Losing a part of me

Category: Cheating

  • Day 242

    Today is the day that I get back on track. Sunday, September 18th. It is precisely two years to the day since I lost my footing after Yom Kippur services, and my life went from one of disciplined eating to one of unabashed gluttony. Rather than getting dressed as I usually do this morning, I donned my walking kit, even knowing that it would be two hours before my fitness walk.

    My slide into sloven ended today. My weight loss slide ends today. Today is the day I hit the road and dig my heels in and say, ‘I am not sliding down this slippery slope any further!’ I have had my meal replacement, I am nearly through my second cup of coffee, and I am not going to cheat on my weight management program today. Tomorrow morning, I am going to wake up, step on the scale, and I will be pleased with the numbers.

    I have a lot more to write, but the truth is that I have a short window of opportunity. According to the weather forecast, it might start raining by noon. If I go out now, I will be back by 11:30… sweaty but dry. Maybe I’ll take my hat, just in case. After all, meteorologists were put on this earth to make psychics look respectable.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 241

    I know that I have hit a plateau on my weight loss journey. It is not a physiological plateau, rather a mental one. I am not sticking to the program as well as I need to in order to continue to lose weight. I need to stop cheating, and I need to start exercising daily… or at least near daily.

    I feel like I have turned self-destructive since my trip to Montreal began. That my weight is not up more than two pounds since I left for Montreal is astounding. I need to figure out what is wrong with my head, and why it is that I cannot stay on track. Only then will I be able to get back onto the track and keep losing weight.

    The psychology of weight loss is not a simple one. I love food. I love losing weight. I love eating. I love being slim. I hate dieting and starving myself and being fat and gaining weight and wearing big clothes and above all I hate that I am not completely in control of my own self, that I cannot just will myself to succeed with my weight loss program. If only there were a recovery program, like there is for drug addicts. I remember the scene from The Sopranos where Chris goes into the treatment centre. They take away even his candy bars because the caffeine in the chocolate is equally a drug to the cocaine or whatever he was doing. They encourage his smoking though, which is one of those dichotomies that Hollywood does not properly explain. If I could be committed to a facility where veering from the program was not an option, where I was given 1,000 calories per day, where I was forced to exercise… but I do not have that option.

    The option that is available to me is that in five days I will be getting onto a plane to see my wife, and when I am with her, I have the support and encouragement that I need to make the right choices… and that’s really what I need. I need to make the right choices every day, and if there is a day when I make bad choices, then I have to come back the following day to make better ones.

    To be clear, these last two weeks I have made a lot of bad choices… but none of them have been massive. I had some crackers and popcorn a couple of days. I had an extra salad and popcorn another. I bought bread for the prayers, but not the huge loaf. I suspect that the first sentence of this entry used the right word… I am on a plateau. It may take a few days, but I will resume my downward descent. It is not a valley, where I have hit my lowest (best) weight and am now on my way up. No way. I will get back on this weight loss horse and keep losing the weight.

    What is it that I have to do then? Leslie has been encouraging me to schedule cheat days. Whether they are weekly or monthly, there can be one scheduled day that I can look forward to when I can go a little crazy. I don’t mean ‘a big plate of wings and a large pizza’ crazy… maybe a reasonable meal on top of my one reasonable meal. Maybe I have to break up the monotony of the chicken and salad (which I really and truly do enjoy) with more fish, or even beef. Maybe it is a bag of chips. I don’t know what a cheat day should look like, I only know that I am going to give a lot more thought to how it should look, and how often I should take them.

    This morning, on top of my meal replacement shake, I finished the challah roll. It was very good, and I do not think it was the worst cheat in the world. As long as I do not snack the rest of the day, I do not think I will be punished for it. Starches and carbohydrates are fuel, so what I need to do is to burn them off throughout the day. I’ll do that.

    This afternoon I am taking Her Floofness to Ryan’s for a few hours. I am looking forward to seeing my buddy, and only hope that his sister’s classless boyfriend is not there. I hate that I was either seeing my friend or not based on whether or not that guy would be there. I am done avoiding him. I can easily sit in a room and ignore his racist moronic crap… even if it is aimed at me. I will do my best to not be goaded into a fight… either verbal (which I would certainly win) or otherwise. How often have I advised people to never enter into a battle of wits with the unarmed. I have to follow my own advice. It is not always so simple.

