Losing a part of me

Day One of my renewed efforts saw slight but not total fails. I found myself away from home for longer than I expected, and I bought a bag of potato chips. I was certain that when I weighed myself this morning I would be back up to 212 lbs.; what a relief that my weight was in fact down by a pound from yesterday, making for a total drop since Thursday morning of 4.4 pounds. Considering how disgustingly heavy I was then I am not calling this a resounding success, but at least I know that I am trying to regain my footing and begin to make progress.

I was sitting with a Lodge brother yesterday and I told him, without going into the details of how, that I decided to drop twenty pounds before the banquet. He told me that he would encourage me and discussed his weight loss goals as well. I was glad that he did not try to discuss his strategy and did not ask me about mine. I really do not feel like discussing my plans for how I will do it but am happy to have the support of people who are encouraging me to do it.

I also had a lovely video chat with my wife yesterday. It is hard living so far apart, and I am glad that technology allows us to not only talk but to see each other as well. I cannot imagine how much more difficult a long-distance relationship would have been before the era of video chats, let alone reasonable phone calls. I dated a girl when I was in the Army, and she lived in the United States. I cannot imagine how much money we wasted on long-distance calls… before she came to Israel to see me, and we both realized that it was a mistake. My marriage to Leslie is absolutely the right thing, but I am still glad that we do not have to pay thousands of dollars on phone bills!

I did not sleep very well last night, and it was in large part because of my shoulder which has been bothering me. I spoke with a Lodge brother who is a chiropractor, and he is going to help me out, but first I have to have a day when I can go to his office. That will not be for a couple of weeks yet, and so I am thinking about taking a couple of pain killers in the evening before I go to sleep. I am hoping that helps, but we will see. If not, then I will stop taking them and I will try something else. In the meantime, my sleep score of 63 from last night does not bode well for how this day will go; I will be teaching from 8:30am until 5:00pm, and then from 6:30pm until 10:30pm. It is going to be a very long day… and I have three of those this week, while Tuesday and Thursday I am only teaching the daytime class.

I said last week that I was hoping the packed schedule would help me with my eating, but it did not… if one can go to the grocery store to buy provisions, one can eat; also, once one is at the grocery store already then it is easy to just buy a couple of things that are counterproductive to weight loss. Knowing that I will not be shopping this week, but will be relying solely on meal replacements, is going to be most helpful. I am still weaning myself off food and will likely have my last plate of pasta for lunch today. Okay, I actually have plenty of pasta in the house, but only one meal worth of pasta sauce, so that should do it. I am giving myself this option because I know that the first few days of the program are extremely difficult, both emotionally and physically, and so if I find myself lagging in class this morning then I will give myself the option. I will not absolutely eat, but if I need it then I shall. I also know that if I do not eat it for lunch, but after a long day of teaching I feel I might need it to make it through the evening of teaching then I will have it between classes. It is a safety net if nothing else.

So far this morning I am doing well on water and coffee, and I did remember to add fibre to my morning meal replacement. Also, in anticipation of a resounding success getting back onto the program, I have ordered more shakes.

Wish me luck folks… and have a great day!