My plan started yesterday and involves the following:

1) Elimination of all dairy,
2) Increased resistance training and exercise including walking to 5x per week,
3) Daily meditation.

Just finished Day 1 having no coffee with HWC, which had become a daily morning ritual for me. I use fresh brewed tea with nothing added now. I've always preferred the taste of tea, and I believe I got into the coffee/HWC for the purpose of increasing fat consumption. HWC tastes great, so I'm sure I was using a heavy pour with this stuff.

Had a Pilates class this morning, and it's something that I've been doing on a regular basis going on 3 years now. If I can get to these classes 2x a week while navigating through my work schedule, I'm happy. Having the structure of a class is something I never would have done years ago, but it's a great class with an excellent instructor and good people. Makes all the difference!

Good, short meditation session yesterday. I grab time when I can and I definitely sleep deeper on days when I've been able to meditate.

Jumped on the scale yesterday, and confirmed that I'm carrying about 10 pounds over my ideal weight. Good time for a 90-day challenge! I need to reset and refocus.

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)

Day 9 accomplished

Day 2 - Tuesday 10 January:

1) Tea and water for beverages. No dairy.
2) Good resistance workout = Pilates
3) Meditation for around 50 minutes on this day using a Hemi-Sync recording. I alternate meditation either with or without a recording. If I use a recording, it's most always a recording developed for meditation by The Monroe Institute (TMI) that features a recording process called Hemi-Sync.

So, I jumped on the scale for the first time in weeks on Monday (Day 1 for me), and my suspicions of extra weight were confirmed. I was carrying around 10 pounds over my ideal weight. While I'm not prone to jumping on a scale frequently, for this 90-day Good Habit effort, I'm going to track my weight on a weekly basis to see how much of an effect dairy elimination has on this as well. Some of my extra weight is the result of holiday eating. While I was very consistent with LCHF, my quantities, especially with cheese, were likely more than I should be consuming. For me and certain types of cheeses, it's very easy to consume too much.

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)

Day 10 accomplished

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)

Day 11 accomplished

My plan will be to practice these 2 habits for 3 months or so. I began January 2, 2017 and will see how I feel and consider the benefits March 1, 2017. I'll post observations and or struggles when they occur.

1) Avoid Sweeteners: This includes natural as well as lab made.

2) Avoid "un-healthier" Oils: ( http://www.marksdailyapple.com/healthy-oils/ ) In particular oils high in PUFA and/or over processed.

Observations:

I wanted to jot this down yesterday but here I am today. My practice of these 2 items is going well. I've had no significant flare ups since the start and I noticed something yesterday about coffee/sweetener..

I was thinking about getting some coffee and and started to have pleasant thoughts of the future coffee then I remembered that I couldn't put any sweetener in it and that sort of let the air out of the pleasant thought. It brought me back to reality, not dreamy thinking.

Thats it! I hope everyone else is doing well with their experiments and finding stuff out or changing inside.

Days 3 & 4 - 11 & 12 January:

1) Tea and water for beverages. No dairy of any kind.
2) Good resistance workout 5x per week = Pilates, walking, hiking, other resistance training,
3) Meditation every day. I alternate meditation either with or without a recording. If I use a recording, it's most always a recording developed for meditation by The Monroe Institute (TMI) that features a recording process called Hemi-Sync.

Things are going well. I don't miss the coffee w/HWC other than I feel less full in the morning. Hasn't been an issue so far. Exercise is going well. Had a short period of meditation on both days. Generally feel good, and am already starting to detect results due to no dairy. Some of the minor symptoms (infrequent & very mild heartburn) I've experienced over the past couple months have already disappeared due to this.

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)

Day 12 accomplished

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)

Day 13 accomplished
1 morning meditation missed

My plan will be to practice these 2 habits for 3 months or so. I began January 2, 2017 and will see how I feel and consider the benefits March 1, 2017. I'll post observations and or struggles when they occur.

1) Avoid Sweeteners: This includes natural as well as lab made.

2) Avoid "un-healthier" Oils: ( http://www.marksdailyapple.com/healthy-oils/ ) In particular oils high in PUFA and/or over processed.

Observations:

After a long day of kiting and being out in the open I stopped by a walmart walmart to do some shopping. I was very thirsty and was dumb and didn't bring out any water. some times that's fruitless as it freezes anyway. As I strolled down the isle that had walls of sweetened, either by "natural sugar", agave, artificial sweeteners, natural sweeteners my eyes finnally landed on 1/2 gallon of I think, "Pure Leaf" tea with lemon flavor added. It was "Unsweetened" but I double checked ingredients.

The pull from the artificially sweetened drinks still pulled my eyes around and fired memories of drinking them, especially ROCKSTAR sucralose added.

My best bet and maybe next time I'll make this choice would be a gallon of water as I drank the entire half gallon of tea down on the 20 minute ride back home. That's a 4 lb GAIN of weight, oh my! Thank you all for posting your progress. I'm definitely not over the AS thing yet. The PUFA oils are not as much a problem because I'm not drawn to them.

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)

Day 14 accomplished
1 morning meditation missed

Challenge Goals:

1) No artificial sweeteners. No diet soda, no sucralose, no aspartame.
2) Dairy elimination trial. Saying goodbye to cheese, HWC, cottage cheese, and even butter for a while.
3) Track food daily and keep calories under 2200 and net carbs < 35 on average for the duration of this challenge.

I'm on track with this challenge. I'm getting used to the new routine of not consuming diet soda (or any other AS sweetener) nor dairy products. I'm ramping up the workouts. Yesterday I did 42 minutes of cardio on the elliptical and a 5 mile walk. It was a feast day, too. I ate accordingly.

Month to date nutrition data:

Percent of calories from Carbs: 13%
Percent of calories from Protein: 28%
Percent of calories from Fat: 59%
Average calories: 1938
Daily carbs: 62.5g
Daily fiber: 35g
Daily Net Carbs: 27g
Daily Protein: 139g
Daily Total Fat: 128g
-- Saturated: 39g
-- Monounsaturated: 48g
-- Polyunsaturated: 25g

Fast days are included in these numbers. I plan on working some fast days in between now and the end of January. So expect these numbers to drop. I don't want to do much fasting in February or March. I will be working out a lot and I want to be eating my normal rotation of dairy/AS free food leading up to my annual checkup at the end of March.

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)

Day 15 accomplished
1 morning meditation missed

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)

Day 16 accomplished
1 morning meditation missed

Days 5 - 9: 13 - 17 January:

1) Tea and water for beverages. No dairy of any kind.
2) Good resistance workout 5x per week = Pilates, walking, hiking, other resistance training,
3) Meditation every day. I alternate meditation either with or without a recording. If I use a recording, it's most always a recording developed for meditation by The Monroe Institute (TMI) that features a recording process called Hemi-Sync.

On track and clothes seem a bit looser. Have not jumped on a scale since Day 1, but I'm threatening to do that in the next week to see what weight looks like. I'll likely weigh in every 2-3 weeks. Sleeping very deeply during the past week.