Losing a part of me

Category: Challenges

  • Day 1159

    It is today.

    Despite two large pours of whisky last night I was not able to sleep. I might have closed my eyes for two hours despite being in bed at 9:30pm. It will be an interesting day indeed. I only hope that I can keep my eyes open and alert through my interview.

    I did not make any good choices yesterday. I suppose it is excusable and understandable, but that does not make me feel any better about it.

    It is now 5:40am and I am already parked and waiting for the breakfast restaurant around the corner from my appointment to open. I have to wait another 20 minutes for them to let me in, but at least I can sit in the lobby of the hotel in which the restaurant is located. It is currently a balmy -5 degrees Celsius so the comfortable and warm couch is better than standing outside.

    In the next few hours I will know… or at least I will know more than I do now. The anxiety is killing me.

    The newly crowned prime minister of Canada called an election yesterday which means that the next six weeks will see the mud slinging between the parties. I am relieved that the election system in Canada is much more condensed than the American election cycle that never really stops; I only hope that we can be more respectful of those we disagree with than our American neighbours.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1099

    My weight-drop from yesterday rebounded this morning. Not all the way, but a lot. I know why it happened. I have to snap out of my funk. When I finally start working, I will hopefully feel a little better. Also, the cold snap is mostly behind us… which is to say that it is going back to normal cold winter temperatures rather than the extreme that we have been enjoying.

    I am still not sleeping well. Grrr.

  • Day 1063

    This morning I saw the largest single-day weight increase that I can remember, It was a kick in the gut, and a definite reminder that I enjoyed last night’s Christmas dinner a little too much. I do better today… but just the fact that I will not be eating cookies for dessert means I will be doing better than yesterday. I fell off the wagon hard yesterday, but it was a single day fall and today I am getting right back onto the horse. I do not know if I will be exercising today, but aside from breakfast (which is behind me) I will be eating smart today.

    Add to the food, my steps-goal streak came to an end yesterday (as I knew that it would). My new best is seventeen days, and sometime in the future I am sure I will try to top that. That attempt will not start today, but that does not mean that I will not try to exercise. I just hope that my knee holds up.

    My next huge challenge is next week when I go to my friends’ house for Christmas dinner. Until then, I have to be good… and get back down below the terrible mark that I shot past this morning.

    Have a great day, folks.

  • Day 1051

    The 5.5km treadmill workout I did yesterday put me over the top. I have officially completed the MapMyFitness.com ‘You vs. the Year 2024’ challenge. I am in the top 12.16% of participants (186,000 participants). Completing the challenge does not mean I am going to slow down. I am hoping to continue to make progress with my working out and losing weight for the rest of the year, and well into 2025.

    I cheated slightly yesterday but not terribly. I met some of my Lodge brothers at the pub before the official meeting, and I had to order something. I ordered the least cheating (while still within my religious dietary requirements) thing on the Happy Hour menu. Thinking about it, I could have ordered the six-piece chicken wings… but I know that wings are my Achilles heel, and I did not want to risk falling off the wagon because I had to order something.

    My weight did drop slightly this morning, but I would have preferred to see a more substantial drop after yesterday’s tremendous gain. No dice. I will continue to try to do as well as I can so that I can hopefully get back to where I was Wednesday. We’ll see. My sleep score was an amazing 89, and my body battery was up to 83 this morning. While my Body Battery was better yesterday, my sleep score had not been that high in nearly four weeks. I am glad that I got a good night sleep and will try to benefit from the body battery by hitting the treadmill for another good workout later today.

    I was put on the unpopular side of a discussion at our Lodge meeting last night and I felt bad that I was the only opposing voice. I realize that I was the one nay vote, but I am uncomfortable to have been placed in that position. I am going to try to discuss it with the Lodge’s leadership so that it does not happen again. If it is going to happen then I will have to walk away from the Lodge. I am in a very bad headspace over this.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 966

    I woke up this morning to see that my sleep score was a 68. This, after two nights in a row of the highest sleep scores I can remember (90 and 94). I don’t know what I did wrong, but I am sure I will feel it throughout the day. My body battery is an abysmal 39 at 9:30am… I have taken Princess Sophie out so I have likely depleted that somewhat, but 39? Yick.

