Losing a part of me

Category: Food

  • Day 424

    When I press ‘publish’ on this journal entry, I will immediately receive a notification from WordPress that I am on a 198-day streak on my weight loss blog. How crazy is it that I have written 400,000 words about weight loss over the last fourteen months?

    Yesterday was not the relaxed and fun day I had hoped it would be but Leslie and I did what we needed to do, followed by a delicious Mediterranean meal that was not even close to adjacent to my program. I told her that I knew I was going to go back to Canada weighing less than when I arrived in Dallas, no matter what… this is one of her favourite restaurants, and I wanted to take her out to enjoy it. It does not hurt that I am a huge lover of Mediterranean food. While the meal was delicious, something that we ate upset both of our stomachs. At first I thought it was simply that I had overeaten – I should never go back to another all-you-can-eat buffet – but it turns out that we both had cramps all night. We will be more careful next time.

    We finished the evening as we so often do – we had a lovely cigar on the balcony, which would have been much more enjoyable if we were both not feeling under the weather. It was also sad that before we did that, I packed my luggage. It sucks knowing that we had to wake up this morning and drive to the airport. I hate leaving her, and I know she hates it too. Fortunately I have my next trip down here booked already, and we know exactly how long it will be. While counting down those larger numbers may be sad, there was a time when we did not know when the next trip would be, and that was much harder on both of us.

    There was no doubt that the numbers on the bathroom scale were going to be significantly higher today than they were yesterday. In the end I am still down 1.2 lbs. from the morning I flew down here, and that is a huge success. Yes, I might have done better had we not indulged last night, but I did not go into the meal blind. I made the decision in advance that I did not mind giving back some of my progress for a night of Lebanese food. The only thing I would do differently next time is I will order off the menu rather than the buffet… not only would it control my portions, but it would also ensure that the food was fresh. As I mentioned, something that we both ate did not agree with us.

    It is a cold and dreary morning in Dallas, a perfect metaphor for how I feel having to leave. I will be mindful at the airport and on the airplane, and hopefully when I get onto the bathroom scale tomorrow morning I will have lost some if not most of the weight that I put on this morning. If the weather is agreeable then I might even go for a jog this afternoon… we’ll see what the weather is like by the time I get home.

    I might write more from the airport, but for now I’ll wish you all well. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 422

    I absolutely killed it yesterday! Knowing the weather was going to be less than agreeable, I took advantage of the opportunity to try the treadmill in the gym in the apartment complex. They may not have every piece of equipment that a commercial gym has, but what they have is extremely high quality. I have always disliked running on treadmills because at my heavier weight, the belt tends to slip under my feet, causing me to lose my footing… or at least to feel like I am losing my footing. Here’s the thing… I am no longer 300+ pounds, am I? It is still hard for me to register that I am actually at the high end of a reasonable weight range, and that better equipment such as the treadmills in this gym are more than capable of supporting my weight.

    I did not slip, I did not slide, I did not fall. I set the pace of the machine at what I thought might be a reasonable pace, I pressed play on my audiobook, and I started my trackers. While I did take a couple of 3-minute intermissions (I needed to hydrate, plus I needed to stretch out my hip) it was nearly ninety minutes before I called it a day. I jogged eleven kilometres, although the exact distance might not be quite accurate. I am going to have to calibrate my stride length properly on the treadmill, but there is no doubt that I jogged well over 10km, which is only one of several personal bests that I achieved today. I know that I had the pace set faster than I usually jog in the streets; as a result of that, according to the Garmin Connect portal I set my personal records for fastest 5km and fastest 10km, as well as my longest run. I will not be trying to repeat that today.

    After coming in from the gym I hit the shower quickly. Due to the faster pace of my running, combined with the fact that there is no cool breeze when jogging indoors, I really needed it. I have not been that sweaty from working out in a long time! I was then finally able to move my bowels. Even so, I decided to buy a large jar of fibre that I started taking yesterday afternoon, and continued this morning, adding it to my meal replacement shake. I was hoping that by switching to eating regular foods – including plenty of leafy vegetables – I would not need the fibre while I was here, and for a couple of days I did not… but then I realized that it is a small price to pay for regularity.

    I stepped onto the scale after my jog and loved seeing that the numbers drop below 265 lbs., but of course I know that my post-workout numbers are a fantasy, and the next morning is what really matters. I did lose weight from yesterday, but only .4 lb., putting me at 266.6 lbs. on the bathroom scale. That means I am 6.2 lbs. from matching my best weight from 2020, and 11.6 lbs. from matching my best adult weight ever. If ever there was incentive to keep doing what I am doing, there you have it.

