April is over. I didn’t accomplish everything I set out to do in this last month (the lack of 15 blog posts should make that more than obvious), but I do still find myself beaming with happiness.<\/p>\n
Let’s get the things I didn’t accomplish out of the way real quick. I didn’t blog fifteen times. I didn’t cook five new recipes. And I didn’t workout every day in the month.<\/p>\n
But that’s okay (I’ll be coming back to these things in later posts).<\/p>\n
One of the most important things I did <\/em>do was finished the first round of edits on my novel. I can’t tell you how good it feels. There is a lot of work to be done, but as of Monday, I started writing the 2nd draft. It’s the first time working on a second draft (of a novel) and it is very, very exciting.<\/p>\n Getting to go through and put everything in order is lots of fun. Making it all make sense and connect where it should. It’s wonderful.<\/p>\n More on the 2nd draft process\u00a0to come in some later posts.<\/p>\n My other great success from the month of April has been the Keto<\/em> <\/a>diet. Initially I started this diet to challenge myself, but in the end it turned out to be a whole lot more.<\/p>\n At roughly six feet tall and 203lbs I didn’t feel that I needed to lose a lot of weight. I was pudgy and soft, but not fat. The fact that I went from 203lbs down to 190lbs in 29 days with minimal exercise is quite wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but it is on the less exciting end of this diet for me.<\/p>\n What is really wonderful is the way that I feel<\/em>.<\/p>\n After starting the diet I hadn’t really been paying attention to the changes in my body until I stumbled upon this article<\/a>. Give it a read. It’s not about Keto, but it is about the author’s life after cutting sugar from his diet.<\/p>\n In his article, Rick Foster talks about all the benefits of cutting sugar from his diet. As I read through his piece I began to see how I was experiencing many of the same things in my own life.<\/p>\n Until I started this diet I used to take an ant-acid nearly every night of my life. Now, I never need one. This is perhaps the best part of changing my eating habits. I don’t know what the side effects of taking those are (I’ve never worked up the courage to find out), but I’m sure taking them as often as I did wasn’t something a 26 year old man should be doing.<\/p>\n Another great thing about my life after Keto has been the ease with which I fall asleep. I no longer lay in bed for an hour or more trying to visit the land of nod. Now, I simply lay my head on my pillow and drift off into a peaceful, uninterrupted slumber.<\/p>\n Uninterrupted <\/em>being the important word there. I used to wake up 3-5 times during the night, sometimes because of painful charlie horses in my feet. Now, I sleep soundly through the night.<\/p>\n It’s bliss.<\/p>\n And the most awesomely-delicious part of this entire diet is my new found energy levels. From the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep I have found myself with a consistent\u00a0\u2014 not to mention large<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 amount of energy every day.<\/p>\n I could go on and on about how great I feel, but I won’t.<\/p>\n In the beginning my plan was to do this diet for one month and be done with it. But now it’s become the way I live. I’m not going back. Not with how good I feel.<\/p>\n I don’t know if this way of eating is for everyone, but I can absolutely tell you it’s for me. I won’t be as strict as I was during April, I’ll allow myself some beer and other things, but not in the capacity I used to.<\/p>\n I think my problem before was that I didn’t pay enough attention to what I ate. I thought I ate healthy for the most part, but I never considered the four bite size snickers that I ate while at work or the beer or the whatever.<\/p>\n I only ever thought about my three big meals – breakfast, lunch, and dinner – but never bothered to remember all the little things in between them.<\/p>\n The first week of this diet sucked, and I had to be really strict with myself. Now I can’t imagine eating any other way.<\/p>\n So while I didn’t acomplish all of my April goals, I think it’s okay. In the end I’d still say it was a very successful month.<\/p>\n And besides, I’ve got plenty of time to get through the rest, as you’ll soon see my dear reader.<\/p>\n Until next time, long days and pleasant nights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" April is over. I didn’t accomplish everything I set out to do in this last month (the lack of 15 blog posts should make that more than obvious), but I do still find myself beaming with happiness. Let’s get the … Continue reading