I made a huge miscalculation which led to my falling off the wagon yesterday. In my state of exhaustion I waited too long… and a meal replacement was not going to cut it. I went to the grocery store and bought two meals worth of chicken and vegies… and a bread. I have thrown the rest of the bread away, but I am going to prepare lunch with the rest… and then I am going back on the program. I hate having fallen off, but it is more important that I get back on.
Category: Cheating
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Day 1287
Phew! My weight dropped this morning… even though my bowels did not. Okay scratch that – for the third day in a row, I was able to move my bowels… but only after starting this paragraph. My weight dropped from yesterday, but it did not change pre- to post-movement. Nonetheless, it is down this morning… and down is good. I am now only three pounds heavier than I was the day my world started to fall apart. That was April 1.
My sleep score last night was way down – a 67, which is still classified as Fair by my fitness watch. I suppose my 5:45am alarm clock had something to do with that. I am glad that I got an early start, and hope to sleep better tonight.
When I got into the car to drive down to Grimsby yesterday, I realized I still had some peanuts left from the previous day. It was not a lot, and I nibbled on them as I drove. My other cheat for the day was as good a cheat as I can think of… after our meeting at the café (where I had a cup of decaf coffee and a glass of water), the guys insisted we go to the pub – we were not quite done speaking, and the café was closing. As everyone else was ordering their food, I had what I think was a funny dialogue with the waitress. I asked her if they served chicken wings. They do. I asked if they served them with crudités (celery and carrots) on the side. They do. I asked for a plate of that… hold the chicken. She laughed, asked if I wanted the ranch dressing, and then when she brought the food she brought me a plate of celery and carrots. Perfect. drizzled some white vinegar on them and munched down as my table mates ate French fries and whatever other wonderful yet forbidden foods they ordered.
Today is the first day of a three day class that I am sitting through so that I can teach it starting next week. It should be three easy days for me, as I am intimately familiar with the subject matter. Nonetheless, I am going to pay attention and do my best! 🙂 I believe the last classes I sat through as a student were for two of the three ISC2 certifications – one of which I have, the other I am still waiting for final approval… but I passed the exam, and that was the hard part.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 1286
My weight was up this morning. I was about to start writing this journal entry when I felt the urge, but the drop in weight was not like yesterday – I only dropped 2/10 of a pound from my morning weigh-in, which means that I am up about half a pound from yesterday. I deserve it – I left the house at 2:30pm and would not return until 8:30pm, and I knew that would be the plan. So why did I not prepare and bring at least one meal replacement with me? Because I was forgetful. I stopped and picked up the unsalted peanuts that I like, and the $2 worth of peanuts that I ate filled me up. That took the place of two meal replacements, and I am glad that I did not prepare one when I got home. I will do better today.
My sleep was a bit better last night… with a sleep score of 79. I’ll take it.
I have a lot of work to get done but this afternoon around 3:15pm I’ll leave to head to Grimsby. I am getting my hair cut at 4:00pm, then from 4-7 I have a series of meetings and appointments. I’ll make sure to bring a meal replacement with me this time.
I have been checking my email every six minutes to see if my new certification has been approved, which is silly because it could take as long as 4-6 weeks. I am excited for it though and am really hoping it happens sooner. I have to practice patience!
Have a great day folks!
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Day 1284
In my usual manner, I woke up this morning to the same morning routine as always. Impatient as I am with my weight loss progress, I was still satisfied with the same-old .8 lbs. drop from yesterday. I say same-old because following the initial tremendous drop the first few days, the most common day-over-day drop has been that. I got dressed, took Her Floofness for her walk, and then returned home to feed her, make coffee, and prepare my meal replacement.
Between preparing all of that and actually starting to ingest it I felt the urge, and went to the water closet to try… and indeed succeeded. Yay! I decided that since I had not already eaten that I would get nekkid and re-weigh myself. Dropping another .6 lbs. from my initial attempt, it brought me to a great milestone: since Day 1 (today is Day 18) I have officially dropped twenty-five pounds!! That is no small feat, and is certainly worthy of recognition.
Wonder of wonders, my sleep score this morning was good for the third day straight… and the second night in three was a 90+. Okay, it was 90 on the dot, but that is still considered excellent. I cannot think of too many times since I started wearing this watch that my sleep score was ninety or better. I am going to do my best to make sure I am in bed and with the lights out by 11:00pm as often as I can. That seems to be making a difference.
