Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • 2026 Day 23

    First and foremost… it is bone-chillingly cold out there. Princess Sophie begrudgingly went out for a very quick pee, and then turned right around and headed inside to the warmth and comfort of our neighbour’s couch. Even with her pretty sweater she was having none of it. The fact that I have to go out – and to downtown Toronto no less – fills me with dread. My original plan was to take a relaxed train ride into the city, but with this cold I checked and there is plenty of indoor parking at my destination, and so I will go by car. Aside from the cold, there is a security issue as well. I am picking up sensitive documents that I cannot lose for any reason, and the chances of having my backpack stolen on the train are greater than if I got safely into my car.

    My weight was down nearly another pound this morning, which means that I have dropped 17.8 lbs. since my Day 1 (despite the week of falling off the wagon), and 20 lbs. even since I saw my doctor in November, which puts my weight loss since then at just over nine kilos… and one kilogram away from fulfilling my promise when I see her on Monday. I will be very happy if I can achieve that, despite how disappointed I am with myself knowing how much better I could have done. Those damned stressors and anxieties.

    After two pretty bad nights, I slept well last night. In fact, compared to the previous nights, I slept like a baby!

    • Sleep score: 82 (Good)
    • Duration: 6h39m (Fair)
    • Stress: 14 avg (Good)
    • Deep: 1h15m (Excellent)
    • Light: 4h05m (Good)
    • REM: 1h19m (Fair)
    • Awake/Restlessness: 6m, 30 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    At some point in the middle of the night Her Floofness woke me up because she wanted a drink, and I took that as an opportunity to pee. I had an alarm set for 6:15am because of my planned foray into Toronto, so my sleep really was time limited. With all that, I know that any night I do not turn off the lights before 11:45pm will not be excellent… but I’ll take it.

    At this point I am just procrastinating. I do not want to leave the house before 9am to avoid the worst of the traffic, but at the same time I do not want to leave so late that my return would inhibit productivity this afternoon. I have a lot to get done, and I want to get it done!

    Have a great day folks!

  • 2026 Day 22

    After a full day of sticking to the program religiously, my weight this morning dropped ever so slightly below the previous best measurement of the year. It was only .4 lb. lower than yesterday’s reading, but if you read yesterday’s post you might recall that I was unsure of the veracity of that one. Today’s weigh-in, at 7:43am, was exactly within the sweet spot of when I usually aim for, and so I can trust it… at least, I can trust it as much as I would any reading on this scale and on this floor.

    As of this morning, I have lost 17 lbs. in the three weeks since I restarted started the program (with several days of falling). Possibly more important is that I have dropped 19.2 lbs. since the morning of November 28, or 8.7 kg. That date is relevant because the previous afternoon I saw my doctor and promised her that I would lose 10 kg by the time I saw her again… which is Monday next. While it would be nice to lose that last 1.3 kg by then, and if I stick to my program that should be realistic, I nonetheless expect that even if I do not, she will not be upset with an 8.7 kg drop. In truth, had it not been for a deadly combination of the holidays and some extremely stressful situations then I likely would be a lot further along. As it stands, I hope to be able to walk into her office at the weight I promised I would try to hit by then.

    Yes, those stressors can be deadly. Speaking with one of my diet buddies last night we discussed stress, and stress eating. As a school teacher she had to deal with a very unruly parent, and came home to stress eat.

    ** Writer’s Note: I obviously got distracted at this point. It was a very busy and stressful day, and I never got back to the article. Ooops!

  • 2026 Day 21

    I was sleeping quite well until I wasn’t. My eyes popped open at 4:45am, and there was absolutely nothing that I could do to close them again. I finally gave up and decided to start my day around 6:00am, although I never did end up getting out of bed. I was tired enough that I guess I was hoping beyond hope that I would be able to nod off again. I eventually did nod off for a couple more hours of sleep… but the damage was done. I hope I am able to make it through this day (and especially my class this evening) without falling asleep!

    • Sleep score: 45 (Poor)
    • Duration: 4h01m (Poor)
    • Stress: 29 avg (Average)
    • Deep: 1h33m (Excellent)
    • Light: 2h20m (Excellent)
    • REM:8m (Poor)
    • Awake/Restlessness: 7m, 17 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    I did not expect my weight to be down this morning for a number of reasons… and for one other reason I am not putting a lot of stock in the reading I got.

    Reason #1: I ran some errands yesterday and decided to pick up some peanuts. My former habit, when I was on the program but adding peanuts to it, was to buy a single (mostly) measured serving. That way I knew what I had, and I did not have to worry about willpower to stick to the proper amount. These last few times I have bought them I bought two or three servings; I knew that I would keep them in the car, and I have not been doing a lot of driving, so it would be okay. Yesterday’s errands had me in motion for a couple of hours, by the end of which the two servings of peanuts were gone. I was back home by 4pm, having consumed two meal replacements and two helpings of peanuts already. I decided that I would not eat anything else for the rest of the day. Despite my going to a buddy’s house to smoke cigars and watch the hockey, I stuck to that plan.

