Losing a part of me

Category: Cigars

  • Day 65

    I am off to Montreal this morning. After my shake (which I am drinking as I type) I will pack HRF Princess Sophie into the car – her kit is already packed and ready to go – and I will drive her to the dog sitter’s house. From there, I will drive straight east – I have a couple of stops to make along the way, but all in all it should be a rather quick drive.

    Yesterday had some difficult moments for me. My empathetic side can get the better of me, and when those that I care for are unhappy then I am too. It is maddening when there is nothing I can do to help them. I know that things will get better… but the bad days are bad.

    I kept to the program yesterday, although I was downing the lozenges like candy as I taught last night. I do not know if that was a result of the trauma, or if it is just that they were there and readily available. I also do not know if it is the reason my weight was up this morning. I will endeavour to do better today.

    It will be a long but relaxing drive to Montreal, with only my audio entertainment and my cigars to keep me company. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 61

    Welcome to a brand-new week! It is going to be a lovely day today, and so when I am not working (and I do have some work to do during the day) I plan to be sitting outside enjoying the sunshine. I heard good news from the wife of my dad’s friend yesterday that he is recovering nicely, and we are all thankful for that.

    Yesterday was another good-food, questionable quantities day. I had more chicken than I should have, but otherwise I ate well. After dinner, I was still a bit peckish; I thought about having a meal replacement bar, but I decided instead to have a glass of water and a cigar on the balcony. One thing I need to always remember – not only during my weight loss, but forever – is that the message from our stomach that we are full can take 20 minutes to reach our brain, and so we might still think we are hungry long after we are satisfied. Remembering that last night worked. I had a meal replacement shake in the mid-evening, and I finished the day well. Oh, I should also mention that I went to Bulk Barn to pick up a few things, and I added a small handful of red-skinned peanuts (unsalted) to my order to nibble in the car. Some of the other things that I bought or could have bought were much worse than that, and I did not feel bad picking up the 20-or-so peanuts.

    Any day that my bathroom scale registers a steep drop (as it did yesterday morning) I expect that it will even out the following day. This morning I stepped onto the scale expecting to see a slight gain, despite being mostly good yesterday. The fact is that yesterday morning I was down nearly 1.5 pounds, and 4 pounds since Thursday. I was extremely happy that I did not give back any of it this morning… I did not lose any more, but I did not gain either. I’ll take it! If I can keep it up, within the next week to ten days I should be able to weigh myself on the doctor’s scale… even with my clothes on!

    I do quite a bit of shopping on Facebook Marketplace, and yesterday I made what many (including myself) would consider the oddest purchase I have ever made online. I bought a clarinet. If you are wondering, the answer is no, I do not play the clarinet. I do, however, have a girlfriend who plays… but I think she has one. Amanda, on the other hand, does not. A couple of weeks ago when I was at their place for dinner, Amanda was lamenting that Cam did not take the hint to buy her one for Christmas… and so I bought her one for her birthday (which was Friday). Yes, I had sent her flowers, but I thought that she would appreciate it… and the jab at my buddy Cam would be a bit of fun.

    My plans for the day are to stick to the program and try to make it through to the end of the day with no cheats. I bought a beautiful cut of salmon for dinner; I usually buy the tail (which is much cheaper), but the middle cut was on sale, so I decided to splurge. I will marinate it in lemon juice with some salt and black pepper, and when it comes out of the air fryer, I will sprinkle it liberally with fresh dill. It should make for a delicious meal, with a generous salad to accompany it.

    Have a great day folks, and enjoy the weather!

  • Day 60

    There was a bit more temptation at Ryan’s place than I was comfortable with, but I got away nearly unscathed. We had a wonderful day smoking cigars and throwing darts, and then they decided, rather than going ahead with the pork chops for dinner as they had planned, they were ordering fish and chips. Glenn was as insistent as ever that I take some, but I insisted that I was on a diet and couldn’t have it. ‘But fish is healthy!’ Yes, Glenn… but dipping it in an inch of batter and deep-frying it is not. ‘You just scrape the batter off!’ Yes, but the frying oil is in the fish, and thank you, but no thank you. I did indulge in a handful of peanuts… but that was the only cheating that I did.

