Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • Water Water Everywhere…

    Yes, drinking water (and a lot of it) is a crucial part of my new weight loss program. Yesterday morning I went to the kitchen and pulled out a very solid glass beer stein that holds 4 cups (33⅓ oz) of water. It would be perfect for me! Yesterday I filled (and drained) it five times. Today (at 4:30pm) I have already finished four steins and expect to go through a few more before bedtime.

    While the stein is great, it is extremely heavy. It is not surprising, as a vessel engineered and built with the sole purpose of being wielded and clanked together by intoxicated Germans would need to have some heft to it.

    My original thinking was that I was going to buy a plastic water bottle to take with me. I then remembered that I have a few of those, and do not really need another one. However, for sitting around the house (whether I am working or not), I would really like to have something large but more practical. After all, getting up from my desk fifteen times per day to refill a 16oz cup would be distracting… especially knowing that, drinking as much as 160oz in a day, I will already be up to the toilet many more times than usual.

    clip_image002As I have done each time I started the program in the past, I decided to buy something that would be large (64oz) and durable, but also comfortable and practical. I opted for the Under Armour Playmaker 64oz Water Bottle Jug (in Breeze Blue). I like the look of it, and it looks like it will work nicely.

    I did not want something that I needed to unscrew to drink from. As well, I have had a few water bottles that had smaller drink holes, which made it hard to get a good chug (which is how I prefer to drink water, especially when it is mandated that I have to drink as much of it as I do.

    It may sound silly but when you have to focus on drinking a lot of water throughout every day, having an appropriate and comfortable vessel for it is important. I do not want to have to be doing dishes twice a day, I don’t want to be uncomfortable or unhappy with it, and I do not want to be inconvenienced by it. For the next few months, this will be the container that I consume from the most, and while I did not want to spend so much that it would be a luxury item, I also did not just want to buy something that I would be uncomfortable with… or have to settle for.

  • My Weight Loss Goals

    When I originally went through the program, we were given an assignment: what were our weight-loss goals. I do see a few differences from then to now, but here is how I would do it today.

    I have given a lot of thought to this ‘assignment’. There are so many things so many of us want to do, and I am no different. However, I don’t think there is anything I actually gave up because of my weight… just things I have done differently or worse.

    Like so many of us (I assume) the little treats I would usually reward myself with have been food based. ‘When I lose 20lbs I can splurge and eat …’ Well, I decided that if I am going to break my relationship with food, which is my real goal with this program, then doing that would be counterproductive. I think that for me the goals I will set are going to be based chiefly on physical activity.

    When I have lost 20lbs I will be able to wear most (or all) of my shirts without my belly hanging out.
    When I have lost 40lbs I will be out of the 3XL shirts and into my 2XLs… and I will rotate my wardrobe. I won’t need to buy new, but I have a lot of clothes that do not fit in containers which will go onto my shelves… and all of my 3XL stuff will go into containers.
    When I have lost 80lbs I will be jogging again, at least 5 miles per day, at least 4 times per week.
    When I have lost 100lbs I will be changing out my wardrobe again… Goodbye 2XL, hello XL (and the size 40 (0r 38) pants.
    When I have lost 120lbs I will start preparing to run a marathon.
    When I have lost 140lbs I will resume teaching Taekwondo… hopefully in a Size 6 dobok (uniform).
    When I have lost 170lbs I want to take pictures of myself… wearing my Army uniform!

    I want to succeed. I will succeed. I must succeed!

    This entire entry was copied from my previous journal, although I have changed almost all of the goals. What I had written in that journal was that based on the fact that I was living in Southern California, my ultimate goal was to be able to walk down the street shirtless and have women appreciate me, and to go to go to the beach and take off my t-shirt when I walk around in my bathing shorts. Of course, living back in Canada the beaches of Malibu are not just over the hill, and people here are nowhere near as shallow and judgemental as they are in California… but the goal is still a good one!

