Losing a part of me

Category: Family

  • Day 573

    Despite a small cheat yesterday afternoon I was able to wake up this morning and cross a number off on my fridge. Again, it is borderline… but 258.0 is lower than yesterday’s 258.2, and I need the motivation this week. A small victory might just be the success I need to get through the week.

    I originally thought to follow up with mentioning my streak in the bathroom, but before I got to that paragraph, I finally felt that urge. It was 10:00am and I had my breakfast so I would not be able to re-weigh myself, but I am quite certain there would have been at least a minor adjustment. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am thrilled to be back on the program (modified though it is) and I am going to stick with it and get back down to my best weight ever… and then start moving that number downward. With that said, there was always something to be said for the regularity of my morning bowel movements that I am not currently experiencing. For the record: I still hate writing about bodily waste in any of its forms, but it is relevant to my weight loss journey and so be it.

    My son the elder gave me wonderful news yesterday. He graduated with honours from law school. It is difficult to express how proud I am of him. It is also hard that it comes as I have made the difficult decision to stop chasing after his affection. I love my son dearly, but I am tired of being mistreated and disrespected. I truly hope he comes back to me… but I am done playing his games.

    I went to the supermarket yesterday evening, knowing that I was low on eggs and milk. The only additional item I picked up was a handful of peanuts which I know I should not do, but I honestly think that by doing so I was encouraged to not look at any other possible cheats on the shelves. As I walked past that aisle, I thought briefly about Goldfish crackers and mini crisps, but knowing that I had the peanuts in my shopping basket I did not even walk into the aisle. I still see it as a transgression, but maybe the occasional strategic cheat is not such a bad idea sometimes.

    My friend who was meant to come over for a cigar on Monday should be coming today. It will be great to see him… it has been too long. While it is not why I invited him, I know that while we are smoking, I will not be tempted to eat/cheat. He is coming around 1:00pm so I will have my midday meal replacement directly before that, and my second shake before I start teaching this evening. As is usually the case, I will finish the day following my class when I will have my third and final meal replacement of the day.

    After yesterday’s cool and rain I am happy that the forecast for today is sunny and warm. I did sit take my computer outside to study yesterday so that I could enjoy my cigars while doing so. It was raining but there was no wind, so I was mostly not worried; I did have a bit of a concern when I saw the lightening flashes but did not feel that I was truly in danger. Besides, it was a very high quality cigar that I would have had to sacrifice!

    Damn, I realized I have to go back to the supermarket. I am out of raw sugar; a few weeks ago I decided to start putting a very small amount into my coffee again, and so far, I do not believe it has negatively affected my progress. If that changes then I can cut it out if needed but I do not anticipate that happening soon.

    My plan for the day is to stay on course and to stay mindful. How hard can that be, right?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 572

    Yesterday was a better day than the previous day. I only hope that I can keep up my spirits today. For some reason I am not feeling confident of that as I sit here writing my peace. I am going to try to stay productive today and stay focused on my goal of not eating.

    I was able to stay true to the program yesterday and was rewarded with another drop in weight from the bathroom scale. It was not quite enough to enable me to cross off another number on my refrigerator, but down is always better than up… at least when it comes to weight loss. If I can stay on track today, then any further drop tomorrow morning will give me that short-term success.

    It seems that following a single success earlier this week I am in a new bathroom dry spell. To say that it is frustrating is putting it mildly because I know that excreting solid waste would help with my weight loss. I increased the amount of fibre I add to my meal replacements yesterday and I hope that will eventually lead to success. In the meantime, all of those who have over the years accused me of being full of it… well, for the moment they are correct.

    My son the elder just sent me marvelous news. Out of respect for his sensitivities I do not discuss him in this journal, but I love him and only want the best for him. He has been working hard and I am proud of his accomplishment. I wonder though if it is our relationship that has been bringing me down these last few days. I will discuss that with Leslie when we talk, and I will try to gain some insight into my feelings.

