Losing a part of me

Category: Dog

  • 2026 Day 32

    My fitness watch is completely wrong this morning. It claims I got 4h00m of sleep from 1:35am to 4:35am, with only 7m of deep sleep. In fact, I was asleep at 9:15pm, and slept at least 3.5 hours very well and quite deep, until Her Floofness told me she needed to go out. That does NOT happen very often… in fact, I would bet that it has been at least two or maybe three years since she has asked to go out in the middle of the night. When she does… I listen. I got out of bed at 12:45am, got bundled up (the mercury read an even -20°) and took her out. She did her business quite quickly and efficiently, and we came back into the apartment to get back into bed. It must have taken me a few minutes to nod off again because I seriously doubt I was awake more than 30 minutes. In any even, the fitness watch only registered my sleep after the walk, and not before.

    That does not mean that I feel at all well-rested this morning. I have felt sleepy since I got up (before 6:00am), and know that I will be needing a nap (if not a full night sleep) before my class begins – yes, I start teaching (remotely) in Europe tomorrow morning, and I have to be online at 1:00am. I would be looking forward to the class, but only on the condition that I can get a few hours of sleep today.

    I fell right off the wagon yesterday. It was terrible, and I paid for it this morning. I will not go into the details of how badly I faltered except to say that my weight was up five pounds from yesterday. F&ck.

    My plans for today are to get a little work done, try to get a few hours of sleep, and do not go to the store where I am always tempted to buy things that are horrible for my weight loss.

    Have a great day folks.

  • 2026 Day 31

    What a relief it is to get a good night sleep… especially after the previous night of lousy and short sleep. Yesterday morning my sleep score was an abysmal 50 (based on 3h59m of sleep). Despite my best efforts I was unable to nap in the afternoon. This morning my sleep score was a delightful 94, based on 7h41m of optimally balanced sleep.

    • Sleep score: 94 (Excellent)
    • Duration: 7h41m (Excellent)
    • Stress: 15 avg (Good)
    • Deep: 3h02m (Excellent)
    • Light: 2h29m (Good)
    • REM: 2h10m (Excellent)
    • Awake/Restlessness: 6m, 26 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    I woke up refreshed and ready to take on the day… until I looked at the temperatures outside and saw that the mercury reading was -20°. For those who are unclear on this, let me give you a very brief synopsis. The mercury reading is the actual temperature. The Wind Chill factor will take that temperature down, either slightly or severely based on the wind, to what it feels like on our skin and in our bones. This morning’s wind chill was -28° when I took Her Floofness out for a blessedly short walk. She quickly and efficiently took care of the business that she needed to do, and then looked at me and said ‘Pick me up right now Daddy!‘ I feel terrible for her, knowing how cold her bare paws are on the snow and ice and concrete… but she has always refused to wear boots, so I take her out and let her walk until she asks me to pick her up… and then while I walk her into the building I try to wipe the snow and salt off of her tootsies.

    I was not expecting to be happy with the reading on my bathroom scale this morning… certainly not after two days of eating pretty badly. To be fair, yesterday I ate a lot of chicken, but that was the extent of it. Thursday, in anticipation of the extremely tough exam I was preparing to sit Friday morning I was much worse. As I prepared to step onto the scale I said to myself that I would be satisfied (or maybe relieved is a better word) with a weight gain of no more than three pounds or so from two days ago (I did not weigh myself yesterday morning before my early morning exam). I was certainly relieved if not elated to see a weight loss of one pound. Sometimes weight loss can be hard to predict.

    When I do eat during my program, I try to not consume anything after 6:00pm. Despite being hungry last night after my class was over, I knew that I had eaten a lot of chicken throughout the day, but at least I had two things in my favour. Firstly I had not had any carbs, and secondly I had finished the chicken at 5:45pm or so. I could have prepared a meal replacement shake, but decided against it. Going to bed slightly hungry is not the worst thing in the world for me. Waking up fatter may not be… but it is pretty bad.

    I have to go run a couple of errands today so I will bundle up and try to be back home as quickly as possible. I have some work that I want to get done this weekend, and with the weather being what it is I do not see myself being tempted by anything that involves my leaving the house, so this might just end up being a productive day! I have a few follow-up items to deliver based on a meeting I had with someone from one of the training organizations with; I have two upcoming classes to prepare for (although the course I am delivering this week requires no real prep, I will still spend a few minutes reviewing the material and labs; the class I am scheduled to deliver at the end of the month… that’s a whole different story, and I need to do a lot of preparation for that one). I am also hoping to do some work on the course that I am writing; while really I am waiting for feedback on the work I have already submitted, that should not stop me from doing more writing.

