Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • Day 1020

    The whole thing about being stopped up is getting kinda boring. I was able to have a small yet painful movement yesterday afternoon, but it did not help much. I am at the point where I did not even bother trying this morning. My weight is up .2 lb. from yesterday and I suspect it will not start dropping until I can finally get past this… blockage. I added a couple of teaspoons of fibre to my meal replacement shake yesterday, and I will do the same today. Hopefully sometime in the next day or two my system can start to get back to normal.

    While I did not get out to exercise yesterday, my walking with Princess Sophie, combined with my visit to the supermarket, brought my steps total to a respectable 8,600. I do not know if it will get that high today, but we will see. My sleep score was 74… not bad, not great.

    I will report that because I had a pretty bad headache for most of yesterday afternoon I did not, as I had planned, opt for the meal replacement in the evening. I prepared a meal of chicken and salad, and then after eating I took Her Floofness out for a walk.

    It is a beautiful day, but I am going to be in class all day (until nearly 9:00pm). Depending on how I feel then, I might be able to sit on the balcony with a cigar… but we will see.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1019

    My weight was up this morning by more than a pound. As we know, yesterday was a travel day and airports are not conducive to good eating. After Leslie and her son dropped me off I got through the security checkpoint and then found a pub where I could safely get a plate of fish and chips – not great for my diet, but safe for my dietary restrictions. I then boarded the plane with a bag of almonds and cashews which I had picked up earlier in the week. All in all, I did not eat terribly. The problem is that I am still backed up! I am hoping that sometime today that will begin to pass. If not, then I am thinking I might want to take a laxative, or at the very least some fibre. We will see how the day goes.

    My sleep score dropped down to a 67 this morning. I am not surprised because I got into the apartment very late last night, and after greeting Her Royal Floofness I did some unpacking (I wanted to make sure that all of my cigars were properly stored in my humidor), and then did not really get to sleep until 1:30am or so. Despite that I did not sleep in… I was awake around 7:15am as usual, and probably tumbled out of bed around 7:30am. I dove into my usual morning routine, including taking the Princess for her walk, and the day went from there. Hopefully I will sleep better this evening… we’ll see.

    I am auditing a class this week that is set in the Pacific time zone which means I’ll be learning from noon until 8:30pm… a bit of an offset from the norm, but not terrible. I will not be adjusting my wake/sleep schedule at all, but I will adjust my eating as necessary. It is now 1:30pm and I just had my lunch… which for the first time in a long time consisted of a meal replacement shake. Yes, per what I wrote several hours ago in the previous paragraph, I added fibre to it. I will be preparing a full meal for dinner, which I will prepare for the mid-class break (around 3:00pm local time). I will likely have another meal replacement after class (around 8:30pm) but that is all I plan to eat today.

    I went shopping this morning and despite all of the temptations I was true to my plans… I bought milk (despite the expiry date the milk in my fridge had turned), eggs, and vegetables for salad. Nothing more. I was tempted by so many things… and bought none of them. It is a small victory because I will have to do this again and again every time I shop. I know that sometimes I will fail, but I will try to succeed more often. As a simple example, I looked at the bakery section… and walked by. Yes, I like to have a fresh roll with my breakfast, but I was strong and did not buy them… today. I will have to continue to be strong.

    I suppose I should be paying closer attention to my class so I will close here. See you all tomorrow folks!

  • Day 1018

    There is nothing impressive or noteworthy about a .2 lb. drop… except that did absolutely no activity yesterday, I did not eat particularly well (although I also did not eat particularly badly), and have still not been able to move my bowels these last three days. Down is better than up.

    Yesterday morning I ate a bowl of breakfast cereal instead of my usual omelette. For lunch we ordered sandwiches from Panera; I was good and ordered a vegetarian sandwich and opted for the side of fruit instead of the bag of chips. For dinner Leslie made an angel hair pasta with non-meatballs in a tomato sauce. The pasta she explained were chickpea noodles which I had never heard of, but which tasted just like regular pasta. Other than all of that, the only snacking that I did was I ate half of an apple (a very large apple). The result is that down by .2 is better than up.