    We are not going to leave for Cambridge until after lunch. I will make my meal and will hit the road on a full stomach. Otherwise, I would be tempted to stop along the way to pick up a handful of peanuts, or I would snack at Ryan’s place. Going on a full stomach is the smarter play, and one that I have not played a lot. The last few times I have driven out there, I have planned to eat when I got home. That is just a bad idea, considering how peckish one can get when breaking their meal plan.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 238

    I have to start remembering that on days when I have a meal with my son, I am going to be eating at a restaurant. Why then would I have the full lunch, and full supper? It is probably because I do not want to break my routine of eating at lunch time. He and I went to Lone Star Grill, where I ordered a grilled chicken fajita bowl (without the cheese). Unfortunately, they also put out a plate of nachos and salsa, which I indulged in. I consider that a failure. My son ordered an appetizer of queso and chips which I did not touch. I chalked that up as a success. Of course, my avoidance of the dip was not only a weight issue; I do not mix dairy with meat… or chicken.

    At the end of the meal, Gilad asked to take most of his dinner home with him. This is not unusual – he fills up on the dip, and then has one or two chicken wings. He asked if I wanted to share an order of churros for dessert, and I told him I did not. I asked him if he would like to get an order of churros to take home with him, and he was happy with that. Sitting and watching him eat (or mostly neglect) the plate of chicken wings was more than enough for me.

    In a few minutes I will drive to the doctor’s office to get weighed. I am not expecting any great progress from two weeks ago. If I am down even half a kilo then I will consider it a win, after the disastrous week I had in Montreal… and even yesterday with the chips. On the bathroom scale this morning I did not gain weight, but I did not lose any either. After the weigh-in, I am having a minor surgical procedure to remove a couple of skin tags that have been bothering me for years. All told, I should be home by noon.

    For the first time since mid-July, I am having my apartment cleaned today. I do not live like a slob, and so it is not nearly as bad as it could be. I do so like having everything cleaned though. She does not do a great job, but she does well enough. When she is done (at 5:00pm) I will go for a long walk, having skipped yesterday.

    It is a lovely day out, and by the time I am ready for my walk, it should still be 22° Celsius out. That should make for great conditions for a comfortable walk, whether it be for 8km or longer. I will make that decision likely around the halfway point of my outing, based on what my body is saying to me.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Let’s Beat Ten!

    I set out with a bold path in mind for today’s walk. I had not walked since Friday, and I decided to expand on my normal local routes, which until today have all been around 8km. I was not sure when I set out how much farther my route today would be; I suspected it would be a little over 10km, maybe 10.5km. As it turns out, I was right… 10.45km, starting from the parking lot of my building, down to Mainway, across to Appleby Line, up to Dundas, then back down Walker’s Line to my parking lot. I made one pit stop at the 8km mark, popping into the gas station to pick up a bottle of Gatorade. I had finished my water bottle, and did not think it smart to try to make the last 2.5km without hydration.

    • Distance: 10.45km (10km)
    • Duration: 1:44:12 (1:41:33)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:58 (10:08)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m36 (9m44s)
    • Steps: 12.8k (12.6k)
    • Calories burned: 1,242 (1,188)
    • Elevation gain: 37 (62.7)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 122 (124)

    I did not break any speed records, only for distance; today was the longest walk I have recorded, besting my previous best by 450m and about 3 minutes. Five of ten kilometres was at or under the 10m00s pace, although my last 450m was on a pace for 9m33s. I did not need to be a hero to prove that I could do it; In truth, I also did not know that I was on pace to do that.

    While it was a terrible cheat, I carbed up for the walk with an indulgence of Goldfish crackers, which I should not have done. There are some athletes who benefit from the consumption of carbohydrates before a workout; I have never been one to notice a difference, and I do not think I did today. In truth, I think I might have felt heavier in my first two kilometres for having enjoyed that snack. I will try to be good the next few days. I will also try to skip one of today’s remaining meal replacements because I know that what I ate is much more than the 160 calories in a meal replacement.

