“Two words that changed my life – if you have to make a big decision in the marathon, whether or not you want to keep going or stop – and those words are ‘Remember tomorrow, remember tomorrow.’ You want to drop out of the race at mile 18 ’cause you’re tired? Cool. Remember how you are going to feel tomorrow when someone asks you how you did.”
-Jesse Itzler

Normally I would find two more quotes before writing and posting this, but, I don’t think that’s necessary. Also, it’s kind of late, so it might be a choice between posting this tonight or not.

Jesse Itzler is someone I had never heard of before catching him on the Rubin Report the other day. However, he’s done quite a lot of cool and interesting things (I’ll let you google it if you’re interested, or you could listen to the podcast… I think he recently did Rogan as well, though I didn’t listen to that one). I’m quite interested to check out his most recent book, Living With the Monks.

One of the things that he mentioned in the podcast was his mantra to “Remember tomorrow”. Any time you are going to make a split second decision, stop, and remind yourself to remember tomorrow. How will you feel about the decision then? Should I put off writing that story I’ve been ‘working on’ for a year now? Should I eat this pint of ice cream? Should I yell at this guy who did something I didn’t like? Should I get super drunk and go crazy? Remember tomorrow. How will you feel about your decision then?

It’s one of those simple things that of course you should know, but I know that I’ve not always been mindful of. But I think it’s helpful. Even before hearing the quote, the past few weeks I’ve been trying to keep in mind that I need to be making decisions based more on the long-term than the short-term. It’s more abstract thinking about it that way though, so I think this more concrete way of thinking about it may be helpful. The thought can also be extrapolated into more long-term. Remember next week, remember next month, remember next year… how will I feel then about the decisions that I made now?

I know a thing that I’ve been frustrating myself with for a long time now is  that I rarely sit down to write. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been doing the daily blogs for my diet. Sure, they’re generally super boring and forced, but it hopefully will create a habit that I will maintain of sitting down to dump out a blog, even if it is utter crap. In addition to not writing enough, I also don’t read enough. And so for that I gave myself a new rule yesterday, and we’ll see how it goes. The rule is this: Every day, sit down, open a book, and read at least one word. One word is easy. No matter how tired I am, I can do it. And blowing away the expectation is also easy… if I read a whole chapter I’ve far and away outdone the requirement. Hopefully it is about creating a habit. And honestly, if I have the book in my hand and I’m sitting down, I’m probably going to read more than just one word.

I don’t want to pile on too much at once, but in another week or two, I am going to make the same rule for myself in regard to writing, specifically in regard to working on book that I’ve been very sporadically working on. Sit down in front of my laptop, open the document, and write at least one word. If it doesn’t work, maybe I’ll increase the word amount, but I really think that just getting myself into the habit of setting myself up to do it will naturally lead to actually doing it.

Remember tomorrow, so that you can have no regrets when it arrives.

Another day, another chicken eaten.

I had concerns that the day after the run I might be super hungry – that didn’t turn out to be the case. I’m still finding that the portions that I’m eating are considerably less than I would have had before, even if the meal isn’t any different than a meal I would have had before. I have heard it said that sugar and other sweeteners increase your appetite, so I guess probably my complete avoidance of those things is a likely contributor. I am finding that, while I do get a little hungry by around meal time, I tend to be forcing myself to eat a bit more than I feel like I want to. And I don’t mean I feel “full”, I just, don’t feel like I need to eat anymore. But I think that I still need to eat more because it doesn’t seem like I’ve eaten that much.

When I did slow carb in the past, I’d generally have days when I was EXTREMELY hungry, and I just couldn’t wait until the next weekly cheat day came along. Aside from the first few days of this diet when I was feeling kind of miserable, I haven’t really felt a desire to cheat on it. I feel like I could go on quite awhile. While I’m not going to commit to foregoing the cheat days I said I could have, I do feel at this moment like I could go the full 90 days without a cheat day. We’ll see, there’s still plenty of days left for me to start feeling differently.

It finally arrived! The day of the first run. If I had to describe it in one word, that word would be: underwhelming.

Of course, I am not limited to one word, so here are the details. About a mile and a half into the 3 miles, I just felt physically exhausted. I was breathing heavy, but I didn’t feel completely out of breath. Since the latter is usually what I feel moreso than the former, I’m thinking the diet is the major contributor to why the run was so rough. It’s definitely the first time I’ve ever done a run while in ketosis, and so I’m thinking my body isn’t used to it. I’ve done zero research into running while on ketosis, so, I don’t really even know if it’s advisable. Maybe I’ll look into it and see if there are any tips out there. Beyond that, it was humid and hot, and the last time I had been on a run was about 2 months ago (which was actually more recent than I thought, but, my Nike+ running app is unlikely to make up a run that didn’t happen). So, I probably only ran about 55-60% of the 3 miles in total… I tried to run again a few times after the halfway point, but I didn’t make it too far before slowing to a walk.

Mentally I felt very energized today, and now that it’s been a couple hours since the run, I feel that way again… but, still physically tired. Diet is going strong, actually I wasn’t able to eat all that much at lunch, and even the amount I did eat was kind of forced down because I wanted to have the calories for the run.

