Losing a part of me

Category: Choices

  • Day 233

    Okay, so I did not write about my walk yesterday. That is in no way meant as commentary that I did not walk, or did not have a good walk. I got back and realized that if I did not get ready and leave immediately, I would be late for my lunch engagement.

    I did not break any records on my walk yesterday, but it was a good and respectable outing. I did not break the ten-minute mark for any kilometre, let alone my average. I was walking on a knee that I was worried about, and did not want to aggravate it.

    • Distance: 8.21km (8.5km)
    • Duration: 1:24:56 (1:24:24)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:20 (9:55)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m02s (9m45s)
    • Steps: 10.3k (10.3k)
    • Calories burned: 971 (1,033)
    • Elevation gain: 53 (56)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 122 (120)

    Hearing at lunch that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II passed away was devastating for me. Many people do not realize that she was the Queen of Canada, as well as of the United Kingdom. She has been a constant presence in my life, with her face on the coins that I played with as a very young child. While I am sure it was not unanimous, I believe that her style and class made her universally loved and respected around the world. Long live King Charles III, but his mother will be missed.

    I have no plans for today. Yes, I will go for my walk shortly, after which I will come back to the house, shower, and then I will drive to the cemetery, where I will spend a couple of hours talking with my father. I will probably take a cigar to smoke with him, but we will see. I will probably have Lebanese food for lunch, which I think he would appreciate. Of course, he would be calling it Israeli food, which is just fine by me.

    In the evening, I might go to one of the cigar lounges I used to hang out at here… either Dreamcatcher (on the Kahnawake native territory), or Stogies downtown. More likely, I will sit on the patio here, reading my book, and quietly smoking a cigar alone. I am sure there are more friends in Montreal that I would like to see, but I cannot think of anyone right now.

    Tomorrow, as long as my knee is still cooperating, I plan to go for a walk on Mount Royal in the morning. At the end of my walk, I will go back to Esti’s house, shower, and then buy her lunch. She had laser eye surgery yesterday, otherwise I might have done all of that today. There is a difference between getting into the car all sweaty and driving five minutes to her house versus driving nearly an hour to get here. I suspect that if I do that too often, my car will begin to smell like a gym locker… and we cannot have that, especially not ahead of my five-plus hour drive back to Burlington.

    As I sit here writing, I decided to be somewhat luxuriant. I poured myself a second cup of coffee, which is absolutely normal (as indeed would be the third cup) back home, but has not been my habit since arriving in Quebec. I think it has been mainly the timing issue that has prevented it, and I am wondering if that might be one of the reasons I have been having trouble sticking to the parameters of my weight management program since Tuesday. I know that some people think coffee is only coffee, but it is actually a drug that affects your body and attitude throughout the day. I know that yesterday afternoon I met my friend Jess for coffee (at a very nice café in the Plateau de Montreal area), and I had a pastry with it. I do not blame the pastry on my coffee imbalance, rather on my mourning the passing of the monarch. With that said, I have made a few wrong decisions these last few days, and I wonder… and I hope that my daily walks will at least keep my weight from slipping too badly on this trip.

    I should mention that while I was not great on my weight management plan yesterday, I could have done worse. My father’s friend Arnie and I met for lunch at the Snowdon Delicatessen; rather than ordering the large Montreal smoked meat platter with fries, I ordered a bowl of chicken soup with a matza ball and a salmon salad sandwich. Arnie ordered a plate of French fries which he encouraged me to share, so I had a few… and I only did that because he doused them with vinegar. Really good fries with vinegar are one of my kryptonites! Even so, I ate much better there than I could have… and normally would have.

    Okay, I have used my writing to procrastinate enough. I just sipped the last sip of my coffee, and I should hit the pavement. I will grab my sunglasses and my water bottle, and I will turn on my music. As is my habit, I will first listen to the CBC news, but I think I can guess what that broadcast will be focused on. I miss her too.

    See you soon folks!

  • Day 215

    I made three mistakes yesterday… and I paid dearly for them this morning.

    1. My friends gave me a package of low-carb tortillas they thought I would enjoy. While I did enjoy them, I wish I had not. I will not be eating them again.
    2. The same friends recommended that rather than buying raw chicken and cooking it, I should buy a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket, and then chop some of it up and put it in the tortillas. While I do have a lot of chicken left, I will definitely not be repeating this exercise.
    3. I ate my meal at dinner time rather than at lunchtime, because I spent the afternoon with them.

