Losing a part of me

Category: Emotions

  • Day 92

    Yesterday was a day of triumphs, a day of celebrations. Yesterday was the day that one misguided conversation led to heartbreak.

    I left the doctor’s office slightly disappointed that while I achieved my goal of being under the maximum weight limit of their regular scale, I fell short of my semi-weekly goal of losing two and a half kilos per fortnight. Still, losing one pound per week is not the worst failure. I still hope I will lose more before the next visit.

    I think I mentioned yesterday that while I went through with my plans to celebrate that milestone with a steak, I opted to enjoy it for lunch, rather than my evening meal. It was far too big, and I have to start remembering that I cannot eat meals that big anymore. I did not vomit… but I did regurgitate a few times, which did give me relief. That will also, I hope, serve as a reminder in the future that I cannot eat meals that big, and that the consequences for doing so are unpleasant.

    The one bit of good that came out of that is that I did not have a second daily meal. My usual routine of late has been:

    • Morning: meal-replacement shake.
    • Lunchtime: a large salad (lettuce, tomato, & onion with a little oil and balsamic vinegar, and a can of salmon mixed in. Sometimes with pumpkin seeds).
    • Dinner: a piece of chicken or two, and a salad like at lunchtime, minus the salmon.
    • Evening: meal replacement shake.

    I have done reasonably well with this routine. Yesterday looked like this:

    • Morning: a handful of peanuts in the car after my visit to the doctor.
    • Lunch: a large rib steak, with a side of steamed cauliflower and carrots.
    • Mid-afternoon: another handful of peanuts.
    • Early evening: a meal replacement shake.
    • Late evening: a meal replacement bar

    Later in the evening, I reached for another meal replacement shake, but Leslie talked me out of it. She was right that I should not have had it. She misunderstood why I was going to have it (thinking it was emotional eating), but I had forgotten that I had eaten the meal replacement bar.

    In Israel, we would eat our heaviest meal at lunch, and have a lighter breakfast and dinner. Thinking back on yesterday, that might not be a bad plan for me going forward. This morning the numbers on the scale were in fact down from where they were yesterday morning. I am going to try to do that for a few days and see how it goes.

    HRF Princess Sophie woke me up at 5:00am, which she does by getting off the bed and coming around to look at me. Yes, this wakes me up. I got out of bed and started to get dressed, but she immediately climbed back onto the bed. Okay, maybe she was just a bit restless, and did not actually need to go outside. This happened again a few minutes later; when she repeated the whole routine (including getting back onto the bed) I decided she might just want to cuddle, and I held her as I went back to sleep. The third time (at 5:45am) I decided this was it… I got dressed and took her outside. We walked to the end of the block, she peed and sniffed (as she does), and we went back home to bed. This time, she stayed put until I was ready to get up.

    It is hard sometimes to walk the line between airing my feelings and keeping confidences. Without any intention to do so I hurt someone very important to me last night, and I am worried that person might not forgive me. I am in a fog of misery today, and I do not know if I will get out of it. I have a lot of work to do today so I hope I can… but this is painful. My two goals are to get through the day, and to not do any emotional eating. Wish me luck.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Food Addiction

    There is a difficult side to food addiction that most other addictions do not have. It makes it hard for people who are not addicted to understand it. It makes it difficult for people who are not overweight to ‘get’ why we don’t just cut down on our food intake. Eat less food = lose weight, right?

    If you are addicted to drugs, you stop doing drugs. That is not to belittle how incredibly difficult it is to get off drugs as an addict, but that’s how it works. The same thing with booze. “Hi, I’m Fred, and I’m an alcoholic. (Hi Fred!) It’s been 473 days since my last drink and…” While I have never been to an AA meeting, that is how they are portrayed in pop culture; I have to assume that at least one of the myriad screenwriters who have portrayed this scene has been to a meeting and is doing their best to convey them accurately. Whatever it might be that you are addicted to, by cutting it out and spending the rest of your life not doing it, then you have conquered your addiction.