    Reason #2: Getting a good nights sleep is so important to weight loss, and I did not get that last night.

    Reason I don’t put stock in the reading: I usually weigh myself between 6:30am and 9:00am. This morning I weighed myself shortly after 11am. I know that my weight fluctuates throughout the day, which is why I weigh myself (when I can) at around the same every day. The lateness of my date with the bathroom scale makes me wonder how much it might have fluctuated. I hope this evening I will be able to sleep well, and that I will be able to trust the measurement tomorrow morning… as much as I can trust the questionable scale on the unsteady floor.

    There is a lot going on with regard to one particular part of my life which has been throwing my emotions asunder these last few days – and really since mid-December. I have not and will not discuss it until everything is signed and sealed and finished… but I will say two things about it: 1) One of the reasons it has been so difficult for me to get back on the program and stick to it – both in December and January – is because of this. It is absolutely life-changing, and it is the hopeful culmination of a very long process. 2) The fact that these last few days the worst that I have done on my program is a few extra peanuts, knowing what is going on, is a complete shock.

    All of this to say that my weight this morning was indeed down by 1.4 lbs., which puts me just .2 lb. above the best weight I have had this month, which was the morning before I stepped onto my scale to see a 5 lbs. gain from the previous day (a day during which I had been good and stuck to the program). Since that day I have gone up and down within about a six-pound range. This includes my ‘bender’ which began when I fell off the wagon and gained five pounds in one day thanks to General Tao and his army of fried Chinese foods, and lasted through my getting back onto the program this past Sunday morning. As far as benders go… the fallout from this one was not too bad.

    While I still have enough to last me another week or so, my diet buddy is running low and so I placed an order for more meal replacements yesterday. I should be okay through mid-February at this point.

    I am teaching this evening, but let’s see if I can get a couple of hours of productive work done between now and then.

    Have a great day!

  • 2026 Day 20

    When my bathroom scale is obviously wrong, or even slightly in doubt, I step off reset it, and then I reweigh myself. I then delete the incorrect reading and go about my day. This morning was an exception. I do not know what forces collided to show me a reading that I was fourteen pounds down from yesterday. There is hope, there is optimism, and there is the realm of complete impossibility. I reset the scale… but I kept that other reading. How sweet that would have been indeed… and I know I was strict on my diet program yesterday and I know that I had another decent bowel movement this morning… but no, I am not living in a fantasy land where two days of dieting can shed seventeen pounds. After resetting the bathroom scale I was indeed down… by 1.8 lbs., not by the weight of a small dog.

    After a few days of terrible slipping I am back to 15.2 lbs. down from the day I started. I know I have nothing to complain about with that kind of loss in less than three weeks, but at the same time I know that I could have been so much farther along with my progress had I not fallen off the wagon. I have to stay true to the program and keep losing… otherwise I will never be slim again. I simply have to redouble my efforts and not let myself fall off again.

    I slept very well last night. After my class was over I was in bed at a reasonable hour, and after watching one episode of a show I am binging I was turned out the lights around 11:30, and was asleep by 11:45. I slept until nearly 7:40am!

    • Sleep score: 93 (Excellent)
    • Duration: 7h48m (Excellent)
    • Stress: 14 avg (Good)
    • Deep: 1h51m (Excellent)
    • Light: 4h23m (Excellent)
    • REM: 1h34m (Fair)
    • Awake/Restlessness: 7m, 31 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    I am not going to complain about any of that. I would love to know how one could adjust these things… it seems to me that they are nothing that I can control. I suppose if they are good more often than bad then I’m satisfied.

    I must have forgotten to press PUBLISH twice after writing this. oops!

  • 2026 Day 19

    I was good on my diet yesterday. It doesn’t hurt that the worst winter storm of the year hit us and that we were hit with 18″ (46cm) with driving winds which drove the the already unpleasant -10° temperature to feel like -25°. You can be darned sure that I was not spending any more time outside than I needed to… and I was not going to order food in because I am sure I will falter but it will not be on Day 1!

    I am not disappointed with the 3 lbs. drop in weight from yesterday morning. That is the sort of drastic day one drop that I am used to. What I was disappointed with was the fact that after I weighed myself, I then had another (quite successful) bowel movement, and when I decided to weigh myself again my weight was up .2 lb. from twenty minutes before. This is not the first time I have experienced that, and I am not sure whether to chalk it up to the bad floors and cheap bathroom scale… or possibly a weird phenomenon that can cause one who eliminates over a pound of waste can immediate gain weight from the oxygen that takes its place in the body. I can joke about it, but I will not give it a lot of thought.

