Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • Day 92

    Yesterday was a day of triumphs, a day of celebrations. Yesterday was the day that one misguided conversation led to heartbreak.

    I left the doctor’s office slightly disappointed that while I achieved my goal of being under the maximum weight limit of their regular scale, I fell short of my semi-weekly goal of losing two and a half kilos per fortnight. Still, losing one pound per week is not the worst failure. I still hope I will lose more before the next visit.

    I think I mentioned yesterday that while I went through with my plans to celebrate that milestone with a steak, I opted to enjoy it for lunch, rather than my evening meal. It was far too big, and I have to start remembering that I cannot eat meals that big anymore. I did not vomit… but I did regurgitate a few times, which did give me relief. That will also, I hope, serve as a reminder in the future that I cannot eat meals that big, and that the consequences for doing so are unpleasant.

    The one bit of good that came out of that is that I did not have a second daily meal. My usual routine of late has been:

    • Morning: meal-replacement shake.
    • Lunchtime: a large salad (lettuce, tomato, & onion with a little oil and balsamic vinegar, and a can of salmon mixed in. Sometimes with pumpkin seeds).
    • Dinner: a piece of chicken or two, and a salad like at lunchtime, minus the salmon.
    • Evening: meal replacement shake.

    I have done reasonably well with this routine. Yesterday looked like this:

    • Morning: a handful of peanuts in the car after my visit to the doctor.
    • Lunch: a large rib steak, with a side of steamed cauliflower and carrots.
    • Mid-afternoon: another handful of peanuts.
    • Early evening: a meal replacement shake.
    • Late evening: a meal replacement bar

    Later in the evening, I reached for another meal replacement shake, but Leslie talked me out of it. She was right that I should not have had it. She misunderstood why I was going to have it (thinking it was emotional eating), but I had forgotten that I had eaten the meal replacement bar.

    In Israel, we would eat our heaviest meal at lunch, and have a lighter breakfast and dinner. Thinking back on yesterday, that might not be a bad plan for me going forward. This morning the numbers on the scale were in fact down from where they were yesterday morning. I am going to try to do that for a few days and see how it goes.

    HRF Princess Sophie woke me up at 5:00am, which she does by getting off the bed and coming around to look at me. Yes, this wakes me up. I got out of bed and started to get dressed, but she immediately climbed back onto the bed. Okay, maybe she was just a bit restless, and did not actually need to go outside. This happened again a few minutes later; when she repeated the whole routine (including getting back onto the bed) I decided she might just want to cuddle, and I held her as I went back to sleep. The third time (at 5:45am) I decided this was it… I got dressed and took her outside. We walked to the end of the block, she peed and sniffed (as she does), and we went back home to bed. This time, she stayed put until I was ready to get up.

    It is hard sometimes to walk the line between airing my feelings and keeping confidences. Without any intention to do so I hurt someone very important to me last night, and I am worried that person might not forgive me. I am in a fog of misery today, and I do not know if I will get out of it. I have a lot of work to do today so I hope I can… but this is painful. My two goals are to get through the day, and to not do any emotional eating. Wish me luck.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 91

    I am not buying huge quantities of chicken or fish and freezing them, mostly because I need to go to the supermarket every few days to get fresh vegetables. Otherwise, it would make a lot of sense to buy a freezer full of protein. I am not doing that… but with the prices going up up up, I suppose if I see a really good sale, I just might do that.

    This morning I am not only getting weighed at the doctor’s office, I am also going to the optometrist to get my eyes checked. It has been about a year, and I might need new glasses. Either way, when I get home, I will write it up. For now, my bathroom scale is once again being stubborn and uncooperative; despite its new location near the retaining wall, I got readings eight pounds apart. I hate the floors here.

    I am taking my coffee with me, but I am not going to have my morning meal replacement until after I’ve been weighed.

