Losing a part of me

Category: Anxiety

  • And What a Walk!

    Speaking with Leslie today (and over the last little while) I have started to fully understand that I need exercise for a few reasons. It crucial for my weight loss strategy, there is no question that exercise is a critical component to losing weight and getting back into shape. That is an obvious and direct benefit.

    There is a less obvious (if equally critical) benefit to exercising. I know that food is an addiction, and I have to break that unhealthy relationship with food. Leslie reminded me (several times) that if I have been turning to food (and mostly unhealthy foods) to deal with stress, anxiety, sadness, and depression then I need a different go-to that I can use to replace food in those moments of despair and desperation.

    I have known my friends Rick and Isolina (The Beard and The Munchkin) nearly twenty-five years. He has been for many years the most faithful and constant reader of my main blog (www.garvis.ca) and has watched trends in my life. He pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago (yet again) that he can tell when I am back at my Taekwondo training from my tone… not only when we talk, but in my writing on my blogs and on Facebook. I know that he is right… although I am going to put in one slight amendment to that statement. I am more upbeat when I am in training… whether that be walking, running, weight training, or of course my primary sport, Taekwondo.

    (Rick is going to read that and within a day I am going to get a phone call from him saying ‘You know, you are probably right… but it is even more clear when you are in Taekwondo; I know that you love it and it shows.’ I love you, Rick!)

    Okay… so if working out in general and Taekwondo in particular are activities that lift my spirits, then why shouldn’t I turn to them as a crutch? ‘Hey, I am having a really terrible day today… I’ll go for a long walk and maybe I’ll feel better.’ Or: ‘Wow, what a crappy day. Fortunately, I can go to a Taekwondo class or two this evening, and that will help me work out my aggressions.’

    It is a question of shifting my go-to from eating bad foods to making healthy choices.

    By the way, if I do that, there will be another added benefit to my general mood. I am always in a better mood when my weight is down. Yes, this morning was the exception to that rule, but sometimes things really do get that bad. Okay, so if I am in a better mood when my weight is trending down, then exercising instead of eating will prevent weight gain and usually cause weight loss. As I wrote in my article ‘One Pound Lost is Three Pounds of Progress’ (republished on my blog March 30, 2022), every pound that I lose not only means that pound, but it also represents the pound that I could have stayed the same, and the pound that I could have gained. Lower weight equals happier Mitch. It really is that simple.

    I started today, and as the title of this entry alludes to, I had one hell of a walk. I don’t know if it was because of the motivation, because I weigh less than I have in years, or if it that I spent ten hours in the car yesterday, or that I have not walked in eleven days. I do know that I am wearing a new pair of running shoes (thanks Leslie!) and that my feet were feeling fine from beginning to end, and that I have a lot of crap in my head that I am trying to sort out. I also know that today’s walk broke a few records. Here are the numbers:

    • Distance: 9.03 km (7. 5 km)
    • Duration: 1:33:28 (1:22:42 minutes)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:21 (11:01)
    • Steps: 10.8k (9.3k)
    • Calories burned: 524 (429)
    • Elevation gain: 34.1m (28m)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 116 (112)

    There is a lot of bold text there because yes, each one of those is a record. I beat my previous best distance by 1.5km, which of course means that it was 16m25s longer in duration. My previous best pace was 10m37s per kilometre. Today it was a full 16s per kilometre better. In fact, each of my first seven kilometres was well faster than that, and had I stopped after five kilometres, my pace was actually 10m05s per kilometre!

    Yes, I kicked butt out there on my walk, and I am proud of it.

    I do not know if I will walk tomorrow because it is a Taekwondo day (as are all Tuesdays and Thursdays). What I might do is go for a lighter 5km walk… I won’t push myself; I will just do it to get a little more exercise than just the classes. I have to decide how I am going to do that, but we will see.

    I suppose there is another ulterior motive for an extra workout tomorrow… the following day is my fortnightly weigh-in, and it would be good to show progress. As it is, this morning I weighed 2/10ths of a pound more than I did on my previous weigh-in.

    That is another attitude I have to be cognizant of. I cannot act ‘business as usual’ for ten days, and then in the days leading up to my doctor’s visit push myself to get back on track. While weight loss is indeed a marathon and not a sprint, I do not know a lot of marathon runners who slack off for any amount of time during a race. I cannot either. Yes, there will be moments of weakness; what is most important is recognizing them and recovering from them as quickly as possible. All important lessons.

