Losing a part of me

Category: Emotions

  • STOP DOING THAT!

    I fell off the diet wagon today, and I am ashamed of myself. The only good news of it is that most of what I fell off with was not too bad, and all stuff I have in the house – which means that I did not get a bag of chips or candy or fast food. The biggest guilt of it was cheese, but I also had a couple more salads throughout the day than I usually should.

    I think the reason I fell was that I did not drink water today. I had a small bottle this morning, and that was it. I am downing the water now, and I will make a point of reminding myself in the morning how important it it.

    Fall down seven times… get back up eight. Tomorrow is another day.

  • Day 21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Have a great day folks!

  • Addictions and Gluttony

    This comic was delivered to my inbox this morning.

    Candy Polyamory – The Oatmeal

    How many times have I felt this? How often have I bought a large bag of chips or chocolates (by coincidence, I would usually go for the Peanut M&Ms that are depicted in the comic) and enjoy them… alone. I would go through an entire bag of them without batting an eyelash. I am trying to think if I had any shame about it. The truth is, if I bought the bag to take home, I would eat them alone.  If I bought them for the car, then I was usually alone in the car.

    One of the main characters in one of the greatest TV shows of all time, The West Wing, was Leo McGarry, the White House Chief of Staff, is a recovering alcoholic. He often makes mention that he doesn’t want one drink, he wants ten… and in one of the flashback scenes in which he fell off the wagon, you see him drinking alone, having emptied the minibar of all of the booze in his hotel room.

    I am not that bad, that I would eat every candy… but I do not have to think that far back when I last drove (alone) from my home in Burlington, Ontario to visit friends in Montreal (about a six hour drive). Knowing that chips and candies were cheaper at the supermarket than they were at gas stations and other stops along the way, I bought two large bags of chips, and another large bag of Peanut M&Ms. Having an open bag of chips on the passenger seat was easy, as long as I made sure to pay Princess Sophie her Snacks-Tax. I cannot say for sure that the first bag of chips was finished by the time I crossed the Greater Toronto Area (maybe a 90 minute drive), but I do know that more than one full bag of chips and the entire bag of chocolates were gone by the time I got to Montreal. I made sure to hide the evidence – the discarded wrappers would be in the garbage bag, that was then disposed of at my earliest opportunity. If someone did get into the car (or just stuck their head in for whatever reason) I did not want them seeing that I polished off however much I had eaten.

    I have to constantly remind myself that food is an addiction. The problem is that it is also a necessity of life. You cannot live without eating, but eating too much can eventually kill you. What a quandary. Making the right choices for the rest of my life will have to be an absolute constant. Does that mean I won’t be able to have a bag of chips? No… but knowing my addiction and predilection for gluttony, I will buy the SMALL bag of chips, not the large one. I will buy the SMALL portion of chocolate, not the bag labeled ‘Family Size’ or ‘Sharing Pack’. I will buy the single bag.

    I have often found myself in the chips aisle thinking to myself: “I cannot decide if I would rather the Regular Ruffles, or the Miss Vickie Salt & Vinegar… I guess I’ll just buy both.” I cannot do that! I have to pick one… and while it is always going to be much more costly, I will buy those smaller portions at retailers where they have the smaller size, rather than buying from the supermarket, where the larger sizes are encouraged (and the individual sizes are nowhere to be found).

    Family Size, Party Size, Sharing Size… all crap. These are euphemisms for Gluttony Size, and I’m not having it… anymore.

  • Day 20

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

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

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

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

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

    —

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

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

    Have a great day!

  • Psychology, and taking responsibility for one’s own life

    There is a quote from The West Wing that “…Presidential elections are won and lost on one square foot of real estate.” (Meaning in one’s head). It occurred to me this morning that weight loss succeeds or fails in one’s head.

    Outside of the Army and my mother’s house (which was stricter and louder), nobody has ever held a gun to my head and forced me to eat. All of my food choices have been mine, and they were just that: choices. How many times could I have made a healthier choice instead of an unhealthy one? Could I have decided to not go for that second (or third) serving at the all-you-can-eat buffet? How many times should I have opted for the salad instead of the French fries, or ten wings instead of twenty (or thirty)? How many bags of chips should I have poured one small portion from and then sealed, rather than eating out of (and finishing) the bag… or should have not bought in the first place?

