Losing a part of me

I had a bit of a false alarm this morning that left me a little disappointed, but I also know that the disappointment is silly. For the first time in a couple of weeks I put on a pair of jeans this morning, and they felt a bit loose in the waist. That is a huge victory of course! It led me to think that if the Size-38 jeans are a bit loose, I wonder if… I went down to the locker and with fear and trepidation I pulled out the last bin of clothes that do not fit yet. Peeking inside I saw several pair of Size-36 pants and jeans, many of which still have the tags on them. If they fit, then that was it… I would have no more bins of clothes that do not fit yet. I brought the bin upstairs and pulled out a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans. They do not fit. Nor do the Levi’s 505 jeans which seem to have a slightly bigger waist to them. The disappointment set in… until I remembered that when I bought these on a whim in 2020, I weighed twenty pounds less than I do today… and they did not fit yet. I do not know if I need to lose another twenty-five or thirty pounds before I can be rid of the bins, but I do know that Rome was not built in a day. I did not gain the one hundred and thirty-five pounds from my best-weight-ever to my worst overnight… so why should I expect to lose all of it that quickly? I have lamented many times that gaining weight is much easier and quicker than losing it. Why do I write these things if I am not going to listen to my own advice? If I can stay on track, I will get there… but it will not be quick and it will not be easy.

As miffed as I was yesterday to see that I had gained weight according to the bathroom scale is nothing to compare to the elation that I felt this morning to see it tell me that I am down 1.6 lbs. this morning, squarely back in best-weight-yet territory… eight pounds from my best weight from 2017, and exactly twenty pounds from my best weight ever from 2020. It is truly exciting!

I truly had no motivation yesterday; I am embarrassed to say that I accomplished nothing. I did not study, I did not go to the gym. I wrote in my journal, and I spoke with a few friends. I tried to take a nap, but that proved unsuccessful. I did help Eduardo out with his computer; he called me frantically the previous day telling me that his computer had been hacked. I told him I was teaching, but that I would help him over the next day or two. Yesterday evening, following my check-in call with my weight loss buddy, he brought the laptop over, and I cleaned it out. In truth, there was no hack, only one of those annoying screens that makes it look like you have been attacked by ransomware. It took me about three minutes to fix the problem, but it also gave me the opportunity to call the jackass scam call centre moron in India and to tell him to go shove a motherboard up his posterior. I did not say it so nicely, and it made Eduardo laugh.

Once that was taken care of, I noticed that his computer was missing some major updates, so I set that in motion while Eduardo and I sat outside with a cigar. Now that he knows the inside joke, he told me that it was a wonderful cigar, but that he would not say that it was the best. Oh well, I hope I did not ruin that!

The most important thing was that I stuck to the program. I did not veer off the full fast program at all, which allowed me to get through the day without a great deal of hunger and went to bed mostly satisfied. Because I was unable to nap during the day, I did fall asleep pretty quickly, and I slept the night. At around 6:15am Her Royal Floofness asked to come up onto the bed. She has been grudgingly sleeping in her bed next to the bedroom door, but a couple of times in the night she got up to walk around – yes, I hear her every time she does that… especially when I do not take her collar off. The final time she came to my side of the bed and put her front paws up, and I knew she wanted Daddy’s love. She has been so good, and I decided to bring her up for my last hour of slumber before I finally got up and hit the morning routine. She did not want to venture out very far this morning because it was cold and slippery, so unless I do go to the gym, today will not be a good steps day.

I also want to do some studying today, and I should be able to make time for that. I am teaching this evening, but that does not mean that my daytime should be completely unproductive. I am going to hit the books for sure. Whether I will get to the gym or not I do not know, but I do not have to move from where I am sitting now to study. I was asked yesterday to teach two different classes that I am not currently certified to teach, but one of them I am working toward, and the other is the logical follow-up to this certification. Maybe that will give me the incentive to work hard on it today, and all of next week.

My plan for the day is to stay on track with regard to my meal replacements. This evening I will light the Shabbat candles. While I might venture out to the supermarket to buy coffee beans, I will not be going to Fortino’s, and I will not be tempted to buying challah for the Sabbath. Yesterday I lamented that it took me an extra day (or two) to return to best-weight-yet territory because of a café latté; I am now half-a-pound from registering under the 280 lbs. mark, and I do not want to set myself up for failure on that. I might hit it tomorrow morning, and if I do not then it will be Sunday or Monday… unless I forget myself and stop concentrating. Focus, mindfulness, and discipline are how I will achieve the three goals I set out for myself for the next couple of weeks, and then on to my final push where it is no longer best-weight-yet… but best-weight-ever! Twenty pounds to go… and from there, I will probably have another 50-65 pounds to go.

I counted my meal replacements this morning. I have enough to last through Tuesday, plus my first two on Wednesday. I am planning a trip into Toronto on Tuesday to do some volunteer work on someone’s network, so I will kill two birds with one stone. The drive into the city is long enough that I do not do it lightly unless I have a really good reason to… especially with the price of gas today. It is certainly much less expensive than it was a year ago, but as it hovers between $1.40 and $1.50 per litre, I do not see the need to waste it. I am always happy to drive to see friends, and I would have been happy to drive into town to help with the network if I had no other obligations… but if I can be more efficient, then why would I waste it? Not to mention that if I were to just drive there, get my shakes, then turn around and drive right back it would be a two hour round trip… assuming the best for traffic. At the same time, I told Leslie last night that I am going to order American meal replacements to her place in anticipation of my upcoming trip. They are a little less expensive, and if I do not have to pack ten days worth into my suitcase then so much the better.

My diet buddy texted me this morning to tell me that she slipped and fell on the ice… and did not have any trouble getting up. We laughed and exchanged pleasantries, and then I pointed out how funny it might sound to an outside observer to listen to us laughing about us falling on our tuchus. These are the non-scale victories that we strive for… in addition to fitting into smaller clothes and looking better!

It is a beautiful but cold day outside, and I am going to do some studying. I will stay on track. I will drop under the 280-pound mark in the next couple of days. I will not falter.

Have a great day folks!