    Today is the fifteenth of August, and it is the first time since May that I put on long pants this morning for my day off. Temperature is forecast to peak at 22° which if it were sunny then shorts would be fine, but a cloudy day at that calls for long pants. That is not to say that I will not try to spend a lot of my day on the balcony studying, only that I will not need my sunglasses to do so.

    I have to stay focused and mindful today. I do not have the benefit of teaching this evening, so I have an extra four hours of potential time to fall off. I will not do so. I want to lose this weight and I want to be slim and trim and sexy for my wife. I also want to be happy in my own clothes… which I hope will soon hang too loose on me, necessitating another trip to the tailors!

    My friends were not able to come by yesterday and we rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon. That should give me a full day to study. How about that!?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 562

    Yesterday was my second really good day at watching myself carefully, and it paid off… at least, it has so far; two days is far to short a period to claim that I am back on track. The fact that I am down five pounds in those two days is encouraging, but it is neither a trend nor indication of a formed habit. I have a ways to go before I can claim either of those. Knowing myself, the former will come much easier than the latter. If bad habits were easy for me to change and good habits easy for me to form, then I would not have regained all of the weight that I did both times that had lost so much weight, and then regained it all back. I suppose I do not even have to look that far back! How many times have I fallen into a plateau and even slipped back before finally righting things these last five hundred and sixty-two days? I might have too hard a head to adopt good habits… and too much of an addict to shed the bad ones I have. It will only be with constant mindfulness that I will lose the weight and ultimately keep it off.

    This afternoon was a real test for me. I took my son (the younger) for lunch. My most avid readers will guess (correctly) that he opted for Lone Star Grill. I have, in the past, reviewed their menu, and know the smart choices to order for myself… and to eat as he enjoys his queso and chips and a plate of chicken wings deep fried and breaded. Never mind what I might order, my plans go out the window the moment I start going for the nacho chips and salsa that they bring before you even order your meal. I told Leslie this morning even before I knew where my son would ultimately ask to go that this would be my greatest challenge. Let me cut to the last page: I succeeded! I ordered a glass of water, and I did not touch the chips; the only things that I ate as my son ate were his two carrot sticks, and as we were getting ready to leave, I took two forkfuls of salsa (no chips). I consider that a huge victory of my willpower over my base desires.

    My plan was to drop him off and then come home and make a salad for myself. It was only as I was walking into my building that I remembered that I did not have any onions in the house. I switched my plans around and made a meal replacement shake for lunch; I had to go out later, so I would stop in at the supermarket and pick up onions. How was this a priority? Onions are a major part of my omelette!

    It is nearly 8:00pm and I am going to make my salad and then have a cigar with my wife. How great would it be to see my weight drop for a third consecutive morning tomorrow?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 556

    We had a delightful last day together, going bowling and playing various video games and claw machines at an entertainment centre we frequent (and which Leslie and her son frequent much more frequent than my infrequent visits allow). They decided we would eat there, so I made do with one more day of fattening foods. We spent a few hours there, and then went home to rest for a few more hours before heading out for dinner. We ended up at a Portuguese chicken restaurant that we enjoy… although I suspect that the boy enjoys it less than he lets on. The ever so simple and highly indecipherable mind of an eight year old boy is still incomprehensible to me. It has been far too long since I was one to remember my thought processes of the age, but I do remember trying to enjoy things that would help me to fit in. I also remember being staunchly opposed to other foods, despite the fact that when I would eventually try them, I would often love them … and then forgetting that, a few weeks later I would staunchly object to those same foods. Maybe I understand him better than I thought.

    I did not go for a walk in the morning, waking up later than planned. I did not think I would get my steps in, but after a disagreement with Leslie I ended up going out for a walk in the evening. I did not suit up as I usually do as I really only thought I would walk to the druggist, but I ended up walking around 5km. I did not start an activity on my fitness watch, but I know how to read a map. I came home and showered, and we talked things out to make things right. We had a cigar on the balcony, and then I packed my suitcases. I hate packing to leave her, but it is what it is until my visa is approved.

    I was livid when I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning. I did not expect to be over two pounds heavier than yesterday. I suppose part of the reason is that I had not successfully moved my bowels in a couple of days. After my breakfast I finally did, and I suspect that had I stepped onto the scale again I would have been pleased. That will have to wait a day though… I do not weigh myself after I eat.

