It's a new year, which means there is a brand new opportunity for change, growth, and starting over. That is my mindset going into this new unmarked calendar. Although I've already begun somethings, a few will begin soon. The first was returning to strict keto. I have been having a carb day once a week which has gone from good carbs with the occasionally garbage treat, to a whole day of garbage. That just wasn't working for me, so for the next 8 weeks (well 7 since I began this a week and a half ago) I will be clean and strict with keto and my caloric intake. My usual weigh in days are Monday and Friday, but to get a number for you today, I weighed in this morning. Although I don't officially have a starting weight, since I didn't weigh in the day I began, I did weigh in soon after at 172.8. That is not where I want to be, although outside of being rather soft for my taste, I'm still rather lean. I weighed in this morning at 167.8. That is 5 pounds in less than a week. Granted most of that is more than likely water weight, but the fundamental difference in how I feel from right before I began to now, would say that it's more than water. Even with only that one carb day, I had a constant feel of stomach bloat. It wasn't as noticeable until the first time I skipped my Monday carb day last Monday. Within a few more days I had that old and wonderful feeling of emptiness. When I say empty, I don't mean empty in the sense that I'm in need. It's the total absence of that bloat and a pronounced flatness of my stomach. The other potential benefit is that my skin is almost completely healed from that last little lapse of swelling. Normally when I would get out of the shower, and I didn't use the moisturizer and serum that I have been using, my face would feel stiff and itchy. Today is the first day I've gotten out of the shower and not used any product, and my skin feels great. I still have some dryness, but that could be seasonable, since I've always had drier skin in the winter, as most people do. My sleep patterns have reverted to how they were before, which I'm thankful for. I love being up in the early morning hours where there is nothing but silence and stillness. It is truly peaceful and I pity those night owls that don't get to experience the tranquility of an early morning.
With the change in my diet, I've always gotten back to the habit of working out daily. It's not easy, and I didn't expect it to. I knew that I've fallen quite a few rungs down the ladder, and it's going to take time to get back to where I was. I'm putting in the time to make it happen, and it will.
I'm going to hit you with my Favorite Thing of the Week now since this ties into all the getting back to a more healthy lifestyle. I finally tried an energy drink that I like. They are called Bang and they are keto friendly.
These are dirty keto, but they fit in with what I'm doing now. Outside of my protein bars, these are the only processed items that I'm eating. The flavors are unreal. The Birthday Cake Bash takes the normal birthday cake flavor and turns it up a notch by giving you the flavor sensation of the cake itself. Everything else that does that flavor only gets the confetti frosting and leaves the vanilla flavor of the cake out, they nail it on that one. The Radical Skadattle is basically skittles. Power Punch is of course a delightful fruit punch and Star Blast is a good old rocket pop, you know the red, white, and blue popsicle you would get from the ice cream truck. They have a ton of other flavors that I have yet to try and a few more that I have. The Rainbow Unicorn is my least favorite flavor so far. To me it is a mango papaya. It's not bad, but just doesn't have the impact of the others that I have had. Oh, I should mention Sour Heads which is just sweet tarts in a can. Once I have tried them all, which should take several weeks, since I don't but many of them each week at the grocery store, I will tell you which is my favorite. It's a flavorful adventure for sure.
Before we get back to the changes and growth, I have one more drink to share with you. It's Mountain Dews new flavor. They have it in both the sugary sweet form (which I did not try) and the Zero Sugar. It's called Major Melon and it is a new permanent flavor for MD. It tastes exactly like a watermelon Jolly Rancher, and I could see myself getting addicted to it, so I will be watching closely how much I consume.
Once again, not the cleanest of options, but it fits in with what I'm doing now.
Back to the growth. I started writing a journal. That began today. I doubt I will ever share any of the contents with you, but I may. The goal is to write a page a day, and it can be anything from details of what I have planned for the day (workout, meals, what not), train of thought writing, and possibly poetry. It's been a very long time since I've written prose. I found myself becoming pretentious, and maybe I need a little bit of that right now. Since I only have myself to entertain myself anymore, a little pretension could be a good thing.
This is one I haven't gotten to yet, but will be soon, and that is removing toxic people from my life. In the past couple of weeks, twice I have had people try and discredit my experiences, and I'm done with that and anyone that will do that. One of them happens to be a family member so that one will be difficult to do, and I won't be able to eliminate them from my life and the current, but I can limit my interaction with them and will be doing so. Eventually they will be eliminated from my life entirely and when that day comes, it will truly be joyous for me. It is definitely something to look forward to.
Little things will be setting aside time fro creative outlets, like drawing, playing guitar, just creating in general. This all falls under that "I'm the only one entertaining myself" category. I have been playing guitar (well guilele) more, with plans of putting even more effort into it. I have not put the time aside for drawing yet, but I'm getting closer to that happening soon. With the drawing I'm going to attempt to break from what I normally do and find new styles that I like but have always been hesitant to try.
Lastly, I'm going to leave you with a story from my past that has implications on my future. When I was in high school and either a junior or a senior ( I believe it was my senior year), we had a lesson in what if memory serves me correctly was a life management class, where we had to fill out a questionnaire and then partner up with someone and go over each others answers. I believe the goal was to prove that we have more in common with each other than we know and that we should give each other a chance. The teacher was trying to overcome the teenage tier system, which as we all now is impossible. Oh, I should mention that we were supposed to partner up with someone we had never paired with before and didn't know really well. I basically sat their like a lump because I wasn't really friends with anyone in the class and just waited for someone to turn in my direction. I think it was the teacher that finally paired me with the only other person that hadn't paired up. Her name was Carma. A fitting name when you get the rest of the story. Carma was a very popular girl in the school, but that year had turned goth. I was already goth and basically we were goth before goth was really a thing. We just had a different style from others and even each other. She was the hot goth. Black miniskirts, fishnets, high heels, and ripped tops. I was black clothes and a trench coat. I was boring goth. We sat down and started going over a questionnaires with each other and one answer stood out over anything else in there and I remember it solely to this day. One of the questions was, at what age do you believe you will die. Rather morbid question, but I'm sure the intention was that teenagers believe that they are immortal and will of course say some age like late 80's or even 100 with the possibility of forever which a few people did pick. Both Carma and I picked the age of 50. The teacher was dumbfounded by our answers and actually told us that we were wrong.
Just a little addendum to the story, when I saw that answer I fell in love with Carma. I've never hesitated to fall in love even knowing that it was completely unrequited. My failings have always been in acting upon those feelings and even expressing them, but never not allowing myself to fall in love. Those other two things have kept me from experiencing quite a bit of life, but I'm ok with that. Now back to the lesson of the story.
Up until when I got my health in order, I fully expected to die at the age of 50. It wasn't until then that I wanted to live longer. This year I will be 50 and things truly aren't looking good for hitting 51. Oh, I still want to live longer, but I accept my fate if it is what that morbid prophecy foretold all those years ago back in high school. Everything is still in turmoil with Covid, my mental state is deteriorating because of how my life is right now, and despite my depression being far in the back of my mind, it is still there and I can feel it trying to move forward. As anyone, I don't know what this year has in store for me, but starting a little over a week ago, and with the things I'm planning on doing moving forward, I hope to reach 51 and beyond.
I was thinking about changing my sign off for this new year, but this is one of those things that still holds true for me. I'd rather you have peace with in than anything else in life, so peace in and goodnight.
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