    —

    I was hoping to continue my recent pace of losing 2.5kg per fortnight, but it was not to be. I lost 2kg and was able to get weighed on the normal scale. I suppose that combines to be a non-scale victory about a scale!

    After my weigh-in, I drove to the optometrist. As I approached the door, a man holding his cell phone told me ‘I’m calling to let them know I am here.’ To which I replied that I was going inside to achieve the same results. Some people do not understand all of the new Covid procedures, and I understand that… but I am not going to wait outside while he figures them out.

    Sitting inside and waiting to be called in, the technician walked up to me and greeted me as Vince. I assured her that is not my name. She replied ‘Well, that is what your file says.’ I replied that if we could just make things up, I would at least be Hir Royal Majesty, King Vincent I. We all got a good laugh over this, and I was treated like royalty… or at least as well as anyone needs to be while having his eyes checked.

    Okay, jokes and anecdotes aside. I had promised myself that on the day that I was able to be weighed on the regular scale at the doctor’s office, I would reward myself with a steak dinner. I certainly did indulge, but I decided to make it a steak lunch. I went to the supermarket and selected a gorgeous rib steak. I also picked up chicken for the rest of the week, which has been properly separated and put into the freezer.

    Lunch was fabulous. The steak, accompanied by a bowl of lightly steamed cauliflower and carrots, was truly fabulous. It was also far too big, and I am glad that I decided to make it my early meal, which will give my body some time to digest it throughout the day. HRF Princess Sophie enjoyed the fat, but I went to town on the steak – which was far too big, but which I finished anyways. I will not be having another until I am below 300 lbs… and that might not be for several months yet.

    While I have some work to do, I might just go for a (slightly shorter) walk to try to burn off some of that steak before my evening class. I have also not yet decided, after the indulgence that was lunch, whether I will have another salad for dinner, or if I will stick to meal replacements instead. The way I am feeling now, I think that might be the prudent way to go.

    My eyes are still straining as I look at the screen… the solution the optometrist uses to dilate the pupils has not completely worn off yet. I think going for a walk, possibly with a cigar, might just be the order of the day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 90

    It is hard to believe that today is my ninetieth day on the program. I have not lost as much as I would have liked, but I have covered that before… I am not on the program religiously, but a modified program. Hey, losing nearly fifty pounds in ninety days is nothing to sneeze at, is it?

    Yesterday’s workout was great, but there is no question, you really do feel it later in the evening. I have a new diet buddy that read my article on Food Addiction and told me that she will now be reading my blog for encouragement. She also told me she would love to walk with me. I told her I would be delighted, but she would have to be able to maintain the pace that I was at yesterday. I do not want to make her feel bad if she cannot keep up. We all need to start out at our own pace.

    On much the same topic, yesterday was the best single-day views on my diet-blog, www.losingapartof.me. I find that on days when I share a specific (and topical) article with one of the Facebook groups that I am active on, I see a real spike in readership. How cool would it be if even twenty percent of those people subscribed… or at least read the blog on a regular basis!? All told, yesterday’s total views peaked at one hundred and seventy-nine… and while the majority were from North America, there were viewers from ten countries and six continents in total (although only one hit each from Asia, Africa, and South America)! Considering my average readership has been around 450 views per month, that is really exciting.

    I am proud of my weight-loss, but I am also proud of my writing. Knowing that there are so many people out there fighting the same fight that I am is heartwarming and being able to share with them is great. Don’t think for a minute that my current readers (especially my number one fan) are not enough for me… I write for myself, and hope that along the way, somebody thinks that what I wrote might be important or relevant to them. In the meantime, with all of the views yesterday, I only added one follower… which is exactly the same number of followers I added on the previous day.

    I would have preferred, after yesterday’s strenuous workout, to see the numbers on the scale down this morning. Alas, that was not the case. Instead, I am up half a pound. I am looking forward to my weigh-in at the doctor’s office tomorrow, where I can be assured of the accuracy of the scale. Until then, I have to suffice myself with the knowledge that if I am going to weigh myself every single day, then my body weight will not drop consistently every single day… and even days of perfect behaviour will often only show results a day or two later. That is the reality of life. That is among the myriad frustrations of dieting and weight loss.

