Losing a part of me

I will spare you the ‘what I read in my previous journal’ wisdom today… the entry is not long or impressive, nor in any way insightful.

I stepped on the scale this morning and was pleased with the number. When you are on an extreme plan such as this one, there are going to be days with multi-pound losses… especially at the beginning. Today’s drop was about 3.4 lbs, which is good… except that I still do not trust the scale because of the lack of stable integrity of the floor on which it sits. The first place I had placed it showed me down over fifteen pounds (from yesterday, not overall), which while impressive is not realistic. There are people who like to just hear good no matter the voracity of the statement. I refer to that as ‘blowing sunshine up my bum.’ I would rather have the real skinny (pun intended as an afterthought) rather than the fake pipe dreams.

Last night, my girlfriend and I (she beams every time I call her out) spent some time sorting my pants by size. In the end, I had four buckets: Size 44+ (current), Size 42, Size 40, and Size 38/36. I placed each into a clearly marked bag, and then placed all of the ‘not yet’ size bags into a plastic storage bin. The ‘current’ sizes went into my armoire. I should mention that I denote it as 44+ because there are a couple of pair of Size 46 that I suspect are cut quite small and might actually fit for a few weeks. I will try them on this morning to see. If they are too large, they will go into a new group I hope to create and grow soon: the ‘these are too big for me’ sizes. Sometime over the next few days, we will go through the same process with my shirts, which will need to be broken down into more categories (long sleeve, short sleeve, collar vs. no collar, etcetera). Knowing now that she has a little something for men’s’ clothing, it will not be too hard to convince her to help!

Fitness is going to play a big part in my weight management strategy, and it is odd that I have not made any mention of it yet. By Day 10 in previous journals, I had discussed long walks I had gone on, or plans to make use of my gym membership. Because of the pandemic the gyms are currently closed (or extremely limited). With the windchill it is currently -28°C outside, and because of a recent injury I am walking on a bad leg. I call this all out because I want to be clear that I will start walking soon. Yes, I am taking Princess Sophie out for her walks, but at these temperatures she does not want to go very far either. I will wear my fitness watch… but I have not been wearing it religiously these last few weeks.

What I will say regarding my fitness watch, which I have put on a few times, is that the band is much larger on me than it was. No, it has not stretched; my wrist has shrunk noticeably with the diet. Woohoo!

My plans for today are the busiest I’ll have had since the diet started: this morning my diet buddy came by to pick up her share of the product I picked up yesterday. It was the first time we had met, which is cool because it feels like we know each other so well. Princess Sophie is always excited when someone she has never met before greets her by name… it reminds her that she is famous, if only ‘Internet Famous.’

In a couple of hours, I will drive out to Strathroy, which is a two-hour drive from here. I have a godson (Douglas) and a goddaughter (Cynthia) who live out there (with their parents, of course) and I have not seen them since Canadian Thanksgiving. I was supposed to go there for Christmas, but they were all sick. I was supposed to go there a few weeks ago, but there was a potential Covid exposure, and the mom had to quarantine. Today, everyone is healthy, and it will be great to see them all again. Amanda will be disappointed that I told her not to prepare food for me because of my diet… she knows that I love her cooking, and that is one of the ways she shows she loves her people. I will not discuss the Thanksgiving turkey dinner that she prepared… but it was out of this world! I am thrilled that I will be able to see my friends… who really are family! (Cheat note: If you have a friend that you want to be able to legitimately call family, make them the godfather (or godmother) to one or all of your children!)

If there was going to be a dinner involved, I would likely have stayed there all evening… but as there is not, I will take my leave around 5:30pm, and drive to Cambridge to see another friend. He is a good buddy who has had some difficult times with anxiety over the last few months, and I like to check in on him every few weeks. Usually, it is as his place of work (which is much closer to home than Cambridge), but this is not only en-route, but he also has a heated garage/man cave/cigar lounge. It was he and his buddy (another friend of mine) who helped to bring my new humidor from the previous owner’s house (yes, my humidor is that big that it took two men with a pickup truck to transport) a few weeks ago. While I did gift them each a handful of cigars for their efforts, it was too cold to smoke here, so we will enjoy a cigar together this evening (one of mine, I promise) to thank them once again for their efforts.

All in all, today will involve at least four hours of driving, in addition to several hours at friends’ houses who will all a) try to feed me, and b) have food out and about for everyone else, as I am the only one on this crazy diet. I will have to make it my primary mission to redouble my willpower, and to not succumb to any temptations. What I might do, when driving from Strathroy to Cambridge, is to try to find an all-beef sausage somewhere… or better yet, just a package of almonds. I will only do this if I really feel my resolve weakening. Hopefully, I will be able to get through it all without veering from the program. Just in case, I will take an extra meal replacement bar with me… which truly would be the best possible way to address the need to ‘cheat.’

In summary, today cannot help but to be a great day for friends and stuff… but for it to be a great (and successful) diet day will depend entirely on me, and my willpower. As with so many things in life, today will be what I make of it.