Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • Day 70

    I noticed that while I am teaching, I am going through lozenges like they are candy. I have to wonder if it is because I feel the need (I do speak quite a bit while I am teaching, but not so much that I would need this many of them), or if it is just a habit. I am glad I had the foresight to purchase sugar-free lozenges.

    My weight is down nearly 1.5 lbs. this morning… and I am still nearly two pounds up from what I weighed on Friday. As I said yesterday, the system is just not fair. I know that if I was following the original program to the letter – that is, drinking four shakes per day, no meals, no coffee with milk and sugar – then the weight would be melting off. I would likely be down 75 lbs. by now. I am hoping that by doing the modified program it will allow me to maintain the weight loss long-term, rather than losing a lot of weight quickly, and then gaining it all back.

    I have noticed a couple of non-scale victories in the last few days.

    1. It is easier to stand from a sitting position than it was at my heaviest weight. Whether from my office chair or from the porcelain throne, I am no longer struggling to stand as I did for a few months. If this is not a quantifiable improvement, it is certainly a noticeable one!
    2. While I am definitely not where I want to be, I am thrilled that I can walk and maintain a slightly brisk pace. It makes a world of difference when I walk with Princess Sophie, and when I am able to start walking for exercise, it will mean even more. To be clear, I could start walking for exercise anytime I want; I am waiting for the weather to cooperate. This morning the temperatures are hovering around 0°c and with the rain the sidewalks are quite slippery.
    3. In December/January, my fitness watch band secured to my right wrist on the last hole. It was only this morning that I realized it is now on the fifth hole. That is nearly an inch of improvement… in my wrist! I am looking forward to when my gold watch fits around my left wrist. It has a solid gold band and cannot be resized. The phases to it will be: Cannot close, closes tightly, closes comfortably, closes loosely. Knowing that it was my father’s, and my father was a significantly smaller man than I was, I do not expect it will be too loose. It is the sort of watch one would only wear for fancy occasions. I was thrilled in 2020 when I was able to wear it under my suit for the High Holiday services.

    I made it through Monday with very little cheating. The jar of peanuts I bought for the ride from Montreal is half full, and I took a handful as I got into the car yesterday. I suppose that will happen from time to time until the jar is empty. I will not allow myself to buy another jar. Anyhow, I much prefer the red skinned peanuts I can get at Bulk Barn to the Planters Peanuts… and I can buy much smaller quantities when I want a small treat!

    I have a number of errands to run today so I will be out and about a lot. The first of those is a doctor’s appointment for HRF… it is a routine seasonal visit to prepare her to start with the flea and tick medications. She spent most of her life in sunny Southern California, and this winter was the first season that she did not need those meds. With spring in the air, she will get them again. Hopefully they have the same gummy option that we had in the US. I know she liked those much better than the stuff we used to have to apply to the back of her neck. I suppose we will find out in an hour or so!

    After that I will bring her home, and I have to go back out. I have a few things I want to pick up at the hardware store, and I will do a little grocery shopping as well. I will likely do those errands after lunch.

    I noticed Monday that when I picked up my prescriptions from the pharmacy, there was one that was missing. My doctor had refilled my prescription for colchicine, but he had mentioned that he would be taking me off that, and putting me on a pill called allopurinol, which would help to prevent gout inflammations by keeping the levels of uric acid in my system low. There was none of that, so yesterday I called the doctor’s office, and sure enough the nurses had no record of it. The doctor is on vacation this week, but I will be able to see him next week when I go in to get weighed. As long as the colchicine is working, I am in no rush for it… but I would like to start this new regimen, which if my father’s history is any indication I will be on for the rest of my life.

    I dug up an article I wrote a couple of years ago which I decided to republish today. It is one of those encouragement articles that I felt I needed to reread over the last couple of days, knowing that I am only losing so much per week now… It is called One Pound Lose is Three Pounds of Progress. It will go live on my blog at noon today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 69

    After the disaster that was the weekend, I am happy to report that I did not veer from my program at all on Monday. A shake for breakfast and for my evening snack, a salad for lunch, and chicken with a salad for dinner. I went to bed a little peckish, but overall, I am happy with how the day went. I only wish it was not quite so cold, or I might have been able to go out for a walk.