    Lunch was another salad from our favourite drive-thru salad place. Seriously, had you asked me a decade ago if I would ever have a favourite drive-thru salad place I would have asked you if those really existed… and then followed up with something like ‘why do they exist?’ Well, here I am, aged fifty, and not only do I have one… but I discovered it on my own by accident. I decided to change things up a bit these last couple of days. Wednesday I had the autumn salad, and yesterday I opted for the Greek salad (no olives, thank you very much). Later in the afternoon I had a handful of almonds, but that was all I ate before dinner. We ended up going out for Chinese food; aside from a few bites of brown rice, I stuck to exactly the same menu as what I planned out and ordered the last time we went, which means that while it was a treat meal, it was not an extravagant or unthinking one.

    Leslie and I have some work that we want to do together – we have a project we want to work on which will benefit both of us professionally. The forecast is partly cloudy with a predicted high of 56°, so it is not as if either of us would be playing hooky to go sit by the pool. Tomorrow’s high is only slightly higher than today’s, but it is our last complete day together, so unless there is another Tornado Watch, my wife and I will be getting dressed up and going out for a nice dinner. Leslie has one work meeting during the day, which will be my cue to go to the gym. I do not want to break any records today, but if I can do a 5km jog I will be happy with it.

    I am teaching this evening, so while we will light the Shabbat candles during my evening break, we will be sitting down for dinner around 8:15pm. The plan for this evening’s meal is going to be dim sum and skewers, with the leftover rice from last night’s dinner. I think we both hate the fact that we have only two evenings left together on this trip, but we will make the most of them. Tomorrow during the day we have a couple of errands to run, including going to Costco. I do not know what else we will do, but we will be together the entire day… and longing for it to not come to an end. I really do long for the day when we live together, rather than monthly visits that come to an end with a teary goodbye at an airport.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 421

    Yesterday was a day off from exercising. I had a relaxing morning at home, and after Leslie and I had lunch I headed to the cigar lounge where shortly after lighting my cigar, I got a wonderful surprise. My son the elder, with whom I have not spoken in several months, reached out and we had a thirty-minute video call. It was wonderful to see his face and catch up with him about so many things. The odd thing is that while we discussed so many things about our lives (including my recent diagnosis of ADHD, and the progress I have made on the medications), one of the most important, relevant, and front-and-centre topics of my life did not come up. I did not say to him that since he last saw me (probably in October) I have lost fifty pounds, or that my total weight loss is 128 lbs.… and I don’t know why. I was going to send him the before and after picture which I posted just yesterday, but I think I’ll just let him see for himself. He told me that at some point in the near future he will try to make time for us to sit together to share a dram and a cigar. It is amazing to realize that the little boy that I met when he was nine years old and adopted shortly thereafter is turning twenty-five on Sunday. How time flies! The grains of sand in the hourglass flow one way only, and they flow at their steady pace no matter our attempts to retard them.

    The response I received to that before and after picture is amazing. Hundreds of people liked and commented on it on the two Facebook support groups that I am in, and it drove over eighty hits on my weight loss blog. To put that in perspective, the previous week had sixty hits… not per day, rather a total of sixty hits! When my professional blog was in its prime, and I was posting on a regular basis, there was a day when I was sitting in a conference room in Phoenix, Arizona when I got a notification that my blog stats were blowing up. It had been given an award that had been published in a magazine, but the magazine had forgotten to notify me about it. This was the same level of ‘blow-up.’ My professional blog went from 200-250 hits on an average day to over a thousand hits on that day in Phoenix. The difference is that with my weight loss blog, today the stats will go back to normal… which is okay, I don’t mind! I reach certain people daily, some people occasionally, and others once or once in a while. I write for me, to keep myself accountable to myself.

    From the cigar lounge I went to Whole Foods because they were having a special on sockeye salmon marinated in a mango glaze which both Leslie and I thought sounded very tasty. I also picked up a head of cauliflower, which I prepared before my class started. I cut a quarter of it up, drizzled some olive oil on it, then Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (a favourite of Leslie’s and mine), and a little bit of shredded cheese. I put the mixing bowl into the fridge until my class break, at which point I put the fish into one tray of the air fryer, and the cauliflower into the other. With ten minutes left in class (and while my students were all completing their in-class assignments) I turned both sides of the machine on so that as soon as class was over we could eat. This fish was much tastier than my recent attempt at ahi tuna, and the cauliflower was tasty as well… although I suspect most of the cheese melted to the bottom of the pan and ended up not getting to our plates. Still and all, it was very tasty!

    Unlike the previous evening, I opted to stick with my non-alcoholic iced tea to accompany my cigars, and it paired better with the second cigar than the first. I did not make this decision because I had not exercised, I just did not feel I needed the alcohol. Once again, Leslie and I spent a very lovely evening on the balcony enjoying each other’s company. We both know that until I get my visa, these nights together are precious and too few to waste. We both hope that it will not be too much longer to wait.

