ms — unchanged from yesterday. After the decline from 86.3 on Day 21 through 80.4 on Day 23 and 70.3 on Day 24, the figure has stabilised. The 34 km ride and the subsequent recovery sleep have apparently arrested the downward trend without producing the kind of bounce-back seen after the conference recovery. The beer may be suppressing what would otherwise have been an upward move — alcohol has consistently dampened HRV in this experiment’s data.
Stress at 18.5 is low. Body temperature range of 35.6–37.0°C is normal. SpO₂ at 94–99% is consistent with the series baseline. The body is processing yesterday’s effort without distress.
Where Day 25 Sits
Five days remain. The experiment has entered its final stretch with a pattern that has defined the entire series: a strong exercise day producing impressive immediate results, followed by a social occasion that reverses the weight figures overnight. The blood pressure retains some of the exercise benefit. The recovery score drops. The CPAP holds its streak but at reduced quality. And the weight does what weight has always done in this experiment — it follows the food, not the fitness, on any given morning.
The structural story underneath the daily noise remains encouraging. Body fat percentage has been gradually declining across the four weeks. The CPAP streak is at sixteen consecutive nights. The HRV baseline has shifted upward from the mid-70s of Week 1 to a stable range in the upper 70s and low 80s. The blood pressure responds to exercise faster than it responds to disruption. The deep sleep architecture prioritises recovery when the body needs it most.
The weight at 100.6 kg is frustrating on a Saturday morning when yesterday’s 99.4 kg felt like a breakthrough. But the 99.4 kg existed. The body reached it. It will reach it again — and lower — when the protocols hold for consecutive days without a pub in the middle.
Data captured Saturday 25 April 2026. Hume Pod updated 12:52. Hume Band data as at 12:52–12:53, last recorded 25/Apr/26. CPAP covers the night of 24–25 April 2026. Blood pressure taken 10:58–11:12. Evening pub ride recorded 17:01, South Cambridgeshire — 2.86 km to the Chubby Frog. Yesterday’s Resolution data from Hume Band app.
— Day 25 of 30
