Losing a part of me

Category: body

  • Day 587

    We are down to eight. There were days between May 22-30 that I weighed less than I do this morning. It is exciting to realize that I am less than 3 lbs. from my best weight ever! This despite the fact that I was weak yesterday and I stopped into the store to buy a handful of peanuts. I will try to do better today.

    This morning was the first time in a few weeks when I was able to move my bowels before weighing myself rather than after breakfast. I know that it is a weird thing to get excited about, but it is real. I met with a diet buddy for coffee yesterday (and to buy more meal replacements). He is not on the same program as I am (he tried it and it was not for him) but he is doing a keto diet, which is what I suspect I will end up doing once I transition off my program. He spent a bit of time discussing the differences in his bowel movements since switching his diet (in a little too much detail, but that’s easily forgiven). If you think about it, what comes out of our body (and how it comes out) is directly related to what goes into it; that being the case, it would therefore be impossible to make a severe switch your diet without seeing a severe change in that. While I am not comfortable discussing poop it is nonetheless relevant to the point of this journal.

    I did something to my knee last night, and I am going to have to pay attention to it these next few days to make sure it is not something I need to have checked out. I do not know what I did, but when I came into the house from the balcony, I realized there was something going on. I got up in the night to put Her Floofness onto the bed and realized that it was still an issue. Before I got out of bed this morning, I was conscious of it and told myself to be careful… and there was no problem. That is, until I took the Floof for her walk. Oh the walk was fine… it was the stairs leading to the walk that reminded me that I am not 100% right now. If there was a chance that I was going to resume my exercise regimen today it is my knee that is telling me that I am better off resuming my studying today. I took the day off from studying yesterday and will resume today.

    I was sitting on the balcony yesterday evening enjoying my pipe when the weather turned. It had been a bit breezy all evening, but suddenly I was getting wet, and the ashes from my ashtray were blowing in my face. I scrambled to get into the house and am relieved that none of my technology got wet – I had both my phone and my iPad in places they could have gotten damaged.

    Okay, it is time for me to get moving. I will stay on track today. I will not cheat. Tomorrow morning I am going to the doctor, and I plan to be much lighter than I was at my last weigh-in… hopefully seven kilos lighter. I cannot hope for that if I do not stay on track today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 584

    I am happy to be down another .8 lb. from yesterday morning. At the same time I watch my wife who is a lot more religious about following the strict program than even I am about following my modified program and who is not doing nearly as well with sadness. I realize that every body’s metabolism is different and that there are marked differences between men and women, but to see her frustration at her slow rate of progress is heartbreaking.

    Today is our last day together for this trip which always makes me sad. At the same time I know that we will see each other again in 3.5 weeks in California, so it is not so daunting as it has often been. When I left Dallas at the end of July, I thought we would not see each other again until California which was much harder. This trip was too short, but it was wonderful to be together, and it was a good way to break that too-long time apart. I will miss her dearly when I drop her off at the airport today… and that is when the countdown to when I will pick her up at Los Angeles International Airport officially begins. In case anyone thinks I am not counting, as of this minute that is 24 days and fifteen hours from now.

    I am once again below 255 lbs., if only barely. Prior to this morning I had previously registered under that mark fifteen times (between March 31 and June 1st). Looking at the list of those dates I can see that after the first time I achieved that number it was for only one day. The second time as well. It was not until May 20th that I got back there and stayed under that number… until June 1st, the last time I was this weight. I do not have those days to compete with this time, and 250 lbs. is not my goal, it is just my next major milestone that I am eagerly looking forward to, and which I plan to celebrate only with a fist pump and a whoop, and not with a steak dinner. I do not plan to veer from the program again until I am in California with my wife.

    We are spending the afternoon with friends, so I am going to cut this short. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 581

    While yesterday did not go as well as planned (there were a number of impediments to my well planned timing of my meal replacements), the bathroom scale did once again show a lower number than yesterday. It was not a severe drop, but it was a drop. Speaking of drops, I am now on my third day of not moving my bowels on the current streak. Sigh.

    It is so wonderful to have my wife here; she is only here for a short visit, but I am so thrilled to see her. As soon as she texted me that she was through Customs I left the Cell Phone Waiting Lot and zipped over to the terminal… and twenty minutes later she was in the car. It is truly amazing how badly people drive at and around the airport. We then hit the highway and were on a beeline to get home quickly when we the highway, clear as one would expect at 11:30pm, came to a stop. We are not 100% certain of what the incident on the road was, but we sat there for at least half an hour before we were turned around and forced to get onto the toll road. If I think of it I will try to figure out what happened… when they close a 400-series highway in Toronto/Mississauga there must be something on the news about it.