    All in all, this could be a pretty productive weekend… but if I do not remember to buy more coffee then I will be shooting myself in the foot!

    Have a great day folks… and try to stay warm!

  • 2026 Day 9

    There have been many days that I have disagreed with my fitness watch over the quality of my sleep (based on the reported sleep score). This morning is the first time that I can remember that I disagree on the other side – that is, I thought I slept terribly, but my sleep score was high.

    • Sleep score: 90 (Excellent)
    • Duration: 7h18m (Excellent)
    • Stress: 13 avg (Excellent)
    • Deep: 1h34m (Excellent)
    • Light: 4h41m (Good)
    • REM: 1h4m (Fair)
    • Awake/Restlessness: –, 46 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    There were at least three and as many as five times that I remember waking up thinking that it was probably morning, only to look at the clock and see that it was 1:15am… 3:00am… 4:45am… and so on. Each time I felt like it took me a while to get back to sleep, and each time I remember thinking that there was no way that things would end well for a restful night. Was I dreaming each of those times? I wish I could ask Her Floofness… when I wake up in the night I almost always shift positions slightly, and because I know this disturbs her a bit, I try to reach over and pet her with a few strokes. Alas, she is much wiser than I am, living for the moment and not dwelling on the past. (Excepting for a couple of things that I have done for which she holds a grudge, including moving her from Southern California to the cold climes of Canada, and then later on giving away her couch).

    Depending on which measure we accept, I was anywhere from half a pound up to 2 lbs. down from yesterday. Had I cheated in any significant way, I would have picked a higher reading than I did; as the only ‘cheat’ was a pinch of shredded cheese when I was giving some to Her Floofness. The trade-off for that was that I only had three meal replacements (rather than the proscribed four). I was a bit peckish as I lay in bed at night, but it was not so severe that I needed to sate that hunger.

    On that topic, I am going to give my diet buddy credit for the recommendation about adding celery to my program (as needed). There have been a number of times throughout the past few days that I have felt the need for more, and rather than picking something else (which would be potentially detrimental to my progress), I munched on a couple of pieces of celery. I am at the point where I do not feel the slightest guilt for eating celery, and at the same time I do not feel that I need to gorge myself on it. I do not think I have had more than 2-3 stalks in any day, but if I had then what of it? Five entire stalks (which is double the maximum I have had) would be a whopping 30 calories… nothing to worry about, especially since it adds fibre and no negative nutrients to my intake.

    It is time for me to get to work, or else I would talk about my concerns about my sleep next week, and a few other things I have on my mind. They can wait until tomorrow, when I have no current obligations and will have time to write and relax. Right now I am about to start thirteen hours of teaching, so I’ll close.

    Have a great day folks!

  • 2026 Day 8

    I did not expect to sleep nearly as well last night as I did the previous night. I never sleep as well when I teach into the late evening. The fact that my sleep score was a 66 (Fair) is a minor victory.

    I cheated far too badly yesterday to expect a decent reading on the bathroom scale this morning. My weight edged down ever so slightly (.2 lb.), which kept me just short of the fifteen-pound mark for the week. With that said, I lost 14.8 lbs. in my first week, and I know that I ate far too many peanuts to even expect that. I am satisfied with my weight loss, and will try to cut the peanuts out completely this week.

    Her Royal Floofness had her spa appointment yesterday and she looks absolutely stunning (and everyone agrees). She asked to go out after my class last night, and of course I indulged her. She was not at all pleased by the cold and blowing snow, and she decided it was going to be a very short walk. At one point, she initiated the PDS (Poop-Dance Sequence), but when the wind gusted and howled she looked at me and said ‘Nope… I’ll hold it until the morning.’ We went back inside, and she cozied up into her bed waiting for me to climb in. This morning the weather was equally unpleasant, except seeing as the blowing snow had not let up, there was now nearly a foot of accumulation. She was going to call it off… until she saw her friend Winston, and ran out to play with him (and to show off her new hairdo). She found a section of a neighbour’s lawn that was nearly bare because of the wind, and did her business there… and then said ‘TAKE ME TO SUE’S COUCH NOW!’ It might be a couple of days before she goes out for her complete long walk again.