    Princess Sophie and I arrived home around 9:00pm and I prepared the chicken and salad which I had already defrosted and planned. It was quite good… if not as satisfying as the deep-fried fish and chips might have been. I was rewarded for my discipline by another low number on the bathroom scale. Although I am still not sure how accurate it is or might be, I know it is in the same spot on the floor as it was yesterday, and so it should be as consistently accurate or inaccurate as it was yesterday. Down is down, and on a weight loss program down is good.

    I woke up at 5:45am to do what one does at that hour before returning to bed on a Sunday, but I could not sleep after that for a spell. Upon realizing that I would not easily get back to slumber, I donned my spectacles and checked my phone. I answered a couple of emails, I played my game, I checked Facebook. After maybe forty-five minutes or so I realized my eyes were finally growing heavy again, and I got another three hours of sleep.

    Usually when I cannot fall asleep like that, there is something weighing on my mind. In August when I suddenly and abruptly found myself back in Canada, knowing I had to find an apartment and get settled… not to mention coordinate with my friends in California getting my apartment closed out and my stuff shipped. That kept me awake. There have been a couple of relationship issues that have kept me awake. Last week, there was one night when I was so obsessed by my Government of Canada security clearance going through. All of these and more have been reasons that I have been unable to get back to sleep in the past 7-8 months. Last night there was nothing. Rather, there was something that I was thinking about, but it is simple and meaningless and irrelevant. I was telling Leslie this morning that I think sometimes my brain said ‘Well, all of the pieces of your life are in order right now, but I don’t want to sleep so I am going to make you obsess about something that is really nothing.’

    I did consider for a brief moment getting out of bed and looking into why one of my credit cards was declined on Friday, but I decided that if I got my mind really working then I would never actually get back to sleep. I took care of that this morning – their fraud department thought that I might not really be me. Believe me folks, if I was using stolen credit cards then I would not be looking at every gas station in town for the lowest price, and then buying regular. Dude, if I am using a stolen credit card then I promise you I am putting the premium gas into my Subaru!

    Because I got a later start to the day than usual (yay lazy weekends!) I will finish up some personal stuff on the computer, and then after lunch I will probably sit on the balcony smoking cigars. While it will not be nearly as pleasant as it was Thursday, the forecasted high today is 11°c, and the rain should have ended by now. I will take Her Royal Floofness for a couple of walks of course, and then dinner and an early bedtime. I have some reading to do to prepare for a course that I might be asked to teach toward the end of April (and for which I will have to create the courseware, before you wonder how far in advance I start preparing to teach a class), so that will be done on the balcony with a cigar as well. If Leslie is not too busy, it would be nice to have a chat with her as well.

    I really do miss her and am counting down the days until she comes for her next visit. I am not just saying that because she is the most loyal reader of this blog (Hi Sweetie!!) but because I mean it. Time with her is better than time apart from her. Had she been in bad with me when I couldn’t sleep this morning, she would have snuggled with me, and things would have been better.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 58

    Yesterday morning my friend Eduardo picked me up, and we drove down to St. Catherines to spend a few hours with his son. There was some minor computer work that needed to be done – having to do mostly with Quickbooks, which made it more Victor’s area of knowledge than mine. The three of us then went for lunch at a nice Greek restaurant on the Welland canal. I was good – I had two chicken brochettes on a plate of salad. There was more salad dressing than I strictly needed, but still less than my friends put on the Caesar salad last weekend. I also enjoyed the tzatziki – certainly not on the diet, but better that it was on the chicken, and not scooped up with pita bread. No, I did not indulge in than particular sin.

