Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • Day 360 (fixed)

    I am hitting a lot of milestones of late. Today is the 360th day in a row that I am writing in my journal; because I missed a day (I forgot to press publish), today will be the 134th day in a row that I publish an article on my weight loss blog. While the blog does not track the number of words, every word that has been published on the blog is also in a Microsoft Word document; earlier in the week, that document surpassed 300,000 words (in 457 pages, but that can be deceiving, accounting for typeface and size). On Thursday, the blog welcomed its 150th subscriber. While I do not always know if anyone is reading, and I am really writing for myself to keep track of my thoughts, it is sometimes nice to know that someone is. Thursday morning my weight dropped below 300 lbs., a milestone that had for two months been so close, but just out of my grasp. Hopefully, in the next few days I will reach that next magic milestone… one hundred pounds lost.

    It is so important when working on losing a lot of weight to set milestones and celebrate them. That is why I spend so much time focusing on them. Yes, I have reached a lot of them over the past year. I also know that I could have done so much better… I have cheated a lot, I have strayed from the program, I have… well, simply put, I have not done as well as I could. On the other hand, I also know that weight loss – especially the kind of weight loss that is so extreme – will have those ups and downs. Twice now I have lost tremendous amounts of weight and then gained it all back. I wanted to do it slower this time with the hopes that I would be able to sustain when it is all over. The jury is still out… in the meantime, I am working on it… and will be for a very long time, I am sure.

    My class finished yesterday when it was supposed to, and I shmizzeled around a bit before heading out to visit with Eduardo. Sam was there for the first hour, and I was glad that Eduardo had the sense to not say anything about my issues until he left. I thought it would feel better to be able to talk about it. I was wrong. We had a couple of cigars, and I gave him what I hope is helpful advice for when his wife is back in the country… which is tonight around midnight. I really do pray for his happiness. I was extremely pleased that I got through the evening without eating anything… or drinking. Both were on offer, and I politely declined… the first time. The second time he offered I was slightly less polite. I spent a lot of time visiting with him when I went through the program the first time, so he knows what I am going through. He also knows that the first few days of the program are emotionally difficult. He also knows the emotional shit that I am dealing with. Once I told him firmly then he stopped trying.

    It was cold last night, and it is cold today. When I took the Princess out for her walk, the mercury was sitting at -9°… I did not check the wind chill, but it was a blustery walk, if blessedly short. I am going to the pub to meet my friend, and I was thinking about walking (it is less than a kilometre away). I am now on the fence about that. We’ll see. I also have to be very strict to only order coffee… I cannot be tempted to veer from the program, no matter what else is going on in my life. I have made it through three days of the strict program… I do not want to be tempted to fall off of it.

    I have been doing very well with my water intake. Maybe the third time I went to the bathroom at his place, Eduardo asked why I was peeing so much. I told him that I was working on my fourth (or fifth) litre of water on the day, and no there is nothing wrong with my bladder. I know that doctors say that you should drink a lot of water, and that it helps with weight loss. I suspect that not having eaten anything solid for three days, the water is flushing my system.

    Because I am going to meet my friend for lunch – a friend whom I have not seen in at least five years (and probably longer) – I will wear a shirt, but I do not think I am going to wear a tie. I am just going to try to look decent… and try to stay warm. Yes, I will need to bundle up, even if I decide to drive. Even walking to the car last night was bitterly cold!

    I wanted to write a few words about the meal replacements, and the fact that despite my initial concerns, I only had four shakes each day, which means that I got by on fewer than 700 calories each day. It also means that my bigger concern – of not being able to get through the day on only four shakes when I switch over to the Canadian program – is likely unfounded. My bogger concern now is that when I am not teaching during the day – which is to say not busy all day – I will have trouble sustaining that. I am hoping that I will be able to, but today is the first day that I am not working, so it will be the first test. Also, I know that because I am busy with friends much of the day (and Sunday), it will not be as hard. Monday I am driving to Toronto to get the shakes. Tuesday will be the first real test; hopefully by then I will be settled on the program’s routine. We’ll see.

    If I keep losing weight at this rate, it is not impossible that when I get onto the doctor’s scale on Wednesday I will be as much as 5kg down from my last visit. That would be amazing! It would mean an eleven-pound drop over the two-week period… how great would that be? If I make it through the week without veering from the program, a ten-pound drop would not be completely unheard of. I think that any time I think of cheating over the next few days I will remember that and use that as my incentive and inspiration to stay true to the program. Every once in a while, I like when Nurse Mel is really impressed with my progress. She has seen me lose 4kg in a month… that was a really impressive, one time only drop, and I think it was after a four-week absence. 5kg or even more in a fortnight would blow her mind! Frankly, it would blow mine too.

    This morning my weight was down .4 lbs. from yesterday, which was disappointing because my thinking was that if it slowed to that pace, I would not reach my next milestone. I had not yet had my morning coffee, and I was interposing in my mind the hopes to lose 5kg to impress Nurse Mel with the actual milestone, which is the 100-pounds lost in a year. Wednesday will be Day 365, which means that while that is the day of my official weigh-in, I have until Thursday morning to reach that milestone if I am going to do it within that time frame. It would be nice to reach it with a day or two to spare, but I will not be picky. In fact, that goal is only 1.6 lbs. away. If my day-by-day weight loss continues at the pace of yesterday to today, then in four days I will reach that goal… Wednesday morning indeed. I am crossing my fingers, but I am also redoubling my resolve to stick to the plan. Hope is not a strategy… and in the Army we prayed to G-d but we relied on our training.

    Because of my ridiculous schedule this part Thursday, Julie (my diet buddy) and I postponed our weekly session. She was in the area this morning, so rather than having our check-in via video call, she came over for a cup of coffee. We spent nearly two hours talking. First, I spoke, pouring my thoughts and heart and soul and accomplishments and plans to her, then it was her turn. Honestly, we could have gone on for three more hours, except for our personal obligations and responsibilities. I am so proud of her though… despite having once had a terrible experience with it, this morning she tried a yoga class. As many of us are, she was embarrassed that she was the heaviest person in the class… and the least experienced with yoga. Her instructor did an amazing job of ensuring she had a positive experience, and she is thinking about going back. Yoga is not an easy activity for anyone but is likely more difficult for someone who is obese and who has body image issues. The fact that she did it is a victory. That she is thinking of going back on a regular basis is truly amazing. Go Julie!