    I mentioned to Leslie yesterday that I expected, after yesterday’s tremendous drop, the bathroom scale would likely take a couple of ounces back this morning. It did not. In fact, it gave me another drop, and I am again in best-weight-yet territory. I am now under 7 lbs. from beating my best weight from 2020, and if I continue to lose at an average of .4 lb. per day, I will achieve that by April 2… a full ten days ahead of the time it took me nearly three years ago. This morning the comparative pace to that time was 6 lbs. better now. I do not plan to slow down.

    Speaking of weight loss (this is, after all, a journal primarily about losing weight, right?), I am thrilled that after the initial ‘shock’ from travel and from the first-night cheat meal I have recovered all of the weight that I had gained, and I weigh 2.5 lbs. less than I did on the morning I flew to Dallas. While my stated goal was to gain no more than two pounds during my trip, I also knew that on my last trip I had lost over three pounds. I was hoping to repeat that trend, even though I knew I would be eating (comparatively) indulgently during the trip. At this rate, even if my weight stays the same from now until Sunday, I will have bested my stated goal, and actually lost weight again. Leslie told me that she is relieved that being with her does not cause me to gain weight. I am too, especially knowing that I have had partners in the past who were less than encouraging with my weight loss efforts. When I told her yesterday that I was expecting a weight gain this morning she told me that she just hoped that it was not significant, and that I stayed below the 270 lbs. mark, which she knows for me is a psychological trigger. The difference between gaining one pound and going from 268 to 269 does not have nearly the same psychological impact that would gaining .2 lb. and going from 269.8 to 270. At the rate I am going, it is not impossible that I might actually drop to 265 by the time I leave… but that would be a lot to hope for.

    It is a rainy and blustery day in Dallas, not at all conducive to jogging outside. As such I am going to make my first trip to the gym in the apartment complex. I do not know all of the equipment that they have, but Leslie tells me that it is all nice and modern. I will decide when I am there what I will do, but my first attempt at a ten-kilometre jog will likely have to wait another day or two. I can run on a treadmill, but I do not know if I would jog that long on it. We’ll see. In the afternoon we are going to do some work on a system that we both want to learn a bit more about, and which I will probably write a blog article about for my professional blog before we are done. I know we both love that we are in the same profession and can talk shop, but the fact that we can occasionally work together to figure something out that will benefit both of us… that’s really cool to me!

    We will be going out for dinner. I do not know where yet, but we will pick something that will suit both our tastebuds as well as my dietary needs. Tuesday evening we were planning to go for Indian food, until we realized that the restaurant she had in mind likely did not have anything suitable for my dietary needs. Everything that she would have recommended to me would have had meats prepared with dairy, which is a no-no for my religious beliefs. She told me this restaurant did not have a great vegetarian selection, and that the dishes that would have been suitable would likely have been too spicy for me. If that sounds strange for a man who enjoys spicy foods (and who used to win hot-pepper-eating contests in the Army against Moroccan and Yemeni soldiers), I answer that Indian food has always been my nemesis. I was essentially force-fed spicy chicken curry by my mother as a very young boy and hated it from the beginning. As an adult I went to India but came home with dysentery. All this to say that if Leslie is going to re-introduce me to Indian food so that I will enjoy it, we should do it carefully. I love her for understanding me!

    Mindfulness is the order of the day… and exercise. I am heading out now and will do my best to get in a good workout, and then after my shower I will pick up salads for lunch. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 419

    It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood… albeit still a bit chilly. I stayed close to home yesterday. While I did go out to pick up salads for our lunch, I was not feeling up to going out for a jog. I felt that my knee was asking for another day’s rest. After lunch Leslie and I took a much-needed nap after I woke up so early, and it was a relief. I am not sure I would have made it through my class last night without it. I did not sleep much, but I did spend an hour with my eyes closed, and I felt much more refreshed once I did.

    All of my Amazon orders arrived yesterday, including my new belt and shoes – which are truly gorgeous, and different from anything I’ve ever worn before. Even though I was not leaving the house, I did wear them last night to teach. The shoes are extremely comfortable, but also very stylish. My wife (who picked them from a selection of five that I showed her) has impeccable taste!

    After two successful bowel movements these last two days my weight was down .6 lb. this morning, which is a relief. I am not really worrying about it this week, other than to keep an eye to make sure it does not get out of hand. With this morning’s drop I am back within that two-pounds guideline that I set for myself for the trip. I am also ever so slightly further away from the Obesity Class II category that I was so happy to be out of – yesterday morning my BMI was back up to 34.9 which is the outer limit for Class I. This morning it is back to 34.8. Phew!

