therealmannex

[therealmannex]

Un jour en France

Dear Henry,

Yesterday we arrived at the cottage that we booked for our yearly summer vacation.

We got welcomed by the owners with Champagne so as mentioned in a previous post regarding getting back in the KETO/South Beach flow a the start of the vacation, got postponed to tomorrow. But hey, I've read somewhere that all diets start "tomorrow" ;-) Right now, I'm sitting on the porch with a view on the river that runs next to the cottage, I've just finished a South Beach-style breakfast with Gazpazo, a slice of protein-bread with salmon and a coffee and updating this journal while my wife and youngest son are still sleeping (the oldest one stayed at home btw). Life is good and motivation is high.

It's time another coffee and pickup my guitar for some practice.

Again... life is good!

Kind regards, M

[therealmannex]

Porcelain

Dear Henry,

What a read. I'm currently reading "Porcelain, a memoir" by Moby. It describes in a funny and entertaining way the uprising of Moby as a DJ and musician.

I did know that he is a selfmade man but did not now that he grew up in poverty as a kid and lived in poverty before his success with "Go" and the "All is wrong" album. It was very inspiring to read that even after the success, Moby did keep his frugal lifestyle of cheap clothes, and secondhand furniture and remained straight edge (although there are indications in the curren chapter that he will fall of the staight edge wagon later).

The book insprired me to pick up the guitar again and I've already subscribed to online music & guitar courses, and made a plan to get my guitarplaying on level again.

Thank you Moby!

Kind regards, M

[therealmannex]

Dance D-Vision 2024

Dear Henry,

Last week, we scored some last-minute tickets for a house & techno festival (a small local Tomorrowland) and alcohol-wise, it went wrong: way too many beers and cocktails, leaving me with a huge hangover the day after and all of my habits wents down the drain for the upcoming week. Weightwise, I was at 111kg the day before the festival but 5 days later the weighing scale indicated a 114 again due to not eating KETO that week, skipping breakfast and too many late-night snacks.

However, as that was one week before the holiday vacation, I made a promise to myself to get back in the flow during that vacation.

Intentions are high and the mindset is good to restart.

Regards, M

[therealmannex]

Rock Zottegem and it's toll

Dear Henry,

I have not been drinking alcohol for (almost) 2 weeks now, even though there were some challenges ahead: a Nashville Pussy concert was my baptism of fire, but I survived without a problem. After that a concert of Dr. Lektroluv… Again, no problem to leave the alcohol. The last weekend of my 2 weeks was Rock Zottegem, a festival where I volunteer behind the bar for 3 days. Here I did treat myself to 3 beers : one each day.

In terms of weight, it's still going in the right direction: I'm now under 113 kg, coming from 118 kg. The irregular weekend of Rock Zottegem (eating, working, sleeping and repeating) disrupted my biorhythm a bit. Sleeping at 10pm was out of the question…. It was rather 4am and getting up at 11am.

I think I also caught corona because I've been tired all week and cough a lot.

Well, in the meantime I got back into the South Beach eating regime and decided to stay in phase 1 for another 2 weeks.

Trying to get up at 5 a.m. again tomorrow to get back into the routine.

Regards, M

[therealmannex]

In the flow!

Dear Henry,

It's been a while but I can say that I finally got into the right flow: went to sleep around 10 p.m., got up at 5 a.m., and last but not least, started a healthy diet (South Beach Diet Fase1 = no sugars and no alcohol) which made me lose 4 kilograms in just under a week. Even though there were some temptations (Nashville Pussy concert last Saturday, and a company BBQ yesterday), I was able to keep well away from the alcohol. Motivation is good! ;-)

I have also replaced smoking with vaping, btw.

Next challenge I want to plan is more exercise (cycling and walking) as well as taking up my guitar playing again.

I'll keep you posted. Regards, M

[therealmannex]

Some good, some bad days

Dear Henry,

It has been a while now but for now I continue to have a hard time sticking strictly to my plan.

Some days I manage quite well to follow both the diet and the morning routine…. On other days it is a lot harder and I sometimes skip a few things.

Nevertheless, motivation is high but also fatigue, mainly due to stress at work.

On the advice of my wife, I'm going to have my blood checked soon because she suspects that I have an excess of iron somewhere.

I'll keep you posted.

Regards, M

[therealmannex]

Naughty Dogs

Dear Henry,

Yesterday was a bad day.

Although I got up at 3AM because of the dogs that needed to go outside and could not sleep anymore, and started working on some stuff that needed to be done for secondary job, I was a bad day, espcially with the diet.