    Over the last few days I have realized that I want to start wearing my pants differently. In 1998 I acted in a play, and I remember a conversation with the costumer who told me, as I secured my belt beneath my stomach, that normal people secure their belt right around their bellybutton while fat people wore it under their fat. That is where I have worn my belt for decades; yesterday and today I realized that I was having trouble with that, but I still cannot secure it properly higher up… at least, not consistently. I am able to do it for a bit, then find myself having to pull my pants up.

    I stand corrected. During my class’s morning break I was able to take care of business in the restroom… and very productively and to great relief. I feel much better! I only wish I had been able to do it prior to weighing myself this morning. Oh well… that’s life!

    I will be in class all day but that in the afternoon there will be a section that I need to pay less attention to so that Leslie and I can enjoy a cigar together on the balcony. I do not mind listening to the class with half an ear, but I do not get nearly enough time with my wife as I would like, so hopefully we will be able to bask in each others’ company for a few extra hours. While the wind will be picking up this afternoon, there is no rain in the forecast until the middle of the night. Hopefully the wind is not too bad…

    It is great to have my wife here, and that makes my day better! It also gives me a much better chance of being successful with my modified weight loss program. I am extremely unlikely to cheat on my program while my wife is here; she is not responsible for keeping me accountable… but as she is on a similar program to mine (the American program, unmodified) then the least I can do is to not try to not entice her by breaking my stride. Yes, I made my omelette this morning… but that is my modified program, and I will not be eating anything else other than my meal replacements.

    I decided that with the minor slide that I had these last few days I am going to re-cross and re-date the 258 lbs. threshold on my sheet again when I drop below it, which will almost certainly be tomorrow morning. I did not do the same when I dropped back below 260 lbs., but I was only above that threshold for two days. I spent over a week above that last best threshold that I had previously reached, and I am happy to re-date it to show my progress forward from here, and not from last week.

    Okay, I am going to start focusing on my class.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 579

    After several days of sliding (which I suppose is a nice word for cheating) I finally had a day of sticking to the program on Monday. I did go to bed slightly hungry, but not terribly so. I woke up this morning after not sleeping very well (which had nothing to do with hunger which was forgotten very quickly) I was once again not successful in the restroom (which does get frustrating after a while) I was happy to see a significant drop on the bathroom scale. I lost nearly two pounds, putting me back to where I was a couple of days ago. I am still 1.4 lbs. from my best recent weight (it was six days ago when I crossed off the number 258.0 on the side of my fridge), so I am at least going in the right direction.

    It was not a very difficult day for me. I was sitting in a class throughout the day, and I taught in the evening. I took Her Royal Floofness for a walk in the morning and then another one in the evening – even though she spent the day playing with her friends Charlie (doggo) and Sue (human). They likely went out for a few walks, but when she asks so nicely to go outside, and the weather is agreeable then it is not at all a hardship for me.

    I did get a little hungry in the afternoon yesterday, and decided the best way to address that hunger was not to give in to it, rather to find a way to put it out of my mind. I decided to take my mobile office onto the balcony and sit through the last couple of hours of my class with a cigar. It worked, and I was able to get through the rest of the day by having a shake at 5:15pm and then another when I came in from Sophie’s walk at 9:45pm.

    My plan for today is to stay on track and do exactly what I did yesterday. I am not teaching in the evening, but I will make sure I can stay busy and keep my mind occupied. I suspect there might be a cigar or two in that plan. I just want to get back to my best recent weight so that when I pick Leslie up from the airport I will look as good as I can, in addition to feeling as good about myself as I can. I never feel good in the knowledge that I have failed in something.

    I have had this text open for a while and have been half writing, half listening to my class for the last hour. I am going to try to do my best today as I can… I did it yesterday so I can do it today, right?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 570

    Wow did I fail miserably last night. I also paid the price this morning on the bathroom scale. I do not know what it is that makes me think that I can just have one chip…

    It was not just a chip. I arrived at the get together as I had planned, having just finished my second meal replacement shake of the day. The popcorn and chips that were sitting out were hardly a temptation to me, and I knew I was going to be fine. I guess I let my guard down.

    ‘Hey Mitch, I’m preparing half of this steak for Larry… do you want the other half?’ Sure, why not? After all, it’s just protein, right? Well, if I could have the steak, I might as well have the fresh in-season corn on the cob, right? There was pareve margarine on the table, so I could put that on the corn. Oh, then there are blueberries with ice cream and cake with liqueurs for dessert, but if I only have the blueberries that will be fine. I rationalized that by foregoing the potato, and the really bad desserts then would a couple of potato chips really hurt? And a handful of popcorn? I’d be fine. Twenty chips over the next little while, five handfuls of popcorn… I was feeling horrible about what I had done to myself. I texted Leslie and told her, and she reminded me that I can pick myself up and get back on track.