    I had another good night’s sleep last night, although (according to my fitness watch) nowhere near as good as the previous night. Anytime I wake up and see a sleep score over 80 I am thrilled… this morning it was 86. My body battery only crept up to a 73, but that is still better than it could have been.

    Today is a travel day, but not until this evening. Yes, my flight only leaves at 6:30pm, which means I have the entire day with my wife and stepson . I will just have to watch what I eat until I get onto the airplane. Well, I suppose I have to be careful on the airplane as well. I bought some almonds and some cashews to snack on if I get hungry. I hope that once I get through security at the airport I can sit down and have a salad for dinner, but I do not know what the timing will be like.

    It is currently 25° in Dallas… and 9° in Burlington. Fortunately the weather will be good to me the next few days, but I am resigned to the fact that we are well into autumn, and that the temperatures in Canada will be dropping substantially. What can you do, right?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1017

    For the second time I messed up when I tried to download my data from my bathroom scale app. Drat. Oh well, I’ll live. At least I know that my weight was down one pound this morning from yesterday, despite not successfully moving my bowels. I am happy with the weight drop, although somewhat less pleased that my system is stopped up again.

    I set out yesterday to top 40km walking since Sunday, which meant that I needed to walk about 7.2km. I did not start out smart, only realizing after I was a kilometre from home that I had not brought a water bottle with me. Doh! Fortunately I am able to use my mobile phone as a credit card, and so at around the halfway point of my journey (along the DNT, where I would be turning back) I stopped off and picked up a couple of bottles of water. The 7.32km walk brought my total for the week to 40.15km. I will call that a definite success.

    Speaking of successes: I cannot find where I had written it, or maybe I just thought it and did not write it in my journal, but I did write that I was disappointed in myself for not dropping below the terrible 300 lbs. mark before this trip, and I remember thinking that I would love to drop at least a couple of pounds while I was here. The trip is not over, but as of this morning I am happy with my progress these last couple of weeks. Yes, after the first few days I had gained several pounds. Since the worst of it (Wednesday last week) I have recovered very nicely, and from my worst weight in a very long time I have now dropped over 8 lbs., bringing me comfortably under 300 lbs. (and for these past several days) for the first time since the first week of October. I have to continue to lose weight which means eating sensibly and continuing to walk. It is far too easy to regain the weight… history has proven that true too many times.

    I was shocked this morning to see the numbers on my fitness watch. My sleep score was an almost unheard of 94. It is rare for that to be above 90, and I feel it. Yes, I feel relaxed this morning after getting 8.5 hours of balanced sleep! My body batter was actually up to a 99 this morning, which I am not sure I have ever seen. I obviously did something right the last couple of days! Hopefully I can keep that up… but I would not count on these being consistent numbers.

    With regard to food: Yesterday morning I had my usual omelette. For lunch we were planning to eat leftovers, and I was relieved when Leslie asked if I minded if she ate the pizza. Mind? MIND? I was thrilled for her to eat it, and to leave me the grilled chicken and salad! We put the leftover falafel and hummus in the middle so I could dip my chicken in the hummus and Leslie could sop it up with her pizza crusts. It was delicious! For dinner we ordered fast food. The main was grilled chicken bites, and yes, I cheated a bit by enjoying the waffle fries that came with it. Sorry… not sorry. Late in the evening I was hungry again… and with so many bad choices that I could have made, I opted for a protein bar. All was well in the world, and I did not go to bed on an empty stomach.

    I do not know what our plans are for today, but I assume they will involve entertaining a nine-year-old boy, so it is doubtful that we will be eating smartly. It is my job to stay within reason on any foods we eat. We have three main meals (I take care of my own breakfasts) before they drop me off at the airport, and then the airport food court. If I can get back to Canada weighing under the terrible mark Monday morning, then this trip will have been (with regards to my weight loss) an overall success. Yes, I cheated several times, but I made up for it.

