Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • Day 274

    The last few days have been hard. I am not in the right headspace for my class; I am not in the right headspace for my diet. I have been cheating, and I know I need to stop. I am working on it. Hopefully today will be better. I have to do better. Fortunately, I have not slid too far – I am not at my original stated goal of the week (under 310lbs), but I am also not over 312lbs. I have to remember that even when I slide, it is important to not slide too badly. A week of treading water is better than a month of perfect swimming… and then drowning.

    I booked my fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Monday afternoon I will get stabbed one more time. Twice, actually… I am also getting my flu shot at the same time.

    I wonder if my weight-management troubles these last few days might not have something to do with the weather. Yes, I have my heater on the patio, and I am able to smoke my cigars all winter long. With that said, I am not sure that I am ready for these temperatures yet. The high temperatures since I got back to Canada has not hit double-digits, and it has been cloudy and a bit rainy all week. That changes tomorrow, with a forecast high of 14° Celsius, and gets even nicer for the weekend. In fact, the ten-day forecast (which is akin to voodoo) shows highs from between 13° and 19° every day, with sunny or partly cloudy predicted for most of those days. I can definitely get with that… and maybe it is not such a bad thing that I have been mostly sequestered in the apartment teaching this week, and not next week.

    Today will be the fourth day in a row that Princess Sophie’s best friend Charlie spends the day with us. His mom has to work all week, and I was only too happy to help. He is delicious and they love each other, but I only wish that sometimes they would play a little quieter. My students can hear them, and they can be a little distracting.

    When I first moved into this building, the first person who introduced herself was a downstairs neighbour named Wendy. She has a dog named Bella, as well as a cat named Oliver. She told me that if I ever needed anything, I could ask her. When I needed someone to take care of Princess Sophie in my absence, it was her suggestion that I ask Susan (and Liz, Charlie’s Mom). I knew before I left for Dallas that she was not feeling well, but I did not know any details. I found out yesterday that she is dying. While she has all of her faculties (I am told by her family), her body is riddled with cancer. I am truly sad and will miss my conversations with her. She is a lovely woman who always has a kind word. Liz and I were talking yesterday about the pros and cons of a quick death, both on the person and on the family. I see Wendy’s family coming and going at all times – I assume they have to take care of her 24/7, and someone has to take Bella out – and cannot imagine what they are going through. I am keeping them all in my thoughts and in my prayers.

    I expect this evening I will have my weekly check-in with my weight-loss buddy. It will be good to touch base because of how badly I have been doing this week. Of course, I am less than a pound heavier than I was a week ago, so all things considered, not the worst stumble I have had.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 273

    Rule Number One of weight loss: STOP CHEATING. Thus endeth the lesson.

  • Day 272

    I have to stop cheating! Get back into the habit of sticking to the program… not a little, not mostly, but completely. I can do it; I have to do it! I lost weight on the scale this morning, taking me back to my best weight ever… tied for last Wednesday. That is a success despite failing. I am hoping that today I will be able to succeed completely, and tomorrow my weight on the scale will be lower.

    I went shopping yesterday evening, picking up the right chicken for today. I am not sure why I did not think to buy lettuce, which means another trip to the supermarket this evening after class. That’s okay, I do not seem to get as tempted at the store as I used to. If I go today, my next trip will be Friday afternoon, when I can pick up more vegetables, probably more chicken, and a challah roll and small bottle of wine for Shabbat. In my efforts to be truer to my faith, I made that commitment, and Leslie has been very supportive. She and I have been lighting the Sabbath candles together every week for nearly a year. She understands that getting more in touch with my faith is important to me and has concerns that it might become all-encompassing. I assured her that while my faith will always be a part of me, it will never be a very time-consuming part of me. For example, I just put on my tefillin and said my morning prayers, and it took me about ten minutes. I do not think that she would consider that an unreasonable amount of time to reconnect with G-d once per day! However, as she has no previous experience with Jews, it is a fair concern.

    I took Princess Sophie for her walk this morning, and the temperatures are certainly cooler than I have gotten used to over the summer! Today’s forecast high is 8° Celsius, with rain predicted throughout the day. Fortunately, it was not raining when we were out, and she was very cooperative. It is much easier to walk one dog than two. I say that because my neighbour asked me yesterday to take care of Charlie during the day, and he will be with us all week. I could hardly say no after all she and our other neighbour do for me when I am away! I expect he will be coming over soon, and if they can keep their voices down, they mostly entertain each other during the day. Of course, Charlie tries to convince me that his Mommy never feeds him and that he is a poor, starving, neglected puppy. I can assure you, he is not! He will get a couple of treats though… because he is a very good boy!