As planned, I spent the afternoon yesterday in St. Catharines with a couple of masonic brothers – one of which I have known and been friends with since before I was initiated, the other one who I have only known on Facebook. He and I hit it off like gangbusters. There is a saying that in Freemasonry there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet. I don’t know about that; I do know that this gentleman and I absolutely hit it off in our love of History, our first-hand knowledge of the Middle East, and our understanding of and respect for each other’s culture. I am so glad that I drove down there, and it was worth the nearly 2.5 hours I sat in traffic on the QEW.
Unfortunately, I was weak… I stopped along the way to pee and decided while I was there to pick up some peanuts. At least they were the unsalted kind. While all cheating is cheating, there are better and worse cheats. It turns out though that it was a good thing that I cheated. When I arrived at his house he offered me an alcoholic beverage (I politely declined, explaining to him that my current diet forbids it), and there were bowls of snacks – party mix, nuts (the salted kind), and chips freely available and within arm’s reach. Had I not eaten the unsalted peanuts en route there is a very good chance that I would have succumbed to these temptations. He also offered up that his wife makes the most amazing zaatar pita that I have tasted outside of Lebanon, and would gladly make some for us. I asked for a rain cheque for when I was not on my diet. This was probably the hardest offer I have had yet to refuse. If you know, you know.
My son the elder is coming over this afternoon for a drink. Next weekend his mother is driving him down to North Carolina to begin his Master program at university, and this will be the last time we sit down before that. He and I have had a complicated relationship, and while he has freely admitted over the past decade or so that I have made huge positive changes, it still took him a long time to fully trust and accept ‘the new me.’ Over the last few months he has reached out to connect with me a handful of times; I suspect he thinks me a good sounding board for some of his thoughts and ideas, and when I do offer advice (which I try to do sparingly and only when asked) it is reasonable and wise… and from a very different perspective from what his mother and the other adults in his life might offer. He does from time to time like to try to shock me as well; while he knows about some of my past, I suspect he knows but the tip of the iceberg of what my true experience is. He has on a few occasions mildly surprised me, but thus far has not come close to shock. I hope he does not push the boundaries in his attempts, because his health and safety are too important to me!
He is bit of a feinshmecker in many respects, especially with respect to alcohol. He has been working these last couple of years at the largest LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario – the official alcohol retailer in Ontario, and the largest single purchaser of alcoholic beverages in the world), and so for me to have a bottle that he has never seen is always a treat for him. Last month a friend was in British Colombia and sent me a picture of a bottle he came across that was so completely different and that is not available in Ontario. If he does want to try it then yes, I will open the bottle and yes, I will have a dram which will definitely be a diet cheat. It is not every day that my son comes over to celebrate starting a master of law program at a top U.S. school!
Other than that, I expect today will be a quiet day for me. I will try to get some work done, and might have to spend some time on the balcony reading. While I have been listening to the audio book Moby Dick, I think I am going to revisit one of the early Dan Brown novels that I have sitting on my shelf. He has a new book in the Robert Langdon series coming out in September and I will definitely read it, but I confess I think all of his subsequent novels have paled in comparison to Angels and Demons and the Davinci code. So be it, I will still read the new one. Hope springs eternal.
Since writing that paragraph I decided to completely organize my bookshelves, organizing them by category. It is amazing how many religious texts I have, in addition to the myriad books on Jewish thinking, on Israel, and on Israel’s wars. Most of these non-religious books in those categories I was given by my father’s widow, a friend of our family for most of my life, when she sold her house and moved into a retirement complex. There are two shelves of cigar books, and a very small one for fiction. I love fiction and read it all the time… I just do not usually keep them when I am done with them.
Also since writing that paragraph, a buddy of mine texted me and asked if he could come over for a cigar. He is driving here from Grimsby, and while he says he is just passing through and thought it would be great to see me, I know that I saw him yesterday, and he might have something that he needs to talk about. My door is always open for my friends.
Aside from a wee dram with my son, my plan for today is to stick to the program. I hope I can succeed… I know that I promised that one week from tomorrow I will be recording videos, and I want to look as good as I can. That will not be very good… but at least I can try to drop another five pounds this week.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 1281
Much as I wanted to, I did not celebrate passing my exam by eating a celebratory cheat. I felt bad enough that I had those peanuts before, and as tempting as it was I was not going to go out for a steak dinner. I did, as planned, enjoy a very special cigar last night. I also indulged on more of the grated cheese than I usually do in a day. All of this combined to make for a much less successful day-over-day weight loss than usual… it was down, but only a fraction. That tiny fraction, however, not only brings my total two-week loss total to 23.6 lbs., but it also brings my weight back to what it was the day I was shattered, nearly four months ago.
