Losing a part of me

Category: Clothes

  • Pride of Dress, Pride of Progress

    My absolute worst weight ever – eighty-nine days ago – proved that I had, for a time, given up. I had no pride in my appearance, and for several months had not cared enough about myself to rein in the bad habits that come so easily to me. Of course, a broken ankle did not help… but I was in a bad way. My stomach hung out from nearly every shirt that I owned, all of which were tight fitting.

    I am now down a little over forty-five pounds, and while I still have little reason to be proud of my body, I am proud of the progress that I have made. I know that one day I will once again have pride in my appearance.

    This morning I got dressed after my shower, knowing that HRF Princess Sophie was pressed to go outside for her morning walk. I checked the weather, and then I grabbed the next shirt on my shelf of long-sleeve XXXL shirts. We went for our walk.

    I should mention at this point that not all shirts are made equally. I am not talking about quality, but rather of sizes. While that is less prevalent where the measurement is a number (a size-42 pair of pants will have a bit of range, but they will all be approximately the same), but when the sizes are L-XL-XXL and so on, there is a huge range. Most of my XXXL shirts fit me quite well now. The one that I picked off the shelf yesterday definitely did not. My belly hung out of it, and there was no amount of tucking it in that was going to hide my stomach for long.

    Eighty-nine days ago, I would have thrown up my hands and said, ‘Oh well!’ That is not what I did this morning. The shirt did not fit… but it will. That might take a couple of weeks or a couple of months, but the bright pink Under Armor shirt will fit properly one day and soon. It does not yet, so I took it off, and picked out the next shirt from the same pile. Ironically, it was also an Under Armor shirt in the same size. It fits perfectly.

    I am done wearing clothes that do not fit. I am happy to wear clothes that are a bit tight, but if it will not hide my belly then I am not wearing it.

    I still do not have a lot of pride in my appearance, but Leslie loves what I look like, and she is so proud of the progress I have made. She will continue to support me in my weight loss. My girlfriend deserves to have a boyfriend who takes some pride in his appearance, and dresses appropriately. There are so many days when I do not feel that I deserve such a beautiful woman as her, and I am not going to let a day pass when I do not show her the respect to be the best boyfriend that I can be. The day that I do that, I will truly not deserve her.

  • Day 80

    Woohoo! The bathroom scale registered me below 350 lbs for the first time in a very long time today. While I suspect the next few days will have me above that mark again, it is indeed a banner moment. I had not mentioned it in any previous article, but that is the magic number – the maximum weight on my doctor’s medical scale. Of course, when I get weighed there, I am fully clothed, and so I have to plan for 3-4 pounds more loss before I can weigh myself on the imperial scale there. (On the metric side of the scale the maximum is 160kg, which is 352lbs.)

    Leslie and I decided on seared tuna for dinner last night, and if I do say so myself, it was quite nice. The fish monger only had frozen tuna steaks, but they defrosted in time for me to prepare them. It was the first time I ever cooked seared tuna, and I think it came out well… although there is plenty of room for improvement. I heated the frying pan to the hottest the burner would go, and then I seared each piece for 15 seconds on each side. Leslie made the rice, to which we added furikake (a Japanese seasoning that she has been raving about, and which I really enjoyed). I sprinkled black sesame seeds onto my tuna, but she did not. We finished the presentation with a dollop of pickled ginger. It was, if I do say so myself, an amazing meal! Yes, tuna is a fatty fish (as is salmon), but it is very healthy… and I like that we are experimenting in the kitchen.

    While I do not mind the boring chicken – salmon rotation that is my usual dinner, I do not want to drag Leslie into my boring meal routine. I have a friend in California who would come over with her dog, and she would make fun of me for it. ‘Let me guess… you want to make chicken and salad for dinner? Wow you are so predictable!’ I stick to the routine because it is easy, because I like it, and because I know that it does not hurt my diet. However, I do not mind expanding beyond that… especially if it helps my culinary knowledge! The first time I bought salmon I was really hesitant, and it came out really well. Now I have expanded even further and can keep going if I like!

