Losing a part of me

Category: Eating

  • Day 996

    Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. May we all have an easy fast and be inscribed into the Book of Life.

    Since the fast did not begin until after dinner last night there is no weight loss from it just yet… but the fact that my weight was up a ridiculous amount since Sunday meant that there was a lot of low-hanging fruit to shed; the numbers on the bathroom scale are still disgustingly high this morning, but there was a significant drop from yesterday. It is still well above that disgusting and depressing mark that I hate to mention, but at least it is closer to that mark than it was.

    Speaking of fruit, I was bad yesterday which turned out to be good. I will explain: I drove to Hamilton to spend a couple of hours with my buddy Lyle yesterday, and en route I stopped and picked up some dried apricots. Dried fruits are extremely high in sugar, and therefore a bad idea for anyone on any diet, especially a keto diet. On the other hand, apricots are, to quote one website I found, ‘may promote gut health, and are high in fibre.’ This is the polite way of saying ‘they are going to make you poop… a lot.’ Last night I had a very good bowel movement, and I had another this morning. Whether it was because of the apricots or not I do not know, but between the two I am not surprised that my weight dropped so significantly this morning.

    Other than the dried fruit, I ate pretty normally yesterday. I had my omelette and a roll for breakfast, chicken with egg rolls for lunch, and chicken with salad for dinner… with a challah roll. I actually bought two challah rolls and will break the fast this evening with the second one. I am also going to have to run to the store because I do not have anything to prepare for dinner… but that’s not the worst thing in the world.

    It is 10:15am and I am already hungry. I will try to not eat until sundown, but I did brush my teeth, I did take my meds, and I will smoke a couple of cigars on the balcony. These are all violations of the strict rules of the fast, but I am going to do my best to not eat or drink (except for the water required for my meds). I took the Floof out for her walk this morning, but it is my intention to not exert any more energy than necessary until after sunset when I can eat. I hope that I can stick to it… I will do my best.

    Yom Kippur is meant to be a day of reflection, so I am going to add something else here. On Wednesday I will write my Day 1000 entry into this journal, and what a wild ride it has been. While I am much slimmer than I was 1000 days ago, I have slipped terribly this last year. I would like to drop back below ‘that disgusting and horrible mark’ by Wednesday, and I would like to continue to lose weight to get back to where I was a year ago. I have had a few false starts so far, where I have made some progress… and then lost it all. I hope that this one can be the one. While hope is not a strategy, I will put in the effort to succeed.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 950

    Despite the heat yesterday, I logged a 9km walk. I ate breakfast and lunch, and then I had two meal replacements in the late afternoon and then evening. I do not think it right that my weight was, once again, up this morning. Phooey.

    Don’t get me wrong… it was only up a few ounces – .6 lb. to be precise. However, I do not feel that I deserved that up. I really felt that this morning my weight should have been down… and not just a little. Not fair. I know, the constipation might be a factor; that does not make me feel a whole lot better.

    I am not going to jump off the wagon because of this… I am going to once again remember that weight loss is not about individual points on the graph; with that said, the last two points present an upward trend which pisses me off.

    My plan for today is to forego the lunch. I ate my breakfast but will only have meal replacements the rest of the day. Depending on how I am feeling, I might go for another walk. We’ll see. I know that tomorrow I will not have that luxury as I have to teach all day. I know that I really should go out for that walk… and I probably will. I am just hoping that before I do my bowels decide that they are finished punishing me.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 947

    I did not expect it to happen this morning, so when I stepped onto the bathroom scale and saw that my weight had dropped below 290 lbs. I was somewhat elated. Woohoo! My plans for today are to have a conversation with my diet buddy, and then I hope to go for a walk and I might even jog for a bit of it. When I am back I will shower, and then I will prepare the rest of the chicken that I bought yesterday. I don’t feel like writing much today, but I will try again later.

    It is now approaching 8:30pm. I ended up preparing the chicken and salad prior to going out for my walk/jog, which would have been bad only if I had decided to not go out for the walk/jog afterward… but I did. I donned my jogging kit (shorts and a t-shirt) and sauntered downstairs. When I got to the sidewalk I decided to jog the first kilometre, knocking it out in under seven minutes. I then proceeded to walk another 10km, averaging about 9m50s per kilometre. Not bad for a fat guy striving to be thin, huh?

    I achieved it Thursday, but it did not occur to me to cross off the 290 lbs. milestone on my refrigerator chart until this afternoon. I realized at that point that it was a little crowded, and so I decided to replace it with a new chart that started August 11. Now let’s see how long it takes for me to drop the 62.8 lbs. that I had gained from my best weight ever. We’ll see.

