Losing a part of me

Category: Choices

  • Day 129

    It is no surprise that the bathroom scale was up this morning. Yes, I had a glass of rum with my son… but it was more because it just did not make sense that I had lost five pounds in five days. Yes, I am down this week… but just over three pounds, which makes a lot more sense.

    I should also mention that my dinner, while very healthy, was extremely high in calories. I made a salmon steak with a side of steamed vegetables. The vegetables were fine, but it looks like the salmon might have had as much as 1,400 calories in it. I have to make a point to not do that one too often.

    Other than that, I was pretty good. I should not have had the rum but knowing that my son the elder wanted to talk to me about something, I felt it would put his mind at ease if I drank with him.

    Plans for today: Stay on the path. I’ll head over to Ryan’s for a cigar or three, and will avoid all of the temptations they put on the table (there are always nuts and chips and popcorn and such around).

    Have a great day!

  • Day 127

    My Bulk Barn experiment failed, but only marginally… and only because my ability to convert grams to ounces is weak. I should also mention that while the experiment did not go as planned, I did nonetheless learn a great deal from it which will help with my weight loss going forward.

    I went in and measured out a much smaller portion than I usually do. I weighed it, and it came to precisely 100g. That looked to be about a reasonable portion, right? For the fun of it, I then measured out a portion the size that I usually would have taken and weighed it. That weighed nearly 350g. Alright, the first bag it is (of course). Little did I realize that the 100g of peanuts contains 643 calories, and the portion that I had thought was a reasonable serving size was actually 3.5oz. For the fun of it, yes… I now realized that the serving I was buying previously was actually over 2,000 calories… more than I want to be consuming in a day, let alone in a sitting. It is time to seriously rethink my snacking… which is to say I am done with peanuts for a while.

    To put things into perspective… if I was going to knowingly add 2,000 calories to my daily food intake, here are some of the things I could have gone in for:

    • Sixteen Double-Dusted Chicken Wings at Montana’s… if we add the Starter Caesar salad, that takes us to 1,890 calories. If we add ranch dressing to the wings, that should tip the scale.
    • A whole medium hand-tossed pizza with extra cheese from Domino’s would be 1,840 calories… but I could add a salad to that to get over 2,000 calories.
    • A 16-ounce rib steak is only 1,480 calories, so if I were to add a medium baked potato for nearly 200 calories, I would still have room left over for dessert.
    • At P.F. Chang’s (not my favourite, but easy to get honest nutritional information for) I could have a cup of Hot & Sour soup, two vegetable spring rolls, an order of Sesame Chicken, a side order of fried rice, and four fortune cookies for 1,990 calories.

    Are you getting my point? This is likely a major reason why my weight loss has been more or less stagnant over the last couple of months. The peanuts are out.

    What I will be doing though is ordering more meal replacement bars for when I get to Leslie’s place in Dallas. I have been nursing the last two boxes that I have but decided over the last couple of nights to have one instead of the regular meal replacement shake… they have fewer calories, so when I am eating later in the evening it just makes sense. They still satisfy my cravings and sate my hunger, while doing so with significantly fewer calories. I see no reason why I cannot start replacing the peanuts in the middle of the day with the meal replacement bars.

    It is this sort of thinking that I will have to use going forward. I do not mean just now, rather for the rest of my life. If I want to lose weight and keep it off, I need to start thinking like this always. As I have said every time I have started this program, while it is important to stick to the program to lose the weight, what is most important is that I change my relationship with food.

    Sometimes it takes an outside voice to show you that you are going astray. That voice can be berating or demeaning, but that just makes you feel lousy. When the voice is encouraging and trying to help, it can make you think about what you have been doing and make you evaluate your choices… and how to go forward. I am so grateful to my loving fiancée for pointing out that I was eating a lot of peanuts.

    This morning the bathroom scale had me up from yesterday, but only by a little. Having lost over two pounds yesterday morning, it is not surprising that I gave back a little less than half a pound, despite a tremendous bowel movement. Yes, that is gross… but it is something that people trying to lose weight have to be cognizant of.