    HRF Princess Sophie came home right about the time I was set to start teaching, and she had eaten and been for her walk. I suspect she was tired from a fun-filled weekend with Natalie… we had a wonderful reunion (as we always do), and then she spent most of the evening in her daybed supervising as I taught, until it was time to move into the real bed for a proper night’s sleep with Daddy. I won’t lie… I have missed having her next to me at night. She gave me a little bit of love, but mostly lay down at the foot of the bed. I think she is a wee bit upset with me that I left her for three days.

    The bathroom scale is heading in the right direction again, but I know it will probably take a week to recover the progress that I lost in just a few days.

    It is not fair. Over the course of three days, I did not eat well but I also did not eat too badly, and yet I still gained something like four pounds. It is now going to take at least a week of assiduous dieting to lose those four pounds. That is simply unfair. The math simply does not work. Let’s be honest: If I had gorged myself on some of my favourite foods – Montreal Smoked Meat, Buffalo Wings, Pizza, and things like that – then I would understand. I just do not see how it is fair that I ate a little bad and have to pay for it for so long. Where’s your manager? I would like to file a complaint!

    Okay, let’s get down to it. I am going to stick to the program again today, and hopefully get back down to where I was… before I can continue to move forward.

    Once again, I am reminded that I just do not understand women. I just don’t get them. I don’t think I ever will. FML.

    I was going to write about some of the non-scale victories I have noticed over the last few days, but all of a sudden, I just don’t feel like writing so screw it.

    Have a great day.

  • Day 68

    How do I fall so far so easily? It is because food is an addiction, and it is a very difficult one to rein in.

    Yesterday I started with a meal replacement before I headed to Stephane’s house. We stopped at the cemetery to pay respects to my father’s grave. We then dropped something off for his daughter and then picked up a friend in Dorval before we drove to St. Jean Sur Richelieu, where we spent the afternoon enjoying cigars with our buddy Sam. Abi decided to bring a bag full of snacks along – nuts, but also chocolates and stuff like that. He offered us some in the car, and while Stephane took a candy bar, I was good.

    At Sam’s house, he had several bottles out, and asked me to take a dram of a local whisky made with maple. I should have refused, knowing how high the sugar content must be. He also put out a tray of what he referred to as moose sausage that his apprentice made for him. Knowing that moose meat is usually lean, I took a couple of pieces. It was only when he explained that the sausage maker uses a lot of pork products in the ‘moose sausage’ that I realized how big a mistake I made. I cannot un-eat the pork products, and I felt horrible about it the rest of the day.

    How did this horrible feeling manifest? Here’s what else I ended up eating, both while we were at Sam’s, and later on my drive back home (yes, I drove back to Burlington last night):

    · A couple of dried apricots

    · A lot of honey roasted almonds

    · Too many peanuts

    · A chocolate chip cookie

    · A mixed shawarma plate (but as before, I did not have the potatoes or rice)

    · Two meal replacement bars

    It was a victory that I did not go for one of the chocolate bars… but I was feeling bad about it… even though it was not at the forefront of my consciousness. In fact, when Leslie asked me during the drive (a few times) how I was doing, I did not once think to say ‘You know what, I accidentally ate pork product, and I feel terrible about it. Trust me, I felt horrible… but it was not top of mind.

    To add insult to the injury, this morning I read my rabbi’s most recent d’var Torah, which was all about eating kosher, and why we do it.

    To pile it on, the bathroom scale had me three pounds up from Friday… no shock there.

    Today I have to get back on track. I have defrosted chicken for dinner, and I will have my salad for lunch. I am hoping that it works out for me. I have to do better!

    Have a great day!

  • Day 67

    I was doing so well, too.

    I had a bar in the morning and then spent lunchtime with my dad’s widow. She is on a diet too, so she told me she would be having a protein bar. Excellent, that means that I don’t have to pick up lunch. I had a shake.

    I should mention that I had two friends that I wanted to connect with yesterday, but neither worked out. I would have found myself at a Starbucks or similar, which would have been temptation. That was avoided.