    I prepared a lovely piece of ahi tuna last night, but I am afraid I did not do a wonderful job of it. It did not taste bad, but I think it was a little overcooked. I marinated it in lemon juice all day, which might have been a mistake. I coated it with sesame seeds and air fried if for ten minutes. I suspect six minutes would have been perfect. Leslie made the rice which we both mixed with furikake. It was a reasonable meal, although I suspect a smaller piece of fish would be the order of the day next time… along with looking up cooking suggestions. I have to remember that ‘fish’ is not a food, and that different cuts of fish will cook differently. I certainly know how to prepare a nice piece of salmon, but tuna will be a try-again… but try harder.

    Once I press the ‘publish’ button on this article, I am going to head out for a jog. I am not going to push my knee, so at any point when I feel it is straining I will slow to a brisk walk. I would like to reach ten kilometres (combined walk/jog) while I am in Dallas, but I will not consider it a failure if I do not. I know that Friday and Saturday I did 8km and 7.5km respectively, so I am really not that far off the goal. It is much cooler today than it was Saturday, so that will not be a factor (as it absolutely was then). It will all come down to my legs and my lungs.

    When I am back from my jog, I will take a shower and then head to the cigar lounge for a couple of hours. I do not have to work tonight but I do have some paperwork that I need to do, as well as some reading. It won’t be too taxing, and it will be nice to see the boys there. I have not decided if I will have meal replacements, or if I will pick up a salad for lunch. We will see after my exercise outing. This evening I will take Leslie out for dinner, but I will definitely take it easy on the starches… the rice last night was so tasty, but I know it was an indulgence, and not one I should be doing on a regular basis.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 417

    The correction continues! After the initial gain Friday morning of 2.2 lbs., I am once again down .4 lb. this morning, the same as yesterday morning. I am quite content with that. I jogged yesterday, but I also ate a quite a bit, including a very tasty roll (brought from Canada) with our lunchtime (non)chicken burgers, and also some of the chips that the Mexican restaurant brought to our table last night. I tempered both of these though. While I was always going to eat two patties for lunch, when Leslie asked me I told her I would only have one roll for both of them. While eating the chips with salsa, after a few (maybe twenty chips but probably fewer) I said no more… and I did not take a single other chip. That second one is a huge victory for me, considering the last time I cheated was in a very similar situation, with very similar (though inferior) nacho chips. We came home and enjoyed a couple of cigars on the balcony, which was also always in the plan.

    In the morning, after Leslie successfully talked me out of going out to eat, we did pick up our café lattés from Starbucks to enjoy with our first cigar of the day. We have a cigar that just pairs perfectly with the drink, and while it is too soft for an evening cigar (for our tastes) it is a perfect breakfast cigar. I know that the latté is not strictly a good choice, but I am in Dallas with my wife, and I want to share things with her… like this. We have some traditions that we are starting that I hope that we can continue long beyond the time when we are only visiting with each other. A weekend morning on the balcony with a good coffee and a delicious cigar is one of them.

    Thinking I had to earn that running badge from Garmin, I set out for a jog after lunch. The weather here has been strange, and while we were sitting on the balcony with jackets on at 10:30am, at 2:30pm it was hot. I was determined to earn that badge, so even after 3km (at which point it was 85° without a cloud in the sky) I left the jogging activity tracking… even though I switched to a brisk walk. I finished out with 3km jogging and 4.5km walking, a very respectable outing by any means. Of course, it was not until I got home that I realized that the challenge is for next weekend. Grrr. No matter, I got out and I stayed active. I plan to do the same thing every day this week… and I am relieved in that regard that yesterday was an anomaly… the forecast high for today is 66°, and with two exceptions, the long-range forecast does not show it going above 60° for the rest of my trip.

    This evening Leslie and I are having dim sum for dinner, which will be a special treat. In anticipation of that, after our coffee and cigar we are going to a mall where we have a couple of things we actually need to buy, but we are also going to do a lot of walking together. It will be a nice Sunday activity.

    I will mention that I am definitely sleeping better these last few nights than the previous few weeks. I have not taken melatonin or anything else, I am simply sleeping with my wife in my arms, which makes everything better. This morning we both opened our eyes around the same time, and when I asked her what time it was she gasped – it was 10:20am! It took us a few seconds to realize that the clocks had sprung forward for Daylight Savings Time. That does not change the fact that we both got more than ten hours of sleep last night. I cannot remember the last time I was able to do that.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 416

    Yesterday’s jog was definitely solid, with several personal bests including fastest kilometre. I thought I had to have best pace overall, but it seems like last Monday’s 3km jog was faster. Oh well, no big deal. I am still happy to have done the 5km. There is a caveat to that: I stopped at the 3km mark, but not because I was tired or winded. I received an important phone call that I needed to stop and take. It was an 8-minute call, and I paused my devices, rather than stopping them. I truly felt that had I not stopped I would have been able to continue on. I will try again today or Sunday.