  • Day 2

    I made it through Day 1! …I think.

    If that sounds hesitant, I’ll explain. I lost track of how many meal replacements I had eaten, and at 10:30pm I had to grab another one. Yes, hard as it might be to believe, I made it through to 10:30pm on 640 calories (plus maybe 75 calories for my coffee with milk and sugar). Had I not been teaching until 11:30pm I likely would have just gone to sleep.

    This morning I do not feel a whole lot different than I did yesterday. I know that it will take a few days for that. In the meantime, I am proud that I was able to make it through Day 1 without cheating. I also drank a lot of water, which is extremely important on the program that I am doing.

    In our chat yesterday, Julie acknowledged that she nearly faltered as well… not because she was hungry, rather because she was cold. She thought about making herself a bowl of soup. As I had, she said to herself that if she is going to cheat, it will not be on Day 1. The discussion that sprang from this was about alternatives to the product that we have chosen to use. In Canada, the company provides two options – chocolate or vanilla shakes. In the US they have those, plus strawberry shakes… and soups (chicken, vegetable, and tomato, although the tomato soup is vile), and protein bars (I am partial to the apple cinnamon bars, although I rather like the chocolate, and do not mind the occasional peanut butter bar).

    I brought up the American product because I thought that it might be worth doing some research to find out if there are equivalent products to the soup in Canada. It does not have to be from the same manufacturer, it only has to have equivalent nutritional value. If so, then she would not have to worry about cheating if she wanted a warm bowl of soup. As the current temperature in Burlington is -18°C (with a wind chill of -26°C) that soup (or anything that might warm us up) would not be a bad idea.

    I am lucky… Among my possessions that were shipped from Canada there were several boxes of the soup, as well as of the bars. It will be some time before I run out and need to buy more. In the meantime, I have reached out to the company I used to buy from to see if they would ship to Canada. In case they do not (or in the event the price would be too high), Julie has found a number of sources where we can buy the products in Canada… just not the soups or the bars.

    It is cold outside, so I do not plan to go out until it is time to collect my friends from the airport (a commitment I made last week and am happy to do). Their plane is scheduled to land at 9:30pm, by which point the mercury will have risen to an almost balmy (sic) -12°. If it were 5-8 degrees warmer, I would sit in the airport’s cell phone waiting lot and smoke a cigar until they cleared customs. As it is, I doubt I will leave that early to get there. The only thing I have to remember to do is to pick up a carton of milk, lest I have to drink my coffee black in the morning.

    Who’s That Mucking About in the Kitchen?

    As I read through the intro pages to my journal from my last attempt at this program, I was reminded of a few differences between the two previous attempts that made a difference.

    One of the major differences was that in 2017 I was living alone, and in 2019 (at the outset of the program) I was not. It made a huge difference. When I started in 2017, I emptied my kitchen of everything. All of the food, even the spices were removed from my apartment. There were no temptations… and there was nobody eating around me (and causing temptation). I was also not in a relationship, so there was no temptation (or reason) to sit with anyone who was eating.

    When I started the program in 2019, I was living with Liza, and while she understood at (or said she did) that I was not going to sit with her while she ate her meals, that did not last long. I had to sit with her. When she made a Sabbath meal, she expected me to at least say the blessing on the bread (bread is strictly forbidden on this program), and usually eat something. She never accepted that I did not want to veer, and the fact that I did on a particular day was not a sign that I would want to cheat either later that day or the following day. Quite the contrary, actually… if I cheated on a meal, I would want to get right back onto the program… but she did not understand or accept that.

    The fact that Liza was also morbidly obese made things difficult for me… any time I tried to talk to her about trying to join me on the program was met with… well, about exactly the reaction you would expect from a woman when you point out that she might be happy to lose a few pounds.