    My sleep score was a 78 last night. Not bad, just not great. It’s my fault for turning on a movie that was much longer than I’d expected when I got into bed.

    Owing partly to the weather, yesterday was another very productive day on the project I am working on. I am extremely late on my deliveries, but I have dedicated myself to getting it done and having the entire project completed, submitted, and billed for by the end of February… if not sooner. I think that is a realistic goal. It would be much sooner than that, but I have to wait on other people to check and edit my written work before I can produce the videos for it. As long as that is done in good time then I am optimistic that can be pushed up by several weeks. I have more work to do on it today and will get to it right now… as soon as I am done procrastinating by writing this journal entry.

    My car is covered in more than a foot of snow and I have no intentions of digging it out today, which is to say that I actually might do that but I will not be driving anywhere. I have no need to go anywhere until Wednesday. If the weather were not so terrible (we will not be entirely dug out today or tomorrow) I would have gone to a memorial ceremony tomorrow evening, but even if the roads are clear the parking will be impossible. No, Wednesday is good for me. I need to get a few errands done and then I will collect my cleaning lady from the train station. The apartment is looong overdue for her visit.

    All that to say that I will be good today on my weight loss program.

    Have a great day folks.

  • 2026 Day 18… or maybe Day 1?

    Alright it is not really Day 1 again… I am still more than ten pounds down from where I started. Of the seventeen days since I restarted, I think I fell off the wagon four days. This is not a restart, it is just ‘getting myself back up after a slight fall.’

    I was disappointed by the bathroom scale this morning, but not surprised. I am reasonably sure that had I re-weighed myself after my second (and much more successful) bowel movement after taking Her Royal Floofness for her walk, I would have liked the reading better… but the higher reading from today will allow me to see a better result tomorrow morning after my first full day back on the program. The little ‘cheats’ to encourage positive behaviours that I use are amusing sometimes.

    My sleep was not nearly as good as the previous night, but it was still pretty decent. The stats:

    • Sleep score: 81 (Good)
    • Duration: 7h11m (Good)
    • Stress: 20 avg (Fair)
    • Deep: 1h05m (Fair)
    • Light: 4h52m (Fair)
    • REM: 1h15m (Fair)
    • Awake/Restlessness: 9m, 36 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    Considering I was up (in bed but watching a movie) until 1:45am, I think the 81 is a win. I honestly expected much worse.

    The weather today is quite conducive to not leaving my apartment, except to take Princess Sophie out a couple of times. Really cold, snowy, and windy are not a good combination for being outside. I have a lot of work to catch up on and I plan on working on that today. I also plan on sticking to my program for my weight loss – meal replacements, coffee, and water only.

    I also plan on calling my new diet buddy, who also lost someone close to her this week and who also fell off the wagon and is resetting today. We are going to encourage each other to try to do better.

    Have a great day folks!

  • 2026 Day 17

    I woke up today a whole new man. What a difference a good night sleep makes! According to Garmin:

    • Sleep score: 91 (Excellent)
    • Duration: 8h57m (Excellent)
    • Stress: 15 avg (Good)
    • Deep: 1h21m (Fair)
    • Light: 5h41m (Good)
    • REM: 1h55m (Good)
    • Awake/Restlessness: 4m, 37 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    I suspect that I was probably asleep earlier than that, but I am not going to complain. I woke up at 7:00am to pee, and then rather than staying up (as I usually would at 7:00am) I got back into bed and slept another 95 minutes. Princess Sophie did not mind at all… and after the week I had, I really needed it!

    I did not eat well this week, which started with my Day 13 Chinese Food debacle. The following day I ordered Shawarma… a better choice than General Tao Chicken to be sure, but still a terrible aberration from what anyone who is trying to lose weight should be eating. I weighed myself that afternoon and was five pounds up from the previous day! I thought that with eating the rest of the week (including that shawarma dinner later that evening) my weight would be a little bit up from there this morning, but in fact it was down… albeit by just over one pound. Progress is progress, and what is important is that I get back on track. I have enough chicken left to make one more meal which will be this afternoon, and as of tomorrow I will be back on my meal replacements only for the foreseeable future. I have to continue to lose.

    The one upside to eating this week is that I have had a number of healthy bowel movements. As much of a relief as those may be, I would rather see my relief on the bathroom scale… and eventually in how my clothes fit me.

    Have a great weekend folks!

  • 2026 Day 16

    My overnight class is over. What a relief.