    I want to be clear now that I am not blaming anyone but myself for the three pounds gained on the bathroom scale this morning. They did not force me to eat the tortillas (which may be low-carb, but still a lot more carbohydrates than I eat usually). They certainly did not force me to opt for the rotisserie chicken. They are not responsible for when I eat. I made these mistakes.

    You read that right… I am up three pounds this morning. Whereas Saturday I crossed below the 320-pound mark, today my weight is closer to 325 than to 320.

    I am kicking myself because the truth is I did not even enjoy the meal nearly as much as I enjoy my regular meals. I was going to write that I would have been just as happy with my normal chicken and salad; in truth, I would have been happier.

    I do not know if my decision to not walk yesterday was really much of a contributing factor to this morning’s stupid jump on the scale, but I stand by it as a smart decision. Muscles need timed to recover sometimes, and last night I was able to see and feel muscular definition in my legs that has been missing for years. That is a huge non-scale victory, on a day of a huge scale defeat. When there is little positive to look at, you should try to find at least a glimmer of it.

    I am torn about my plans for today. I am torn between eating the rotisserie chicken (which I believe is extremely high in sodium, a contributing factor to my weight gain), and going to buy raw chicken to cook. Honestly, I think that is the right decision. Yes, I am going to head to the store to pick that up so that I can return to my regularly scheduled meal plan. I am going to ask my buddy if I can freeze the remaining tortillas, and save them for a treat.

    It is raining today, and the forecast is for rain from 2pm throughout the evening. Depending on how heavy the rain is, I might or might not walk. If it is pouring rain then I will not, but if it is just a light drizzle then I will try to go out for a turn.

    I have a couple of errands to take care of today, including sending the tailor an email to see if my clothes are ready, or at least will be by tomorrow. I do want to take them to Dallas with me, and that was always my deadline for her. If they are not done in time, then I am really not going to be happy… but it is something I have no control over at this point. I also have to print out the Covid forms for air travel, thanks to American Airlines’ app not supporting my Canadian residence. Sheesh.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Habits

    I have been saying for weeks that I am pushing myself to walk until it eventually becomes a habit, and that I do not have to push myself to do it. I have been saying for years that I need to break my unhealthy relationship with food, and establish good eating habits. I have gotten into the habit of writing in my weight loss journal on a daily basis, even on days when I have nothing new (or good) to report.

    So much of our lives are dictated by habits. Someone who does not plan their time well might be habitually late. You might be in the habit of showering on a certain schedule; people who do not eat well might make it a habit of picking unhealthy restaurants or food choices at the supermarket.

    A habit is not necessarily good or bad. It is defined (by Oxford Languages, per Bing Dictionary) as a regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. It is not the same as a schedule or routine. I do not take my dog for a walk twice or thrice daily out of habit, I do so out of necessity. To wit: When Princess Sophie is not with me, I do not go for a walk in the morning. I do not log on to Zoom to start teaching on days when I am not contracted to do so.

    There are good habits (I am in the habit of brushing my teeth in the morning when I wake up and in the evening before bed). There are bad habits (of which I have too many to pick just one as an example). There are habits that are neither good nor bad, they are just how we do things. I am in the habit of shaking a sweetener pack before tearing it open. Why? It is something that I do. Frankly, I remember watching my father doing it when I was a kid, and I picked it up from him. Would bad things happen if I opened a packet of sweetener without shaking it? Unlikely… but it is a habit, and I do it every single time.

    Habits around food are extremely common, and again, can be good or bad. Why do many people eat their salads before, or after, or alongside their main course? It is a habit, based on cultural norms of the country in which they were raised. Some people say a prayer before eating, which might be out of habit, or from a deep-rooted belief that their food is a gift from G-d, and that they should be grateful.

    Some people always take a second helping of… whatever. If you were to ask them, they might answer that they are still hungry, or that it was so good that they wanted more. Oftentimes it is simply because they are used to taking seconds. It is a habit. In some cases that might be a good thing, but more often it is not.

    I do not know a fat person, and likely neither do you, who was taught healthy food choices as a child. I do not mean that they did not learn about the five basic food groups – we all learned at least some form of nutrition in school – I mean ingrained education, their day-to-day meals. If you are taught about smart choices for ten minutes in a class one day, but are given huge meals of deep-fried this and creamed that and everything is drowning in gravy every night, then that is the habit you will learn. It is not an easy one to break.

