I knew yesterday was going to be hard. I am indeed over 270 lbs. this morning. It is now time for me to redouble my efforts and get my ass in gear. No more cheating!
Author: Mitch Garvis
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Day 534
I fell off the deep end again yesterday and I have to get a handle on myself. I have to stop going on these evening binges. Why can’t I just eat my dinner, and then be satisfied? This struggle is real, and I have to figure out a way to stop sliding backwards. I have come too far to let that happen.
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Day 533
Had I been able to move my bowels this morning I would have dropped a few ounces. As it stands I weighed (after a completely inadequate night’s sleep) exactly what I weighed yesterday. That is not the worst thing in the world, considering I cheated again yesterday,
I am truly exhausted today. I did not get home too late, but it was late enough… and then I tossed and turned for hours. I suppose I had a few things on my mind that were distracting me, but I’ll get over it. Today I will take it easy. I have a couple of friends who want to take me out tonight, and that is a tentative thing. I know I have the barbecue in Cambridge tomorrow and if I do not sleep well then tomorrow will not go well for me.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 532
It is strange to wake up on my birthday and not realize it until I looked at my phone and started receiving messages. I will thank all of my friends for the kind wishes. I expect to receive far fewer wishes this year than last, owing to my culling my ‘friends’ list by about 70%. I am fine with that. Today is going to just be another ordinary day. A buddy invited me over to his place for cigars in the afternoon, but aside from that I have no plans that differ greatly from whatever I did any other day this week. Well, that is not entirely true… After I finish this journal entry, I will go to Starbucks to pick up a free coffee. I am not going to take advantage of most of the ‘birthday freebies’ out there, but I think that Leslie and I spend enough money with them for overpriced drinks that we can enjoy a free overpriced drink on each of our birthdays.
I cheated on my diet last night. It was a long and stressful evening (what with class and all) so I had to go out to help a friend with their computer after class. I stopped and bought a bag of potato chips. I should not have done that, and I paid the price. I gained a full pound over yesterday morning’s weigh-in. There are cheats that I can make exceptions for and there are cheats that I have no excuse for and should really know better. Yesterday evening’s chips fell into that second category. I feel like a failure for it… but I also know that beating myself up over it is not the answer. The answer is trying to do better today.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 531
It’s a beautiful morning and Southern Ontario is in the middle of the most dangerous heatwave in memory. At least, that’s the undertones of the message from a couple of people Her Floofness and I met while out for our walk this morning. We happen to love the heat and the sun and have no complaints whatsoever about either. We also know that at some point (hopefully soon) we will be moving to Texas where it will be much hotter and much sunnier much more often. In truth it is going up to 30° Celsius by noon, which is hot, but it is not, to quote the movie Biloxi Blues, Africa Hot.
Yesterday went mostly as planned. I spent a few hours helping my rabbi with his computer (which took a bit longer than I had expected but worked out alright in the end). Following that I went shopping (and spent more than I usually do, owing to purchasing some sauces and flavourings that I only need to buy occasionally) and came home to prepare a lovely dinner of teriyaki glazed salmon with a side of sweet potato fries (yes, I bought more). I had been thinking about trying a teriyaki glaze for weeks but every time I thought of it I realized I do not have the sauce. I finally bought it yesterday and the result was quite enjoyable.
As I so often do, I stepped onto the scale last night to try to get a sense of what my weight this morning would be. I was shocked to be up a full five pounds during the day, and felt it was unlikely that I would drop all of that weight overnight. I should trust the process; when I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning I had dropped ever-so-slightly from yesterday morning. It may not be a lot, but one pound lost is three pounds of progress, right?
I slept marginally better last night than the previous nights; it was the first night in a few that I had to get out of bed multiple times to pee, which is really the only thing that stopped me sleeping through the night. Well, that and Princess Sophie deciding at 5am that she needed to get into bed with me. She knows that she has to go to sleep in her own doggie bed and she is quite good about that, but there are nights (occasional ones fortunately) where she wakes up and cannot calm down unless I bring her into my bed. Once I picked her up (on my second trip to the loo) she and I both slept like a baby the rest of the night. It was a great relief! I was exhausted yesterday afternoon and evening, even though I could not fall asleep.
My plan for today is to relax, smoke a couple of cigars while reading on the balcony, and minding my limits of what I eat. I am teaching from 6-9pm so I will have lunch early and then dinner early and will then spend the evening in front of the computer. I do not mind working – frankly, I really do enjoy teaching. What bothers me though is that I have three weeks of review classes, and my students are not asking too many questions. That means that I can either assign labs only, or we can do practice exams together. I finally got them to give me a list of topics that they want me to cover, and I will start on those this evening. I was going to start Monday, but with half the class absent (this class does not normally meet on Mondays, and it was moved because of the holiday yesterday) I decided to give them lab work, as well as a demonstration of something on my personal router. Tonight I will actually do a bit of lecturing, a bit of practice exams, and then I will give them a lab to do.
