Losing a part of me

Yesterday I realized a real change in myself and my eating. Leslie and I did go for lunch to the Chicago-style pizza restaurant, and we did share a 12” deep dish vegetarian pizza (which unfortunately did have green peppers in it despite our asking for it without). I had three of the eight slices, and we packed the remaining three slices to take home with us. We then went for our coffee and beignet, which was delicious, although Leslie assures me that she can make better… and I believe her. So far, none of this is a change. Yes, I stopped after three slices, and I might have eaten a fourth… but that’s not huge. What is huge is that when it came time to eat dinner I thought about the pizza in the fridge and knew that I could not possibly touch it. I might have it tomorrow… but I had a much lighter dinner than that.

Over drinks and cigars on the patio I thought of my trips to Chicago back in my ‘road warrior’ days, when I was traveling to different cities to teach every week. In July 2012 I was in Chicago for a week and I probably ate deep-dish pizza every evening for dinner. What I should say is that I ate an entire deep-dish pizza every evening for dinner. It would have been the smallest one on the menu, but it was still quite significant. As I mentioned to Leslie, there were very good reasons why I ballooned to nearly 400 lbs. To think that I have not only changed my attitude to not want to eat like that, but also my physiology to not being able to do it… that is a huge change. I suppose the ravages of aging play a part in this as well… I had just turned forty at that point, and I look back at my old self from the far side of my fifty-first birthday and realize that I wish I had done a lot of things differently. It is never too late to start developing good habits, and I am trying.

Despite the planned cheating of the pizza lunch and beignet dessert, and because I planned for that and ate properly the rest of the day, I was pleased to see a drop in weight from yesterday of nearly a pound. I was completely surprised… but pleasantly so.

I woke up earlier yesterday morning than I have the last week and thought briefly about going for a walk. I decided instead to make a cup of coffee to enjoy on the balcony with a cigar while chatting with family and reading my book. I did not regret it, but I did tell Leslie that if I were to wake up early again this week that I would go out for a walk. I decided then to go one step further: I would set an alarm for 7:00am every morning and try to walk. While I made a mistake with the alarm for today, I still opened my eyes around 7:15am and did go out for a walk. While the mercury would top out at 103° today, it would not reach that until a bit later. I walked 5.6 miles (9km) at a pretty good pace, and by the time I got home it was still only in the high-80s. I showered and went about my day feeling good in the knowledge that I had exercised.

I picked up salads for lunch as usually. The plan had been to eat the leftover pizza for dinner. I decided, not wanting to eat such a heavy meal after my evening class (which only ends at 8:00pm), that I would have the pizza for lunch and save the salad for my evening meal. I suspect that was the smart move on my part. I will know better once I step onto the bathroom scale tomorrow morning.

I had a very productive business meeting in the afternoon, and am home in time to start teaching, which I will do once I press publish on this piece, which I will do now.

Have a great day folks!