    I have another day of teaching ahead of me, which is good. I am enjoying it as always, although I think a few of my stories yesterday put us a bit behind schedule. I will hit the gas today and make sure I can catch us up. This is not the first time I have had to do that for a class. I do, however, have to be more cognizant of which screen I am sharing. Yesterday, for about five minutes at the end of the day, I was sharing the wrong screen. I do not think there was anything overly inappropriate on it, but I hate doing it anyways!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 271

    Welcome to Canada… and to a week of work! I am not really employed, and I do a lot of contract work. This week, I will be teaching an IT Security class, which I rather enjoy.

    The plane ride home was quite comfortable. I was in an exit row on the aisle, and when I took my seat, I joked to the woman in the window seat that we now had to pray that the middle seat remained vacant. I do not know where I get my luck from, but on an aircraft that had two empty seats, the one next to me was in fact one of them, making for a slightly more comfortable flight. As anticipated, I did have the proffered pretzels and cookie, but only one… plus a meal replacement bar at the beginning of the flight. While in the air I wrote an article for my cigar blog on different types of lounges, and then I watched part of a movie I have seen before we landed.

    Getting from the airplane to the house was a lot less stressful than it could have been… and than it has been. I am not sure if it was just a quiet Sunday afternoon, or if the elimination of the Covid procedures at Canada’s airports made it so, but the line to get through Customs and Immigration was much shorter than it has been in recent trips. That, of course, is counterbalanced by the fact that I would have to wait longer for my luggage. The only stressful part of this was my son, who kept texting me and asking where I was. He was collecting me and can be a little tense. Once I was in the car, we headed home, stopping at the supermarket to collect the necessary provisions for the evening, and the next morning. They did not have the chicken pieces I usually get, and I decided to buy a seasoned Portuguese chicken that I would cut in half and make two meals of. I did not think of the sodium content until after I was home, but that’s not the worst thing in the world.

    As I was putting my groceries away, I was surprised to see that I had most of a quart of milk left, and that it still had a couple of weeks before it expired. I was almost disappointed that I bought milk. That disappointment turned to elation when I opened that container to realize that while it did not smell bad, it was much creamier and thicker than 1% milk is meant to be. I did not take any chances, dumping it and starting my new container fresh.

    I did have a snack last night that I should not have eaten. I finished an open container of Goldfish crackers. If that is the worst I did, then I will consider it a pretty successful travel day. The bathroom scale this morning was almost exactly where it was yesterday, but I was unable to move my bowels so I expect that I did well except for flushing my system. It would be nice if by tomorrow I could lose another pound… or at least, part of one.

    I started the day by taking Her Royal Floofness to the park, where she played with some friends, and had a much more successful time pooping than I did. We came home, and while she lounges on the couch, I am at the computer, ready to start my class. I will prepare my lunch during the morning break, which will give me an hour to relax and eat. I had a Canadian meal replacement shake this morning but will have the American ones the rest of the day. I think that is going to be my routine until I run out of Canadian meal replacements, at which time I will be on US ones only. I do not expect the extra 65 calories in the morning will make a huge difference, but we’ll see how I feel.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 270

    I am sitting at the airport, drinking a cup of coffee, waiting to board my flight to Canada. It is getting harder and harder to say that I am going home, when my wife drops me off at the airport, and I am leaving her… She is my home. I know that until the US State Department says I can, I cannot really call Dallas home. That does not change where my heart lies… it is here, with my beautiful wife. I should be going to bed with her, waking up with her, eating with her… every day. We should be getting into each other’s way and getting annoyed and making up. We should be able to look at each other across the room… we should be able to touch each other. We should be able to do all of this without smartphones. When will that be? I think the best optimistic guess is that the coming winter might be my last one in Canada… but there is a good chance that this one will not be my last autumn in the country of my birth.

    I know what you are probably thinking. You have to ask, ‘Mitch, how can you be looking forward to living far from your children?’ The simple answer is that they live with their mother, and I get to see my son the younger for a few hours every couple of weeks, and my son the elder… at his whim and convenience. It was hard to live so far from them during Covid, when I was living in California and not able to visit Canada. It was hard, but I endured. They can come to visit anytime they want, and I will be able to come to see them as well… and I will, on a fairly regular basis. I will be able to chat with them and keep up with them every week, but that is again at their whim… which seems to not be very often. My wife, on the other hand, wants to be with me… and if I talk to my kids and don’t hug them it is hard, but to not be able to touch to hold to kiss my wife is not what either of us signed up for.