    Okay, it is time for me to head off to the pub. I started this journal entry this morning (well, I actually put some of my thoughts down last night) but took a break to sit with Julie… and to write a 2,300-word article on a cyber incident from this week. While those are both distractions, I do not think they are caused by my ADHD. The fact that I am going to ask a friend to proof-read my article before publishing it is a sign that my impetuousness, which might be a symptom of my ADHD, might be tempered by the meds. I really do think that I have seen real results from the meds, but that might just be optimism.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 359

    Yesterday was exactly as long as I thought it was going to be, and by the end of it I was exactly as tired and worn down as I thought I would be. I achieved all of my goals… but some of them just barely. I once again only drank four of my five shakes, at 7:30am, 1:30pm, 4:00pm, and 7:30pm. By the time my class was done I was hungry, and I was exhausted, but I also knew that if I eat late at night there are consequences. Yesterday was my first day in Two-Town, and I want to stay there… permanently. That means that I cannot go off the program for a couple of days and splurge… not even with the crap that I am going through in my life. I read my list of goals for the day to my therapist, and she thought that it was an amazing list. She also told me that I did a wonderful job of focusing what we should be discussing and that it demonstrated that the new meds – and likely the increased dosage – are working wonders. She was concerned about the extreme weight loss plan and asked if I was being medically supervised. I am… by the same physician who referred her to me however many years ago.

    The fact that I made it to the end of the day still amazes me, but it is not really true. At 8:30pm I assigned the class their labs for the last hour of class, which meant that while I was prepared to answer questions, the lecture was done for the day. Unfortunately, I realized when I was asked a Linux question that as I tried to focus on the screen, it was a fruitless endeavour. My eyes were done… as was my voice. The students understood and were happy that I excused them if they were done with their work. Two of them were there until the end, but that was fine.

    Let’s go back to the subject of the meal replacements and other ingested items. While it was a conscious decision to refrain from enjoying the last meal replacement (which would have been at least 10:00pm), I did make a concerted effort to drink more water. No, I did not keep track of it. I was on three fitful hours of sleep, and I had to focus on other things. I do know that I drank at least three and possibly four of my Blender Bottles full, each of which holds about 750ml. three litres of water is a good amount. Contrary to what was expected (and even planned for), I did not make the second pot of coffee. I drank the same amount as I would on a normal day – tired or not, teaching or not, completely destroyed on the inside or not. Once again, my caloric input for the day did not exceed 650 calories. I really should work on that. What that says though is that – at least on busy days – I will not have any issues with the four meal replacements once I start on the Canadian program next week. Someone in one of the support groups on Facebook posted a link to a couple of clinics that are much closer to me than the one that I found. I am going to reach out to them tomorrow to see if I can purchase the meal replacements from them. It would cut the round-trip drive from over two hours to about 25 minutes. I am crossing my fingers.

    The numbers on the bathroom scale were once again down significantly this morning. For the second day in a row, I lost two pounds. My fears of peaking above the three-hundred-pound mark were unfounded; rather, I am now only two pounds shy of my next major milestone. Having dropped two pounds two days in a row, it is not out of the realm of possibility that I might hit that milestone tomorrow morning… but it is unlikely. It is, however, quite likely that, if I stick to the program, I will succeed in achieving that goal before Wednesday, which will be Day 365. One hundred pounds lost in one year. How about that. I think back to my thoughts from October and early November, when I was on track to lose quite a bit more than one hundred pounds by New Year’s Eve… but that was when life was still good, when I was happy, and when I thought that I was on my way to living happily ever after. Life gets in the way, and sometimes you have to adjust your expectations… if not your ultimate goals. It was less than a week ago that I was thinking, ‘what if this is as good as I can do? What if this time I cannot crack the 300 lbs. mark, and I have to live the rest of my life struggling to tread water right here?’ I have lost seven pounds since thinking that and cannot think like that anymore. It is vital for me to keep my mind focused on achieving my goals. That way, if I stumble (as I have for the past two months), I will not give up. I will keep at it. I will find the strength within myself to get back on track. I will not, as I have twice in the past six years, get close, and then give up… and end up back where I was at my heaviest weight.

    My therapist and I spoke yesterday, and as I mentioned earlier in this article, she was very happy with my progress. Her focus is not on my weight loss, rather my mental health and ultimate happiness. This last month I have taken plenty of hits to both of those, so the main focus of our session yesterday was about the causes and consequences of those, and how I can cope and get past them to eventually find happiness. We did, however, spend a few minutes talking about my weight management program, as so much of it requires mental fortitude. As I mentioned yesterday, I received terrible news on Wednesday, but that the news had been expected for about a week She was worried that my starting back on the strict program was a knee-jerk reaction to that news. I told her (truthfully) that I have been giving thought to ‘going full regimented program’ for a couple of weeks now, and that I have expressed these thoughts in this journal. I should mention that I have never, not even once, gone back to a previous day and altered an entry for content. What I wrote two weeks ago is and will always be what I was thinking and sharing on that day two weeks ago. The timing of my change in program is unfortunate, especially since, going through the emotional anguish that I have been and continue to suffer, it would not only be so easy for me to turn to food for comfort, but it is also what I always did. Frankly, I still feel that it would be quite satisfying for my emotional pain to do that… but I will not. I am trying to stay on track… and truthfully, it also feels good to be losing weight.

    It is interesting to think that she (my therapist) thought that I might respond to stress and anxiety by going full-on with my weight loss. I reminded her that as long as she has known me (going on eight years) I have never starved myself in the hard times. Quite the opposite, I have always turned to food as a source of comfort, or to compensate for whatever was going on in my life. Food (especially bad foods) makes me happy, so when I have been unhappy with life, at least I could find some happiness in those foods. I have used foods to celebrate – ironically, I have had indulgent meals to celebrate weight loss milestones – and I have used it to commiserate. Often, I have simply used it to fill the time and to alleviate boredom. The fact that I am going through this terrible anguish, and I am redoubling my weight loss efforts without any cheating or indulgences… frankly, it is surprising even to me. She was shocked, knowing what I shared with her, that not only did I not indulge in food, but I have not even had a sip of alcohol through it. My original plan was to break that this evening so that I could say the Shabbat kiddush, but I have mostly decided against it. I will light my candles and say the prayers for that… but I will not be blessing (and drinking) the wine, and I will not be blessing (and eating) the challah. This is a time to focus on losing weight, and not because of my stresses and anguishes, rather because I need to succeed.

    I lied a couple of paragraphs ago. There was a day a couple of weeks ago that someone read something that I wrote that day (or the previous day), and felt it made them look like a bitch (their words, not mine). While I did not agree that it was how it read, and it was certainly never my intent, I did go back and re-write the paragraph for the on-line version of my article. I did not make the change in my private journal, but it is never my intent to make anyone feel bad or offended, so when that person called out that they felt I showed them in a bad light, I made the change. Other than that, I never change what I wrote.

