Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • Day 212

    It is good to be back on track.

    Yesterday evening I was tired… but that did not stop me from going to Taekwondo. I made a mistake with the schedule, thinking that Thursday evening there were two classes that were appropriate for me – the senior belts class, and the adult class. After putting on my dobok, I walked into the gym only to realize that I was looking at a children’s class.

    I had told myself that I wanted to spend a lot of time stretching during class, I took the opportunity to carve out a small corner in the back of the room and did just that for nearly the entire class. When it was time for the actual senior belts class to start, I was not exactly limber… but I was ready to go.

    I need to do that more often. Just spend the full class stretching, regaining the mobility that I once had. It was never great – I have never been as flexible or as graceful as so many other martial artists, many of whom I have trained with and trained. My kicks are powerful and effective, but I would never win a competition based on beauty and style. However, I will do what I can to improve my flexibility, at least to the point where I was ten years ago. That will involve a great deal more stretching… and not only on occasional Tuesdays and Thursdays.

    Remember how angry I was at my bathroom scale the last two days? This morning it effectively apologized to me, with a massive 2-pound drop from yesterday. That brought me back into the ‘best weight yet’ territory, as I am now a full .6 pound less than my previous best. Unfortunately, my week-over-week loss is only one pound down from last Friday. While I do not consider a single pound drop in a week to be a good week, but I have to remember what I wrote: One pound lost is three pounds of progress. There are days when I just find it so hard to be patient with tiny steps, when I want to take giant leaps… especially when I am doing almost everything right. Just the other night, Leslie reminded me that patience is not one of her virtues. I guess in a lot of ways it is not always one of mine either.

    As I said yesterday, I will almost certainly drop below the 320-pound mark before I fly to Dallas on Wednesday, but it is extremely unlikely that I will drop as far as 315-pounds. I would need to lose another six pounds from today until Wednesday, which is only five days away. No, that will not happen… but as I have said, I aimed for the stars and while I missed, I still hit the moon. I have already lost better than twenty pounds since I returned from Dallas less than two months ago, and ten pounds per month is nothing to sneeze at… especially when some of that time has been as emotionally charged and difficult as it has been.

    I was considering buying a steak for lunch today, but decided against it. My indulgence from last week had no deleterious effects on me, and to celebrate the Sabbath is it proper to have a celebratory meal. I decided against it for a number of reasons, including cost. With that said, I have decided that while I will not be cutting red meat out (as have so many people), I am happy making it an occasional treat and not a regular part of my diet. I had a steak last week and it was wonderful. Maybe when I am back from Dallas, I will have another one. Once per month seems a reasonable cadence… and I have always loved chicken so it is not a hardship for me!

    Speaking of which, I just prepared my lunch. I am hungry, but it is still 90 minutes from meal time. I can survive that, no problem! I just wish I could pop a snack in my mouth to satisfy my hunger, but I know that either my hunger is really in my mind, or if it is in my stomach then I have to learn to control it. There were times in my life when other people controlled my food – when I was a kid and when I was in the Army – and if I got hungry between meals I could either complain about it or live with the hunger, knowing that it was temporary. I have to re-learn how to live with hunger.

    The weather forecast for the next few hours calls for rain, but that is supposed to clear up by 6:00pm, which means that I will be able to walk after class. I am happy about that, knowing that I have not gone for a good walk since Monday evening. That is not to discount the Taekwondo that I did last night, but it is a different kind of workout, and I look forward to pushing myself this evening.

    I am looking forward to the weekend, and will try to use some of my free time to do some more exercise – whether that be walking, stretching, or actually re-learning my Taekwondo patterns. Actually, that is a good idea. I will spend some time at the park with my new book on Poomsae and try to re-learn so much of what I have forgotten over the years. Fortunately, I know that my muscles will remember a lot of what my brain has forgotten.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 211

    My weight loss program is extremely important to me, and my routine is fairly important to my progress. With that said, sleep is even more important; without sleep, I do not have the energy to get through the day. I have not been getting nearly enough sleep this past week, and I needed to figure out a way to end that streak. I decided, for one day only, to have a second meal. Yesterday evening I prepared a second meal identical to my first – chicken and salad – and enjoyed it around 6:30pm. I did this in place of the two evening meal replacements, so while I certainly consumed more calories than I would normally, it was not obscenely so. I then spent the evening on the balcony with a cigar, watching television and then talking with my wife.