    Food does not work like that. You cannot cut food out of your life. You need food to survive. Sure, you can cut certain types of foods out of your life… if you are addicted to sweets, you can to a great extent cut sugar out of your diet. You cannot cut food out completely.

    People see food addicts as weak, but the truth is that if we overcome our lifelong battle with obesity and do manage to get slim, then we are among the strongest people in the world. Alcoholics say that if they have just one more drink, they will go back to drinking. While this is always portrayed in pop culture, I have seen it firsthand, from people I know to be alcoholics. When I lose all of my weight, will I be able to just have a small order of whatever it is that I crave? I will have to… but it is more likely that I will have to avoid a lot of foods completely.

    In September 2020 I weighed 260lbs. I was at my lowest weight since I first became overweight after the Army. I had been doing so well. After an event at my synagogue, the rabbi invited the volunteers to join him for a l’chaim (a drink). That would never have gotten me. It was the other volunteer who brought homemade baked goods that she insisted we all try that was my downfall. I had one… then another, because they were there. We all left the event, and I went straight to the grocery store… to the prepared foods department, where I picked up a large order of fried chicken.

    For the previous six months, I had eaten properly. I was combining my meal replacements with a healthy diet of food that I cooked myself – mostly chicken and salad – and I had lost a tremendous amount of weight. It took a cookie to bring that all to an end.

    Food addicts cannot cut out all foods. We have to change our habits to those of moderation, and that is not an easy ask. We have to learn to say ‘Thank you, but no thank you’ when people offer us foods that are tempting, but which are not on our diet plans. Had I turned down that cookie, would I have gone off the program? Probably not… I know that had I not gone to pick up the fried chicken that night then my life today might be extremely different than it is.

    Now here’s the rub… How can I say all of this, and then turn around and say, ‘When I drop below this or that milestone, I will allow myself a cheat meal?’ Or ‘When we are on vacation, I am pausing the diet.’ How can I say these things, knowing what I know? I know that I have not beaten my addiction… but I also know that I have learned from my missteps and will fight like hell to do what I need to do. I know that yes, I have cheated… but every time I have, I have been able to get right back on track the following day. I know that I have the love of my life who will ask me (upon our return from Cuba next month) if I am back on the program… and if I say ‘No,’ she will encourage me to get back to it.

    I also say it knowing that I am nowhere near where I need to be yet. I am not talking about my weight; I am talking about changing my relationship with food. I am still a food addict and know that it would be simple for me to revert back into gluttony. I do not want to do that, and I will not let myself do that. Yes, when we are in Cuba, I plan to eat. No, I do not plan to gorge myself. I might bring healthy snacks for when there is nothing else available, but in truth there is usually something available that I can eat. In truth, the only food in Cuba that really will tempt me is the proteins – the chicken and seafood, mostly – and that you get one helping of at your meal.

    On the resort, we will mostly be eating at the buffet. By tempering what I take, and by loading my plates down with salads, I will be able to stay mostly on track. When we are in Havana or the town of Varadero, I will not go nuts… I would rather spend my money on great cigars than on decent food.

    Food addicts cannot cut our addiction completely out. We will spend the rest of our lives battling our demons and trying to keep our addiction in check. I have now lost the fight three times – I have been below 275-pounds three times in my life and gained nearly (or over) a hundred pounds three times. This time around, I plan to win, knowing that I can never really go off the program… not really. If I plan to win, then I will need to be aware of and careful with what I eat every day for the rest of my life.

    If only I were simply addicted to drugs…

  • Day 89

    I am ashamed to admit it, but I ate a bunch of crap last night. I had my dinner earlier than I should have, so my last shake of the night at about 7:30pm. I was not satisfied, so I added a meal replacement bar to the evening. I was still emotional, so I broke down and had a bag of popcorn.