    Needless to say, between the woman I was living with eating (and pressuring me to eat), and the fact that there was always a kitchen full of food, it was a challenge to succeed. In truth, I was much more successful on the program once I moved out of her house and into my own apartment, where I was once again able to maintain a mostly empty kitchen.

    This time around, I am once again living alone. While I did not completely empty my pantries and refrigerator, I did get rid of anything that was perishable, or fattening. The spices and hot sauces will keep, as will the jars of whatever is in jars. Wednesday evening my friend (a professional chef) was over, and I went through both my shelves and my fridge and gave him a huge bag of groceries that I will not need. Next week my cleaning lady will go through the pantry to clean the shelves (there have been a number of spills in there), and once that is done, I am considering sealing the doors. Maybe that would be a bit extreme, but we will see.

    Over the next few months, I hope to see a tremendous (and positive) transformation of my body. I will do my best to do what I can to make that happen… and if that means throwing all of the food out of my pantry or sealing them shut then I will do that. I don’t think it will come to that. I am highly motivated, and plan to succeed!

  • Day 1, Middle of the Day (4:00pm)

    So far, so good. It may sound like a false brag that less than 9 hours after I woke up, I have not yet broken my diet, but for those of you who have tried to start (and failed) you will know that even getting going is a huge step.

    After walking Princess Sophie this morning, I had my first shake and a couple of cups of coffee. By the time 1pm rolled around it was actually 2.5 cups of coffee, which is how much my coffee machine makes when set to the half pot setting. Around 1pm I had my second meal replacement (this time a bowl of soup). About half an hour ago I had my third meal replacement (a protein bar). I admit, I am still a wee bit peckish now, but I will endure. Knowing me, I will eventually be breaking the diet, or making exceptions for this or that… but it will not be on Day 1.

    Unlike the other times I embarked upon this journey, I am doing it this time without any medical help. I did tell my doctor that I would be doing it, and he encouraged me to do so. He is a general practitioner, and not a bariatric specialist. In fact, when I asked if he could get the meal replacements that are prescribed in the program, he told me he was not even familiar with them.

    I mention this because unlike the other times I have gone through the program, there are a lot of things that I am going to have to try to remember myself. The first one of these is that drinking huge amounts of water throughout the day not only helps to dissipate hunger pangs, it also helps flush your system and increases the rate of weight loss. And so, I will be drinking a lot of water, and in fact I have already started. I have a stein that I measured to hold exactly 4 cups of water. When I woke up, it was about half full. I drained it upon returning from Princess Sophie’s first walk. I then measured it to establish it was indeed 4 cups and have filled it twice so far. It will sit on my desk, and I will go through it at a pretty fair clip. I will make it my goal to drink 16-20 cups of water per day. This, of course, means that I am going to spend a great deal of time running to the toilet. As I am working from home (and not going out very much) this will not be an issue, except that I will have to warn my students that it is to be expected.

    What else would I be reminded of by the doctors? I don’t remember. However, I do have the old journals that I kept during my previous two attempts at this program. Each one is a few hundred pages long, organized chronologically. I intend to read each day of the diary I kept two years ago, which will tell me on each day what I learned, as well as what I was thinking and feeling at the time.

    Dieting is not fun, but neither is being fat. At least with this program (and with my program buddy) I might stand a chance at being successful.

  • How Am I?

    It is important when embarking on a weight-loss journey to remember that while numbers on a scale are a sign of weight loss, they are only one of many signs of real improvement. As such, I want to take a few moments to discuss my current state of wellness, fitness, and being so that, over time, I can measure the real successes I hope to achieve.

    In November (two months ago yesterday, to be precise) I broke my ankle, and at the same time I wrenched my knee. While I do not know to what extent my weight caused the actual injury, I am certain that the healing time – especially of my knee – has taken much longer than it might have had I been slimmer. The injury also prevented me from walking (even walking my dog) for six weeks, and so whatever momentum I might have had was lost. In short, I feel like a lump. More on that in a bit.