    For dinner I had a slightly larger helping of chicken than I probably should have but did not go terribly overboard. I had my salad, and because it was such a lovely day, I had three and a half cigars on the patio. I was saddened by news that a close friend of my father’s had a heart attack on Wednesday, and I spent a bit of time thinking of him. I am praying for his speedy recovery. He was younger than my dad… but not by much. He was also a lifetime smoker (in addition to being a cigar smoker) and did not live the healthiest lifestyle. As Leslie and I discussed it last night, I told her I am trying to lose the weight, but I was not planning on giving up my cigars anytime soon. Esti (who told me the news) said that we all have a bullet out there with our name on it. Well, I have avoided far too many of those bullets (and none of them were figurative) to live my life in fear… and I will not give up my cigars because of that.

    I have to drive to Brantford this morning to pick up another collection of meal replacements. It is amusing that I am driving all over G-d’s green earth to pick them up… as if they were contraband being delivered by one of Cosmo Kramer’s shady friends. Never mind… I have to go out to do some grocery shopping anyways, and it is another nice day. I might bring a cigar along, although I have not decided on that yet.

    Lyle is coming over for a cigar in the afternoon, which will be nice. I really enjoy sitting and chatting with good friends. I cannot think of any other plans I have for the day, or for the weekend. I am sure something exciting will come up!

    Have a great day!

  • Day 49 Part 2

    I am up from two weeks ago. Only one pound, but I have to get back on track. I hope I have my head on straight now, and I can refocus my energy on the weight loss plan.

    My doctor asked me what exercises I have been doing, and I told him that because of my feet and my knees I have not been doing anything. He prescribed the colchicine, and hopefully over the next day or two things will start feeling better. As directed, I took two pills immediately, and will start taking one pill every evening before bed. The scrip reads twice daily, but I am going to start slow and see if I actually need two. I will say that it has been only a few hours, and my feet are already feeling much better. Hopefully that is just what the doctor ordered… no pun intended.

    I miss my Leslie, but we were able to chat for an hour as I sat on the patio with a cigar (okay, two of them). My doctor told me that smoking can be bad for your health, but I told him that they save lives. He asked what I meant, and I told him there are several people who I have not punched in the face because of cigars. He laughed, and agrees that if I am not inhaling, and if I need them to stay on track losing weight, then I should not stop. He also suggested that swimming is good exercise… I asked him where he would recommend going with all the pools closed. I think the simple answer to that has been staring me in the face… and tomorrow morning I am going to finally book our trip to Cuba!

    Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 39

    I had another great day with Leslie yesterday, despite her taking a pretty nasty fall. She keeps telling me she is super clumsy, but I don’t know if I believed it… until now. Fortunately, she is okay, and was saved from grievous and possibly catastrophic harm by a teddy bear. There are some things that you just cannot make up.

    While I am only taking very small bites of her omelets in the mornings, I will tell you that both yesterdays and todays came out better than usual. I am not sure what I am doing to make them so much fluffier than they were before, but man they are good. The dill (I have discovered that adding dill to things makes most things better) is an improvement, and she really loves the broccoli that I have started adding, but I added those on Thursday too, and they were nowhere near as fluffy as they were yesterday and today. Since today is the last day that I will be preparing an omelet until she returns in a little over three weeks, we can only hope that whatever it is that I have been doing does not get lost.

    I took Leslie to Costco yesterday. I was a little surprised that she reached her current age (no, I am not going to disclose it… suffice it to say she is much younger than I am) without ever having set foot into a Costco. You would have thought from the lineups that World War Three was starting… and judging from what is going on in Ukraine, it might be. I did not take her there to stock up on toilet paper or bottled water or gumballs. A few months ago, I bought her a pair of garnet and diamond earrings from Costco, and she absolutely loved them. She did not know this when we walked into the store, but I was hoping that they would have a matching pendant and chain. They did, and I bought it for her. She was emotional on a level that I am not sure I expected. It seems her ex-husband felt she was so difficult to shop for that he simply didn’t buy her presents. I find her singularly easy to shop for, and her new pendant matches her favourite earrings perfectly.