    I won’t go into the details, but sometimes we get emotional, sad, or whatever… and we veer from the program. I only hope it does not happen too often. I really have to get a handle on my emotions and exercise self-control.

    I am fighting with Air Canada. I have a flight credit that dates to August of last year; they assured me that I would have an e-mail confirmation with the code in ten days. Six weeks later I had not received it, but I needed to use part of it, and after spending several hours on the phone with them, I was able to… and they assured me that within ten days I would receive an e-mail with the code for the balance. That was September 20, more or less. That is 209 days… slightly more than ten days, once again. I spent an hour on the phone with one of their agents who assured me (after nearly an hour) that within ten days I would receive an email about it. I told him that his company was lying, as they have historically lied about this issue. Try as I might, he would not let me speak with a supervisor or manager. I am absolutely furious.

    My stress- and emotion-eating could have been worse. I was really tempted, especially after drafting my complaint letter to Air Canada, to go out and pick up… something. I don’t know if it would have been wings or a steak or whatever… it couldn’t be a pizza because of Passover, but it could have been a lot of things. I do not know what stopped me… other than knowing that I am going to the doctor’s office later this week, and I want to be able to reward myself after hitting that very important milestone; as bad as the crap that I ate was, it would only get worse if I didn’t stop.

    I do not know how it happened, but despite all that I ate over and above what I should be eating, my weight was down this morning. While it is still .4 lb higher than my best weight (last Tuesday), I was happy to be down nearly one full pound this morning. If I am able to maintain my rate of progress, then later this week I will be rewarding myself… with a steak.

    Yes, I said it. I have not had a steak since January. I told myself nearly a month ago that the day that I reach that milestone – losing enough to be able to weigh in on the doctor’s scale – that I would have a cheat day with a steak. I thought briefly about Buffalo wings or pizza or Chinese food… but all of those would have been too extreme. Yes, there are nearly 600 calories in an 10oz ribeye steak, which is more than I would eat in a meal on the program. It is a one-time reward… and I will enjoy it. I might wait until the weekend to enjoy it, but I will enjoy it nonetheless!

    I have some work to do today on the course I am writing for the end of next week, and this evening I have class. Somewhere between this and that I have to go shopping… I am out of vegetables, but that’s about it. Maybe I will take the opportunity to go for a good walk, which I have not done since my first 10,000 step day a few weeks ago.

    Have a great day!

  • Cravings

    I dropped Leslie off at the airport a few hours ago and miss her already. After trying (unsuccessfully) to run a couple of errands, I came home to make dinner. I made boneless and skinless chicken breasts that I had been marinating since yesterday, and I a nice salad. I have to remember to buy more lettuce tomorrow. I think I have all of the other vegetables I usually put into my salad, but I will check before I go out.

    Following my meal, I was still hungry… or at least I felt hungry. I wanted to eat something else… and I know that I have a lot of food in the house that I could have turned to. I was tempted to have a meal replacement bar to satisfy my cravings, but I decided not to do that either. I know that the hunger is not real, rather it is my emotions telling me that since Leslie is gone… since I am sad, I should fill the void with food. I drank two glasses of water and washed the dishes instead of eating, and then came to my desk to join my class. Sometime in about two hours, the instructor will give us a twenty-minute break for dinner, and I will have my evening shake. I am glad that I had the willpower to overcome the temptation, and to defeat my emotions.

    One tool that I could have used when overcoming the temptation is my blog. This morning, when I got off the scale and saw how well I had done – and how much weight I have lost over the last few days. I have lost six pounds since Thursday morning, and I was elated each morning when I got off the scale. I do not want to ruin all of that with what… a jar of peanut butter and a spoon? Whatever I might have eaten, it would not have been as satisfying as knowing that this weekend I put on a pair of jeans that had not fit in a year and a half. I also know that a single misstep can begin a slippery slope that would lead to all of those great colourful and flowery shirts and bathing suits that I bought for our Cuba trip no fitting me.