The bad thing about the run going the way it did is that I’m less likely to feel like running next time, and so, I’m just going to go ahead and commit to a run on Thursday.  It will be hot again, but I’m going to try to mitigate that by doing a night run. It’s not supposed to rain, but even if it does, I am still going to run, and if I don’t, you should publicly shame me for it… haha. Perhaps the fear of that will make sure I carry through.

See you on Day Sixteen.

So here we are at the end of the 2nd week. Things are still going well. No cheats at all, and tomorrow will be the first day of running – hoping that doesn’t throw things off, exercise has a tendency to make one hungry, so I need to make sure to have enough of the right kinds of food so that I don’t go after the wrong kinds of food.

Also, I had mentioned before that the ketosis test strips had been difficult to read all of last week. At this point, they’re definitely saying I’m in ketosis, so I think that’s a good thing. I’m not feeling anything but good, so hopefully I can just keep this going.

Here we are, unlucky 13.

So far so good for the day. Nothing in particular to report.

I went to the store and got some ribs to cook up for lunches this week – Particularly the days I’m going to run, as I’m definitely going to need something more substantial than what I ate for lunch last week to get through that. I’m gonna try to do the first run on Monday (Day Fifteen) – so, look forward to the update that evening.

But, I’ll have one more checkin before then, so… see you on 14!

This was the 2nd time I’ve had to say no to those delicious bagels. Perhaps just a bit harder today, but, it wasn’t too bad.

Someone had brought in “Salty Egg” potato chips. I was intrigued, so, since I knew I wasn’t going to let myself eat them, I decided to smell them. Gross. After smelling, I definitely had no temptation to try.

All in all, it was a pretty easy day, had some good food that was all on diet, said no to all the things I knew that I should.

Before I close out for the day, I’ll say this, because it’s something that I’ve been trying to be conscious of. When you’re doing a diet, it’s easy to get in the mindset of “I can’t have this or that”, and I think that can be detrimental, and make you want it more. The reality is, I can have anything I want to have. Nothing and no one can stop me, except for my own choice. I choose to not eat the things that I feel are not in line with my desires, even if I know that those things taste good. I could choose to have them at any time I want, but then I would also be choosing not to achieve longer term goals. It is a question of what I truly want, not of what I am allowed.

Anyway, it’s not really a new concept to me, but it’s good to remind one’s self now and again.

See you on 13!

Another day, another carbohydrate left unconsumed.

This evening between leaving work and eating dinner is probably the hungriest I’ve been since starting the diet. I don’t know why I seem to have started to feel a bit hungry again, nothing has really changed diet-wise, but, it will make things harder, especially if I feel hungry tomorrow at work when they have those delicious bagels sitting out.

But, I’m sure I can resist them anyway.

One thing is for sure, next week, when I start running, I’m going to need to have some bigger lunches than I’ve been eating. I think I’m about as low on my calorie intake as I should go, and running will essentially take it a couple hundred calories lower, so I’m going to need to make up the difference. I’m not counting calories at all, just for the record, but I have a general idea of what my intake is, and it’s certainly pretty low – I think from a pure calorie-deficit perspective, I’m likely to be on track to lose 2 pounds a week.

Anyway, there’s nothing else to say – Just doing my obligatory daily check in!

So ten days down (ok, a few more hours until they’re really down). That puts me 1/9 of the way to the 90 day goal. So far, so good. If I can do what I just did 8 more times, I’m golden 😉

That said, at some point I do expect to actually feel temptation, so hopefully when it comes I’ll be able to deal with it.

I ate canned chicken for lunch today. I kind of felt like some sort of post apocalyptic survivor. That feels a lot cooler than feeling like a weird guy who is eating chicken out of a can.

I also just signed up for the Turkey Trot! I participated last year and did kind of a crappy job of it – hoping that this year will go better for me – if I come down in weight and also do a better job of training for it, that should be no problem.

Speaking of running, that’s going to come into play for me here during week 3. So somewhere around day 15 or 17, I should be going on my first run. The plan is to do 2 a week for a week or 2, and then up it to 3, and then hopefully after 2 or 3 weeks of that I’ll bump up to 4. I’m trying to do all this gradually. Too much too soon is a recipe for failure.

That’s it. See you tomorrow.

This one is coming in late in the day – hit up a movie after work so I’m just getting a chance to sit down and knock this out.

Not too much to say – I might have accidentally ingested a small amount of cheese earlier today – my free work-provided Mediterranean salad I had after our all-hands today had some cheese in it – I tried to eat around it, but small pieces may have snuck through. I’m not too concerned about it, I don’t think it will have an impact on me in any way, but, in the interest of full transparency, it’s a thing that may have happened.

Other than that, still on track – I didn’t eat dinner until after the movie at about 9:30, prior to that my most recent meal had been at about 12:30, and I was only really feeling slightly hungry, so, that’s pretty good. I’d say previously 4-5 hours and I’d be starving after most any meal. It feels right I guess.

I have been using the keto test strips, and, well, I feel like they’re really hard to read, but I think it is detecting some ketones, which I’ll certainly take as a positive thing.

That’s it for today, see you tomorrow.