Losing a part of me

Author: Mitch Garvis

  • Day 545

    I did end up sitting in the pool for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon. It made the mercurial heat (109° Fahrenheit) quite palatable. My only mistake was not bringing a large bottle of water down with me. By the time I got out of the pool a little before 3:00pm I was drained of all energy, and it took me nearly twenty minutes to gather my strength to walk back to the apartment.

    Once again, I fell off the program yesterday. Either soaking in the pool under the sun baked a few extra pounds off of me, or else the cheating I did was not too bad. I was actually doing quite well until Leslie and her son asked if I wanted them to pick dinner up for me while they were at Wendy’s. The double burger, fries, and chili that I ordered amount to 1,410 calories, 114g of carbohydrates, 72g of fat, and a whopping 2,740mg of sodium. All of those exceed what my daily allowance should be for each measure, and yet it was all in one single meal. There is a compromise that we make for the convenience of fast food, and I was not about to either argue with them about where to pick dinner up from, nor ask them to make an extra stop for me. It has been months since I have had a fast food hamburger and doing it twice or three times in a year will not kill me.

    Other than that, I was good for the day. I had my omelette for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and somewhere in there I snuck a few slices of dried mango in. I had some iced tea, and… I think that’s it. I do not think I cheated at all other than that. The result: I dropped nearly another 2 lbs., putting me below the 265 lbs. mark for the first time in two weeks. Considering eight days ago my weight was just under 275 lbs., I am happy to be back under the 265 lbs. threshold. I would like to continue to lose weight for the duration of my visit with Leslie, but if I can at least return home under that mark, I will consider it a great victory.

    Today is transition day. Leslie’s son is going back to his father’s house, which means that from this evening and for a week we will be alone. On the one hand, I love being alone with her. There are myriad activities and foods and conversations that we cannot enjoy while he is around. On the other hand, we love having him here, and many of the activities that we can and do share with him. I suspect any divorced parent with shared custody will understand how we feel. The mixed emotions are hard, and we will miss him. I am really enjoying getting to know him, which is hard to do because of the infrequency of my visits while he is with us. I am also learning a lot about being a stepfather… a lot of lessons I wish I would have learned before poisoning the relationship between myself and my older son. Frankie, if you’ve had too few regrets to mention then boy have I got you beat. I could spend a lifetime enumerating them and still not reach the bottom.

    Okay, enough of that. What’s going on today? Leslie’s son will be with us most of the day, although they are at an appointment right now. When they get back, I am sure at some point we will discuss lunch. Tomorrow would have been his grandfather’s (Leslie’s father) birthday, and so we are going to have cupcakes to honour that. Last night we lit a memorial (yahrtzeit) candle that will burn for twenty-six hours, and they shed a few tears because they miss him. It is really nice to see them honour their previous generations, partly with a tradition that I introduced to them.

    I am teaching this evening, so I will relax and do some writing during the day, and then from 4:30pm-8:00pm I will deliver my class, the last class I will deliver to a group that I have been with the last two months. It is sad to see them go, but next week they are moving on to begin another class with another instructor. I will wish them luck at the end of this evening’s class, and I will log off to take my wife for dinner. We have discussed trying a new Chinese restaurant that is not too far from here, and I am sure we will both enjoy that. Because I know that is a possibility for the evening, I am going to be extra careful to be good during the day. I will suspect I will pick up salads for Leslie and I, and her son will have something much tastier but also more fattening. He is lucky… and I am lucky that I have developed a taste for salads… even though I still crave those wonderfully fattening and greasy foods!

    I plan to continue writing in my other project today. A few nights ago Leslie suggested I start writing down (really typing) some of my cigar stories and anecdotes, and that it might one day make for an interesting book. I dove into the project and have written a little bit every day. There is so far no order to the stories that I write, other than that I am writing them as I think about them. I bought a notebook for writing down story ideas as they come to me because I really do have a lot of these stories in my repertoire, and while I remember all of them when I am telling them as if they happened yesterday, when I sit down at my computer to start writing I often forget what I want to write, so I stare at the keyboard. That will not happen now that I have a notebook, right? Well, it is nice to be optimistic.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 544