    I spent the afternoon and evening at my buddy Stephane’s garage and workshop, which is not unusual when I am in Montreal. He and his wife were having pork chops for dinner, and sensitive to my religious restrictions they suggested I pick up a shawarma plate and join them. That is exactly what I did. Again, no bread, no rice, no potatoes. I got up from the meal feeling like it was a nice treat, but not an extravagant one.

    And then Diane baked cookies…

    I confess, I had two chocolate chip cookies which were wonderful, but sinful… but oh so good! I regret it, but at the time they were delicious.

    I came back to my friends’ house where I am staying, and they were not home. I took that opportunity to do some regular maintenance on one of their laptops, and found I was still hungry. I had a bowl of for flakes. Yes, that is a weird thing to eat at 11:30pm. I had opened their fridge to see a lot of un-kosher foods, and this was the safest.

    I will try to do better today.

  • Day 66

    I was not perfect yesterday, but I was not terrible. I had a couple of beef pepperoni and a handful of peanuts on the drive. My buddy wanted to go for Lebanese food for dinner, so I had chicken with salad (and haricot and hummus). All in all, it could have been a worse day in my diet… but it could also have been better.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 65

    I am off to Montreal this morning. After my shake (which I am drinking as I type) I will pack HRF Princess Sophie into the car – her kit is already packed and ready to go – and I will drive her to the dog sitter’s house. From there, I will drive straight east – I have a couple of stops to make along the way, but all in all it should be a rather quick drive.

    Yesterday had some difficult moments for me. My empathetic side can get the better of me, and when those that I care for are unhappy then I am too. It is maddening when there is nothing I can do to help them. I know that things will get better… but the bad days are bad.

    I kept to the program yesterday, although I was downing the lozenges like candy as I taught last night. I do not know if that was a result of the trauma, or if it is just that they were there and readily available. I also do not know if it is the reason my weight was up this morning. I will endeavour to do better today.

    It will be a long but relaxing drive to Montreal, with only my audio entertainment and my cigars to keep me company. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 64

    Another day of following the prescribed regimen, and once again the bathroom scale is down. I am quite pleased with that, but more important, I am feeling lighter today. The shirt that I am wearing, which a month ago had my belly hanging out, is now much more comfortable. It is a good day to be going to the tailor to be fitted for a few custom dress shirts and pants, and possibly a vest and even a sport jacket. I will not be buying a suit at this time, but the rest I am ready for. I will not spend thousands of dollars at the tailor… but it is likely that I will spend more than $1000. I’ll be sure to take my American credit cards!

    Something that has been weighing on my mind is an issue that I only realized fully the last time I had lost most of my weight. At a certain point, if I do lose all of the weight, I am going to have a lot of excess skin and might need cosmetic surgery to remove it. If I am ever going to have the body that I really want to have, then that is a reality that I am going to have to face. I have been obese since very shortly after I got out of the Army, which is now over twenty-five years ago. It was a nice thought that my skin would bounce back because I was young… I am not so young anymore. I have never liked the idea of cosmetic surgery, but I remember how much of that skin was left – in my belly, in my chest – and I will not want to spend the rest of my life with it. Also, if I do go through that, then maybe I can look at the surgery as a delineation point – WAS fat, AM slim. Maybe that will be the daily reminder of why I cannot eat like I once did.

    I have my check-in meeting with my diet buddy this afternoon. It will be our first meeting in three weeks – she was off traipsing around Yukon… if traipsing is something that one does in the Great White North. According to her words, she needs to debrief. I suspect that while my last couple of weeks have seen me down, she will not have been so successful. That is not uncommon when one is on vacation. I have already decided that when Leslie and I are in Cuba, I will be suspending my diet program. That does not mean that I will not try to eat sensibly, but I will not be taking meal replacements with me. I rather suspect that eating sensibly in the tropics, where fresh fruits and salads make up a good part of the diet, will be easier than eating sensibly north of 60°, where a head of lettuce can cost $20.

    For those of you who are wondering if it would even be possible to stay on my meal-replacements-only program at an all-inclusive resort in Cuba, the answer is yes… and I know that because I have done it. In 2017, when I first went through the program, Eduardo and I spent a week at the Be Live Turquesas resort in Varadero, which is only a couple of kilometres from the resort Leslie and I will be at. I had four meal replacement shakes per day, and whenever someone asked if I wanted a drink, or if I wanted to join them for a snack, I just told them I was recovering from a bit of a stomach bug, and I was taking it easy. I remember the fear when we went into Havana, and I thought that I had forgotten my shakes at the hotel (in Varadero). I was so relieved when I discovered at the restaurant that I had not in fact forgotten them. I do not plan to subject myself – or Leslie – to that stress. I will be eating in Cuba, and when I come back, I will continue from where I left off.