    I won’t do it. I will check myself every time I feel the need to indulge. I will call Leslie I will call my diet buddy if she is not available. I will do whatever I need to do in order to not fall off. I have come so far… I have not lost fifty pounds yet, but it is close. While I am nowhere near where I want to be, losing nearly fifty pounds is huge, and I have vowed to not go back. Every bit of progress, every milestone, every pants size, every pound lost is a bit of progress, milestone, pants size, and pound that I never want to see again. I know I will fall from time to time – I have done so already, and I am sure I will again – but falling down and getting right back up again is so much better than falling down and giving up. I will remember the Japanese saying… Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

    I am going to start paying attention to my class, but I will be back tomorrow morning. As I seem to write at the end of every article… Have a great evening!

  • Day 83

    It is extremely important on days when I do not lose (or actually gain) weight that I take not of and remember all of the cheats that I took throughout the day… even if they are minor and insignificant. It is equally important on days when I lose weight – especially significant loss – to do the same. This morning I woke up and I was more than a full pound down from my weight yesterday morning, and I am thrilled about it.

    I did, however, have a number of minor cheats and deviations from the program. For example, I made Leslie a tuna melt on a challah roll for lunch. I prepared enough tuna for her sandwich and for me to have a bowl of it. I used low-fat mayonnaise, as well as onions (of course). For her sandwich, I added extra mayo onto the roll, and sprinkled generous amounts of shredded cheddar into it. I also melted butter into the bottom of the pan that I heated it in. It looked and smelled delicious; suddenly my tuna salad looked boring. Leslie ate most of her sandwich, but when she left over a bit of it, I took three bites of it. The difference that the cheese and butter and challah roll made was night and day. It was absolutely delicious! I am glad I did not make one for myself, but I am glad I got to taste it.

    I had a couple of pieces of dried mango, which were also absolutely delicious. I limited it to two pieces, which was enough to satisfy my cravings.

    For dinner (our last dinner together for nearly a month) I prepared a couple of gorgeous salmon steaks, and she prepared the jasmine rice. The scheduling screwed us up for eating together, but the food tasted delicious. The rice is not on my plan, but I did not see the harm in having a little bit… especially since Leslie prepared it with love.

    It is extremely important that I remember that I got away with these cheats yesterday, but that I cannot make a habit of it. I will not say to myself ‘Well, I had some challah bread and rice that day and I lost weight, so I guess I can always do that!’ That would be a bad idea. I need to remember that there are some things that I can take a bit of for the occasional cheat that I cannot make a regular part of my diet. Just like when I do reach my ideal weight, there are some foods that I will be able to enjoy very rarely for a special occasion but cannot be a regular part of my diet.

    One of the phrases that the original program that I went through kept telling us – and that I truly believe is the key to long-term success – is that I need to break my unhealthy relationship with food, which means that so many of the foods that I used to love on a regular basis cannot ever be that again. Not only that, but I will also have to adjust my idea of a regular portion size. If I can do those two things – stop craving the fattening (and terribly fattening, and disgustingly fattening) foods, and keep a better handle on my portions (of healthy and especially of unhealthy food), then I should be able to get thin and to stay thin. That means that I should not go searching for whatever tempting foods that my loving girlfriend might have hidden from me in anticipation of her leaving. Yes, I was able to eschew the bag of dried mangos that sat next to her desk all week… but that was a short-term resistance; It was resisting temptation while she was here, and even if I was to get tempted, she was here to support me and to encourage me to make the smart decisions – the right decisions. When she is gone, when I am down and despondent and low, and especially while I am sitting at my desk for five hours every night listening to a mostly boring class for the next three weeks, it would be so easy to reach over there and grab a handful… just one would be all that it would take for me to finish the bag. I cannot do that.