    I made matters worse when I stopped for gas as I left, and realizing I was 45 minutes from home (I had neglected to bring a second meal replacement), I decided to buy a bag of chips.

    Fall down seven times. Stand up eight. As I said to Leslie, I just wish that it was not factors of seven and eight. I am back on track today and am going to redouble my efforts again. I paid the price for yesterday’s failures when I stepped onto the bathroom scale to discover I had gained back a pound. This cannot happen again.

    I hope that I am back on track today. I prepared the exact same omelette for myself today as I have every day for the last week (or two). At 12:30pm, 4:30pm, and 8:30pm I will prepare my meal replacements. I will consume nothing else… save for water, my coffee, and possibly a glass of the lovely iced tea that Leslie gave me… it is sugar free, and I can sweeten it with artificial sweetener if I like. We will see how I am feeling, and what the weather is like.

    It is a beautiful day and I plan to spend most of it on the balcony. There will be several cigars, and I will divide the day between reading, watching TV, and doing some studying. What I will not be doing is cheating on my modified program. I am going to do everything I can to make sure that yesterday was a blip on the screen, and not the end of one trend and beginning of another. That slippery slope is one I am all too familiar with, and I hate knowing that I live every day knowing that the edge of that precipice is right there… behind every ‘it’s just one chip’ and so on.

    I do have one positive to write now… which I did not have when I sat down to write this entry. This morning started as Day Five on the no bowel-movements trend. Partway through the writing I finally felt the urge, and hard as it was, I was able to ‘go’ successfully. It was not painful, just strenuous. I am not sure if there is any science to this, but I feel like there was just one very solid obstruction in the way, and over the next few days or even hours I will have to go a few more times. We will see. The funny part is that as I took Her Royal Floofness on her walk this morning she had two extremely large poops; I told her that I was jealous and wished I could do the same. I do not think she is a genie who grants me wishes… but three hours later that wish did come true.

    I mentioned that Leslie is on the program now, and she has been doing extremely well with it. She did tell me yesterday that she now has a much better appreciation of how hard I have tried, and apologized to me for any time she might have inadvertently made it harder for me. I told her that I was proud of her and appreciated her apology. I told her that it is impossible to understand all of the challenges of the program without having gone through it. She then told later that I did not have to go through the program with her. When I told her how terrible I felt for having cheated she told me that I did not have to do the program just to support her through it. I told her that I want to do the program for me and having her doing it at the same time made it easier for us to support each other.

    I did not think of this yesterday, but I remember over the course of my journey there have been a few times when she essentially told me that I seemed to obsess about it and wouldn’t shut up about it. I think she now understands better why I did so. I am so happy that she is talking about it with me openly and frankly. There are so many emotional obstacles in our way, and being able to talk makes it a little easier to get through. I love her and am really happy she is succeeding. Of course, as I have been reminded all too often, the one obstacle that can ruin everything is hiding everywhere so she has to get through one day at a time. I will hold her hand (figuratively while we are separated by distance, literally when we are together) through it all, and will try to help her to succeed.

    We also discussed that it will be easier for us to support each other when we are living together full-time. It is easier to make the right choices when you are not alone… and when your partner understands your hardships and weaknesses.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 568

    My bathroom dry spell continues. I am really hoping that sometime during the day today I will finally feel the urge, but as I advised someone just the other day, there should be nothing to worry about as long as I am not in any discomfort from it. I will continue as I have been doing, realizing that it is possible that my psychological concerns over my failure to move my bowels is just that… in my head. As I mentioned just a couple of days ago, I feel I am in a much better head space than I was at the end of last year and am sure I have the capacity to deal with this right now.

    I miscalculated my plans yesterday and thus found myself out of the house (and without a meal replacement) when it was time to partake. I thought about it for a few minutes and decided that if my failures earlier this week were indeed caused by waiting too long then it would not be a good idea to force the wait. I would have been able to make it I am sure, but I did not want my hunger to get too far gone to be sated by a meal replacement. I decided to stop and pick up a handful of peanuts. I ate these instead of (rather than in addition to) one of my meal replacements. I feel that I did well with that compromise, especially knowing that I really was careful with how many peanuts I purchased. The whole purchase cost me $0.87, tax included.