    Cam and Amanda had to cancel our plans for today, which is too bad, but makes our life a little more convenient. We will probably drive to Cambridge to spend a few hours with Ryan and company, but Cambridge is a 40-minute drive each way, whereas Strathroy is a 100-minute drive each way. I would have loved to introduce her to my friends and my godchildren, but that will have to wait until a later trip. In the meantime, I am sure that Cam and Amanda will invite me to see the kids in a few weeks, which is just fine by me.

    I wanted to try my next size of pants down on this weekend. Leslie said that I shouldn’t; knowing that I have a huge scale victory today, I am going to see if I might also have a non-scale victory to report. We will see. I think I am going to… if only to see how far I have left to my next size-switch.

    Speaking of sizes: Leslie brought the shirts and bathing trunks that I ordered to her address for our Cuba trip. Of the six shirts and two bathing trunks, half fit. That’s right, three shirts and a bathing suit fit. The other three shirts were still too small… but the other bathing suit was way too big. Okay, no problem… we will return those to Amazon, and we ordered new ones – this time different patterns of the styles that we already know fit properly. We are very excited to be heading out on our first vacation together… we leave one month from tomorrow and could not be more excited!

    Whatever your plans are for this weekend, have a great one. See you tomorrow!

  • Day 54

    Happy Pi Day! As there is not a pie known to me that would be acceptable to eat within the parameters of my diet, I am going to stick to the mathematical formula.

    I did not do as well food-wise yesterday as I might have, but I certainly had the opportunity to do worse, and so I will declare victory.

    I took my sons to my usual breakfast spot in Burlington. The younger son had an Oreo concoction that looked absolutely sinful. The older son had a corned beef hash which looked a lot more up my alley, and he allowed me to take a taste. I had an omelet with cheese and onions, eschewing both the hash browns and the toast for sliced tomato. To compare my plate with theirs was akin to comparing Charles Atlas to the 98-pound weakling. I was comforted by constantly reminding myself that this is what I need to do in order to achieve my goals. I did add some hot sauce to spice it up a little…

    We returned to my apartment and watched the video of my father’s speech. Gilad was tired, and a little saddened by the video of his grandfather and went to sleep in my arms. It was one of the most heartwarming things I can remember. Aaron was glad to hear the stories and wondered aloud to me why Zaide never shared some of them while he was alive. I told him that I had heard most (but not all) of the stories… and what he did not share, he probably just thought he would have more time.

    When the video was over, Gilad was still an immoveable object. Aaron and I went onto the patio for a cigar, and we had a conversation about many things… some of which were painful for him. I will not go into details. It was still not a warm day, and after half a cigar we decided to go back inside. By this point we were able to roust Gilad, and they went home. I made a salad with a can of salmon. It did not satisfy me. I then decided (maybe 90 minutes later) to prepare my dinner (it was 4:30pm) and so I had another salad with a fresh salmon tail. I was still not satisfied. Over the course of the evening, I had one meal replacement shake and one meal replacement bar. All in all, I ate more than I should have, but not terribly so.

    I mentioned that the restaurant is one that I often frequent. I found it heartwarming that one of the waitresses told me she had planned to email me this week to see if I was okay. I told them I was, but that my weight-loss plans did not include breakfasting out. She congratulated me on my efforts, although there was no ‘Well you look great…’ I suppose despite losing 35 pounds so far (approximately) I have a very long way to go.

    In the evening, Leslie and I were discussing our upcoming trip, and we got on-line to order my beach shirts. I have a tradition of wearing very floral, Hawaiian-looking shirts when I am in Cuba. We found seven that we loved, but one of them will not ship until May, and so we ordered six of them. I also tried on my bathing suits, disappointed that neither of them will likely fit yet by the time we go, and so we found a couple of bathing suits that should do me well. It is much cheaper to buy these things in the US, and so I ordered them to Leslie’s place. The added benefit of this is that she will be here in a few weeks and will bring them all. Anything that does not fit, I will send back and order the right size.