    Yesterday afternoon, as I said I would, I went to the supermarket and picked up some healthy protein. I probably ate too much of it last night, but it was still healthier than the crap I had eaten the previous two nights.

    I am about to start my evening class and am glad I got through the week. GROAN!

  • 2026 Day 15

    I lay in bed a few hours ago trying to take a nap before class, and I was thinking about how to open this journal entry. I spent several minutes bandying about the opening sentence of, “I followed some really bad advice yesterday, and because of that I find myself in a bad spot.”

    I was tossing and turning as I thought about that. I do not think I was able to relax and get some sleep until I realized how unfair that statement was. The advice was essentially that with my schedule this week I should not be restricting myself to 900 calories if my body was not reacting well to it, and that I should get some healthy protein to get through the week, and resume on the strict program over the weekend. What I did with that was turn it into ‘Well, I am teaching until after 9:00pm, and then I need to take Sophie for a walk, and the supermarket will already be closed anyways, so I will order food in…and as long as it is somewhat healthier than the Chinese food that I had ordered the night before then I could feel good about myself.’ I knew as I ordered the shawarma plate that it was not as bad for my diet as Chinese food… but there is a gaping chasm between not as bad… and good. That was on me, and not on anyone else.

    By saying that it was bad advice I was trying to pass the blame onto my diet buddy for my not sticking to my program. It was absolutely not her fault, it was mine. Had I followed her advice then I would have gone to the store, picked up a piece of fish or beef or chicken, and cooked it healthily at home. That would have been the smart thing to do, and I will probably do that today. Her advice was good; the way I (mis)interpreted was terrible, and is on me.

    I am definitely having trouble getting through this week, but honestly if I was only working then I would be fine. The fact that I had to take my car to the shop on Tuesday took 2-3 hours of possible sleep away from me (not to mention that Her Floofness got me out of bed early because she needed to go outside). Wednesday afternoon I could have slept right up until it was time for me to start teaching my evening class… except I had to set my alarm to go pick up my car before the shop closed, which deprived me of another 90 minutes of sleep. Between my evening class and my overnight class I should have been able to get three solid hours of sleep… but I had some work I needed to get done for another project before midnight, and I ordered food, and so I ended up getting 45 minutes of sleep. The lesson learned for the next time I have this kind of schedule is to go completely offline for the week except for my teaching.

    I know that I should not be weighing myself at unusual times and expecting good results. I stepped onto the scale at 4:20 (before I went to get my car) and was up by 5 lbs. – partly due to the time of day, but also because I ate extremely salty and fried Chinese food the previous evening. I have nobody to blame but myself.

    It has been a rough week, but I will take the necessary steps today to ease myself back into good habits. I will pick up some healthy proteins so that I do not order in. Saturday I will resume my program and I will get myself back on track.

  • 2026 Day 14

    I fell head-first off the wagon yesterday. To begin with, and as a very minor issue, I finished the peanuts that were in my car as I drove it to the mechanic. I then came home and slept as much as five hours before my gorgeous bedmate woke me up and told me that she needed to go out for a walk. According to my fitness watch I actually slept from 1:45pm until 6:35pm, most of the time quite deeply.

    Even as I was driven home from the mechanic’s (more on that in a minute) I was thinking about cheating on my diet. I would need to order something in though if I did… I would not have a car, and it was far too cold to even walk to the supermarket or pub on the corner. I came into the house and essentially got right into bed… although I would not sleep for another hour or so. With one brief phone call disturbance I slept until I woke up.

    I did not realize I was in trouble until 8:00pm when I stood up from what I was doing; I felt dizzy and light-headed. and nearly fell. I knew I needed sustenance, and I did something really stupid – I ordered Chinese food. What an utterly stupid thing to do. A large soup, a vegetarian egg roll, and General Tao chicken. Deep fried, fattening as hell, and replete with sodium. Ugh. I did not weigh myself before I got dressed to teach, but I will get back on the scale tonight or tomorrow.

    I took my car in yesterday. He had told me that the diagnosis might take 30 or 90 minutes. As soon as I got there I asked the owner if I could leave it there and he could call me with the diagnosis. He drove me home and promised he would call. I was in bed five minutes after getting in. I tried to stay awake because I thought he would call, but I couldn’t stay awake. He called a few hours later, we spoke, and I went back to sleep. Before I go to sleep today, I will call to see if the car will be ready today. I do not need it, and if he wants to keep it until tomorrow that would be fine. If he wants me to pick it up this afternoon, then I will ask if I can come right before he closes. Yes, I would have to contend with traffic… but as I write this paragraph I know I have four more hours of work, and I would love to go to sleep in four hours and five minutes.

    Fall down seven times, get up eight. My goal for today is to make it through the rest of my class without falling asleep… and then getting back on my diet.

    Have a great day folks.