    Is the extra meal the reason I slept well last night? I do not know. I could have happily stayed in bed another couple of hours, which was obviously not an option. That’s okay… and I am hoping that this evening I will be able to catch up on even more sleep… hopefully after a Taekwondo class.

    My weight was down nearly a full pound this morning, but is still a full 1.5-pounds higher than my low from Tuesday. These corrections are annoying and often disheartening, and I have to remember that it is the downward trend that is important, and frankly the weigh-ins at the doctor’s office. The bathroom scale, which I have known to be notoriously inaccurate, is a bellwether, not expected to be scientifically accurate.

    The forecast calls for a 30% chance of rain at some point today, but if I am going to Taekwondo and not for a walk, that will not be an issue for me. It will affect Princess Sophie, who has never been a big fan of precipitation… she might just step out for a few minutes to pee, rather than taking her full walk.

    I am wearing a golf shirt from the Size-XL bin today, on top of a pair of pants from the Size-40 bin. It feels good to be able to feel my progress with such victories!

    I realized last night that I would be running out of milk, but I did nothing about it. This morning’s first cup of coffee had dairy, but that will be it. I have to remember to pick up a litre this afternoon… and to not get the larger container, as I am going out of town Wednesday for a week.

    I have reached out to my diet buddy to confirm that we are still meeting this afternoon. We are supposed to meet every Thursday, but life often gets in the way. I love having Leslie’s full support, but I hope that Julie and I can touch base today to see how we are both doing.

    With regard to my meal replacements, I realized this week that I was running low, which is to say that I have 36 shakes left. To put that in perspective, at the peak I had twelve boxes, or 168 shakes. I thought briefly about going onto Facebook to buy more, and then decided against it… for now. I have a large case of shakes (84 servings) and a small case of apple cinnamon bars (42 servings) waiting for me in Dallas, and while they are the American formula (which means I have to adjust my schedule to compensate for the caloric differences), there is no reason I cannot bring some of them back to Canada with me… and I will only be back in Canada for three weeks before my next trip, so I only need bring enough to get me through that. Assuming with the American formula I plan for four meal replacements per day, that is 84 meal replacements that I need to bring back. No problem, and unlike here (where I have to buy them on the grey market), I can always order more in the US off eBay.

    Okay, so my diet buddy and I touched base during my break. She is not having a very easy time of it, and I gave her some tips… including the importance of telling people ‘I CANNOT EAT THAT (or THERE)’ instead of just going along, either to please them or because you are embarrassed to say that you are on a diet. It is embarrassing too, because it is vocalizing that you are fat. Also, if you tell someone you are on a diet, you always have to be on a diet with them, lest you slip and they think you are weak. All of those issues are psychological and deeply embedded into us, and we have to let go of them. Yes, it may hurt… but eating a poutine will hurt more.

    It is nearly time for me to get back into class, so have a great day folks!

  • Day 210

    It is days like today when I want to yell obscenities at my bathroom scale. While I was hoping for a slight drop from yesterday, I was horrified to see a 2.2 lbs increase. I cannot imagine that the five slices of dried mango and the handful of pumpkin seeds accounted for that; no, it is the universe getting back at me for not exercising yesterday. Just like that, my hopes of possibly getting down to 315 lbs in time for my trip to Dallas have been replaced with just hoping that I can get back down to 320 lbs. As has been said by many a cartoon character, &%^$@!!

    I felt guilty yesterday for being too tired to exercise. I neither went to Taekwondo as planned nor went for a walk. Over the course of a number of walks with Princess Sophie, plus a trip to the supermarket (and liquor store), I managed to surpass 5,000 steps… but that is not my goal. I would like to at least try for 10,000 steps per day, which will not always be possible, but is worth aiming for. I know, I had blisters on my feet from the previous day’s painful walk, but that is not an excuse. Maybe it is… but I still feel guilty, and that guilt is compounded by the number on the scale.