    I then decided to try again. You may remember that I have one pair of pants in Size 44 that did not fit me yet. They are the same brand as a couple of the other pair that I have been wearing but are a smaller cut. I tried them on last night. Lo and behold, they are tight… but they fit! These non-scale victories are so much more rewarding than the numbers on an unreliable scale.

    Speaking of the scale, this morning my weight was down once again… almost half a pound from yesterday. There were a couple of bad weeks, but I am back on track and hope to stay that way. I am going to the tailor the end of next week, and I hope to be in a good place. I have decided, however, that I will likely buy fewer clothes than I originally had planned. I do not want to spend too much money on clothes that I hope to no longer be able to wear in a couple of months. We’ll see… I have ten days to make up my mind. I will definitely be buying some shirts, but suits? We’ll see.

    The weather is warming up. Today’s high should reach 8°c, dropping to 3°c tomorrow… then up to 10°c and 16°c for Wednesday and Thursday. In fact, the ten-day forecast only has one number below zero, the -3°c that is today’s low, which is what it was when I took HRF out for her walk this morning. Being mid-March, it is not unheard of that the below-zero weather is officially behind us for the season, which means that cigars on the balcony will become even more commonplace than they have been over the winter.

    Have a great day folks!

  • 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!

  • The Case of the Missing Package

    As I drove into the east side of Toronto yesterday afternoon, I got a notification that Canada Post had delivered a package. Actually, I got the notification from the US Postal Service, through which the package was sent. I was excited, knowing that Leslie had shipped me a few things that I needed… including meal replacement bars!

    I arrived at the front door to my building, and there was an envelope for me, but no box. Hmph. I took my bags upstairs, and indeed there was a box for me on my doorstep! It was an Amazon box, and not a USPS one. Okay, still not right, but at least the new lighting for my humidor arrived.

    It has happened a couple of times that the Amazon delivery guy would leave a package for me at the next building over, so before doing anything else, I took a walk over there to check. Nothing. I went upstairs and knocked on the door of the condo association president and asked if he could check the video footage for the past couple of hours. He went to look, discovering that the monitor was broken so he could not check. I started to think that there was a problem but hoped that the mailman pressed ‘Delivered’ when she meant to press ‘Held at Post Office’ which meant I would get a notification.

    It was at this point that I started to think the box was lost. Speaking with Leslie last night, we lamented that it was fortuitous that she had listened to me and not included the very expensive box of sexy cigars that she bought me for Valentine’s Day, opting to hold on to them until our next visit together.

    IMG_2005This morning, I got a cautious text from Leslie. ‘Okay are you ready for the f-up of the century? What is your address?’ When I told her last night that the package was marked as delivered, but was not here, she decided to go back and check… it seems she fat-fingered my address and typed a 3 when it should have been a 6.

    I was in the middle of my morning shake but told her that as soon as I was done with it, I would bundle up and take a walk across the street. I did just that, and sure enough the package was in front of the door of the apartment with the same number as mine. Interestingly, there was no security to get into the building… I could have walked up, taken the package, and been on my merry way. As I did not want to appear to be a mail thief, I rang the bell, and had a quick chat with the resident (who I had quite obviously roused out of bed). Once he understood me (English was not his first language) he wished me well.

    As I rode the elevator back down to street level, I took a picture of the package and sent it to Leslie. I did not open the box until we were on a video call together, and she could see my reactions.

    Not only did I receive my meal replacements (which had the cutest Valentine’s Day stickers all over them!), I received a great little drawing of a cartoon dog and a kiss (not drawn!). I also got a shirt that I ordered to her from Amazon in October, and which was reported delivered October 30. It had not arrived, and a couple of weeks later Amazon refunded my money (saying that if I did receive it eventually, to keep it). The shirt arrived earlier this month (February, so over three months later) with no explanation. It has now gotten lost in the mail twice; to avoid a potential third time, I will wear it tomorrow.