    When I get back to Canada, I have to remember the simple rules… eat less (and eat smart), and exercise. I know the exercise often falls by the wayside for time reasons… and this week coming I see a big issue right away in that I am taking a class from noon until 8:30pm every day. My plan is to get up, take Her Floofness for her walk, and then after breakfast I will get onto the treadmill. If I need any enticement, then I will remember that there is a lot of TV to catch up on. I know, most of what I watch is trash… we are all entitled to our minor harmless vices, right?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1016

    My weight was up this morning, but only a couple of ounces. I do not think it is because of my food intake versus energy expended yesterday, rather because my system is backed up again this morning. I hope that sometime today that will clear out.

    A longer than expected walk helped me to reach the goal of 24km earlier than expected. Yesterday I walked 9.25km, bringing my total since Monday to 24.42km. I was quite pleased with myself… if somewhat tired. There are two ways to look at things… I could say that I have done it, and relax today… but I know that tomorrow I will not be able to exercise, and Sunday is a travel day, so I likely will not be able to get out again for a few days. Instead I think I will look at it as a way to smash that previous goal and not just edge past it. I am now setting a new goal: Since Sunday I have power-walked 32.83km. Today I will try to hit 7.2km, bringing my total for the week to 40km.

    Yesterday I was not particularly good or bad with regard to food. For lunch I picked up Falafel plates with salad for Leslie and I. For dinner we ordered curry udon which I had never tried before but really enjoyed. We took her son trick-or-treating and were out for about an hour. He offered me a few bits along the way which I graciously accepted and enjoyed… a piece of licorice and two miniature chocolates. I do not think any of that would have killed my progress. A few of the houses offered the adults more, but we politely declined.

    The weather yesterday was not as hot as it had been, but the entirety of my walk was done in the bright sun. Today will be another cooler day (all things are relative) and the forecast looks cloudy all day. That might make walking a little easier. We’ll see!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1015

    He chose pizza. I ended my entry yesterday by saying that we involve Leslie’s son in food decisions, especially on his first night home. He opted for pizza, which for my taste buds is great but for my weight loss is not. I had no choice of the food, but I was able to moderate my intake. I ate three pieces and not four or more. I know, that is still a lot of pizza… but better to have moderated some than not at all.

    My walk yesterday was excellent. I achieved 8.67km and probably could have kept going. Okay, I was pretty drained when I got in so that would have been a bad idea. I did not walk Tuesday, so my current power-walking since I got to Dallas (which is to say since Sunday) is at 23.31km, but it was not until Monday that I set the goal of walking another 24km during this trip, so Sunday’s walk does not count toward the 24km. Monday and Wednesday’s walks add up to 15.17km, which means that I am one long walk or two short walks away from achieving that goal. I will head out later today and put a real dent into it so hopefully by tomorrow I will only have a very short way to go before hitting that goal. I usually go out for an hour or more every time, which means that I should walk at least 6.5km today… which means that if I roll out of bed hard tomorrow I will make it.

    Speaking of bed, I did not sleep very well last night. I had some things on my mind so not only did I not get into bed until very late, but it then took me a long time to fall asleep. My fitness watch registered a little over six hours of sleep and gave it a sleep score of 74. I am surprised it was that high, but I will take it. It also told me that my body battery was up to 69 which is much lower than I woke up with yesterday, but overall not bad compared to the last month – there have only been six days of the last twenty-eight where it was higher than that; I suspect that is something I should be seeing improvements on as I get back to exercising regularly and hopefully sleeping better… and losing weight!

    Speaking of numbers, the one that is usually most front and centre for me is the one on the bathroom scale. I never expect any sort of weight loss the day after eating pizza for dinner. When I stepped onto the bathroom scale to see a loss of about half a pound I was quite pleased with that… if somewhat surprised. How great would it be if I could actually keep it below that terrible mark for the duration of this trip, and then keep dropping it in Canada?

