How I'm Doing on My 2014 Goals

Hey all! So sorry for my absence. I've been having a rough couple of weeks. I don't really want to go into things too much because complaining really sucks. But let's just say that life is putting me through the wringer and it's making it really hard to concentrate on finding things to blog about.

That said, today is the last Friday before the end of June, so I thought I'd do a post on how I've been doing on my goals lately. The colored sentences are my comments.

READING:

Read 75 books.

Behind on this, mainly because of the bad start I had to the year. 

Read more William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and other classics.

Will get to this as soon as I've finished Les Miserables. I'm three quarters of the way through, but it's taking long because I'm reading bit by bit. 

WRITING:

Research relevant time periods and facts for various works in progress.

Haven't started on any works needing research. And once again, for everything I say that's behind, it's because of the first four months not being productive. 

Finish:

Drafts:

The Countess

Haven't started. 

The Wedding

Haven't started.

Daniel

Haven't started.

War of Six Crowns 4

Postponed until completion of Wo6C3 rewrite.

Optional: One other on my to-do list

Working on a non-fiction book about writing just to give me something to work on if the fiction doesn't feel like coming out.

Rewrites:

Gray

Rough Draft.

Opsies and Lysties

Rough Draft

Twisted

Rough Draft

Robin

Rough Draft.

Optional: One other on my To-Do List.

This will probably be one of the three books listed in Edits because I still need to rewrite them all. 

Edits:

Eden’s Son

Postponed due to rough draft not being suitable for rewrites. 

Bound

Rewrite not started.

Otto

Rewrite not started.

Query/Submit:

Will be self publishing all of my books for the foreseeable future, but will update on each book's status: 

War of Six Crowns 3

Book being drafted again due to not being suitable for editing.

Birds vs Bastards

In process of being prepped for publishing before the end of the year. 

Any two of the “Edits” projects.

Scrapped.

Publish:

War of Six Crowns: The Heir’s Choice

Being prepped for publishing in October.

BLOGGING:

Make a point of visiting every follower and commenter on both main blogs.

Working on this, but probably will put this on the back burner.

Weekly posts on my War of Six Crowns Blog.

Not yet, since life in general is keeping me from regularly posting on any of my blogs.

LIFE:

Weigh 65kg by end March.

Nope.

Maintain weight for the rest of the year.

Obsolete, since my new diet means I can't really pick up weight for as long as I stay on it.

Fence.

Nope.

Do yoga.

Nope.

Do more exercise in general.

Trying to walk more and play tennis, although the rainy winter here puts a damper on those plans.

Eat healthily. I.E. The minimum refined carbs.

This I am doing. Since I'm eating NO refined carbs.

Do other arts. E.G. Paint. Needlepointing.

Doing needlepointing and crocheting at the moment. Want to paint, but the light's bad this time of the year.

Get involved with people with similar interests to me.

Got involved with a group in my church, so at least we have our faith in common. 

Get back to singing regularly.

Nope. And this is probably the one frustrating me the most. 

So yeah... Even optimistically, I'm not ever going to catch up on most of these things. And I'm not going to push myself to. But what I will do is check up on myself at the end of the year to see exactly how far I managed to get with everything. 

How are your goals going?

So what exactly am I eating?

I received a comment on Friday from someone else who's on a low carb diet and although the overall news was good, I realized that people have this misconception about what a Paleo Diet (at least the way I'm eating it) consists of. 

Most people seem to think the secret is in the protein. Well... Actually... not so much. The real secret is in the fat. 

This isn't a high protein, low carb diet. It's a high fat, low carb, moderate protein diet. So no, I'm not glutting myself on protein. The portions I'm eating are pretty much the same as before. In fact, it's not recommended that I should eat more protein than I ate before. On the contrary, I'm starting to eat less. (But I'll get to that.) 

Instead, I'm increasing my intake of natural fats such as cream, butter (not a good idea for the lactose intolerant), olive oil, some nut oils, palm oils etc. while cutting out vegetable fats and oils like margarine, sunflower oil etc. 

At the same time, I'm cutting out refined carbs and even whole grains and starches such as corn, wheat (ALL forms), potatoes etc. However, I'm still getting carbs in through vegetables and fruit. Just not in the huge amounts people assumed to be healthy, but isn't. 

Does this mean I'm now stuffing my face with fats, putting undue pressure on my heart? 

No. You see... you can't eat too much fat. I mean the moment you do, you start feeling nauseous. But you probably won't want to, since fat is in fact what satiates you when you eat. So when you eat healthy fats (and yes, I'm aware that a lot of people are screaming I'm not. But I am.), your body can actually be relied on to tell you exactly when you're no longer hungry. 

And that's why I'm eating less. 

