Losing a part of me

Category: Failure

  • Day 9 – Not Good

    I wasn’t doing great yesterday, but I got through it. I was also thrilled to get the best night sleep in a very long time! And then…

    I couldn’t believe how tired I was this morning. I almost got back into bed after my morning ritual. I had to work, so it was not an option. With that said… wow I was tired.

    I have not been on my program today because I did not think I was going to make it through the day. I had granola for breakfast and lunch. That’s not where it ended… I devoured several ropes of licorice. I am disgusted with myself. Tomorrow will be another day.

    I am not actually waiting for tomorrow. I am going to try to resume the program this evening, with my late-afternoon and evening meal replacements. Honestly, while the granola wasn’t a great idea for the weight loss program (it was probably necessary to have enough energy to teach my class without falling asleep), I hate myself for the licorice. No fat… pure sugar. I cannot imagine that there is any redeeming property to licorice, and I am certain that when I step onto the scale tomorrow morning, my weight will be up a bit. F&ck.

    I ordered two weeks worth of meal replacements yesterday, and there is an interesting variety that includes chocolate shakes, candy bars, and soups. I am hoping it is all palatable. When it arrives I will know.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1287

    I made a huge miscalculation which led to my falling off the wagon yesterday. In my state of exhaustion I waited too long… and a meal replacement was not going to cut it. I went to the grocery store and bought two meals worth of chicken and vegies… and a bread. I have thrown the rest of the bread away, but I am going to prepare lunch with the rest… and then I am going back on the program. I hate having fallen off, but it is more important that I get back on.

  • Day 1063

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

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

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

    Have a great day, folks.

  • Day 1050

    For a few months I was one of those people who had a piece of exercise equipment that was used mostly for hanging clothes on. I never wanted to be one of those people. When I first bought the treadmill (which I brought home January 1 of this year) I used it quite a bit… and then stopped. For part of the time that I was not using it I was walking outside because the weather was warmer, but for a lot of the time I was just not walking. While I do miss the warmer weather, I am glad that I am back on track with my treadmill. I will continue to walk until I feel that I am able to jog, and then I will continue to jog. I suspect that by that point the winter will be ebbing, but we shall see. It will be nice to be able to walk or even jog outside. I have currently logged about 145km on the treadmill and have found it to be a good way to stay on track when it would be so easy to fall off. Yes, I have plenty of ways to fall without the treadmill… I took advantage (sic!) of several of those ways yesterday.

    (By the way… welcome to Page 1000 of my journal! It took nearly three years to do, and I am not nearly at my goal… but I will keep at it until I am.)

    I am not sure what put the idea of canned salmon into my head, but I had it for a few days. I had told Leslie that while I might do it, I would rather do it for lunch so that I would have the opportunity to burn it off before bed. Yesterday I made the salmon salad that I had been craving. It was delicious, but I vowed that I would not eat anything else (except meal replacements) for the rest of the day. I then went to meet my friend and her girlfriend for dinner… and how much harm could a poke bowl do, right? Of course, while we are sitting to watch her show, I would never buy a bag of chips… but when the girlfriend offers me some of hers, well that’s not such a bad thing, right?

    Everything I did in that previous paragraph was wrong.

    I had done a very short treadmill walk yesterday. I did not have the energy, but I still did a 2km quick walk in the afternoon. I knew when I got home in the evening that I was still short of my steps-goal for the day. I had to take The Floof out for her walk, but that still left me about 1500 steps short of the daily goal. I had failed in so many other things yesterday, but I wanted to at least accomplish that. I got onto the treadmill at 10:00pm and walked the 1300 steps that I was still short… and then called it a night. My streak is up to 5 days. I will extend that today.

    Let’s take an inventory here. I hit my steps-goal, but in a pretty lackluster fashion. I ate horribly. I slept very well (my Sleep Score was 86, and my body battery actually hit 90 this morning). Some good, some bad. The number that matters – that on the bathroom scale – was very bad. I gained three pounds. Ouch. I have to do better today… and tomorrow, and the following day as well.

    As of this moment I am 1.7km short of reaching the 2024 goal for the MapMyFitness challenge. Had I logged my walk with Her Floofness this morning (as I usually do) then I would have surpassed that goal already. It was not really a decision to hit the goal with exercise as much as it was that I forgot to end the walk, which meant that by the time I realized it, the 1.5km walk was in its third hour. I decided to just discard it and will reach the goal on the treadmill this afternoon.