    After and before Costco, I took her to get her Covid test. I do not like that she is going home today but knowing that she has a return date in a few weeks makes it a bit better. I love having her here, and even when we have minor disagreements, we are always able to resolve them. She and I sit on the balcony enjoying a cigar and talking about… everything. I love my time with her.

    As planned, we collaborated on dinner last night. I prepared the fish: salmon tails marinated in lemon juice, air-fried at 375° for 10 minutes, then liberally coated with black sesame seeds. Leslie prepared the rice, which was also liberally seasoned with black sesame seeds. They were both served on a plate with a helping of gari (Japanese pickled ginger), and it was absolutely scrumptious. That meal is definitely going into the ‘make it again’ file.

    For this evening, I defrosted chicken. I will be eating alone, but because I was not paying attention, I froze the entire pack of chicken together, which means that it had to be defrosted as one. I will prepare them all this evening, but I will eat them over the next few evenings.

    In a few minutes I have to take Leslie to the airport, and I am not happy about that. She will be back in three weeks is what I have to keep telling myself.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 37

    There are going to be good days, there are going to be bad days. Then there are the days that are going to start out really well, go really bad in a hurry, and then end up well again. This is the sort of day yesterday was. It had nothing to do with dieting. Suffice it to say that all’s well that ends well.

    While my weight loss is not going as fast as I would like, I am also not starving myself. I might be consuming as many as 1400 calories in a day, instead of the prescribed 900 calories. Knowing (or at least suspecting) how many calories I used to have in a day, there is no way I can eat 1200-1400 calories and not lose weight. The only differences are that a) I will not see dramatic weight loss every day, and b) I will not be depriving myself, and I will hopefully adjust to eating like this, rather than how I used to eat (and what I was used to eating).

    Leslie has a couple of meetings today, and the weather is pretty ugly outside. It is currently -10° outside, with a windchill of -20°, and with blowing snow. By early afternoon it is supposed to go up to -4°, at which point I hope the wind will have died down, and I can enjoy a cigar. For now, the balcony is quite inhospitable, even with the heater.

    I have one piece of work to do today, and it starts late in the evening. I essentially have the day off, which means I can relax and spend time with my girlfriend… in between her meetings, and her preparing for meetings. I also plan to look at the labs and courseware for my class that starts next week… oh, and I will review the evals for the class that finished last night. I suppose I do have some work to do… but it will still be a relaxing day.

    I was showing Leslie some of the custom-tailored shirts that I have, and then I realized that if I am going to do this slowly, I am going to get a few shirts for the next few months. I have them made by a tailor in Hong Kong who comes to Canada twice per year to measure people and to sell. We looked on their site, and it turns out they will be in town during her next visit! She has excellent fashion sense, and we will pick out a few shirts, maybe a couple of pair of pants, and a sports jacket. I do not think I am going to get a new suit, but I still have a month to decide about that. In the meantime, I have to spend the next month losing weight, so that when the time comes, I will be hopefully 15-20 lbs smaller than I am now.

    This is yet another difference between this time and the previous diet attempts. I had vowed to get a custom-tailored suit when I lost 100 lbs in 2017… and I did. In fact, I got two of them. Neither of them currently fit, but they will when I am at that weight. This time around, I want to start dressing snazzy sooner. I hope that by the time I have a wedding to go to (mid-July) I will fit into my 2017 suits, but in the event that I don’t, at least I will have something nice to wear.

    I had my meeting with my diet-buddy last night. I was worried about her because she had missed the previous meeting, so I reached out to her, and she told me what had happened. Neither one of us is on the pace we want to be, but we are both losing weight, which is just fine.

    I see the weather is getting a little better, and in an hour or so I might be able to wipe down the chairs on the balcony and light a cigar. In the meantime, I want to wish you all a great day, and a wonderful weekend!