Ever notice how that never quite seems to happen with bread? Yes people, before I cut out carbs, bread, not sweets, was my enemy. Because I was eating way too much of it, and didn't even know. 

Usually when I mention that I cut refined carbs out, people usually act like I've gone insane. Like I've finally lost my senses in my quest for a healthy weight. Like.... mine is a sacrifice no one should make. 

Thing is... I'm not suffering. I'm not hungry. I no longer have cravings gnawing at me as I go about my day. My energy no longer fluctuates. And yes, I'm losing weight. 

I'd love to be able to update you on how much, but I actually forgot to weigh myself this morning. Yep. Forgot. See when I started with this grim determination to cut carbs and lose weight, I thought I needed to keep track of my weight every single day or else my cravings would take control and I'd start picking up again. 

But no. I have no cravings. Sure, sometimes I feel like something sweet, but nothing that hot chocolate (sugar free) or warm milk with vanilla, stevia and butter (aka food of the gods) can't counter. 

Still, some of you will want a number: so I'll just say that on Monday last week, I'd lost about 30 pounds. That's in a bit more than a month. And the best thing is that I probably won't pick it up, because I won't stop eating the way I am. 

I've finally found a way of eating that's sustainable and healthy. And more than that, I'm going in for week seven and I feel amazing. 

Anyone else try cutting carbs? How's it going? 

Hey all!

So sorry to not have a proper post up again. :-/ I caught a cold on Tuesday and have basically been out of commission until this morning.

And now... I'm catching up to everything I missed in the past two days.

So hopefully on Monday, I'll have something worth reading up.

Have a great weekend!

A change in perspective...

I was staring at this blank page for a moment when an interesting thing occurred to me.

I mentioned in April or March that I realized that I was stuck in a rut. And at the same time, I spent a nice amount of time before that complaining on both this and my writing blog that I've been struggling to get things done. 

It felt at the time like I was spinning my wheels with no real hope of getting anywhere. 

Once I started working on getting out of my rut, I started moving. Yep. Doing other things like meeting new people, driving around, reading etc. all helped me get through my edits, and much faster than I thought possible. 

I did a huge revision to my book, and it didn't take me a month to finish, and the book is 300 pages long. 

So how is it possible that I finished my revisions faster by not focusing on them? 

Well. The book I needed to revise is The Heir's Choice. And if you've kept track of my going's on since about December, you'll know that I was supposed to edit this book last year already. Except things went south with my publisher. 

The thing is that my emotions and thoughts came so entangled in the souring relationship with my publisher that no matter how long I focused on editing, no editing could be done. Not for as long as my concentration kept going to the crap going on around the book.  

The lucky thing for me was that I spotted that I was in a rut around the same time as I got the rights to my book back from my publisher. 

Once I decided to get out the rut, I could change my perspective. 

I'd been looking at the bad stuff associated with the book so much that I couldn't even think of making the book itself better. It took me doing all sorts of other things in order to pull back enough and see the good things as well. 

And when I did, I could actually function the way I'm supposed to. 

So if you're stuck and can't seem to do what you know you should, maybe all you need to do is do something new instead. Just to get that much needed change in perspective. 

Anyone else find that doing completely unrelated things helps you do things you're struggling with?

Oh yeah! Before I go:

Weight: 91.5kg (201lb 11.6oz)
Total lost: 14.2kg (31lb 4.9oz)
BMI: 31.66

Day 36

Hey all! I already posted my life news today on my other blog, so I'm going to cheat and direct you there.

But before I do:

Weight: 96.4kg (212lb 8.4oz)
Total Lost: 9.4kg (20lb 11.6oz)
BMI: 33.36

Just to reiterate in case you missed it: I've lost 20 pounds in five weeks with no hunger, no cravings, no injections, no diet pills and no wishing the diet was over.

I love it!

Gun laws suck (when you have to study them.)

Wow. I was going to post on Friday to show my triumphant attempt at cake decorating without my instructor. And... well... it didn't go quite as planned...

In fact, I finished the cake at 11pm on Friday night. (*sob*)

But if you want to read why it took so long and see what the cake looked like, feel free to click over here.

Needless to say, it's been rough.

The good thing is it's been a learning experience.

Speaking of learning experiences, I'm about to sit down and crack open some books. On Thursday, I have to go write an exam to prove I'm capable of and responsible enough to own and carry a firearm. (It's required in my country to be licensed.)

The annoying thing is that this will be some seriously dry reading. Oh well.

Why the need for a gun? Mainly to chase vermin away with. (Pigs. Baboons etc.) So yeah, it'll mainly be just another farm tool.

But yeah... I might be a bit quiet on Wednesday, since I'll probably be studying like a fiend. And I'm going to stop writing right now so that I can get started.

Anyone else having to study for something this week?