    As I sat on the balcony waiting for my wife to join me last night I thought back on my day, what I had eaten, and a John Lennon quote: Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. Most of what I had planned for yesterday did not really happen. I did not get to CVS so I did not pick up meal replacements; I had a salad for lunch (which was planned), and then before class I ate a bowl of cereal (partly planned… I had planned to eat a meal replacement or a small meal). After class I was hungry and so I went to pick up another salad (not bad and not really a cheat, but still not planned). Somewhere in there (spread throughout the day) I enjoyed a reasonable portion of dried mango, a Takoyaki (a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special molded pan… usually filled with seafood, but this one was filled with red bean paste), and two Timbits (yes, I brought a box of them from Canada, and have now had four of them). All of that on top of the omelette I had for breakfast. There was too much snacking in there, but I still did not really go overboard. If I had been concerned then the bathroom scale this morning put my mind at ease… I am back down to what I weighed Friday morning (the day before I flew) and have fully shed the three pounds I gained on Saturday (mostly from gorging at the airport, but also on our fried chicken dinner). If I can eat reasonably well today then I will be happy that I am back on track.

    To refer to the weather today as hot would not do it justice. The forecast calls for temperatures approaching 110° Fahrenheit, with no sign of clouds anywhere in the vicinity. I would love to try to get some exercise today, but walking outdoors would be a monumentally bad idea. My body is simply not used to this level of heat as it once was… when I was young and stupid. I might spend a couple of hours at the pool and would do some swimming but would also sit there passively for a while with a cigar. We’ll see. It was originally my intention to take my stepson to the pool for a while, but he has not been feeling well these last couple of days so unless his mother says something then I am not going to even bring the subject up.

    I had my usual omelette for breakfast today and will likely pick salads up for Leslie and myself… and possibly something else for the boy. I am not worrying about that right now. When I do go out I will stop in at CVS and see if there are any meal replacements that work for me. If they do then I will grab those and should be able to stay on track for the day. I am teaching again this evening, so if I have a meal replacement before class, and either another one, or else a salad afterward, then I will be able to call this a very successful day… and the numbers on the bathroom scale tomorrow morning should reflect that.

    I spent a couple of hours at the cigar lounge yesterday, but that Is not in my plans for today. I do need to go back one day this week to discuss a couple of things with the owner, but that is not going to be today. I love it there… but I do not feel like venturing out more than I need to today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 543

    I was not very mindful in how I planned my eating yesterday. To be fair, I was… but not with regard to my weight loss. When there are other people involved, including an eight-year-old boy and a restaurant where, if you try to go at the wrong time (which would have been the right time) you might end up waiting two hours for a table… trust me, I made the right decisions. I could have done without the ice cream afterward, but I did compromise by requesting the smaller portion. All in all it was a lovely day with my family.

    The problem with those things arose when at 8:30pm I realized that I had not eaten since 3:00pm, and that if I ate anything substantial at this point then I would be eating too late. I was legitimately hungry, but I decided to take a small snack rather than a full meal.

    The bathroom scale had my weight ever so slightly down this morning, which means that I did not do nearly as bad as I might have. I will take it as a win.

    My plan for today is to have a salad for lunch, and then something small for dinner after I am done teaching. Come to think of it, I might switch that up and have my dinner before class… but I have to be in front of the computer at 4:30pm, so that might not work. I think the smarter move would be to buy some meal replacements for the next couple of nights. After the boy goes to his father’s (Wednesday afternoon) Leslie and I will start eating together right after my class.. but for tonight, tomorrow, then next Wednesday and Friday I should plan for the meal replacements. I am not ordering online; I will go to CVS and look at the nutritional values to see what is best.

    For the daytime? I am going to spend some time with the boy, and then I will spend a couple of hours at the cigar lounge. I promised the boy we would go swimming while his mom works, and that would be a lovely way to spend an hour… except my forecast shows thunderstorms starting in the next hour and lasting until 7:00pm. Not exactly swimming pool weather.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 542

    It is wonderful to be in Texas with my wife and stepson. As expected, I ate too much at the airport and on the airplane. Combine that with the travel, and my weight was up significantly this morning over two days ago. I will eat better today, and I will get a hold of myself.

    While it was mostly cloudy yesterday it was still very hot. We all spent a little over an hour in the pool enjoying the nice day and splashing about. This morning it has been rainy, with a forecast to continue raining (and with the temperatures not hitting 90) which means that we will not be swimming… but we will still have a nice day together. For the moment we are relaxing, and I am going to do some writing.

    As I was ready to publish the entry to my blog I realized that I made a numbering gaff again. I had published yesterday’s article as Day 540, which made for two consecutive 540s. I have since corrected that on the site, and it should be correct going forward.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 541

    Today is the day I fly to Dallas to be with my wife! I am extremely excited about that. As a result, I am writing this early so that I do not forget. I know that once I am on the ground in Texas I will not be thinking about my blog.