    Jogging

    · Distance: 5 km (3 km)

    · Duration: 39:40 (23:08)

    · Average Pace (Min/km): 7m55s (7m42s)

    · Steps: 6,200 (3,600)

    · Calories burned: 596

    · Elevation gain: 13.99m

    · pb Average cadence (steps per minute): 157 (156)

    Walking

    · Distance: 3 km

    · Duration: 31:43

    · Average Pace (Min/km): 10m34s

    · Steps: 3,700

    · Calories burned: 351

    · Elevation gain: 40m

    · Average cadence (steps per minute): 117

    I feel silly… there is a Garmin Challenge (on my fitness watch app) that awards a badge for a 5km run this weekend. Yesterday’s run would have earned it, except for some reason I did not restart the run on my watch when I resumed. By the time I realized it I had lost nearly 7/10ths of a kilometre. Of course, the badge is meaningless… except it is another badge that reminds me of the amazing progress I have been making. I have a few friends that I am in challenges with, but this one is a self-challenge. I need never win a race against anyone else… I just need to beat myself… specifically, my old self. I want to be better today than I was yesterday; I want the me of next week to make the me of today look fat and slow. The collection of badges in an app are meaningless but they encourage me to get out and push myself just a little bit farther and harder than I might have otherwise. Knowing that it is available, I will get out tomorrow (or Sunday) and I will push myself to the 5km mark… or who knows, maybe past it!

    My modified program yesterday, combined with a lot of exercise, resulted in the expected slight drop in my weight this morning. I am down nearly half a pound from yesterday, which is exactly where I was hoping to be. This week I am not going to worry about the little things… minor improvements will be welcomed, and I am not going to get upset about not losing more.

    As we lay in bed this morning, Leslie once again showed herself to be a huge support for my weight loss. I offered to take her out for breakfast. She was softly pushing back, reminding me that it might not be a good idea. When I told her that I have proven before that I can eat a healthy breakfast out, she pushed back a little firmer, reminding me that we will be eating dinner out for sure, and possibly lunch. She was not forcing me, but she did everything to encourage me to make the right decision, which I finally did. In the end, I enjoyed my meal replacement shake for breakfast. In an hour or so I am going to go to Starbucks to pick up café lattés for us. This alone will be an indulgence for me, but it will not be anywhere near the indulgence that any restaurant breakfast might have been. I already had my airport breakfast this week, and I will be having plenty of other meals out while I am in Dallas. I set my goals for this trip over a week ago, or rather, my plans for how to achieve those goals. Restaurant breakfasts were never part of that plan. I have done so well sticking to my plans so far; this morning I have my wife to thank for keeping me on track.

    Last night we shared a challah roll to welcome in the Sabbath. It was delicious! For dinner I prepared a chopped salad with a little sesame oil and balsamic vinegar to accompany the main dish of chicken breasts breaded with Corn Flakes breadcrumbs. It was all quite delicious, and very healthy. This, after a lunch from Salad and Go. Overall, while I did not stick as religiously to my plan as I could have, I will put the day in the ‘success’ column.

    Speaking of columns, I am losing ground on my comparative chart to 2020. I am still half a pound ahead of the pace, but that is down from just a few days ago. Looking ahead, for the next seven days I fluctuated in a three-pound range just above 270 lbs. and would not finally drop below that number for another two weeks. If my weight stays where it is for the rest of my trip, I will still be well on my way to beating the pace from that year. This is not going to be my primary focus, but I do like to keep track of this.

    Have a great day folks… it is time for me to spend the day with my beautiful wife!

  • Day 415

    Sorry… not sorry. I was completely expecting to be two pounds heavier this morning than I was yesterday morning and I was. My weight has snuck back above 270 lbs., but that will be a short-term thing. I had a fabulous evening with my wife, I indulged in sushi goodness, and then we had a fabulous cigar on the balcony. All is well in the world.

    Leslie keeps calling me tiny. I love when I catch her looking at me in continued disbelief at my weight loss. It makes me happy to see the look on her face. I am so happy with her and being with her makes my life better.

    Leslie has to go into work for a couple of hours. I have a meeting at 11:30am, after which I will go for a jog. I am not sure how far I will be able to go before I stop and continue walking, but I am going to shoot for better than the usual 3km that I have been doing on a pretty regular basis. The weather will be much more amenable to it – I do not have to wear layers and layers – so maybe that will help. It would be wonderful if I could do 5km, but whatever I do, it will be better than staying home reading a book and smoking on the balcony. Please allow me to rephrase: It will be better for my weight loss journey if… because for just pure enjoyment, that other option sounds pretty good too!

    I will have a salad for lunch, and I will go shopping this afternoon for chicken breasts, which I will coat with breadcrumbs and prepare in the air fryer. Maybe I will get some cauliflower to prepare as a side dish. We’ll see what strikes my fancy as I peruse the aisles. It is also erev Shabbat, which means that Leslie and I will light the candles… and I brought challah rolls for the occasion. I will not go overboard, but I am excited to welcome the Sabbath in as it is meant to be welcomed in.