    I decided this morning to shave my beard. It is not completely gone, but what yesterday might have made me look like an orthodox rabbi is now shorter and cleaner… and I expect will be easier to maintain. I am thinking that on my next visit to the barber I might go down to the goatee once more. We’ll have to see. As I have written several times this week, I am changing my look to be more professional, but also to make myself feel better. As with most people, I like looking better. I liked the rabbi-beard look, but it was very hard to maintain, and so often I would look at myself in the mirror and see that I was looking shaggy and scraggly. If that’s what I saw, then that is likely what others saw as well. The beard that extended two or more issues below my chin is now trimmed to a couple of millimetres and is a uniform length on my cheeks. This too should not be perceived as reactionary or knee-jerk; I have changed the look and length of my beard many times over the time that I have worn it, and with the exception of when I had to grow it for religious obligations (the deaths of my mother in 2018 and then my father in 2021), I have always done with it as I – or at times, my partner – has pleased.

    It is almost time to start teaching, but when the class gets to the point where the students are running labs, I will write about my goals for the day. As you the reader will not notice the 30–60-minute lapse, I will just go right into it.

    It is noon, and in a little while I will prepare my second shake of the day. I called the first clinic on my list, and they told me that at the very least, I would need a referral from my family physician to see their doctor to even discuss it. I do not know if, following that, they would sell me the meal replacements, or if I would need to be enrolled in their weight loss program specifically to be able to purchase them. I will ask my doctor if he can refer me, and I will mee with the doctor for the initial consultation, but I do not think that, if I have to be enrolled with them, that I would want to add an extra doctor’s appointment part of my routine. With that said, I am not making any decisions, and I will pursue the option. The second clinic has not answered their phone, but I will try again this afternoon.

    While I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night, when I eventually did, I slept. I was too tired not to. I do not remember if I woke up in the night to use the bathroom or not, but I do remember waking up an hour before my alarm, stretching, and doing something to my left calf muscle that I have done a few times when stretching in bed. I do not even know how to describe it, but for the minute or so before it relaxes, it is quite painful. Fortunately, there are no lasting effects of this… issue. After the requisite time, it abated, and I was asleep again in no time. I did press the snooze button a couple of times when my alarm went off. I knew that it snowed all night (and was still snowing), and that meant that if Princess Sophie was willing to go out at all, she would walk the five metres from the door to the near grass, pee, and then turn around and walk right back into the building. On a nice day, our walks will be thirty minutes long, and I have to plan for that on mornings that I have obligations. I knew that I would get that time back as soon as I looked out the window. I was right.

    The next couple of days I have a few dates with friends that are going to test my resolve. This evening, I am going to Eduardo’s house for a cigar. It will be the last cigar that we share indoors at his apartment, as tomorrow his wife returns from Uruguay. A lifelong chain-smoker, she now suffers from emphysema, and the smoke would bother her. Tomorrow I am meeting a friend at a pub, ostensibly for lunch, but also to catch up, and discuss the possibility of preparing for a new certification together. I have no problem showing up and just ordering coffee and know that if she presses me that I can rebuff her. It matters not at all that I know the pub where we are meeting makes delicious wings; I have to be good, and I will picture the long-term satisfaction of weighing less the following morning (and the elation it brings for a few hours), which will outweigh the immediate satisfaction of the greasy and fattening foods. In the afternoon I am meeting with another friend, a former colleague when he and I taught Taekwondo together. He has been trying to connect with me for some time, and it has just never worked out. We should be able to meet tomorrow for coffee, and while I might have trouble resisting the temptations at the pub, I doubt the goods at a café will be quite so enticing. A very close friend (the only friend aside from Eduardo) who knows or at least suspects what is going on) has been asking to see me because he knows (or suspects) what I am going through and wants to support me like the true friend that he is. In addition to that, he asked me this morning about the weight loss program that I am on, as he is also morbidly obese; he has been losing weight of late, but he told me that he hit a plateau (his words, only an echo of my own) and wants to really kickstart a true weight loss plan. I will discuss it with him, and let him know my thoughts, feelings, and experiences with it.

    It is nearly 12:30pm, and my students have five more minutes to work on their labs. I am hungry but decided to wait until the actual lunch break (at 1:00pm) to make and enjoy my shake. I have a few reasons for this, but one of them is that I am trying to teach myself that I do not have to start eating the minute I feel hunger. I can live with it for a little while and it will not kill me. This is just another piece of trying to change my unhealthy relationship with food.

    Have a great day folks… and Shabbat Shalom.

  • Day 358

    It is not often that I get out of bed in the middle of the night and come to the computer to write. I have not fallen asleep yet, so while it is now tomorrow, I feel like it is yesterday because I have not slept. As expected, I had a very uncomfortable conversation yesterday evening, and I cannot get it out of my mind… nor the repercussions, and things that I will have to do to finish that off. It is too painful to sleep, and I wish I was not on a diet so I could crawl into a bottle of scotch and drown myself in my sorrows. I do not really have that option though, do I? It is the middle of the night, and I have to be bright and alert to teach tomorrow… and what a long day it will be; I am scheduled to log on to my daytime class at 9:00am, and I will sign off of my evening class shortly before 10:00pm. I will have three 15–20-minute breaks during the stretch but my lunchtime, usually reserved to sit, relax, and eat, will be taken by an appointment with my therapist. While it will be a very long day indeed, I can think of no day more in need of a conversation with a therapist.

    The only thing I am looking forward to tomorrow (today?) is stepping onto the bathroom scale. After my first full day on the strict program, I expect I might be down a pound. Yesterday morning (or today?) I weighed 310 lbs… which means that in the next day or two I will finally break through that elusive 300-pound mark and into what I once dubbed two-town. I do not know how my stress and inability to sleep will affect the numbers on the bathroom scale; while I am hopeful for progress, I am not expecting anything. The stress of the day might affect my body in unpredictable ways. I might be five pounds down or five pounds up for all I know. There is no way to predict it. I am just going to have to wait and see.

    While yesterday was supposed to be my first day on the strict program, I actually did not conform completely. I was meant to have five meal replacement shakes for a total of 800 calories. In fact, I only had four, totaling 640 calories. Add to that my three cups of coffee, including almond milk and raw sugar, and I did not even come close to seven hundred calories on the day. Yes, I have been hungry for the last couple of hours… but I do not want to eat after 9:00pm. I did drink a lot of water during the day as well, which is prescribed on the program. I really should keep better track of my water intake, but it was probably at least two large Blender Bottles – probably between 1.5 and 2 litres. I will try to keep that up for the next few days and will endeavour to keep better track of it.

    Okay, I am going to go back to bed and try once more to sleep. I will eat another melatonin gummy in the hopes that sleep will not continue to elude me. One can always hope, right?

    —

    It is perhaps a bitter irony that on the morning after I got the terrible (but expected) news, after the restless and mostly sleepless night that followed that news, I stepped onto the bathroom scale and I saw the number that has been just out of reach for two months. My weight this morning has dropped below 300-pounds for the first time since I started my diet just under one year ago. I wish I could share the celebration with Leslie. Unfortunately, that is not in the cards. I am at a loss for words on that subject.

