Losing a part of me

Category: Eating

  • Day 1286

    My weight was up this morning. I was about to start writing this journal entry when I felt the urge, but the drop in weight was not like yesterday – I only dropped 2/10 of a pound from my morning weigh-in, which means that I am up about half a pound from yesterday. I deserve it – I left the house at 2:30pm and would not return until 8:30pm, and I knew that would be the plan. So why did I not prepare and bring at least one meal replacement with me? Because I was forgetful. I stopped and picked up the unsalted peanuts that I like, and the $2 worth of peanuts that I ate filled me up. That took the place of two meal replacements, and I am glad that I did not prepare one when I got home. I will do better today.

    My sleep was a bit better last night… with a sleep score of 79. I’ll take it.

    I have a lot of work to get done but this afternoon around 3:15pm I’ll leave to head to Grimsby. I am getting my hair cut at 4:00pm, then from 4-7 I have a series of meetings and appointments. I’ll make sure to bring a meal replacement with me this time.

    I have been checking my email every six minutes to see if my new certification has been approved, which is silly because it could take as long as 4-6 weeks. I am excited for it though and am really hoping it happens sooner. I have to practice patience!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1268

    It was Sophie’s fault.

    Okay, that is both wrong and unfair. The explanation for it, unjustified though it may be, is that I was extremely hungry as I prepared to end my class yesterday, and my plan was to have a meal replacement shake before taking HRF Princess Sophie out for her walk. She was having none of that. She was ready to go out immediately and no amount of coaxing would change her mind. We went out for a long walk… she insisted on seeing the sights and greeting her friends and possibly sniffing every blade of grass in her park.

    When we got home I was even more ravenous, but knowing that I was on Day 1 of my program I could not go crazy. I did, however, decide to prepare those three eggs that I was going to give away or throw out. All in all I could have done much worse, but I still felt guilty about it.

    This morning there were no eggs in the house. After we got home from our morning walk Her Floofness wanted to go to see the neighbour, and knowing that Sue had told us that Charlie would be there today, I was more than happy to accommodate her. I came back home and put on the coffee before preparing my meal replacement shake.

    Four shakes per day for the foreseeable future. Not fun… but I have put on a disastrous amount of weight since my life fell apart, and it is time to get off that ride and to try to get control of my life back from my emotions. That starts by losing the weight… again.

    It pains me to know how heavy I am. I had done so well, and then my life fell apart… in fact, it happened twice over a 19-month period. Thanks, Lady. No, I will not go into detail. Yes, I am somewhat bitter. That doesn’t matter though… it is time to pick myself up off the floor and get back on track.

    I got an email yesterday that my new sports jacket and shirts are en route from Hong Kong and should arrive by the end of next week. I am excited to receive them; I am equally hopeful that within a few months they will no longer fit, and I will be back to wearing my original weight-loss wardrobe… hopefully by the beginning of September?

    I have been sleeping poorly the last week, in which my fitness watch registered a sleep score over 70 only once. Last night was the first night in over a week that it was slightly better… an 81. I hope to continue that trend.

    It is Friday, and thus my last day of class. I had some technical issues yesterday which means that I am going to have to rush through a little of the material today but I am still confident that I will be able to get through it all. This evening I will light the Sabbath candles as usual, but for the first time in a long time I will not be eating my ritual challah bread to say that blessing. Nor will I be saying kiddush on the wine… I am back on the program.

    Because I had eggs for both breakfast and dinner yesterday I might consider yesterday to have been a Day Half rather than a new Day One. Sabbath or not, today I am drinking my meal replacements, coffee, and a lot of water… and that is all that I will be ingesting. I hope that I can follow that discipline for a few months and not just a few days. I have fallen off the wagon too many times. I have to be strong this time.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1164

    Yesterday was a disaster. I will not go into it and it might be nothing, but I found something out that put me into a panic and an eating frenzy. I have now regained all of the weight that I dropped just two short days ago. Until I find out otherwise (regarding what I accidentally discovered) then my anxiety levels will be dialed up to a fourteen. I do not know how I will get through it.

  • Day 1152

    Day One of my renewed efforts saw slight but not total fails. I found myself away from home for longer than I expected, and I bought a bag of potato chips. I was certain that when I weighed myself this morning I would be back up to 212 lbs.; what a relief that my weight was in fact down by a pound from yesterday, making for a total drop since Thursday morning of 4.4 pounds. Considering how disgustingly heavy I was then I am not calling this a resounding success, but at least I know that I am trying to regain my footing and begin to make progress.

    I was sitting with a Lodge brother yesterday and I told him, without going into the details of how, that I decided to drop twenty pounds before the banquet. He told me that he would encourage me and discussed his weight loss goals as well. I was glad that he did not try to discuss his strategy and did not ask me about mine. I really do not feel like discussing my plans for how I will do it but am happy to have the support of people who are encouraging me to do it.