    I have said for months that I want my good eating to be habitual, and my fitness walking to be a habit. So far, I know that neither has happened. Have I ever exercised on a daily basis? Of course I have… for years on end. Have I ever eaten well? Sure, and I have lost a lot of weight a couple of times to prove it. Yet it is so hard to make those habitual. Falling into my old routines is easy… like smoking cigarettes, it is easy to start, but hard to quit.

    Do you see the difference between those? Exercise is a hard habit to get into, and an easy one to fall out of. Eating well is a hard habit to get into, and an easy one to fall out of. Overeating is an easy habit to fall into, and a hard one to fall out of. Smoking cigarettes is an easy habit to get into, and a hard one to fall out of.

    clip_image002

    This seems to me to be an unfair reality, but it is a reality nonetheless. I wish it were the opposite, where good habits were easy to establish and hard to break, but it is not the case. That is why we must be extra vigilant, once we are in a good habit, to stick to it. I do not have the answer to that… and so far, I have not heard of a good one. I know people who put entries into their daily diary to go for a walk, and I hope that works for them… but it has never worked for me, at least not for the long term. A daily reminder to do something makes it a scheduled task or routine… but not a habit.

    Good habits are hard to get into and bad habits are hard to break. We may not like it, but it is a fact of life, and one that, if we wish to control our own habits, we will need to find a way to work at every day of our lives… until our good habits are so truly ingrained into us that we do them without thinking… and until we have so truly broken our bad habits that it would never occur to us to repeat them.

    With regard to food, I have gotten into the habit of buying only the foods that I know are allowed on my weight management program. Some people would point out that I seem to eat rather monotonously, but that is what I need to do to lose weight, and so I do not veer too far from my chicken or fish with a salad for lunch. I do not keep pasta and creamy sauces or fattening salad dressings in the house because it would be too easy to say ‘You know what? I do not feel like eating chicken today.’ It took some time, but when I go to the supermarket, I buy what I need, and I do not go looking for things that would be tasty but harmful to my weight loss plan. It is now a habit more than a routine, and I am grateful for it.

    When I decided to lose weight seriously, one of the hardest habits to break was eating at restaurants. That was one of the main reasons it took until January 20th to really start, and not January 1st as I had originally intended. Eating out is a bad habit, and therefore a difficult one to break. Sticking to my meal-replacements program was a very good habit to get into… and it did not come easy.

    Some religious leaders will tell you that the devil is always there to tempt you, and it is only your strong belief in G-d that keeps you from sinning. I do not believe in those concepts in the Christian sense, but I do believe that we all have good voices and bad voices in our heads. The good voices encourage us to do the right thing – and we usually know that is, whether it be helping a neighbour or eating healthy. The bad voices are shouting at us to succumb to temptation, to be selfish and to eat whatever we want. While the bad voices might be shouting, it is our responsibility to ourselves to tune them out and to listen to the good voices and to do the right thing, whether that be by others or by ourselves.

    Doing the right thing is not always the easy thing… but it is always the right thing. Our diet habits can be good or they can be bad, and it is the decisions that we make that will determine our paths… and eventually our waist size.

  • Day 204

    I was at the park with Princess Sophie by the time I realized that I did not feel any discomfort from my previous aches. I suppose I will keep an eye on things for another day, but I hope that I am out of the woods with that.

    Yesterday’s cheat was a handful of pumpkin seeds that I usually reserve for my salads, but which was a very fine nosh for my mid-afternoon pangs. My plans for today are to not do that… although knowing that I have a friend coming over for a cigar, I suspect that he will try to entice me to join him in a glass of whisky. I am probably going to tell him I am on antibiotics, and am unable to drink. We will see. He is a fellow cigar sommelier, and it is not often I get to sit and share a pairing with another trained smoker.

    My weight dropped by another .2 pound today; at this rate, it would take me seven weeks to lose five pounds, so I will continue to try to improve on that. Yes, down is still better than up, and yes, I remember that it is the downward trend, and not individual points on the graph that are important. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to resume my exercise regimen, and that will give my weight loss progress the kick in the pants it needs.

