Losing a part of me

Category: body

  • Day 1020

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

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

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

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

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1011

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

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

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

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

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

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 996

    Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. May we all have an easy fast and be inscribed into the Book of Life.

    Since the fast did not begin until after dinner last night there is no weight loss from it just yet… but the fact that my weight was up a ridiculous amount since Sunday meant that there was a lot of low-hanging fruit to shed; the numbers on the bathroom scale are still disgustingly high this morning, but there was a significant drop from yesterday. It is still well above that disgusting and depressing mark that I hate to mention, but at least it is closer to that mark than it was.

    Speaking of fruit, I was bad yesterday which turned out to be good. I will explain: I drove to Hamilton to spend a couple of hours with my buddy Lyle yesterday, and en route I stopped and picked up some dried apricots. Dried fruits are extremely high in sugar, and therefore a bad idea for anyone on any diet, especially a keto diet. On the other hand, apricots are, to quote one website I found, ‘may promote gut health, and are high in fibre.’ This is the polite way of saying ‘they are going to make you poop… a lot.’ Last night I had a very good bowel movement, and I had another this morning. Whether it was because of the apricots or not I do not know, but between the two I am not surprised that my weight dropped so significantly this morning.

    Other than the dried fruit, I ate pretty normally yesterday. I had my omelette and a roll for breakfast, chicken with egg rolls for lunch, and chicken with salad for dinner… with a challah roll. I actually bought two challah rolls and will break the fast this evening with the second one. I am also going to have to run to the store because I do not have anything to prepare for dinner… but that’s not the worst thing in the world.

    It is 10:15am and I am already hungry. I will try to not eat until sundown, but I did brush my teeth, I did take my meds, and I will smoke a couple of cigars on the balcony. These are all violations of the strict rules of the fast, but I am going to do my best to not eat or drink (except for the water required for my meds). I took the Floof out for her walk this morning, but it is my intention to not exert any more energy than necessary until after sunset when I can eat. I hope that I can stick to it… I will do my best.

    Yom Kippur is meant to be a day of reflection, so I am going to add something else here. On Wednesday I will write my Day 1000 entry into this journal, and what a wild ride it has been. While I am much slimmer than I was 1000 days ago, I have slipped terribly this last year. I would like to drop back below ‘that disgusting and horrible mark’ by Wednesday, and I would like to continue to lose weight to get back to where I was a year ago. I have had a few false starts so far, where I have made some progress… and then lost it all. I hope that this one can be the one. While hope is not a strategy, I will put in the effort to succeed.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 984

    It is 11:08am, and my day is done. I have been up since midnight after nearly three hours of sleep. Because of my class schedule this week my schedule is completely off. I did not weigh myself this morning because I essentially woke up yesterday. I had breakfast when my class broke for lunch, but I am thinking that right now I am going to have a cigar and then maybe I’ll eat a protein bar before hitting the sack.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 980

    I was doing well yesterday… and then I had to wait for my prescription at the Shoppers Drug Mart. I do not know what possessed me to buy a bag of chips and a bag of dried mango. I have to get a hold of myself!

    My knee has been hurting the last couple of days and I decided that I would proactively start taking the meds that healed it up a couple of months ago. That required a trip to the pharmacy. It is feeling much better this morning – not perfect, but definitely improvement.

    I did not get a great night sleep last night, but it was better than it has been in several nights. Around midnight I heard Princess Sophie asking to come into the bed and my first instinct was to get up and finally take the sleeping pill that I have been trying to not take. It took me a minute to realize that I had actually been sleeping! It was the first time since last week that I was able to sleep before midnight. Woohoo!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 973

    I woke up this morning all excited to see significant weight loss on the bathroom scale. After my first decent bowel movement in days, I was a little disappointed that the drop was less than a pound. I took Princess Sophie for her walk, and then prepared breakfast. Before I bit in, I felt the urge, and was able to take my second decent bowel movement in days. I decided to weigh myself again, and was happy to see that from yesterday morning my weight is now down 1.2 lbs.