    My weight bumped up this morning, but only by .2lbs… what pollsters would refer to as within the margin of error. I was good yesterday, save for dinner – and a late dinner at that. We went for sushi, which meant a lot of rice. I also had mochi ice cream for dessert, which I know I should not have done. The fact that my weight essentially stayed the same is not really a surprise. Today is a travel day, so I might eat properly all day and still gain two pounds tomorrow… or eat like a chazer and lose a pound. I am going to do my best to eat properly, and whatever the scale says tomorrow morning I will take with a grain of salt.

    My son the elder is picking me up from the airport, and it will be great to see him. I am sure he will ask, and I will gladly pay for his gas. I will pay him what I would pay for an Uber, and I will get to spend some time with my son. Depending on the timing, I might ask him to take me to the store to buy food for dinner, but that is a big if. We will see how it goes. I am scheduled to land at 4:30pm, which means that between Customs and Immigration and waiting on my suitcase, I can optimistically hope to be in his car by 6:00pm, and home at 6:45pm. If we stop along the way, then we add 15 minutes to that. If we do not, then I still have to go shopping, as I have been gone nearly a month, and have nothing to eat in the house.

    I did do something smart when packing my kit this time. I have two meal replacement bars that I will have access to in my carry-on bag. Actually, I have several dozen of them, if we count both bags… but two is the maximum that I will need. That means that I will not need to ask for the extra cookies when the flight attendant comes around. The plane will board in 45 minutes, and I expect that I should be okay until then. I might have a meal replacement at the beginning of the flight, and another at the end… but that should tide me over. If all goes well, dinner will be late, but it will be my regular homemade chicken with a side salad.

    I am working this week! I have a week-long class that I am delivering, which I did not expect… and which will provide much needed income. I do not mean to say that I am going broke, but I am glad to be earning money. I also have a contract that starts in December, for a training centre that I worked with over the summer. It is always a good sign when companies ask for me by name. I love knowing that they were happy enough with my delivery the last time to ask me back. There are far too many trainers out there who can deliver the courses that I do, and I know that a lot of them will work for a lot less money than I do. The only way to keep working is to keep reminding them that I really am pretty good at what I do.

    Leslie laughed at me last night as I was packing. I came down to Dallas nearly a month ago, with a suitcase that was overflowing with groceries – treats for Leslie and her son. Between that, and the clothes that I planned to leave at her house (the summer is over, and I doubt there will be many days in mid-October when I can comfortably wear shorts in Canada), I expected to leave Dallas with a half-empty suitcase. What I neglected to consider was that I was bringing home a lot of meal replacements (which take up a lot more room in my suitcase than you might think), two boxes and two bags of cigars, my sports jacket and shirts and pants (which I am hoping will not fit my lithe frame by my next visit in January), and a bunch of other stuff that I picked up… both here and in California. Had I been flying back to Canada with the same luggage that I came with, I would have been overstuffed, and would have had to borrow a suitcase from Leslie. Fortunately, I had loaned her my large carry-on bag a few months ago, which needed to be fixed (which I took care of at the beginning of this trip, and which was now ready to fly). It is full, nearly completely with meal replacements. To quote the Bard: all’s well that ends well.

    While I do not enjoy it, I am always less stressed leaving the USA than entering it. The USA might one day refuse me entry. The worst that Canada can do is charge me duties for whatever I bring back, and I do not think I have anything to interest them – I am ten cigars over my limit, and they are not expensive cigars. Even so, it is always a relief to get through airport security without secondary screening. To be sitting in the terminal, even when I have a long wait, is a lot less stressful when I know I am going back to the country of my birth.

    It was raining this morning in Dallas. Yesterday was gorgeous and hot, but it is also the last such day I will experience until… well, I don’t know when. It is easy to think that Texas is warm or hot all year round, but I know that is not the case. The ten-day forecast for Burlington, Ontario shows two days with high temperatures at or over 65° Fahrenheit, with four days at or below 50° Fahrenheit. It will only be getting cooler and then colder. I am not sure what walking is going to be like this week, but it is almost time for me to join a gym if I plan to keep my exercise routine going… and I do!