    The nature of my job is a sedentary one, and so it is incumbent on me to get out after work. Even if I am not going to suit up for a fitness walk, I should be going out beyond the fifteen minutes of walking Her Floofness twice per day. When weather is a factor there is room for compromise, but on a warm and dry day I should be walking… fitness walking or not.

    The problem is that I have been exhausted these last few days. I have not gotten a good night sleep in over a week, and I do not know why that is. I have been able to empty my mind of the stresses and anxieties of the day (and while there are some real ones, none of them have been keeping me up… at least, not this week), I just cannot keep my eyes closed. If this continues, I am going to try to pick up some sort of natural sleep aid… melatonin or something. I am not ready to go for narcotics just yet… but if there is a natural remedy that I can try, I am going to try it.

    My day is going well so far, even though I got out of bed late. Coffee is helping me through, and my classes are fun today – I love when there is a lot of hands-on labs that we can go through… not only because it is less lecturing, but because I feel the students learn more.

    Leslie gave me some really good news this morning, so I am happy. Seeing her happy makes me happy. Also, one week from today I will be waking up in Burlington, Ontario… and then going to sleep with her in my arms in Dallas. Yay!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 209

    As can be expected following an evening walk like I had last night, I woke up this morning with achy legs. The blisters on my feet had blisters on them. I will not let that stop me though… I am on a mission.

    The bathroom scale gave me back what it took away yesterday, and so I am again at the weight I was Sunday. While it is good to be back on track (and at my best weight), I would have liked to have gotten a pleasant surprise, maybe a new low. I know, that is not how weight loss works. I did expect, after an extremely productive bowel movement, that it might be even better… but no, there it was, the numbers on the scale aping those from a couple of days ago.

    I realized yesterday as I was preparing for my walk that I was a bit ambitious with my clothes, or at least with my workout clothes. I put on a sleeveless t-shirt that I have worn a couple times, but as I was preparing to walk out, I realized that my belly was exposed… and I do not want that. I changed my shirt, and later in the evening I told Leslie that when I am down there, we will need to try to pick up a couple of t-shirts. In truth, I probably have a few t-shirts that will fit just right, and later today (while my students are doing labs) I will go through my bins and see what fits.

    Princess Sophie has a play date today, so I will be teaching uninterrupted. In truth, she is a really good buddy, and seldom disturbs me while I am teaching. Occasionally, she asks to be picked up; usually she does her own thing. The one thing she does go nuts over is when she hears Charlie in the hallway; that they will be together all day will give me one less thing to think about.

    The weather forecast is predicting a beautiful day, but I am hoping that instead of walking this evening, I will go to Taekwondo. It is intimidating getting back into it after long absences. I am less worried that I do not remember my patterns as I am that I have not done my stretches in a long time, and I have never been the most flexible of people even at my best. Nonetheless, I will suit up and do what I can. I might just take the opportunity to spend the entire class stretching on my own. One of the advantages of being the senior man in the gym (both age-wise but if the Master is not in the gym, then I outrank the instructors) is that they will pretty much leave me alone if that is what I want to do.

    On that subject, I wish I had an area at home that would be comfortable to stretch, but the floors are terrible, and knowing that I am hopefully moving in the next few months, I do not want to invest in mats for the floor. I also know (or at least strongly suspect) that Princess Sophie will not really leave me alone if I get onto the floor to stretch. We’ll see… I may give it some more thought. I am also thinking that I might look into joining a gym for a few months. Before I do, I am going to wait to see how long I will likely have to wait for my visa once we file the application (hopefully next week). However, it is probably safe to assume that I am going to have to spend at least one more winter in Canada… and joining a gym will make working out in the cold and snowy and icy winters more doable. That is to say nothing for the strength training that I will be able to add to my walking. Yeah… now that I think of it, I am going to look into it. I do not want to spend more than I have to, but if GoodLife has any promotions going on, I might do that sooner rather than later.