    I did not feel like exercising yesterday. I told Leslie as we sat on the balcony after lunch that I did not want to go out for a walk… and so I did. I jogged the first kilometre (6m46s) and then walked… and while I doubt I broke any personal records, I certainly smashed my best times for this year on a couple of kilometres! Six split kilometres were under 9m32s, and one was even under nine minutes flat! I felt great throughout… but around kilometre number seven I started to feel a blister developing on my right heel. Yes, I wore one of the two pair of running shoes I have that are extremely great for performance… but also cause blisters. By the time I had 9km behind me I was ready to limp home. I didn’t of course… but I did stop at Shopper’s Drug Mart to pick up a bottle of Gatorade and to replenish my water. For the next few days, I will be wearing the other shoes that may not let me perform as well… but they also do not tear up my feet. I will also be bandaging that heel until it is properly healed.

    Here is a tip for all pedestrians: I will gladly give you right of way for a lot of reasons, but not if your eyes are buried in your phone as you walk right at me. Even if I was not 6’2” and 280 pounds, I would still walk like a bulldozer. I am not easy to miss! As I walked up Headon Forest Drive, there were two girls from the Catholic high school who were walking toward me, side by each. One of them was looking up, the other was not. I saw them from 150 feet and assumed that at some point the one girl would look up, or at least her friend would tell her that she should do so. Neither of those happened, so when I was 15 feet from them, I said (in my best Drill Sergeant’s voice) Look Up! This is not something new to me – I remember doing it when I was in Japan a decade ago. The girl freaked out, hiding behind her friend and doing her best to get as far away from me as possible. Am I that scary? I don’t know… but I will not break my stride for you if you do not look up from your phone for that long. In truth, I suspected she might call the police because she was so frightened… but I did not look back at her, and no police cruiser stopped me (From that point I stayed on the same street for over 3km… I was not hiding!) so I guess I’m okay.

    After not wanting to exercise but going out anyways, I was pleased to see another drop on the bathroom scale this morning. I did not get to cross off anything on the chart this morning, but dropping nearly a pound still felt good. I am now at my best weight since June 16! I suspect with what I have planned for today it will be the last day of losing weight… but we will see.

    Yesterday I prepared egg salad sandwiches for lunch. It was my first attempt at egg salad, and while it was not great, it was also not bad. For dinner I made seared tuna with a sesame crust and a side of rice. Leslie and I were joking that with good tuna you just need to show it the pan… but in all seriousness I think I needed to keep them on the heat a little bit longer. Live and learn, right? We had fabulous cigars in the evening, paired with two different Cuban rums that were both smoother than silk. A good time was had by all, but we were both quite inebriated by the time we hit the sack.

    I don’t know if I mentioned it this year, but I know I did last year. One of the apps that I use has a yearly challenge called You Vs. The Year. You have to log 1,024 kilometres of activity to be eligible to win the prizes (which I have no expectation of winning). Considering I was not exercising for a few months I am thrilled that I am currently at 744.89km on the year and am in the top 14.1% of 172,500 participants. Yes, it does log my walks with Sophie, so while I was not exercising at least I was not stagnating. I seem to recall last year hoping that I would complete the challenge by October. If I continue to walk as I have been these last few weeks then that is a real possibility for this year as well.

    I mentioned a few paragraphs ago that I do not expect I will be losing weight today. I am planning on picking up shawarma for a late lunch. More often than not that is a recipe for gaining weight. I will likely not have much for dinner, but it won’t matter… shawarma is both fattening and salty, which means that tomorrow my weight will almost certainly be up. It is also extremely tasty… and a nice occasional treat that my wife and I both love.

    I am not sure if I am going to walk today or not. The only reason why I would not is the blister on my heel. We’ll see.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 733

    Easy come, easy go? It is so hard to lose weight, and so very easy to gain it back. Yesterday I probably prepared a larger dinner than I should have. The result was a two-pound gain this morning. I had lost nearly that yesterday morning, and now it is gone. I will try to do better today.

  • Day 625

    This morning was an extremely bittersweet one. It was nice to see my weight was down from yesterday of course, and I am now within .6 lb. from dropping below 240. That is great, but for the moment not relevant.

    On Day 2 of my journey I wrote an entry called ‘My Weight Loss Goals.’ The last item on that list was this: “When I have lost 170lbs I want to take pictures of myself… wearing my Army uniform!” It was copied word for word from my original weight loss journal that I wrote during my first go at it in 2017… and again from my second journal from 2019-20.

    In April 2020 I moved to Westlake Village. This was the very height of the pandemic where almost everything was shut down. A group of us would sit in the park smoking cigars and we had a great time. During my recent trip a few of us were sitting around chatting and one of them said that the group was the best thing that happened because of the pandemic. I resumed my weight loss program at this time, and I made a bet with one of the boys that by New Years’ Day I would be able to fit into my uniform. Of course that did not happen.