    I have a few things I have to do today but nothing drastic. I am going to touch base with my wife and then plan out when I will go for my walk. I have some reading to do as well. I hope that we can be good for dinner, but it is often hard with a young child. Today is also Halloween, so we will be taking the boy out trick-or-treating… I will not be taking any of his loot!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1014

    I am usually disappointed when I step onto the bathroom scale to find that I have gained weight, let alone two full pounds. This morning I expected my weight to be up, but not because I ate badly or made poor choices. Yes, I went out for lunch and had panang curry chicken with rice and a couple of spring rolls, but that was not the worst thing I might have eaten. No, I was expecting to be up because I did not believe the numbers on the scale yesterday… the loss was just too extreme. Add to that I was not able to successfully move my bowels this morning, and the two-pound gain was expected, and I was not upset. With that said, my weight is still below the terrible mark, and I am very happy with that.

    I made chicken and salad for dinner last night when was quite healthy, so that probably offset the worst of the effects from lunch. It was to be the last adult dinner that Leslie and I will enjoy during this visit. We then enjoyed two small bottles of ice wine on the balcony with our cigars. I mention that they were small bottles because I do not want to give the impression that it was excessive. We each drank roughly 7oz (200ml) of wine which amounts to 350 calories and 3.5g of sugar. It will be the last of our alcoholic consumption because her son comes home this afternoon and we do not drink when he is here.

    This morning I realized that I had not bought eggs yesterday, and so I had a bowl of breakfast cereal. I actually had two half-bowls, as one of the boxes was empty. For lunch we decided to order sandwiches which should arrive shortly. I told Leslie that as I am planning to go out for a long walk after lunch I did not mind if she wanted to order something high in carbs… specifically the bread. My walk will burn it off and hopefully it will give my system fuel to push myself. Until I get my body back into a state of ketosis I know that the carbohydrates are bad, but they are also what the body burns as fuel. I think my heel is healed enough to push myself farther today, but I will be sure to check my socks before heading out. If I can do 8km then I will be more than halfway to my goal for this week.

    I do not know what we are planning for dinner and will not know until my stepson is here. His first night back we always involve him in the food decisions. With that said, I will have to be mindful of my choices, and if we order in I will not let myself say ‘Oh, I walked, so I can cheat.’

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1013

    I told Leslie last night that I was happy with both my eating and my activity of the day yesterday, and that I was hoping to see a significant drop on the bathroom scale this morning. I expected to lose at least a full pound from yesterday. When I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning I was shocked… and disbelieving. I was hoping to drop below 302. When I stepped off the scale I allowed it to clear and stepped on again. I could not believe that I had dropped over six pounds. While I am excited to see my weight drop (significantly) below the 300 pounds mark, I am skeptical that the drop is more than a blip. Do not misunderstand me… I am thrilled and grateful, but I am not expecting to even maintain that level tomorrow and Thursday. We will see.

    With all of that said, yesterday was a good day for my program. Breakfast was my usual omelette. I went to the supermarket in the morning to pick up food for dinner, and decided to also pick up a couple of salads for Leslie and I to enjoy for lunch. For dinner I prepared seared tuna steaks with white rice. After lunch I went for a 6.5km walk which made me feel great, although it also reminded me of the importance of throwing out socks when they have holes in the heels. Not only did that slow my overall pace a little, but I also came home with blisters on my heel. For that reason, as well as because of what my schedule looks like today, I am taking the day off from walking. With that said, yesterday I decided to power-walk at least 24km over the rest of my stay in Dallas, and I knocked out more than 25% of that goal yesterday.

    When I returned home, I felt my tummy talking to me, but not of hunger. I knew that I had not been moving my bowels very well the last few days and I thought I was probably a little backed up. I tried to move them before I showered but had very little to show for the attempt. When I was all clean, I decided to lie down for a nap. Five minutes into the nap I felt the urge and was finally able to void my system. I felt somewhat better, but not completely. Thirty minutes later I found myself running back to the loo and repeated my previous success. I was finally feeling better. I know you are asking so the answer is yes, those combined successes certainly contributed to this morning’s weight loss. I do not know if it really accounts for a 6+ pound drop, but it certainly helped.