    We are now inside two weeks until my trip to Dallas, and I am thrilled that I will be able to see her again. I only wish it was sooner. Good things come to those who wait, sure… but I hate having to wait to see my wife. Hopefully in the next few months we will be able to sort things out so that I can move down there and we can be together permanently. Our Rectangle Zone dates are nice, but we both need more.

    HRF Princess Sophie is so gorgeous following her spa day yesterday! She loves her new coif, and was the belle of the ball (read: park) this morning. All of the doggies wanted to play with her. Can you blame them?

    Today is the final day of my current class, but not of my contract with this group. I am finishing up the networking lessons today, and will start on security tomorrow. I have a good group of students, and I am glad that I will be them through the end of this month. The paid contract does not hurt either… I miss having a steady paycheque, and these contracts keep me going until I can stabilize and start looking for steady work again.

    The forecast calls for a sunny day today and through the weekend, which should bode well for my fitness walking. I did not want to stop, but I have to worry about my immediate health before I concern myself with my future health. Preventing serious injury is a good reason to take a few days off, but I do want to get back to it starting tomorrow… especially knowing that tomorrow I am planning on preparing a steak for lunch, which will be my first red meat since my birthday, over a month ago.

    There is no doubt that my eating habits have changed, and I find myself eating significantly less red meat than I ever did, as well as more fish. I strongly suspect that when my active weight management program is behind me, I will not be going back to my old ways. Yes, I love a good steak… but I do want to eat healthier for life, which means it will be a rare indulgence, and not a regular part of my diet.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 186

    I have been on my weight loss journey for 186 days; with that said, it is also possible to look at today as Day 7. The dramatic weight loss that is usually associated with the first few days of a program – often accounted for as the loss of water weight – is what encourages us to keep going, even on the days when we are hungry, tired, and discouraged… not to mention when our bodies are aching from the unaccustomed physical activity.

    I am in an emotional funk these days, and it is not the first time. What is utterly unique about this go around with the blues is that I have not turned to food to try to feel better. Food has been an addiction for as long as I can remember. As a child when I was under the weather my mother my grandmother my nanny would give me a treat to make me feel better. I am not blaming anyone else for my gluttonous addiction, I am just examining the genesis.

    I should mention that while I am not turning to food for comfort, it is not for lack of want. There have been myriad points over the past week when I have thought to myself how nice it would be to indulge in… fill in the blank. I will not list off all of the comfort foods that I have thought of; we can refer to them as ‘the usual suspects’ which have likely all been listed off or alluded to at some point in the past six months. I want to indulge. I cannot indulge. I want to cheat on my diet. I want to throw my hands up and say FUCK IT, I’M EATING! I have wanted to do that every single day.

    I have written so many times of the need to break my unhealthy relationship with food. Until recently, I thought that was going to come organically as a by-product of my self-denial. It is not so easy as that though, is it? No, as Leslie has pointed out to me several times, if I have been using food as a crutch all these years, the only way that I can be successful in the long term is to find a new crutch to replace it with. I am hoping that I can make that crutch exercise… whether that be walking, jogging, Taekwondo, or whatever else it might be. Golf is not a reasonable alternative, owing to the fact that I currently live in a climate where golf courses are buried hip-deep in snow (or at least just closed for business) from November through April. One could make an argument that fitness walking on a cold, blistery winter day is equally unrealistic… but that is not quite true. It is extremely unpleasant, to be sure; with that said, I can bundle myself up in layers of warm clothes and go for a walk every day of the year. Yes, I will have to wear different footwear, but it is possible.

    Will exercise be my crutch? I am working my hardest to make it so. I am also using something else as a crutch for the time being: my eagerness to lose weight. What is more satisfying… the plate of Buffalo wings in the evening, or the weight loss registered on the scale in the morning?

    The gastronomical indulgence will feel good in the moment, although it will often take only a few minutes for me to feel the short-term negative effects – the ‘I ate too much’ feeling, coupled with the ‘they were empty calories’ feelings. How long will it take for heartburn to set in, requiring me to go searching for an antacid? When I overeat at night, I wake up hungry the following morning. Let’s not forget that feeling of dread when I step onto the bathroom scale the following morning… not to mention when I try to wear a shirt or pair of pants that was borderline too-tight.