    My plans for today are to be better than yesterday, which is an easy goal. I started the day with a shower and felt refreshed, even though I had a bit of a headache (after sleeping much later than I even expected to). I made a meal replacement shake and a cup of coffee. As for the rest of the day, I listed my intentions in the previous paragraph. There are temptations abound but there are also really good reasons to not succumb to them. The way my wife looks at me seeing how well I am doing, and how strong I have been these last couple of months… how could a few snacks ever compare to that? I will stay mindful and I will get back on track. Yes, this morning my weight was up slightly over two pounds; on my last visit in January that was exactly where I was the day after I landed, and I ended up losing 3.2 lbs. that trip… and more if you consider the trip home! All this to say that I am not worried about today’s weight gain blip. I will get back on track starting now and will be able to continue to hit my short-term goals. Right now, two of those are real huge milestones: a) Hit my best weight from 2020 (260.4 lbs.); b) Drop below 260 lbs. c) Drop below my best adult weight ever (255 lbs.). If I can achieve that last one by the middle of April, I will have a very quiet and personal celebration. By the way, if it takes until May 1, then what can you do.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 397

    Thirteen months. I did not realize until I typed in the title for this morning’s journal entry that today is February 20th, which puts us exactly thirteen months since I started on this epic journey of change, of self-deprivation, of bettering myself, and of long-winded journal entries reminiscent of I don’t know what. It has been a journey of minor successes and failures that has amounted thus far to a huge, tremendous metamorphosis from the massively and morbidly obese to being on the cusp of dropping from Obesity Class II to Class I.

    After dropping significantly yesterday morning, and not having done any physical activity yesterday, I did not expect a significant drop in the numbers on the bathroom scale. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I dropped a full pound. In comparison to my last go-around in 2020, I am now 3.8 lbs. ahead of that pace, which would have been the day I drove home from Las Vegas. I see that I weighed myself the following morning, so that timing makes sense. If I stay on course, that number should increase significantly over the next eleven days, as I can see that it was eleven days from now that I was last at this morning’s weight in 2020.

    With so many of them on the near horizon, I decided, as I lay in bed last night, that it would be a good idea to list out my next few short-term goals. I have written of all of them in these pages, but last night I felt that a cohesive list would be helpful to me:

    • Drop below 275 lbs. by March 2 (the day I visit the tailor). Should I manage to lose an average of 0.3 lbs. per day between now and then, I will beat that mark by nearly one pound.
    • Drop below 272.4 lbs., my best weight from 2017. While this is a personal milestone, it will also mark a huge transition for the medical field, as it is at that weight that my BMI will officially drop below 35, and I will no longer be classified as Obesity Class II.
    • Drop below 270 lbs. by March 9 (the day I fly to Dallas). If I lose an average of 0.4 lbs. per day then I will still be 0.4 lbs. off that mark, but it would still be a success.
    • Gain no more than 2 lbs. during my trip to Dallas. The morning following my return from Dallas will be Day 425, March 20. On my comparative chart to 2020 I weighed 270.6 on September 4. Even though I see that in 2020 I would fluctuate around the 270-lbs. mark until September 21, I am going to revise this goal somewhat: Return from Dallas at or below 270.6 lbs.
    • Drop below 260.4 lbs., my best weight from 2020.
    • Drop to (or below) 255 lbs., by best weight ever post-Army (from February 2005). This, incidentally, will also double as the 140-pounds-lost mark… something huge to look forward to!
    • Drop below 250 lbs., that major milestone that I have no recollection of honestly weighing, the half-century.
    • Drop to 230 lbs., at which point I will be classified as overweight, but no longer Obese.

    Looking back on this list, it is not realistic to call some of these short-term goals. If we could classify that term as a 45-day limit, then even if I were to consistently lose an average of half-a-pound per day without fail, I would still only barely drop below 255 lbs. on the 45th day. That would be an impossible pace to keep even were I not going to Dallas and off my full-fast program for ten days. No, it is better to cut off that list at dropping to my best weight from 2020. If I do achieve my goal of returning from Dallas no heavier than 270 lbs., then I will have to lose an average of 0.4 lbs. per day to achieve that on Day 52. Even that is a stretch, but I am going to do my best to exceed my 270-pound expectation for my return from Dallas. If you recall, I had hoped to gain no more than two pounds on my last trip and ended up returning to Canada five pounds down. If I do that, then I could theoretically achieve my 2020 best weight by Day 45. These are things that I will think about, but I am not going to try to push myself to do more than I can. I think we can all agree that I am doing as much now as is possible… and that not only do I deserve a little respite while I am in Dallas, but my wife also deserves a husband who is not depriving himself in her presence.