    I had already told my Lodge that I would not be trekking out to Grimsby for this evening’s meeting; I am not sure if it has been decided officially, but I suspect that we might cancel tonight’s meeting for weather. Whether we do or not, I will not be digging my car out today. I will take Princess Sophie out for another walk this evening, but that is as far as I plan to go. The peanuts that are left in my car will sit there for another day… or two or three, because tomorrow is another very long day for me.

    I suddenly have two classes scheduled for Europe over the next few weeks. Next week, I will be teaching Tuesday through Friday ‘in Germany,’ and the second week of February I will be teaching a week-long class ‘in the United Kingdom.’ As nice as it would be to travel to those places, I will be doing it from home… which means teaching overnight and trying to sleep during the day. How fun. At least I am earning a decent living these days. I know that these contracts will be great, but they will severely affect my sleep schedule. My bigger concern is staying true to my weight loss program, which is harder to do when my schedule is off like that.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1275

    It felt like I was walking around with an anvil on my back from the moment I could not sit my exam on Tuesday until the minute I received an email from ISC2 at 2:00pm yesterday afternoon telling me how I could now rebook my exam. Precisely forty-nine hours and fifteen minutes. That weight is now gone, leaving the weight of preparing for what is likely the hardest exam that I have taken in a long time and the stress and anxiety that goes along with that… but there is a deadline for that which is next Wednesday at noon. Suffice it to say I am not making any social plans for this weekend so that I can prepare for the exam, as well as for the class that I am teaching Monday. I maintain a spreadsheet of every certification exam I have ever sat, and for the first time ever I created that new line for my upcoming exam in advance. Why? I do not really know, but it likely has something to do with my anxiety.

    My food intake yesterday was in most respects identical to the previous day. Aside from two things I was able to stick to my program again, but when I got into my car to drive out to the cigar shop I realized the remaining peanuts from what I had purchased the previous day were there, so I finished them. Additionally, once again felt the need late at night to take a pinch of grated cheese. I can assure you that Princess Sophie is happy that I continue to need that as she always benefits from it.

    Even with the cheese my weight continues to drop at a rate of not quite one pound per day, which is tremendous. At this rate (which of course will not continue) I could not only drop below the terrible mark in the next month, but also by winter I could be back in almost all of my tailor fitted shirts and jackets! Wouldn’t that be something… but we have to assume that within the next week or two that rate will drop to 3 lbs. per week, which means that it is going to be springtime before I am back to where I was when I was at my lowest weight and then started slipping. I never want to be this big again… but of course I have said that before.

    My sleep score this morning was the best it has been since June 19, with the comment that it was restorative. It was such a relief after the previous night’s problems with my back that kept me awake. The only thing I took (which I do almost every night) is melatonin. I did wake up a couple of times to pee but other than that I had no problems. I had been worried the last few weeks that it was Princess Sophie sleeping in my bed that caused my sleep issues, but that was obviously not the case last night. Woohoo!

    I was reminded yesterday of two masonic events coming up this summer that I am being encouraged to attend. I made the conscious decision to decline both as they are both food-centric. I do not need to attend a corn roast as (I love sweet corn, especially in season!) and I do not need to attend a fish fry, as much as I enjoy fried fish. I was not at all tempted (nor was it even suggested I attend) by the pig roast that one of the lodges is holding. Religious observations aside, I am satisfied with the progress I have made thus far, but I do not think I am ready to subject myself to temptations. I do not think I have the willpower to resist yet.

    My plans for the day are to read, study, and smoke cigars. I was thinking that I had a couple of things I needed to pick up from the store, but I decided to order them from Amazon instead.