    It is time for me to turn off the computer and sit on the balcony to talk with my wife. Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 946

    My weight this morning was neither down nor up from yesterday. I know that I will not lose weight every day, and as long as the trend continues downward then I’m on the right track. Not that this morning’s breakfast at JJ’s was smart, but at least it was early in the day, and if I can get through the rest of the day carb-free then I can stay on track.

    (Spoiler alert: I had a tumultuous day and did end up preparing chicken and salad for dinner… with a small, lone challah roll.)

    I am sitting at the US/Canada border waiting to ask the Immigration officer a few questions. It was a long way to go for a few questions that normally will take no longer than 10-15 minutes to ask and answer… but from what I can tell from looking online there is no phone number I can call for this. I hope that it won’t take more than an hour or two of waiting. Of course, I won’t be publishing the entry until later in the day because there is no Internet access here… in fact, there is no cellular signal whatsoever, most likely by design.

    I had thought to myself as I drove down that once I was done, I might go into Niagara Falls, NY to have lunch; I then thought better of it because I would not likely find anything healthy, and having had a late breakfast it won’t be necessary. At least some days I can think about my weight loss without getting sidetracked by whatever enticements might lie in my path.

    It is now 9:00pm, and I was about to press Publish on the blog when I realized I should say that while I wrote that the day was tumultuous, it was not a bad day… just a long and busy one.

    It is time to light the candles. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 937

    I was weak last evening. I felt weak, and I gave in to a little temptation. I did not go overboard, but I did break from the program; I made myself a small (2-egg) omelette, and then I ate a protein bar (which is equivalent to drinking an extra meal replacement). I told my wife about the omelette but I think that by the time we spoke, I had forgotten about the protein bar. It was not meant to be dishonest. In any event, I was worried that I would gain weight from these. Fortunately, I did not. Indeed, my weight dropped again this morning. According to the bathroom scale, I dropped another 1.2 lbs., which brings me below the 295 mark for the first time since July 30. I have to keep going though… two days of progress does not a success make. 

    I told Leslie last night that my next goal is to drop to 280 lbs. By the time she visits. That means I have to stay true to the program for the next 3.5 weeks. It means that I am going to have to decline a number of social invitations over the weekend which will be sad, but necessary. I want to get back on track, and the last few weeks have proven to me that I cannot do that if I am going to make an exception for every occasion. 

    We also discussed my failure to maintain a reasonable weight. I have not even been able to type into this journal that horrible number that my weight exceeded four times over the past few weeks. I must be strong and get back on track, which means getting my weight as far below that number as I can. I know that she will love me whatever my weight, but it is not so easy to love myself when I am that morbidly obese. Without going into detail, there was a marked improvement to certain parts of our relationship as I dropped the weight… and if for no other reason than that, then being back above that number is somewhere I never want to be again! Of course, there are also all of the nice clothes that I have that I want to be able to continue to wear more comfortably, and those that I have that do not currently fit at all. Two of my suits fit and two of my sports jackets fit (but tightly), and the rest do not. As for shirts… I know that some of them are tight, and others are not wearable. I will get back into all of them… and soon. 

    It is a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, but I will be teaching until nearly 5:00pm. No problem… once I am off I will shed my jacket and tie, and I will put on a pair of shorts and a golf shirt. After I have my second meal replacement of the day I will go shopping for coffee and eggs and the vegetables I need for my omelettes, and then I will take Princess Sophie for a nice walk. I will follow that up with a cigar on the balcony. Leslie’s son is coming home to her this afternoon, so I do not know if we will be able to have a video date. If we can, then yay! If not, then I will read. 

    Yesterday after class I took Her Floofness for her walk, and then I took a nap. That allowed me to have a cigar date with my wife in the evening. Monday evening, I was so tired that I could not, and I thought I might be sick until Leslie reminded me that my body was rebelling against the severely reduced caloric intake. I am hoping that either today or tomorrow my body will be in ketosis and that will be behind me. If not, then I will take more naps. I will not sabotage my progress by eating (as I did yesterday). At least when I ate yesterday, was not carbs or starches, so I did mostly stay with the program. Hopefully today I can do better. 

    Can I get down under 290 lbs. By the weekend? That would be great. I will not veer from my program which would sabotage myself. Let’s see if I can do it. 

    Have a great day folks! 

  • Day 934

    I am not sure if my adrenaline high from yesterday has quite abated yet. What a day.

