Day 139 End of Low Carb Flu & Depression

Day 139 Record Keeping SRHI = 74
Day 107 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 78
Day 53 Burpee SRHI= 70 (1x8)
Day 153 Eating SRHI = 47  
Good sleep, bleary wakeup. Depressed last night, depressed in the morning.

End of Low Carb Flu

I think the “flu” symptoms disappeared yesterday or the day before. I made an effort to drink more fluids, eat more fat, and drink broth. I guess I sort’ve second guess myself with things like this. The first time I went through this it lasted almost an entire week, so I’ve been worried that perhaps my diet isn’t as strict. 

My intake of cheese is more - I just got a Provoletera plate from my visit to Argentina - in the past I haven’t notice much of an adverse reaction to cheese, but I’m tapering that down now. 

In the first week I’ve wanted to go to the local bar and have a beer and some of their snacks. I quit that after a few days, but I’ve been drinking a bit more than my daily allotment of two glasses of wine a night. In fact, I haven’t been drinking wine - the wine here is a bit expensive and it’s often easier to grab beer - but it’s something I’m going to change. 

I’m not going insane with drinking or anything, but I’d like to drink more water, and it’s easier to control with wine. I think that, along with my depression, it and my control of food has more to do with this place in my life.

I’ve just got back from fast paced travels, and it’s cold and silent here - I don’t really have many friends. I’m also moving to Barcelona in a month, and the change - the potential to do a lot there, is scary. 

I feel caught in a place where I don’t have enough time to do much here, scared about moving and the potential of failing to do more there, and the drudgery of this project. I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much, and because of that I self sabotage. I feel like all the success I had in the beginning of the eating project - the weight shed, the tightening of 6 notches in my belt - that that progress isn’t happening anymore.

If I breathe and take a step back, I have to understand that this is the same feeling I felt during danger zones in other habits. That dangerous cocktail of antsy-ness, depression, impatience, frustration, and hopelessness that heralded giving up on so many projects in the past.

And that’s exactly the sign I need to keep trudging on.

Day 107, Depression, and Breaking 4 Months

Day 107 Record Keeping SRHI = 59
Day 75 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 69
Day 21 Burpee SRHI= 45 (2x6)
Day 121 Eating SRHI = 51  
Bad sleep, ok wakeup. Felt down yesterday, depressed this morning.

Recording Depression

I think it’s important to note depression. I think that depression comes into play more during “danger zones” - I also think depression tends to effect individual day’s record keeping, as evidenced by today’s lower SRHI scores.

Breaking 4 Months

On another note, I didn’t properly celebrate - Yesterday was the longest I’ve ever gone on an eating plan - 4 months. Breaking that 3 month mark was hard, and as I said before, it’s interesting how 3 months seems to be akin to breaking the 4-minute mile.

That’s not to say that I was perfect. But even continuing to monitor despite mess ups for over 3 months seems to increase endurance depletion to intolerable levels - something my record keeping habit helps with immensely. 

My theory is that it will be continue being hard until month 6. Which is why I need to focus on stabilizing my record keeping.

Day 90 & Eating Danger Zone

Day 90 Record Keeping SRHI = 71
Day 58 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 73
Day 4 Burpee SRHI= 22
Day 104 Eating SRHI = 30 - Failed to do yesterday
Bad night sleep, great wakeup.

Eating Danger Zone

With a three day bad eating streak and an all-time low in my SRHI my eating habit, which was absolutely steady for three months, has faltered badly. Before I had mused why 12 weeks was such a common denominator for 3 month transformations and clean eating regimes. In previous diets I’ve only lasted 3 months - sometimes a few weeks longer, other times a few weeks shorter. In those times I felt that feeling of just being sick of it, which to me is the signal for what I’ll call Endurance Depletion.

My theory is this time coincides with the Danger Zone of my Quarter Mark Theory. As an aside, this would put the entire life cycle for a good eating habit to be almost an entire year at 360 days (if we calculate from 90 days as the quarter mark). This, to me, makes sense. from Phillippa Lally’s graph, she extrapolated 250 or so days for the completion of an exercise habit. And I think of eating habits as being more involved - the eating habit is continual, performed several times in a day under different circumstances while an exercise habit is usually made once.

So, what can I do? Well for one, it’s good that I’m not recording it. Record keeping is my first line of defense for making it through because it gives you a bit of distance, and shows you just how bad  your doing in your habit. Without recording, the tendency for me is just to absently forget. It doesn’t explode, it just quietly fizzles out, almost before you realize it. When attempting habit formation as a kid (I used to have charts, just not as detailed as this) I’d remember weeks later.

I’m trying to decide if this is enough, or if I need other tools. Perhaps more cheats? Perhaps telling myself I need to eat clean once a day, then I can cheat the rest? 

The main point isn’t to perform the task perfectly - and this is a point I continually lose track of. It’s to survive this period (another 3 months - ugh!) in any way possible. Even if I come out limping and ragged on the other end, my prediction is that afterwards it gets easier.

This phase has also come with an emotional toll. I’m noticing a moodiness with a chance of depression. Things frustrate me easier, and I get down in life in general. This is, in my mind, the hallmark of Endurance Depletion - a general malaise.