    Despite my inability to flush solid waste of late, the bathroom scale was quite kind to me today. I dropped an amazing 1.4 lbs.! That puts me 40.6 lbs. from winning my bet with Leslie! Okay, I am not really doing this to win a bet, but I am using that as an excuse to keep going and to stay on track. I believe yesterday was the second day that I was able to stay on the program (the peanut substitution notwithstanding). I did not go to bed hungry, and I am happy with my weight loss. I would love to be able to stay true to it until I see Leslie again, which is forty days from today in California.

    I just had an interesting thought. We are meeting in California for Yom Kippur. It was following the Yom Kippur services in 2020 that I fell off the wagon and never quite recovered, leading to my gradually gaining back every pound I had lost and then some. That will not happen this year. In 2020 I drank the tequila and ate the cake, and then went home alone… stopping off at Von’s to purchase a fried chicken which was the beginning of the end. I have said a few times jokingly that it was my rabbi’s fault, but it never was. It was my solitude that led to my failure. This time I have the support of my loving wife, and I will not slip and fall this time… and if I do have a cheat meal to break the fast then I will recover the following day knowing that I have someone who loves me and who supports me… and who I do not want to disappoint.

    How wonderful would it be if by then I might have lost enough weight that my current suits will not fit me!?

    I met with both people who were selling me meal replacements yesterday and now have a good supply to last two months on my partial program. It was a costly day only when viewed as an up-front expense; knowing that I would have bought them anyways, and that I saved 30% off the full price, I am quite satisfied that it was a smart purchase and a prudent one… as long as I do not fall off the program again. Maybe my thrift can be another motivating factor to reach my goals!

    Okay, it is time to get on with my day. I have some studying to do and I hope to have a chat with my wife between her meetings. My cigar and ashtray are ready for those two occasions, as I hope to do my studying outside today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 566

    I guess I am back to not having consistent daily bowel movements and that is going to annoy me every day that my weight does not drop. Fortunately this morning it did drop… I lost a full pound over yesterday which puts me back on track. I told Leslie yesterday that I was worried that I might not lose weight this morning because I did cheat yesterday… I made a tuna salad for myself in the mid-afternoon.

    I think part of what I did wrong yesterday was waiting so long to prepare my first meal replacement. I probably finished breakfast around 8:30am, and then did not prepare it until after 2:00pm. By that time it is possible that my hunger was too far gone, and the 225 calories of liquid did not sate me. It could have been worse; a can of tuna is about 155 calories, plus maybe 100 more from the mayonnaise and onion. That is not the point. I am trying to get back on track with my partial program, and part of that is eating only breakfast. I have to prove to myself that I have the self-control to do that. I will endeavour to do better today. So far, I am on track – it is now 12:40pm; following my normal breakfast I worked for a few hours and then prepared my lunchtime meal replacement at 12:15… that is to say, around lunchtime! If I can stay disciplined, then I will have another meal replacement before I start my class at 5:30pm, and then another one as soon as my class is over.

    I mentioned that I am back on a partial program. I spoke the other day about getting back onto the full program. I am not sure how well that is going to go; I am going to spend a week or two on the partial program (an omelette for breakfast, then meal replacements only) and see how that goes. If I can continue to lose weight like that then I do not think I will need the extreme program. If I cannot continue to lose weight then I will have to reexamine that decision in a week or two, and I might have to do it.

    I had my final appointment with my therapist yesterday. That is not to say that I am never going to go back into therapy, only that I think I have accomplished the goals that I set out for myself at the outset. Whether that is because of the medications or effort or a combination of both, I am happy with the progress that I have made. My therapist agreed, and our last session was spent mostly reviewing my progress. At the end of the session I felt even more confident that I made the right decision.

    I don’t have the time to walk or jog today, but I do consider it a productive day. I am teaching this evening so I will start preparing after my next meeting. It is a beautiful day out so I might do that preparation on the balcony with a cigar. We’ll see! As long as I am able to stick to the meal program and not fall off (as I have every day so far) then I will consider it a successful day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 500

    Five Hundred Days. I cannot believe that this journey has taken me thus far. I am disappointed that I have not done better; I am overjoyed that I have done as well as I have. Yes, I would like to have gotten to where I want to be – completely slim – but I am not unhappy with what I look like and feel like now. I will continue to try to improve, albeit less drastically.

    I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning and had not gained, nor had I lost any ground. After the last few days of weight gain (and nearly six days without a bowel movement) I am hoping that the combination of a good movement last night and kerbing my eating a little will reverse that trend. I should also mention that this morning I have had two extremely productive movements – one before and one after I weighed myself. They were not exactly easy, but they were not as difficult or as painful as the last few attempts were. I am relieved that my insides seem to have turned a corner. Literally relived.

