The Last Several Days

Alcohol
Tuesday night - 2 beers, Wednesday night - 1 beer, Thursday night - 0 beers.  Do I hear choirs?  Although my diet and exercise accomplishments this week have been good, I'm most proud of this.  It was a long time coming.  Not too difficult.  I've been drinking a lot of Pellegrino and Perrier.  The sleep has been bad to ok but overall I feel like a hundred bucks.  Maybe it's the glow of pride but physically I feel a lot better and mentally I feel a zillion times better.  A sense of optimism and enthusiasm has returned to some degree, I don't feel depressed, and the temper is much better.  Physically the reflux is still an issue but I do recall that this gets worse before it gets better.  Overall it just feels great to have a positive plan and to have started to execute it and to know where it's going.

Diet
Since I am now actively addressing the single biggest challenge to my dietary goals, I decided to go with it and play with carbs.  I have tried long term low carb before (and probably will again) but in the face of relatively unchecked drinking those experiments are unreliable at best.  I don't really think permanent low carb is a good option for me, nor is it necessary given that I am by nature a most slim and active person. If I had obesity issues it would be another story.  But I do want to play with carbs and lose belly fat.  So I decided to go very low carb the last three days and then will "cycle back" to carbs on the weekend.  So....

I don't remember Wednesday's eating well, but yesterday:
     black coffee in the early morning and again mid morning
     around 1:30 - cheese omelette with 4 eggs, chicken thighs with collard greens and olive oil
     around 6:30 - meatloaf, salad, and half a potato pancake
     total carbs well under 50 grams

Friday
    black coffee and tea throughout the morning
    chicken thighs, spinach, fried eggs with olive oil
    not sure what's happening for dinner but I will try to keep the carbs low

Exercise
I've been doing full body every other day with a mix of weights, weighted calisthenics and body-weight calisthenics.  Mostly compound movements.  I enjoy this but it's exhausting and I doubt I could do it if I am riding to work every day.  I will say this, and it's the most important discovery I've made over the last month or so that I've only been riding once a week.  I have been doing weighted squats and deadlifts for the first time in years, and even though my weights are quite modest (in the lower 100ish pounds give or take.  For squats, it's whatever I can lift over my head.  For deadlifts, the most recent max as 135 for 12 reps.  Quite modest.)  My legs are getting stronger.  I could tell on the bike today.  And I have purposely kept the reps as high as I can.  No fewer than 10 and trying for 20 whenever possible.  I think high rep squats are the key to leg strength.

On the non-lifting days I've been doing micro-bursts of HIT.