Because the class I had to teach was switched to Monday I was not able to attend my sommelier class; I am hoping that I will be able to catch up if someone shares the link to where it was saved with me. If not, then I will be smoking and reading something else on the balcony today. There will be a few more classes that I might need to miss, owing to the new class I start teaching next week. Oh, that reminds me that I have an orientation meeting for that at 1:00pm today, so I suppose I should get moving to prepare my lunch. I want to be done with everything cleaned up in time to join.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 530
With this morning’s drop I am down nearly (but not quite) five pounds since Saturday. That means that I can continue to eat the way I have been eating and I will expect to continue to lose weight. I have been having an omelette for breakfast (and a yoghurt along with it), a protein for lunch (with a side salad and sometimes with a side of frozen fries), and a protein with dinner (with either a salad or rice). I have included a couple of fruit in there for snacks (which reminds me that I need to go to the supermarket to get more fruit). I will ride this one until it stops working!
Someone in one of my support groups on Facebook asked why I recommended she not tell people that she is on the program. I told her there are a couple of reasons. First and foremost is that everybody thinks they are an authority. They tell us firstly how unhealthy the program is, and how it is not the right way to lose weight. This they say about a program that is prescribed by a doctor and is done under medical supervision by weight loss experts. They will then go off and give you (seldom asking if you would like their advice) every advice about how they think you should lose weight. Next, they will keep their eye on you forever, and if three years from Tuesday you take an extra bagel at the company breakfast, they will be there to call you on it. It is easier to not tell anybody but your closest confidants. That will often require us to lie about why we are not ordering food or why we are not joining a social outing at a restaurant or so on; it is a small price to pay. Remember that it is none of anybody’s business.
I did not sleep great last night, but I also did not sleep terribly. I changed my bed sheets over the weekend, but I think I have to remember to pull the bottom sheet tight every morning rather than just straightening the top sheet and duvet and claiming I made the bed. I know that is one of the factors that prevents me from sleeping well… although definitely not the only one. I know that the day that I changed the linens I still did not sleep all that well. I truly think the number one factor in my sleep issues is when I am not sleeping next to my wife. That will be resolved in eleven days.
My plans for today: I have to stay on track, so I am going to prepare my chicken for lunch. I do not have any frozen potatoes so I will stick to the salad. In the afternoon I will run to the supermarket to pick up fruit and a few more items that I am running low on. I realized I have no more fish in the house so I will likely pick up a nice piece of salmon for dinner. I also suspect I am completely out of rice, so I will buy a bag while I am there.
As today is The Fourth of July I will not be teaching this evening, so I might go out to see friends later on. It will not be a stressful day, although I do have an appointment to help my rabbi with some technical issues around 1pm. I guess I should start making lunch now so as to be done in time for that.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 529
I got a call from a guy yesterday who had asked me for support and advice on his weight loss journey using the same program I have been loosely using. He has completed his first week and discussed with me some of the challenges he faced through the first seven days, including the Canada Day weekend temptations. I told him about some of my experiences with temptations like that and he was shocked to see how closely aligned our issues are. I am looking forward to helping him however much I can – the overwhelming majority of people on this program – both in the online Facebook groups and in the in-person groups that I have participated in or heard of – are women. While it is certainly possible to support and to be supported by women there are certain things that you do not necessarily want to hear about as a man… as there are things that we would not want to share with women. It has to be nice to have someone you can speak with about private and personal gender-specific issues.
While I was not perfect on my plan yesterday, I was certainly better than I have been many days. I was concerned when I stepped onto the bathroom scale last night and I saw the number because a late-night number is usually between 1.5-3.5 lbs. higher than my weight will be the next morning. Based on that I should have weighed over 270 lbs. this morning. Fortunately not only was that not the case, but I was actually down another 1.6 lbs, which has me three pounds down in the last two days. I can live with that. My plan for today is to eat reasonably – lunch will be chicken with salad, dinner will be salmon with rice. If the forecast can be trusted, then the rain might stop shortly after noon. Unfortunately the accuracy of the hourly forecast has not been very good these last couple of weeks, so I am not sure I trust it. If that does happen, then I might try to get out for a bit of exercise. I would really like to fly to Dallas in twelve days with some sort of exercise routine. I know it will be much hotter there than it is here, and the likelihood of my being able to jog more than a few minutes is low. If I can get into the groove though then I know I can at least get out for a walk every day, which will be a good start.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 528
I looked at yesterday’s post online and had to laugh. As I sat on my balcony with my morning coffee and cigar, I tried to use voice to text to write it, and the Jetpack app (which replaced the WordPress app) kept deleting what I wrote. I finally gave up and started typing the article out… which was not going any better. In the end, I opened a Word Document and typed it out, and then copied and pasted the text into the app. Nevertheless, parts of the remnants of my app frustration remained. I decided to leave it in to remind me of the humour… and how frustrating technology can be sometimes. (I copied the article into my journal but did not include the repeated text and the aborted paragraphs. Sorry reader, you might have to go searching online for my blunders!)