    With all of that, my sleep score last night dropped to 72, which is the lowest in three or four days. I woke up reasonably well rested, but I know I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night. Hopefully it will be better tonight.

    In my entry yesterday I enumerated four points that I need to follow in order to resume my successful weight loss. One of those points was to not eat food that is bad for my weight loss. Leslie had asked me if I know that I should not be eating something then why do I have it in the house? She is right. I need to stop buying food I know will be detrimental to my weight loss goals. As an example, a few weeks ago I bought a box of breakfast cereal. I know that breakfast cereal is, as a category, all terrible for weight loss. With that said, I like it, and it is not difficult to convince myself that if I buy it then I will eat it in moderation, and that it will not have a terrible effect on my body. The flaw in that logic is that I am still terrible at the moderation part, and so seldom will a box of breakfast cereal brought into my kitchen last three days. Leslie is so right about this… I have to stop buying it. So many people do not understand why I am doing my grocery shopping three or four times per week. It is because I know that if I have more in my kitchen I will be tempted to eat more. I need to work on this, but until I have mastered it I have to:

    1. Continue doing my grocery shopping several times per week; and
    2. Not allow myself to purchase anything that I can easily overeat.

    I have written in this journal times that losing weight is simple, but it is not easy. As a cybersecurity guy I continue to tell my students that we can implement every security tool available, but the weak link of the chain is always the human factor. Likewise, my weak link is my willpower which is something that I really have to continue to work on. It will come.

    In the meantime, I am hoping to fit into at least a couple of my tailored sports coats next week, and I will continue to powerwalk… either outside or, if the weather is not cooperative, on my treadmill.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1012

    I will start with the here and now… my usual daily update. As I said that I would, I did go out for a long walk yesterday. I power-walked 8.4km in the 28° sun, even though my initial plan had been to do 6-7km. I do not follow a route I had taken before, and when I crossed over the highway to start heading back I realized that there was no service road – let alone a sidewalk of any kind – on the other side of the highway. I had to go through residential streets that were unfamiliar to me, and somewhat winding. I would also have to contend with finding a level crossing of the railroad tracks, not to mention an underpass that would get be back onto the friendly side of the aforementioned highway. I was proud of my accomplishment though, even though I did need to stop to rest for a minute once along the way.

    It was that accomplishment that I felt gave me leave to enjoy the movie theatre popcorn that I shared with my wife. In the future though I think we should share the medium size and not the large. Had I thought of this at the time I suspect my weight would have been down more than it was – a mere .2 lb. from yesterday morning. At least I did register one food-related accomplishment… we went for peri-peri chicken for dinner, and for the first time in I don’t know how long I ordered the quarter breast meal instead of the half chicken. I need to start eating less… even when the foods are healthy, I need to control my portions.

    As we sat on the patio smoking and talking last night Leslie did something extremely meaningful and helpful. She asked me what my plans for succeeding on this weight loss journey were. I told her, and it led to a good conversation.

    1. Yes, I need to eat less. I have to control my portions. There is no question that this is going to be important.
    2. I need to stop buying any foods that are bad for me. She pointed out that when she reads in these pages that I ate a mango, for example, the mango is full of sugar and however otherwise healthy it may be, the high sugar content is bad for weight loss.
    3. She asked what my plans for activity are, citing that in the winter months I can get lazy. I told her that when I get back to Canada, I am clearing everything off my treadmill and will be using it regularly throughout the winter months. I acknowledged that while I do walk HRF Princess Sophie twice daily for nearly 4km total, that is all at her pace, and is not really exercise. I will me making sure to use the treadmill and it is easy because I can just put something to watch on the TV and go for an hour. On days that I am teaching I need to do it in the evening, and when I am not teaching I can do it during the day… but I need to do it.
    4. I need to be accountable to myself. When I have a bad food day, I need to enumerate in these pages not just ‘I had a bad day’ but rather how… and why. If I am to ask her to hold me accountable then the only way she knows when I am going off is from my journal, and if I write out ‘I was bad today… this is the list of what I ate’ then not only does it help her to help me, but it will help me to help myself.

