Losing a part of me

Category: Exercise

  • Day 1047

    Yesterday I did pretty well on the program… until the evening. It is amazing how badly emotional pain can affect me. I cheated… but not badly. My eating yesterday consisted of:

    • Breakfast omelette
    • Two meal replacement shakes
    • One protein bar
    • Two poached eggs at night.

    Believe me, I wanted to cheat much worse than two poached eggs… but I did not.

    I also managed 5km on the treadmill, and for the second day in a row I hit the steps-goal on my fitness watch. Yesterday’s goal was 9,930, and I took just short of 11,000 steps. Today’s steps-goal is 10,130. I will do my best to get onto the treadmill and hit that goal, but frankly my exam is this afternoon, and that is my number one priority. If I can get some studying in and then hit the treadmill, then I will be thrilled. If not, then I will try to get onto the treadmill after the exam. That, however, might be tight because of a few other things I have going on today.

    There is a site called MapMyFitness.com which I have mentioned a couple of times over the past couple of years. I do not think I have mentioned it this year, but last year they had a challenge to walk/run 1023km in 2023. This year they extended that challenge to 1024km in 2024. This is not about the number of steps we take throughout the day, rather only in actual registered workouts. I hit the ground running early in the year, but then fell off a few times. I have start-stopped my walking so many times that it is hard to keep track of. Of course, on days when I do not do an actual workout, I often register my walks with Princess Sophie for the challenge, so even with nothing else, considering the average distance I walk with the doggo per day is 3km, without any other workouts I should still surpass 1024km handily by mid-December. However, since I do not always register our walks together, and since I spent a lot of time out of town (whether in Cuba or Dallas), I have not walked her about ten weeks this year. Yes, I do a lot of walking when I am in Cuba… but I do not register walking around as exercising. Anyways, I am happy that with yesterday’s treadmill walk I surpassed 1000km on the year, and I am now a scant 18km from reaching the goal. I thought there was a prize drawing for all of the people who completed the challenge, but sometime in the last few months it seems the site was sold by Under Armour to a company called Outside, and they do not seem to be offering any prizes other than the online badge. I am okay with that, since only 2-3 participants who finished the challenge would have been chosen at random for a prize package, and I have a better chance of getting hit by space debris than winning (186,000 participants, and I am in the top 12.51%, which means that a little over 23,200 people have either completed or are within 18km of completing the goal. I’m good with the online badge!

    My sleep score was only 79 last night, but I felt much better rested than I usually do in the morning. That might have something to do with my having gotten up at 4:15am to pee and thinking as I lay there that I might as well get out of bed because I was not falling back a…. and then I was out again. My body battery only got up to a 56, and I really have no idea how to improve on that… other than losing all of the weight that I want to lose, and then figuring out how to get a good night’s sleep.

    My weight dropped for the third day in a row, but only by half a pound. While I would love much bigger losses, I have to understand that going forward I will need to be happy with a 3-4 pound drop per week, and will not be experiencing those huge per-day losses as I did at the outset. I just don’t have that much excess weight to lose that would account for a 10 lbs. drop week after week. If I can lose 3.5 lbs. per week for the next ten weeks then I will still not be at my best weight ever… but I will fit comfortably into all of my custom tailored clothes… except for what might be too large on me.

    I was speaking with my diet buddy yesterday and recognized a pattern in her that I brought up, and we had a good chat about it. Every time she talks about her progress or slipping, she spends fifteen minutes talking about how other people look and what they do and how they must look at her… and at the end she says, ‘and of course I am disappointed with myself.’ I told her that it seems that she equates her own value to how others are or how they look, but because everyone tells her that weight loss should be for ourselves she ends it with ‘oh and me.’ It is like someone going on and on about what is wrong with Jews, and then saying, ‘but of course I don’t have anything against Jews.’ It is obvious they do, but they know it is wrong, so they say that. I asked her if she has ever spoken to a professional about her weight issues. It seems to me that she will never be satisfied with her weight until she is happy with who she is as a person. I think I gave her a lot to think about, and she told me that she is going to try to find a therapist for that. I am always happy when I can help her… or anyone else for that matter.