    I was thinking last night that I have not golfed since June. I then realized that while I enjoy golfing, I also know that it was a contributing factor to my falling off the workout track back in 2020. Of course, living in Southern California (and only a mile from the golf course), it was easy to substitute walking and jogging for golfing, even after work (I was working in another time zone which had me online at 6am… but then I could run to the course by 2pm and play 18). Living in Canada, and working in the local time zone, I have plenty of time to go for a power walk at the end of the day (or to Taekwondo, or to the gym), but playing 18 holes of golf when I work until 5:00pm? There might be two weeks of the year when I could do that.

    All this to say that I might consider taking my golf clubs to Texas before the winter. I might get in one or two more rounds this season… but the only way that I can safely do that is to remember up front that the way I golf, it is not an exercise, it is a game.

    As is usually my routine when I teach, I prepared my lunch during the morning break, and I have an alarm set to remind me 25 minutes before we break for lunch to turn on the air fryer. The salad is ready and is cooling, and my chicken will be tender and juicy. I look forward to my lunches, despite the fact that they are almost always the same. I do so because lunch is my only meal of the day. I still enjoy eating and am glad that I have modified the rigorous regime of the program to include a single meal. I know that I am not losing weight nearly as fast as I might if I was only on meal replacements (which is a grueling 900-calories per day), but the benefits are tangible. I also hope that by doing it this way, I will be able to keep the weight off long-term.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Ow

    It is likely that if you were to ask Leslie right now, before she reads this entry, she would say that she pushed me to go out to walk today. She did, of course… but it was not solely her encouragement that got me out of the house. It is certainly not her fault that I pushed myself, despite setting out in the wrong shoes to begin with.

    I wanted to turn back before I hit the first kilometre, my feet were in pain before the second, and I knew that my pace was terrible from the outset, with only one (the second) of eight kilometres clocking under 11m10s. Whereas yesterday I broke all sorts of records, today’s walk included some of my worst statistics in months.

    • Distance: 8.0 km (9.2 km)
    • Duration: 1:29:42 (1:30:55)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 11:12 (9:53)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m55s (9m24s)
    • Steps: 10.2k (11.5k)
    • Calories burned: 933 (1,250)
    • Elevation gain: 27.7 (26)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 112 (126)

    Of course, there are two ways to look at this abysmal performance. Yes, it was nowhere near the performance I turned in yesterday. But I turned in a performance. Despite the exhaustion, the fact that I just did not feel like going out for my walk, despite the pain from nearly the very beginning of my walk, I still walked eight kilometres. I simply wanted to crawl into bed… or sit on the balcony with a cigar. I can think of myriad activities I would have rather done than gone for a walk.

    With my wife’s encouragement, with the knowledge that if I did not go, I would not be giving it my all to lose as much weight as possible by next Wednesday, with the understanding that I am trying to form a positive habit, I went. When I realized I had chosen the wrong shoes (I believe last month I walked in these, and decided their limit was 5km), I kept going… knowing that the soles of my feet would be hurting.

    Not for nothing, I took yet another new route today… only this is one that I will not be revisiting. I decided to walk down Walker’s Line to North Service Road, and then east to Appleby Line. Knew when I decided on the route that the service road is adjacent the highway, and there would be noise and all. What I did not realize was that not only is there no sidewalk (on either side of the street), there is also not enough space on the road to walk safely in a lot of parts, and I had to walk on either grass (not a problem) or gravel (more of a problem). Thanks all, but the service road is not going to be a repeat route.

    I need to shower, make my evening meal replacement, and light a cigar. If I thought I would sleep through the night, I might go right to sleep… but I do not want to wake up at 4:30am… especially knowing that with my feet the way they are, I could not simply go for a walk before class. I will have a nice chat with my wife, and I will be in bed at a decent hour.

    If my feet are not in too much pain, tomorrow should be a Taekwondo night. Wish me luck!

  • Day 208

    This morning the I gave back .4-lbs on the scale, likely due to the popcorn I ate at the movies yesterday. It was not even worth it… but I will be back on track today. I have chicken and salad for lunch, and I will go for a walk this afternoon. While there is no way I will match my record-setting pace from yesterday, I do not need to… all I need to do is work hard and get a good sweat going. It is a misconception that I have to beat yesterday’s stats every time I go out… I just have to keep going out, and that is what will help me to lose the weight and get back into shape.