    As I wrote yesterday, I was awake at 4:15am yesterday, after getting less than three hours of real sleep. Why? Well, I was awake at that ungodly hour to pick my buddy up from the airport. Why did I sleep poorly? Mostly from the excitement and anticipation of what Saturday held. Jay had flown into town for one day to support me as I was raised to the rank of Master Mason. The ceremony was built up to me as one that I will remember for the rest of my life. There was a lot of preparation involved, and it would all culminate with the rites at the Lodge meeting. Everything involved lived up to (or exceeded) all expectations, and I was riding high until I forced myself to go to bed around 10:00pm… knowing that this morning would be another very early morning.

    My alarm sounded at 4:00am so that I could get up and get Jay to the airport in time for his very early flight. While he kept telling me he felt guilty for making me get up so early, I assured him that I could come home and go back to sleep. That has not happened so far, but Jay did get to the airport on time; I came home and took Her Royal Floofness for a very early walk; occasionally in the winter months we go out and come back in the dark, but I cannot remember the last time that happened in the summer… I suspect it would have been when we were living in California, and I had to teach an early class in another time zone. In any event, we had a good turn of it, and then came home to enjoy our breakfast.

    It is little surprise that my weight was a bit up this morning. I was pretty moderate in my eating yesterday, but there were some small cheats that were excessive, if not in the quality consumed then in the density of the fat and sugar. Yes, I had a butter tart, a desert treat for which Canada is known (and which were purchased to share with the numerous foreigners who attended my ceremony). This, after a breakfast of French toast, sandwiches for lunch, and sushi for dinner. Not a good choice in the lot… but it was a special day.

    There is nothing special about today, and I will go back to eating much smarter than I did these last two days. I had my regular omelette for breakfast. I will enjoy the sushi leftovers for lunch, but my evening will be a piece of chicken and a salad. That’s it.

    I am glad that my doctor renewed my prescriptions on Friday, but I did not manage my meds properly yesterday. Despite leaving the house before 5:00am and knowing that I would not be returning home until late afternoon or early evening, I should have brought a dose of the anti-inflammatories with me. I did not, and by 1:30pm I was in discomfort and then pain. I was quite relieved to arrive home and take the meds after 6:30pm. I have no idea why I broke my routine this morning, but I did not take any of my meds before leaving for the airport. Of course, I was home by 5:30am, and still took my pills earlier than I would normally. It is now 8:30am and I am feeling much more comfortable than I did three hours ago.

    It is a lovely day, but we can see that the summer is ebbing. I do not mind too much… it will still be a comfortable warm and sunny day, even though I did need a sweater for Floof’s walk. I am sure I will have plenty of time to enjoy the balcony in my regular shorts and golf shirt.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 932

    I did not expect it, but my weight dropped nearly three pounds from yesterday. I did not expect it because around 10:45pm last night my knee was in so much pain that I needed to take a double dose of the anti-inflammatory meds, which meant that I had to eat. I had a challah roll and two yoghurts. I always assume that no matter how well I did the rest of the day, when I eat bread after 9:00pm then the following morning’s weight will not be a good one. I was worried that my weight would be above that dreadful number for a second day in a row. Fortunately, it was not. I might not be breathing easy about that if I cannot keep myself on the right track going forward.

    Tomorrow is going to be an incredible day for me, but it is going to start very early. I am picking my buddy up at the airport at 5:15am, which means that my alarm is set for 4:00am. I have to shower and shave, and I have to be dressed in a suit and tie for the morning. It is exciting… and nerve wracking. I won’t go into detail, but tomorrow should be a day that I will not soon forget. There will be a celebration in my honour after all is said and done, and I just have to remember to keep my eating in check.

    I have an appointment with my doctor in a little while. It is for a yearly checkup, which means that she will have checked my blood and EKG results from last week. I am not worried about anything, but I do want to discuss my knee with her. I am hoping that it is just a flareup of gout, but we will see.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 930

    Thank G-d my weight dropped below that horrible number this morning. I will eat as I did yesterday, which is to say that I will have lunch, and then in the evening I will have a meal replacement.

    My knee is feeling somewhat better than it was a couple of days ago. I am still in pain, but not the debilitating pain that I was in a couple of days ago. I have cut the meds to one pill three times per day instead of two pills. I am also using the Voltaren cream pretty liberally, but not as often as it was. I will ice it this evening as well.