    …now if I could only get my own head in a good place, life would be grand.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1015

    He chose pizza. I ended my entry yesterday by saying that we involve Leslie’s son in food decisions, especially on his first night home. He opted for pizza, which for my taste buds is great but for my weight loss is not. I had no choice of the food, but I was able to moderate my intake. I ate three pieces and not four or more. I know, that is still a lot of pizza… but better to have moderated some than not at all.

    My walk yesterday was excellent. I achieved 8.67km and probably could have kept going. Okay, I was pretty drained when I got in so that would have been a bad idea. I did not walk Tuesday, so my current power-walking since I got to Dallas (which is to say since Sunday) is at 23.31km, but it was not until Monday that I set the goal of walking another 24km during this trip, so Sunday’s walk does not count toward the 24km. Monday and Wednesday’s walks add up to 15.17km, which means that I am one long walk or two short walks away from achieving that goal. I will head out later today and put a real dent into it so hopefully by tomorrow I will only have a very short way to go before hitting that goal. I usually go out for an hour or more every time, which means that I should walk at least 6.5km today… which means that if I roll out of bed hard tomorrow I will make it.

    Speaking of bed, I did not sleep very well last night. I had some things on my mind so not only did I not get into bed until very late, but it then took me a long time to fall asleep. My fitness watch registered a little over six hours of sleep and gave it a sleep score of 74. I am surprised it was that high, but I will take it. It also told me that my body battery was up to 69 which is much lower than I woke up with yesterday, but overall not bad compared to the last month – there have only been six days of the last twenty-eight where it was higher than that; I suspect that is something I should be seeing improvements on as I get back to exercising regularly and hopefully sleeping better… and losing weight!

    Speaking of numbers, the one that is usually most front and centre for me is the one on the bathroom scale. I never expect any sort of weight loss the day after eating pizza for dinner. When I stepped onto the bathroom scale to see a loss of about half a pound I was quite pleased with that… if somewhat surprised. How great would it be if I could actually keep it below that terrible mark for the duration of this trip, and then keep dropping it in Canada?

    I have a few things I have to do today but nothing drastic. I am going to touch base with my wife and then plan out when I will go for my walk. I have some reading to do as well. I hope that we can be good for dinner, but it is often hard with a young child. Today is also Halloween, so we will be taking the boy out trick-or-treating… I will not be taking any of his loot!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1012

    I will start with the here and now… my usual daily update. As I said that I would, I did go out for a long walk yesterday. I power-walked 8.4km in the 28° sun, even though my initial plan had been to do 6-7km. I do not follow a route I had taken before, and when I crossed over the highway to start heading back I realized that there was no service road – let alone a sidewalk of any kind – on the other side of the highway. I had to go through residential streets that were unfamiliar to me, and somewhat winding. I would also have to contend with finding a level crossing of the railroad tracks, not to mention an underpass that would get be back onto the friendly side of the aforementioned highway. I was proud of my accomplishment though, even though I did need to stop to rest for a minute once along the way.

    It was that accomplishment that I felt gave me leave to enjoy the movie theatre popcorn that I shared with my wife. In the future though I think we should share the medium size and not the large. Had I thought of this at the time I suspect my weight would have been down more than it was – a mere .2 lb. from yesterday morning. At least I did register one food-related accomplishment… we went for peri-peri chicken for dinner, and for the first time in I don’t know how long I ordered the quarter breast meal instead of the half chicken. I need to start eating less… even when the foods are healthy, I need to control my portions.

    As we sat on the patio smoking and talking last night Leslie did something extremely meaningful and helpful. She asked me what my plans for succeeding on this weight loss journey were. I told her, and it led to a good conversation.