    I sometimes take for granted how helpful Leslie is to my weight loss. Her presence here is so important for many reasons, not the least of which is that I would be ashamed if she saw me chow down on fattening and unhealthy foods. She has told me time and again that she loves me and will love me no matter what… and I believe her. To the extent that she needs to do so, she has proven that over and over again. It was never she who was encouraging me to start the diet, and she has told me time and again that I should not be dieting for her. She has also told me, since I started my diet, that she remembers sitting with me before the diet, and being amazed at the amount of food I could consume. She never said it in a judging way, rather in response to something that I said about how I have to change my ways. I am so grateful to have her in my life, and while I am not dieting for her, I hope that by losing the weight I will be able to live a longer and healthier life with her. Today is the day that she and I always dread – the day I have to drive her to the airport, the day we set the countdown timer to her next visit (27.5 days, for those who are counting down with us). I am going to miss her terribly, but I have to make sure that in her absence I do not fall off the food wagon. It may not be fast enough for my liking, but I have been losing the weight at a decent pace, and I have to continue to do so… whether the love of my life is here or not.

    It is the most gorgeous day of the week. The sun is shining, and the temperatures are in the mid-teens. Once I have posted today’s article, I will sit on the patio with a cigar while Leslie is working. When she is ready, we will get into the car for that sad drive, but we do so knowing that the next time she arrives – four weeks from tonight – we will be together again… and we will be going on vacation to the islands the following day!

    Have a great day everyone!

  • Why Are We Fat?

    This is another article that I wrote two years ago, which I revisited now. Thinking back on the psychology of obesity, I thought I would re-post it here.

    There are several reasons why people gain weight. Some of them are:

    • Lack of education about nutrition.
    • Gluttony – we just want more.
    • Stress – many people turn to food when they are stressed.
    • Emotional eating – my boyfriend girlfriend husband wife boss children or whoever have hurt me, and I am going to turn to food to relieve the pain.
    • Misunderstanding about healthy portion sizes.
    • Picking the wrong foods for more than the occasional treat.
    • Knowing what we should eat and how much we should eat… and ignoring them.

    There are myriad reasons why we eat poorly. These are just a few. However, I am not an expert on the subject. I am, however, an expert in why I am fat.

    • An abusive (first physically, and then emotionally) childhood with a mother who liked a lot of foods that were bad for us. She fed us healthy foods too, but the buffalo wings were always fawned over, whereas the fish was always just ‘Eat this.’
    • During my Army service I was able to eat as much as I wanted without gaining weight. Not only was I in my early twenties, I was also probably burning 10,000 calories per day.
    • Toward the end of my Army service I was injured, and owing to that injury, two things happened that were disastrous:
      • I stopped working out.
      • I developed a dependence on prescription pain killers, which would have a terrible effect on every aspect of my life, many of which are still apparent today (although my dependence on pills is long behind me now)
    • After the Army I was working as a radio entrepreneur with a partner. We had a lot of restaurants pay us in free meals rather than cash, and those restaurants were extremely unhealthy.
    • Many soldiers develop psychological traumas because of their service. That, coupled with the traumas resulting from an abusive childhood and a toxic relationship with a poisonous parent (long-reaching trauma that amplified the effects of the dependencies discussed in an earlier point), left me an emotional disaster zone in the personality of a rock. Outwardly I always seemed fine, grounded, stable, and reliable. Inwardly, no.
    • The same partner mentioned in an earlier point, along with a number of people I was friends with at the time, would go to restaurants almost every meal, and eat extremely unhealthily.
    • For many years I worked as a road warrior. In essence, this meant that I spent a lot of time travelling. Hotels, restaurants, airplane food, and little if any exercise is a recipe for weight gain.
    • I like fattening foods. I like sizable portions of fattening foods.

    There are probably more reasons, but they are really just excuses. I want to get to a point now where I can look in the rear-view mirror of my life on that terrible time when I was fat because I was unwilling or unable to overcome all of the obstacles that life threw at me. I have worked my buns off to get to where I am today, which is nearly forty pounds lower than my peak. I never want to be there again. For that matter, once I get to my ideal weight, I never want to be here again. It will take a lot more work.