    The self-restraint might mean that I need to eat nothing in the moment… or a plate of vegetables, or something else equally unsatisfying. If I am not too far from the allotted time, I might be able to enjoy a meal replacement shake. I might go to bed with slight hunger pangs, but the truth is that on my current program, I am eating between 1200-1600 calories per day, which is more than enough for a healthy fifty-year-old male, so the hunger is in my mind more than in my stomach. I seem to be sleeping slightly better (although I miss having Leslie next to me, which always makes sleeping easier) and am having fewer crazy dreams. I wake up in the morning, step onto the bathroom scale, and (more often than not) see a decent weight loss from the previous day. I look in my armoire or closet for a shirt that I know will fit – if it fit last week when I was a couple of pounds heavier, it will definitely fit today. I go about my morning routine, and after walking my pup, I put on a pot of coffee, and make my morning meal replacement. With my coffee and shake close at hand, I sit down to write my daily article on my weight management. During the week, I sit down to my first lecture. Whatever it is, I do it knowing that I might not look any different than I did yesterday… but I look much better than I did just a few short months ago, and if I continue on this path, I will look even better a few short months from now.

    Short-term pleasure versus long-term satisfaction. Which is more valuable to me? I am hoping that in my moments of potential weakness I can remember how important that is. This does not mean that I will not have the occasional cheat-meal… but I have to limit those to very occasionally and only for very special occasions.

    I woke up this morning weighing not only 1.2 lbs less than I did yesterday morning, but also 14.2 lbs less than I did on July 1. That period includes my fiftieth birthday celebrations, one of the most anxiety-filled six-day road trips of my life, and a week of self-loathing and sadness. There is really no reason for me to not be up five-pounds in that time. Instead, my weight is down, and not slightly. By any standard, losing nearly fifteen pounds in just over three weeks is a tremendous success. I have to continue to remember how wonderful that feels, knowing that instead of giving in to my temptations and losing ground on my diet, my actions and choices have led to a huge success.

    According to a quick on-line search, it can take between 18-254 days for a person to form a new habit, and that on average it takes 66 days for a new behaviour to become a habit. I am on Day 7 of that journey. I have a long way to go, but if I am able to then it will be worth it.

    Against tradition, my diet buddy and I are having our weekly check-in today. It is the first time in a month that we are meeting, having had so much travel and such. I hope she is doing well, and I am looking forward to sharing my positive report with her!

    After that, I will head to the supermarket. I have no chicken left in the house, and unless one decides to walk in, strip itself of its feathers, and then commit suicide, I had better go shopping if I want to eat. According to the weather app on my phone, there are only two two-hour windows of cloudy but dry this afternoon, and so I am aiming to go for my walk around 3pm, which means that I will be preparing my main meal prior to exercising. I am interested in seeing how that will affect my progress… and if it will lead to cramps.

    Oh, and I did order a new sling for walking, making sure that this one is adjustable to wear comfortably on either side of my body. Hopefully that will alleviate the discomfort that I am sure is attributed to the sling sitting on the same spot near my kidneys every day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 176

    Yesterday I ate relatively normal… but yes, I ate shawarma for lunch and rotisserie chicken for dinner. I avoided temptation several times, including when my friend asked me to get her a Boston Maple Cream doughnut at Tim Hortons.

    This morning I met Esti for brunch and I was mostly good… a bagel with lox and cream cheese with a couple of poached eggs. From there we went to a funeral, and after that is where I went wrong. I picked up 4.5 dozen Montreal bagels to take to various people… two of which I ate with a couple of slices of cheese. Bad Mitch!

    I have now reorganized my trunk three times this trip. I truly regret not leaving my golf clubs at home… and maybe a few other things! I think I am finally mostly satisfied with it, and as long as I can drop my suitcase off at the hotel before collecting Leslie and her son from the airport tomorrow I should be fine.

    I had to make a very difficult decision last night. I have cut two friends out of my life, which is always very difficult for me. However there are things that I can live with, and there are things I just cannot accept. One of the friends I told, but the other I am just going to fade away. It is sad, but it was necessary… for two very different reasons.

    It is 3:15pm and I am still waiting for my passport to arrive so I can head down to New York. I am really stressed, because if it does not arrive today my entire weekend will be ruined. I really need to leave tonight, and if not everything goes to crap. I am sitting, outwardly calm, smoking a cigar. Inside, I am going nuts.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 173

    I am not surprised that I gained four pounds over the weekend, and nearly six pounds since the day of my birthday. It could have been worse. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that in my sadness yesterday evening I had two large bowls of cereal right before bed. Yes, I had a great time at the concert with Lyle and Dorothy and Tamara, but I miss Leslie when she is not there, and so rather than having something reasonable to quench my hunger, I sat down at the table at midnight and chowed down. Today will be better, and tomorrow’s numbers on the scale will be as well.

