“More?”
“Yes. It’s true that cutting portions is effective for members with a large frame like yours, but in the long run it’s an unhealthy method.”
The recommended calorie intake for an adult male averages around 2,400 to 3,000kcal.
The intake Kang Pilgeun proposed was 2,800kcal.
“If I eat the average amount, won’t the weight just stay on?”
“Are you an average male, sir?”
He was not. He was a diseased male.
“You will lose weight even eating exactly the average, sir. There’s no way around it.”
“Ah-ha.”
Hearing it put that way, it was both perfectly obvious and perfectly sensible.
Indeed, just looking at the portion sizes on the meal plan Kang Pilgeun wrote out, it looked quite filling.
“If you slash your portions early on, the weight will drop fast. But no matter how hard you train, cutting your food too far lowers your basal metabolic rate.”
“Is it bad if that drops too?”
“Yes. You’ve seen those people, haven’t you? The ones who eat like birds and still struggle to lose anything.”
That was certainly true.
Just look at the idols on TV.
There are people who eat half an apple and a few nuts a day and still dance and sing on stage all day, and yet they are scrambling just to maintain rather than to lose.
Once your basal metabolism drops, even after losing weight you become the type who gains it back on very little.
“For a healthy diet, proper portions and regular exercise. Combining those two is the orthodox method. I understand the hearts of the obese better than anyone.”
It was doubtful what a man who looked like he had been born fit and handsome kept claiming to know about pigs.
But every word of it was right.
“Just trust me and follow along. I’ll support you closely so you can lose exactly as much as you want.”
Seeing his determined yet warm gaze, Taeseong was oddly reminded of a certain angelic coworker.
Unlike her, this one was male and thickly built, but the thought came to him that he could be trusted.
“Yes, sir. I’m in your hands.”
“Get home safely, and from tomorrow follow the meal plan I gave you. Be sure to photograph whatever you eat at work and send it to me.”
“Yes......”
Leaving the gym, Taeseong hauled his trembling, aching body toward the neighborhood supermarket.
There he bought the ingredients the trainer had listed.
And barely made it home.
The moment he got in, Taeseong went straight to the scale.
[155.5kg]
Half a kilo gone in a single day.
The hard workout had paid off, but he wondered how long he could keep this business up.
Just then, a messenger alert popped up on Taeseong’s phone.
[Sir! Kang Pilgeun here! You did a truly great job today. Once you get home, as I mentioned, fill up on protein with raw chicken breast or fish like mackerel and Spanish mackerel rather than processed meats, and the brown rice should be......]
Reading the long, sincere message steadied his resolve.
Fwoosh—
The gas range in Taeseong’s studio apartment, long unused thanks to a life of delivery food, sputtered to life.
“One month. In one month I’m dropping 5kg, no matter what.”
***
The next day.
Lunchtime at the office, after his first PT session in his life.
Today’s lunch was not poke.
“Assistant Manager, do you know about keto by any chance?”
“Keto? No. I do have eczema, though.”
The keto diet.
Short for the ketogenic diet.
You restrict carbohydrates to an extreme and raise fat intake, promoting the production of ketone bodies so the body uses fat as its energy source — something along those lines.
Put simply, keto is about converting your body into one that burns fat well.
The place Associate Kang brought Taeseong to, along with an impassioned lecture, was an ordinary snack shop of the kind office workers favor.
“You can diet on snack-shop food?”
“Of course. Where you go matters, but what you eat matters more. You don’t have to eat clean only at a poke place.”
Associate Kang pointed at the bottom of the menu.
[Keto gimbap (vegetable)]
An unusual gimbap — ordinary seaweed rolled around assorted vegetables and egg, except the egg went in so lavishly that not a single grain of rice made it inside.
Just in case, he asked Trainer Kang Pilgeun about the dish, and.
- Oh! You knew about keto? Excellent, obviously. A very healthy menu choice. Good, good!
With the trainer’s blessing in hand, he ordered the same thing she did.
Associate Kang stuffed the thick end piece of the keto gimbap into her mouth in one bite and wore the most satisfied expression in the world.
“Ta-da. Eating like this is a zero-carb meal, but because it comes in gimbap form it feels more filling. Try it.”
Taeseong followed suit and took a bite.
‘Oh, this is...... this really tastes like gimbap? It’s actually good!’
The essential flavor of gimbap comes from the seaweed, the sesame oil, and the fillings inside.
Take away the rice and the processed ham, and gimbap is one of the perfect diet foods.
And keto gimbap, built around protein, was even packed with sheets of egg.
“It really does fill you up. But...... it’s a little bland, and it sticks in my throat.”
“Drink some water first. And if it tastes bland, do this.”
Associate Kang went to the kitchen and came back with the yellow mustard sauce snack shops keep on hand.
“Dip it in mustard and it clears your sinuses and tastes better. And since it’s pure mustard there’s almost no sugar, so it won’t put weight on you either.”
When it came to eating clean, Associate Kang seemed to have insight rivaling a trainer’s.
And so Taeseong kept up his diet — a healthy meal every lunch hour.
After work he went to the gym, training with three PT lessons a week.
***
Four weeks later.
Waking at six in the morning, Taeseong got straight onto the scale.
[Target weight: 151kg]
[Current weight: 151kg]
“Wooo! I did it!”
Taeseong had hit the target weight a full week ahead of the one-month deadline.
[5,000,000 won has been deposited into your account from ]
A full 5,000,000 won landed in his account immediately as well.
Now only one thing remained.