    I did place an order for American meal replacements to Leslie’s this weekend. I calculated the price per shake is a lot less expensive than it is where I buy them in Canada (USD$2.35 compared to CDN$5.00), but I am not going to change my mind about sticking to the Canadian program for the time being while I am here. I ordered 42 shakes for the US, even though I am expecting to consume no more than three per day. I can either bring the remaining shakes home, or more likely I will just have them there for my next visit.

    Knowing that I am driving into Toronto tomorrow to pick up another 28-day supply of my Canadian meal replacements, I am taking this opportunity to rethink my plans. Originally, I was thinking that this coming supply would be the last on my full-fast, meal-replacements-only program. With my ten-day break from the program, that would take me to March 31. I am now thinking that I might stick with it at least one month longer. My thinking is not only based on getting to my best weight ever (which I cannot imagine I would not accomplish by then), but also based on reading the experiences from others on my Facebook support groups for people on the same program. When I first went through the program in 2017, I was told that this is the way it has to be… twelve weeks and that’s it. I was led to believe that this was mandated by the manufacturer of the product and was based on health limitations. In 2019 when I first met Dr. Cottam in Hollywood, I realized that the program in the United States was slightly different… and there was no mandated end date. Since then, having found two different Facebook support groups, I have realized that there are so many different ways of doing it, and that the twelve-week limit I was told about in 2017 was actually mandated by the Ontario Bariatric Network in conjunction with OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan, the provincial body that regulates our socialized medicine, which the Democrats will admire on spec, and the Republicans will despise on spec). The medically supervised program in Ontario requires weekly visits with a physician, and that costs OHIP money. All this to say that I can continue on the program on my own and still be healthy… and yes, at a certain point I will wean myself off of it, going from the full-fast program back to a modified program with only healthy eating… four shakes down to three and a meal, then two plus two, then three healthy meals per day. I am not going to speculate on a timeline for this; I cannot imagine still being on the program through the summer, but there are a lot of factors to consider, and I will keep reconsidering them every time I prepare to drive into Toronto to buy more shakes.

    I know it will sound expensive, but the meal replacements cost $560 for a four-week supply, which works out to $5 per meal. That might sound pricey to some people, and in my Canadian support group people complain about the cost on a regular basis; knowing how much I would be spending on food if I were not on the program, and that not only am I sticking to it, but the program is also working for me, I think that CDN$15 is an absolute bargain. I thought that before inflation sent the cost of eggs and vegetables and chicken and most of the food that I would be consuming on a regular basis through the roof, but I think it is more of a bargain now. If it were not, if the cost per meal replacement were double what it is, then it is still a small cost to pay to drop the weight that I have dropped over this past year. Yes, tomorrow there will be a $560 charge on my debit card; that, plus the cost of all of my new clothes, are just a drop in the bucket as compared to what I would have spent on restaurants this past year. To put this in perspective, I downloaded my credit card statement from June 23 – July 22, 2021. When converted into Canadian Dollars, I spent $2,356 in restaurants on that statement. Nearly $1,200 of that was on breakfast. Yes, I will gladly pay the $15/day for my meal replacements on this program.

    It is a beautiful day today, partly cloudy with temperatures hovering around 5°, but with a bit of wind. I am going to kit up and go out for a jog, probably after my second meal replacement of the day. I will remember to bring my gloves and headband for warmth, as I will probably try to do a similar distance today as I was doing last week, but possibly a different route. I was thinking of checking out one of the park trails in the conservation areas, but it turns out they charge $10 to get in, and I do not feel the need to pay to jog. I will pay with the soreness in my muscles later on, believe me!

    My plan for today is, once again, to stay on track with my program. As it has been these last few days, my resolve is bolstered by my weight drop this morning. I know I am 7.4 lbs. lighter today than I was the morning of my last weigh-in at the doctor’s office, which is about 3.3 kg. If I could round that up to 9 lbs. by Wednesday morning, I will be 4 kg lighter than two weeks prior. I would still be 25-30 kg (55-66 lbs.) from what I weighed the last time I remember weighing myself before my conscription date, but Rome was not built in a day… I have been in the obese category for twenty-five years and expecting to drop out of it quickly is simply unrealistic. With that said, I will take it one day at a time, which is why every morning in my journal I write that my plan for the day is to stay on track with my program.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Restaurant Delivery: Begone, evil temptress!

    imageAt no point in my life do I remember not being able to order pizza in for delivery. In fact, as a child living in the suburbs of Montreal, I remember there were always two types of food that would always deliver: pizza and Chinese food. I remember Pendelli’s Pizza on Cote St. Luc Road was our first go-to pizza delivery joint (which happened to be three doors down from my elementary school); I cannot remember if it was House of Wong or Hong Kong House (they were owned by the same people and had the same menu) that was on Queen Mary Road above Decarie Boulevard that was our original Chinese food source, but it was one of the two.