    I would love to push for a huge weight loss between now and the end of the summer, and so I am going to stay close to home. By that I mean I am going to avoid social situations where I am tempted to take peanuts or hamburgers or whatever else. Happily, I have a month-long teaching contract starting next Monday, which will also keep me focused and disciplined. It would be wonderful if Leslie were to come for a visit or if I were to go to visit her during that month, but unlike so many of my friends, Leslie encourages me to stay on track and to eat healthy. After all, I hope she wants to have me around for many years to come.

    As I write this, I realize the following:

    1. I have not showered since coming in from my walk. Yuck.
    2. I have ingested precisely one meal replacement shake today, which means that with the 524 calories that I burned on my walk, I am in a deficit of 299 calories.
    3. I have to get my butt in gear and go pick up Princess Sophie.

    Have a great afternoon folks!

  • Day 180

    For the second time since starting my weight loss journey, I was away for nearly a week, which means that I did not weigh myself during that time. I find that my daily weigh-ins are one of the best tools I have for keeping myself (mostly) on track. Because of that, I am always worried that I am going to come back from vacation and be disappointed by the numbers on the scale.

    For the second time since starting my weight loss journey, I came back from my trip and was happy with the numbers on the scale. Despite this ranking among the worst trips of my life, I have actually lost four pounds since leaving home. This, despite the stress and anxiety of my passport debacle; despite the absolute and complete mess that I have made of my life, completely of my own doing. Despite shawarma plates and pistachio ice cream, fast food hamburger and fried chicken and eating on the road and everything else, I have lost four pounds in the last six days.

    Yesterday I wrote that my life was falling apart. I have nobody to blame but myself. I will not go into any details, but I cannot remember ever feeling so low.

    I dropped Leslie and her son off at the airport in Long Island yesterday afternoon as planned. Originally, the plan was for me to stay one more night in Long Island, but I had no interest in doing that. As I sat in the Departures Lane of the airport in Islip, I tried to tell my GPS to plot a route for Home. As if my smart phone understood my existential trauma, it was reflected in the response ‘Error: Unable to find a route.’ I tried several times, but it was not having it. It was as if even my phone did not know where home was. In the end, I just plotted a course for Niagara Falls, New York. Somewhere along the way I would try again and get a more accurate reading. Anyways, I was only planning to get past Manhattan, and would stop for a few hours when I was tired – either in the Catskills or beyond. I am past the age where I will drive all night fighting fatigue and freebasing coffee to get to my destination in better time.

    Driving from Long Island to Ontario requires you to drive through Manhattan. This is never fun, but it is probably better on a Sunday afternoon than a weekday. It took nearly two hours to get over the George Washington Bridge, and I drove another hour until I stopped for gas in a little community in the Catskills. I do not know where I was, but there were several Hassidim there, both at the gas station and walking on the street. I filled my tank, I used the washroom, and I got the leftover chicken strips from lunch that were in the back seat. I hit the road, and only after I was on the highway, I realized that I had not bought a cup of coffee. Okay, I would either make another coffee stop, or I would just stop and sleep for a few hours.

    I do not know how I made it from there to the Peace Bridge without coffee and without stopping. As I waited in line, I filled out my ArriveCan form on my phone, and was through the border in about 20 minutes or so. I pulled into my parking lot at 2:00am.

    I do not know how I managed to get any sleep, but I did. Not only that, I do not remember waking up in the middle of the night to pee… which meant that when I did finally get up to do so, I was unable to get back to sleep. Too much going on in my mind. If I am so much lighter, how come my head and heart feel so heavy?

    Anyhow, I am back on track today… I had a meal replacement shake for breakfast, and sometime in the next few hours I will go to my neighbour’s to pick up Her Royal Floofness.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 176

    Yesterday I ate relatively normal… but yes, I ate shawarma for lunch and rotisserie chicken for dinner. I avoided temptation several times, including when my friend asked me to get her a Boston Maple Cream doughnut at Tim Hortons.

    This morning I met Esti for brunch and I was mostly good… a bagel with lox and cream cheese with a couple of poached eggs. From there we went to a funeral, and after that is where I went wrong. I picked up 4.5 dozen Montreal bagels to take to various people… two of which I ate with a couple of slices of cheese. Bad Mitch!

    I have now reorganized my trunk three times this trip. I truly regret not leaving my golf clubs at home… and maybe a few other things! I think I am finally mostly satisfied with it, and as long as I can drop my suitcase off at the hotel before collecting Leslie and her son from the airport tomorrow I should be fine.

    I had to make a very difficult decision last night. I have cut two friends out of my life, which is always very difficult for me. However there are things that I can live with, and there are things I just cannot accept. One of the friends I told, but the other I am just going to fade away. It is sad, but it was necessary… for two very different reasons.

