Losing a part of me

Tomorrow will mark the two hundredth day since I made the decision to lose a lot of weight. It was and is a daunting challenge that cannot be taken lightly. When someone is twenty-pounds overweight, they can cut out alcohol and bread for a few weeks, or cut out desserts, or whatever it is that someone who has a relatively minor amount to lose will do.

My intention – what I needed to do in order to be healthy again – was to lose roughly half my body weight. To put that in terms that will show how unrealistic that felt at the time, I needed to lose the equivalent of a UFC Light-Heavyweight. Look up the current champion, Glover Teixeira, and then think about what it means to lose his entire body weight.

While I am nowhere near that goal, this morning I hit a milestone; I have given myself more short-term milestones by measuring at home in pounds but at the doctor’s office in kilograms. This morning’s milestones are both in imperial weights – I am both seventy pounds down, and at the quarter milestone of 325.0-lbs. It was an exciting number to see on the bathroom scale readout this morning.

My friend Eduardo is coming over for a cigar today, and I am going to ask him to take a picture of me in the exact same spot and pose I took my before pictures. I look forward to seeing myself side by side with what I looked like in mid-January. He is coming around 2pm, which means that despite it being a weekend, if I am able to go for a walk, my schedule will not be too different from my working weekdays, in that he will be here until around 5pm, and then I will have a meal replacement shake, and then I should be able to go out around 5:30pm.

I say in the previous paragraph ‘…if I am able to go for a walk.’ The if is because this morning I am feeling my legs. I have pains in my shins, and no they are not shin splints. They are simply my legs telling me that I am exercising much harder than I have in a couple of years, and that I am doing so while carrying 110-pounds of excess weight (according to the body fat scale app I use, my lean body mass is actually 116-pounds less than my current weight). They are not telling me that I am overdoing it… but that I am approaching that threshold and I should be aware of it.

While I had set my goal yesterday for a fifty-five-kilometre week, I gave it a bit of thought last night, and again this morning. Fitness walking every day without respite might be overdoing it. I might try to walk 10-kilometres today (making for fifty-kilometres in the past six days), and then taking a day off tomorrow. I am not making any decisions… it will depend on how I feel if I am able to go out for my walk this afternoon, and then how I feel afterwards.

I will say that over the last couple of evenings, I have noticed muscular definition in my legs that I have not noticed in a long time. It is great to see and feel the progress which results from the combination of eating less and exercising hard. Even on a day with great scale-related victories, those non-scale victories are huge for me.

Numbers are great; I know numbers, I trust numbers. My emotions need to see progress though… what do those numbers mean where the rubber meets the road. It is nice to know that I have lost the equivalent of a tweenager, but actually seeing the muscular definition was a great boost for me. If I was tempted to succumb to temptations this weekend, that put an end to it. If I am on the fence this afternoon about going out for my fitness walk or not, that will help me to make my final decision.

I am looking forward to the day because my friend is coming over. Leslie was worried about me when I was shutting myself in and not seeing or speaking with any of my friends. While my state of mind is greatly improved, I am coming out of my self-imposed isolation at a more comfortable pace than could have been. I saw Lyle and Dorothy last weekend; I will see Eduardo today. I am not looking to have a seemingly endless string of get-togethers, and I have not initiated any phone calls or message threads (although I have started accepting calls).

Tomorrow my son or sons and I are going to Costco, which should be fun. I asked my son the elder last weekend if he wanted to, and when he agreed, my son the younger asked if he could come. That does not mean that he will, but I hope he does. I love seeing them, and watching them grow. Of course, it will usually be an expensive outing for me. I am happy to pay for their groceries on top of my child support, but it can be pricey. No matter, they are worth it. I will also take the opportunity to pick up vegetables, and anything else I might need for the house. Nothing comes immediately to mind, but if I see something, I’ll pick it up.

The weather forecast for today is sunny and hot. It will not be nearly Texas-hot, but that does not prevent Environment Canada from issuing a heat advisory. As such, if and when I do go out, I will make sure to stay well hydrated along the way.

Have a great day folks!