    1. Yes, I need to eat less. I have to control my portions. There is no question that this is going to be important.
    2. I need to stop buying any foods that are bad for me. She pointed out that when she reads in these pages that I ate a mango, for example, the mango is full of sugar and however otherwise healthy it may be, the high sugar content is bad for weight loss.
    3. She asked what my plans for activity are, citing that in the winter months I can get lazy. I told her that when I get back to Canada, I am clearing everything off my treadmill and will be using it regularly throughout the winter months. I acknowledged that while I do walk HRF Princess Sophie twice daily for nearly 4km total, that is all at her pace, and is not really exercise. I will me making sure to use the treadmill and it is easy because I can just put something to watch on the TV and go for an hour. On days that I am teaching I need to do it in the evening, and when I am not teaching I can do it during the day… but I need to do it.
    4. I need to be accountable to myself. When I have a bad food day, I need to enumerate in these pages not just ‘I had a bad day’ but rather how… and why. If I am to ask her to hold me accountable then the only way she knows when I am going off is from my journal, and if I write out ‘I was bad today… this is the list of what I ate’ then not only does it help her to help me, but it will help me to help myself.

    In addition to all of this, I need to write when I have a massive failure. Over the past few weeks, I have been wearing my dress pants when I need to wear long pants because they are the only ones that fit me. I ordered two pair of slacks from Amazon that arrived Monday… and they were a size 40. FORTY! It was such a huge accomplishment when I was able to fit comfortably into a size 36 in some fits, and now I am back into a size 40. I am disgusted with myself over this, and need to reverse that. I need to get back into the smaller sizes again. I recognize that it will take time, but I need to do it.

    (I also needed to order a new belt Monday morning when I was securing the one that I had brought with me, and it broke. This was more because when I wear looser pants (such as my dress pants) I need to pull it tighter to hold them up, and I have more belly pushing back against it. I had known for a few weeks that it was on its last legs, and it was folly of me to not bring another one with me. Oops!)

    The Size 40 is bad… but the fact that my suits are tight, and that I can only wear one of my sports jackets is worse. How I have not discussed in these pages that so many of my nice clothes (which I was so happy to call a non-scale victory at the time) no longer fit because they are too tight… I was just so embarrassed by my failure. I am ashamed to be where I am.

    I have never been one of those people who needs to put a positive spin on everything. I do not need anyone blowing smoke up my rear. When I screw up, I need to acknowledge that I screwed up. That is what will encourage me to un-screw whatever was screwed. That is why I am writing all of this. I need to get out of the Size 40 and into the custom-tailored clothes that I was so proud of. I need to be wearing my pants around my belly button and not around my hips with my belly hanging over them. I need to know that if I put on a shirt that does not fit, it is because it is too big, and not too tight.

    If this new attempt works, then I have Leslie’s pointing it out to thank for it. I will do the work, but I am so happy that she is not coddling me about it. That is what people who love you need to do some times.

    For the record, if you are a friend who is also a reader and you think this gives you leave to start talking to me about my needing to lose weight, let me stop you there. I am happy to take it from my wife. That’s where it ends.

    As for this being where it begins, I am going to try to record another 24km of walking between now and the time I return to Canada. That is four walks of 6km each… or three walks of 8km each.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 974

    I went for another good walk yesterday that began with a 1km jog. My times for both walking and jogging were not my best, but I still got 9km in. I am starting to think that it is high time for me to invest in a new pair of running shoes though… or possibly two, if I am going to keep at it.

    I nearly went off the rails on eating yesterday… fortunately I was able to rein myself in, and while I did have one more roll than I should have I still did not do terrible.

    My sleep score was up to 81, although somehow my fitness watch says I did not sleep until 12:30am. I suspect I lay in bed thinking for an hour, but I was in bed earlier than that for sure. My Body Battery only recharged to a 48, which is truly abysmal. I think today will be a day to take it easy and try to recover a bit. I might even take a nap.

    Come to think of it, I might just do that now. Have a great day folks.

  • Day 956

    Happy Labour Day!