    Of course, tomorrow morning I am driving to Montreal, which means I will have to be extra vigilant with sticking to my diet, or at least to eating reasonably healthy. At Leslie’s I was able to control what I ate because Leslie and I did the shopping, and she does a good job of helping me to stay honest and on track. While we are meeting up Friday in Long Island, I will be on my own at my friends’ house tomorrow through Friday, and there will be a lot of long-distance driving to boot. There is only one person who can keep me on track, and I shave his face in the mirror every morning.

    I have a neighbour who will be looking after Princess Sophie for the week. She is so wonderful, and I will miss her. Leslie told me that her son really wants to meet her, but first things first. He will meet me on Friday, and next month he will meet Her Royal Floofness.

    I have had a headache for the past hour, so I am going to finish up a couple of things and then try to relax with a cigar, and hopefully talk with my wife.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 167

    I got onto the bathroom scale this morning and got a huge shock. After my 2.4lbs drop yesterday, this morning I was down another 3.8lbs from yesterday. I still say that every small increment helps, but these occasional huge drops are always nice too! The real tell will be tomorrow morning. I will be seeing the doctor for my official weigh-in. I have not been to his office for an official weigh-in since Day 139, so it is nearly a month. Unless something goes very wrong between now and then, I am expecting to see a huge drop – at least four kilos down from my last weigh-in, conservatively. I am crossing my fingers. At the same time, I know that hope is not a strategy, and so I will also be eating well today.

    Speaking of that, we started with a very nice omelet this morning. I sautéed some mushrooms and onions on one burner, while preparing the six-egg omelet in the other. I have been playing with blending the eggs rather than beating them by hand; yesterday it was too… something. I had them in the blender for seven seconds. This morning I kept it to three seconds, and according to my lovely wife, I got the consistency perfect today. Yay! Of course, I also added some cheese and dill to the mix, and it was quite lovely. Add to that my morning coffee, which is quite important. For nearly three weeks in Dallas, I made do with an inferior coffee blend (which was nobody’s fault but my own). It is wonderful to be home to my Pane Fresca blend of French Roast mixed with Belgian Chocolate.

    It was raining this morning when I took Her Royal Floofness for her walk. Not a big deal, but we did get wet. Fortunately, I have hats to keep me partially protected. We did not go as far as we often do, but she was able to accomplish what she needed to, and that was the important part.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 158

    We had a Bonney day today! Last evening we went for sushi, and it was really delicious. We then went to Cigars International, where it was packed! We met another couple who were on their third date, and when they heard we were celebrating they bought us drinks and cigars. We really enjoyed our time with them!

    This morning we had the leftover breakfast from yesterday. We did not eat badly today, and I am hoping that tomorrow the scale is nicer to me. As it is, I am up four pounds in two days.

    With regard to that number, I should mention that I have been a tad backed up these three days, and that is likely a huge contributing factor to my weight gain. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 157

    I just failed my renewal assessment for one of my certifications. It is for a technology that I use, but I do not use most of the features. I will have to re-take the certification exam at some point in the future, but it is not something that I am particularly worried about.

    Last night was great. Leslie and I had dinner and drinks with a close friend of hers, and it is so good to get to know him. Leslie has met a few of my friends, but he is the first friend that I met.

    Let’s get this out of the way… my weight was up this morning. Yes, we ate and drank yesterday, and that might be a contributing factor; however, I suspect it is because I did not poop yesterday, and today I only had a small one. Tomorrow will be better! Well… I hope.

    Leslie and I went to an Asian shopping district today. She and I both share a love for Japanese (and other Asian) confectionaries, both of us having lived (briefly) in Japan. We picked up some great snacks, although we only had a very small bite of one. We also picked up Japanese doughnuts, and we had one after lunch. Oh my lord they are good! I am glad we did not buy more. I am really glad that Leslie reminds me when I seem about to fall off the diet cliff!

    I did not walk today, but we did sit in the pool for a couple of hours. This evening we are going for sushi, and I will not go overboard.

    Have a great day!