    And now… I am sitting in the Admiral’s Club at the airport waiting for my flight. Leslie and the boy dropped me off around 10:00am, and it only took a few minutes to check my bags and then get through security. My flight is scheduled to board in an hour, and it should land in Toronto at 4:40pm (local time). Unless there are delays – or long lines at Canada Customs – I should be home by 6:30pm. I will make a light dinner, and then I will take the Floofness for a walk. I know she misses me so much when I am away, and the only consolation I can give her is that it was so hot in Dallas this trip that she likely would not have enjoyed it at all.

    I should mention that while I was extremely displeased by this morning’s weight, it was still slightly less than what I weighed my first morning of this trip. For a trip with so much food, I still kept my weight within a five-pound range… as high as 269.6 and as low as 264.8. While I wish I could have lost more, that range shows a level of consistency that the heavier me could never have hoped for. I suppose I should chalk that up as another win.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 553

    I did not gain nearly two pounds overnight because of a single bad choice yesterday, but rather because of several bad choices, including bread, Chinese food for lunch, and a subway sandwich (with a bag of chips) for dinner… to say nothing of the two bowls of cereal I ate before I started teaching my class. The equation is simple: When Mitch eats lots of unhealthy and fattening foods, Mitch gains weight. Why then is it so difficult to curb my bad decisions? I have a lot of ideas around that, and it is not a single answer. I have to keep on top of things, I have to stay mindful.

    The bad news from the bathroom scale is not the reason I embarked on my 10km walk this morning. I had said that I wanted to do as much walking this week as I could, hopefully every day, or nearly so. I took yesterday off for a couple of reasons which I outlined in yesterday’s article, but the fact that I was back at it today is not compensating for anything, rather it is staying on track with my previously stated objective. Fortunately I took the appropriate steps to not get lost again today!

    As I stepped from the apartment this morning the weather app on my phone read 83°. By the time I got home, it was pushing 91°. I was glad to get home and rehydrate – I had gone through my water bottle during my walk, but I needed to down a couple more bottles when I came in. I then stood under the shower for a few minutes as I rinsed the sweat from my body.

    I am going to try to get some work done this afternoon, although I plan to run some errands as well. I need shampoo, and I want to drop into the store where I got my eyeglasses to ask them a question. I do not know if I will pick up lunch for us, or if we will eat Leslie’s yummy chicken salad which she prepared yesterday. As I wrote yesterday, our food will now be subject to the likes of her eight-year-old son. Fortunately when I am not distracted, I can focus on making smart choices, which I did not do yesterday evening with the subway sandwich. While I doubt we will be enjoying our drive-thru salad joint every day, at least most of the places we might eat will offer some reasonable options to choose from.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 549

    I did pretty well yesterday, and the bathroom scale rewarded me this morning with a 1.2 lb. drop from yesterday. With that said, I plan to be bad today (at least for lunch) and expect to give most of it back tomorrow. Leslie and I decided that we are going to share a Chicago deep-dish pizza for lunch. After that, we will go to a New Orleans style coffee house for a coffee and a beignet. The only redeeming quality of the beignet is the taste, and it is a very rare occasion indeed when I would even look at one.

    Knowing of my plans, I suspect that I will not be losing weight tomorrow… and that is okay. Now that I am no longer morbidly obese, I can take these cheat days. I plan for them and will not do it too often.

    As we discussed it last night, I mentioned that this will be the first time I will ever enjoy a Chicago pizza without meat. I have been observing the Jewish dietary laws for slightly over two years now, and I have not had opportunity to have one in that time. It will be a different experience for sure, but one that is more aligned with my beliefs that I have been getting more in touch with these last few years, and which I started observing when my father passed away. I cannot believe it has been more than two years. I had a long conversation with his partner this morning and we discussed him as we often do. We both miss him, and hope that he is sitting in the Garden of Eden looking down fondly at us. I wish he could have met Leslie.