    Some of these choices were made out of ignorance. More were made because psychologically I was not strong enough to make smarter, healthier, better choices. Yes, I probably rebelled against the Army’s discipline when I was discharged, and I went on an uncontrolled eating frenzy. That frenzy lasted what – seven years before I first tried to do something about it? Something like that. For one who is (in so many respects) so strong, it is a disaster that I could not have picked myself up by the bootstraps and stopped the unrestrained gluttony sooner. Let’s review:

    When I was engaged to my first wife, I started on Weight Watchers. By the time she left me I had lost nearly forty pounds. The first meeting after she left, I walked out in disgust after my weigh-in and never went back. It was not until years later that I found out that the facilitators really dropped the ball and were supposed to call me to after I missed one or two meetings. I will not blame them… but maybe two weeks after my separation I might have been in a better state of mind to get back onto the program.

    I do not think that I had a slip after my separation from my second wife, mostly because I was very active in Taekwondo. I was teaching several nights per week, which kept me in pretty good shape. About a year later, I had my final showdown with my mother, which prompted me to reevaluate many aspects of my life. I will not spend any time on the long-term emotional trauma inflicted upon me by my abusive mother; suffice it to say that I had an epiphany, realizing that if I was ever going to be a good person, I had to unlearn a lot of the behaviours and attitudes that she had taught me were normal. A few days later, on a day when I was particularly vulnerable because of the sheer immensity of the changes that I would have to make, my GrandMaster (who I suspect was also having a particularly bad day) yelled at me inappropriately, causing me to walk out… and I have not returned to that club since. Owing to the sudden lack of exercise, I started to gain weight again.

    In 2017 I started the program for the first time, with a medical (non-surgical) bariatric program. I lost a tremendous amount of weight. While I slipped back a little from October through January, I was back on track, losing weight at a respectable pace. I am not sure how much of that slipping was due to my mother’s diagnosis with brain cancer. Around the time I started regaining the weight, friends convinced me (against my will and better judgment) to visit her in the hospital. I went the day that she went in (for the last time) and stood there making small talk. She was a grandmaster in the art of the backhanded compliment, and even as she lay there on what was probably her deathbed, she complimented my sweater… and told me how lovely it would look if I just lost some weight. I was sixty pounds lighter than the last time she had seen me, and I had just lost a hundred pounds. Grandmaster indeed.

    Over the course of the next few months, I drove to Montreal almost every weekend to see her. I watched this once powerful and mighty force degenerate before my eyes. I told her one day that I forgave her. I said it to put her mind at ease. I was lying. I did not forgive her what she had done to me, and despite years of therapy, I do not know if I ever will. My weight crept up throughout that time, despite a couple of efforts to control it.

    And then she died.

    I always had an extremely complicated relationship with my mother, but her death essentially put an end to her and I ever being able to resolve things. I suppose it would have been nice had she, even lying on her deathbed, apologized, or taken responsibility. Now that would never happen… could never happen. Over the course of the next year and a half, my weight was back up to where I had started.

    I tried again… and while there were bumps along the road, I got back onto the program in July 2019. By October 2020 I was the lowest weight I had been in nearly two decades. My weight valleyed below what it had been when my first wife left me. And then it started creeping back up. It took time to get to bad, but from bad to worse was again due to psychological and emotional losses and traumas. My father died, and I shot up another forty pounds. My sudden and unexpected return to Canada, and I shot up another forty pounds. Relationship trauma, another twenty pounds… and I realized I was at my heaviest weight ever, and nearly 130 lbs up from my best. Not all because of psychological trauma and issues… but a lot of.

    It would be easy to blame my mother, my ex-wife, my Army trauma, and so many others for my weight gain. Everyone suffers psychological trauma, and it is how they deal with it that matters. I dealt with my trauma poorly. I am not going to say that there were no worse ways for me to deal, but the long-term effects on my weight and health are obvious. I can blame others, but the buck stops here. The responsibility lies with me, and nobody else.

    Owning one’s own shortcomings is never easy. It is so much easier to lay the blame on others. How could that possibly help me to lose the weight and to keep it off? If I blame anyone or everyone else, then the next time I am slim and suffer a trauma I will have the easy out… I can eat to my heart’s content, gain as much weight as I do, and it will be someone else’s fault… but the consequences are mind and mine alone, so in the end, that is not a healthy way to deal with it. Taking responsibility for one’s own actions and state and course means that there is nobody to blame for where I am going; I am at the helm of my own future, and no matter what external voices may tell me, I can lose the weight and keep it off because turning to food and especially to unhealthy foods is an obstacle to avoid, but when I am at the wheel then I can do it without listening to the voices telling me to eat.