    I do not remember how it was before my injury, but right now it is hard to stand up. I don’t mean that once I am up I have issues, but getting up – whether it be from bed or from a chair – is quite difficult. Sometimes it is painful on my knee, sometimes it is just that I feel like I am lifting a weight that is too heavy. How appropriate, right? I am indeed too heavy.

    I feel sluggish all the time. I never have enough energy to get through the day. I am always tired, but at the same time I never sleep well. I find I am taking more naps during the day than I ever did before.

    Clothes

    My clothes are disgusting. I don’t mean they are not stylish or torn or anything… they are just too big, and at that, even some of my fattest clothes do not fit properly.

    When I relocated from California back to Canada, I had friends pack up and ship everything from my apartment. Fortunately, they did not use the discretion I gave them to throw out the huge bag of ‘fat clothes’ that I had put aside to donate but never had. They literally shipped all of the clothes that I had gone through ranging from my fattest to my slimmest – at the time a range of 105lbs. That means that, with regard to pants (as an example), I have pants ranging in size from 44 to 36. That is a huge range! I also have Size 44 pants that I cannot wear – different pants are cut differently of course, and the pants with either a slightly slimmer cut, or those that do not have any give/stretch in the waist do not currently fit me.

    When I was my heaviest before, I was usually wearing shirts that were a size 3XL. As I lost most of the weight the last time, I was so excited that I was wearing XL shirts. None of those XL shirts come close to fitting right now… and I even have some 3XL shirts that do not fit. I refuse to order anything larger. The result is that a lot of the time my belly is hanging out of my shirt – the number one sign that someone is fat and has probably given up. I have in fact not given up… I just refuse to buy larger clothes for fear that if I get comfortable in them, I won’t start to diet.

    Yes, every day that I get dressed I am not only uncomfortable with my clothes, I am outright disgusted by them. I suppose I was hoping that having to wear shirts that made my belly hang out would help force me to diet. It took a couple of months, but that was certainly a big contributing factor to it.

    As the weather in Canada got cooler as winter approached, I was more than a little distraught to realize that my 3XL winter jacket was too tight to zip up. I had to order a new 4XL jacket. And yes, when I say ‘had to order’ I mean that I went to the Columbia outlet shop in Niagara to try on jackets, only to discover that the largest size they carried was a 3XL… which did not fit me. Let’s put aside for the moment that I had to buy a 4XL anything, it also cost me over $300… and if you have never endured a Canadian winter let me assure you that it was not a luxury.

    General Well-Being

    I am out of breath nearly constantly. I don’t mean that I am sitting at my desk wheezing… but if I get up to go do something, I am breathing hard, and would need a few minutes at rest for my breathing (and I suppose my heart rate) to return to normal. I would assume that my heartrate is higher, even at rest.

    I do not remember it being this difficult before my ankle and knee injury, but it is difficult to put my shoes and socks on. Additionally, it is much more difficult to pick up after Princess Sophie – I suppose before my injury I wouldn’t have had as much of a problem, but now that I am favouring a knee that is in nearly constant pain, I know that bending down (around an overly large belly, and on one bad and two stiff knees) is difficult. Yes, I am still picking up after her… I’m just saying that it is much harder than it used to be.

    It is hard to get comfortable to go to sleep. That is a combination of the extremely obese upper body, and a knee that is painful (and for some reason in more pain when lying down than when sitting or standing up… or even than walking).

    Embarrassing Stuff

    I wrote a whole section on this, but have decided that I will not share it with the world. While I am sure some of you are saddened that you are not getting the juicy details, let me reassure you that the 450 words cut from here are none of your business!

    Conclusion

    As I go through the next few days, I have no doubt that I will think of other things that I should add to this list, and I will do so. Really, it is not much more complicated than this: I feel neither healthy nor good being morbidly obese. I am embarrassed, I am uncomfortable. I have trouble walking as I used to, I have trouble lifting my legs to get in and out of the shower. I hate that my clothes do not fit and am more than mildly embarrassed to have huge tubs filled with clothes that will not fit at all until I have lost weight. Carrying the weight around – even in a sitting position – tires me out.