    Today I am planning another relaxing day. My allergies are kicking my butt this morning, so I took my pills and sprayed my spray, and they are much less debilitating than they were an hour ago. I am hoping that by noon I will not feel them at all. I suspect it helped not at all that HRF Princess Sophie decided to go traipsing through a field of dandelions this morning on our walk. At least we got some steps in. I have invited Eduardo to come for a cigar, but he is not sure if he can because he is waiting for a repairman. If he does, great; if he does not, he will come tomorrow. Either way, it will be good to see my friend.

    This evening, I will spend a few hours with my son the younger. He will want to get dinner, and I hope he picks somewhere that I can make reasonable choices, rather than somewhere that I cannot eat, and just sit watching him enjoy his (whatever he orders). Either way, I love spending time with him… and I will do my best to stick to the program.

    I just realized that dinner with my son will interfere with my diet program support meeting. I will ask my diet buddy if she can reschedule.

    After that, depending on what time he wants to go home, I have been invited to a cigar event at Alec Bradley’s, so if I have time I will show up. If not, then my son is and always will be more important.

    My son the elder said that he will come over tomorrow evening for a dram. I originally invited him to come celebrate finishing his exams, but it seems he has one last exam in a couple of weeks. He suggested he come over to celebrate my engagement. I’ll take it!

    The weather is a cloudy but warm, with a forecast high of 23°C. While it felt like we were going to get rain when we were out, precipitation is not in the forecast for today. Welcome to Canada… we’ll see!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 126

    The biggest inconvenience to having relocated my bathroom scale into the bedroom is that I very often forget to weigh myself. I get out of the shower, shave, and then head into the bedroom. In a perfect world, I would hop onto the scale immediately. In the real (and more perfect) world, I am immediately distracted by a gorgeous doggie who has been waiting patiently for me to finish in the bathroom so that we can go out for our morning walk. Some days I remember, and others I do not.

    Today fell into the latter category, and it was not until we were nearly home from the park that I remembered. We got home and I gave her a treat. I then put on the coffee before heading into the bedroom, disrobing, and stepping onto the scale.

    I do not know what difference an hour might make, or if the walk makes a difference. I do know that I was extremely pleased by the numbers on the scale this morning after the walk. I was down 2.6 lbs, and in line with my numbers the first morning back from Cuba, when I was shocked that I had actually lost weight. From there, over the next few days I would gain 3.4 lbs. I am now down to where I was eight days ago. Good. Now it’s time to get back on track!

    Leslie made a good point yesterday. I want to be clear that she is my most wonderful advocate and has not chastised me during my journey. She encourages me every day. She asked me yesterday why I continue to stop at Bulk Barn for peanuts, if I know that they are my kryptonite. I have given this a lot of thought. Firstly, peanuts are not my kryptonite. They are something that I really enjoy, that in moderation are not the worst indulgence in the world for my diet. My Achilles heel is that I do not seem to have the ability to leave any behind. If I buy ten peanuts, I eat ten peanuts that day. If I buy a thousand peanuts, I eat the thousand peanuts the same day. Buying for a few days is obviously not a good idea for me. Today I am going to go to Bulk Barn, and I am going to measure out my peanuts. I will not spend more than one dollar on nuts (taxes included). I do not know what the cost is per peanut (I know, they charge by weight. Go with it.) but I will verify that, and rather than filling a scoop to put into the bag, I will get a reasonable number. According to my research, one ounce of peanuts contains 160 calories. It also contains seven grams of protein, six grams of carbohydrates, and thirteen grams of fat. That is not a bad snack. I will bet you that when I measure that out at the store today, I will be unpleasantly shocked by how many servings I have been eating when I buy a scoop. I will report back.

    (For the record, I’m not sure what my actual kryptonite is, nor if it is only one single food. With that said, a plate of Buffalo wings would certainly be high up on that list!)