    It is Monday morning, the start of a new week. I weigh 3.2 pounds less than I did last Monday, and by any measure that is a successful week of weight loss. If I can do that again this week, then when I get to Dallas, I will not weigh 315 lbs… but I will be under 320 lbs, which will not be a failure. It will also mean that since I was last with my wife, I will have lost about 20 lbs. I know that she will feel the difference when she puts her arms around me! As I have said many times before: I am not losing the weight primarily for her… but she is certainly a consideration, and the only other beneficiary (aside from myself) of the positive changes resulting from the weight loss!

    I did not sleep very well last night. For reasons I could not put together, Princess Sophie decided to not sleep in my bed, which is mostly good. I did have a lot on my mind though, and it kept me up longer than I would have liked. Hopefully tonight I will sleep better.

    One of my student’s father owns a cigar company in Dallas, and a couple of weeks ago he sent me a care package. The plan is that I will smoke them before getting to Dallas, and then he and I will sit down and discuss them for an article I will write for one of my other blogs. According to the tracking, the package arrived in Canada a week ago, and has been sitting with Canada Customs since. Late last night the tracking changed, and they are now back en route to me. While this is a positive, I am always worried that when someone ships cigars to me they will come with a large bill from Canada Customs. If that happens, I have to decide whether to accept them (and pay the bill) or refuse them. As I am hoping he only sent a couple of cigars, I cannot image the bill for these will be too large, but the uncertainty has been the cause of some stress, in addition to everything else going on in my life.

    The forecast for today (and through Thursday) is partly cloudy but dry, with high temperatures in the mid-20s, which will not only make my wife jealous, it will also make for excellent weather to walk in. I am hoping that tomorrow and Thursday evening I will go to Taekwondo, but tonight, Wednesday, and Friday I will be walking. While it might not yet be a habit, I want to keep my walking routine going. Also, while I have been doing pretty well these last few weeks (I have lost 19.6 pounds in the last five weeks), it is only normal for me to want to make one final push to lose even more weight leading up to my trip to Dallas. Walking (and Taekwondo), in addition to sticking to my healthy eating, will be a good way to make that final push.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Break Em!

    I did not set out this morning expecting to break records. In fact, owing to a false start (caused by a suspected sighting of a lost cat), I rather expected today’s walk to be rather humdrum. I did not walk yesterday, so my legs were a bit better rested; the weather was perfect walking weather (Starting at 20° Celsius, getting up to 23°, and partly cloudy); I had my best walking shoes on. When my fitness tracker read into my ear that my first kilometre pace was 10m12s, I suspected I might be able to ratchet that up. I turned on my Turbo Booster and it was on. I was going to speed-walk until I couldn’t do it anymore.

    Today’s path was another new one, up Walker’s Line to Dundas, then down Appleby Line. I was thrilled when the calm voice in my ear reported my second kilometer pace at 9m39… and I kept going hard. By the end of my walk, I had six kilometres under 10m0s (my seventh kilometre was 9m59s). I was shattering a bunch of my personal bests. Just a few weeks ago I remember writing that I hoped to walk 7km in under 1h15m… and I missed it by three seconds that day. Today I beat that by nearly 7.5 minutes! It was truly a walk to be proud of… and one that I do not expect to beat for a few weeks (if not months).

    • Distance: 9.2 km (10.01 km
    • Duration: 1:30:55 (1:44:36)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:53 (10:26)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m24s
    • Steps: 11.5k (12.3k)
    • Calories burned: 1,250 ((1,121)
    • Elevation gain: 26 (44.0)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 126 (116)

    I had originally thought that I would stop at the supermarket along the way to pick up lettuce, but there was no way that I was going to ruin this record-setting walk with a break like that. I will shower, and then I will go back out. In the afternoon I might go to a movie, but we will see how I am feeling.

    For the moment though, I am feeling fabulous. Yay endorphins!