    It is time to lose the weight – all of it. Let’s go.

  • Day 1: Welcome To The Extreme!

    Welcome to my extreme diet program. This is my third kick at the can with this particular diet, and I have twice lost nearly or just over 100lbs. That tells me that it works… it says nothing about the sustainability of the weight loss. That will be another struggle, and I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

    Where to start? In October an online friend and I were chatting. She and I have both done the same weight loss program before, and we decided that we were going to do it again… together. First, we were going to wait for Canadian Thanksgiving to pass… and then I had a friend coming into town for a week… and then and then and then. We never started.

    Earlier this week (the third week of January 2022) she reached out to me and said that she was starting, and did I want to join her. In fact, she beat me to the punch… I was at my heaviest weight ever, and completely disgusted with myself. She and I got onto the phone to discuss the plan. I did a quick calculation of the food I had in the house and said, ‘Let’s start Thursday.’

    Over the course of the next few days, I ate most of the food that I had in the house. Unlike the previous times I had started this extreme program, I did not really have a ‘food funeral.’ I did not go out to eat much (I did have a fast-food lunch the last day before starting, but that was less out of desire and more out of expedience. With the exception of one chicken quarter and one package of extra-lean ground beef, I finished the poultry and meats from my freezer. Most of the snacks were eaten. Wednesday afternoon a friend was over, and as he sat in my kitchen I went through my fridge and my pantry, giving him a huge bag of all manner of foods that I did not want to have in the house (and things that would spoil). I had enough left over for dinner and snacks for that night… and that was about it.

    Julie and I had been discussing this morning in terms of ‘getting onto the scale.’ For her, knowing that she is also at her highest weight, that was her biggest fear. She was worried that she would see the numbers, get depressed, and start eating. I told her to change how she looks at it. When she steps onto the scale, she should write the number down… and vow that she will never be that heavy again. Stick to the program and see how far below that number you can get in a week… in a month. I told her that unfortunately bathroom scales, when you are as close to the upper limit of what the scale maximum is, might not give a proper measurement, and whatever number I marked down might be an approximation.

    Thursday morning, I woke up and did my regular routine… except that before I got into the shower I got onto the scale and registered my highest weight ever. I took out the measuring tape and measured around my belly, chest, and under my belly fat. All of the numbers were way too high. All of those numbers would start going down.

    After I took Princess Sophie for her walk, I made a pot of coffee, and my first meal-replacement shake of the day. Whereas yesterday morning I had a large omelet with salami and onions with a few slices of toast (approximately 1,000 calories), this morning I had a protein shake – exactly 160 calories. If I am able to maintain the program, my daily caloric intake will be less than yesterday’s breakfast.

    (Julie and I agreed that the one violation of the program that we were not going to sacrifice would be our coffee… although instead of her half-and-half cream, she would try skim milk (as I already use), and I would (for now) stick to the half-teaspoon of raw sugar I usually use, although in time I will likely switch that to sweetener. Two cups of coffee per day would add about 50 calories to our total.)

    There are so many things that I want to say, but I am going to save them for a later entry. I will say this: This morning I registered the domain name losingapartof.me and added it to my blog. More accurately, I added it to my weight loss blog, a page that I started in October 2014, and which has laid dormant since March 2015. I am not clearing out the 22 posts that are still there from way back when, but I am going to start posting these entries there daily. My blog posts will be somewhat stripped, compared to what I write in my unabridged weight loss diary. I do not plan to share my weight or measurements with the public… although I will gladly share how much I lose week-over-week, and in total.

    Today is January 22, and it is Day 1 of my new weight loss plan. I have to succeed… there is no way I can continue being morbidly obese and not eventually face terrible consequences to my health. Wish me luck!