    My friend the cleaning lady is coming this afternoon, which means that the apartment will be in order again. It also means that, weather permitting, I will stay out of her way by sitting on the balcony with a cigar or two. What can I say? I am pretty predictable in a lot of ways.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 125

    I went to the doctor’s office this morning without first checking what I weighed three weeks ago, and so it took nearly an hour for me to get home (after running some errands) and to determine that I actually gained an entire kilogram since my last weigh-in. The usual nurse (Mel) was not there either, it was the small Indian girl whose name I do not know, and who does not seem to have much personality beyond doing her job, which she does quite capably from what I have seen. It would have been nice though to have some perspective… Mel would have gone back and said ‘Oh, so you have gained a kilogram from the last weigh-in. That’s probably because of your vacation, but is there anything else going on? Also, did she say yes??’

    Yes Leslie, the doctor and nurse were in on it too.

    I should be happy that after a week on an all-inclusive resort I was not up more than a kilogram, but I also know that it has been a lot of factors here that affected it, not the least of which was the large breakfast with my kids on Sunday, and the late-night meal replacements. Also, I am eating far too many peanuts. I have to cut down on them.

    I miss Leslie and I wish she could be here… or that I could be there. I think we are both done with this long-distance thing and want to be living together already. I did not claim that patience was one of our virtues… although I do try.

    It is a lovely day outside, and I do not have a lot to do today. I should do some studying form an exam I want to take in the next month, but I can do that on the rainy days. Today I am going to relax.

    I should mention that this morning I did not have a meal replacement shake, as I was going to the doctor. On my way home, after stopping in at Pet Smart to pick up treats for the princess, I also stopped at Bulk Barn and bought peanuts. While I bought a larger bag than I needed to, I have not finished them. I snacked on the way home, and I made that my breakfast, rather than eating those and then having a meal replacement when I got in. I will prepare a nice chicken lunch, and will go about the rest of my day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 122

    Another day, another 1.6 lbs down. I definitely have no complaints about the bathroom scale this morning! I still have a couple of pounds left to get back to my lowest weight from May 5, but I am making good progress. I am still relieved that the week of vacation did not set me back much further than it did… which is to say, it kept me where I was!

    Yesterday was a stressful day. Those will happen, and I accept them. I did, at one point, decide to completely fall off the program. I was quite that upset with things. It was only Leslie who talked me down from that ledge. I was nearly out the door ready to go pick up Chinese food… and not the healthy stuff. Yes, I have bad days. In the end, I did veer from the program: I had peanuts (which I seem to be doing every day), and I had a second meal of chicken for dinner, rather than the tuna salad I was going to have. While I will not make a habit of it, I guess doing it the once did me no harm, with the numbers on the scale agreeing with me.

    I will say that I had a tremendously satisfying bowel movement this morning. While that is not something I generally discuss, there are days when you finish on the toilet and say ‘Wow, I must have lost weight there!’ It was a healthy BM, just a large one.

    The plan for today is to stick to the plan, and yes, I will have my peanuts. I am off to Lyle’s to enjoy a cigar with him and Ryan – it is a fabulous day out, and I cannot imagine not being outside enjoying it. Princess Sophie and I went for our walk earlier, and I’ll head out to Hamilton now.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 121

    I really have to start reining in my peanuts buying. I did not go terribly overboard yesterday, but I did buy more than I should have… unless I was going to spread them across a couple of days, which I did not.

    Other than the peanuts I stuck to the plan, and I am happy to be nearly one pound down from yesterday’s weight. My plan for today is to stay the course… make my chicken for lunch (with some steamed vegetables), and a tuna salad for dinner… which will be bracketed by the morning and evening meal replacement shakes.