    Speaking of this afternoon… I will do at least 5km on the treadmill, and then after I am cleaned up, I have an appointment for a haircut. Once that is done, I am heading down to Grimsby where I will meet up with a buddy for a cigar. There is a Lodge meeting this evening, and a bunch of guys wanted to meet for dinner. I am not joining them because I really want to stick to my program… especially after the disaster that was yesterday.

    I fell. I am getting back up.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 994

    I was right… and I don’t want to talk about it. I was absolutely disgusted by the numbers on the bathroom scale this morning.

  • Day 976

    I have to get back on track. This is ridiculous. Hopefully the next two weeks of teaching will help.

  • Day 975

    I fell off the program yesterday. I did not think I did that badly… until I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning. I might want to hang myself, but instead I am going to go for a long walk and jog to try to get back on track.

    Aside from gaining an astonishing and unheard of 6.2 lbs. from yesterday morning, I slept terribly (sleep score: 62), my Body Battery did not exceed 49, and I feel like garbage. That does not change the fact that I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get back on track.

    The hourly weather forecast predicts rain from 12-1pm and then from 5-6pm, and so I plan to go out for my walk between those hours. I will start with a jog and will see if I can go farther than the 1km which has been my jogging limit these last few months. Even if I can up it to 1.25km I will consider it a success.

    In the meantime, I also have some work to do to prepare for the class I am delivering Monday, so I will make sure that gets done before I head out for my jog.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 961

    A couple of years ago I would have begun this entry with a dozen curse words. I would have been throwing things and spewing vile and anger. I am trying to be a better man, so I will simply say that I am extremely disappointed that after going all of Friday without solid food, only eating broth and drinking tea, my weight was up four pounds from yesterday. I know the broth is high in salt, but FOUR? That makes a nine pound increase over three days. I want to throw it all away, tell the doctors to shove it, and go out on a food binge that would at least allow me to enjoy my weight gain. I hate myself, and it is all that I can do to not go out and indulge.

    No. Leslie is coming tomorrow. I will fast the rest of the time until my procedure, and then I will come home and I will prepare the chicken and salad which I had planned for.

    Life sucks… today. Tomorrow when Leslie arrives it will be better, but in the meantime I might as well get myself fitted for a tent for all the good my weight loss efforts have done. I am a complete and total f&cking failure and I hate myself.

  • Day 955

    I was really down yesterday… because my weight was really up. I fell off the wagon Friday night, and while the circumstances that led to it happening were brought about by others, they only led me to the water… I drank on my own. No, I did not imbibe; I ate. Here’s the long and the short of it:

    My friend was meant to come over at 3:30pm to play backgammon. At some point during the afternoon, she told me she was running extremely behind, so I told her to just come when she could. At around 6:00pm I told her that if she wanted to eat together then we should do so before we sat out on the balcony. Little did I realize that she would arrive at 8:15pm, and that we would not be sitting down at the pub until after 9:00pm. I should not have eaten. To make matters worse, I stupidly ordered a hamburger. Even stupider, I did not ask for a salad on the side, I asked for the sweet-potato fries. All this to say that the only halfway smart decision I made was to walk to the pub instead of driving.

    I woke up yesterday morning and stepped onto the bathroom scale. To my horror, my weight was up 2.6 lbs. from the previous day. I was shattered. I spent the entire day down in the dumps. I also realized that I needed to eat. Somehow, rather than going nuts, I went to the supermarket and bought chicken and the vegetables I would need for a salad. I could have done much worse in the mental condition that I was in.

    I was hoping that this morning my weight would be down a bit from yesterday, but seeing as I was unable to move my bowels, I was not overly hopeful. To my utter surprise and shock I had dropped all of the weight that I had gained the previous day… and a couple more ounces to boot. Woohoo! While I could not cross off another number on my fridge chart, I at least did make good forward progress. Instead of needing to lose another 3.6 lbs. to get to my best weight from Leslie’s last visit, I am now .6 lbs. from that… and I have another week to achieve that. Woohoo! (I am still 18.6 lbs. heavier than I was when I was measured by my tailor… and I only have 3.5 weeks left before their next visit. I may not make it, and if I do not then I will not be ordering anything.)

    It is a beautiful day in Burlington, and I told Leslie this morning that I promise myself that I will exercise. I do not know if it will be a longer or a shorter walk, but I am going to hit the road. I just looked at the area map and decided what route I am going to take… it is probably going to be on the longer side, so I will make sure to have plenty of water.

    After that, I will come home, eat my chicken lunch/dinner, and then I will relax on the balcony with a cigar. Hopefully my wife will have a few moments to chat, but she has her son with her so that might not work. We’ll see. She will be here in one week, which is really exciting for me!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 937

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Have a great day folks!