  • Day 207

    I did not walk yesterday. I went to Lyle’s in the afternoon (after taking some clothes to a tailor to be altered), stopping at Bulk Barn for a handful of peanuts. To offset those, I did not have my final meal replacement shake in the evening, so the calories will more or less balance properly. It is not a habit I will be falling back into, but an occasional necessity when the timing of my day works badly. Normally I would be eating my meal around 12:30pm, so when I am out until 3:00pm (and need another half hour to cook) I need something to tide myself over, lest my hunger grow too great and tempt me to cheat worse.

    The numbers on the bathroom scale were once again good ones this morning, down nearly half a pound. I am almost back to hoping that I might way as little as 315lbs when I fly to Dallas in ten days. Something else that happens on that day is my weigh-in at the doctor’s office, and I am excited for that too. As of this morning, I am 5.5kg down from my last weigh-in, which will be my best showing between appointments… even averaged out (knowing there will have been five weeks between weigh-ins) I will be happy with that drop… and that is not accounting for the fact that I still have ten more days to try to drop even more weight.

    I am not going to lie… it feels good when the nurse looks at me in awe of my success, but it feels even better when the doctor (who I have known more than fifteen years) looks at my chart and says ‘Is this right? According to the nurse, you lost this much weight since your last visit.’ After my wife, it is their response that I am always eager for. Yes, I should not be looking for external validation. According to psychologists you need to be happy with yourself, and you should not be trying to impress anyone but you. Thanks Doctor Whoever, the reality is that external validation is important for all of us, but maybe that much more so for those of us who had parents who never gave it to them. Good enough was never good enough, it was only perfect that was rewarded. While it did not happen often, if I would bring home an exam with a 95% grade, I would be asked ‘what happened to the other 5%?’ Thanks Mother… and frankly, thanks Dad too. Forty years later I am looking for validation from my family physician.

    These epiphanies are among the reasons I write this journal. I likely would never have put into words – if I even thought about it at all – why I get so much satisfaction from my doctor’s feedback if I was not writing. I do not know how many people read everything that I write (I know of only one person who does, even though the stats on my blog tell me there are more), but these insights are not only for you, they are for me. Being able to understand the root cause of an issue is a very good way to start learning to deal with that issue.

    Let’s be honest… we all seek external validation for something. ‘Do I look fat in this dress’ is never asking for negativity, rather the asker is seeking a compliment, knowing the response better be positive. As a teacher, I love giving my students validation… and plenty of opportunity to get it. I ask review questions about what we are learning to make sure the students understand what I just taught, but it also gives them an opportunity for me to give them positive reinforcement. Things that I never got as a child. When I would do something right, more often than not the feedback would be akin to, ‘Why can’t you do it like that every time?’ Thanks Mother… and again, thanks Dad.

    I am not losing weight for anyone but myself. There are simply no benefits to being morbidly obese that I am aware of, and myriad benefits to being slim and in shape. Yes, I want to lose weight for my wife, not only for our longevity and so that I do not fall ill with any of countless obesity-related illnesses that would require her to care for me (which she would do I know, but I would rather not have to burden her thusly), but also for our immediate happiness, including our intimate life (which improves with every pound I lose). If Leslie and I were not together, would I still be on this journey? I think so. I hope so. Like most people, I like to look good, and it is simply easier to do that when you are slimmer than fatter. I feel better in the clothes I wear, and I feel better out of them. So yes, I want to lose weight for my wife… but I want to lose weight for me as well.

    With all of that said, who does not like getting compliments? As I have written before, not all compliments are welcome… but the sincere ones from people who care about you feel good. I was walking with Princess Sophie a few days ago and a neighbour who moved away but was in the neighbourhood saw me and was shocked by my progress. That feels good.

    I am changing my schedule for today. Usually, I would walk later in the afternoon, but because I did not walk yesterday, and because the weather is conducive to it – at present, it is 66° and cloudy. The high temperature is only forecast at 74°F, and the sun will be peaking from behind clouds from 1pm onwards. The weather will be decent all day, but if I go now, then I will have the whole afternoon to do what I want to do. Maybe I will go to a movie after lunch. Who knows?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Habits

    I have been saying for weeks that I am pushing myself to walk until it eventually becomes a habit, and that I do not have to push myself to do it. I have been saying for years that I need to break my unhealthy relationship with food, and establish good eating habits. I have gotten into the habit of writing in my weight loss journal on a daily basis, even on days when I have nothing new (or good) to report.