    It is another lovely day in Dallas, and I woke up early so after showering I decided to make a cup of coffee and enjoy it with a cigar on the balcony. When Leslie wakes up I will make breakfast for us, and we will go about our day. In the meantime, I think this is the first time this month that I will publish this journal entry before noon.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 546

    I do not often look at my document statistics, so I was surprised when I glanced at the bottom-left corner of my journal yesterday and saw that I am fast approaching 500,000 words. It is by far the longest document I have ever written. I have essentially written eighty percent of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Hopefully by the time the war is over I will be beyond the need to continue to lose weight. We’ll see…

    Yesterday was not a good day on my weight management program. I enjoyed the cupcake that was proffered to honour Leslie’s father’s (and her son’s grandfather) birthday, which was sad for both of them. The sadness was heightened by our knowledge that he (the son) was going back to his father’s in the evening for a week.

    As we had discussed, Leslie and I went for Chinese food after my class. The restaurant was terrible, and we will not be going back. I have to assume that the chicken deep-fried in a mixture of oil and sodium is the real reason for the shock of the bathroom scale this morning. I hope that tomorrow some of the three pounds that I was up today will be lost. If only the food had been worth it, I might not be so glum about it.

    The three of us spent some time in the pool in the afternoon which was nice.

    This evening is the Davidoff dinner that Leslie and I have been looking forward to. I do not plan to go overboard, but I will also not just eat a salad. It is being held at a very well regarded steakhouse in town, and I will have my first steak since we celebrated our wedding anniversary nearly a month ago.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 545

    I did end up sitting in the pool for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon. It made the mercurial heat (109° Fahrenheit) quite palatable. My only mistake was not bringing a large bottle of water down with me. By the time I got out of the pool a little before 3:00pm I was drained of all energy, and it took me nearly twenty minutes to gather my strength to walk back to the apartment.

    Once again, I fell off the program yesterday. Either soaking in the pool under the sun baked a few extra pounds off of me, or else the cheating I did was not too bad. I was actually doing quite well until Leslie and her son asked if I wanted them to pick dinner up for me while they were at Wendy’s. The double burger, fries, and chili that I ordered amount to 1,410 calories, 114g of carbohydrates, 72g of fat, and a whopping 2,740mg of sodium. All of those exceed what my daily allowance should be for each measure, and yet it was all in one single meal. There is a compromise that we make for the convenience of fast food, and I was not about to either argue with them about where to pick dinner up from, nor ask them to make an extra stop for me. It has been months since I have had a fast food hamburger and doing it twice or three times in a year will not kill me.

    Other than that, I was good for the day. I had my omelette for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and somewhere in there I snuck a few slices of dried mango in. I had some iced tea, and… I think that’s it. I do not think I cheated at all other than that. The result: I dropped nearly another 2 lbs., putting me below the 265 lbs. mark for the first time in two weeks. Considering eight days ago my weight was just under 275 lbs., I am happy to be back under the 265 lbs. threshold. I would like to continue to lose weight for the duration of my visit with Leslie, but if I can at least return home under that mark, I will consider it a great victory.

    Today is transition day. Leslie’s son is going back to his father’s house, which means that from this evening and for a week we will be alone. On the one hand, I love being alone with her. There are myriad activities and foods and conversations that we cannot enjoy while he is around. On the other hand, we love having him here, and many of the activities that we can and do share with him. I suspect any divorced parent with shared custody will understand how we feel. The mixed emotions are hard, and we will miss him. I am really enjoying getting to know him, which is hard to do because of the infrequency of my visits while he is with us. I am also learning a lot about being a stepfather… a lot of lessons I wish I would have learned before poisoning the relationship between myself and my older son. Frankie, if you’ve had too few regrets to mention then boy have I got you beat. I could spend a lifetime enumerating them and still not reach the bottom.

    Okay, enough of that. What’s going on today? Leslie’s son will be with us most of the day, although they are at an appointment right now. When they get back, I am sure at some point we will discuss lunch. Tomorrow would have been his grandfather’s (Leslie’s father) birthday, and so we are going to have cupcakes to honour that. Last night we lit a memorial (yahrtzeit) candle that will burn for twenty-six hours, and they shed a few tears because they miss him. It is really nice to see them honour their previous generations, partly with a tradition that I introduced to them.