I did had an extensive breakfast, but as of noon, it was like I threw all my progress out of the window: nacho chips with the lunch of sandwiches and then in the evening and in between a lot cookies.

I don't know why I don't have the dicipline to say no and let it slide so easily, knowing that I always feel dissapointed and hate myself when this happens.

Had to drive my youngest one to school and bought a pack of sigarettes (while I was back to vaping since the beginning of this week)... so that's not good as well.

Also, the misses went to bed early and I started playing GT7 until after midnight. So the habit of going to bed at 10PM was also not repected and I decided to sleep until 8AM today. Of course, to compensate the early rise and shine and the late bedtime.

However, I'm up now (need to go on an intervention at a customer) and motivivation to make today a good day is high.

Regards, M

PS: I'm also thinking about what to do with this sugar addiction of mine. Maybe I need to talk to a professional about this.

[therealmannex]

5AM... or not

Dear Henry, Referring to habit #3 and #4, I must say that #4 is going pretty well although I was motivated to get up today at 5AM (alarm was set on the watch and on the phone), I did not get out of bed on time. Even worse, I slept until 7AM. It might be because of "the old in-out", as Alex Delarge from A Clockwork Orange calls it, that happened last night. Anyhow, today was a good day... stuck tightly to the diet, productive day at work (one without meetings) and met a new client for the side job in the evening.

It's half past ten already, so time to go to sleep if I want to get up at 5AM tomorrow.

Regards, M

[therealmannex]

Habit #3 - Get up at 5AM Habit #4 - Bedtime at 10PM

Dear Henry,

Yesterday I started keeping track (with a simple spreadsheet) of my earlier defined habits. This just takes me a couple of minutes at the end of the day, but forces me reflect on the past day and appears to be a motiviator to keep up with the habits.

I've also restarted tracking my food intake with the MyFitnessPal app. I've used this app before with positive results. However, one must have the dicipline to put everything in the app what you also put into your mouth. :-)

Lesson Learned : tracking your progress is a motivator

In addition, I am adding 2 more habits to my list: #3 : get up at 5AM every day #4 : hit the sack no later than 10PM

Hope this goes well... but I'm motivated. Regards, M

[therealmannex]

Busy weeks, busy weekends

Dear Henry,

It’s been a while but since I wrote my last post.

Going back to those posts, I must be honest with myself and say that I am not yet 100% on the right track but all in all quite satisfied with the progress: regularly (though not every day as I had planned) I take a little walk with the dogs and also the healthy diet is going in the right direction although there have been some excesses in the last 10 days.

The past few weeks have been pretty busy, both professionally and privately: last weekend a BBQ of our oldest son's table tennis club on Saturday and a garden party of friends on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary on Sunday, and all this while I should have been training a bit for a 150-kilometer bike ride this weekend.

So fairly unprepared this past Saturday I left for Hasselt for that ride with the cycling club. Suffering, fighting and more suffering but all in all I managed to finish the ride reasonably smoothly thanks to the mental support of my cycling companions. In the evening, a refreshing shower was enough to eat reasonably fresh food in local restaurant “Maison Mathis” and some pints of beer in café “De Koestal”. Lights went out a bit and I decided to go back to the hotel a bit earlier than my mates. All by all, proud that I could finish the ride and that I had good fun.

Sunday met up with the wife and youngest son, who were also in Hasselt but staying at a different hotel, and paid another visit to Bokrijk. I wasn't looking forward to it too hard and did it mainly for my son but in the end it was a fun trip.

Well, time for bed but wanted to write this down anyway.

Regards, M

[therealmannex]

Habit #2 — The Daily Doggywalk

Dear Henry,

As I already mentioned the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle, I have decided to take the doggies around the block once a day to get some exercise for them and of course also for myself, like I did some time ago.

Today, I have taken up this habit once again since a long time ago.

The dogs were tremendously enthusiastic when I took out the leashes and enjoyed the short walk… as did I.

Regards, M

[therealmannex]

Habit #1 — The Healthy Diet

Dear Henry,

Last weekend, I decided to stop my attempts in following a KETO lifestyle. I’ve had positive results a couple of years ago where I lost 13kg but with my latest attempt, I just can’t get around the strictness of the diet anymore and I also felt like without any energy.

So last Monday, I’ve started another healthy lifestyle diet where to focus is more on carbohydrates and protein but less fat & sugar. This is also a diet with which I’ve had positive results.

So far, I’ve lost around 2kg in 5 days and feel energized again, and most important, very motivated.

So motivated that I started take a photo of every meal and publish it on Instagram in combination with keeping track of all my food intake.

Regards, M