    I am super excited that I have my ticket for Dallas booked. I got a frantic call from Leslie worrying that she did not have staples that I use daily, such as a coffee pot or an air fryer. I know she is just excited that I am finally coming to visit and wants me to feel perfectly at home. There are no problems, only solutions; When I first moved into my apartment, before I bought my Ninja coffee station, I bought a single-cup filter coffee filter which I will bring. As for the air fryer, I lived without one for what – forty-nine years? I can live without one for another week in June.

    The only cheating I did on the program yesterday was an extra meal replacement bar in the evening. I figure I burned a lot of calories on my walk, so an extra 160-calorie bar won’t hurt me. Still and all, the higher-than-yesterday weigh-in bothered me… and I have to remember that it was not a meal replacement bar that caused it.

    I have a lot of work to do today, and I am glad the temptations of good weather for sitting outside are completely absent from the forecast of the day. As HRF Princess Sophie and I took our morning walk, there were cars covered in yesterday’s snow – a true sign that the temperatures had not risen sufficiently to melt it. Additionally, while the wind was certainly blowing unpleasantly this morning, Environment Canada has issued a Special Weather Statement warning of strong winds and wind gusts for this afternoon and evening (with northwesterly winds gusting 70 to 80 km/h). All of that, I assure you, is conducive to my not going outside again today, other than to take my pup-princess for her evening walk. With my frustrations with technology abated (for the moment), I hope to be able to make good headway in putting together the slides for my upcoming class.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Was it a Workout… or Two?

    I set out to go shopping this morning… on foot. It is the second time that I have done that since I started the program, and we are sixteen days since my last one. I have not worked out in that time.

    More than two weeks ago, upon returning from that first (grueling) walk, I wrote a piece which I titled: “But Was It a Workout?” I always find it important to keep track of my walks and eventually jogs so that I can push myself to do better than I did last time… even if I am just walking to the store.

    Granted, the store that I walked to today was 2.5km away. Like I did the last time, I paused my tracking when I walked into the store and restarted it when I started walking home again. I do not want my browsing the aisles (which I will obviously not do at an ‘exercise pace’) to skew my statistics.

    Here is the summary of today’s walk:

    · Distance: 5.00 km (4.02 km)

    · Duration: 56:00 minutes (50:05 minutes)

    · Average Pace (Min/km): 11:11 (12.16)

    · Steps: 6.3k (5.4k)

    · Calories burned: 519 (402)

    · Elevation gain: 14.1m (12m)

    · Average cadence (steps per minute): 114 (110)

    While this is only my second measured workout of the year, there is marked improvement in every measure. I put the previous workout in brackets. The workout was six minutes and one kilometer longer, my pace per kilometer was more than a minute less… all of that, with a heavy wind in my face on my trip back. Still and all, my worst kilometer this time (5th kilometer, 11m43s) was over 30 seconds faster than my best kilometer last time (1st kilometer, 12m16s). My best kilometer (2nd, 10m32s) was 1m44s better than my best kilometer last time.

    Improvement is expected; what is not tracked by my app is that my first time out, I made three stops. Today I made only one. As well, my last 2.5 km were done with five pounds of groceries in each hand.

    I have a long way to go until I get back to jogging, or even to my extremely respectable pace of walking. Hopefully by the summer I will be there. In the meantime, I am not at all upset about today’s workout. I just wish that I would not be so frustrated by other things when I came home!

    Getting back to the title of the article. The last time I went out for a measured walk, I made several stops, and so I asked myself if it was really a workout. Today I walked five kilometers, but was it a workout? It was really split pretty evenly into two 2.5km walks. I know that I was pushing myself from beginning to the end of each one. Maybe, instead of looking at it as a single 5km walk, I would have to split it into two 2.5km walks. Either way, I am happy with it. My feet were starting to feel it by the fourth kilometer, and I know I built up a sweat. Yes, it is a workout… or maybe it is two.

