Healthy Life: Getting Real with Myself

After I tackled all of the mental health stuff in my life, I realized that my physical health was starting to take a back seat. Of course, this means I had to take one of those much-needed, long, hard looks at myself in the mirror and give myself a reality check. 

One of the things I tend to do when times get tough is to placate myself with food. I had been doing this with the end result being that I was starting to eat and munch on food more than necessary. When I stepped on the scale in September, I was upset to see that I had gained back seven pounds. This gain followed several months of plateau, which was also bothersome, so I figured I'd better give myself the aforementioned reality check.

I was at work one day, looking through articles and YouTube videos, trying to find a good diet plan that would work for me. I knew I wanted something that would force me to eat right and watch my calories. Sometime during that day, I was in my boss's office talking to him when we started talking about dieting. He had been limiting his food intake and had lost some weight. He was planning on giving the keto diet a try for a month and he asked me if I wanted to do it with him...be a diet buddy. 

Now, three things about this were attractive to me. One, his office is within my office so we literally can tell what the other is doing all day, two, I did keto last year for a month with really great results, and three, I was already quite familiar with it from that month last year, so it would be easy for me to know what I could and couldn't eat. Learning how to eat keto can be a challenge, so this last point was important, as it meant I wouldn't have to do any research.

So, I've been doing keto this month - three weeks so far - and my strategy has been to largely eat the same things. I spend a week eating the same lunch and dinner, then switch it up the next week. It's easy for me to do this because I can prep everything on the weekend and then just take my lunch with me and warm up my dinner when I get home. The added bonus of this is that it also means I have my calories tightly controlled. The thing about keto that is just like any other diet is that one still has to restrict their calorie intake. 

Well, I got on the scale this morning and I'm happy to report that I've lost the weight I've gained. This means I'm back down to my lowest weight-loss weight. I'm super excited about that and energized for sticking with the keto diet. I'm going to continue the diet this time until I get down to my goal weight. 

As far as the other half of my healthy life goes, the exercise, well, let's just say that I'm in perpetual training. I'm still walking 4.5 miles every workday, on average, and taking at least one good hike on the weekends. This morning, in fact, I'm meeting up with my Dad in my beloved Iowa Mountains to hike a new, long trail that opened up there in June. I can't wait, and I'll be posting all about it very soon.

I hope you are inspired by my journey to a healthy life. I'm always honest with myself, and you, about my accomplishments but I'm also honest about my setbacks. Because, truthfully, setbacks are normal! You're always going to have setbacks, but it's how you deal with those that make a difference. Let me tell you something about that real quick. Last weekend, we went to the KC Renaissance Festival. I always pack our own food because it's economical, but I forgot to pack food for myself, so I ended up eating pretty much nothing but carbs for a few days. I got right back on that wagon on Monday though, even though my boss was concerned. I told him, "Whenever I fall off the wagon, I don't let myself stay derailed, I get right back up there. Otherwise, I'll never succeed."

I hope you have a great weekend and that you make the most of it. 

-H.A.