Winter is a great time for me to pursue my health goals. I’m almost always in control of it since we rarely travel and I mostly leave the house for exercise or groceries.

That hasn’t been the case this year, as we’ve already had two trips where it was difficult to do a keto diet and also impossible to exercise the way I do normally. So out of what should be about a month of keto, I’m missing 6 days.

Still, it’s been a month, so it’s good to review. Just like last year, my first proper 100-day keto diet, the weight has come off quickly. It seems it’s about 3 pounds of water weight, and then another 3-4 pounds of fat and lean tissue. My 7-day weight average was at a high of 197.6, and that average is now at just over 190.

The travel interruptions have made it difficult to get a good rhythm for more than 2 weeks so far, and that means I’ve been trying to gain ketosis 3 different times already. Since that’s the hardest part for me – queue the keto “flu” – it’s not been nearly as easy as last year.

Just this week, though, I’ve started to experience some of the “lightness of being” and “brightness of outlook” that I had for a couple months last year, and I’m looking forward to more of that.

Calories In / Calories Out

I estimated I wanted to arrive right around 2500 calories consumed per day for this beginning part of the keto journey. For the past 8 days, I’m a bit above that at 2650.

My calories out have been at 3100 through yesterday. That should equate to about a pound per week of weight loss, which is in keeping with what I did last year.

Just like I’ve started to see the lightness and brightness in just the past few days, I’ve also seen my appetite lessened. For me, not feeling hungry is the absolute key to trimming down

I’m only looking to lose about 5 more pounds, and I think that will happen within the next month, putting me about one month ahead of the 100-day challenge.

Dry-ish January

In all the 6+ years of recording my alcohol consumption on a daily basis, I’d never once had a 7 day stretch with zero alcohol. I’d honestly never given that a thought, but the recent coverage of alcohol having only negative impacts on health made me think I should give it a try.

This January, I’ve hit zero on the 7-day scale twice. I’m glad it didn’t feel all that difficult, and I think I’ll keep my consumption a lot lower than in the past. I do enjoy having 2 or maybe 3 drinks on weekend nights, but I find I’m paying a much higher price for those in terms of mental acuity and well being. As I’m coming up on 53, it doesn’t feel like I can spare days to hangovers anymore.

Speaking of mental acuity, it does seem like keto has had a somewhat negative impact on my sharpness so far. I’ll write about the effect of keto on my chess rating next.