  • Day 69

    After the disaster that was the weekend, I am happy to report that I did not veer from my program at all on Monday. A shake for breakfast and for my evening snack, a salad for lunch, and chicken with a salad for dinner. I went to bed a little peckish, but overall, I am happy with how the day went. I only wish it was not quite so cold, or I might have been able to go out for a walk.

    HRF Princess Sophie came home right about the time I was set to start teaching, and she had eaten and been for her walk. I suspect she was tired from a fun-filled weekend with Natalie… we had a wonderful reunion (as we always do), and then she spent most of the evening in her daybed supervising as I taught, until it was time to move into the real bed for a proper night’s sleep with Daddy. I won’t lie… I have missed having her next to me at night. She gave me a little bit of love, but mostly lay down at the foot of the bed. I think she is a wee bit upset with me that I left her for three days.

    The bathroom scale is heading in the right direction again, but I know it will probably take a week to recover the progress that I lost in just a few days.

    It is not fair. Over the course of three days, I did not eat well but I also did not eat too badly, and yet I still gained something like four pounds. It is now going to take at least a week of assiduous dieting to lose those four pounds. That is simply unfair. The math simply does not work. Let’s be honest: If I had gorged myself on some of my favourite foods – Montreal Smoked Meat, Buffalo Wings, Pizza, and things like that – then I would understand. I just do not see how it is fair that I ate a little bad and have to pay for it for so long. Where’s your manager? I would like to file a complaint!

    Okay, let’s get down to it. I am going to stick to the program again today, and hopefully get back down to where I was… before I can continue to move forward.

    Once again, I am reminded that I just do not understand women. I just don’t get them. I don’t think I ever will. FML.

    I was going to write about some of the non-scale victories I have noticed over the last few days, but all of a sudden, I just don’t feel like writing so screw it.

    Have a great day.

  • Day 57

    I was a bit off yesterday. There was no particular reason for it that I could discern, but I was a bit melancholy. I went off the diet both in quantities of food – I ate an extra salad with an extra can of salmon – and in foods eaten… I ate a bag of microwave popcorn. I suppose the combination of the two are why the bathroom scale was, once again, slightly up this morning. There is nothing to say but I will do better today.

    The plans are to spend much of the day with my friend Eduardo. The original plan was for him to come spend the afternoon smoking cigars on the balcony, but for reasons I will not elaborate on we will now be spending the day at his son’s house. I used to work for the son, who is not only a very nice guy but also an occasional cigar smoker. I have in the past smoked some very lovely cigars from him; whether I will smoke his cigars today or my own does not matter, I know it will be a lovely day.

    While today’s high temperature of 16°c is 5-10° higher than any other in the ten-day forecast, it is nice to know that there is only one low temperature in that time frame that is predicted to be below zero. Spring is in the air, and you will hear no complaints from me about that! I briefly considered driving to Montreal for the weekend but decided not to. I will stick around here and enjoy the weather as it warms up… without having to spend the ridiculous price at the pump to fill my tank. It is not only for that reason that I will allow Eduardo to drive us to his son’s (he lives 45 minutes away), but it is certainly a consideration.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Explaining Today… or Yesterday.

    It was just past 1:00am when HRF Princess Sophie and I walked back into our apartment in Burlington. With gasoline at the highest price I have ever seen in any country ($1.849/litre as I was arriving home) I was not really thinking about that; I knew that we would be driving about 375km on Saturday, but I did not particularly care. We were going to celebrate my goddaughter’s birthday (a week late thanks to Covid), and the price of gas was not going to stop that. Thirteen hours ago, when things were completely unraveling and my rage was through the roof, I was not angry about the price of gasoline, nor about the war that is the cause of it. I was just having a terrible day. Everything was falling – out of my hands, out of my pockets, and when I put my prepared shake down as we got into the car, that fell too. Nothing was going right, and I could not keep a handle on my emotions. I started screaming and swearing and screaming and swearing some more.