    I am enjoying the book on tape that I am listening to, although it makes me want to reenlist in the Army to go fight the Nazis. Yes, it is one of those books that my father and his generation so revered – the Jewish community in Poland at the outset of World War 2, claiming that things are bad but at least they cannot get any worse… and the hero soldier fighter who wants them to pick up arms, all the while most of them are talking of forming a Jewish homeland. Leon Uris’ massive novel was on my father’s bookshelf for so many years, but I never thought to read it. Indeed, at the time I would have been intimidated by the size of it. I started listening to it on the drive home from Montreal and am enjoying it. That is not to say that it does not infuriate me from time to time… few Jewish soldiers would not be enraged by the progression of Nazism.

    Earlier today I went shopping for my provisions (forgetting to pick up more lettuce… oops). I decided to take my suits to the dry cleaner… to be specific, I took two suits, a sports jacket, a pair of pants, and one shirt to the dry cleaners. All of them were custom tailored when I originally lost all of my weight in 2017, and they fit again two years ago when I lost all of my weight the second time. Yes, this will now be the third time I have lost all of this weight, and while they do not fit me yet, they will in the next month to six weeks. I want them to be ready for when my wife comes to see me in November, so I can take her out dressed in a nice suit. The dry cleaner asked if it was okay if he only got them back on Saturday, I told him that would be fine. They may not fit yet… but there is room in my closets – both in Canada and in Dallas – for them for when they do fit… and that will be soon.

    It is time for me to hit the shower, and then take Her Royal Floofness on her walk. I got the Step Into September badge on Garmin Connect without any doubt today, but I still have responsibilities to my puppy to make sure she is taken care of, and is not forced to have accidents in the house. I will take her out after my shower. This evening, I will have another lovely cigar on the patio date with my wife. I do not think I have any other chores to do… although I know that tomorrow and Wednesday, I have a bunch of errands and doctors’ appointments on the book. Tonight, I can take it easy.

  • Day 236

    Phew.

    I suppose I should start with an explanation for that… as well as yesterday’s one-line post. Yesterday morning, after five days in Montreal, I stepped onto the scale. To my horror, I had gained 8.2lbs since Tuesday morning. I was heartbroken. I know that I ate poorly in Montreal, making more poor choices than I ought to, but over eight pounds in less than a week? Especially a week in which I went on three monster walks (8-10km each)? That was harsh.

    There are a few things I should mention about weighing myself on a regular basis:

    • My weight fluctuates depending on the time of day. That is not necessarily about what I have eaten that day, it is simply that at 9am I might weigh more or less than I do at 11am.
    • Changes to my sleep will affect my weight. For example, if I go to bed very late or very early one night, it will be affected.
    • Travel, whether by car or by airplane, always affects my weight for a day (and sometimes for two).
    • When I have a bad cheat day, the next day may be hell on the scale, but if it is only a single bad cheat day, it often works itself out the following day.

    Yes, I made a lot of bad decisions in Montreal, culminating in a series of bad decisions at the cigar garden party I went to on Saturday, and then more on the drive home. All of that, combined with the long car ride, the very late night, the very late morning, and weighing myself two hours later than I usually do… well, I was over eight pounds up from my previous weigh-in on Tuesday. I was really not happy… but Leslie reminded me that the travel day will affect me, and that I am usually so good, from time to time I am allowed to fall off the wagon… as long as I can pick myself up and get back onto it.

    Since I woke up late yesterday, I decided to not have my morning meal replacement. That decision was partly due to the fact that I felt like a fat pig from the weight gain, but mostly due to the fact that it was nearing 11:30am by the time I was ready to go, and I simply made myself lunch. I did end up taking a nap for a bit in the afternoon… I had so missed having my Princess Sophie cuddling in with me that it lasted longer than expected. We then went out for our walk before I settled onto the balcony for a cigar and a video date with my wife.

    As I prepared to step onto the scale this morning, I was hoping beyond hope that I would see a 3-lbs drop. It was all that I could hope for. Seeing the numbers on the scale announce a six-pound drop was just euphoric. I was so thrilled to not only be back below the 320lbs mark, but significantly so, was amazing.