    Interestingly enough, this was not the only package to be marked as ‘delivered’ yesterday, that was not. A delivery for Princess Sophie (that had also been feared lost in transit) was reported as delivered… but is nowhere to be found. I hope that it turns up, but I am not holding my breath. While there are a couple of extras in it, the most important contents have been replaced. We’ll see what happens today… and I will ask the mailman if I see her.

  • Day 21

    Today is the last day of Week 3. How amazing is it that I have gotten here? I have so much farther to go… but I am nearly thirty pounds lighter today than I was the morning of Day 1. The is two Princess Sophies!

    As I was chatting with Leslie last night, I decided that the button-down shirt that I was so happy to wear would go into a pile for charity. The colours were a bit faded, the buttonholes were a bit stretched (a sure sign that someone who it borderline fits has been wearing it around a very large stomach), and it could go to someone who will need it more than I need it.

    The problem is that when I went into my closet this morning to find another button-down shirt, I did not find another that fits. In a few weeks, maybe, but not now. I do suspect that the one shirt that I bought since I am in Canada – the shirt that I bought to wear to my father’s unveiling – will fit, but that is folded, and for whatever reason, I did not wear it today.

    Leslie also pointed out last night that some of my writing – specifically, the one I wrote yesterday about junk food – has a negative tone to it, and she asked me if I did it intentionally. I do not know that I do, but I am certainly not the type to pussy-foot around a subject. When I am doing something wrong, I do not want someone to take five minutes laying several layers of feathers and pillows down before they tell me what is wrong – tell me, and I’ll get over it. It is the sentiment that matters to me, and the don’t-want-to-hurt-your-feelings padding is, for me, both extraneous and condescending. If I am fat then I am fat, don’t call me Rubenesque; if I pigged out on junk food do not tell me that I was making up for whatever, just say that I pigged out. I understand that in this day and age, where feelings matter and everyone is going to be offended by something, you have to sugar-coat anything that might be negative… well not for me. That’s why I write in the tone that I do, especially when the person whose transgressions I am calling out are mine. That is one of the ways that I will remember to not do it again.

    Last night’s evening snack was the last of the American shakes, and so for this morning’s breakfast I am drinking the first Canadian shake I have had in over three years. I am shocked by the difference. I had once lived off the Canadian shakes for twelve weeks, and I have had many of the American shakes… I had just never had two (essentially) one after the other. The Canadian shake is much richer and creamier than the American counterpart. While it was a surprise and something to get used to, it is not at all unpleasant. I will make a point to add more water to the mix going forward… the more of it that I drink, the more I feel I have consumed… even when the calories are the same.

    Either my progress is too slow, or I am too impatient. I knew yesterday that when the numbers on the scale had not moved below those of the previous day that today’s measurements would be much better. They were… but I was hoping for more. This early in the program it should not be unreasonable to still enjoy a one-pound-per-day loss, as I did in my previous two attempts. Looking at my previous journal, on Day 22 I was down 34 lbs, and I am nowhere near that. Of course, I was sticking to the program religiously last time, rather than the hybrid program I am enjoying this go around. Which is better? I suspect the way I am doing it now is likely more conducive to long-term sustainability. We will see. As I wrote a few days ago, a huge key to that long-term success is going to be psychological and keeping my mind healthy. Anima sana in corpore sano.

    Lyle and Cam came over for cigars yesterday. I am always happy to have friends over. Lyle knows about my weight loss program, but Cam does not. On their way here they stopped at a fast-food restaurant, and Cam brought his hamburger to eat here. I got him settled on the balcony where he started to eat, and I busied myself around the house, making the excuse that I was taking time to select the exact right cigar (I had made that determination hours earlier) before finally going outside. He had a couple of bites left, most of which he shared with Princess Sophie. I know that it is not his job to police or even to be mindful of my diet, and I do not think he did anything wrong. I just do not want to be exposed to the temptations.