    I was mostly good yesterday. I got all of my errands done, my buddy (and former co-worker) came over in the afternoon for a cigar, and I taught in the evening. I had lunch (a little more than I should have), but after that I had only my meal replacement shakes. I did not step onto the scale this morning (I was out of the house at 3:15am) but when I weighed myself last night I weighed exactly what I did the previous night. Let’s see what I weigh tomorrow.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 540

    Another day, another fight with American Airlines. For some reason their online system will not let me check in because it believes I am traveling with an infant in my lap. I can assure you that is not the case. I have been fighting with their online site and their app for the last hour… and then I got an urgent phone call so I lost my place in line on their customer service line.

    Okay, that if finally dealt with. Now I can go about the rest of my day. I have some errands to run, including a trip to the UPS Store to ship a number of returns back to Amazon, as well as some shopping for goodies for my wife and stepson. I’ll do that now, and then when I come home I will have a quick lunch. I have done most of the preparation for packing for my trip, which is to say that my laundry is folded, the clothes that I am planning to take are out neatly on the bed, and all I have to do now is to run down to the storage locker and grab my suitcases. I will do that after I do my shopping.

    Looking at what I have laid out, it is amazing to see how much lighter I am packing now than I have before. There are a couple of reasons for this, not the least of which is that in the middle of summer in Texas I will not need sweaters or even a long-sleeved shirt. In fact I do have a couple of those in the closet there, but aside from the single pair of long pants I am taking (we are going to a couple of nice restaurants where I think long pants are appropriate) I will be wearing shorts and short sleeves the entire trip. With that said, I also know that I am wearing smaller clothes than I used to, and that is another reason for the smaller piles on the bed. It feels good, even knowing that I have faltered these last few weeks, to know that I have made so much progress from where I started… and that I am back on track.

    Speaking of back on track: The bathroom scale giveth, and it taketh away. Yes, despite eating pretty well yesterday (I had one breakfast, lunch, and some yoghurt… and then I had two meal replacements in the afternoon and evening) my weight was up a pound from yesterday. Yes, I know that it was astounding to be down nine pounds in two days, and that it was almost certainly going to correct itself a little this morning. I am not upset; I am only hopeful that I can stay on track today.

    Okay, I have a hundred things to get done and not a lot of time to do it in. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 539

    I stepped off the bathroom scale this morning pleased with another drop in weight. In my coffee- and sleep-deprived state I was trying to calculate my weight loss from yesterday to figure out how it compared to the last few days to total a very respectable 8.6 pound loss over a three day period. It took a couple of moments for me to realize that it was not a three-day streak… I have lost that over two days. I am utterly amazed that after just two days since I resolved to get back on track, I am making such tremendous strides. Of course I know that the tremendous weight drop in the first 2-3 days will reflect the loss of water weight, and I cannot expect to continue at this pace. Still, I am thrilled that I have been able to stick to it for two days.

    In truth, I stuck to my program better than I intended yesterday. My plan was to drive into Toronto, see an old colleague, and then be home by 4:30pm. I would prepare a cross of lunch and dinner, and then either at my evening break or else after class I would have had another meal replacement shake. Driving into town I was worried that I might falter at lunch, so I had a meal replacement shake in the car. As a result of that I only had the one bite of pie that was forced upon me. Stuck in traffic for over three hours on my way home, I prepared another shake. I do not remember why I had two packaged shakes in the car, but I am glad that I did. Arriving home far too late to prepare a meal (I was even late for work) I debated between making a late dinner after class (which would have meant eating after 9:00pm), or just having another meal replacement shake during my break. I opted for that choice, and the results on the bathroom scale this morning were clear. I have had a spring in my step ever since!

    I am teaching again this evening, but before I do I have a friend coming over after lunch. I usually go to see him, but it is nice to host him from time to time. We will enjoy a cigar on the balcony and shoot the shit about this and that. Because of this visit I will be eating lunch relatively early today. I will have to make sure that I do not slip and eat anything other than a meal replacement shake (or possibly two) later in the day and evening. How nice would it be to not weigh more when I arrive in Dallas than I did when Leslie left Canada three weeks earlier‽

    For those who are wondering, I did indeed use a strange bit of punctuation at the end of that last paragraph. While I knew about the interrobang previously, I was reminded of it while listening to a podcast about marketing the other day. It ( ‽ ) is the amalgamation of the question mark and the exclamation mark ( ?! ) and is meant to mean just that… a question with an exclamation. I doubt I will be using it frequently, but I decided to throw it in for gits and shiggles. For more information about this cute little punctuation mark please refer to the Wikipedia article, which while not as authoritative as Merriam Webster or Cambridge Dictionaries (which both have entries, while the Oxford English Dictionary does not), it is nevertheless more complete.

