January has vanished. There’s only 5 days left. I put myself under strict rules since the 5th and I’ve managed to stick to them.

What went well (so far):

I’ve stuck to the diet. I haven’t had an alcoholic drink since 4th January. I used wine in two meals (jus and gravy), but the alcohol content would have been burnt off.

I’ve been to the gym three times a week. Even one week where I got knocked for six by something, I was able to make up the lost session. Before training, I’ve eaten porridge, even on a normal diet day.

I’ve avoided takeaways. I haven’t had anything delivered. I have been to Chipotle and also to a Fish and Chips restaurant with family. But the key point here was to avoid low quality takeaway food.

I’ve done some AWS training. I could have done more, but at least I did some.

What didn’t go quite so well:

I haven’t really lost much weight. Despite going to the gym three times a week and using the exercise bike four times a week, my weight hasn’t changed.

I have not done enough work on my new book. It’s top secret of course, but it involved working on a Windows laptop this month. I cannot stand Windows. I could not get docker working properly on the machine, at least for what I needed. So perhaps I will give up on that piece and focus on the important bits. I need to get into the writing floor. I have too much on the platter outside of work to get going on this and in February I need to do better.

What is left to do:

Keep going: I’m travelling this week to Switzerland. I need to get to the gym at least once during the visit. Fortunately, there are gyms with day rates near where I’m staying.

One nice meal out in January: I’m going to do this on Sunday 1st February instead.

Clear the platters: There have been a couple of things that are getting in the way of getting bigger things done. One is my Learning Russian Verbs book. I’ve rereleased it with a new cover and for some reason, Amazon won’t let me release the hardback cover. It’s a fiddle and a distraction. Clearing out the old stuff is important to make room for the new.

Have a holiday in February and prepare for the next phase: I’m going away for a weekend in February, and I will relax my diet without going too far. On February 17th, I will celebrate Shrove Tuesday and from the 18th, I will be on a strict one meal a day diet until Easter. This will be harder than January was.

I’ll publish some more stats about January another time.