Losing a part of me

I made it through Day 1! …I think.

If that sounds hesitant, I’ll explain. I lost track of how many meal replacements I had eaten, and at 10:30pm I had to grab another one. Yes, hard as it might be to believe, I made it through to 10:30pm on 640 calories (plus maybe 75 calories for my coffee with milk and sugar). Had I not been teaching until 11:30pm I likely would have just gone to sleep.

This morning I do not feel a whole lot different than I did yesterday. I know that it will take a few days for that. In the meantime, I am proud that I was able to make it through Day 1 without cheating. I also drank a lot of water, which is extremely important on the program that I am doing.

In our chat yesterday, Julie acknowledged that she nearly faltered as well… not because she was hungry, rather because she was cold. She thought about making herself a bowl of soup. As I had, she said to herself that if she is going to cheat, it will not be on Day 1. The discussion that sprang from this was about alternatives to the product that we have chosen to use. In Canada, the company provides two options – chocolate or vanilla shakes. In the US they have those, plus strawberry shakes… and soups (chicken, vegetable, and tomato, although the tomato soup is vile), and protein bars (I am partial to the apple cinnamon bars, although I rather like the chocolate, and do not mind the occasional peanut butter bar).

I brought up the American product because I thought that it might be worth doing some research to find out if there are equivalent products to the soup in Canada. It does not have to be from the same manufacturer, it only has to have equivalent nutritional value. If so, then she would not have to worry about cheating if she wanted a warm bowl of soup. As the current temperature in Burlington is -18°C (with a wind chill of -26°C) that soup (or anything that might warm us up) would not be a bad idea.

I am lucky… Among my possessions that were shipped from Canada there were several boxes of the soup, as well as of the bars. It will be some time before I run out and need to buy more. In the meantime, I have reached out to the company I used to buy from to see if they would ship to Canada. In case they do not (or in the event the price would be too high), Julie has found a number of sources where we can buy the products in Canada… just not the soups or the bars.

It is cold outside, so I do not plan to go out until it is time to collect my friends from the airport (a commitment I made last week and am happy to do). Their plane is scheduled to land at 9:30pm, by which point the mercury will have risen to an almost balmy (sic) -12°. If it were 5-8 degrees warmer, I would sit in the airport’s cell phone waiting lot and smoke a cigar until they cleared customs. As it is, I doubt I will leave that early to get there. The only thing I have to remember to do is to pick up a carton of milk, lest I have to drink my coffee black in the morning.

Who’s That Mucking About in the Kitchen?

As I read through the intro pages to my journal from my last attempt at this program, I was reminded of a few differences between the two previous attempts that made a difference.

One of the major differences was that in 2017 I was living alone, and in 2019 (at the outset of the program) I was not. It made a huge difference. When I started in 2017, I emptied my kitchen of everything. All of the food, even the spices were removed from my apartment. There were no temptations… and there was nobody eating around me (and causing temptation). I was also not in a relationship, so there was no temptation (or reason) to sit with anyone who was eating.

When I started the program in 2019, I was living with Liza, and while she understood at (or said she did) that I was not going to sit with her while she ate her meals, that did not last long. I had to sit with her. When she made a Sabbath meal, she expected me to at least say the blessing on the bread (bread is strictly forbidden on this program), and usually eat something. She never accepted that I did not want to veer, and the fact that I did on a particular day was not a sign that I would want to cheat either later that day or the following day. Quite the contrary, actually… if I cheated on a meal, I would want to get right back onto the program… but she did not understand or accept that.

The fact that Liza was also morbidly obese made things difficult for me… any time I tried to talk to her about trying to join me on the program was met with… well, about exactly the reaction you would expect from a woman when you point out that she might be happy to lose a few pounds.

Needless to say, between the woman I was living with eating (and pressuring me to eat), and the fact that there was always a kitchen full of food, it was a challenge to succeed. In truth, I was much more successful on the program once I moved out of her house and into my own apartment, where I was once again able to maintain a mostly empty kitchen.

This time around, I am once again living alone. While I did not completely empty my pantries and refrigerator, I did get rid of anything that was perishable, or fattening. The spices and hot sauces will keep, as will the jars of whatever is in jars. Wednesday evening my friend (a professional chef) was over, and I went through both my shelves and my fridge and gave him a huge bag of groceries that I will not need. Next week my cleaning lady will go through the pantry to clean the shelves (there have been a number of spills in there), and once that is done, I am considering sealing the doors. Maybe that would be a bit extreme, but we will see.

Over the next few months, I hope to see a tremendous (and positive) transformation of my body. I will do my best to do what I can to make that happen… and if that means throwing all of the food out of my pantry or sealing them shut then I will do that. I don’t think it will come to that. I am highly motivated, and plan to succeed!