    Knowing that at least part of my weight gain was not owing to the travel and timing, but to poor food choices, I doubt that the remaining 2.4 lbs will fall off tomorrow morning, but if I can lose them by the end of the week then I will be happy. Remember, next Thursday I am flying back to Dallas to be with my gorgeous wife, and I want to be looking my best for her. Yes, I am losing the weight for myself… but I think she deserves the best me that I can offer to her.

    It is going to be raining off and on today, and so I do not know if I will be able to take a walk. According to the hourly forecast, the rain should abate by 4pm, which means that I can hit the trails anytime after that. Not having walked since Friday, I would like to get in a good walk to start the week off. Also, there is a challenge on the Garmin Connect app to hit 100,000 steps between September 1-14. I am just over 14,000 steps shy of that goal, which means that a good showing today (even 10,000 steps) will guarantee that I hit it tomorrow, as any day that I do not fitness walk still hits 4,000 steps.

    I have to go shopping now so that I have food for lunch. I need chicken as well as vegetables, and we will see what else I might be missing.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 231

    Wow did I fall off the wagon yesterday. Driving days are usually hard for me, but yesterday went off the rails when my buddy called and told me that his wife was sick and that I should not come over in the evening. It was sitting with my friends who offered me all sorts of delicacies that things went south. I have to do better today. I will do better today.

    I slept really well last night. The drive was long, and by the time bedtime came around I was out like a light. This I still woke up to pee a couple of times, but that was not the worst thing in the world. When I finally checked my watch, it was 9:00am, which is nearly unheard of for me… especially when there is a floof who wants to go for a walk at a reasonable hour.

    I got dressed in my walking kit this morning, and that is what I am going to do. I do not know what the route will be, but if I get somewhere between five and eight kilometres in then I will consider it a successful walk. I did not bring as many workout kits as I thought, so I will have to do laundry if I plan to work out more than 2-3 times. I’m okay with that… as are my friends with whom I am staying.

    In the afternoon, I will see Stephane for a cigar, and then I will visit with Caryl and Lawrence for a couple of hours. After that, who knows? I only know I have to avoid bad foods. I will likely have Lebanese food for dinner, which is not very healthy, but is reasonably safe.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 228

    I was not surprised that my weight was up a pound this morning. Eduardo and I were meant to eat lunch at a bistro that serves lovely salads, but they were closed for the long weekend, and we ended up at a Thai restaurant that we have always enjoyed. I enjoyed the lunch special of red curry beef, which came with a bowl of soup and a vegetarian spring roll. It also came with a large portion of rice, which I should have eaten less of.

    After lunch, we went to a new family-owned café across the street, where we had a cup of coffee, and I had a muffin. As good as it was, and I will tell you that this chocolate muffin was truly fabulous, it was a cheat that I should have done without.

    I did prepare a chicken and salad meal for myself when I got home, which was another mistake. Following the lunch out, I should have finished out the day with meal replacements. At least I did not do both – I had a cup of Japanese milk tea with my cigar (which I enjoyed with my son the elder), but nothing else. As I prepared for bed, I thought about having a meal replacement shake, but decided that I did not need it, and in fact I did not feel hungry until the morning.

    There is a huge psychological benefit to not being on-the-cusp. A week ago, my weight had popped below the 320 lbs mark the previous day, so when it jumped a couple of pounds the next day, I was right back up above that boundary. The ten-pound interval marks are milestones for me and knowing how hard it was to break through that mark was great… only to surrender it the next morning. Wednesday morning, I dropped below it, and have stayed below it every day since. Yes, this morning I gained a pound back… but I went from 317lbs to 318lbs, and not from 319.6lbs to 320.6lbs. If anyone asks, I am still below that mark. I did not feel like an utter failure, if only because my weight did not jump above a mark that probably only exists in my head.