    It is almost time to board, so I am going to walk over to the gate. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 269

    Yesterday went exactly as I expected that it would. I had a meal replacement shake for breakfast, leftover Mexican food for lunch, and Italian food for dinner. The only real cheat in there was the dessert that my wife and I shared… a decadent piece of cake with a canoli on top (which she insisted I have). It was only because of that I was concerned that when I got onto the scale this morning I might be disappointed… but I was not. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised. Wednesday I was in best-ever territory, before giving back a little over 1.5lbs over the next couple of days. I am back to within .2lbs of where I was, and that is a good feeling.

    As we were getting dressed for the event yesterday, I decided to try to put on one of the new belts that I bought last month, which did not come close to fitting then. It was tight, but I was able to wear it. I am calling that another huge non-scale victory. I doubt it will fit with every pair of pants that I own, but if it works with some then I am happy by the minor progress.

    Another victory, and it is partially connected to the scale, is that my Body Mass Index (BMI) is under 40. In fact, it has, over the past two weeks, registered under 40 on five days, not surprisingly the five days when my weight was at or under 311lbs. The best that it has ever been was 33.4 on September 27, 2020… my best day from my last weight loss journey. It is disheartening to realize that even with all of my progress this time around, I am still fifty pounds heavier that I was then, and that it might take me another five months to get there.

    I know that weight loss is a marathon and not a sprint, and there is no healthy (and non-surgical) way to lose weight quickly. I just wish I thought I could do the full program completely (meal replacements only, no food at all) for a couple of months and drop it all… but I do not think I would be able to do it. I am worried that I would, as I always have, fallen off the wagon… hard. No, slow and steady is my best course to long-term success. I know that, and I plan to follow that… I just don’t have to be happy about that.

    Our plans for today have changed. We were originally going to drive out to Cigars International again for the event, but after yesterday’s Davidoff event (which was a real bust), we decided to stay closer to home. I am a member of a cigar lounge that is a five-minute drive from the house, and we will have just as good a time on the patio there as we would on the patio of the lounge at CI, which is a bit of a schlep. The staff told us what we could expect from the Oliva event today, and frankly there is nothing that will tempt me. Had we gone out there, we would have had to buy a couple of boxes of cigars to make it worth our while, and truthfully, I don’t mind spending the day at Addison. It is just more of a homey feeling to it.

    My goal for today is to relax with a few cigars, and to eat reasonably smart. I had a meal replacement for breakfast; we might have salads for lunch, but that will be up to Leslie. Dinner tonight will be our last dinner together for this trip, which is sad… but at least we know that in just over a month, she will be coming to Canada for ten days. With that said, I am not looking forward to flying back to Canada tomorrow.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 268

    I knew that after a few days of tremendous weight loss, I would be adjusting for a couple of days. The only thing I am looking forward to about being back in Canada is the boring normalcy of my regimen… I will not be traveling, I will not be going to restaurants, I will not be going to cigar lounges where the host insists I try a dram of Irish whiskey to give my opinion on a particular pairing. I will not be invited to backyard barbecues where I am fed liberal quantities of carne asada.

    I was speaking with Leslie yesterday, and lamented how nice it would be if by the time she arrived in Canada next month I could fit into my 2017 suits. I know that will be an amazing non-scale victory, but I also tie it to a scale victory… about the same time I drop below 300lbs, I should be able to fit into those suits and shirts. I remember that the first time I wore one of them to synagogue services in 2020, I was around 296lbs. Leslie loves wearing dresses, and I would love to dress up in a nice tailored suit to accompany her. I do think I look pretty good wearing my custom-tailored pants and sports jacket (which I had made in March, and then tailored down in August), but there is something special about a suit… and while I do have ‘fat suits,’ I do not ever want to wear one of them again. I want to wear clothes that make me feel like I deserve to walk into a room with my wife, and not look like Fat Albert.

    Yesterday went almost, but not exactly the way I expected it to. Both Leslie and I completely forgot about the leftovers, and I went to pick up salads for us for lunch from our favourite drive-thru salad place. I do want to state, for the record, that it feels really weird to have a favourite drive-thru salad place, but that is a conversation for another time. For dinner, we did go for Chinese food, and while I did make a bad choice, and ate more than I should have, I did not really overdo it. However, I do know better than to have the sweet and sticky Szechuan sauces. Next week, I will eat much better, but today and tomorrow I am going to enjoy dinner with my wife!

    I have a lot of work to do this morning, and I have a 12:30pm meeting about a class that I am teaching next week. Before that meeting, Leslie and I will sit down for a lunch of leftovers – I’ll finish off the Mexican food, and she will attack the Chinese food. After my meeting, we are going to the Davidoff event at Cigars International, because that is far and away Leslie’s favourite brand of cigars. I will find time between this and that to shower and dress up, as it will be a fun and special dress-up outing for both of us. After the event, we will likely have a nice dinner around that area.