    My main goal for today is to organize and clean my office area. I am going to try to bring a large measure of ergonomics and Zen to my workspace so that I can make my life more efficient. That will involve a lot of work that I have been putting off for a few weeks (I have had the words Clean My Desks on a Post-It note almost since I returned from Dallas) but I think today is the day. I also know that my cleaning lady is coming on Thursday, so getting it done prior to that means that she will not need to work around my clutter.

    In precisely one week I will be getting ready to drive to the airport to pick Leslie up, and I could not be more excited. I hate that we are not together always, but I also know that the wheels of government bureaucracy turn slowly, and that eventually we will be able to live together forever. Until then, these periods apart are just the commercial breaks between our wonderful times together.

    Of course, after my work in the office (really a ten-foot square corner of my living room) I will likely relax on the balcony with a book (or two) and a cigar (or three). It is a lovely day, and while a lot of friends would love to see me, I think my original plans to rest and recuperate this weekend are the right way to go. Starting tomorrow I have five long days ahead of me, and I will not have the opportunity to have a completely restful day until Saturday… and Sunday Leslie is coming!

    I have a lot of work to get done if I plan to organize and modernize my workspace, so I am going to start on that. I have looked at this corner many times these last couple of weeks and been daunted every time. I simply have to go at it and not let myself get overwhelmed. The more progress I make, the less daunting it will be. I hope to not do a half-job, because if I say to myself, ‘Look how much I’ve done! That’s enough for today, I’ll finish up later…’ then I know that it will be the end of it. I do not want that to happen.

    Something I have to start doing as I get through this is throwing things out. There are a lot of things around that might one day be useful… or not. If there is a slight possibility that I might need a ten dollar item in the future, but there is a reality now that it is contributing to my sometimes overwhelming clutter, then it will go into the garbage. If it has significant value, then I will list it for sale. However none of it is staying mixed with my production workspace or storage – it will go near the door so that when someone wants to buy it, I’ll sell it… or if nobody wants to buy it then I can donate or throw it out. It is time to eliminate clutter.

    Oh right… and I plan to eat well today. No overdoing it! I cannot believe how long it took me to put together that the rice I have been eating with my protein has contributed to my constipation! Today I will eat chicken with salad… and that’s it. I will also be done eating by 4:00pm.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 499

    It is rare that I sit down to write my daily journal entry at 8:30pm, but here we are. I just got very busy, but I did not want to miss the day.

    At the end of Her Floofness’ walk this morning we met up with Charlie and his mom, and they went to their place for a play date. I had a few things that I needed to get done before my 11:00am appointment at the Apple Store (Yes, my second such appointment in the past few weeks). They replaced my iPad under warranty (yay), which means I have to restore everything from backup. They really do make that very simple. I then had a lovely cigar date with my wife before Eduardo came for a visit. I made dinner, had a long chat with my rabbi, and then organized a few things around the house. I prepared a few invoices for last week and for next week so that I do not fall behind.

    Yesterday afternoon I had a bit of a bowel movement. It was painful to say the least. I knew that what I excreted was not nearly everything that was accumulated, but I was simply not able to do anymore. That means that today was really my sixth day of being blocked up. When I felt the urge a few minutes ago I decided that I was going to fight the pain. It was not as painful as yesterday, and it was certainly more productive. I do not know that my bowels are now empty, but I certainly do feel somewhat emptier. What a relief!

    I ate more than I should have today. I think I was trying to fill myself to the point where I would not have any choice but to poop. I will do better tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, I did not completely pig out… but I have to do better.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 498

    It is now five days since I have moved my bowels and I am starting to get concerned. I know that I have been eating so the waste is accumulating inside me. I am just glad that it is not causing me any serious discomfort yet. I will keep hoping that at some point today I will finally feel the urge to go and succeed. I also hope that when that happens it will not be too painful.

    As my body is currently storing a lot of waste it cannot come as any surprise that my weight is up again this morning. It is not a terrible rise, but it is up. I know if I stay on track this will pass, but I just hope it comes soon.

    My plans for the day are simple. It is a busy day, but different from the last few. I will have the evening off, but my afternoon is busy. After my morning class (which ends at 2:00pm) I will be taking Her Royal Floofness to the doggie spa for her hair and nails appointment. I will come home to record a webinar with one of the training centres that I work for. I was worried about that until I finished creating the content last night. Now I am just looking forward to having it behind me so that I can enjoy my weekend.

    We have been under a heat warning most of the week, but that is not why I have not been jogging. It is a coincidence that tomorrow the heat is forecast to break, and I might finally have the opportunity to get out for the first time in a couple of weeks. I have to start getting active again.

    Have a great day folks!