    Speaking of things that drop: The high temperature in Burlington yesterday was 31° Celsius (88° Fahrenheit). Today’s predicted high is 23°C (73°F), a significant drop… meaning that when I got dressed to take Her Floofness out for her walk this morning, I knew that long pants were a good idea. I almost dug a pair of Dockers out when I realized… Yes! I pulled out a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans. Not only do they fit, they might even be a bit loose. I do know that the belt that I have been wearing – the one that I tried to replace with a smaller size only a week ago, only to find out that it did not fit yet – is on the last hole in these jeans. I will probably have to get a couple more holes punched into it this week. Woohoo! I have to take a picture of myself to send to my wife before I go out today!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 219

    I suspect it is the high sodium content of the Lebanese food that we enjoyed last night that accounted for the this morning’s 2.2lbs weight gain. Yes, I cheated during the day. I had three handfuls of peanuts over the course of the day, plus one serving of dried mango. Yes, I had a salad at lunch, in addition to the meal replacement bar that I had. The Lebanese food, on the other hand, was excessive. It was not only a large meal, consisting of proteins and carbs and salads and stuff, not to mention the half piece of pita I enjoyed with way too much hummus. It was extremely tasty; it was also extremely salty. It is the reason I gained weight from yesterday to today.

    I will mention at this juncture that I have a very set morning routine, toward the end of which I weigh myself. That is the only time that I weigh myself during the day. This morning there was an anomaly – not in my morning routine, but in how my morning went after the routine. Part of my morning routine is a bowel movement, which is almost always regular, and with very rare exceptions is my only bowel movement of the day. This morning, about an hour into my class (while they were doing a test) I had a second significant movement, which may well have changed things somewhat.

    While I am going to stick to my weight loss program as well as I can while in Dallas, I know that there are going to be aberrations. I know that I will take Leslie out for a couple of good meals, and while I can order smartly for those meals, I cannot completely control what a restaurant puts into their food. I would like to cook every meal for Leslie, but that is not going to happen for several reasons. I simply have to remember that for every cheat, I have to be extra good the rest of the time. That means no more peanuts, no more snacking. That means that outside of meals, my meal replacements are my friends.

    Speaking of meal replacements, that was something that threw me off yesterday. I spoke of the difference between the Canadian meal replacements (225 calories) and the American meal replacements (160 calories). If I was on the full Canadian program, I would be consuming four shakes per day (and nothing else) for a total of 900 calories. On the full American program, I would be consuming five meal replacements per day (and nothing else) for a total of 800 calories. One of the reasons I snacked like I did yesterday is that I forgot of the caloric deficit; I did not think to modify my schedule so that I would not be hungry… and I was. This morning (as yesterday) I had my first meal replacement at 8:00am. On a teaching day in Canada, I would be having it at 8:30am, after walking Princess Sophie. The 225 calories would get me through to my lunch hour (12:30pm) without fail. The 160 calories here did not do so well; I will plan today to have a meal replacement around 11:30am, and not think that I am failing or cheating. It was that feeling yesterday that actually led me to cheating and failure.

    I did not exercise yesterday, and will not today. The schedule just does not allow me to do everything I would like to do, and while I can exercise to my heart’s content in Canada, here I want to spend time with my wife. She and I might go for a walk together tomorrow, which would be lovely. I will happily adjust my pace for her! She told me yesterday that next month her company is doing a charity walk, and this could help her to prepare for it. As luck would have it, the distance of the charity walk is exactly the distance of one of my routes here, so it works out perfectly.

    I told Leslie this morning that I am sleeping much better next to her than I do at home, which was to be expected. I also told her that one of the reasons I am impatient to lose a lot more weight is because I suspect that I will be less tired throughout the day (and especially at night) than I am as I carry around all of this excess fat. I know I have a lot more energy now than I did eight months ago… imagine how much more energy I will have when I have lost another seventy-five pounds!?

    My new water bottle arrived yesterday, and it is gorgeous. It does not fit into my shoulder sling, so I am ordering another one, which should arrive by tomorrow. I do not know if it will be here in time for us to go on our walk, but that’s life.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 218

    Welcome to Dallas! I arrived at Pearson International Airport yesterday four hours in advance of my flight, expecting there to be a ridiculous line followed by a lengthy interview at U.S. Customs. There was absolutely no line (as in, I walked up to the queue and was directed immediately to an unoccupied agent). He asked me maybe five or six questions, and wished me a pleasant journey. It was the first time I ever had more time to kill at the airport than the actual duration of my flight.