I did not sleep nearly enough last night. I attended a virtual event on the west coast that had me on the balcony until nearly 1am. I hope tonight will be different.
My schedule for the day is jam packed, and despite knowing that much of the morning will be spent in cafés I am nevertheless going to stay strong with my eating… or not eating, as the case may be. In the event that I am not able to take a midday meal replacement I will be stopping by the shop to pick up some peanuts… not the salt and vinegar heavily salted ones as I had yesterday, but the ones that I can safely use for a meal replacement. Proper planning prevents poor performance as they say… or at least keeps me from getting stuck making bad decisions.
Have a great day folks!
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Day 1280 – Afternoon
I still cannot believe it.
I left home at 11:15am so that I would be at the testing centre thirty minutes before the scheduled start time of noon (that is not only recommended, but ISC2 states that if you are not at least fifteen minutes early then you are considered late). I was driving down Walker’s Line when I realized that I had not taken my meal replacement shake with me, which had been my plan. With all of the stress and anxiety in my gut, I did not want to make things any worse by going into the exam room hungry. I stopped at a convenience store and picked up a sleeve of peanuts. They did not have any unsalted peanuts, and I know I will be paying for that tomorrow morning when I step onto the scale. With my emotional turmoil I decided that was a problem I was willing to live with. I even splurged… seeing that the nutritional facts were pretty close, I picked the salt and vinegar flavour.
The staff were welcoming and helpful, but that would not be helping me to get through the next two hours. They had me take off my watch, ring, and my dogtag (although they let me keep my chai necklace), and empty my pockets of everything except my drivers license. It all went into a locker and I was escorted to the exam room.
As I sat at the computer at the testing centre filling out the post-exam survey, I was trying to think how much more studying I would need to do before I would be confident that I was ready to re-sit the exam. I clicked ‘End Survey.’ I raised my hand to call the proctor over. She had me rescan my palm print, checked my ID, and escorted me out of the room.
As I was reasonably certain that I would not like what I would see on the score report, I did not mind that the administrator told me to collect my things from my locker before collecting it. I was actually relieved by this because I was extremely thirsty, and along with my wallet, watch, keys, and jewelry I had also left the half-bottle of water that I was drinking as I arrived.
‘Congratulations! We are please to inform you that you have provisionally passed the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) examination. Your examination result is provisional in that it may be subject to further psychometric and forensic evaluation before a certification decision is reached.’
I did not even read past the first word… my mind exploded with relief. Unlike last week, I did not wake up this morning with that sense of peace that came with the acceptance that I was unlikely to pass and that it did not matter. I was stressed, I was anxious, and I was frazzled. I wrote in my journal this morning that I was a bit out of sorts and that I had not slept well. All true. I walked into the exam room with that same heavy weight that I have been carrying on my shoulders for… how long? I don’t even know.
I have another high-stress situation that came up this morning, but that is going on the back-burner until Friday. This evening I am going to go for a walk, then I am kicking my feet up and relaxing. Tomorrow I have several engagements that will keep me busy, but none of them are stressful – three meetings with friends for either coffee (the two in the morning) or cigars (the evening, and my cleaning lady is coming between those. On Friday I will deal with the bullshit.
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Day 1164
Yesterday was a disaster. I will not go into it and it might be nothing, but I found something out that put me into a panic and an eating frenzy. I have now regained all of the weight that I dropped just two short days ago. Until I find out otherwise (regarding what I accidentally discovered) then my anxiety levels will be dialed up to a fourteen. I do not know how I will get through it.
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Day 1152
Day One of my renewed efforts saw slight but not total fails. I found myself away from home for longer than I expected, and I bought a bag of potato chips. I was certain that when I weighed myself this morning I would be back up to 212 lbs.; what a relief that my weight was in fact down by a pound from yesterday, making for a total drop since Thursday morning of 4.4 pounds. Considering how disgustingly heavy I was then I am not calling this a resounding success, but at least I know that I am trying to regain my footing and begin to make progress.
I was sitting with a Lodge brother yesterday and I told him, without going into the details of how, that I decided to drop twenty pounds before the banquet. He told me that he would encourage me and discussed his weight loss goals as well. I was glad that he did not try to discuss his strategy and did not ask me about mine. I really do not feel like discussing my plans for how I will do it but am happy to have the support of people who are encouraging me to do it.