    I am not writing any mantras to recite, I just have to remember every day to do as well as I can… and that slipping one day does not mean I have to go down the slope, it only means that I have to redouble my efforts to stop my fall, and to get back up again.

  • Day 15

    I have completed two whole weeks, and aside from some almonds, I have stuck to it. Yay me!

    I have to start by saying that I am in a really bad mood, and it has nothing to do with my weight loss or my body. It is about people from my past, and regrets. I was in one case a bad judge of character and helped someone who later betrayed me. I recently discovered that they are succeeding with something that I helped them with, and possibly with people that I introduced them to. I regret helping him, I regret introducing him to the other person, and despite myself I find myself hoping that he fails. On the other hand, the other person is a great guy, and just announced on Facebook the launch of a new venture in a new country. I truly hope he succeeds… I just hope the other person has nothing to do with it.

    “Resentment is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die.”

    While the source of that quote is unclear, the truth of it is not. That my eyes shot open well before my alarm because the possible connection between these two people came to mind is not healthy. I have to let go of it, and I will. It does not seem that as of this morning I have achieved that, but I will continue to work on it.

    In short: I couldn’t fall asleep; I finally did (around 2:00am), only to be awakened by Princess Sophie asking to go out at 5:00am. I was back asleep by 5:30am and awake again by 6:15am. Today is not starting out on a great note.

    Although I am reasonably happy with this morning’s weigh-in, the measurements are bothering me. It could just be that my fatigue and overall blah is preventing me from getting it right; it is also possible that for the last few weeks I measured wrong. Either way, my belly is about an inch smaller than it was last week… and my chest is two inches bigger. I’m not noting it down… something is just wrong, and I don’t much care right now.

    Yes, I am in a mood. No, I do not plan to throw my diet down the drain to make myself feel better… because it won’t. Yes, the food would comfort me in the immediate, but the diet progress is what makes me feel better every day. I have to keep focusing on that.

    By the way, what a lousy day to find out that the milk that I keep for my coffee turned. Before you ask, the expiry date was February 23 (nearly three weeks from now). Two sips into my first cup of coffee and it (along with a nearly full carton of milk) went down the drain.

    If there was ever a morning when I should say ‘Screw all this, I’m going back to bed!’ then it’s today… and that is exactly what I am going to do… after I get a couple of things taken care of. Who wants to place a wager whether Princess Sophie will want to curl up next to me for a couple of hours?

  • Day 13

    At 11:55pm I posted on my weight loss blog that I had cheated. Over the course of the day, I ate two or three (measured) handfuls of almonds, and that I felt bad about it. Not because I was worried that 30 almonds were going to ruin my diet, rather that the break in the routine – and breaking the disciplined regimen of not veering from the plan – might. I promised myself that I would not cheat today… at all.

    There are not many things that I really dislike about my apartment in Burlington. Yes, it is smaller than I would like; were I going into an office to work every day it would be fine, but working from home, I do wish I had a second closed-off room to make an office of. That is one of the reasons why my apartment in California truly was perfect. My bedroom was at one end of the apartment, my office was at the other (adjacent to the living room, which was even further from my bedroom). These were separated by the bathroom and the kitchen, and the way the building was laid out made it so that each room had a window to one side or the other of the building. The leasing agent told me I was lucky, that it was the only layout in the entire complex that had two rooms that did not share a wall. That mattered less to me because I lived alone with Princess Sophie but would have made a big difference to a family with children. I miss that apartment.

    The number one feature of my current apartment that irks me is the floors. Both the realtor and later the owner of the apartment told me at the beginning that there are issues with the floor, and when walking barefoot you can tell that there are some places where it is uneven. I don’t much care about that. What really bothers me is that in the bathroom, I can place the bathroom scale in one spot and get what I thought was an accurate reading… and then I can move it six inches, and the reading is a full 4 lbs different. Yes, throughout the course of the day, your body weight will fluctuate… but not in 2-3 minutes. That is caused by an unsteadiness in the floor. I suppose that for the time being, my actual weight from day-to-day and week-to-week matters less than the downward trend of it. If we can assume that from spot to spot may be inconsistent, but the same spot will be consistent, then what I am going to have to do is to figure out a way to place the scale in the exact same spot every day. What I might do is paint two lines – one from each wall – that I can align the sides to. I don’t know… I’ll figure something out.