    I Remembered that five years ago I spilled some of a shake in my car, and I paid the price for not cleaning it up right away. Until the day I sold the car, the stained leather was a daily reminder that I had not cleaned it up. I had nothing in the car to wipe up the mess. Despite the anger and rage that was coursing through my veins, I decided to leave Princess Sophie in the car for a few minutes, and I went up to the apartment to get a roll of paper towels. I came back down and cleaned as best I could. I think I did a pretty good job of it. It didn’t matter, my emotions were morphing from rage to distraught sadness.

    I called Leslie, but I knew that she was busy with her son and was not surprised that she did not answer the phone. I doubt it would have mattered. The message I left for her was that I was going to Wendy’s, I was ordering a hamburger and a large non-diet soda. I was not dieting today. I do not think there is anything she or anyone could have said to talk me down from that. I pulled into the drive-through lane and ordered the single hamburger with no cheese, French fries, and I decided to stick to the sugar-free soda. Even knowing that the soda would not be my worst transgression of the day, I still opted for the diet.

    As I pulled out of their parking lot I reached into the bag, only to discover they had given me a cheeseburger without any of the other toppings. I might not be respecting my diet today, but I am sticking to my religion. I turned around and went back.

    I do not think the brainless idiot at Wendy’s realizes his good fortune. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he might have a brain, and might have just been too stoned to understand what I was saying. I am not talking about the original mistake – mistakes will happen, and I get that. The three-minute conversation I had to endure with this 18-24 kid was maddening, and the fact that I did not rip his head off is a testament to my something. I am not sure how difficult it is to understand ‘I ordered a burger with no cheese but all the regular toppings, you gave me a burger with cheese and no other toppings. This entire three-minute conversation took place as he held the hamburger I had handed to him in his hand. It was only after that conversation, and after he went to clarify something with his manager, that he came back and tried to hand the burger back to me. ‘I’m not allowed to take this back.’ Then throw it out. I am not sure what I would have said had he told me that he could not even do that. The old me, in the already highly agitated state I was in, would have been a lot louder, less calm, and most likely insulting. A small miracle indeed… and seven minutes after this conversation started again, I drove away with the right sandwich.

    The fast food was not the only nor was it likely the worst cheat of the day. I will not enumerate what the others were, but I was bad. There were a lot of chips, there was spaghetti, there was birthday cake. Saturday was a complete and utter failure.

    I did not harm anyone. I did not even lash out at anyone. I am not sure how I managed it, but while I told a couple of people that I was having a crappy day, nobody suffered from it. Nobody, of course, but me. I am sure Leslie suffered as well – she is very empathetic, and when I am not doing well, she feels my pain.

    Speaking of pain, let’s add a bad left knee to the list. I have no idea how, but it feels like there is a bruise. I have no recollection of smashing it, but there it is. However painful the gout in my foot might be, today it was muted by my knee’s phantom injury. When I say the gout pain is muted, I should really refer to it as immensely overshadowed by a different pain. I am seeing my doctor on Wednesday and am definitely going to speak with him about the gout. I expect my knee will be fine by then. However, I have been complaining about the gout since Wednesday, and taking Naproxen and pain killers since then. While it might eventually clear it up, it is certainly taking its time. Time to bring in the big guns.

    I am going to sleep. Tomorrow (later today) better be a better day.

  • Day 40

    Today is the fortieth day of my diet. I am feeling better, my clothes are fitting better. I do not feel like a new person, but I do seem to have more energy than I did at my heaviest. I have a long way to go.

    Yesterday was not a good day for my diet. While I passed the greatest challenge (not eating any of my son’s pizza or cheesy bread), I did have a lot of chicken for dinner, and a bag of popcorn. I do not know if it was simply because I miss Leslie (who I drove to the airport yesterday afternoon), or if I just slipped. It is likely the former. Today I have to do better.