    Yes, today is the first day of my residency in Two-Town. I was going to say that I hope that I am now a permanent resident, but I remembered that hope is not a strategy. I am going to have to work hard to stay here, and to become more deeply ensconced in it. While the Jeffersons moved on up, my goal now that I am here is to move downtown… I am at the very top of the Two-Town neighbourhood; by spring I hope to be in the 260s, and by the end of autumn I would love to be around 210. Is that possible? I do not know. These are goals; whether I will achieve them in that timeline I cannot say, but I am going to work on it. To quote Paul Simon’s Crazy Love: “Well this will eat up a year of my life… and then there’s all that weight to be lost”

    When life gives you shit, it is important to try to find at least some positive. You can see shit as smelly waste that leaves a bad stench, or you can see it as fertilizer that eventually give you roses.

    • Let’s start with the fact that I was able to stick to the full, unmodified program yesterday. I was truly concerned that I would not be able to. Whether that will be sustainable for a couple of months or even a week or two is still unknown… but I will do my best to stick with it for as long as I can. More on that in a few minutes.
    • As I mentioned in an earlier article, I have decided to wear a shirt and tie (often with a jacket) when I am on camera from now on. The first three days of this week I wore shirts that I had custom-tailored for me when I weighed sixty pounds more than I do and had altered to fit me again about forty pounds ago. Today I put on a shirt that I had tailored when I weighed thirty pounds less than I do today, in 2017. It fits perfectly… even over an undershirt. In honour of that, I am also wearing the tighter sports jacket that I had made at the same time.

    …yeah, that’s about it. I cannot think of any other positives this morning. I am glad that when I start telling them I will have the full support of all of my friends… but I am not ready to start telling people yet. I will start with my therapist, with whom I have my first regular appointment today during my lunch hour (which, with the consent of my students, I pushed by 30 minutes to accommodate). Two of my friends knew (not suspected) that it might be coming. Everyone else? I do not feel the need to advertise my pain.

    I want to get back to the meal replacement program. I mentioned that yesterday was my first day on the strict program, and that I have enough product to make it through next week when I will have the time to drive into Scarborough (with the current traffic it would be a one-hour drive each way). This is a combination of the American and Canadian products, which are different in a number of ways. I have done the math, and I have enough American shakes to get through the third meal replacement Sunday. If I replace two of the shakes with soups (also American product), then I make it through Sunday night. I will have a couple of soups left over, but that’s neither here nor there. Monday morning, I will start on the Canadian product, which changes the program in two significant ways. The advantage of the Canadian program is that it gives you an extra 100 calories, which is that much more energy consumed. From experience, I know that I have been able to survive and even thrive on the Canadian program. The advantage of the American program is that while it is fewer calories, you eat more often throughout the day – five meal replacements instead of four. Eating less, but more often throughout the day, has real psychological advantages, and even with fewer calories, I know I was able to survive and thrive on this program too, and eating less but more often is a good solution to the boredom-eating that I am prone to. Starting with a few days on the American program and then changing to the Canadian one after a few days will give me those few days to get used to only eating meal replacements… five of them for five days, before transitioning down to four of them on Monday.

    My goal most days is to stay on track, or right the course, or to not cheat. Today is a much harder day, and my goals are:

    • Make it through the day without falling apart.
    • Do not fall off the program – consume my five meal replacements, and nothing else.
    • Figure out how to be completely professional all morning, then open up to my therapist at lunch, and then immediately transition back to being professional right after lunch.
    • Stay awake! I am working on a total of three hours of fitful sleep, and I have a twelve-hour day ahead of me. While I seldom do this, I expect that I will be preparing a second pot of coffee today.
    • Try to get a good night’s sleep tonight. However tired I might have been, sleep eluded me last night, and I will pay for it today. I might need the coffee to stay awake today, but however tired I might be, I will need to cut myself off around mid-afternoon so that the only thing impeding my sleep is my brain, and not the chemicals.

    Will I succeed? I have to… my career depends on it. No matter what is going on in my personal life, I have a reputation of being a top-notch technical trainer; I have learned the hard way a couple of times that a minor slip can have devastating consequences… and this cat is on his seventh if not eighth life in some things. No matter how sad and depressed I might get, I have to put on a brave face for the students… and for the training centre. I can fall apart on the weekend… as long as I schedule it in advance.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 357, 4:45 – 6:00pm

    I have gotten through much of the day so far, and while there have been challenging moments of hunger, I really think they were all in my mind. In fact, I feel hungry right now… even though I just finished my third meal replacement shake of the day. They have not been spaced out evenly, but I am confident now that I will make it through the day without faltering. I always expected that Day 1 of the regimen would be the hardest of them, so the fact that I now feel confident that I will get through the day, I feel better that my plan to spend at least a week (and possibly longer) on the strict program can actually succeed. Tomorrow will likely be easier, as I am again working from 9:30am through 9:30pm. The busier I am, the less likely I am to succumb to temptation out of boredom. The weekend will be the challenge, starting Friday night. I have decided that I will break with tradition and will not buy my challah to say my prayers. I will have a sip of wine, but I will literally pour the smallest drop allowable for the prayers.

    When I started on the program the last two times, I was starting from nothing… and from my heaviest weight. Both of those times I lost around fifteen pounds in the first week. I do not expect anything like that this time; the more you weigh, the easier it is to take off a lot at the beginning. That does not mean that I would be displeased to lose ten pounds from now to next Wednesday… but I will be happy if I can lose even six pounds. It is a coincidence that my next appointment with the doctor is Wednesday next week, but I do look forward to seeing the look on Nurse Mel’s face when she sees that I am at least three (and hopefully more) kilograms down. Not for nothing, but I really hope that is a very conservative estimate. Ten pounds is about 4.5kg… and I am already almost four pounds (1.8kg) down (according to my bathroom scale) from what I weighed last week when I last weighed in.

    My day is nearing its end. I started writing this nearly an hour ago but had to stop when class resumed. My students are once again working on labs, so I can finish up. I have had three meal replacements shakes today (8:30am, 1:15pm, 4:30pm), which means that if I want to, I can have two more shakes without veering from the strict parameters of the program. I will likely have one after I take Princess Sophie for a walk, so around 6:30pm. If I feel the need, I will have my last one around 9:30pm… but if I do not need it, I will not drink it. If I do drink it, then my daily caloric intake, excluding three cups of coffee with almond milk and a small amount of raw sugar, will be 800 calories. I put about half a teaspoon in each cup of coffee, which means that three cups would have 22 calories in them. I would be more concerned with the 4g of carbohydrates than with the calories. I know that a cup of my almond milk has 60 calories and 8g of carbohydrates, so the amount that I use for three cups of coffee it would be around 10 calories and less than 2g of carbohydrates. If I can maintain this cadence for a week or two, it is conceivable that I could lose 15 lbs. before the end of January. More exciting, if I lose six pounds in the next seven days, I will have lost 100 lbs in the year. I just realized that now, and that is going to give me the encouragement to make it happen!