    So much of our lives are dictated by habits. Someone who does not plan their time well might be habitually late. You might be in the habit of showering on a certain schedule; people who do not eat well might make it a habit of picking unhealthy restaurants or food choices at the supermarket.

    A habit is not necessarily good or bad. It is defined (by Oxford Languages, per Bing Dictionary) as a regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. It is not the same as a schedule or routine. I do not take my dog for a walk twice or thrice daily out of habit, I do so out of necessity. To wit: When Princess Sophie is not with me, I do not go for a walk in the morning. I do not log on to Zoom to start teaching on days when I am not contracted to do so.

    There are good habits (I am in the habit of brushing my teeth in the morning when I wake up and in the evening before bed). There are bad habits (of which I have too many to pick just one as an example). There are habits that are neither good nor bad, they are just how we do things. I am in the habit of shaking a sweetener pack before tearing it open. Why? It is something that I do. Frankly, I remember watching my father doing it when I was a kid, and I picked it up from him. Would bad things happen if I opened a packet of sweetener without shaking it? Unlikely… but it is a habit, and I do it every single time.

    Habits around food are extremely common, and again, can be good or bad. Why do many people eat their salads before, or after, or alongside their main course? It is a habit, based on cultural norms of the country in which they were raised. Some people say a prayer before eating, which might be out of habit, or from a deep-rooted belief that their food is a gift from G-d, and that they should be grateful.

    Some people always take a second helping of… whatever. If you were to ask them, they might answer that they are still hungry, or that it was so good that they wanted more. Oftentimes it is simply because they are used to taking seconds. It is a habit. In some cases that might be a good thing, but more often it is not.

    I do not know a fat person, and likely neither do you, who was taught healthy food choices as a child. I do not mean that they did not learn about the five basic food groups – we all learned at least some form of nutrition in school – I mean ingrained education, their day-to-day meals. If you are taught about smart choices for ten minutes in a class one day, but are given huge meals of deep-fried this and creamed that and everything is drowning in gravy every night, then that is the habit you will learn. It is not an easy one to break.

    I have said for months that I want my good eating to be habitual, and my fitness walking to be a habit. So far, I know that neither has happened. Have I ever exercised on a daily basis? Of course I have… for years on end. Have I ever eaten well? Sure, and I have lost a lot of weight a couple of times to prove it. Yet it is so hard to make those habitual. Falling into my old routines is easy… like smoking cigarettes, it is easy to start, but hard to quit.

    Do you see the difference between those? Exercise is a hard habit to get into, and an easy one to fall out of. Eating well is a hard habit to get into, and an easy one to fall out of. Overeating is an easy habit to fall into, and a hard one to fall out of. Smoking cigarettes is an easy habit to get into, and a hard one to fall out of.

    clip_image002

    This seems to me to be an unfair reality, but it is a reality nonetheless. I wish it were the opposite, where good habits were easy to establish and hard to break, but it is not the case. That is why we must be extra vigilant, once we are in a good habit, to stick to it. I do not have the answer to that… and so far, I have not heard of a good one. I know people who put entries into their daily diary to go for a walk, and I hope that works for them… but it has never worked for me, at least not for the long term. A daily reminder to do something makes it a scheduled task or routine… but not a habit.

    Good habits are hard to get into and bad habits are hard to break. We may not like it, but it is a fact of life, and one that, if we wish to control our own habits, we will need to find a way to work at every day of our lives… until our good habits are so truly ingrained into us that we do them without thinking… and until we have so truly broken our bad habits that it would never occur to us to repeat them.

    With regard to food, I have gotten into the habit of buying only the foods that I know are allowed on my weight management program. Some people would point out that I seem to eat rather monotonously, but that is what I need to do to lose weight, and so I do not veer too far from my chicken or fish with a salad for lunch. I do not keep pasta and creamy sauces or fattening salad dressings in the house because it would be too easy to say ‘You know what? I do not feel like eating chicken today.’ It took some time, but when I go to the supermarket, I buy what I need, and I do not go looking for things that would be tasty but harmful to my weight loss plan. It is now a habit more than a routine, and I am grateful for it.

