Day 1059

Day 1059 Record Keeping
Day 1031 Fixed Meditation (20 min)
Day 905 Writing (many rounds, on deadline)
Day 445 Rowing (DID NOT DO)
Day 186 Mobility/Stretching (back smash)
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Eating
Day 283 Pantry Check (DiD NOT DO)
Day 281 Food Recording (DID NOT DO)
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Early to Rise
Day 214 Water (DID NOT DO)
Day 214 Sleep Recording  (12:20|12:35|8|8:30)
Day 185 Bedtime Curfew
Day 23 Wakeup Alarm 75
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Good sleep, good wakeup. Horrendously depressed, but continued to do all the habits I could do. Traveled yesterday, so didn’t record, but still managed to do my mobility, meditation, water, sleep recording, bedtime curfew, and wakeup alarm. Not bad.

Day 179 & Depletion Cycle Depression

Day 179 Record Keeping SRHI = 84
Day 147 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 83
Day 93 Bodyweight Exercise SRHI= 82 (3 bridges from ground up, 1 minute 1-legged planks)
Day 20 Writing = 53
Day 193 Eating SRHI = 66
Day 10 No Bread = 52 (5 times)
Great sleep, ok wakeup. Was incredibly depressed last night.

Depletion Cycle Depression

Last night I had less willpower. I felt tired and drained, despite having a fantastic day. I drank more than I usually do. I advised a friend and he made an off-hand comment of a friend who is a writer.

Writers are my kryptonite. When I hear of another’s success in circumstances that I feel are better or easier than mine I get angry, upset, jealous. Yesterday I went straight to depression. Not a good spot to be in.

And it was deep. I’m proud because I automatically started doing my meditations. I stretched out my thoughts to break them apart. I noticed the connections between them. And I got down again. I automatically went into my meditation routine a few times.

I did my morning meditation today and most of it was fighting a sense of defeat and frustration. A sense of guilt about feeling that defeat. I don’t particularly want to look at myself in the mirror today.

However I’m better able to step back and look at this critically. I’m at a point where I’ve just added two habits to my list quite quickly (writing and no bread). I’ve already been feeling incredibly carb depleted physically and ego depleted mentally throughout the week. It’s not at all surprising that the emotional roller coaster would start.

It is so incredibly difficult to notice emotions from a distance rather than being on the inside of them, especially when so much of it is caught up in how slow this whole process is. I have to remind myself that this project isn’t about being good at one thing - it’s about being fantastic at them all. Part of the reason I started it was because I have so many interests, so many things I want to do. And it’s not a race against anyone but myself.

When I see people progressing past me in one element, my jealousy kicks in, and I want to rush when I’m barely at a walk now.

Before I thought about making my daily meditations harder by focusing on a trigger point. After this cycle of depletion finishes perhaps I should start doing something like that. I’m also very interested in noting how long these cycles last.

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 42 & The Habit of Not Being Depressed

Day 42 Record Keeping SRHI = 50
Day 10 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 44
Day 9 Dynamic Meditation SRHI = 57
Great night sleep, ok wakeup
Depressed.

Yesterday I woke up to a massive cloud of horrible depression. I was uncertain of everything and I only got over it after fighting, fighting, fighting with multiple techniques. 

After all the techniques and some time at the beach, once I got past it I was still shaky. Eventually I got back to the moments of clarity from last week. And I feel this is important.

I started getting into a state where I felt like I could choose. I could easily choose happiness. I could just choose, and in choosing laugh because it felt like cheating. Don’t do something right? Doesn’t matter, I can choose to be happy and unaffected. Didn’t get enough done, doesn’t matter. I would laugh because it’s cheating at life. It’s like wearing a bubble of invincibility and no one can hurt you.

And the key was to recognize that in each turn of my mind when I felt negativity welling up. And I feel it, I feel it welling up just sitting here writing this. Nervousness, worry, pessimism, they come up moment to moment for me, and at each point if I recognize it and then say in my mind “nope, I’m going to be happy” I sometimes just crack up laughing, which helps as well.

The act of pointing them out I feel is really important. It distances the self from the emotion instantly, whereas yesterday morning I was already drowning in the emotion.

Lydia told me yesterday at the beach that what I’m doing is rewiring habitual frames of mind - because my natural state of mind is to beat myself up over not succeeding at cutting off that negativity yesterday. And that will take time, and there will be moments where you fail because it’s a herculean task. 

I think of it as a meditation where I’m still wobbly. You’ve got to first get the state of mind just so. Just once. I’ve gotten that. The next step is to prolong it. I’m working on that.

I realize that this is all a bit “woo-woo” regarding habit formation. But for someone like me who has to deal with this destructive force within myself moment to moment in my mind trying to tear him down, this is the most important habit there is.