    A friend might be coming over for a cigar during the day, but he has been historically unreliable, so I am not holding my breath. I also have to prepare for my Monday class, which is a Fundamentals (beginners) class, but that does not mean that I do not want to be prepared for it. I also want to look into the fiancé visa for the US. Leslie has been doing a lot of the work so far (as she is sponsoring me, she has to fill out most of the paperwork), but I still want to review it and see if there are any questions that I can think of that we should ask our legal counsel. We want to do things right, and I feel bad that right now she is doing all of the work. Yes, I know that is because she has to initiate it. I just wish there was something that I could do. As I used to live in Los Angeles, I am a member of multiple Facebook groups for Canadians living in the USA, and I reached out to the groups to see if anyone has any advice or guidance. While I have already received multiple congratulations from members, so far, the helpful advice has not been forthcoming. Grrr.

    Einstein described relativity thusly: “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.” I looked at the forecast for this afternoon and my initial reaction was: “Wow… 24°C… it’s going to be a real scorcher!” Then I realized that every day in Cuba was within a degree above or below 30°C… and that in Dallas today’s projected high is 34°C. It is true then… everything is relative. With the low temperatures around or below 10°C at night, and knowing I needed to wear a hoodie to take HRF for her walk this morning, 24°C seems pretty hot. It’s really mild… and either way, I have no complaints. Tomorrow will be the same (but with rainstorms in the forecast), and Sunday will be cooler (also rainy). Monday (a holiday in Canada) will be cloudy and 14°C. I guess I should not complain about the weather today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 120

    Today is the day that I get back on track. I dropped Leslie at the airport yesterday morning, but before I did, I took her to Stacked for breakfast. While I had the healthy option, I did take a few bites of her French toast. The drive to the airport and dropping her off is always very difficult and sad for both of us, and there were a lot of tears. When she finally made her way to the terminal, I drove home to pick up Her Royal Floofness, who was in serious need of a haircut. I dropped her off at the spa at noon, and went home to have lunch, which was leftover Lebanese food. Folks, I love Shawarma, and while it is healthier than most other fast foods (and healthier still with the salad in place of the rice and potatoes) it is still a bit fattening. This is one of the reasons I knew that this meal was to be my last indulgence… at least, mostly.

    After a short nap, I picked up Princess Sophie… and some peanuts. Let me tell you, she looks so absolutely gorgeous! If you don’t believe me, check out her Instagram posting, where she is showing off her new necklace! Wed came home, and we rested for a bit again. Yes, the late night/early morning return from Cuba took a toll on my nearly fifty-year-old body, and I took two naps yesterday.

    When we woke up (of course, HRF naps with me too) I prepared dinner – my usual chicken with salad. Of course, it was later than I like to eat my dinner, especially knowing that I had been doing so well making my big meal the lunchtime meal. I was still hungry, and I had another helping of peanuts… and eventually I had a meal replacement shake as well. All in all, yesterday was not a good day on the diet. I am ashamed to admit that I also went searching for a couple of other snacks throughout the day. Fortunately I did not find them, otherwise the result on the scale this morning could have been even worse.

    Leslie (my fiancée! I love saying that!) is extremely supportive of my diet. She will love me no matter what I look like (as was proven in December) but knows that I want to make serious changes for me and for my health. She confirmed with me last night that this morning I was going to be getting back on my diet, and I promised her that I would be… and so far, I have done just that. I had my shake when we got back from our walk, along with my coffee. My plan is to make chicken for lunch, then a salad with tuna for dinner, and another shake in the evening. I am hoping that gets me back on the right track.

    Speaking of that track, yes… my weight was up again this morning. It is not terribly up, but it is enough to give me a strong reminder that the vacation is over, and it is time to start eating right again!

    By the way, we did bring sugar home from Cuba. We did not go into a grocery store to buy it, but we did empty a few containers that were on the table with coffee into a Ziplock bag. If you don’t know, Cuba was once one of the world’s leading sugar producers, and they still make a fine product… all natural, no chemicals or refining. Just pure cane sugar. It is amazing, and I now have a pound of it in my kitchen. It will go well with the Cuban coffee that we brought home… which we did buy from a store!