    I am teaching this evening, so I will relax and do some writing during the day, and then from 4:30pm-8:00pm I will deliver my class, the last class I will deliver to a group that I have been with the last two months. It is sad to see them go, but next week they are moving on to begin another class with another instructor. I will wish them luck at the end of this evening’s class, and I will log off to take my wife for dinner. We have discussed trying a new Chinese restaurant that is not too far from here, and I am sure we will both enjoy that. Because I know that is a possibility for the evening, I am going to be extra careful to be good during the day. I will suspect I will pick up salads for Leslie and I, and her son will have something much tastier but also more fattening. He is lucky… and I am lucky that I have developed a taste for salads… even though I still crave those wonderfully fattening and greasy foods!

    I plan to continue writing in my other project today. A few nights ago Leslie suggested I start writing down (really typing) some of my cigar stories and anecdotes, and that it might one day make for an interesting book. I dove into the project and have written a little bit every day. There is so far no order to the stories that I write, other than that I am writing them as I think about them. I bought a notebook for writing down story ideas as they come to me because I really do have a lot of these stories in my repertoire, and while I remember all of them when I am telling them as if they happened yesterday, when I sit down at my computer to start writing I often forget what I want to write, so I stare at the keyboard. That will not happen now that I have a notebook, right? Well, it is nice to be optimistic.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 458

    I killed it on my jog yesterday! Not only did I do the whole ten kilometres without so much as a pause, but I did it faster and stronger than I ever have. My eighth, ninth, and tenth kilometres were 7m28s & 7m27s. Every other kilometre was under 7m15s, with my first ever kilometre clocking under 7m (6m57s on the third kilometre). I truly surprised myself, surpassing my best expectations. I am not going to lie, that Body Battery measurement is either no joke, or a real psychosomatic trick!

    I decided to pull up at the 10km mark. I should mention that there is always a slight discrepancy in measurements between my fitness watch and my phone, so I always finish the 10km on both, and then use the slightly higher measurement for my records.

    Jogging

    • Distance: 10.1km (5.00km)
    • Duration: 1:13:18 (38:30)
    • pb Average Pace (Min/km): 7m15s (7m41)
    • Steps: 11,654 (5,900)
    • Calories burned: 1,300 (525)
    • pb Average cadence (steps per minute): 159 (153)

    I am now in the top 14% of the 2023 challenge, ranked 20,276/146,133. I suspect that one or two more jogs will get me into the top 20,000, but I am not checking to see how many people above me are within reach. I am rather surprised to see that in my age bracket I only today cracked the top 20%, ranking 5,033/26,064. Once again, I am less concerned with how I am faring against others and more concerned with doing better today than I did a week ago.

    After I pulled up from my jog, I was still 2.25km from home, and I walked the rest of the way. I am feeling good… and if I did not have things I had to get done, I likely would have kept going. The better me is on his way!

    My only cheat on the day was a cup of milk tea and half a dozen dried apricots which were laying around. I should not have eaten them, but I did, and I own up to it. They are the last of what I bought at Bulk Barn yesterday, and I will not be going back before my flight on Thursday. I am taking Gilad for lunch today so I might have to eat something, but I will not be going nuts on it.

    I was in the middle of writing the following sentence: ‘A close friend is going through some stuff right now, and his wife asked me to drive out to visit him in the afternoon.’ When my phone beeped with a message that he was admitted back to the hospital last night. I am worried about him, but that also means that I cannot go to see him today. This is a blessing in disguise, as the two hour drive each way would have not been convenient today. I would happily do it and will do anything I can to help him or her. Frankly, I would make the drive happily if only to hug both of my godchildren. However, I have a 9:30 meeting with my diet buddy, followed by lunch with my son, and with the four hours driving and a few hours visiting, I am not sure how I would have been able to fit my exercise in. I am currently on a twelve-day steps-goal streak (my best ever since switching to Garmin in 2019), and I would be quite happy to keep extending that for a few more days. I cannot imagine that it will last through the wedding (Friday Leslie and I are flying to California, and the schedule gets busy from there), but even if I get it up to seventeen or eighteen days, I will consider it a huge success.