    After dinner last night, Leslie got the confirmation email that my laptop has shipped, and will be here in time for me to take it back to Canada. I am quite happy about that, as it means that as soon as I get home, I can advertise this laptop for sale. While the two devices are reasonably similar in specs (both Core i7 processors with 16gb of RAM), the new one is 15” (this one is 13”), and most importantly – the reason I actually decided to buy it – the new one will be under warranty. With the amount of travel I do, I consider that a huge benefit. For the last year, I have been using a laptop that is not under warranty, and while I am not doing the same amount of travel I once did, it still has 15,000 miles on it – which includes three round-trips from Toronto to Dallas, one round-trip from Dallas to California, and several road trips from Toronto to Montreal. I am hardly concerned when it is sitting on my desk, but a laptop in motion always has the potential to break. In short, new laptop = geek-out fun!

    You can tell that autumn is in the air, even in Dallas. Last night, Leslie and I sat out on the balcony with a cigar and a beverage. While it was not cool enough that I thought to put on long sleeves, it was definitely not hot enough to worry about my wife being uncomfortable. Yes, she much prefers the cool weather to the hot. I can only imagine the shock to my system when I arrive back in Canada…

    My diet buddy and I had our weekly check-in yesterday, and she told me more about her decision to have the surgery. I am going to continue to try to support her, although I suspect that she might decide later on that she needs someone that can relate to her experience. We will see.

    While it might get cooler this evening, the forecast high today is 86° Fahrenheit, which will be quite warm. I will not wear my sports coat in the car on my way to the event. As I mentioned, I have some work to do this morning, which I guess I should get at.

    Have a great day everybody!

  • Day 267

    Yesterday went almost exactly as I predicted. After breakfast and coffee, I took another cup of coffee and spent the day at the cigar lounge, this time sitting on the patio most of the day. The mistake that I made was that I neglected to pack a couple of meal replacement bars into my kit, so I got there with nothing to eat. My options were to order food in, or eat nothing. Surprisingly, I opted for the second option.

    When Leslie came to pick me up, we headed right home, and I had my second meal replacement of the day. She was hungry too, having spent the day at the office. Rather than eating another meal replacement bar (which was already in my hands), we decided to go for an early dinner. We opted for Mexican food. What we ate was mostly healthy and program-friendly, with the exception of the nacho chips. Those chips with salsa, sitting on the table in front of two very hungry people who hardly ate all day, were too tempting for both of us.

    I weigh more this morning than I did yesterday, but that is more likely an adjustment, and not because I ate nacho chips at the restaurant. Aside from the fact that I was sedentary all day yesterday, I had also dropped nearly six pounds in two days. That is a lot of weight, and it makes sense that it adjusted back… I am glad it was only .6 of a pound, and not more.

    My foot is still hurting today, but it is more of an ache than an agony. Even last night it was feeling like someone dropped a bowling ball on it. Now it feels… like it’s in a bit of pain. It is still enflamed, and looking at my two big toes side by side there is a noticeable difference. I continue to take Ibuprofen for it, but will probably add Naproxen to that for a couple of days to reduce the swelling. In the meantime, I will not fitness-walk today, but I will walk to the UPS Store to drop off packages… and maybe I will walk around the block to make it a 3-4km walk. We’ll see.

    Leslie and I both bought new laptops yesterday. She gets an employee discount on Microsoft Surface devices, and I have been using Surface for a decade now. I am looking forward to my new laptop… but I likely won’t receive it until Leslie comes to visit me next month, because I am going back to Canada on Sunday. Oh well, I can wait.

    My plans for the day are… none. I have no plans for the day. I have errands to run, which won’t take an hour. I have leftover Mexican food for lunch. In the afternoon I will likely do some reading. In the evening, Leslie and I will spend another magnificent evening together on the patio… just as we did last night. It was our first day without her son in two weeks, and it was quite quiet and relaxing. We were able to have a lot of great conversations about a lot of things that we cannot discuss in front of the child. Tonight, we might shift our location from the balcony to the pool area, but that is a decision we can make anytime between now and then. I do not know what we will do for dinner, but it will be healthy. Maybe I will make chicken… we will see.