Yesterday was Canada Day. As a proud Canadian I was happy to celebrate. My first act of celebration was to sit on the balcony with a cigar, chat with my diet buddy, and then enjoy my coffee and cigar with a book. At one point a parade of vehicles turned into the street flying the Maple Leaf, with one of them blasting O Canada on repeat. I stood and waved (especially to the police and firemen, but to everyone really) and then went back to my book. In the afternoon I would drive to Strathroy to see my god kids and their parents, and it was a truly lovely afternoon and evening.
I was worried that the scale would not be kind to me this morning. After all, I had a couple of fruit on my way there, I ate a hamburger and a hotdog for dinner (in addition to the salad and potatoes), and for dessert I had a decadent chocolate plus two much less decadent Oreo cookies. Add to that a bag of chips and then a protein bar (late at night), and I was not hopeful. I was not expecting, after nine straight days of weight gains, to see it drop by 1.4 lbs., but it did. I was relieved because I was flirting with the dreaded 270 lbs. If I can drop just a few more pounds this week then I can get to 265 lbs., and I can see my birthday weekend celebration as one last opportunity to be guardedly free with eating… before I revert the next week to a much stricter meal program.
I am hoping that a couple of friends will come over for cigars this afternoon. We have discussed it briefly but until Sam says ‘Yes I am coming’ I never hold my breath. This is not due to unreliability, rather a busy schedule with family responsibilities and such. I left a message for him and would love to see him. If not, then I will spend a lot of the day on the balcony smoking and reading. The muscles in my legs are still sore from Friday’s outing; combine that with the light rain that is predicted all day and I think I am going to give them another day to recover. The forecast for tomorrow is also rainy, but as far as I can tell it will not be heavy and I might still be able to get out. Tuesday through the weekend promises to be much more agreeable, and I will walk if I do not jog.
I started writing this article hours ago and have been distracted by all sorts of things since. I have come back to it six or seven times, which is quite embarrassing owing to the brief length of it. I have two dogs playing who have insisted on attention or treats, or who have just been a loud and cute mess the last half hour. They will join me on the balcony for my cigars.
My food plan for today is to make chicken for lunch, and then for dinner I will enjoy the leftover salmon from Friday evening. With lunch I will likely make a salad, while dinner will be accompanied by rice. If I can stick it out and not cheat, then tomorrow morning I might just see another successful number on the bathroom scale.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 527
I finally got to see my new doctor yesterday . She is a nice woman and is happy that I have been able to do so well with my weight loss, and promised she will continue to monitor me on a regular basis as Dr. Yates did. We talked about the ground I lost and why, and she is satisfied that I know what I need to do to get back on track.
I finally got to see my new doctor yesterday . She is a nice woman and is happy that I have been able to do so well with my weight loss, and promised she will continue to monitor me on a regular basis as Dr. Yates did. We talked about the ground I lost and why, and she is satisfied that I know what I need to do to get back on track.
I did not get back on track with my food yesterday. It was a very stressful day and I will not go into details. I am glad that I was able to get out to exercise. I did a 2 km jog followed by a 9 km walk. It felt good to be back at it. I did not sleep well last night, and my body battery did not charge, so I will take today off. I am driving out to see if I got kids today, so it works out fine tomorrow I will try to get out for another jog. In the meantime, I hope that I can stay on track with my eating, and I will do my best to be good and disciplined while I am there.
Today is Canada Day, and I am celebrating being a proud Canadian. Last night I sat on the balcony with a cigar and my noise cancelling earbuds in my ear so the fireworks did not affect me too badly. I hope I will be able to get through today and tomorrow as well as I did yesterday. Fireworks are not my friend. Fortunately, Princess Sophie! took good care of me and knew that I needed support.
Have a great day folks!
The Jetpack app is killing me as I try to write this so I am going to s
I did not get back on track with food yesterday
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Day 526
I saw my doctor this morning and she is a nice woman. We talked about what my situation is and she is extremely proud of my weight loss progress. While I have gained nearly 5kg since my last weigh-in, I was certain that would be higher so I am relieved. I am in a really crappy mood this morning – everyone wants a piece of me, so I have to prioritize. I am also not able to eat because of my schedule. I will eat when my friend goes home.
Have a great day folks!