    I also had a lovely video chat with my wife yesterday. It is hard living so far apart, and I am glad that technology allows us to not only talk but to see each other as well. I cannot imagine how much more difficult a long-distance relationship would have been before the era of video chats, let alone reasonable phone calls. I dated a girl when I was in the Army, and she lived in the United States. I cannot imagine how much money we wasted on long-distance calls… before she came to Israel to see me, and we both realized that it was a mistake. My marriage to Leslie is absolutely the right thing, but I am still glad that we do not have to pay thousands of dollars on phone bills!

    I did not sleep very well last night, and it was in large part because of my shoulder which has been bothering me. I spoke with a Lodge brother who is a chiropractor, and he is going to help me out, but first I have to have a day when I can go to his office. That will not be for a couple of weeks yet, and so I am thinking about taking a couple of pain killers in the evening before I go to sleep. I am hoping that helps, but we will see. If not, then I will stop taking them and I will try something else. In the meantime, my sleep score of 63 from last night does not bode well for how this day will go; I will be teaching from 8:30am until 5:00pm, and then from 6:30pm until 10:30pm. It is going to be a very long day… and I have three of those this week, while Tuesday and Thursday I am only teaching the daytime class.

    I said last week that I was hoping the packed schedule would help me with my eating, but it did not… if one can go to the grocery store to buy provisions, one can eat; also, once one is at the grocery store already then it is easy to just buy a couple of things that are counterproductive to weight loss. Knowing that I will not be shopping this week, but will be relying solely on meal replacements, is going to be most helpful. I am still weaning myself off food and will likely have my last plate of pasta for lunch today. Okay, I actually have plenty of pasta in the house, but only one meal worth of pasta sauce, so that should do it. I am giving myself this option because I know that the first few days of the program are extremely difficult, both emotionally and physically, and so if I find myself lagging in class this morning then I will give myself the option. I will not absolutely eat, but if I need it then I shall. I also know that if I do not eat it for lunch, but after a long day of teaching I feel I might need it to make it through the evening of teaching then I will have it between classes. It is a safety net if nothing else.

    So far this morning I am doing well on water and coffee, and I did remember to add fibre to my morning meal replacement. Also, in anticipation of a resounding success getting back onto the program, I have ordered more shakes.

    Wish me luck folks… and have a great day!

  • Day 1085

    I was in front of my computer all day yesterday, but I was busy most of the day and forgot to post. My weight has crept up two pounds these last couple of days. This, despite my eating pretty smartly. I am not happy about it.

    I had to be up early this morning to drive to a doctor’s appointment in Vaughan, which for those of you not hip to the geography of the GTA is about 75km from here… and for a 9:15am appointment that meant getting up very early and bracing myself for a long drive. I am glad that I was home at a reasonable hour. I had lunch and answered some emails. Now I have to get ready to head to Grimsby for the evening. Another long day. Tonight is my Lodge’s chili night. I am not particularly looking forward to it, but a couple of the brethren told me they are preparing the chili special for my religious dietary requirements. I’ll have a reasonable helping.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1081

    My sleep score last night was an 85, the second highest it has been since my hip started to cause me problems. I should mention that there was one night that I did not wear my fitness watch to bed, which is odd for me, but I just forgot to put it on after I got out of the shower. In any event, I feel well rested this morning. I also feel for the first time in a week that there is marked improvement to my hip; to be clear, the improvement has nothing to do with pain medicines (although they have helped keep me somewhat sane). No, I felt real improvement before I got out of bed, which means before I took my pill. I am relieved that it seems to be on the mend. I have been extremely unhappy these last few days, even snapping at people who did not deserve it. I will apologize to them both. Now let’s hope and pray than my hip and leg continue to improve!

    What has not been improving is my weight. I have gained a tremendous amount of weight this past week, partly due to stress-eating to try to relieve the pain. That never works of course, but gaining weight does. My weight this morning is a disgusting amount over the terrible mark. I need to get back on track. Hopefully the lessening of my pain will help with that. I need to get down to a reasonable weight, and that will need to start with depriving myself of certain things. Hopefully by mid-week I will be able to exercise again, but until that is the case I cannot touch another carbohydrate, starting now.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1073

    Yesterday was my big event. A few weeks ago, at Lodge a couple of the brethren expressed interest in the Jewish festival Chanukah, and I got the idea of inviting a few of them to light candles together. When I discussed the idea with the other Jewish member of the Lodge, the idea blossomed into an evening at his house. With twenty-five people in attendance, I was excited to deliver the presentation that I put together, which turned into a seven page, fifteen-minute talk. It was very well received, and a good time was had by all.