    It is interesting… when I started this journey (again), I was reading my old journals from 2017 and 2019 nearly every day. I stopped doing that after maybe ten days or so… but thinking back on that trip, I decided to open up my first journal. Days 26-34 were spent in Cuba, and I got through it. It is amazing to look back on a trip like that and realize that I lost 3-4 pounds during that week. Okay, it is hard to be precise, because I had only registered my weigh-in six days prior to the trip. The first time I went through the program, I did it through a hospital bariatric clinic, and was not getting onto a bathroom scale. I was only registering my weight when they weighed me. On Day 21 I had lost 33 pounds, and by Day 35 I had lost 41 pounds. For those of you keeping track, I am currently on Day 64, and have not yet lost the full 40 pounds… but I am not on the same strict program that I was on, and I cannot expect to see the same drastic results. Yes, I plan to achieve the same results (minus the long, slow descent back into obesity), but it will take longer.

    Tomorrow morning, I am driving to Montreal for the weekend. I am looking forward to seeing my friends, but I am also looking forward to the relaxing alone time in the car. I will switch off between podcasts and the audiobook that I am listening to (remember when they were called books on tape? I am getting old!) and podcasts, and I will be smoking cigars as I like. I will do my best to not cheat on the program, which means that I will be taking a good number of meal replacement bars with me. Still and all, I know that I cannot follow the program the way I normally would, and I am hoping that when I weigh myself on Tuesday, I will not be more than a pound off from what I weigh tomorrow. Here’s hoping!

    While it is cloudy out, the temperatures are going to 11°c, and the wind does not seem so bad. When I get back from the tailor, I will be enjoying a cigar on the balcony.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 63

    HRF Princess Sophie asked me very politely to take her out at 6:00am. She does not wake me to go out very often, so when she does, I take her seriously. The last time she asked, I was much heavier; it probably took me fifteen minutes to get dressed. This morning, we were out the door in under 6 minutes… and that included time for me to pee. I will chalk that up as a non-scale victory. The times she has awakened me at 3:00am I always go right back to bed. While my alarm does not go off until 7:15am, I decided not to lie back down right away this time. I had a couple of appointments that I needed to reschedule.

    I decided that Friday I am going to drive to Montreal for the weekend. I realized as I was going to sleep last night that the Princess has a vet appointment for Friday, and I have an appointment in the evening. Both were booked online, and so I sat down at the computer to rebook them. My appointment was easy, and I was easily able to create another appointment for tomorrow morning. I will have to wait back from the vet for confirmation, but I cannot see this being a problem.

    Coupled with the early hour, there was a bit of freezing rain when we went out, and Princess did not want to spend more time than was strictly necessary outside, so the walk was a brief one.

    My diet yesterday was again mostly good. I was out and about for a few hours when I realized I was hungry, so I stopped at Bulk Barn and picked up a small handful of peanuts. When I got home, I prepared my dinner – a piece of salmon with lemon juice, salt, pepper, and fresh dill. It was delicious! I have not yet stepped onto the bathroom scale, but I anticipate good things from it.

    I have an appointment to get weighed today, and I am looking forward to being down at least a few kilograms from my last weigh-in two weeks ago. Yes, doctors in Canada use the metric system, which does not bother me at all. In fact, the only reason I use the imperial system for my weight loss is because a full pound lost is less than half a kilo, which does not sound or feel nearly as impressive. In truth, despite the big switch to the metric system in the 1970s, I was always taught pounds rather than kilos, and while I try to get excited about the more sensible metric measurements (where a kilogram is the weight of a litre of water, and not based on a weight found in a Paris vault for hundreds of years), but I confess I still think in pounds. I doubt this will change, but I hope my children will understand kilos better. For the record, I think in kilometres (although I can do the conversion to miles in my head).