    It is 3:15pm and I am still waiting for my passport to arrive so I can head down to New York. I am really stressed, because if it does not arrive today my entire weekend will be ruined. I really need to leave tonight, and if not everything goes to crap. I am sitting, outwardly calm, smoking a cigar. Inside, I am going nuts.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 175

    I was mostly good yesterday, despite extreme anxiety in the morning. Coffee with a friend and then music and cigars on the open road are a good prescription for what was ailing me.

    Unfortunately I was most of the way to Montreal when I realized I forgot my passport at home. I asked my son the elder to ship it overnight, and it should arrive tomorrow. Phew!

    I will not be weighing myself until I am back from New York which means I have to remember to be good at every turn.

    I brought shakes with me just in case… and have had a couple so far. Staying on track on the road will not be easy, and while Leslie will be with me for a couple of days, it is not her job to police me. I do appreciate her help and encouragement, but at the end of the day the man in the mirror has to stay on track.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 174

    As I was hoping, this morning I was down nearly two pounds on the scale. I ate reasonably well yesterday, although I did eat a bag of popcorn, as well as two of the Japanese biscuits that Leslie bought for me. I like good low numbers, and I am back below 340lbs which is the milestone that I have been flirting with for the last week.

    I am having a very bad morning so far, and everything is just overwhelming me. I want to throw things. I want to yell and scream. I want to go out for a very fattening and unhealthy breakfast. Instead, I am trying to get organized. I have a few more small things to do before I head out, and anything that I miss will be done when I get back. I am just… ARGH!

  • Welcome to Dallas… Welcome Home

    I do not live in Dallas… but that’s where my fiancée lives, and wherever she is, I am home. There was doubt as to whether I would get here, and that doubt has weighed on us both for months.

    Until July of last year I was living in California. I was on a work visa that came to an abrupt end when I lost my job. Thanks Covid. In normal times I would have packed up and gone back to Canada. These were not normal times, and the border was essentially closed. I made the best of things. I took some online training contracts, I played a lot of golf. I then took a mid-term contract with Microsoft. Life went on.

    As soon as flights between Canada and the US started up again, I booked a flight to go visit my children. I had not seen them for nearly two years, and that was the first thing that came to mind. I booked a round trip ticket, figuring I would go to Canada, come back to the US, and then close out my affairs so that I could move back to Canada. The only problem was that when I tried to enter the US, I was denied entry. Covid shmovid… I had stayed in the US without status, and that was a no-no. I was not excluded from the US, simply told to stay in Canada for six months and then come back for a visit.

    To say that was a stressful event is underselling it… but I got through it, got my affairs in California closed out, and I got my life in Canada back on track. I was getting close to Leslie at this point, and she was dealing with her own crap… but she was living my crap too. I do not know if things would have gone so well between us had it not happened… but here we are, ten months later, engaged to be married.

    Over the course of those ten months, Leslie came to visit me frequently. Truly, while we both put the effort in, it was her boots on the ground that got us here. Of course, at a certain point she started to get miffed that it was her boots coming to Canada, and that I had not visited her. These conversations started before the six month waiting period ended, and I had to remind her that it was not my choice, but rather the US Government’s.

    It was mid-February when that period ended. My ambivalence did not end there though. I was not doing a lot of work because I am still waiting for my security clearance, and I knew that the Customs and Border Patrol officers would not look favorably on my situation if I was not working. In truth, I was scared. I am certainly not the time to shy away from my fears, but at the same time, I did not want to rush the issue… that is, I was told to wait at least six months, and I did not want to show up on six months plus one day.

    Around mid-April we talked about it. Leslie came to see me in April and we were going to Cuba together in May; she was likely going to come to Canada for my birthday in July, so that left… June. I looked at Leslie’s custody schedule, and I booked my flight for… yesterday, as it happens.

    Great, right? No. Well, yes… but my employment situation had not budged, and I now had anxiety that I would get turned away again. The last ten days really the anxiety started to build, and while I tried to hide it, Leslie is a very perceptive woman, and she figured it out. The last four days were very hard for both of us.

    There was nothing anyone could do… I had to show up to the airport, check in for my flight, go through Security Theatre, and then stand in the extremely long line to speak to an officer. There was nothing else… believe me, we had tried.

    Knowing that after that long line I was going to be brought into the back screening office, I decided to arrive at the airport extremely early for my flight. I was comforted in the knowledge that I had nearly five hours to get everything done… and thank G-d I did because it took nearly that long! The initial line at Immigration was two hours long. I was escorted by the officer to the screening office and told to have a seat. That lasted another forty-five minutes before I was called. Outwardly calm, but my insides were doing somersaults.