    This afternoon, Eduardo is coming for a cigar, and the weather is shaping up to be the nicest day of the week. He is coming around 2:00pm, but I am almost certainly going to get a head start on him!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 20

    My cheats yesterday included the last of the almonds, and a bit of cheese. I had two bits of cheese in the fridge when the diet started, and I realized that while one of them was sealed and new, the other was not sealed at all, and had grown moldy. I decided to cut away the mold and what was left was about an ounce of aged sharp cheddar. I enjoyed it, after paying the Cheese Tax to Princess Sophie.

    Speaking with Leslie last night, I decided that this morning I would go into my closet and try to find a button-down shirt that might fit. I have several that were candidates, but different companies cut their 3XL shirts differently. The first, a branded Microsoft Server shirt, did not fit. I decided on a shirt that has a cute pattern but does not have the vibrant colours that it did when it was new. I am expert at many things, but laundry is not one of them.

    Today is my appointment with my family doctor, and I plan to discuss my weight loss program and progress with him. In two or three weeks I will be able to get onto his scale to get an accurate reading, but I am reasonably sure that today I still weigh more than the maximum capacity. I am embarrassed by that, but optimistic for the day when that will no longer be true. I know that day is not far off. I plan to ask him to see me every few weeks to check in. While he is not a bariatric or weight-management doctor, he is willing to see me in person, and he has known me personally for many years. I am going to try for a semi-weekly cadence… for my American readers, no there will be absolutely no cost to me for these visits. (For my Canadian readers, who as fellow taxpayers are subsidizing these visits, remember that these visits are an investment in my weight loss, and it is in the service of not needing much more expensive treatment at a later date.)

    I was speaking with my friend/cleaning lady yesterday. She has also had weight struggles for much of her life, and she was telling me about a class she had taken – really weight management support groups – in which she was the only one who was there to get help losing weight. Most of the people there were either anorexic or bulimic or whatever and were trying to learn to eat properly to gain weight. This is not a problem that I have ever had to contend with, but it is important to remember that if there are extremes on one side then there are extremes on the other.

    (I should mention that if ever I thought that I was in the extreme overweight category then a simple trip to most any WalMart store in the US will remind me how wrong I am… but that does not mean that I should not work my tail off to lose the weight.)

    —

    I am back from speaking with my doctor, and we have come up with a visit schedule. I will go every two weeks, alternating between just seeing the nurse to get weighed, and actually seeing him. He knows that accountability is a huge help for my weight-loss and is going to support me completely. We broached the subject of a weight management clinic that I used to be a patient at. While they were good at what they did (education and accountability), they are currently not doing in-person visits, only telemedicine. Add to that the fact that unlike my family physician, you seldom saw the same doctor at that clinic, and I do not feel that marking numbers on a chart makes me accountable. He (my doctor) has been my doctor for fifteen years, and there is a personal connection which helps; I cannot pull the wool over his eyes, and he cares about me as a person, rather than as a generic patient file.

    A buddy is coming for a cigar this afternoon, and I look forward to shooting the breeze with him. He is one of my closer friends and sitting on the patio with him is always enjoyable. He has some errands to run first, so I will likely get a head start after my 1:30pm bowl of soup.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 19

    While I worked most of the weekend, I did have a friend over for a cigar on the balcony yesterday. It was a beautiful and sunny day, and he and I (and Princess Sophie) were able to enjoy it to the fullest.

    I had a real non-scale victory last night. Yesterday evening, while video-chatting with Leslie, I decided I wanted to try on the pants that I had put aside with the tag ‘Try again February 10.’ She was so happy for me that they fit! It wasn’t like ‘OMG if I hold my stomach in as much as I can then maybe with a crowbar and a cinch, I will be able to close them… barely’ either… I am wearing them comfortably today. So many of my NSVs will revolve around clothes, and that is just fine by me. The fit of a shirt or a pair of pants can be a much more visible and tangible sign of improvement than numbers on a scale.

