I had lunch with a friend yesterday, and later I treated myself to some chocolate-covered almonds and ice cream. As a result, I gained about a pound, which is honestly less weight than I expected to gain. The chocolate-covered almonds and ice cream are supposed to be my goodbye to sugar for the next two months, but we’ll see how that goes. The day before yesterday was not a good day, so I felt especially drawn to indulging in some sugar yesterday.

I was thinking about the pizza party at work the day before yesterday. There was no reason for me to eat any of that pizza; it was mediocre at best. And there certainly was no reason for me to eat as much of it as I did given that mediocrity. I just hadn’t had pizza in quite a while, so it was a temptation that I couldn’t overcome. But it wasn’t worth it. If I’m going to screw up nutritionally, I need to make sure that whatever I consume on such a “cheat” day is exceptional.

I’m grumpy today. I stayed up too late visiting the friend that sort of disappeared from my life for over a month, so I’m tired. Additionally, it’s overcast this morning, and that sort of weather makes me not only lethargic but causes a lot of aches and pains. Also, I’ve lost faith in my workplace. It’s a technology company in which metrics are used to evaluate performance, and the current focus is on a single metric that I struggle with because I’m not interested in “gaming” that metric. I’ve experienced this before at a different company, and this myopic, short-sighted view of performance is something I just don’t have the patience for anymore. The tide will turn eventually when my workplace will start valuing employees from a more holistic approach , but I’m not sure I’m willing to wait for that time to come.

The bottom line is that I’ve experienced a lot of unnecessary stress over the past month or two, and that has made it hard to stick to my original goals for this project. I know that I need to just keep hammering away, though; the value of consistent, sustained effort is not lost on me. Since I’m almost two months into this journey, I’ll take some time to recalibrate and make some adjustments, and that should help me get back on track despite whatever external challenges persist.