    I will spend a couple of hours at Lyle and Dorothy’s house today, and then will come straight home. It is always good seeing friends! Lyle asked me to bring him something from Cuba, so it will be a good opportunity to deliver that as well.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 117

    I guess the last few days I have let my journal fall by the wayside. The trip has been a rollercoaster of mostly good and a couple of hard moments, but it is hard to avoid those. As I sit here on the last morning in Cuba, I think back to what I have eaten, and if I will have gained or lost weight, or stayed the same. The simple answer is that I will know tomorrow.


    I have not eaten great these last few days… but I don’t think I have eaten terrible either. I have not eaten anything with sauce, and have mostly had roasted (or grilled?) chicken as my main meal. Yes, I have had deserts with my meals… but I have also walked over 10,000 steps every day. I have had bread with my breakfast a couple of days, and have had mid-afternoon snacks of sandwiches and French fries. I have not been gluttonous about it though. I have had a few drinks, but have not drunk to excess. I have had a lot of coffee beverages, and drank a lot of water.


    The end result is that I don’t feel worse (fatter) than I did a week ago, but I also don’t feel better (slimmer) either. I will easily call a status quo a win after a week on an all inclusive resort.


    It has been hot and humid… about what you would expect from Cuba in May. I did not expect the rainstorms, but we had two of those (Friday evening and Sunday mid-afternoon). The first one was a real storm… Leslie and I were at the fancy restaurant (you can reserve one such meal per visit) when the heavens opened up. We had a coffee and chatted – I love that we have so much in common and can talk so easily – and waited, not for the storm to end, but until it relaxed a little. Yesterday afternoon, we came back to the room as well. There is something to be said about air conditioning when the temperature is in the low 30s, and the humidity is in the 90s!


    Friday and Saturday we spent at the pool, owing mostly to a towel mix-up. Don’t ask. Sunday morning we finished breakfast, then collected our towels and walked down to the beach. Sitting with my fiancée watching the ocean was just amazing. At one point I walked over to the bar and picked up a couple of piña coladas, which for some reason were blue. We then went into the water, and we spent an hour frolicking in the waves. I highly recommend it!


    After breakfast today we will have to pack our stuff and check out of the room by noon, although we will have another six hours on the resort. It is sad that we have to return to reality, but it was a wonderful week, and we will get more wonderful weeks together in the future. I am really looking forward to being able to start our life together as a married couple!


    I should mention that I probably smoked fewer cigars this trip than I usually would have, but that is not because of Leslie, rather because of the box that I decided to smoke. It is a stronger cigar than I could have chosen, and because of that my usual 6-7 cigars per day in Cuba was dialled back to 3-4 cigars per day. I enjoyed every one of them… and so did Leslie.


    Tomorrow we return to reality but we have a few more hours in paradise. We will make the most of them!

  • Day 112

    Welcome to Paradise.


    As someone who knows the ropes, has been to Cuba before, and who knows what to expect, the hardest part about getting to the resort was the flight delays. I do understand that Leslie fits into none of those boxes, and was therefore anxious about a lot of it. I was happy to help her through the whole process, and the only part where I could not be with her was at Cuban Immigracion. As usual, I flew through, and I waited for her on the other side. When I saw that they pulled her back I was concerned, but it turns out she needed to buy health insurance, as her American insurance will not cover her in Cuba. I don’t know if this was a scam or legit, but we got out, got our luggage, and I had my first cigar of the trip while we waited for the bus.


    My diet could have gone better yesterday, but when you are travelling – I don’t mean on vacation, but actually in transit – it is nearly impossible. I had my usual meal replacement for breakfast, while preparing for Leslie a Montreal bagel with peanut butter. How delicious it would have been to have one! I did take a bite of hers, but that was it. We shared a Lebanese mixed shawarma plate for lunch… minus the rice, potato, and pita. Not bad.


    At the airport is when things went south, but they had to. I had a bag of chips (an individual bag, not a usual Mitch-sized bag), and I’ve the next few hours we shared a bag of trail mix. On the airplane, I was getting hungry… and I knew enough that by the time we got to the resort (with a more than a three hour delay) it would be late, we would be tired, and we might just want to go to sleep. I bought a snack of hummus with bread sticks, which we shared… but which I ate most of.