    I did not exactly kill it on my walk yesterday, but I did push myself for 10.4kms, averaging 9m35s/km. It was one of my most stable walks, with each split kilometre coming in between 9m26s and 9m43s. I was happy with my performance and will try to repeat it today. I have a few things on my mind, and I might not be able to get out, but we will see.

    Despite the exercise, and despite being in bed and trying to sleep by 11:30pm, I still did not have a great night sleep. My sleep score was 75m and my body battery only recharged to 41. Hopefully I will be able to do better this evening.

    The weather is going to be nice and sunny again today, so I should be able to get out there and put in a good workout… as long as I can keep my mind focused.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 972

    I was very down yesterday. I tried to nap unsuccessfully. I did not try to walk. I will try today. In the meantime, I also hope to get back on track with my weight loss, as I am up three pounds since the weekend. I have not moved my bowels in days and suspect a lot of the weight is backed up in there. My sleep score was a 75, and my body battery did briefly peak above 51 this morning… but that’s terrible. Hopefully I will get out for a walk today and will sleep better this evening.

    Speaking of this evening: Leslie’s son returns home to her tomorrow, so this evening will be our last cigar date for a while. At least I have that to look forward to.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 967

    I knew my weight was going to be up this morning. I was not expecting so large a jump! With that said, it might have been worse.

    For starters, we did not end up eating shawarma for lunch yesterday. I came in from my walk and Leslie told me that her stomach was not doing very well, so instead we opted to pick up some ready-made foods from Fortinos. I knew I would be having dinner at my Lodge, so I thought I would be having salad for dinner and was not so concerned. It turned out that the salad they brought was ready-mixed with bacon, so I could not have that; my dinner consisted of bread and cookies. That is not the recipe for weight loss.

    When I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning I was shocked by a four-pound weight gain! I was mortified, but I knew I deserved it. I also knew that that I had not successfully moved my bowels all week. I took Her Floofness for her walk, and when I came back in I prepared my omelette for breakfast. Before I ate, I finally had the urge. I went to the washroom and blissfully moved my bowels. As I had not eaten yet, I decided to strip down and weigh myself again. I had lost over a pound since my early morning weigh-in. While a 2.8 lbs. increase from yesterday is still significant, it was still not as bad as it had been. My goal now is to drop below 285 pounds by next weekend.

    I walked yesterday, but I did not push myself. I knew from the outset that the blisters on my feet were pretty bad, and that if I pushed myself, I would be doing my feet no favours. I walked 7km and did not break 10min/km on any split kilometre. When I came home, I showered, and before I put my socks on I decided to drain the blisters and put bandages on them. Hopefully that will speed up the healing and prevent them from getting worse.

    Happily I saw that my sleep score last night was back up to 85, which is better than the previous night. Woohoo!

    Because I was in Grimsby for my Lodge meeting, I did not walk Princess Sophie last night, opting instead to ask Leslie to do so. She did, and when I got home at 10:30pm we went right to bed.

    I will not be walking excessively today. I will take Sophie out for her two walks (one was this morning of course) and will also get some walking in as Leslie and I run our errands. We are going to have our shawarma for lunch today, although we will probably have the wraps instead of the whole plate, which means we will not have the rice and potatoes. The pita will be more than enough carbs for the day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 963

    Leslie arrived last night! She got in late, but I did not mind waiting. I feel so much happier when she is here (or when I am there). We did not turn off the lights to sleep until after 1:00am, so I may not have slept as long as I would have liked… but I slept much sounder knowing she was next to me.

    Despite eating more than I would have liked to yesterday (I had three meals, plus a protein bar at 11:00pm because I was hungry), the bathroom scale was still kind to me this morning. I have now lost a little more than the four pounds that I gained Friday into Saturday morning. I am still nearly five pounds heavier than I was a week ago, but that will come off soon enough. I have to be patient and remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint.

    I am still feeling the effects of the preparation for my procedure, which is not good news for my bowels. We decided to have pizza for lunch. I am hoping that the carbs will do something to start binding me.

    Have a great day folks!