    Oh, we also picked up her new eyeglasses yesterday. I point this out only because we were not able to pick up my new eyeglasses yesterday. We ordered them from the same store that uses the same lab at the same time, but hers came in last week, and mine will come in next week… after I am back in Canada. Yes, Leslie will be able to collect them and mail them to me… but it would have been nice to get them before I left.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 266

    Best-Weight-Zone is a great place to be. I am back to what I weighed at the end of February, 2021. My best weight of that year would be three days later, the day that I started my contract with Microsoft. I weighed 305.6lbs that day (March 3). By March 31, I weighed 325.2lbs. I had not quite given up… but I was close to it. My actual give-ups were probably the day that my father passed away (April 19), and then the day I returned to Canada (July 16). That will not happen this time.

    I worded that in a way that made it sound like something happened to me. No, it was me doing it, and so a better way to say it would be I will not do that this time. My goal is to get slim and to stay slim… no matter what external forces push me. That is a great goal of course… but the reality is that it is an extremely difficult course that I am on, and I have to remember to persevere, no matter what. If I falter one day, I have to get back on track the next day.

    The psychology of weight loss is complex. Anyone who says otherwise does not understand the forces at work. It is simple to say ‘I will not eat anything bad. I will not eat excessively. I will continue to exercise.’ It is not nearly as easy to maintain that attitude long-term. That is what I have to do… and if I fall off the wagon on any given day, I need to pick myself right back up the following day and continue. Alcoholics use the mantra ‘One day at a time.’ I have to keep going. I have to remember what I discussed months ago in this very journal, about how overeating is an addiction just like alcohol. To treat it otherwise is to belittle the difficulties in losing weight, at least for someone who has been obese their entire life (or in my case, my entire post-Army life).

    Several months ago, I wrote an entry called Temptations and Cravings in which I discussed the allure of a particular fried chicken restaurant… I discussed how after the last time I ate it I felt nauseous. I knew that I should not be tempted by it, but I was. That was on Day 9. You would think that by today, 257 days later, I would be over that craving. Yet just three days ago, as I was driving toward the salad place which was closed, I saw this chicken place and was sooo tempted. I know it made me sick! And yet there I was, so tempted to pull in to take home a bucket of extra crispy. Whoever said that food is not addictive was completely out to lunch… pun intended.

    My foot is hurting again today (and has been since last night). Perhaps the six kilometre walk yesterday was not my best idea. I’ll get over it, but if tomorrow I feel like heading out, I will first decide if the pain is worth it. I am perfectly ready to say that it is… but Leslie might have another position, as she does not enjoy seeing me in pain.

    The plan for today is to spend it at the cigar lounge. Leslie is going into her office for an event, and so I could either sit at home pining for her (which I will do anyways), or I could sit at the cigar lounge enjoying a stick or two. I quite think I prefer that second option. For the first time in a fortnight, we will be alone this evening – her son went back to his father’s house. As such, this evening will be a date night, with a nice dinner, and then drinks and cigars on the patio. While we love spending time with the boy, we also love spending time alone. Also, after her week with him at Disneyland, I know she needs a bit of a break from him, and a bit of adult time will do her well.

    It is another beautiful day in Dallas, and we are going to enjoy it. I will probably sit outside at the lounge today, depending on a few different factors.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Change Of Plans

    I was planning on taking another day or two off from fitness walking, but decided to head out anyways. It was my intention to take a shorter walk than my last few, and if I needed to, then I would take it easy. I set out on a path that would be just over 6km, and if I felt I was hurting, there were plenty of opportunities to shorten that.

    • Distance: 6.23km (15.56km)
    • Duration: 59:59 (2:40:02)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:37 (10:17)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m23s (9m34)
    • Steps: 7.6k (19.3k)
    • Calories burned: 774 (1,871)
    • Elevation gain: 31 (76.5)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 128 (120)

    I am not at all disappointed by what I was able to accomplish today. I set out hoping to not be in too much agony, and any actual exercise I was able to get was a bonus. In the end, each of my split-pace kilometres was under 10m (except the first), with all but the first and last also under 9m40s. It was an excellent pace, and I did not feel pain, nor did I feel extreme fatigue. It is my first fitness walk in ten days, and I felt good about it. I will try go farther Thursday though.

    I thought about hopping onto the scale after my shower to see how my walking affected it, but I got distracted. It doesn’t matter, whatever my weight is, it is. I only count my first weigh-in of the morning, and today’s was pretty good. If tomorrow I lose another pound, I will be in best-weight territory again, which is where I always want to be!

    Time for me to relax the rest of the day. Enjoy the afternoon folks!