    Okay, my class is over. I forgot that I have to run into downtown Burlington quickly to pick something up, so I will not be having my evening shake until at least 7:00pm. Honestly, the later I have Shake #4, the less likely I am to have Shake #5.

    Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 357

    Yesterday was a very long and busy day. I have no problem teaching a twelve-hour day, but usually when I teach, the lectures are broken up with labs that the students do. The class I have been teaching during the day these last two days were lab-free, which meant my only breaks from lecturing were for the morning and afternoon breaks (fifteen minutes each), and lunch (an hour). The evening class started the minute the daytime class was finished, but thankfully there were a couple of labs for the students to work on while I finally rested my voice… and of course finished yesterday’s journal entry.

    I know I should not be worried, but today is the first day of my transition onto the full meal-replacement program. It is the first day that I will not be eating a meal. I had my first meal replacement this morning, and while it was no different from how I started my day yesterday or the day before, I somehow feel less sated by the shake. It is as if my body knows that there’s nothing more substantial coming later in the day. I have to steel my resolve and get through it. I remember from the last two times that I started on the full program that the first few days are not very pleasant. It is only when the ketosis kicks in (the process by which your body burns its own fat for energy, rather than carbohydrates) that I will be back to full energy. Until then, I can expect my mood to be unpleasant (to be polite). Fortunately for all (other than myself), I can be pretty good at masking that to the outside world. It would not do for me to snap at my students!

    I wrote yesterday that I was worried about how I would adjust to the smaller meal (one piece of chicken instead of two). I am pleased to say that I got through it just fine; my food intake consisted of my morning meal replacement (around 8:30am), my daily meal at 1:00pm, and a meal replacement bar around 7:00pm. I do not know if I actually forgot to eat anything else, but I know that I was extremely busy and distracted, and I did not really feel hunger until I had the bar. When my evening class was over, I essentially poured myself into bed; I watched TV for an hour or so before trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep. I was a bit hungry as I watched, but I knew that eating late at night often had consequences on the bathroom scale the following morning. If the hunger grew into a real discomfort, then I would have eaten something. All of this to say that the reduced-size meal was a success, and when I do transition back from the strict program, I will be implementing that as the new normal.

    I started on a modified program in January last year, and I wrote back then that I knew I was still eating a lot, but that with my size I would still lose weight. I also said that I would make adjustments to the program when it was necessary. When I get back to the modified program, this will be the third adjustment that I am making. The initial modified program included a meal at lunch, and then a salad (with protein, such as a can of tuna or salmon) at dinner. I eventually cut that down to the one meal, which I would eat in the evenings. The next adjustment was to change that meal from the evening to midday. The fact that the daily meal was usually two large pieces of chicken never bothered me because they are mostly healthy protein. I was still losing weight, so it was working. Now, knowing that I have been on this plateau for two months, I have to admit that it is time to make the next change. With that said, there has been so much cheating in that time; I am not only talking about the occasional handful of peanuts; I mean eating out with friends (and with Leslie when she was in town), and snacking, and a few other things that I will not rehash (that were mostly all discussed in these pages). Whatever the cause (which includes stress, anxiety, injury, and mental health issues in addition to the cheating), it is time for me to break that barrier and get past the plateau. You cannot make changes by doing the same thing… so there it is, my next big change; I will be reducing the size of my one daily meal (when I go back to having one daily meal).

    Around New Years Day I posted on one of the Facebook groups that I have lost ninety pounds in the past year, and that I hope that a year from now I will be able to post the same thing. If I can, that would mean a total of one hundred and eighty pounds lost… and down below my weight in the months before I enlisted in the Army. Of course, there is no way that I will ever have that physique again… but how nice would it be to get there? I mention this because only a few days ago I was thinking to myself that if I cannot lose any more weight, and the best that I can do is getting to the 300-pound mark, then it would still be an accomplishment. I know that I can do better though, so I cannot think like that. I cannot be satisfied by half-ass results that I get from doing a half-ass job on the program. I know from personal experience that if I dedicate myself to it, I can do so much better. It was only two and a half years ago that I weighed forty pounds less than I do today; I know that had I not fallen off the wagon, I could have done better then. I know I can do it now… I just have to remember that every day, and so when what I am doing is not working anymore, I have to re-evaluate what that is, and make changes.

    Princess Sophie is on a play date today with Charlie; his mom saw me dressed in my jacket and tie and commented on how spiffy I look. It is the first unsolicited compliment I have gotten on my new look, and I am happy with that. I am rethinking my shirt-jacket-tie combination, but I am glad that someone noticed.

    It is almost 10:00am, and it is time to get ready for class. I will end here, but as it is the first day of my new changes, do not be surprised if I end up writing another article today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 356

    Today’s article is almost complete, but it has been a VERY busy day! I will post the real article this evening, but in case I do not, I do not want to lose my streak!

    Okay, here we go:

    Yesterday went pretty much as I expected it would yesterday. I taught all day, and the class went well. There are some technical issues that the training centre will deal with, but my teaching is on point, my presentation is good, and the students (all four of them) are engaged. All in all, I am happy with the week. I made lunch exactly as I had planned to, and it was very tasty! Today will be my last solid food for a few days… I do not know how long that will be, but I want to break out of this damned plateau, and at this point, a complete shift is what I need. I have one piece of chicken left in the fridge. After lunch today, I will cut out all solid foods for a few days… maybe a week, maybe a month. Who knows.

    Knowing that my day today is a going to be a very long day without a break (I am teaching from 10:00am to 9:30pm), I went to the pharmacy and the supermarket last night. I picked up my refilled prescription with the new dosage, and then went to pick up a salad. Yes, for the first time in memory I did not buy vegetables to make my own salad, rather I bought a pre-packaged salad. My logic was that it is hard to buy just enough lettuce and tomato for a single salad… and seeing as this would be my last day of solid foods, buying a pre-packaged Asian salad was not a terrible option. I was surprised by the cost when I got to the register, but I did pick the one with the fewest calories (it was the first one that I picked up, but I checked them all) so I am not upset with it. At the morning break I will prepare the last piece of chicken, and at 12:35pm I will turn the air fryer on. I will have my chicken and salad, and then I will be done with food for a while.

    I checked my stock, and I have enough of the meal replacement shakes (the original ones from the program, not counting the third-party ones that I have) for six days. That is actually four days of the American shakes and then two days of the Canadian ones. Tomorrow I will finish with my food (and have two meal replacements), and then I should be good until I can drive out to Scarborough on Monday to pick up the new stock. I suppose that will give me the time to prove to myself that I can stay true to the program again… even for a week or two.

