Day 7 Physically Better, Mentally Not so Much

 I woke up this morning feeling better again physically after getting a pretty good night's sleep last night, so that's a relief. No sign of a headache at all. I had some ginger tea last night (which is an anti-inflammatory that sometimes helps me with headaches), so perhaps that helped. Or perhaps I'm past the worst of the keto flu. 

I also started yesterday drinking lots of fluids with electrolytes in my own version of "keto-ade" and perhaps that is helping?

So I think those things are helping with physical symptoms, although I'm still really struggling with hunger. It's only 9 a.m. and I'm already quite hungry. But I have another 3 hours to go before lunch, unfortunately. I have a suspicion that I'm eating too much protein and too many carbs and that is making it so I can't get my hunger response down. Last time I made it through the first week I was sticking religiously to under 20 carbs and 1200 calories per day, which was rough for the first 5 days but I think really helped me get over my hunger response. Not to mention I think it's obviously better for weight loss.

This time I wasn't in as good a space mentally when I started so I haven't forced myself to worry about calories or even counted carbs. I've just been eating strictly very low carb foods and eating just the two meals a day in a 6-7 hour window. I have a feeling I'm going to have to pay more attention to my macros here to get the hunger component taken care of, because I think it won't be sustainable.

And like I said before, mentally I wasn't feeling as strong this time for whatever reason. And that's certainly true today. Yesterday I felt ok mentally. Not too depressed or anxious. This morning, though, for whatever reason, I'm feeling quite down and out of sorts. Anxious and easily swept up with negative emotions. Maybe some of this is still launching into keto, but I think a decent chunk is probably just my brain.

I just need to tough through it for now, knowing that quite soon I need to start implementing the other parts of my Fantastic at 45 plan for mental health - less screen time, regular exercise, more time in nature, meditating.

But today, it is what it is. I have a lot of actual work to do and a couple errands, so I'm just giving myself a pass on anything except low carb eating and my 6-7 hour eating window. There will be time to make some more changes in the near future.

I'm also really trying not to focus on my weight so much this time, because I feel like that just sets me up for failure each time. I'm even debating not weighing myself weekly, because not seeing numbers going down on the scale messes with my head. But for now I'm trying it and am going to try to work on my emotional responses to the scale. Day 7 I weighed myself and am down somewhere between 2.5-3 pounds in the first week while eating lots of high-calorie things like cream, excess cheese, etc. So that's not bad. I'll have to see what this coming week brings!