    In the last hour I have been experiencing more discomfort that feels somewhat similar to what I was feeling a couple of nights ago, but while it is radiating into my back, it feels like it might be related to my digestive tract. It feels like something extremely solid (akin to every other bowel movement I have had this past week) is lodged in there and is applying pressure to both my bladder and a couple of other nerves. It has gotten much worse – so much so that in the middle of this paragraph I got up, found a laxative, and then decided to take a shower to try to ease the discomfort. It might be a little better now than it was thirty minutes ago, but I am definitely looking forward to the time when the laxative begins to work. While writing these last three paragraphs I have had to stand up several times to alleviate the discomfort. Suffice it to say that as soon as I am finished with this journal entry I will be shutting my computer down for the next few hours. Hopefully my ‘throne’ chair on the balcony will be more comfortable. By the way, the answer is yes, I have been adding fibre to my meal replacements at least once per day. My program, being an extreme one, is going to cause disruptions to my body. This is not the first time I have started this same program, and I have experienced changes each time… and not the same each time. I know I have had some discomfort in the past and I only hope that this abates over the course of the day so that I do not have to reconsider staying on the program. Of course my first course of action would be to reincorporate a single solid meal per day… but I am hoping that can wait for a few weeks at the least. I would love to get down well below the terrible mark before I have to do that… but my health comes first, and if I have to then I will do it sooner.

    Okay, it is time for me to grab my book and a cigar and to see if my throne is more comfortable than this desk chair. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1250

    The temperatures have been (and will continue to be) record-breaking in my part of the world. This afternoon it was a sunny 35° (which is not taking the humidex into account). Needless to say, it was not a bad day for me to have to sit at my desk and work all day… which is essentially what I did. After fighting with it for a few days, I think I finally got my home lab environment up and running. It is not completely done… but it is at a place where I am not going to worry about it. Tomorrow I am teaching a cloud security class and will not be worrying about it. If I need it for any reason, I have the essentials working.

    Today is the six year anniversary of Princess Sophie’s Adoption Day. We woke up and drove out to Beverly Hills… in our eagerness we were two hours early and found a café to relax at before heading back to the Adoption Fair. In honour of that memory, Her Floofness has been getting spoiled even more than usual today. Tomorrow is an anniversary of a different sort… I am glad I have to focus on work which means hopefully I will not be dwelling on that all day.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1174

    Holy crap it is cold out there. Yesterday afternoon I joked with someone that if there was any more inclement weather this season it would be my fault because I had my winter tyres switched out for the summer tyres Monday morning. we laughed ironically in the way we would when we blame someone who had their car washed for the rain. We probably should have checked the forecast before laughing.

    As I lay in bed trying to fall asleep last night I could not help but notice the howling winds outside. It sounded like we might see the Wicked Witch of the West searching for her sister’s feet under neighbourhood houses this morning. I figured at least the storm was blowing through in the night, and should be passed in the morning. No such luck.

    As I dressed to take Her Floofness out this morning, I checked the weather as I always do. The temperature was a brisk (sic!) -6°, but with the high winds (with gusts up to 50km/h) the windchill would make it feel like -17°. Just to clarify, we are in the second week of April, and no, this is not normal. Our walk was not as long as it usually would be on a clear spring morning.

    After a disastrous night the previous night, I did take a couple of naps yesterday and was able to make it through my class. When I laid my head down on my pillow last night, I had plenty on my mind… and none of it was good. I did not expect much, but when I woke up this morning I could not remember waking up in the night. My sleep score was 87, and while I only slept 7 hours it was quite restorative. I am now eager to attack today with gusto!

    What do I have going on today? I have to pack my car and drive to the other side of Toronto to check into my hotel. I will pick up my dry cleaning on the way, but until 6:30pm (when I am meeting a friend for dinner) I have nothing to rush. I do have some work that I would like to get done, so I might do that before hitting the road. We will see.

    The week before last I was a bit off my game, and the instructor evaluations for the class I taught reflected that. I knew going into last week’s class that I needed to redeem myself, and I think I did. This morning I was able to review my evals for last week’s class and not only did the numbers reflect my success, but some of the student comments absolutely made my morning. A couple that stood out:

    “(Mitch) has been an amazing instructor and i will remember these past 5 days due to how engaging he has been. I took this course a few years back and i can hands down say he is my favorite teacher! 100 stars if i could”

    “Mitch is a seasoned instructor with excellent delivery of information. He is able to provide examples and definitions. He has character and charisma. Mitch is probably the best instructor that I’ve had to date, he keeps me captivated and engaged, he’s able to take something boring and make it interesting. He both asks and answers questions from students, he is very dedicated to the subject which he teaches and has a delivery of the subject that is better than any instructor that I’ve had in my life.”

    “Thank you for the great examples you gave in class. When I took a practice test for Security+, I remember them, and they helped me to answer the questions more easily. Your way of teaching really helped me understand the material better.”