    In addition to all of this, I need to write when I have a massive failure. Over the past few weeks, I have been wearing my dress pants when I need to wear long pants because they are the only ones that fit me. I ordered two pair of slacks from Amazon that arrived Monday… and they were a size 40. FORTY! It was such a huge accomplishment when I was able to fit comfortably into a size 36 in some fits, and now I am back into a size 40. I am disgusted with myself over this, and need to reverse that. I need to get back into the smaller sizes again. I recognize that it will take time, but I need to do it.

    (I also needed to order a new belt Monday morning when I was securing the one that I had brought with me, and it broke. This was more because when I wear looser pants (such as my dress pants) I need to pull it tighter to hold them up, and I have more belly pushing back against it. I had known for a few weeks that it was on its last legs, and it was folly of me to not bring another one with me. Oops!)

    The Size 40 is bad… but the fact that my suits are tight, and that I can only wear one of my sports jackets is worse. How I have not discussed in these pages that so many of my nice clothes (which I was so happy to call a non-scale victory at the time) no longer fit because they are too tight… I was just so embarrassed by my failure. I am ashamed to be where I am.

    I have never been one of those people who needs to put a positive spin on everything. I do not need anyone blowing smoke up my rear. When I screw up, I need to acknowledge that I screwed up. That is what will encourage me to un-screw whatever was screwed. That is why I am writing all of this. I need to get out of the Size 40 and into the custom-tailored clothes that I was so proud of. I need to be wearing my pants around my belly button and not around my hips with my belly hanging over them. I need to know that if I put on a shirt that does not fit, it is because it is too big, and not too tight.

    If this new attempt works, then I have Leslie’s pointing it out to thank for it. I will do the work, but I am so happy that she is not coddling me about it. That is what people who love you need to do some times.

    For the record, if you are a friend who is also a reader and you think this gives you leave to start talking to me about my needing to lose weight, let me stop you there. I am happy to take it from my wife. That’s where it ends.

    As for this being where it begins, I am going to try to record another 24km of walking between now and the time I return to Canada. That is four walks of 6km each… or three walks of 8km each.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1011

    I was not expecting great things this morning when I stepped onto the bathroom scale. I wrote yesterday that I prepared French toast for breakfast (with real Quebec maple syrup). We then ordered in fast food (Five Guys) for a late lunch. During the baseball game, Leslie lamented that we should have brought food with us (which meant that she was hungry). I went down the street to the Middle Eastern restaurant and picked up a manakish, essentially a cheese pizza with za’atar. I did not expect to lose weight after eating this poorly. However, I did finally have a decent bowel movement this morning… I think my system was just clogged up for a couple of days. The result: My weight was down nearly (but not quite) one full pound this morning from yesterday. Yay!

    (Note: After writing this paragraph I retired to the W.C. and was able to repeat the success of this morning. It will not apply to this morning’s weight, but maybe tomorrow?)

    We have tickets to see a movie this afternoon. It looks like it will be interesting – a suspense surrounding the choosing of a new pope. I am excited for the subject (it seems to be along the lines of Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code). I doubt it will have the symbological aspects of that book, but it is still of interest to me. Jews do not have any sort of supreme leader, so the whole ritual around the pope is interesting to me.

    My sleep score was up to 84 last night, the highest it has been in a month. That brought my body battery up to about 60, which is still low but better than it has been in a while.

    I did not go out for a walk yesterday, but I think I will go for one now. It is a beautiful day out and we have a couple of hours to kill before we head out to the movies.

    Have a great day folks!