    One of the things about coming to a new resort (it has been here a while but I’ve never been here) is that I did not know what to expect with regard to food upon our very late arrival. By the time we were settled into our room and unpacked it was nearly 1:30am, and I wanted to track down some vittles. We found one of the bars (which was quite the happening spot) and filled our water bottles… we absolutely needed to have water in the room. While we could have tracked down the 24-hour snack bar, we were both exhausted, and we decided to forgo food for sleep. We came back to the room and called it.


    Come to think of it, I didn’t cheat as badly as I thought I had… and definitely not as bad as I could have.


    Leslie is a bit confused by the orbat of the day. Get dressed, do what we want to, when we want to, however we want to. Relax, have a coffee, have a cigar, and then continue. Resort living is a completely strange animal to anyone who has never done it! I woke up earlier than she did, and so I went out to get a coffee. As I write this, I am sitting on our patio with my coffee and my cigar, watching the palm trees. It is a perfect time of day to do that. In a few minutes we will track down breakfast, and then? Whatever we want to do.


    …


    We went for breakfast, which was lovely. It would have been lovelier if I was not on a diet, but whatever. The coffee in the buffet restaurant is not very good, so I will stick to the bars. We then walked around, checked out the beach, and are in for a wonderful, completely unplanned day. I have already had five people try to sell me fake cigars on the resort and on the beach. That number will triple before the day is out.


    Have a great one!

  • Day 87

    I almost asked for a recount. I got onto the scale this morning and was a full two pounds over what I weighed yesterday morning. I am back above 350 lbs, and I am not happy about it. I will focus today to get back to where I was… focused.

    This morning’s weight gain was not a surprise. I went to see Lyle and Dorothy yesterday, and as I headed for home, I stopped to pick up a small container of milk. I was hungry, which is never the right time to walk into a convenience store. In fact, when you are dieting there is never a good time to walk into a store whose entire business model is to sell you fattening and unhealthy foods that are overpriced. I picked up an all-beef pepperoni, and a bag of peanuts (in addition to the 2% milk). By the time I got home half an hour later, all that was left was the milk, and the empty wrappers.

    I was not feeling particularly weak when I walked into the store. I was not sad or despondent. I was simply tempted by the myriad food choices that were all calling out to me.

    It was far too windy for a cigar yesterday evening, but I did have my holiday dinner. A piece of fish, a piece of chicken, a bowl of chicken soup. I should have cut one of those three out… but it was the holiday, and I defrosted what I defrosted, and that’s life.

    I am relieved that last night I finished the last of the expired meal-replacement shakes. Some of them tasted better than others, but they were the old formula, and the new ones taste so much better. I am enjoying my first new one in several weeks. Aside from better flavour, they are also creamier and smoother. I am definitely glad that the old ones are done, and if another lot of them comes up for sale I will be passing on them.

    Today I am going to do my best to get back on track. In a little while, HRF Princess Sophie and I will head out to see my friends Jacqueline and Matt, and their puppy Charley. We will not be out too late – I plan to hit the road to come home around 4:00pm. I do have to do some shopping today, but I will likely drop Sophie at home first, and then head out anew. While she does not really mind it, I do not like leaving her alone in the car while I go into the store. I need to pick up chicken and fish, some veggies, and of course my distilled water. I cannot think of anything else that I will need.

    Leslie’s plane is landing at Pearson International Airport in twenty-three days and twelve hours… if anyone is wondering how badly I miss her. We speak for hours every day, but it is not the same. Yes, it is true… the fact that she will be here in just over twenty-three days means that in just over twenty-four days we will be in Cuba, and I am excited about that… but I am much more excited to see my girl.

    It is a beautiful day outside today. Last night’s rain seems to have washed away the dirt, and there is nowhere near the kind of gusting winds we had yesterday. I strongly suspect that there might be a cigar in my future.

    Have a great day folks!