    Aside from the almonds, yesterday was mostly a good day. Earlier in the day I was not good about drinking water, although by the time I went to bed I had finished two of my 74 oz bottles worth. Rather than drink it all starting in the late afternoon, I really should make sure to start earlier in the day and spread the positive effects of it out over the course of the day.

    (Directly after writing that last paragraph I went to the kitchen, got my water bottle, and took a giant gulp from it. It is not my first water of the day but having the bottle at my desk will be a constant reminder to drink… and I will!)

    Previously, I have been a patient of two bariatric clinics in Ontario, Canada. The first in Hamilton, the second in Ottawa. Yesterday I called both of them to see if I could get a prescription for the medically supervised meal-replacements that I want to use, and both said no. It has been too long, and I would need to see a doctor. Additionally, because the Province of Ontario will not cover someone going through the program twice, I would have to do it with a private clinic. I am not sure if I want to go that route, or if I want to continue to buy the product on the second-hand market. After all, they are not drugs, so it makes very little sense that one would need a prescription to buy them. In the meantime, I have made an appointment to see my doctor for next week. I don’t suppose it would hurt to get a referral to the clinic, if that is the way I do decide to go.

    When I was at my friends’ house over the weekend, I noticed next to the sink a bottle of keto-strips, and I was curious. I did not know that there was a product that you could buy that would let you know if your body was in ketosis or not. I briefly considered buying some – I even looked at them on Amazon when I got home. I then decided against it, simply because as long as I am losing weight, I am on track… aside from it not mattering if I am in ketosis or not, I think my energy levels (and consistent weight loss) are proof enough that I am where I need to be. If I was on the program for specific health reasons (other than morbid obesity), then it would be a different story. For the time being, I have decided that I do not need to pee on a stick to know what’s going on.

    I have just a little bit of work to do during the day, and then in the afternoon a friend is coming over for a cigar. I am teaching in the evening, but that does not get started until 6:00pm. It is good to have a schedule, and I am not meandering through the day aimlessly, giving myself more opportunity to cheat. Today will be a good diet day!

  • Not The Best Day

    It is nearly midnight, and I am disappointed in myself. Today I did not drink enough water throughout the day (although I did get through 100 oz), and I had two (measured) handfuls of almonds. I am sure it won’t kill me, but I am hoping to be stronger tomorrow. NO CHEATING ON TUESDAY!

  • Day 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Day 11

    The contrast between my plans for Saturday (yesterday) and Sunday (today) could hardly be vaster. Yesterday, Princess Sophie and I drove to Strathroy (two hours away) to spend a few hours with my friends and godson and goddaughter (and their dog), then to Cambridge (about halfway home) to spend a few hours enjoying cigars and the company of other friends, and then home by just past midnight. The plan for today consists chiefly of writing, taking Princess Sophie for a few walks, watching some TV, and… yeah, that’s about it. In short, today shall be a relaxing day. Oh, I also plan to re-season my humidor, as well as continue sorting my clothes by size. Neither of these is exactly taxing.

    When we last visited with our hero, he was concerned that there would be a lot of opportunity for him (me) to veer from the program. (Switching from the third person NOW) I thought about it… several times. At one point, I even decided to do it… and did not.

    My first thought to cheat (and only real opportunity) came an hour into the drive, when we pulled into a truck stop for a bio break. As we walked into the store, the lady behind the counter told me that she cannot allow dogs inside. As I apologetically explained that Princess Sophie is a registered Emotional Support Animal, she pooped on the doormat. I was more than a little embarrassed! I promptly cleaned it all up, and then promised to hold her in my arms while we were on the premises. After peeing (which was an extreme need by this point), I prepared a cup of coffee for myself, and for a flash I thought to look for a beef or turkey (or any non-pork) sausage. Truck stops are famous for their dried meats. I felt bad about Sophie’s accident and wanted to buy more than a cup of coffee. In the end, I opted to simply buy the coffee, and let the cashier keep the change (which will benefit her directly instead of the store). I was not truly hungry, and within 45 minutes I would be due my second meal replacement of the day… it was just a question of buying something to make up for the poop.