    It was great to spend time with my sons on Saturday. Sunday evening my phone rang, and on the other end was a screaming child. My poor son (the younger) was having a terrible meltdown and was in an uncontrollable hysteria. My poor son (the elder) and his mother were trying to settle things, and one of them thought that speaking to me might help. I am more than a little ashamed to say that I am familiar with such tantrums firsthand, having had similar issues myself as a child. Where my older son thought that I might be able to soothe and calm his brother, I was much more effective in counselling him, and explaining to him why he had to take a step back. His mother, who was listening the whole time, must have worked hard to keep her jaw from falling, and likely wished that I had been so wise with my counsel and my child (as well as adult) psychology when we were married. The regrets I have from my years married to her, and from all of the years that I have been a father, will be a shadow over my soul until the day that I die. If only I had a time machine…

    I stuck to the program pretty well throughout the day; being able to smoke two cigars certainly helped, as did the fact that I was busy working from morning to night. I enjoyed my chicken and salad for dinner, and I enjoyed my regular meal replacements the rest of the time. I do not think I even had any almonds.

    This morning, after dealing with a client issue where the sky was falling, I picked my friend/cleaning lady up from the train station and asked if she minded that we make a quick stop at the supermarket, where I picked up chicken and lettuce. As we walked into the house, she asked me if I had given up on my diet program. I was able to excitedly share that not only had I not given up, but I was doing really well on it. I showed her the bins into which I sorted all of my ‘not yet’ clothes and showed off that as of last night I no longer have a ‘try on soon’ shelf. She is a good friend and has always been very supportive with my weight loss… although she is also happy to help me enjoy an all-you-can-eat sushi meal when I am not watching my weight!

    Today’s work, now that the worst of the fire has been contained, consists mainly of watching numbers go up and make sure that they do not crash, which means that while I cannot be far from my computer, I can be on the balcony with a cigar after my lunch… which will start in just a few minutes.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 12

    In my previous journal I wrote that on Day 12 I was starting to feel a real difference in how I walk. Yes, it is less than two weeks into the diet, and I have shed nearly twenty pounds. I feel the difference in my pace, and the ease with which I am able to get there and back (wherever there might be). When I took Princess Sophie for her walk this morning the mercury read -12°C, which believe it or not is a lot nicer than it has been. We walked to the park and back, meeting a golden retriever friend who was a lot of fun.

    There is a rather unpleasant task that doggie daddies do that has become easier these last two weeks, and I am not sure if it is solely because of the weight, or possibly also because my ankle and knee have healed better. Kneeling down to collect her poop is much easier than it was. I am sure it will get easier still, as the amount of weight my knees have to support drops.

    Something else that I discussed in my previous journal was that I did not want people to know about my weight loss program, and that I was furious that after I confided in a friend about it, he then told his seventeen-year-old daughter… who then tried to grill me about it. He proved to me a few months later that he was not at all a friend, or at least not in the way that I need my friends to be. Days 11 & 12 were both foreshadowing the ends of relationships, but neither had anything to do with my weight loss. It is so difficult to make friends in Southern California, because so many of the people there are fake and will use you for what they need, and then throw you away. I was blessed, after I moved from Glendale to Westlake Village, to meet a group of friends who have proven time and again their sincerity. They will always be my true friends.

    Yesterday turned into a very productive day, even though I had originally said it was going to be a lazy day at home. The at-home part was true, but I got through a major task that I have discussed before. I never realized just how many clothes I own, and I am a little embarrassed by it. With Leslie on video chat, I folded and sorted all of my clothes. Yes, the other day I did that with my pants. One plastic storage container worth of them. Big deal. I was utterly amazed by how many shirts I own… and with only two exceptions, the two large containers worth were all golf shirts and t-shirts. In the end, I decided to change the system. I now have five storage bins in the corner of my bedroom with the following labels:

    • XXL Shirts & T-Shirts
    • Pants Sizes 40-42
    • XL Shirts & T-Shirts, Pants Sizes 36-40
    • Suits, etc…
    • Taekwondo – doboks & non-current belts

    That last container is large, filled to the hilt, and much more accurately labeled than that. Having been, over the years, affiliated with three different clubs (in the GTA, in Ottawa, and in California), I have several uniforms with different branding, plus my two pre-Black Belt uniforms. I also have a number of pair of training pants that I would wear under the more-important uniform top and belt. I am hoping that when I drop another 30 lbs I will be comfortable enough to start training again. While I live less than 2 km from the club I used to be affiliated with, owing to the change in management (GrandMaster retired) I will likely reach out to friends who opened a club in the same style. We’ll see.

    Considering that I am not a fashion guy, the fact that I have four storage containers filled with clothes, not having actually touched my closet, is amazing to me. It is not that I need this vast array of clothes; it is simply that over the years there have been three distinct sizes of Mitch, ranging from extra-fat (where I am now), to slimmest-ever (where I have been twice, once in August-October 2017, and again from July-November 2020). Judging from the volume of shirts, I guess most of that time was spent in the middle – the XXL shirts and t-shirts piles were far larger than the other two. This is good in the short term, because in a month I hope to fall into that bracket and will spend a couple of months there.

    While I wish I had not benefitted from doing so, I wish I had not kept all of my fattest clothes. It was not my intention to. In August 2020 I emptied my closet and drawers of everything that was ‘fat Mitch’ – the XXL and XXXL shirts and the Size 42-46 pants – and put them into a bag to donate. That bag sat in the trunk of my car for a couple of months behind my golf clubs and was only taken out (into my apartment) because I was driving a couple of friends to the golf course, and we needed room for their clubs. The bag then sat in a closet for months, until my friends who were emptying my apartment in California and shipping all of my stuff to me shipped the fattest clothes. Had they not, I would have had to buy a lot newer clothes than I did. I have no problem spending money on thinner-me clothes. I loathe wasting money on clothes that I want to shrink out of and never fit into again.

    I my first weight loss program cheat yesterday… albeit a minor one. In the early evening I prepared a bowl of soup, and while I was putting it on the table, my hand slipped, and I spilled half the bowl. I decided to replace the lost protein and calories with a handful of almonds. While I did not gorge myself on them, I do think that the handful that I took was much more than what I had spilled and would likely have been the equivalent of an entire meal replacement, if not a touch more. I was glad as I prepared for bed hours later that I was not overly hungry and made the conscious decision to skip my last meal replacement bar of the day.

    I want to mention that as I sit here typing I can feel my knees. They are not in pain; they just feel like I have been exercising. In other words, they feel like they carry around far too much weight and will be much better off once I am at my goal weight. That might be many months away, but every pound that I shed is a pound that they do not have to carry. I expect that they will continue to feel better as I succeed with my weight loss.

  • Day 10

    I will spare you the ‘what I read in my previous journal’ wisdom today… the entry is not long or impressive, nor in any way insightful.

    I stepped on the scale this morning and was pleased with the number. When you are on an extreme plan such as this one, there are going to be days with multi-pound losses… especially at the beginning. Today’s drop was about 3.4 lbs, which is good… except that I still do not trust the scale because of the lack of stable integrity of the floor on which it sits. The first place I had placed it showed me down over fifteen pounds (from yesterday, not overall), which while impressive is not realistic. There are people who like to just hear good no matter the voracity of the statement. I refer to that as ‘blowing sunshine up my bum.’ I would rather have the real skinny (pun intended as an afterthought) rather than the fake pipe dreams.

