Losing a part of me

I suspect it is the high sodium content of the Lebanese food that we enjoyed last night that accounted for the this morning’s 2.2lbs weight gain. Yes, I cheated during the day. I had three handfuls of peanuts over the course of the day, plus one serving of dried mango. Yes, I had a salad at lunch, in addition to the meal replacement bar that I had. The Lebanese food, on the other hand, was excessive. It was not only a large meal, consisting of proteins and carbs and salads and stuff, not to mention the half piece of pita I enjoyed with way too much hummus. It was extremely tasty; it was also extremely salty. It is the reason I gained weight from yesterday to today.

I will mention at this juncture that I have a very set morning routine, toward the end of which I weigh myself. That is the only time that I weigh myself during the day. This morning there was an anomaly – not in my morning routine, but in how my morning went after the routine. Part of my morning routine is a bowel movement, which is almost always regular, and with very rare exceptions is my only bowel movement of the day. This morning, about an hour into my class (while they were doing a test) I had a second significant movement, which may well have changed things somewhat.

While I am going to stick to my weight loss program as well as I can while in Dallas, I know that there are going to be aberrations. I know that I will take Leslie out for a couple of good meals, and while I can order smartly for those meals, I cannot completely control what a restaurant puts into their food. I would like to cook every meal for Leslie, but that is not going to happen for several reasons. I simply have to remember that for every cheat, I have to be extra good the rest of the time. That means no more peanuts, no more snacking. That means that outside of meals, my meal replacements are my friends.

Speaking of meal replacements, that was something that threw me off yesterday. I spoke of the difference between the Canadian meal replacements (225 calories) and the American meal replacements (160 calories). If I was on the full Canadian program, I would be consuming four shakes per day (and nothing else) for a total of 900 calories. On the full American program, I would be consuming five meal replacements per day (and nothing else) for a total of 800 calories. One of the reasons I snacked like I did yesterday is that I forgot of the caloric deficit; I did not think to modify my schedule so that I would not be hungry… and I was. This morning (as yesterday) I had my first meal replacement at 8:00am. On a teaching day in Canada, I would be having it at 8:30am, after walking Princess Sophie. The 225 calories would get me through to my lunch hour (12:30pm) without fail. The 160 calories here did not do so well; I will plan today to have a meal replacement around 11:30am, and not think that I am failing or cheating. It was that feeling yesterday that actually led me to cheating and failure.

I did not exercise yesterday, and will not today. The schedule just does not allow me to do everything I would like to do, and while I can exercise to my heart’s content in Canada, here I want to spend time with my wife. She and I might go for a walk together tomorrow, which would be lovely. I will happily adjust my pace for her! She told me yesterday that next month her company is doing a charity walk, and this could help her to prepare for it. As luck would have it, the distance of the charity walk is exactly the distance of one of my routes here, so it works out perfectly.

I told Leslie this morning that I am sleeping much better next to her than I do at home, which was to be expected. I also told her that one of the reasons I am impatient to lose a lot more weight is because I suspect that I will be less tired throughout the day (and especially at night) than I am as I carry around all of this excess fat. I know I have a lot more energy now than I did eight months ago… imagine how much more energy I will have when I have lost another seventy-five pounds!?

My new water bottle arrived yesterday, and it is gorgeous. It does not fit into my shoulder sling, so I am ordering another one, which should arrive by tomorrow. I do not know if it will be here in time for us to go on our walk, but that’s life.

Have a great day folks!