    Please remember before you read this next thought process that while I have usually been awake over an hour when I do, I have not had my coffee when I take Princess Sophie out for her walk in the morning. As we were walking down the street, I could not remember what day it was today. I mean, I knew it was Tuesday… I just could not remember if today was my first day on the full program (rather than my modified program), or if I had one day left with a meal. I had a moment of panic, wondering if today was the day that I had to prove to myself that I can actually make it through a day without solid foods. It was only after a couple of minutes that I realized that no, today is not Day 1… rather, it is that in-between transition day, with the salad from the supermarket and a single piece of chicken (rather than two). Okay, I can make it through today.

    Honestly, I have given a lot of thought to the idea of simply cutting the size of my meal down – have a single piece of chicken rather than two. After however long I spend on the intensive program, I will probably do that. Even when I am past this plateau, I want to continue to lose as much weight as I can comfortably lose. If I do not feel deprived eating a single piece of chicken and a salad rather than two, then that is what I am going to do. Today will be a test of that… although despite however well I do on it, tomorrow I begin the intensive meal-replacements-only phase of the program. Again, I do not know how long I will stay with that, but I am hoping for at least a week… and at least until I have shed the remaining pounds to hit both fast-approaching milestones… the 300-pound mark and the 100-pounds-lost mark.

    It is almost as if my body is telling me that it does not want to transition off foods completely. This morning the bathroom scale was once again kind to me, with a drop of nearly one pound. That takes me firmly into best-weight-yet territory! I can imagine my body recoiling in fear, saying ‘No! Do not modify the program! See? It really is working! That plateau? It was just caused by your head, not by me the body!’ While I was thrilled to see that number (and to be within 1.5 lbs. of that next huge milestone), I am not aborting or changing my plans for the next week or two. The intense program starts tomorrow, and the only thing that I will do different from the first time I did the program is that I will be drinking coffee. I am not ready to give that up just yet.

    I have decided to make a wardrobe change this week. Seeing as my tailored shirts and jackets now fit, I have started wearing a shirt and tie (and often a sports jacket) to teach. Yesterday was my first time, and it feels good. I truly feel more professional when I am dressed up. Maybe looking good will hide the sadness inside. I don’t know if it will or not, but it will start me down a path to change my image.

    Knowing how busy today would be, I expected to be able to finish and publish this article before class started. Unfortunately, the training centre needed my help trying to resolve an issue that took nearly forty-five minutes… and the class that I taught today had no labs, so I was lecturing all day. We are now an hour into my evening class, and we finally started our first lab of the day, so I was able to finish it up. Tomorrow morning should be a bit more relaxed… in this regard. In the other, knowing that tomorrow will be the first day of no solid foods for a bit, it will be a bit stressful. Knowing that in the evening I am likely having a conversation that I do not want to have, it will be much more stressful still. There is nothing I can do, my fate awaits… for good or for bad. In the meantime, I am nearing the end of the day of my single-piece-of-chicken day, and while I am hungry, I also know that I am due or overdue for a meal replacement, so I made it. The smaller meal was not so bad. Tomorrow we will see what it is like with no meal.

    Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 355

    Today is the first day of a very busy teaching week. I am excited about it, and raring to go! Last night I set an alarm for 7:00am, even though the class is not meant to start until 10:00am. I also made the decision to wear a shirt and tie for the day; so that I did not forget in my morning haze, I pulled a shirt out of the closet and hung it on the door of my armoire. I was asleep by 11:15, which meant that I would be close to the prescribed eight hours of sleep we should get to function well.

    At 4:15am I woke up to pee. This is nothing new. Unfortunately, the reality of the emotional stress that I am going through hit me, and I could not clear my head. I probably spent an hour trying to fall back asleep. When my alarm went off this morning I should have been chipper and well-rested. The things in my life that are haunting me took care of that. I am awake, but not nearly as well-rested as I had hoped. Maybe tomorrow, right?

    I followed my usual morning rituals, but as I went through them all, I was stressing about what the numbers on the scale would say. I have been good this past week, and yet I have not made any progress. I also started to wonder idly how much my thick beard weighs… but of course I know that is poppycock, and irrelevant. After I showered and dried off, I stepped onto the scale and… yes! I am down significantly from yesterday. I am only a couple of ounces above my best-weight-yet from Thursday. If I follow the plan today, I should be down further tomorrow, right? Unfortunately, that is where I usually get into trouble. Expecting that eating properly and not veering from my routine will always show results. I wonder how much the stress and anxiety is affecting my weight loss as well… that goes back to the beginning of December, and my weight has not dropped significantly in that time. Actually, it has… it has dropped and then bounced back up several times. Stress, anxiety, holidays. Plateau.

    The good news is that I was in fact able to secure a legitimate and consistent source for my meal replacement. They are the Canadian ones, which means I have the choice between chocolate and vanilla shakes. It also means that they have higher caloric value, and that I am supposed to take them less frequently (900 calories per day in four meal replacements, as opposed to the American system of 800 calories per day in five). Of course, with my modified program (which includes a single meal per day), I will usually have three meal replacements instead of four… but sometimes I might hold it to two.

    Speaking of modifications, I am really not enjoying the almond milk that I have been taking in my coffee. It is not undrinkable, and I am not throwing out the better parts of two litres of it and running to the supermarket to buy dairy milk. When I get to the end of this container, I will not buy more almond milk. I might consider trying other milk-substitutes, but I might also go back to cow juice. We’ll see when the time comes.

    It feels good to be wearing a shirt and tie for my class this morning. It is also nice to be at my desk (which I did indeed change around yesterday, as planned) a full ninety minutes before class starts. In part that is thanks to the time zone shift – the class I am delivering is on Central Daylight Time, so the 9:00am -5:00pm is actually 10-6 for me. That works well most days, except for Tuesday and Thursday; on those days, I am starting a class on the EDT time zone immediately after the daytime class ends, which means I will be going from 10:00am – 9:30pm without much of a break. Fortunately, there is coffee… and I have a healthy supply of lozenges to get my voice through it.

    As expected, I have enough chicken to make lunch today and tomorrow… although tomorrow’s will be a single piece only. My plan is to prepare my meal to cook during the morning break, and then run to turn on the air fryer 25 minutes before lunchtime. That will be today and tomorrow. For Wednesday, as I mentioned yesterday, I am thinking of starting the full un-modified program, which means five meal replacements and no meals. I do not plan to do it for long, but it will be good to kick my progress back on track. The only concession I will make to that is I am not cutting out my coffee… certainly not during a week that I am teaching.

    There are only nine days to go before the one-year mark of my program, and I am still about seven pounds away from my goal of losing one hundred pounds in that time. I am confident that if I stick to the full program for the next ten days, I will meet that goal. For now, my next milestone – dropping below the 300-pounds mark – has been so tantalizingly close for so long, and yet just out of my grasp. My intent is to hit it this week. Wish me luck.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 354

    Today is Sunday, and I have no plans other than staying home and relaxing. I will do some prep work for the class I start teaching tomorrow, even though it is a very basic class. Also, I think I am going to create a number of new Azure AD accounts for myself, each corresponding to one of the training centres that I teach for. That way, I can segregate certain things without worrying about overlap.