    The host is an East-Indian Jew, and so that was the theme of the food. Before everyone else arrived, he showed me which dishes I would be able to eat (butter chicken made with cashew butter so that it was kosher), some of which came home with me as leftovers. Everything was absolutely delicious, and I felt like I was bursting at the seams. The only concession I made to being cognizant of my diet was opting to cut a sufganiya (traditional jelly doughnut) in half rather than eating a whole one.

    I was convinced that this morning I would not see any progress on the bathroom scale, despite the disastrous number I saw yesterday. No, I was quite pleased by the drop. I did not lose all of the four pounds I had gained the previous day, but I did shed most of it. I am still above the terrible mark, but not nearly as badly as it could have been… or was yesterday.

    My original plan was to resume my program on the first of January. This morning my friends who had invited me for New Years Eve informed me they had to cancel, and so I will be staying home and enjoying a cigar date with my wife to ring in 2025. This means that with regards to food overindulgence, my holidays are over. Well, almost… tomorrow evening I will spend with my sons, and I expect they will have some goodies to share. But that’s it. I have some leftovers in the fridge, but that’s it. I can breathe a sigh of relief, and hopefully get back on track a bit earlier.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1063

    This morning I saw the largest single-day weight increase that I can remember, It was a kick in the gut, and a definite reminder that I enjoyed last night’s Christmas dinner a little too much. I do better today… but just the fact that I will not be eating cookies for dessert means I will be doing better than yesterday. I fell off the wagon hard yesterday, but it was a single day fall and today I am getting right back onto the horse. I do not know if I will be exercising today, but aside from breakfast (which is behind me) I will be eating smart today.

    Add to the food, my steps-goal streak came to an end yesterday (as I knew that it would). My new best is seventeen days, and sometime in the future I am sure I will try to top that. That attempt will not start today, but that does not mean that I will not try to exercise. I just hope that my knee holds up.

    My next huge challenge is next week when I go to my friends’ house for Christmas dinner. Until then, I have to be good… and get back down below the terrible mark that I shot past this morning.

    Have a great day, folks.

  • Day 1052

    I had a very difficult day yesterday. I broke down and bought chicken and vegetables and ate a late lunch (or early dinner). To be clear, I do not believe that I overate. I am also proud of myself that despite my intense desire to do so, I did not buy any bread. As bad as the day was, it could have been a lot worse. I also ran on the treadmill for 3.5km – the first run in nearly a year. I slept poorly, and did gain a bit of weight this morning. Stress and anxiety are real killers for weight loss.

    This morning I am going for breakfast with some of the people from the lodge. As the lodge is currently the primary source of my stress and anxiety, I am not sure how breakfast will go. We will see. After breakfast I will be meeting a couple of friends for cigars, and then I will come home. Eduardo is coming over in the afternoon.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1043

    As planned, I drove to Niagara Falls, NY with my buddy yesterday. As expected, I had no issues with the cigars that I declared. I was quite proud of myself that even though I walked into Wegmans (and a few other stores that sell lots of tasty things) I did not buy anything. The only thing I ate was once I had dropped Mitchell off, I stopped at Bulk Barn and picked up a handful of almonds. I really should get into the habit of bringing protein bars in the car with me… just in case. In fact, I think I will take a couple down with me when I go out.

    Okay, I just took two protein bars out and left them near the door where I will not (or at least should not) forget them.

    I returned home from Niagara Falls earlier than I had expected, and since I had not slept very well, I was tired and tried to nap. I rested, but did not manage to fall asleep. At a certain point I gave up and decided to walk… indoors. I cleaned out the area under the treadmill and suited up. I turned on the TV and walked for seventy minutes. My decision to walk specifically for that long was because I wanted to replicate the walking from the two previous days, allowing me to properly recalibrate my fitness watch’s treadmill pace. I don’t think the calibration is exactly right… but it is much better than it was.

    A complete breakfast, a handful of almonds, two meal replacement shakes, and a 7.3km walk on the treadmill. All in all, that accounts to a pretty good day for my program. The results? My weight this morning was down nearly two pounds from yesterday, which comes to a two-day loss of 5.4 lbs., bringing me to within half a pound of that horrible mark. How cool would it be if I could cross under that threshold tomorrow or Saturday? Step one: DO NOT CHEAT.

    This afternoon I am heading out to Grimsby for a cigar with Mitchell before we head to a meeting at the Lodge. I am going to walk on the treadmill before I go so that I can get some exercise in. The variable steps-goal on my fitness watch is now up to nearly 11,000 steps per day, and I would like to extend my current streak to four days. Let’s see if I can do it!

    Have a great day folks!