  • Day 33–Monday, February 21, 2022

    I have made no progress in a week… but with all the crap that has happened, I am just glad that I did not lose any ground either.

    Leslie and I went shopping yesterday and we bought two gorgeous dress shirts for me to wear for the next couple of months, until my nicer dress shirts start to fit. I spent more than I was planning to on the second shirt, but Leslie is so good to me, how could I deny her? Also, I thought it was a gorgeous shirt too!

    Yesterday I was good until I was not. Lyle made a fabulous dinner of boeuf bourguignon, which he prepared for me without noodles. I also ended up having a few of Leslie’s noodles when she was done, which means that not only did I go overboard on the portions, I also had the carbs which I have to work so hard to avoid. I will not have any more this week!

    It was a very nice weekend. Leslie and I spend at least an hour on the phone every day, but there are some things that are just easier to talk about (or at least to go into detail about) in person. It has gone both ways, and we have both had things to talk about. We also spent an hour on the patio yesterday smoking a very fine cigar, and I read her my favourite Rudyard Kipling poem from a book of his that I purchased a couple of weeks ago… printed in 1899. The book is delicate, but how much more romantic can it be than to read poetry to your beloved… even if it is a poem about having to choose between a woman and cigars.

    I am working this evening, and Leslie is working during the day. She plans to audit my class tonight, which will be fun. She has heard me present to an audience before, but she has never actually seen me teach. Also, it has been a year since I last had an in-person audience! While she works, I will be sitting on the balcony smoking – it is a beautiful day, the first in a series of days that will be unseasonably warm. Tomorrow afternoon Lyle will come for a cigar or two, which will be nice. Of course, Dorothy is always invited, but she works during the days, so that won’t work out. Hopefully Leslie will have enough of a break between meetings to join us for a bit.

    My goddaughter’s birthday party was supposed to be next Saturday, but her mom messaged me yesterday telling me it is postponed by a week. She (the mom) tested positive for Covid-19 and is isolating for two weeks. I am sending her positive vibes for a full and speedy recovery.

    After a couple of hours of distractions, I am on my way to finish my day. My friend the cleaning lady is here, Leslie is working, I have had a salmon salad for lunch. I do not have to teach for another five hours, and I am going to choose a fine cigar and sit out on the balcony for a few hours.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 32

    It truly feels wonderful having Leslie here. I was so happy that she decided to come, and when her plane arrived nearly 30 minutes early, I was elated! Five minutes after her plane was scheduled to land, she messaged me to say that she had her suitcase and was coming out to the kerb. I was only halfway through the cigar that I had been smoking, which is fine because Leslie loves when I smoke cigars. I finished that cigar on the drive home, rather than lighting a fresh one (which had been the plan).

    I was mostly good on the diet yesterday. I did have a bag of almonds on the way to the airport, but it was a small bag, not the big size I would have bought before the diet. I had my piece of chicken and a bog salad, and then I polished off Leslie’s chicken when she said she was done. None of that is really more than I have been doing on the accepted hybrid program I’ve been on. One last shake in the evening, and I estimate that I might have had 1300 calories yesterday, all healthy ones.

    This morning, I prepared a very nice omelet for Leslie, with all-beef salami, onion, and mushrooms. She loved it, but I did help her to finish it. I did not even have a quarter of it, and with the exception of the salami, it was all very healthy. I do not feel bad about it.

    The plan for today: As long as it is warm enough, Leslie and I are going to spend the evening with our friends Lyle and Dorothy. Lyle will be preparing dinner (he is an award-winning gourmet chef), and I expect that he will make something for me that is within the guidelines of my program. In case he does not, I will have a shake and a shaker bottle with me… just in case. Knowing my friend, I will not need it. He has promised Leslie a gastronomical masterpiece heavy on the mushrooms (Leslie is a fiend for fungi!) and served over a bed of his homemade pasta. While I am sure I will eat well as well, I suspect I might be just a little jealous of what they will be eating!