    My phone started dinging earlier than it normally would on a Saturday. Israel was at war with Gaza. The Hamas-led government launched the largest ground and air assault into Israel that we have ever seen. Of course my first thought was that I wish I could be there and join the fight. I went about my morning bathroom routine, after which I stepped onto the bathroom scale (and was pleased to see a slight drop from the status quo of the last few days). I was about to get dressed but I decided to take a slight detour. I opened the bottom drawer of my armoire and pulled out my Army uniform. I decided to give it a shot.

    It fit.

    I do not mean that I as able to squeeze into it… I mean I was able to comfortably put on the shirt and pants! I took a picture – I did not tuck in or put on the belt, but I went to the bathroom and took a picture so that I can send it to my wife… and probably to The Westlake Cigar Boys (and especially Orrin).

    This is going to be a challenging weekend for my program. This evening I am going to a birthday party at a restaurant. I wish I could say no to the invitation, but I cannot. I will do my level best to be good. Tomorrow I am going to Thanksgiving dinner at my buddy’s house… or rather at his parents’ house. It has been a longstanding tradition that I join them for both Thanksgiving and Christmas (when I am in town), and it gives me the opportunity to see my godson and goddaughter. I plan for both days to go for a long walk/jog before the festivities and only hope that will negate the effects. I am going to do my best.

    Autumn is upon us and so is the autumn weather. The forecast high temperatures for the week to come are steady between 12-14°, which means that t-shirt weather is behind us… as is the certainty of being able to comfortably sit outside with a cigar. I have sweatpants and long sleeved t-shirts so I am not concerned that I will need to abate my outdoor exercises just yet, but in anticipation of that time I am glad I did not cancel my gym membership. I am going to take a drive down to The Running Room to see if I can replace the running gloves that I bought there twenty years ago… and which are ready to fall apart.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 621

    After synchronizing my outing to the apps yesterday I had indeed completed the 1,023km challenge for the year. When writing my article yesterday I wrote that there were 18,951 others who had completed it so far. While that number (as of yesterday afternoon) had increased to 18,990, I was even further ahead, at 18,844th place. I was also vaulted to the top 9.16% of the roughly 206,000 people who are signed up for the challenge. I consider that a huge non-scale victory. I am also not planning on slowing down; Yes, this week is going to be very busy, and it is unlikely I will get out for exercise before the weekend.

    I did not have a very good day yesterday. Sometimes crap happens and you just have to do your best to take it and roll with it. I did not do a good job of that yesterday and I feel terrible about it. I have to remember to keep my cool at all times… even when – or maybe especially when – I feel I am being unfairly attacked and my blood is starting to boil. That is something I have worked on in the past and I think I am going to have to revisit those exercises.

    I woke up this morning expecting my weight to be up. I did not cheat yesterday. I had a very small portion of peanuts on my way home from the barber, and because of that I skipped my final meal replacement of the day; I did not think my weight would be up because of that, only as a corrective adjustment to the previous few days of massive drops. I returned home from California a week ago this evening and weighed myself the following morning; I am 5.4 lbs. down in less than a week, which is pretty massive. I followed my morning rituals as normal and when I stepped onto the bathroom scale, I was elated to see my weight was down once again. It was not the massive two-pound drop I have seen these last two days, but it was down nonetheless. I am happy that I continue to make progress.

    I will be teaching all day today, and it is another course that is new to me. I am not nearly as worried as I was a few weeks ago when I taught the new cybersecurity class, but I am still nervous. I am relieved though that I was able to get the labs to work this weekend. I am especially happy that I was able to find all of the pitfalls in the labs (there are many of them) and work my way through them so that I will be able to guide my students through them as they come up. Teaching cloud technologies that evolve at a much faster pace than do the training materials can be a challenge sometimes, but this time I am up to that challenge.

    I am not leaving the house today, save to take Her Floofness for a walk. Who knows though? My class ends around 4:30pm and I just might fit a good jog/walk in there in the early evening!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 618

    I exceeded my expectations on the jog/walk yesterday. I jogged the first 2km (which is what I was hoping for) and walked another 14km. Had I not had that bag of chips last night my weight would have definitely been down this morning. As it stands, it was .2 lb. up, which is much better than it might have been.

    I have to stop making excuses that ‘Oh, I exercised like crazy today, so I deserve (or can get away with) this.’ The math has always been simple: When I follow the program, I lose weight. When I veer from the program I do not. QED.

    I am likely taking the day off from exercising today. I have a lot of work and studying to do which I should have done yesterday but did not. I am now on the balcony with a coffee and a cigar and nothing else to do but that.