    The weather is not conducive to running outside today which means I will be at the gym for my running. While it is forecast to stop raining around 3:00pm, I am not going to plan my day around the accuracy of a weather forecast. I bought a new lock (identical to the old one) and printed out the invoice to give to the General Manager of the club. It turns out it was less expensive than I remembered, but that does not make it a cheap mistake. With taxes the total is a few cents shy of $60, which I will gladly take in gym credit. I am tempted to print out a sheet to wrap around it that says ‘THIS IS NOT YOUR LOCKER! DO NOT CUT THE LOCK!’ but I cannot think of a good way to make other gym members not snicker at that.

    As I mentioned, it is raining this morning. It actually started sometime during my class last night, which means that Princess Sophie had zero interest in going outside. We got to the front door, and she slammed on the brakes. She did the same thing this morning, which means that sometime in the next few hours she is going to break down and say ‘FINE! I’ll get a little wet, I just gotta pee.’ I will have to watch her when Julie is here, but she is generally a good girl and has not had an accident in the house ever unless she was sick… and that only happened once or twice.

    I was quite happy when the bathroom scale reported another loss of 2.6 lbs., taking me down to within 2.2 lbs. of my best weight ever from last Friday morning. If I stay on track, I might actually get to the 250 lbs. mark by the time I fly on Thursday, but if I do not then I will not be disappointed… as long as I am below 255 lbs. which I hope to hit again tomorrow or Monday morning.

    I have always been bad at keeping track of how different foods affect my body. I do not mean that I gain weight from some foods and lose weight from others. I know that these last couple of days I have had only meal replacements and a few peanuts and dried apricots. Both yesterday and today I had very comfortable and productive bowel movements, and I am wondering if the handful of dried apricots were a contributory factor to that. I will never go overboard on them, but I will keep this in mind the next time I am a little backed up.

    My plan for today is to stay mindful. I do not know where my son the younger will want to go for lunch, but I am not going to use it as an excuse to fall off the wagon. Yes, I will eat something if I have to… but I will not be gorging myself, and I will be ordering smartly. After I drop him off, I will drive straight to the gym so that I can work off whatever excess carbs I ate… and of course extend my streak. Despite a less than ideal night’s sleep, my body battery was up to 82/100 this morning. While I am not as charged as I was yesterday (when I was ready and eager to run even while walking Her Floofness), I will still have the energy to get a decent workout in. I would love to spend some time in the studio working on Taekwondo, but my elbow is still bothering me, and I am not going to push it. I will continue my lower-body workouts for now and hope that my elbow continues to improve before I start trying to throw punches and blocks with that arm. As long as I can get through lunch with my boy without falling off, then the rest of the day should be smooth sailing.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 443

    Yesterday went exactly as planned, which is a good thing. The charoset that I made was a bit of a paste, but everyone enjoyed it so I will call it a success. My chicken came out great, and my wife and stepson’s first Passover Seder was a success. I am truly blessed.

    This morning I got another positive reading from the bathroom scale, which is to say that I lost a little more weight. I made another omelet for breakfast, which I supplemented with a bit of matzah. I am going to be eating mostly protein for the rest of the day – there is plenty of leftover chicken for me to feast on, so I am not worried about hitting the carb-laden matzah too hard. This will be a smart move for many reasons, not the least of which is that matzah is binding, and my streak of mornings with successful bowel movements ended today.

    If all goes well, my weight might drop back below 260 lbs. before I return to Canada, and if not then certainly in my first couple of days back. The fact that I was actually eight pounds up after just a few days off the program was jarring, but I also know I was having stomach issues which I could not ignore. I also know that I have not been exercising since I got here, which would likely have mitigated the severe weight gain. I am not at all upset though… my health must come first.

    To my Jewish readers, have a Happy Passover; to my Christian readers, a blessed Good Friday. To one and all… have a great day folks!