Twenty push-ups without rest!
For four weeks he had gone to the gym more often than the office, training his strength mostly with bodyweight work.
Because he had made a point of saying he wanted to get good at push-ups in particular, Taeseong’s arm strength had grown quite respectable compared to before.
Week one, five push-ups. Week three, ten.
And as of just yesterday his ability had climbed to about eighteen.
‘I haven’t hit twenty yet, though.’
As a senior trader, he was dying of curiosity about what this future stock information would be.
If Wopora’s reward of genuine future information was real.
Then the days of groveling to Department Head Park over his results were over.
And so, with grim resolve, Taeseong’s push-ups began.
“One, two, three, four...... eleven, twelve......”
Just as in practice, once he passed fifteen his arms shook and his biceps hit their limit.
By the time he reached eighteen, he wanted to fling his body flat onto the floor.
But.
He pictured the smirks of the coworkers who laughed at him.
The nineteenth, he did while thinking of Manager Jeong.
“Manager Jeong! You fucking bastard!”
And the twentieth and last.
“Department Head Park! You fucking prick!”
Buoyed by his coworkers’ encouragement — if you could call it that — Taeseong squeezed out every last drop of strength and barely managed to fill out twenty.
[Bonus mission complete!]
[Providing 24 hours of stock information.]
-September 20. Through the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting, at approximately 3 p.m. Korean time, the Fed will hold interest rates.
-Robotics-related stocks will rise sharply.
Taeseong checked Wopora’s message while lying flat on the floor, catching his breath.
‘The Fed is really going to hold rates?’
The FOMC was still a long way from starting, so if this was true, tomorrow’s market would swing hard for certain.
Whether the information was real would only be clear tomorrow.
For now Taeseong showered and got ready for work.
He came into the office intending to be the first of his team in, and.
“Good morning, Assistant Manager! You’re in incredibly early today.”
“You’re early yourself, Hyeona.”
“I was just about to have a coffee — shall I make you one too?”
Thanks to Associate Kang, he got to drink a coffee first thing in the morning.
‘I think it every time — she’s an unbelievably considerate person.’
She had even made it black instead of instant mix, in case he gained weight.
And iced instead of hot, in case he got too warm. Associate Kang’s thoughtfulness warmed Taeseong’s heart again today.
“Since you’re in early, I can give this to you first. Here’s the stock list based on the reports the research center put together yesterday.”
“Oh, I needed exactly this. Thank you.”
Taking the list from Associate Kang, Taeseong went straight to his desk, studying it carefully and sinking into thought.
‘If they hold rates, which market do investors pile into?’
To put the conclusion first, a Fed rate hold would push more money into circulation and act as a starting pistol for investors to turn aggressive.
When rates are held or lowered, deposits and bonds lose their appeal.
‘When rates fall, people value future money more highly in present terms. That’s the reason.’
Investors would naturally turn toward the stock market, accepting risk in pursuit of bigger returns.
And the money flooding into stocks would, with high probability.
‘Concentrate in companies whose future value matters more than their present.’
Wopora’s information said the beneficiaries would be robotics stocks.
Going through the list.
One name caught the eye of Taeseong, five years hardened in the market.
‘Rainbow Robotics!’
Rainbow Robotics is a company you invest in for the dream of future robotics technology rather than for present earnings.
So if rates were held, money flowed into the market, and the environment came to reward future value more highly, it stood a high chance of being among the first and biggest beneficiaries.
Setting the information aside, it made perfect sense by market logic alone.
Of course, the most stable choice was Daesan Robotics.
But to maximize the gain, Rainbow Robotics, still a growth prospect, was the right fit.
‘Good. Today let’s trade around this name.’
Even if Wopora’s information turned out to be wrong, Rainbow Robotics was one of the growth stocks that had been drawing attention lately, so the risk of a large loss was comparatively small.
By 8:30 a.m., before the market opened, most of the traders had arrived.
The funds Taeseong, a fifth-year senior trader, could currently manage came to 1 billion won.
‘If the information is real...... I’d love to pull leverage too, but if I slam on leverage without prior notice, the risk team will lose their minds.’
Unless Wopora’s information was proven certain, that was another matter.
For now, there was no need to take on that much risk.
Taeseong and every other trader on Woojin Securities’ trading team were watching market conditions carefully.
But a runaway market had dragged on until recently, and quite a few people had eaten losses and burned through their allocations during it.
So the situation held: nobody could easily bring themselves to trade.
“Whew, we’d better watch until the Fed announces the rate decision.”
“Right. Move too soon and if they announce a hike, the market could collapse like a dog again.”
The FOMC meeting had already begun, and there was no telling when the result would land in Korean time.
Just as Assistant Manager Seong, Manager Jeong, and the other senior traders were settling on a plan to sit quietly and watch.
[Buy order filled.]
[Buy order filled.]
[Buy order filled.]
The instant the market opened at nine, Taeseong’s buying began, accompanied by the trading program’s mechanical chime.
The moment trading started, Taeseong began scraping up every share of Rainbow Robotics he could at market price.
“Wh-what is this? What does he think he’s doing?”
Department Head Park was reviewing his team’s trading status when he saw the buy orders rampaging out of Taeseong’s station, and he leapt where he stood.
For a trader, concentrating on a single name was dangerous beyond a double-edged sword.
If it soared he would profit accordingly, but short of being a fortune-teller who sees the future, what conviction could justify a single-name buy like that?
“Hey, Assistant Manager Kim! What are you doing right now?”