    As an added note: The last time I came back in, I noted to myself that I was not dressed appropriately. Today I was also inappropriately dressed… but differently. On my last outing, I wore my heavy winter jacket. Today, I wore a better jacket with a breathable shirt. Check! Instead of my felt hat, I wore a golf hat. The only thing that I did wrong was to wear my blue jeans. They are comfortable for everyday wear, but they are still pretty tight, and they are not the right pants to exercise in. I will make a note to change that up on my next walk.

    Although I accomplished none of the work I was planning to do today, I did manage to book my airfare to go to visit Leslie in June. By that point, she will have visited me seven times, and I really want to see where (and how!) she lives. I am really excited about it… although I am also nervous about something that has nothing to do with her or with flying. With any luck, things will go fine and there will be nothing to worry about.

    I just looked out the window, and it is snowing… I mean, really snowing. I thought the cashier at Fortino’s was crazy when she told me that it was going to snow later today; I suppose I owe her an apology. I will say that I am glad that I went out in the morning, rather than waiting until the afternoon. Yes, I have to take HRF Princess Sophie outside, but she will not want to spend more time outside in this weather than is absolutely necessary. After we come back in, I will start preparing dinner, and then to prepare for my evening class. Have a great afternoon/evening folks!

  • Food Addiction

    There is a difficult side to food addiction that most other addictions do not have. It makes it hard for people who are not addicted to understand it. It makes it difficult for people who are not overweight to ‘get’ why we don’t just cut down on our food intake. Eat less food = lose weight, right?

    If you are addicted to drugs, you stop doing drugs. That is not to belittle how incredibly difficult it is to get off drugs as an addict, but that’s how it works. The same thing with booze. “Hi, I’m Fred, and I’m an alcoholic. (Hi Fred!) It’s been 473 days since my last drink and…” While I have never been to an AA meeting, that is how they are portrayed in pop culture; I have to assume that at least one of the myriad screenwriters who have portrayed this scene has been to a meeting and is doing their best to convey them accurately. Whatever it might be that you are addicted to, by cutting it out and spending the rest of your life not doing it, then you have conquered your addiction.

    Food does not work like that. You cannot cut food out of your life. You need food to survive. Sure, you can cut certain types of foods out of your life… if you are addicted to sweets, you can to a great extent cut sugar out of your diet. You cannot cut food out completely.

    People see food addicts as weak, but the truth is that if we overcome our lifelong battle with obesity and do manage to get slim, then we are among the strongest people in the world. Alcoholics say that if they have just one more drink, they will go back to drinking. While this is always portrayed in pop culture, I have seen it firsthand, from people I know to be alcoholics. When I lose all of my weight, will I be able to just have a small order of whatever it is that I crave? I will have to… but it is more likely that I will have to avoid a lot of foods completely.

    In September 2020 I weighed 260lbs. I was at my lowest weight since I first became overweight after the Army. I had been doing so well. After an event at my synagogue, the rabbi invited the volunteers to join him for a l’chaim (a drink). That would never have gotten me. It was the other volunteer who brought homemade baked goods that she insisted we all try that was my downfall. I had one… then another, because they were there. We all left the event, and I went straight to the grocery store… to the prepared foods department, where I picked up a large order of fried chicken.

    For the previous six months, I had eaten properly. I was combining my meal replacements with a healthy diet of food that I cooked myself – mostly chicken and salad – and I had lost a tremendous amount of weight. It took a cookie to bring that all to an end.

    Food addicts cannot cut out all foods. We have to change our habits to those of moderation, and that is not an easy ask. We have to learn to say ‘Thank you, but no thank you’ when people offer us foods that are tempting, but which are not on our diet plans. Had I turned down that cookie, would I have gone off the program? Probably not… I know that had I not gone to pick up the fried chicken that night then my life today might be extremely different than it is.