    I did not bring meal replacements with me, which was a mistake for two reasons. The first is that there are few (if any) really healthy options in the airport, and the second is that everything at the airport is priced ridiculously. Of the available options, I opted for a pad thai salad with tofu. I later cheated with a small can of Pringles and a small bag of almonds. On the airplane, I had the biscuits and pretzels offered, with a Coke Zero and a cup of coffee.

    Leslie and I had discussed what to do for dinner once I arrived. After debating Mexican, steak, and a few other options, I suggested she eat before coming to pick me up, and that I would have a protein shake (or bar). She brought a bar (and a bottle of water) for me to the airport, which I ate on the ride home. I do not know if it quite makes up for the cheats, but I know it was the right thing to do. When you falter – and you will falter – the best thing to do is to recover and continue on your path.

    I slept well last night, after the happy discovery of another unmentioned benefit of weight loss. It was good to sleep next to my wife again. It has been too long!

    This morning I made a mistake with my meal replacement shake. Forgetting that the American formula is different from the Canadian one I put too much water into the mix, and ended up with a diluted shake. I will learn from that, and for my next shake will measure out the necessary ingredients. Once I have done so once, I will be able to do it by sight again… but the watery shake left me unsated, leading to my taking a couple small handfuls of peanuts mid-morning, along with a slice of dried mango. Leslie reminded me that she should not have to police my food intake, and she is right. I know what I did wrong, and I will adjust for it so that this afternoon and the rest of my visit will be better.

    I was going to make dinner tonight, but Leslie is going to her office in the afternoon, which means she will be near the really good Shawarma restaurant. I will order well, and will only have meal replacements aside from that. I am really looking forward to that meal!

    In the evening, I suspect she and I will either go sit by the pool for a cigar, or we might go to my cigar lounge to say hi, and to enjoy a stick there. I don’t know, but I do know that I am happy that we have a date together, and that there are no phones involved!

    The reading on the bathroom scale was down this morning, despite the cheating yesterday. I am not quite back to my previous milestone, but I am getting there. I know that I beat myself up over what really are minor cheats, but that is the only way that I know to not have them escalate into larger cheats over time. I have done that before, and I will not do it again.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 216

    I confess, it is much easier to state your resolve to stick to the plan than it is to actually stick to the plan. That is how I ended up here, a day before my trip to Dallas (as well as my weigh-in with the doctor’s office) about 3.5-pounds heavier than my lowest weight from just a few days ago. I am glad that after cheating yet again yesterday, I did not gain any weight… although I did not lose any either. Days like yesterday need to be avoided… or at least minimized as much as possible.

    Yes, I finished the rotisserie chicken for dinner (in addition to having my regular chicken meal at lunch). I also had a cookie. No, I did not exercise. Yes, I know this all amounts to not losing weight this morning. I have to stick to the mantra that today I will do better.

    My plans for today are actually quite conducive to doing better. I have a dentist appointment to repair a cracked filling at lunchtime, so I will not be eating as usual. My class starts doing their end-of-class assessment at 3:30, at which point I will prepare my regular meal. I plan to go to Taekwondo in the evening. When I get back from Taekwondo, I will take a shower, and then have my evening meal replacement shake. If all goes well, I will only have two shakes and one meal, plus two consecutive Taekwondo classes, which should bode well for a decent weigh-in result tomorrow morning. Here’s hoping!

    Last night I collected my clothes from the tailor, and before bed I tried all of them on (under the admiring supervisory eye of my gorgeous wife). I was very worried that they would not come out well, but they did. I will easily get another three months out of them… not that I will have a lot of need for them. They are now all packed in my suitcase’s garment bag ready to go to Dallas, where they will stay for a bit. I am only there for a week, but I will be back there three weeks later, in time for the Jewish holidays. I will spend Rosh Hashana in Dallas (and hope I can find a local synagogue to attend), and Yom Kippur in Westlake Village (with my California congregation). In the three weeks that I will be back in Canada, I cannot foresee any even for which I would need to dress fancy.

    Today is the last day of my class, although there are a few more days of answering questions for the students. It will be a more relaxed few days… more so that I will be in Dallas with my wife! It has truly been too long. As I told her the other night, I am sick of rectangles, and need to hold her in the RFZ again.

    Have a great day folks!