    Last night, my girlfriend and I (she beams every time I call her out) spent some time sorting my pants by size. In the end, I had four buckets: Size 44+ (current), Size 42, Size 40, and Size 38/36. I placed each into a clearly marked bag, and then placed all of the ‘not yet’ size bags into a plastic storage bin. The ‘current’ sizes went into my armoire. I should mention that I denote it as 44+ because there are a couple of pair of Size 46 that I suspect are cut quite small and might actually fit for a few weeks. I will try them on this morning to see. If they are too large, they will go into a new group I hope to create and grow soon: the ‘these are too big for me’ sizes. Sometime over the next few days, we will go through the same process with my shirts, which will need to be broken down into more categories (long sleeve, short sleeve, collar vs. no collar, etcetera). Knowing now that she has a little something for men’s’ clothing, it will not be too hard to convince her to help!

    Fitness is going to play a big part in my weight management strategy, and it is odd that I have not made any mention of it yet. By Day 10 in previous journals, I had discussed long walks I had gone on, or plans to make use of my gym membership. Because of the pandemic the gyms are currently closed (or extremely limited). With the windchill it is currently -28°C outside, and because of a recent injury I am walking on a bad leg. I call this all out because I want to be clear that I will start walking soon. Yes, I am taking Princess Sophie out for her walks, but at these temperatures she does not want to go very far either. I will wear my fitness watch… but I have not been wearing it religiously these last few weeks.

    What I will say regarding my fitness watch, which I have put on a few times, is that the band is much larger on me than it was. No, it has not stretched; my wrist has shrunk noticeably with the diet. Woohoo!

    My plans for today are the busiest I’ll have had since the diet started: this morning my diet buddy came by to pick up her share of the product I picked up yesterday. It was the first time we had met, which is cool because it feels like we know each other so well. Princess Sophie is always excited when someone she has never met before greets her by name… it reminds her that she is famous, if only ‘Internet Famous.’

    In a couple of hours, I will drive out to Strathroy, which is a two-hour drive from here. I have a godson (Douglas) and a goddaughter (Cynthia) who live out there (with their parents, of course) and I have not seen them since Canadian Thanksgiving. I was supposed to go there for Christmas, but they were all sick. I was supposed to go there a few weeks ago, but there was a potential Covid exposure, and the mom had to quarantine. Today, everyone is healthy, and it will be great to see them all again. Amanda will be disappointed that I told her not to prepare food for me because of my diet… she knows that I love her cooking, and that is one of the ways she shows she loves her people. I will not discuss the Thanksgiving turkey dinner that she prepared… but it was out of this world! I am thrilled that I will be able to see my friends… who really are family! (Cheat note: If you have a friend that you want to be able to legitimately call family, make them the godfather (or godmother) to one or all of your children!)

    If there was going to be a dinner involved, I would likely have stayed there all evening… but as there is not, I will take my leave around 5:30pm, and drive to Cambridge to see another friend. He is a good buddy who has had some difficult times with anxiety over the last few months, and I like to check in on him every few weeks. Usually, it is as his place of work (which is much closer to home than Cambridge), but this is not only en-route, but he also has a heated garage/man cave/cigar lounge. It was he and his buddy (another friend of mine) who helped to bring my new humidor from the previous owner’s house (yes, my humidor is that big that it took two men with a pickup truck to transport) a few weeks ago. While I did gift them each a handful of cigars for their efforts, it was too cold to smoke here, so we will enjoy a cigar together this evening (one of mine, I promise) to thank them once again for their efforts.

    All in all, today will involve at least four hours of driving, in addition to several hours at friends’ houses who will all a) try to feed me, and b) have food out and about for everyone else, as I am the only one on this crazy diet. I will have to make it my primary mission to redouble my willpower, and to not succumb to any temptations. What I might do, when driving from Strathroy to Cambridge, is to try to find an all-beef sausage somewhere… or better yet, just a package of almonds. I will only do this if I really feel my resolve weakening. Hopefully, I will be able to get through it all without veering from the program. Just in case, I will take an extra meal replacement bar with me… which truly would be the best possible way to address the need to ‘cheat.’

    In summary, today cannot help but to be a great day for friends and stuff… but for it to be a great (and successful) diet day will depend entirely on me, and my willpower. As with so many things in life, today will be what I make of it.