    This might sound like an irrelevancy, but I am also thinking about moving my laptop from the left side of my ‘teaching’ desk to the right side. The way my desks are set up, I have a shelf that swings out from the side of each desk, and the laptops sit atop that shelf. When my desks are not cluttered (which is something else I will work on today), it gives me more room and a more comfortable workspace. My desks sit at a 90° angle to each other, with a corner table between them on which my printer sits (along with a bunch of other junk, some of which I might declutter today as well). At present, the shelves are both attached to the left of each desk; this means that for my main workstation, the shelf swings out over the printer, and for my main workstation, the shelf swings out over Princess Sophie’s food and drink station… and if I am careless, it would not be difficult to bump it while walking by. I was thinking a couple of weeks ago that I would move the shelf for my teaching desk to the right side of the desk, which would then swing out over the corner table, and might give me a slightly cleaner feeling to the rest of the room. If I do that, I will also be changing the placement of my teaching camera; the laptop is connected to a 34” ultrawide monitor which is my main screen, but when I teach, I only share my laptop screen, which I need to be able to see and talk to. If I leave the camera where it is, I would be showing my students the left side of my head, rather than looking and speaking directly at them. The reason I did not go forward with this change when I first thought about it a couple of weeks ago is that I could not find the proper screwdriver bit. I thought about buying a new one but did not get to a hardware store. I found it yesterday, and the project can proceed. Yes, that is how boring my life can be sometimes.

    As I mentioned yesterday, I went for lunch with my son. I ordered the grilled chicken fajita bowl, which is listed at under 800 calories. How sick is our society that the menu option with the fewest calories is still that high? Of course, I ordered it without cheese, but that is not a huge difference. The really big mistake that I made was with the chips and salsa that they bring you to indulge on while you wait for your food to come. The smart move would have been to refuse them, but then my son would have nothing. The next smart move would have been to push them to the other side of the table, where he could chomp on them out of my reach. The really boneheaded move was to leave them where they were and eat a lot of them. Fortunately, the dish is not too big… and when they were done, I rejected the waiter’s offer to bring a refill. I ate about a quarter of the fajita bowl and then packed it up to take home (as my son, always predictable, was ready to do the same with his wings, queso, and chips). Giving it some real thought, I made my first smart decision of the day (or at least at the restaurant). I did pack it up to go… but I left it on the table as we walked out.

    After dropping my son off, I came home and was still hungry. Yes, I had devoured the chips, but I hardly touched my protein… and empty calories do not really fill you up for long. I decided to compromise, so rather than making my usual meal, I made a single piece of chicken with a salad. Add to that a protein bar later in the day, and I was good. No… I was not good. The chips made me very bad. My appetite for the day was satisfied, which is far from the same as being good.

    The bathroom scale this morning read the same as it did yesterday, which is not at all surprising. Frankly, it is a bit of a relief that with the chips and all that I was not heavier. My goal for today is to eat normally and not veer from my program… and hopefully tomorrow that number will be down.

    Over the last couple of months, I have written many times about the emotional and psychological troubles that I am going through right now. I am not sharing here because while this journal is meant to be my outlet, it is also meant to be dedicated to my weight loss journey, and not about the rest of my life. In good times I tend to share many things that I would not be willing to share in bad times. These last couple of days I have finally opened up to a very close friend about what is going on. I also know that Thursday I will be meeting with my therapist for the first session in our new regular cadence, and I will speak with her about it. I mention this because a couple of friends have reached out to me and said ‘Hey Mitch, I read what’s going on. If you need to talk, I am here for you.’ My response has always been negative, but the sentiment is always appreciated. I want these friends – and anyone thinking of reaching out – to know that I am not bottling things up. I am just not going to share certain aspect of my life with the Internet. This is the third time that I am writing such a journal; the first two times they were completely private, so I could unload without fear of anyone reading it. This time around, every journal entry is also a blog post. My hope is that one day both the blog and the journal can be an inspiration to others who are going through a similar weight loss journey. The positives are helpful, but some of the negatives are too private to share.

    As I prepare to redouble my efforts on the program, I am renewing my hunt for the meal replacements that are actually on the program that I want to follow, rather than looking for things that might be similar on Amazon. The ones that I like are part of a medically prescribed program, and they include all of the nutrients that our bodies need. It is not simply about calories, proteins, and the regular macronutrients that we are all focused on. As I have stated before, while I will not name the program (for a number of reasons), it is slightly different between Canada and the USA. In the USA I can buy the products on eBay, but not in Canada. As I do not know when I will be back in the USA, I am going to see if I can source them here. I think I have a lead, and hope that this week I can confirm the source. Unlike previous attempts, I am not looking exclusively at buying from people who dropped off the program. I have a lead on a source that is a doctor’s office. I might have to give them my health card info so they can charge the government for a doctor’s visit… but that does not bother me. I will keep you in the loop as to how it pans out.

    This morning was the first time in a couple of weeks that Princess Sophie and I went out for our walk and the temperatures were below freezing. Yesterday during the day, it dropped below 0° as well, but it was only when I came home in the early evening (from smoking cigars with Eduardo) that they dropped. The high for the day should be at the freezing mark, which is still unseasonably warm for January in Canada. Yes, it is a big country, and some parts of it are warmer; for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, 0° is above average for the first week of January. A month ago, there was a report from Environment Canada that predicted that after a couple of extremely cold weeks, the rest of the winter would be quite mild. That is exactly how it has panned out so far. With that said, I am not rushing to sit outside today. I just do not know if I am in the mood for a cigar. Before anyone gets worried that I am signaling that I have been kidnapped, there are times when I am not in the mood for a cigar. I am not saying that I couldn’t be convinced, but I am not yearning for it. Also, even with the heater, I do not feel like sitting outside in the cold today. Knowing what my schedule looks like for the week, I likely will not have an opportunity to smoke before next weekend… but that is not the end of the world.

    Have a great day folks! It is time to prepare lunch.

  • Day 353

    I am well into the second month of this plateau, and I am frustrated. I suppose that had I not eaten two challah rolls yesterday evening (instead of a meal replacement bar), I would have greater moral authority to be indignant with myself and my (lack of) progress. Yesterday I had a meal replacement for breakfast, my usual lunch, and the challah rolls in the evening. There is no way if that is all that I ate in the day that my weight should be up again this morning… and yet it was. It is time to shake things up a bit. I have to spend some time thinking about what that will be, but I am leaning toward cutting the size of my daily meal in half and seeing what that does… both to my appetite but also to my progress. I said a few months ago that I would have to make this adjustment at some point. I just did not think it would be now. I am also thinking that I might spend a week doing the full program… which is five meal replacements per day, and nothing else. Sure, I will still drink my coffee… but if I can do the full program for a week and kick my body off this plateau, then maybe it is worth the sacrifice. I just checked, and there are six pieces of chicken in the fridge, and I know I cannot put them back into the freezer. If I do not cut my meal size down, that is three days worth of food, which means that (depending on something I will discuss later in this journal entry) I have food until either Monday or Tuesday. After that, I will put myself onto the full program for a few days and see what comes of it.