    Now here’s the rub… How can I say all of this, and then turn around and say, ‘When I drop below this or that milestone, I will allow myself a cheat meal?’ Or ‘When we are on vacation, I am pausing the diet.’ How can I say these things, knowing what I know? I know that I have not beaten my addiction… but I also know that I have learned from my missteps and will fight like hell to do what I need to do. I know that yes, I have cheated… but every time I have, I have been able to get right back on track the following day. I know that I have the love of my life who will ask me (upon our return from Cuba next month) if I am back on the program… and if I say ‘No,’ she will encourage me to get back to it.

    I also say it knowing that I am nowhere near where I need to be yet. I am not talking about my weight; I am talking about changing my relationship with food. I am still a food addict and know that it would be simple for me to revert back into gluttony. I do not want to do that, and I will not let myself do that. Yes, when we are in Cuba, I plan to eat. No, I do not plan to gorge myself. I might bring healthy snacks for when there is nothing else available, but in truth there is usually something available that I can eat. In truth, the only food in Cuba that really will tempt me is the proteins – the chicken and seafood, mostly – and that you get one helping of at your meal.

    On the resort, we will mostly be eating at the buffet. By tempering what I take, and by loading my plates down with salads, I will be able to stay mostly on track. When we are in Havana or the town of Varadero, I will not go nuts… I would rather spend my money on great cigars than on decent food.

    Food addicts cannot cut our addiction completely out. We will spend the rest of our lives battling our demons and trying to keep our addiction in check. I have now lost the fight three times – I have been below 275-pounds three times in my life and gained nearly (or over) a hundred pounds three times. This time around, I plan to win, knowing that I can never really go off the program… not really. If I plan to win, then I will need to be aware of and careful with what I eat every day for the rest of my life.

    If only I were simply addicted to drugs…

  • Day 89

    I am ashamed to admit it, but I ate a bunch of crap last night. I had my dinner earlier than I should have, so my last shake of the night at about 7:30pm. I was not satisfied, so I added a meal replacement bar to the evening. I was still emotional, so I broke down and had a bag of popcorn.

    I won’t go into the details, but sometimes we get emotional, sad, or whatever… and we veer from the program. I only hope it does not happen too often. I really have to get a handle on my emotions and exercise self-control.

    I am fighting with Air Canada. I have a flight credit that dates to August of last year; they assured me that I would have an e-mail confirmation with the code in ten days. Six weeks later I had not received it, but I needed to use part of it, and after spending several hours on the phone with them, I was able to… and they assured me that within ten days I would receive an e-mail with the code for the balance. That was September 20, more or less. That is 209 days… slightly more than ten days, once again. I spent an hour on the phone with one of their agents who assured me (after nearly an hour) that within ten days I would receive an email about it. I told him that his company was lying, as they have historically lied about this issue. Try as I might, he would not let me speak with a supervisor or manager. I am absolutely furious.

    My stress- and emotion-eating could have been worse. I was really tempted, especially after drafting my complaint letter to Air Canada, to go out and pick up… something. I don’t know if it would have been wings or a steak or whatever… it couldn’t be a pizza because of Passover, but it could have been a lot of things. I do not know what stopped me… other than knowing that I am going to the doctor’s office later this week, and I want to be able to reward myself after hitting that very important milestone; as bad as the crap that I ate was, it would only get worse if I didn’t stop.

    I do not know how it happened, but despite all that I ate over and above what I should be eating, my weight was down this morning. While it is still .4 lb higher than my best weight (last Tuesday), I was happy to be down nearly one full pound this morning. If I am able to maintain my rate of progress, then later this week I will be rewarding myself… with a steak.