    Have a great day folks, won’t you‽

  • Day 538

    I wrote yesterday in these pages yesterday that I was going to try to walk five kilometres, or more if I felt up to it. In the end I walked twelve kilometres… and it felt great! I thought briefly about trying to jog some of it, but in the end decided that a long power walk was a better idea than a shorter walk/jog… especially since it would be my first one in a while, and because of how hot it was. I came home, and before I jumped into the shower, I put my chicken and potatoes into the air fryer so that they would be ready for when I was clean and dressed. After my lunch I sat on the balcony with a cigar and a book. In truth, I smoked two cigars, accompanied by a cup of coffee. Realizing that it was going to start raining, I took Princess Sophie for a walk before the deluge came, and it is a good thing that I did. It began to rain within a minute of our coming inside, and it really came down until I was halfway through my class.

    I was not only able to go for a good walk yesterday, but I also decreased my food intake. I had lunch after my walk, and then during the class recess I made a meal replacement shake. The results were quite clear this morning… I dropped all of the weight I gained the last two days. I am still over 270 lbs., but not by much. My goal is to get down to 267 lbs. before I fly to Dallas Saturday morning.

    One of the factors I discussed with Leslie yesterday is that I am less concerned about gaining weight while I am with her because I know that she is watching, and that I will not cheat (or at least not as badly) while she is. It is really only when I am alone that I go overboard. I should not need supervision to have self-control; I did extremely well until I fell off the wagon. As Leslie pointed out, at least I was able to see that I was falling and ask for help. I know that I have been here twice before, and both of those times I continued to fall until I had regained every lost pound. This time is different. This time I have someone in my corner who can help me get over these humps.

    Today is not as hot and sunny as it was yesterday, but that matters little as long as it is not raining. I have to drive into Toronto for a few hours, so I would not be going for a walk anyways. Tomorrow it is forecast to rain all day, so I am going to have to figure out how to get my steps in. As it has been said, meteorologists were put on this planet to make psychics seem reasonable; I will make a decision about that tomorrow during the day.

    Okay, I am off to Toronto. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 537

    Today is the day I tell my wife that I need her kicking my ass again. I am just under 275 lbs., which means that since my lowest point (May 27) I have gained nearly twenty-five pounds. That has to stop. I have to stop the slide, and I know what I have done wrong. I have been buying snacks and justifying the purchases by saying that they are on sale, that I can open the bag and just have a reasonable portion, that I am not the same addict that I used to be. In a moment of resolve, right after I typed the last sentence, I went into the kitchen and threw out half a bag of Goldfish and most of a bag of mini crisps. I actually made sure to ruin them – I filled the bags with water so I would not be tempted. I have wasted money and I have thrown away too much progress. Today is the day that I get back on track.

    Today is going to be another hot day, with the temperatures hovering around 30 degrees until it starts to rain around 5:00pm. That should last through 9:00pm, which is perfect because that is exactly when I need to be teaching. In the meantime, it is nearly 11:00am, it is sunny and hot. I am not going to try to jog today… but I am going for a walk. I am going to pick a new audio book (I finished my last one a couple of days ago and have been catching up on podcasts since then). I will then go for a walk and will do at least 5km but will try for more. It is time for me to get my butt back on track.

    When I started speaking with my wife a few minutes ago she asked me very difficult questions. Why am I off track? Stress, anxiety, and such. Why am I stressed? Why am I anxious? I hate thinking about these things… let along sharing them out loud. That does not mean that I do not need to do it. By admitting to them I can start to deal with them. I really appreciate how she is able to support me.

    Alright, it is time to pick my book and then heads out. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 536

    After nearly a week of consistently gaining weight, I finally dropped a bit this morning. That is not to say that I did all that well yesterday, only that I did not eat quite as poorly as I had the previous few days. I will try to do even better today.

    My day has already started out with a success – after an aggravating 30 minutes on the phone with my cell phone provider I was able to cut over $40 off my monthly bill. I consider that a huge victory. It is amazing what the threat of changing providers can do.

    I have a bit of reading to do today so I will be back and forth between my computer and my balcony. I will make a nice lunch around noon and then I will eat a reasonable dinner after my class is over. There will be a couple of cigars during the day… after a tremendous rainstorm last night I thought it would be cooler today but in fact it will be sunny and nearly 30° out today. I have a lot of reading to do so I will take advantage of that.

    Have a great day folks!