    Another day, another drop! I feel great about being down 17.8 lbs. since I started getting back on track. I have a long way to go, but I am making progress. I am still not moving my bowels, but that is another issue.

    Yesterday’s walk took me 9.38km and was the first one since I got back into it a few weeks ago that every single kilometre was under 10m. It is no surprise that the slowest of them (kilometre #4) was the one that took me uphill. I also stopped only once, at the end of kilometre #7, to stop off at Longo’s and buy another bottle of water and Gatorade. My stamina was better than it had been in a while!

    I am going to head out again in a few minutes. I am going to shorten the walk today because I have plans for the afternoon, but I will make up for that by starting out at a jog for the first kilometre… or possibly for the first two if I can manage it.

    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 948

    I was saying to Leslie last night that considering my intake and exercise of the day I would not be surprised if I would have lost over a pound from yesterday to today. Not quite… but I did drop nearly one pound. It was not enough to allow me to cross off another number on my fridge chart, but down is better than up. The fact that my weight was down despite not moving my bowels is a good sign.

    I suspect it is a combination of several factors that led to my back aching and spasming this morning, including not stretching before exercising (with excessive weight), a lot of time in a chair that might be comfortable but is not sitting right, and a bad sleeping position. I ended up taking a couple of Aspirin when I realized how much pain the occasional spasms caused. My first instinct was to say to myself that I would not be exercising today. I then realized that I can go out, I should just stretch before I start… and maybe curb the distance somewhat. We’ll see.

    It is another beautiful day out, and I will spend much of my time outside. I will likely at long last try the konjac noodles that I bought over six months ago on advice of my diet buddy. They have zero carbs and are fat free. My diet buddy told me that they are a great pasta replacement and seeing as I have all sorts of pasta sauces in the house I might as well try them.

    Have a great day!

  • 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 941

    I consumed more than I should have yesterday, but I also exercised. I completed a 10km walk outside, and while my pace is not what it was when I was at it every day, it was also not as bad as it once was. Only four of the ten kilometres was under 10m00s, but only one of them (the last kilometre when I was cooling down) was over 10m15s. I did stop off a couple of times (once to take a phone call, once to go into the store to buy a bottle of water which I had forgotten to bring, and once to say hello to a dog and to share some water with him), but other than that I kept going. I am proud of myself for getting back to it.

    It was my initial plan after writing this entry to head out to try to repeat the feat – or at least to just get out and take a good walk – but I realized I am having network issues at home. I ended up spending the last hour working on my Wi-Fi setup because it is bad enough when I have issues on the weekend, but if I should have lag or downtime during the week when I am supposed to be teaching… well, that is just not an acceptable situation.

    After paying my overdue bill (my Internet provider has this ridiculous policy that sometimes they do not send you the bill, but it is your responsibility to pay that bill anyways) I was able to speak with technical support, who assured me that there was nothing wrong with my modem/router. I told her there was, and that my knowledge of my experience with the quantifiable metrics supersedes the checkbox on her dashboard that says it is working properly. She told me that they would have to schedule a service call, but when I asked if I could just bring the modem to their store, she confirmed they would replace it for me. Phew.

    Okay, so despite everything else that I was hoping to do today, this takes precedence. I will head out now, and hopefully I will be able to get back with enough time to head out for a walk before the rain starts.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 864

    I was not impressed when I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning to find that I had actually gained weight… and not just an ounce, but 1.2 lbs.! Grrr. This is going to happen sometimes, but I did not expect it to happen so early in my program. Had I fallen off track yesterday then I would have felt that it was at least warranted, but I did not. I did change the program a little, but not badly… and certainly not ‘gain over a pound in a day’ badly!