    I can already feel it… there will be a nap in my future. I have a couple of errands to run today, but I should be home by noon. The forecast high is only 6°c, and there might be a little wind still. Hopefully my phone appointments will be considerate and work around my need for a mid-afternoon nap. They are restorative, after all!

    I will write more after my weigh-in, but in the meantime, have a great day folks!

  • Day 62

    I should be going to the doctor to get weighed today. In fact, I just decided I will. See you in a bit!

    —

    Okay, I am back… except I did not go to the doctor’s office. I thought to call, and they told me I could only come in this afternoon… at which point it would be too late. Weights fluctuate throughout the day, and I want to stick to getting weighed in the morning. Tomorrow morning, 10:00am.

    I have had a couple of non-scale victories over the last couple of days. Firstly, I am able to close all of the buttons on my spring/autumn jacket! They all pop if I bend down, but one thing at a time. Secondly, I realized this morning (after it was too late to change) that my belt is on its last hole… and is too loose to reliably hold up my pants. This will be the last day that I wear it, and I am happy to be rid of it.

    Yesterday’s food intake was pretty good… I switched up the timing of my second meal – rather than having my dinner in the evening, I had it mid-afternoon, and then had a shake in the evening. I do not think that would have any detrimental effect on my progress. The bathroom scale did register me up by less than half a pound this morning, but that is after several straight days of serious loss. I am not concerned that I am losing momentum, as I know my food intake has been pretty good (despite the handful of peanuts I had from Bulk Barn the other day).

    My plans for the day are to stay the course! I cannot think of any changes I will have to make, and I want to keep up the good work.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 61

    Welcome to a brand-new week! It is going to be a lovely day today, and so when I am not working (and I do have some work to do during the day) I plan to be sitting outside enjoying the sunshine. I heard good news from the wife of my dad’s friend yesterday that he is recovering nicely, and we are all thankful for that.

    Yesterday was another good-food, questionable quantities day. I had more chicken than I should have, but otherwise I ate well. After dinner, I was still a bit peckish; I thought about having a meal replacement bar, but I decided instead to have a glass of water and a cigar on the balcony. One thing I need to always remember – not only during my weight loss, but forever – is that the message from our stomach that we are full can take 20 minutes to reach our brain, and so we might still think we are hungry long after we are satisfied. Remembering that last night worked. I had a meal replacement shake in the mid-evening, and I finished the day well. Oh, I should also mention that I went to Bulk Barn to pick up a few things, and I added a small handful of red-skinned peanuts (unsalted) to my order to nibble in the car. Some of the other things that I bought or could have bought were much worse than that, and I did not feel bad picking up the 20-or-so peanuts.

    Any day that my bathroom scale registers a steep drop (as it did yesterday morning) I expect that it will even out the following day. This morning I stepped onto the scale expecting to see a slight gain, despite being mostly good yesterday. The fact is that yesterday morning I was down nearly 1.5 pounds, and 4 pounds since Thursday. I was extremely happy that I did not give back any of it this morning… I did not lose any more, but I did not gain either. I’ll take it! If I can keep it up, within the next week to ten days I should be able to weigh myself on the doctor’s scale… even with my clothes on!

    I do quite a bit of shopping on Facebook Marketplace, and yesterday I made what many (including myself) would consider the oddest purchase I have ever made online. I bought a clarinet. If you are wondering, the answer is no, I do not play the clarinet. I do, however, have a girlfriend who plays… but I think she has one. Amanda, on the other hand, does not. A couple of weeks ago when I was at their place for dinner, Amanda was lamenting that Cam did not take the hint to buy her one for Christmas… and so I bought her one for her birthday (which was Friday). Yes, I had sent her flowers, but I thought that she would appreciate it… and the jab at my buddy Cam would be a bit of fun.

    My plans for the day are to stick to the program and try to make it through to the end of the day with no cheats. I bought a beautiful cut of salmon for dinner; I usually buy the tail (which is much cheaper), but the middle cut was on sale, so I decided to splurge. I will marinate it in lemon juice with some salt and black pepper, and when it comes out of the air fryer, I will sprinkle it liberally with fresh dill. It should make for a delicious meal, with a generous salad to accompany it.

    Have a great day folks, and enjoy the weather!