    In my last ‘great weight-loss journey’ which spanned 2019-2020, I remember hitting a frustrating plateau for the weeks leading up to my birthday. It was in the same place as well – right around the 300-pounds mark. Before today, it had been a long time since I referenced that file, and it is interesting to read back and see where I was at what point. I started the program in August 2019 weighing one pound less than when I started this attempt in January 2022. By Day 308 I reached the plateau of which I spoke (it took only a little poking around to find it), and I see how frustrated I was. I also see that, despite the plateau and frustrations, I was celebrating non-scale victories, including being able to wear my suits again. One of the things I discussed was the possible inaccuracy of my bathroom scale; I did not remember the details, but this all makes sense, now that I did some simple checking. In August 2019 I ordered a bathroom scale from Amazon. It moved with me from Hollywood to Glendale and then to Westlake Village, California. In the time around this plateau, I started to mistrust it, and decided to buy a new one – which I did on June 19 (a simple check of my Amazon account). While that new scale did not move to Canada with me, I did buy the same model when I got settled here. I wondered a few times these last few days if the scale might not be the issue… but then I realized another difference between then and now: I am seeing my doctor every two weeks, and I am being weighed on the scale in his office. No matter if my bathroom scale is accurate or not, or whether the unstable floor in my apartment is a contributing factor, it is the bi-monthly weigh-ins that really matter, and by which I should really be gauging my success.

    Wow, looking back on that journal – even a brief perusal – reminds me so much of the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. I was doing so well… I made such amazing progress. I dropped from 394 lbs. in August 2019 to nearly 260 lbs. in September 2020. My last official journal entry in that file was on Day 566, which looks like it was March 4, 2021… about a month before that terrible night when I got the call telling me that my father passed away. It reads:

    I imploded yesterday. Okay, maybe not quite that bad… but I did not have a good diet day. Before my evening event, I went to the store and had them make me a large roast beef sandwich. I added a bag of chips and a sushi roll to my dinner. That is not a good way to do things. Today needs to be better.

    If you are a regular reader of this journal, then you know that I do not have a lot of entries that short. Even on my worst days, I usually write something about my mood, my plans, what I have eaten, how I failed, how I plan to do better. A few days before I wrote that (on March 1) I registered my official weigh-in at 308.4 lbs.… and the commentary was: ‘Up from best: 47.6 Total Weight loss: 65.6 lbs.‘ Just a month earlier, on February 2 I weighed 291.2 lbs. (As I was not being monitored by a doctor, I picked a day of the week that would be my ‘official’ weigh-in, and while I would still weigh myself daily, I would only write down that day in my journal). I am sure that if I had continued to write in the journal, I would have continued to make excuses for myself, and how I have to do better tomorrow. We’ll never know though… by December of that year I had regained every single pound that I had lost. In the book, Charlie Gordon is a mentally challenged man – what science used to refer to as an idiot. Doctors perform surgery on his brain, and he becomes a genius. The improvement is not permanent, and through the last part of the book we see the regression from genius to idiocy. Do you see the direct comparison?

    I am not Daniel Keyes, and my life is not science fiction; nor is my destiny pre-ordained by science. Yes, my body is not blessed with a metabolism that will allow me to revert to eating as I used to. I do not know how much better I will do with my weight loss, but unlike Charlie Gordon, I can fight to maintain my progress… and if I fall down one day then I can get up the next day and do better. That is what I have to do if I want all of the work that I have put into getting here to mean something. If I want to stay healthy, stay relatively attractive, wear stylish clothes, and not be a punchline or even the subject of pity, then I have to stay on track. Even during plateaus like this – weeks or even months of not making progress – I cannot give up. Do you know how many times I have wanted to eat unhealthy foods? I’ll give you a hint… it is always. I want to eat all of the crap that contributed to my obesity every single day. I have to resist so that I can be healthy… for myself, for my family.

    This week I am teaching during the day, as well as in the evenings Tuesday and Thursday. The upside of this is that I will have less opportunity to cheat; through Monday, I will have the food that I have in the house available to me, and nothing more. Tuesday through Friday, I will have meal replacements. The downside of this is that I will not have as much opportunity to go to the gym, but I will still make an effort to go a couple of times. I know that if I want to make it a habit then I have to try to fit it in, even when I am slammed with work.

    Don’t get me wrong… I am thrilled to be slammed with work. As a contractor, I am either slammed with work (and earning a living), or relaxed (and not earning a living). If I were independently wealthy, I might prefer the latter… but as I do not have that luxury, I like to live well. To do so requires money, and earning money requires working. I am fortunate in that I have skills that are in demand; I am even more fortunate in that I truly enjoy what I do. Teaching is a passion, and I thank G-d on a regular basis that I do not hate my work… as so many people seem to. There is a mentality these last decades that if you do not love your work, quit and find something you love. If the entire world followed that principle, there would be no garbage collection, our sewers would fall into disrepair, food and other supplies would never get delivered. Do you see where I am going with this? Yes, I could be in a much worse position than I am… and as the expression goes, you make hay when the sun is shining. Right now, there are teaching contracts coming in, and I will not complain about a single one of them!

    I mentioned earlier that I will have enough food until either Monday or Tuesday, depending on something that will happen today. I am taking my son (the younger) for lunch and depending on whether I eat at the restaurant or not, I will either come home and prepare my meal… or not. He wants to go to Lone Star Grill, which has some salad options… but they are not particularly healthy ones. I might just sit and watch him eat, and then come home.

    On that subject, I just got a text from my ex-wife that he is getting restless, so I had better head over there. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 352

    Once again, I did not veer from the program yesterday. Two meal replacements, one meal. Lots of water. I also drank more coffee than usual, but that has never really been a factor…. especially since I finished my last cup before 2:00pm.

    Once again, despite all of that, the bathroom scale reading this morning was up… by more than a pound.

    I am not happy with this damned plateau. If the rest of my life was going smoothly then maybe I would be less concerned, but it is not. I am having a hard time of it, and I wish at least when I stick to the program that I could see some damned progress.

    I am not sleeping well, which is mostly due to the emotional turmoil that is my life right now. I really wish things could be simpler, but that is not in the cards.

    I have a few errands to run today, and on my way home I will go to the supermarket to pick up some vegetables and challah for this evening’s Sabbath blessings. Unless there is a drastic shift in the way something is going, I do not expect that the peace and joy that I pray for will be come. I hope at least it will come for the others that I pray for.

    Have a great day folks.