    Firstly, my change to the program: I had my morning and midday meal replacements at around the normal times. I came in from walking Her Royal Floofness at 9:30am and had Shake #1, and then at around 1:30pm I had Shake #2. Eduardo came over for a cigar at 2:00pm, and when he left, I went out for a jog/walk (at 3:30pm). When I came back, I had a shower and then instead of a shake, I had a protein bar. I was still very hungry, so I decided to go to the store to buy almonds. I bought 90g of unsalted almonds, and that was the extent of my cheat. I drank my final shake of the evening after a cigar – around 9:00pm.

    <Warning> The following paragraph contains a tasteless joke that may be considered offensive by some readers.

    Yes, I went over my 900 calories by about 500 calories, but I was still under 1500 calories on the day… and while there is a lot of (healthy) fat in those almonds, the 5g of carbs that I added to my day should not have accounted for this blip. Who knows, maybe it’s my time of the month?

    </Warning>

    I am now 100% convinced that the calibration of my treadmill and fitness watch (with respect to the Treadmill activity) are completely wrong. It was a beautiful day, and I decided to do my first outdoors run/walk. I jogged two kilometres and walked 8.5km. On the basis of what my treadmill measures, that would be roughly 18 minutes of jogging (with the pace set to 4.3mph) and 2 hours of walking (at 3.5mph) … yet I completed the jogging in 14m10s (about 5.25mph), and the walking in 1h16.5m (around 4mph). I did not feel like I was walking or jogging harder on the street than I do on the treadmill. I will have to remember this if I ever do decide to train for a marathon!

    Following my exercise, I took Floof for her walk. We walked our usual turn which took us through the park and the playground. Because we were out at a different time than our norm, where we encountered a different crowd of children with their mothers. There was a group of five mothers speaking Arabic with a Palestinian accent, three of whom were wearing pendants shaped like the entire State of Israel (including Judea, Samaria, and Gaza). It was only five years ago that I discovered that this pendant, in the shape of a map that I have been familiar with since grade school, is their symbol calling for ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.’ Normally I would not warrant a second glance from any of them, but it so happens that I was wearing an IDF t-shirt (I was fresh from my exercise and had not yet changed when we went out), and so the group of them stopped talking, and glared at me with a hatred in their eyes that I seldom feel in Canada. We did not stop or even slow our pace. A few blocks out of the park, we encountered an SUV flying a large Palestinian flag. They were stopped at a stop sign, and we were stopped because Princess was sniffing around. They stopped for longer than they needed to, the eyes of the driver and passenger glaring at me. I smiled and pointed at the logo on my chest. I had never realized how many Palestinians live within a six-block radius of me. I will be paying closer attention. I will not stop wearing my t-shirts (when I jog) and my pins… but I will be more cognizant of those watching me. It is sad that in Canada I have to be aware of these things… but that has always been the lot of my people.

    I have been having trouble with the program I am on… as is demonstrated by the fact that I have had to supplement it with almonds almost every day of it. Combine that with my activity (which has been exceedingly high these last ten days) and I find my body completely out of energy in the afternoons and evenings. Because of this I told Leslie that I am thinking about transitioning back to what I used to call my partial program – breakfast and lunch, and then two shakes in the afternoon and evening. She recommended that I wait either until I hit the 270 lbs. mark (from which I am now more than a pound farther than I was yesterday), or until at least next Wednesday (when she picks up her son, and so goes off the program). I thanked her for her encouragement… without it, I would have gone shopping this morning. As it is, I am still thinking about it. It is 11:00am – I had my first meal replacement less than two hours ago, and I am already hungry and light-headed. I will not make any decisions yet… but if I am feeling this way still after my second meal replacement then I am seriously going to consider it. I have a very long week of teaching ahead of me, and I cannot afford to faint on camera.

    It has been rainy all morning, although that is set to abate by 1:00pm. I have not decided what I am going to do about exercising today… with my goal-streak at 13 days, and knowing there is no way to extend it beyond 14 days, I can either push myself to hit the 16,400 steps my watch is challenging me to hit today, or I can take it easy and rest my body (which I have overtaxed these last ten days). I have a number of decisions to make today. I will not rush into any of them.

    Have a great day folks!