    “Mitch needs a raise”

    These were, it should be mentioned, from four different students. Even so, not everyone was 100% satisfied… I just don’t know why not because he or she did not leave a comment. Oh well.

    The sun is shining bright through my window and I have to remember that were I to step outside I would be blown away and frozen solid. Okay that is an exaggeration, but it is cold and not exactly ‘walking outside comfortably’ weather. I hope the wind will abate by this evening so I might be able to enjoy a cigar outside my hotel… if not? it will not be the end of the world.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1143

    I have no idea why, but I forgot to weigh myself this morning. It was not a question of hopeless despair, I just forgot. It was probably because Her Floofness greeted me outside the bathroom door and essentially said ‘Get dressed fast and let’s go now!’

    I will try to be good today.

  • Day 1067

    This morning’s weigh-in brought me back below the terrible mark once more… if only barely. I am hoping that my knee heals up soon so that I can get back onto the treadmill. I have not been anywhere close to hitting my steps-goal since breaking the streak on Monday, and my fitness watch has now adjusted my goal to 7,240 steps.

    One thing is for sure… there is no way Princess Sophie and I are going to spend a lot of time outside today… the mercury read -15°C (5°F) when we went out for a very brief walk this morning, and despite the sunshine, the forecast high is still only -9°. We literally got to the end of the building when she signaled to me that the snow was painful on her little paws, so I picked her up and brought her back into the house. While she was not a fan the last time we tried them, I am buying a set of dog booties to try again. We won’t have too many days this cold, but still…

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1056

    I did pretty well yesterday, not cheating at all. I had my regular breakfast, then a buddy from the Lodge came over for a cup of coffee. When he left I hit the treadmill, and while I did complete five kilometres, I only jogged the first three of them, slowing my pace for the last two clicks to a brisk walk.

    After I got off the treadmill and showered I had a meal replacement shake, and then I took Her Floofness out for her walk. I was about 2,000 steps shy of my steps goal for the day, and a good walk with her would finish that off. The flaw in that plan was that it was raining, and Princess Sophie does not enjoy walking in the rain. Yes, she did her business… but I was not able to coax her more than a hundred feet from the door we walked out of. The neighbour who lives right there came home as I was ‘arguing’ with the pup, and welcomed us to come into the building through her apartment (rather than having to walk all the way to the front of the building in the rain). Okay, that issue was solved… but I was still short nearly 1,500 steps! Solution: I got back onto the treadmill for a short walk. It was not strenuous exercise, I was not pushing myself, and while I did get a little warm, I did not break a sweat. With a steps-goal of 11,010, I went to bed with 11,092 steps on the tracker. That increased today’s goal to… 11,030. Don’t hold me to it, but I think I might be able to make it.

    I have to go shopping today… and not for the usual provisions. I decided a couple of months ago that I was going to make homemade doggie treats for Chanukah, and I bought the cookie cutter shapes back in September. As I am planning on driving down to the USA later this week to mail some things to my wife, I am going to make them today so that I can ship some to her for Duchess. We also agreed that while Duchess and Sophie would devour them, I found a recipe without peanut butter so that I could give some to Charlie (our next door neighdog) as well. He is the only dog I have ever met who does not eat peanut butter. There’s always one weirdo in the group, right?

    Knowing that I have very little planned for today, I will probably extend my treadmill workout to six kilometres. I want to make sure I extend my streak (currently at 11 days), but I do not want to overdo it and find out that tomorrow’s steps goal would be 12,500. I am thinking strategically to give myself the best chance to beat my current streak record of sixteen days. For the record, this streak is only accounting for the time since I switched from Fitbit to Garmin, so probably five years now.

    I fell asleep without much trouble last night… and then at 3:15am I woke up and could not get back to it. I finally picked up my phone and spent an hour watching TikTok and doing whatever else until my eyes were exhausted, and I dozed off again. My sleep score was 70, which considering the hour-long interruption is not too bad. My body battery was up to 79… also pretty good. My weight was down nearly two pounds from yesterday and is now the lowest it has been in a week; it is still 2 lbs. higher than my best weight eight days ago, but that is what falling off the wagon will do. Fortunately, I am mostly back on the wagon. I will probably eat today… but I will do so smartly (both with regard to portion and choices.

    Have a great day folks!