Losing a part of me

After five days of stagnation, the numbers on my bathroom scale were tremendous this morning. I saw a monster 2.6-pound drop from yesterday, taking me to my lowest weight! On the one hand, it is probably an aberration, and tomorrow it will correct itself up a bit. On the other hand, woohoo! I love seeing those numbers… and being able to demonstrate that what I am doing on my weight management program is working is huge for me.

After four days of not walking, I will be back on the trails todayI I think I mentioned the other day that I plan to substitute my regular chicken (or fish) for a nice juicy steak for lunch today, as an occasional (very occasional) treat to relieve the monotony. While that is great, I still know that I will be paying for that transgression tomorrow (and subsequent days) if I do not work it off, starting immediately. So the steak will be my lunch, and then after teaching this afternoon I will hit the road, hoping to work up a good sweat. It would be nice if I can get 8km in, but I am not promising myself anything beyond suiting up and getting out there. I still feel a slight sensitivity, which I suspect is all in my head. If I detect it returning and getting worse, not only will I cut my workout short, I will also take a trip to the walk-in clinic to have it looked at. I am assuming that it is nothing… but if it is truly something, then there is only one thing that I can think of, and I do not want to think about that.

My buddy Etienne, a fellow cigar sommelier from the North Shore of Montreal, came in yesterday afternoon. We shared a couple of very nice cigars on my balcony, but at the back of my mind I was thinking to myself that if he was going to spend the night on my couch, I was going to have to speak with him about food. I was concerned that if he wanted to go out for dinner (or order in) that I would be tempted.

I told him that I did not have anything in the house, but that we could order in or go out. In the end, we opted to go to Fortino’s (supermarket) which has great prepared food options. He picked up a couple of slices of pizza; I picked up coffee beans (I had run out), my steak for today, and four (yes, only four) slices of dried mango. It is a shame that the dried mango you buy in the large bags (at Costco and elsewhere) is so much better than what you can buy at the bulk foods section of the supermarket, but I was not going to risk having that ambrosia in the house as a constant temptation. I ate them as Etienne enjoyed his pizza. Princess Sophie looked at him, then at me, and then decided to sit at his feet, having decided that the dried mango was nowhere near as delicious as the pizza.

Speaking of Her Floofness, we did not sleep very well last night. We got to bed early enough, after a third walk of the evening. Because Etienne was sleeping on the couch, I closed the bedroom door when we went into the room. Sophie almost always gets onto the bed, and stays there the whole night. However, it would seem, she is comforted by the open bedroom door, and the potential for her to roam the entire apartment. It took her a very long time to get settled, twice going down from the bed and barking (very softly) at the door. Despite being in bed earlier than I had been in weeks (or months), I do not think I was asleep before 1:30am… and her unease woke me at least three times throughout the night. Needless to say, I hope to sleep much better tonight.

—

THIS JUST IN! STOP THE PRESSES!

I was wearing a pair of pants yesterday and I realized that when I tightened the belt to hold them up, the top of the waist folded over the belt. This, for those of you who have never been really fat and then lost a lot of weight, is an indicator that the pants might be too big, and are being held up by a too-tight belt. At the same time, I knew that it was less than two months ago that I dropped comfortably and completely from Size-44 to Size-42 pants, and so I doubted I was ready to drop another size that fast.

Nonetheless, this morning I decided (halfway through this entry) to pull out the bin of Size-40 pants. On the top of the pile was a pair of Dockers (which are, in theory, the same pants I wore yesterday). I held them up by the waist, and they looked… small. I tried them on anyways… not only did they go on, they fastened comfortably!

I did not have time this morning to try on any other pair, and it is entirely possible that this is a larger Size-40. This evening, I will try on the rest of them (while on video call with Leslie), and I will see what I can start wearing. If there are more than two pair, then all of my Size-42 pants are being donated.

Dropping pounds is great, but even a huge drop like I experienced today may show on the scale, but you still do not look smaller from one day (or even one week) to the next. The biggest indicator of success in weight loss is how your clothes fit, and dropping from a higher size to a lower size is big, huge, flashing neon sign non-scale victory, and a true bellwether that what I have been doing is working.

Of all of the bins of clothes that I separated out early this year, the heaviest was the smaller sizes. Why? When I weigh less, I want to look better, so I buy better clothes… and more of them. During the summer of 2020 I bought several pair of pants, as well as lots of shirts. I am excited that this evening I will be trying those on, and while some of them will stay in the bin (I am sure that a lot of my XL shirts will not fit yet), I am hopeful that several pair of pants will be moved onto my shelves, and the bin will get a whole lot lighter.

Today is going to be a good day. Despite my fatigue (thanks Princess), I am now invigorated and excited to get on with the day. I frankly wish my class was canceled so that I could spend the day walking and jogging. Of course, I cannot do that, but as long as I stay the course – my meal at lunch, my long fitness walk in the evening, my meal replacements, and no cheating – then I can continue to see results.

Have a great day folks!