    When I decided to lose weight seriously, one of the hardest habits to break was eating at restaurants. That was one of the main reasons it took until January 20th to really start, and not January 1st as I had originally intended. Eating out is a bad habit, and therefore a difficult one to break. Sticking to my meal-replacements program was a very good habit to get into… and it did not come easy.

    Some religious leaders will tell you that the devil is always there to tempt you, and it is only your strong belief in G-d that keeps you from sinning. I do not believe in those concepts in the Christian sense, but I do believe that we all have good voices and bad voices in our heads. The good voices encourage us to do the right thing – and we usually know that is, whether it be helping a neighbour or eating healthy. The bad voices are shouting at us to succumb to temptation, to be selfish and to eat whatever we want. While the bad voices might be shouting, it is our responsibility to ourselves to tune them out and to listen to the good voices and to do the right thing, whether that be by others or by ourselves.

    Doing the right thing is not always the easy thing… but it is always the right thing. Our diet habits can be good or they can be bad, and it is the decisions that we make that will determine our paths… and eventually our waist size.

  • Day 206

    I was expecting the numbers on the scale to be higher this morning, owing to two factors. First, yesterday’s 2.6-pound drop was one of those great ones that is usually too good to be true, and dials itself back the following day. Additionally, I treated myself with a gorgeous (if too large) steak yesterday for lunch, and I expected the consequences to be a slight weight gain. In fact, while there was no drop, there was also no weight gain. This could be because I pushed myself on a 10-kilometre walk, which compensated for (and burned calories from) the steak. Whatever the reason, I am happy with it.

    I have two bags of clothes waiting to go today. The first is clothes I am going to take to drop in a donation bin. The second is clothes I am taking to the tailor to have her alter because of the weight loss. I have worn the vest and the sports jacket a few times, but of the three shirts I had custom made, one of them has never even been unfolded. I suspect that there will be little she can do about the shirts, but the jacket and pants should be adjustable. I hope to have them back in time to take to Dallas with me, so that if I take my wife out for a nice evening, I can dress up for her.

    There are several side effects to being fat and fifty years old. There are even more to being an active fat and fifty. One of these is that the morning after I walk, my ankle causes me problems. Once I am walking (even just walking the doggo) it is fine, but as I am puttering around the house to get ready, and then walking to the elevator, my ankle is bothering me, and feels like it is going to give out. It never does, and once I get moving it seems fine. The joys of age and weight… my body does things that remind me constantly that I am neither young nor slim, and that it has been many years since I have been consistently active.

    I could have slept more last night, but sometimes our bodies or minds do not cooperate with that. I seem to have no problem getting back to sleep after getting up to pee at 6:15am, but if I get up to pee after 6:30am, I am done for the night. I do not think it is substantially lighter in my room, but there is something about that 6:30am threshold that seems to be a barrier to my returning to sleep… unless I am zonked, at which point it is possible. This morning was not such a morning, and so I was up and hitting my bathroom routine at 6:40, and by 7:30 I was out with Princess Sophie. Of course, that gives me the entire day to be productive. I remember the old saying ‘Early to bed, early to rise…’ The early bird might get the worm, but I am not a big fan of worms and would just as soon have gotten another hour of sleep.

    Plans for today: I will be going to the tailor of course. I hope she is able to help. After that, I am driving to Hamilton to spend a couple of hours with Lyle, whose wife is visiting with her father today. It is always good to sit with friends and enjoy a cigar. Because of that, I will adjust my eating schedule somewhat, and will have my meal in the later afternoon, rather than at noon. Afterwards, I hope to go for another fitness walk. It will likely not be as long as yesterday’s, but getting out is what is important, and not beating my previous score.

    I had a realization about habits yesterday which I am going to write about in a separate entry, but suffice it to say that I have not yet gotten into the habit of walking on a regular basis… at least, not to the point where it is automatic. I really need to get there. Until I do, I will continue to remind myself how important it is that I keep walking for my continued improvement, both in weight loss and overall health.

    Have a great day folks!