Where have I been?
It’s been a little while since I’ve logged into this little idea that I had last year, and I’ve decided that I need to get it going again. It’s something that I enjoyed doing it for that short time, and honestly can’t say why I let it get away from me. I suppose laziness could have been a factor. I also think my autopilot was stuck in the ‘on’ position for quite a while.
It can be hard to start new things because you have to find a way to fit them into your existing routines. It’s never been a natural thing for me to just start doing something new on a frequent basis. I often get comfortable and forget to actually stand back and look at myself and my habits and make changes to improve my mental and/or physical well being. It’s just so easy being lazy! The problem though, is it’s also hard to see the high functioning forrest for the lazy-ass trees. So I’m going to make an effort to not have that happen again.
This website is one of several things that I aim to keep up on going forward. More on those other interests at another time though. For now I’ll stick to the topic of health. I’ve got some making up to do.
One small (huge) change though… I want this to be dedicated to overall health, not just nutritional health. Food is obviously a very important part of a healthy and happy life, but it’s not the only factor. Not by a long shot, actually. I want to incorporate much more about physical and mental health as well. I believe there’s not just a connection between the three, but a very important balance which results in such an immense feeling of strength and well being. An example of this is how regular exercise always seems to completely stave off any feelings of anxiety. The physical affecting the mental… it’s an amazing byproduct, and it’s free of charge just for doing the workout!
Where am I now?
How about a bit of reflection on this year so far. January surely had good intentions, and it turns out that I was a pretty lazy person through all of February and March. When I look back to those months in MyFitnessPal, I see that I was only entering food and body measurements once or twice a week. Which means I was only pretending to care.
In April though, I lit the fire once again. The first few weeks are always rough. Just breaking the body into the routine again, and going through the pain of waking up all of those comatose muscles.
I continued my usual routine throughout May with very limited results. On May 5 I weighed 197.4 lbs and by June 2 I’d only managed to get down to 192.4 lbs. I guess most would say 5 pounds is still 5 pounds, but I was hoping for better than that.
Enter keto.
Keto… is… frustrating. Carbs are delicious.
For all of June, minus the odd weak moment, I tried my best to stick to the keto life. I kept my carbs under 30g/day on 6 out of 7 days of each week. It’s such an amazing amount of mental effort to stick to this lifestyle. You have to become a bit of a scientist to figure out and keep track of your macros. And was it all worth it? Nope. It really wasn’t. From June 2 to June 25 I only lost 4.4 lbs. So…I lost less on the harder lifestyle than I did on the original, more relaxed program. Perfect. Good to know. Experiment over.
Now we’re only 10 days into July, I’m back on my trusty old routine and I’m already down almost 3 lbs, which actually brings my total for the last few months up to 15 lbs. I won’t complain about that at all.
Where am I going?
I know that headline has an existential connotation, but I’m actually going to Greece. In August. And I’ve got work to do still. I know, I know…it doesn’t matter, positive body image, etc., etc. But I like having a “mile marker” of sorts. An end goal.
I was finally down to 185 lbs this past weekend, so i’m setting my trip-time goal to be 175 lbs. Who knows if I can hit it, but at least it’s something to shoot for. If I only get half way, I’ll still be pretty happy with that.