    Yes, I said it. I have not had a steak since January. I told myself nearly a month ago that the day that I reach that milestone – losing enough to be able to weigh in on the doctor’s scale – that I would have a cheat day with a steak. I thought briefly about Buffalo wings or pizza or Chinese food… but all of those would have been too extreme. Yes, there are nearly 600 calories in an 10oz ribeye steak, which is more than I would eat in a meal on the program. It is a one-time reward… and I will enjoy it. I might wait until the weekend to enjoy it, but I will enjoy it nonetheless!

    I have some work to do today on the course I am writing for the end of next week, and this evening I have class. Somewhere between this and that I have to go shopping… I am out of vegetables, but that’s about it. Maybe I will take the opportunity to go for a good walk, which I have not done since my first 10,000 step day a few weeks ago.

    Have a great day!

  • Pride of Dress, Pride of Progress

    My absolute worst weight ever – eighty-nine days ago – proved that I had, for a time, given up. I had no pride in my appearance, and for several months had not cared enough about myself to rein in the bad habits that come so easily to me. Of course, a broken ankle did not help… but I was in a bad way. My stomach hung out from nearly every shirt that I owned, all of which were tight fitting.

    I am now down a little over forty-five pounds, and while I still have little reason to be proud of my body, I am proud of the progress that I have made. I know that one day I will once again have pride in my appearance.

    This morning I got dressed after my shower, knowing that HRF Princess Sophie was pressed to go outside for her morning walk. I checked the weather, and then I grabbed the next shirt on my shelf of long-sleeve XXXL shirts. We went for our walk.

    I should mention at this point that not all shirts are made equally. I am not talking about quality, but rather of sizes. While that is less prevalent where the measurement is a number (a size-42 pair of pants will have a bit of range, but they will all be approximately the same), but when the sizes are L-XL-XXL and so on, there is a huge range. Most of my XXXL shirts fit me quite well now. The one that I picked off the shelf yesterday definitely did not. My belly hung out of it, and there was no amount of tucking it in that was going to hide my stomach for long.

    Eighty-nine days ago, I would have thrown up my hands and said, ‘Oh well!’ That is not what I did this morning. The shirt did not fit… but it will. That might take a couple of weeks or a couple of months, but the bright pink Under Armor shirt will fit properly one day and soon. It does not yet, so I took it off, and picked out the next shirt from the same pile. Ironically, it was also an Under Armor shirt in the same size. It fits perfectly.

    I am done wearing clothes that do not fit. I am happy to wear clothes that are a bit tight, but if it will not hide my belly then I am not wearing it.

    I still do not have a lot of pride in my appearance, but Leslie loves what I look like, and she is so proud of the progress I have made. She will continue to support me in my weight loss. My girlfriend deserves to have a boyfriend who takes some pride in his appearance, and dresses appropriately. There are so many days when I do not feel that I deserve such a beautiful woman as her, and I am not going to let a day pass when I do not show her the respect to be the best boyfriend that I can be. The day that I do that, I will truly not deserve her.

  • Day 88

    There is a psychological characteristic in me that does not seem to want to accept certain types of moderation. I am not talking about food intake… although I suppose I am a glutton when I do not check myself. No, what I mean is this: I feel that when I veer from my program, even a little, I will be punished the following day on the bathroom scale.

    Yesterday (Saturday) I had my morning shake, and then around 11:00am HRF Princess Sophie and I hit the road. We drove to Caledon to see my friend (and now hers) Jacqueline, and her young puppy (I think she is six months old) Charley. A wonderful time was had, but shortly after we left the house, I realized that I had not taken any meal replacements with me. We stopped in at Bulk Barn, where I purchased a bag of red-skinned peanuts. Remember the previous day, when I bought a bag of peanuts from the convenience store? That bag cost me $5.99, and the peanuts were salted. This bag cost me $1.50, and the peanuts were exactly the way I like them. I enjoyed them as we drove up north.