    Someone responded to a post of mine on Facebook telling me not to diet, that moderation is the key. She wrote:

    “Don’t diet. I always eat pizza fries ice cream chocolate etc. It’s the portion that matters not the food. A diet isn’t sustainable and why people gain everything back and some. Eat enjoy move on. Now that’s self-love and life.”

    I wanted to say something much harsher, but opted for the following response:

    “The preceding message works fine for people who are 10-15lbs overweight. If (as I am) you are morbidly obese, please consult medical professionals (as I have), and not people who do not understand what REAL weight issues are.”

    Believe me, the first three responses that I typed were much ruder.

    I cannot stand people trying to give me weight loss advice. Everyone seems to think they know the secret. Let me let you in on a little secret: If there was one magic bullet to lose a lot of weight and keep it off, the entire world would be slim. Hey friend, I know your heart is in the right place, but kindly keep your extremely unwelcome unsolicited advice to yourself.

    That, incidentally, is good advice for anyone who is tempted to give weight-loss advice to anyone who is overweight, and who did not ask for it. If we wanted your advice, we would have asked for it. Yes, there is the extremely small percentage of people who do not know how to ask for help, and there might even be people who will be grateful for it… although I doubt it. To help you understand, this is the conversation:

    You: “Oh, I see you are having trouble losing weight. What you should do is this. I promise it will just melt off!”

    Fat Guy/Girl: “Thank you. I will consider that.”

    But here’s the thing: What Fat Guy/Girl is thinking is: “You know what, you sanctimonious prick? I did not ask for your advice, I do not want your advice, and any implication that there is a simple way to lose this much weight implies you think that I am weak and a failure, and without your help I cannot succeed. Do you think I like being morbidly obese? Do you think I do it because it is fun, or because of how attractive it makes me to the opposite sex? You asshole, I am fat because of either psychological or physiological reasons that are none of your damned business… and if they were, I would have shared them with you long since. Also, Ass: Do you think you are the first person to tell me the secret to weight loss? You are not in the top 20. Guess what? Most of you are giving me different advice. You know what the only thing all of you have in common? I did not ask for your advice, I do not want your advice, and it is a shame that it is illegal for me to punch you in the face for giving me your advice.

    Let me make this clear. While there may be others, these are the most obvious categories of overweight people:

    1. People who are happy being overweight. While this is probably the rarest of them, it is a thing.

    2. People who are unhappy being overweight but have not started trying to lose weight.

    3. People who are unhappy being overweight and who have tried and failed to lose weight.

    4. People who are unhappy being overweight and who have lost the weight then regained the weight, often several times.

    There are others, I am sure. Unless someone from any of these categories says to you “Hey, friend… I know you are slim, and I am not, and I would like your advice on how I can become more like you” then they do not want your advice.

    As a bonus, talking about their weight issues is always counterproductive. Guess what? They will know… and it will discourage them more. Your gossiping about their weight problems is just mean and makes you sound like you are still in high school.

    You might know what the psychological trauma they faced is, you may not. Yes, everyone knows I was in the Army, and some people know (or have an idea of) what I went through. Fewer people know about my childhood. You might know it all, you might know none of it. It doesn’t matter. Unless I ask you for your advice, mind your own damned business.

    For the record: Every time you tell an overweight person that the key to life is moderation and portion control, most of them want to reach for a large all-dressed pizza, a double-cheeseburger with a side of fries, or a large plate of deep-fried breaded wings dripping with sauce. If we don’t do that, it is not because of you… any more than if we do that it is because of you. Our weight gain may have many causes, but as adults, we are responsible for it; nobody forced me to make a huge plate of extra-creamy pasta with meats and cheeses and a large plate of garlic bread. I am fat because of me.

    Now please understand the corollary of that: If we eat healthy, successfully practice the self-control that we all need, and we do lose weight, we get the credit… not you.

    Have a great day. I’m going to have my lunch, and then I need a cigar before class starts.