    The cigars that Leslie brought me were… well, there is no other word for them – spectacular. She brought me two limited edition boxes of Davidoff cigars, plus ten Padron 1964 Anniversary (the Cigars International Cigar of the Year). They are absolutely drool-worthy! We took the pictures, and then we put them nicely into the humidor. We then affixed the new LED light strips that I bought into the door of the humidor. The result is amazing… unless you press the flashing button, at which point it feels like a 70s discotheque (minus the LSD).

    I will stick to the plan today! Again, the plan does not have to be as strictly regimented as I once thought… I can replace a meal-replacement shake with a piece of chicken, and I can have a few bites of Leslie’s scramble (I called it an omelet before; in truth, when I tried to flip it and failed, it transformed into a scramble) without beating myself up over it. The spirit of the program is more important than the rules… no starches, very minimal carbs, and smaller portions. I failed on the portions a couple of times this week, but not today. I’ll stick to it today as well.

    Tomorrow is a holiday in both Ontario (Family Day) and the USA (Presidents’ Day), although I will be teaching my group in the USA from Ontario in the evenings. No matter, I love what I do… and I certainly love knowing I am earning a full salary while on shortened hours at my day job!

    Have a great day, and enjoy your day off tomorrow!

  • Day 31

    As Princess Sophie and I stepped out of the front doors this morning, she was in a way. There was a pile of snow, and she did her business. It took her five seconds. I am unsure if this is because she had been holding it in, or because she realized that this morning might have been the blusteriest morning we have had since she arrived in Canada. For a girl who had spent her first four-plus years living in Southern California… the worst ever. Really, it was not too bad, with the temperatures hovering around -8°c, but with the wind chill it was ten degrees colder than that, and the wind was howling indeed. While the temperatures won’t bother me, I do hope the wind will die down over the next few hours.

    Yesterday was not a good day on the diet. A mix of anxiety and sadness, tinged with the happiness of knowing that today Leslie will be arriving. I just got off the phone with her. She is at the airport waiting to board her plane. I have a few things to do today, but at about 2:30pm I will be in the cell phone waiting lot for her to call me and tell me she has her bag and is meeting me outside. We are both jumping out of our skin! I wish she was coming to better weather; maybe she will bring it with her from Texas.

    I drank more water yesterday, which is important. I have to pay attention to that today, although I will balance it with the fact that from the time I leave home until the time I return will probably be three hours, and I do not want to be looking for a public washroom if I can avoid it. I will take a cup of coffee in the car, which I know will be rather small (I know how big my travel coffee cups are). Before parking in the cell phone lot, I will stop at the nearby Tim Hortons to refill it and will use the washroom there. Hopefully that will be fine until I get home with Leslie.

    Oh, right… I also have to replace one of my propane tanks! I’ll do that before heading to the airport.

    My goal for today is to not cheat on the diet. Yesterday was another bad day, and the only good thing I can say about it is that I have now finished the aged cheddar that was in the house and will not be tempted to buy more. I will be preparing food for Leslie – I love making her breakfast, and I found out recently how meaningful it is to her. She keeps telling me that she does not want me to do anything for her food-wise that I would not be doing for myself, but I am going to do it anyways. Besides… if I take a bite of her omelet, it will not harm my diet.

    For a while this morning, I thought I was coming down with a cold. I realized a while ago that my eyes are dry and itchy, which is usually a symptom of allergies, and not of a cold. I do not know if that is better or worse, but I have taken an allergy pill, and will try to pay attention throughout the day to see if they helped. I know that I will be rather preoccupied later in the day… Leslie’s presence (after nearly two months) will be quite distracting, and I might not pay attention to things like itchy eyes!

    My goal for today: do not break my diet. I want to stay the course, and to get back on track. I know that Leslie’s support will be a big help for me!

    Have a great day folks! Enjoy your weekend!