    Jacqueline knows that I am on a diet, and also respects that it is Passover, so even if I was not on a diet, I really cannot eat any snack she might put out. She offered me coffee, which I enjoyed. We had a great time catching up – it had been far too long!

    We hit the road a little after 5:00pm, and no thanks to Waze on my iPhone, we got to the supermarket around 6:00pm. I know, I wrote yesterday that I would bring her home before going shopping, but we were an hour later than I thought we would be, and it was warm and sunny. Princess Sophie climbed up onto the back dash to sun herself while I ran in and picked up everything that I needed… except one crucial item. Oops.

    We got home and I put the chicken into the air fryer, and the rest of it into freezer bags. It was only then, as I was getting ready to prepare my salad, that I realized that I had run out of balsamic vinegar the previous evening. Okay, I had a choice: Either I could make my salad another way (and while there are myriad ways to season a salad, I did not have too many options in the house), or I could forego the salad, and instead steam a head of broccoli. I opted for that second option, adding a bit of onion as well. I spread much less margarine than I had on my previous attempt, but also added some cheese (but not a lot). I forgot to add salt, but that is not the end of the world.

    Spoiler alert: While steamed broccoli can be quite tasty, steamed onion is less so… at least, not the way I prepared it. I ate it, but it was nothing to write home about.

    Later in the evening I had another meal replacement shake. That was the extent of my food intake yesterday.

    If you look at what I consumed, I obviously did not gorge myself. I did not eat tons of bad food, or even overeat the good ones. Yes, I had a little margarine and shredded cheese on my broccoli. Yes, I had a handful of peanuts (which replaced a meal). With all that, how could I possibly not lose weight?

    I did. After yesterday’s colossal two-pound gain (which followed the previous two day’s 1.5 lbs gain, I was hoping to be down at least a little. I was down a full three pounds from yesterday, and while I am not back to my best weigh-in of the last week, I am damned close to it… and most importantly, I am back under the 350-pound mark.

    I will mention as well that I think that moving the scale from the bathroom to the bedroom has done tremendous good for the stability of my weigh-ins. While I am neither an architect nor a builder, I suspect that the floors immediately adjacent to a load-bearing brick wall will necessarily be more stable than one nowhere near an outside wall, when the floor in the apartment has already been established as not reliably stable. It (the scale) is now under my window, which means I can just leave my phone on the ledge when I weigh in (which allows it to register the weight). Over the past few days (since I moved it) I know that there has been much less up-and-down before settling on a final weight… and so there it will remain.

    My plans for today: I am picking up the cleaning lady from the train station in about an hour. I would have stopped at the store to pick up a bottle of balsamic vinegar, but guess what? Yep, the stores are closed again for Easter Sunday. Sigh. I suppose for my salad today I will be making a slightly different dressing, with the fixings that I do have.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 87

    I almost asked for a recount. I got onto the scale this morning and was a full two pounds over what I weighed yesterday morning. I am back above 350 lbs, and I am not happy about it. I will focus today to get back to where I was… focused.

    This morning’s weight gain was not a surprise. I went to see Lyle and Dorothy yesterday, and as I headed for home, I stopped to pick up a small container of milk. I was hungry, which is never the right time to walk into a convenience store. In fact, when you are dieting there is never a good time to walk into a store whose entire business model is to sell you fattening and unhealthy foods that are overpriced. I picked up an all-beef pepperoni, and a bag of peanuts (in addition to the 2% milk). By the time I got home half an hour later, all that was left was the milk, and the empty wrappers.

    I was not feeling particularly weak when I walked into the store. I was not sad or despondent. I was simply tempted by the myriad food choices that were all calling out to me.

    It was far too windy for a cigar yesterday evening, but I did have my holiday dinner. A piece of fish, a piece of chicken, a bowl of chicken soup. I should have cut one of those three out… but it was the holiday, and I defrosted what I defrosted, and that’s life.