I also had a lovely video chat with my wife yesterday. It is hard living so far apart, and I am glad that technology allows us to not only talk but to see each other as well. I cannot imagine how much more difficult a long-distance relationship would have been before the era of video chats, let alone reasonable phone calls. I dated a girl when I was in the Army, and she lived in the United States. I cannot imagine how much money we wasted on long-distance calls… before she came to Israel to see me, and we both realized that it was a mistake. My marriage to Leslie is absolutely the right thing, but I am still glad that we do not have to pay thousands of dollars on phone bills!
I did not sleep very well last night, and it was in large part because of my shoulder which has been bothering me. I spoke with a Lodge brother who is a chiropractor, and he is going to help me out, but first I have to have a day when I can go to his office. That will not be for a couple of weeks yet, and so I am thinking about taking a couple of pain killers in the evening before I go to sleep. I am hoping that helps, but we will see. If not, then I will stop taking them and I will try something else. In the meantime, my sleep score of 63 from last night does not bode well for how this day will go; I will be teaching from 8:30am until 5:00pm, and then from 6:30pm until 10:30pm. It is going to be a very long day… and I have three of those this week, while Tuesday and Thursday I am only teaching the daytime class.
I said last week that I was hoping the packed schedule would help me with my eating, but it did not… if one can go to the grocery store to buy provisions, one can eat; also, once one is at the grocery store already then it is easy to just buy a couple of things that are counterproductive to weight loss. Knowing that I will not be shopping this week, but will be relying solely on meal replacements, is going to be most helpful. I am still weaning myself off food and will likely have my last plate of pasta for lunch today. Okay, I actually have plenty of pasta in the house, but only one meal worth of pasta sauce, so that should do it. I am giving myself this option because I know that the first few days of the program are extremely difficult, both emotionally and physically, and so if I find myself lagging in class this morning then I will give myself the option. I will not absolutely eat, but if I need it then I shall. I also know that if I do not eat it for lunch, but after a long day of teaching I feel I might need it to make it through the evening of teaching then I will have it between classes. It is a safety net if nothing else.
So far this morning I am doing well on water and coffee, and I did remember to add fibre to my morning meal replacement. Also, in anticipation of a resounding success getting back onto the program, I have ordered more shakes.
Wish me luck folks… and have a great day!
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Day 1096
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) sucks.
Yesterday was the first day of the cease fire in Gaza, and the first innocent hostages were traded for 30x their numbers in violent terrorist murdering scum. We do everything we have to in order to bring our people home… at almost any cost.
That was what was mostly on my mind as I walked up to the bakery counter at Fortino’s yesterday afternoon. It just so happens that as I approached the counter, the kid serving (probably in his mid-teens) was talking about the bagpipes. I made a funny quip about ear plugs. He looked at me and started telling me how they are the only musical instrument specifically designed to be used in war (which I knew). He then started saying: “Can you imagine being in a war, and going into battle to face the enemy…’ I stopped him and said that I really could, but that he couldn’t and hopefully never would.
I walked away with my bread but felt the need to go back and tell him that I was sorry for being rude. He told me I wasn’t and that he shouldn’t speak about certain things. I told him that he did nothing wrong and that he should not change at all.
The fact that he did nothing wrong does not change the fact that I freaked out. I pictured it, and I was right back there. My heart was racing and there was nothing I could do to calm it down… none of my usual techniques worked. I sat in my car for fifteen minutes until my phone buzzed reminding me that someone I was meant to meet so that I could give him something was at my door. I told him I was on my way, and I was home in four minutes.
I overate last night. I also drank. I felt bad doing it, but I did not know what else to do. I was shaking all evening until I finally got to sleep. Yes, I had nightmares. It was not a good night.
I knew that my weight would be up this morning… I never expected that it would be up slightly over three pounds. I kicked myself for the transgression… but at the same time I know that it was literally a ‘mental health falling off the cliff’ occurrence. I hope to do better today.
Well somehow I forgot to post this, but it was almost done. Have a great day folks!
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Day 1091
I should not have eaten those crackers late at night. I was trying to get my stomach settled, and I blew it. My weight was up this morning. With that said, It was the third day in a row that I was unable to have a successful bowel movement this morning, and I am a bit surprised that my weight hasn’t been more up these last couple of days. Fortunately, shortly after breakfast I was able to ‘go’ and that blockage might be behind me.
I am feeling mostly better today, only a bit nauseous. I hope I will be able to meet my friend later in the evening.
(Later)
I realized as I lay in bed that I had not finished my entry for the day so I made sure to get up and do so.