    Did I mention that when you are in that screening room you are not allowed to use any electronic devices? No phone, no tablet, nothing. You sit there waiting for an agent to call you. you play games, looking at the other people waiting around you, trying to guess what their stories are.

    Officer Ortiz called me up and he asked me my story. I told him. I named the officer who had denied my entry last year, and explained the situation that led us to where we were. He told me he knows the officer, and is surprised that he had not tried to trap me in a lie. I told him that he had, and that the good thing about not lying is that there is no lie to trap me in,

    We had a very good conversation. I answered all of his questions, and skied a few of my own. As I predicted, the moment he stamped my passport, the anxiety drained out of my body completely and instantly. We chatted for a few more minutes about fiancé and spousal visas, and then I was on my way.

    The moment I was through the door (which lets you out into one of the worst Duty Free shops in North America) I pulled out my phone to video-call Leslie. After so many trips to see me, she is quite familiar with that shop. The moment the video connected she said to me: “You are in the Duty Free Store!” This was then followed by about twelve minutes of emotional blubbering from both of us. I was officially on my way to Dallas, Texas.

    I write this from somewhere over the mid-west, from my very own private row near the front of the aircraft. There is an hour left before we land. I have no doubt that by the time we disembark the airplane, walk to the baggage carousel, and I retrieve my suitcase, it will be another 45 minutes. However that doesn’t matter… sometime in the next couple of hours, I will have my baby in my arms. We will kiss, we will cry, and then we will drive off together. That’s the part that counts… we will be together.

    It has been far too long…

  • Day 148

    It is 1:00am Thursday morning, and I am too wired to sleep.

    After two hours of Taekwondo on Tuesday, I golfed eighteen holes on Wednesday. I am definitely feeling it, but not in a bad way. That is not why I am not sleeping.

    I only ate one proper meal Wednesday, a nice piece of salmon with roasted vegetables. In addition to that, I had a meal replacement in the morning, and some peanuts and some almonds in the afternoon. I spent most of the evening on the balcony alone smoking cigars. Why? Because Leslie is with her son, so she couldn’t talk… and I dropped Princess Sophie off with the dog sitter earlier in the evening. The apartment is very quiet and lonely without either of them.

    I did my laundry and most of my packing… my sundries will go into the suitcase in the morning, and I will pack up my computer as well. Around 1pm my son the elder is coming to drive me to the airport, and then I will find out if everything is okay. I am crossing my fingers, even though I know everything will be fine.

    I tried to check in for my flight, but American Airlines will not let you check in without proof of vaccination (which I have) being uploaded to their Verifly app… which does not seem to support my flight (or possibly my Canadian residence). I printed out the form, and will be at the airport very early… so that shouldn’t be an issue.

    In the meantime, I am still too wired to sleep.

  • Day 146

    There are moments of anxiety mixed in with the excitement, knowing that in a couple of days I am flying to Dallas to be with my fiancée. The last time I tried to enter into the United States, I was denied entry. I do not think this will be a concern on Thursday, although I do suspect that I will be taken into the office for extended questioning. Fortunately, as my motives are pure and true, I am almost certain there will not be a problem.

    Now if only I could tell that to my emotional brain, which has fleeting moments of real anxiety over it. The levels are not debilitating; it is more like how I felt before embarking on a mission in the Army. You planned for everything; you just need to get through it. Okay, at least with this, there is no chance of anyone dying.

    I am back to eating peanuts, and I have to stop that. I think it is part of my anxiety, which means that in a couple of days, I’ll be off the peanuts

    On my second screen, I am watching the video of my Black Belt test, twelve years ago this week. It is amazing that it has been so long. It is amazing to look back and see how many things I would correct… and to know how many things I would have to correct to get back to that form today. I need to get back into a dojang, but first I have to figure out where I am going to be.

    I woke up really early today – 6am – and did my regular morning bathroom routine. I hardly slept five hours at that point… I had gone to bed at a reasonable hour but had trouble getting to sleep. Fortunately, when I got out of the bathroom, Princess Sophie was not gung-ho to go out, and I went back to sleep… for another three blissful hours! I cannot remember the last time I woke up at 10:00am when jetlag was not involved. Fortunately, I had nothing on my calendar for the morning, and all went fine.

    Despite the earlier predictions of rain, the forecast for today and tomorrow is sunny and clear, so I might get a round of golf in tomorrow. Today I am going to relax around the house, maybe do some writing.

    Have a great day folks!