    I am stressed about the class I am delivering tomorrow. I think I am as prepared as I am ever going to be… but I really wish I had not agreed to teach it. My goal for today is to not eat my stress and anxiety.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 912

    My weight dropped to exactly 290 lbs. this morning, which is a decent drop, but not as much as it would have been had I not had the challah last night to say the blessing. Not sorry at all.

    Frankly, I am sure my weight would have dropped a bit more had I voided my bowels before weighing myself. Let me rephrase, because I actually did… but after I finished walking Her Floofness, I started making breakfast and felt the urge; too many things were on the go already (on the stove, etc.) so I decided not to. After breakfast, I had another significant bowel movement, and suspect it would have been an even more substantial loss. Oh well!

    My plans for today are a bit up in the air, but I am hoping that they firm up quickly. Whatever happens, I am going to try to be disciplined with food.

    ***

    I posted the following on my Facebook wall last night:

    There is hope!

    I was sitting in the barber’s chair discussing some of the anti-Israel Nazi protesters. She and I have known each other over a year, and she knows my position. I said something about the ‘Israel’s genocide of the poor innocent Hamas supporters in Gaza (sarcastically). The gentleman sitting waiting for the other barber loudly said ‘Excuse me? Do you really believe that garbage? All of the protesters are really just antisemites who hate Jews.’

    In nine months this was not nearly the first time that someone has agreed with me on the issue… but it was the first time anyone who did not know me stood up and said ‘HEY! The Jews have a right to exist and defend themselves and to get their hostages back by any means necessary.’ I asked the barber to give me a minute… I pulled off the cape to reveal my Israeli flag pin and my yellow ribbon pin. I told him my REAL position. I then thanked him for helping to restore my faith in humanity… if only for a minute, and if only a little bit.

    The Holocaust did not happen because EVERY German was a Nazi and agreed with the Nazis. It happened because good people stayed silent because they did not think it was their business to get involved.

    SPEAK UP! What we are seeing today is not different from Germany in the 1930s. The only difference today is that WE – Israel and the IDF – are stronger and smarter and know what’s at stake. Most of us don’t believe that ‘It can’t happen again’ because our parents said that and IT HAPPENED. With all of the lies and vitriol being spread it sometimes feels like we are alone… and if that’s what is going to be then we’ll face it alone… and we’ll win. But man, does it feel good to know that we still have some righteous gentiles who are willing to speak up for the side of right.

    If you think it won’t make a difference, then let me tell you something… this guy made my week. I’ve not been having a good time of it lately, but this guy really fed my soul and showed me that we may feel isolated… but we are not.

    I wish I got his name… I wish I had told him what his standing up for my country and my people meant to me. I wish I could have given him a hug. Thank you, Sir.

    If you think it doesn’t matter to anyone, trust me… this man meant everything to me.

    ***

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 902

    It was all that I could do to not cry as I dropped Leslie off at the airport this morning. We got up as usual, so after my morning rituals I took Her Royal Floofness out for a very short walk… as I suspected it would be as soon as I realized that it was or had been raining. Let me be perfectly clear, I would have taken her on her usual 1.5km circuit of the park; my dog just does not like the wet. Anyhow, we came back into the apartment and Leslie was finishing up her packing. I made a half pot of coffee, knowing that we would be having breakfast out, but that after breakfast I would be in the car for 90 minutes to and from the airport.

    I was pleasantly surprised to discover that even after yesterday’s sushi meal (followed by a decadent piece of chocolate cake) my weight was still down a bit this morning. That means that even with the jump in weight from my birthday celebration, my weight is still lower than it was on any day since Leslie arrived… and since June 30. Yay!

    Our final morning together of this trip was mostly subdued. We were both sad that she has to fly back to Dallas today, so we were not happy and joyous. We are going to miss each other terribly… and I am going to have to find a way to plan a trip down to Dallas sometime next month.

    I was hoping that my buddy Mitchell would come over in the afternoon for a cigar and to discuss some of my emotional issues, but he had to cancel. Okay, I’ll just make it through the day. After lunch I have a meeting about a project I am working on, and then after that I would like to record a video for my class’s graduation which is two weeks from today. That means that I will be dressing up fancy… but I do not want to wear the same outfit for the video as I will for the class. I’ll have to make a wardrobe change in between.

    Other than that, I have some studying to do for an exam I am sitting this weekend, and I hope to be able to read a little from my book. Yes, it is that time of year again, when my favourite living fiction author releases his new novel. I downloaded it onto my eBook reader on Wednesday, and while Leslie worked yesterday afternoon, I read the first few chapters. That will accompany my cigar after my meeting today.

    Have a great day folks!