    I am relieved that last night I finished the last of the expired meal-replacement shakes. Some of them tasted better than others, but they were the old formula, and the new ones taste so much better. I am enjoying my first new one in several weeks. Aside from better flavour, they are also creamier and smoother. I am definitely glad that the old ones are done, and if another lot of them comes up for sale I will be passing on them.

    Today I am going to do my best to get back on track. In a little while, HRF Princess Sophie and I will head out to see my friends Jacqueline and Matt, and their puppy Charley. We will not be out too late – I plan to hit the road to come home around 4:00pm. I do have to do some shopping today, but I will likely drop Sophie at home first, and then head out anew. While she does not really mind it, I do not like leaving her alone in the car while I go into the store. I need to pick up chicken and fish, some veggies, and of course my distilled water. I cannot think of anything else that I will need.

    Leslie’s plane is landing at Pearson International Airport in twenty-three days and twelve hours… if anyone is wondering how badly I miss her. We speak for hours every day, but it is not the same. Yes, it is true… the fact that she will be here in just over twenty-three days means that in just over twenty-four days we will be in Cuba, and I am excited about that… but I am much more excited to see my girl.

    It is a beautiful day outside today. Last night’s rain seems to have washed away the dirt, and there is nowhere near the kind of gusting winds we had yesterday. I strongly suspect that there might be a cigar in my future.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 86

    I cheated last night… twice. I paid for it this morning on the bathroom scale.

    I had wanted to try to steam either broccoli or cauliflower for a few weeks, and I decided that last night was the night. I put a crown of broccoli into a corning ware with some water. I spread some margarine on it, covered the pot, and put it into the microwave. I asked Lyle how long I should leave it in for, and he told me that five minutes should do… but I should really cut it up first. Oops. Too late for that. When it might have been done, I pulled it out of the microwave, sprinkled it with salt… and grated cheese. I gave it another minute in the microwave, and then voila, it was served. It tasted delicious… but neither the margarine nor the cheese was part of the diet program. It was not the worst thing in the world though, right?

    Later on, during my class but after the dinner break, I was still hungry. I decided to munch on some salt and vinegar rice crackers that I had bought for Leslie. I will have to buy her more, because I finished them off.

    Two cheats in a day must be punished… and the scale took back some weight from yesterday. If I am going to be under 350 lbs clothed on my next weigh-in at the doctor’s office on Wednesday, I cannot cheat much more this weekend. I will need to stay on track. I suppose then that it is a good thing I was not invited to a Passover Seder this year. Yes, it is sad… but as much as I love the holiday, I know that the foods at the Seder are too tempting for me to turn down. Next year, when I am at my ideal weight, I can make the Seder a cheat meal.

    I had just finished writing the paragraph of what I need to buy at the supermarket today… only to realize that the supermarkets are closed today for Good Friday. Oops. The simple revised answer to ‘what’s for dinner?’ is: Whatever I have in the freezer! I don’t know if I have any chicken left, but I know I have a piece of salmon, so that might be it. I have enough veggies for lunch and dinner, and while I might run out of milk on my second cup of coffee, that I can buy at any convenience store. I also have distilled water on my shopping list, but that is not an urgency, that is for the next time the humidifier in my humidor runs dry.

    I just checked, and I have a very small piece of chicken, and a very small piece of salmon in the freezer. I am defrosting both, and my Passover meal will be a multi-course dinner… with a salad, of course. It just occurred to me that I might have a container of chicken broth in the freezer. While I cannot make matzah balls (I wasn’t even able to find matzah when the stores were open), I can at least have a nice bowl of chicken soup with vegetables. I might need to find some carrots and maybe a couple of other veggies – the only one I have that would go into the soup is onion. No worries, I will make do.

    I have a study session to join for the course I am taking, and after that I will make a salad for lunch, and then I’ll head over to Lyle and Dorothy’s for a few hours. It will be good to spend a few hours with friends.

    Have a great day folks… and whatever holiday you are celebrating this weekend… enjoy it!