    As I pulled away from my friends’ house in Strathroy, I ate my third meal replacement of the day. It was overdue, and quite welcome. However, as you likely know, it can take your brain twenty minutes to get the message from your stomach that you are no longer hungry. As I merged from the 402 onto the 401, I was tempted to stop and pick up either a sausage or a bag of almonds. The conversation with my girlfriend distracted me, and I did not.

    As I pulled off the highway in Cambridge, I decided I was hungry, and I was going to stop and get one of those snacks. I saw the Tim Hortons sign (they are ubiquitous in Canada) and pulled into their drive thru. It was not until I was driving away with my coffee that I realized that a) I had not purchased a snack, and b) It was not an unreasonable time to have my fourth meal replacement of the day. I enjoyed the bar, and when I arrived at my friend’s house, was sated. So much so that the bags of chips and bowls of (sugared) peanuts did not lure me away from the safety of my diet. I had the coffee… but that was it! Of course, I also had three Cuban cigars over the next five hours, so maybe I would have been distracted anyways!

    We left later than planned, owing to the fact that one of my friends’ girlfriends challenged me to darts. The last time she and I played (probably five years ago) I beat her soundly. I am never one to deny someone a rematch. While it was not stated in advance, I originally planned to plan a best-of-nine match, and that is how it worked out… with my coming out on top four games to three.

    It was nearly 11:30pm when we said our goodbyes and hit the road. It was now nearly six hours since my last meal replacement, and I once again started thinking about cheating. I was also thinking how tired I was, and how the sooner we got home, the better off we would be. No stops were made along the way. Arriving home shortly after midnight, I was hungry. I had my fifth and final meal replacement bar of the day, and then we went to bed.

    I should mention that while I likely did consume ‘enough’ water, I did not drink nearly as much as I have done over the last few days. Before I left for Strathroy, I drank a full bottle (74 ounces), and I took a cup with me (another sixteen ounces). That was all through by 1:00pm. I had a cup of coffee at Cam and Amanda’s, but no water. At Ryan’s I had a commercial bottle (probably 20 ounces), and when I got home, I drank another cup or so. All in all, probably 110 ounces. When I have been mostly sequestered at home, I am drinking over 200 ounces in a day. While I am not disappointed by 110 ounces of water (which is over 3 litres), I wonder if spreading that intake out better over the course of the day might be a better strategy. After all, nearly three quarters of that intake was before noon.

    I am proud of myself that I was able to make it through the day without a single cheat. I did drink more coffee than I normally would (five cups, rather than my usual 2.5), but that does not seem to have bothered my weight loss. The bathroom scale this morning has me down another 2.5 lbs from yesterday morning! I just wish I trusted it.

    I met my diet buddy yesterday! She came by early to pick up her share of the meal replacements that I had purchased for us the previous day. She is very nice, and while we were both in a rush (not only did we both have things to do, it was also 28°C below zero, so we did not want to linger out in the cold), I am sure we will at some point sit down for a coffee, or a glass of water, to discuss our progress. Our phone calls are helpful, but human contact might be more so… especially in these strange times when so many of us are working from home and not socializing much.

    Day 11 in my previous weight loss attempt made for an interesting read. It was the first time I ever documented that I was not optimistic about a future with Liza, despite the fact that I had moved from Ottawa, Canada to Los Angeles, California to be close with her, and it was that day that I was officially moving into her house. The relationship would last another seven months, but I was not really happy with her. In truth, I should have ended things with her much sooner than I did.

    On that day (Day 11), I had a conversation with someone on a Facebook support group about ketosis, and how not all calories are created equal. She had indulged in what she thought to be a 480-calorie indulgence at a particular fast-food restaurant. I had to explain to her that those calories not only contained a lot of sugars and chemicals that were unhealthy, but they were also nutritionally devoid of the nutrients her body needed, and that they were likely to affect (if not destroy) her ketosis, which meant the body would once again fight back against the process.

    On that day, I enumerated the benefits of doing the program while living alone over living with others who were not on the program. I have already called that out, so I won’t revisit it.

    It is interesting to see how many similarities there are in my thoughts and feelings at every point along the way. I think that is why I write… because if my three attempts at extreme weight loss have produced three similar experiences and thoughts and emotions, then it is likely that others will be having similar experiences, thoughts, and emotions… and it is nice to know that you are neither alone nor all that different from so many others.