    I did achieve one nice non-scale victory yesterday. In March and April I talked about the MapMyFitness.com challenge to walk/run 1,023 kilometres in the year 2023. When I first wrote about it there were a little over 130,000 participants registered, and I was happy that when I first wrote about it (Day 427) I was in the top 25%. Within a few weeks (Day 448) the number of registrants had risen to 141,000 but I had jumped into the top 18.6%. Less than a week later I was in the top 16%. This morning, with more than 205,000 participants in the contest, I am now ranked in the Top 9.85%. That puts me ahead of nearly 185,000 others. I am under no delusion that I will either crack the top 5% or win the prize (which I understand will be drawn at random of everyone who completes the 1,023kms) but none of that matters; what does matter is that I am sticking with it and that I am improving myself.

    Yes, I had a pretty bad lapse which saw me gain 25 lbs. while not doing any exercising to speak of for a few months, but I am back on track. Despite that stumble I weigh 6.1kg less than I did that first day of the challenge; I could look at that as ‘I only lost 13.5 lbs. in six months which is terrible.’ I choose instead to look at it as ‘I had a bad couple of months but have recovered and am back on track and have now lost 29 lbs. in the last 2.5 months and have lost about 150 lbs. on this journey.’

    It is equally important to recognise our successes as our failures. It is the only way that we can maintain a positive attitude. Thomas Edison once said that he did not fail 2,000 times… he simply discovered 2,000 ways how to not make a lightbulb. I am not inventing anything that will change the world… but I am following a program and a plan that will change my world (and possibly my wife’s) for the better.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 591

    And then there were four.

    With my drop this morning there were only four days in May when I weighed less than I did this morning. With every .2 drop that number will decrease by one. I am less than one pound heavier than I was at my best weight ever on May 27.

    Yesterday I wrote about two challenges that I was to face regarding my adherence to my program. I managed to turn one challenge into an opportunity. I wrote that: ‘. In the car I am simply driving, in a conveyance, with no stake in my success or failure.’ Okay. When I went to go to the store, I got to my car… and decided that instead of driving to Fortinos I would walk to Freshco. While my plans for the day would not allow for me to go for my exercise walk, walking to the supermarket would give me a couple thousand extra steps, and it would remind me that I was working hard to lose the weight. I won’t deny that Freshco does not have the same temptations (prepared foods and bulk nuts) as Fortinos, but they still have breads and so many other tasty opportunities to cheat. We had none of that yesterday morning thank you!

    The second challenge was my trip to Lyle’s. I had my meal replacement right before I left, but I was still hungry. The chewing gum I keep in the car helped me both on my way there and on the return trip. I was proud to tell Leslie when I arrived home that I passed by Bulk Barn and did not slow down.

    As I lay in bed chatting with her last night, I told her I had a fear that despite being good that I would see an increase in my weight this morning when I stepped onto the bathroom scale. I am not sure why, but I felt I had done something wrong… or maybe I did nothing wrong, but there are still going to be days when there is no forward progress. Last night’s fear was unfounded, but there will be days like that. I have to remember to take it in stride and not get upset when it does happen. In the meantime: on August 21 my weight was up 2.4 lbs. from two days earlier. Since then, it has dropped every single morning. Some days that drop was only .2 lb., but it dropped, nonetheless. Thirteen days in a row. That is a pretty good streak! I do not know if it will continue through this week, but it would be nice to be able to cross off that major milestone, not to mention the next two-pound increment, over the next few days.

    While sitting with Lyle, I did ask him once to stop talking about food. He understood that it was hard for me to hear it and still stay true to my program. I appreciate my friends being understanding.

    The Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), often referred to as the Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), is how many calories one would burn in a day with no outside factors. In other words, what we need to consume to stay as we are. I do not know the science behind it and how it might be affected by different macronutrients such as starches, nor am I going to spend any time researching it. I was introduced to the concept when I first went to a weight management and diabetes clinic over a decade ago. For the test they insisted I not ingest any caffeine for a period of time before the test. My smart scale just pops a number into my chart, so I assume it is not quite so accurate. I do know that 591 days ago my chart shows my BMR at 2,884. Six days ago (Day 586) it dropped below 2,000. It had been under 2,000 for a few days in May, but jumped back above on May 29, I am hoping that this time it will remain under 2,000… now and forever.

    While I thought it would be a daytime encounter, it turns out that my friends and I are meeting for cigars at 6:00pm, which means that after yesterday’s respite I will be able to go for a walk today. If I prepare my first meal replacement at 1:00pm then I will head out at 1:30pm; I will be home by 3:00pm and will shower and rest for a bit before taking my second meal replacement around 5:15pm. I will be home by 9:00pm and will finish off my day with my last one. That, dear reader, is the plan. Now let’s see if I can stay true to it.

    Have a great day folks!