    Somewhere along the way, the availability of food delivery exploded, and at a certain point, my mother had a drawer full of take-out and delivery menus in the kitchen that we could dig through whenever we were hungry. We had long since abandoned Pendelli’s for something else, and the Chinese food was changed from the Cantonese to Szechuan… but now our options included Cote-St-Luc Barbecue (the best rotisserie chicken), Buffalo Bill’s (the best wings in town), as well as Greek, Lebanese, Indian, Persian, and I’m sure many other regional cuisines, on top of the pedestrian burgers and Montreal smoked meat (deli) sandwiches… and whatever else you might want. The restaurant industry wanted our money, whether it was the mom-and-pop joint or the large American pizza chain that had recently come to Canada… they wanted to make it as easy as possible for us to buy their product.

    Sometime after I moved back to Canada in 1997, I heard about a service that would pick up your food from any restaurant or even multiple restaurants and would deliver them for a fee. For too many years I was used to the free delivery offered by so many restaurants and wondered how they would ever survive. I do not know what happened to them, but they were certainly still around when I moved away from Montreal in 2007… and for my frequent return visits to see my parents and friends.

    An hour ago, I was so pleased with my progress, and that I had done so well resisting every temptation since last Sunday’s nacho chips and salsa incident. I was ensconced in my apartment, not quite ready to prepare my second meal replacement of the day, when an alert popped onto my phone. Enjoy $$20 off tonight! Order and save with Uber Eats! Terms and Conditions apply.

    Are you %*@$ing kidding me?

    It is not bad enough that you can get any sort of food by driving less than a mile in any direction; a lot of these restaurants will bring the food right to your door if you simply pick up a phone… and if you watch television, listen to radio, or ever see a billboard then you are going to be bombarded with mouth-watering advertisements for it all; if you are smart, or strategic, or just lucky enough to avoid all of that temptation, they are now sending it right to your damned phone… with coupons no less!

    I know that I got fat because of me, and that my post-Army constant obesity is nobody’s fault but my own; I have written about that so many times over the last four hundred days or so. Nonetheless, it would be ignorant if not irresponsible to deny that all of the easily accessible and oh-so-tasty food what made my mother’s and then my own life so much more convenient by eliminating the need to go grocery shopping and then actually prepare the meals was a huge contributing factor.

    I am not going to say that these services are evil, because they are not. For someone who is not a food addict struggling with obesity they provide a service that, while by no means necessary, is nevertheless convenient for the rest of the population. I can imagine that when the only three options were pizza, Chinese food, or rotisserie chicken that my parents would have welcomed the variety offered by these services. They were never morbidly obese and struggling to lose hundreds of pounds.

    I cannot remove the Uber app from my phone because I do use it every time I have to go to the airport… which is frequent. I cannot even block the notifications for much the same reason. I can, however, curse them every time one of these ads comes up, and declare victory for deleting them as soon as I see them.

    As for the other delivery services, I have done my best to eliminate them as well. The last time I used one, I was sitting on the patio at my cigar lounge in Glendale, California… and it took a year of deleting their emails before they finally took me off their list. If I was still living in Glendale then it was pre-pandemic, and I have not used one since. If I get a notification from one then I will immediately delete it, and if they persist then I will make sure that I block them in every possible way.

    It is hard enough that when I drive to the grocery store, I pass restaurants that serve Lebanese food, Chinese food, pizza, sushi, and wings. I avoid those by staying in my car. Why do these restaurants feel the need to invade the privacy of my own home, coming into my quiet sanctuary, trying to lure me out into the cold, fat world? Begone!

    Of course, on Valentines Day it was nice that I could order dinner for Leslie from another country. As well, I seem to recall that there might have been one meal that she ordered in for us when I was there last. I cannot recall for sure, but I remember we discussed it. Whether or not it happened, I am not sure. Not only is Leslie not morbidly obese, but she also does a wonderful job of supporting me, letting me know when I have had my fill. She does not tell me this based on her own judgement, rather based on what I tell her I should be eating before we begin. ‘Mitch, you said you were going to have half the portion, and then save the rest for tomorrow.’ That is support. The restaurants deciding that portion sizes should be able to feed a small village is not supportive at all.

    There are those who would try to make these ads illegal, because it should be against the law to advertise any unhealthy option. I am not in that camp. I do not want to ban them… I just want to find a way to avoid them.

  • Day 393

    There should be a law for days like today.

    By this law, we hereby state that:

    · When you spend a day surrounded by temptations, when you are at a friend’s house where there are tens of thousands of delicious calories all around you within easy reach, but you hold true to your program;

    · When you stop for petrol on the way home, and the pay-at-the-pump is broken, so you have to go into the station which is replete with delicious decadence, but you resist and walk straight out;

    · When you come home and change into your jacket and tie, and knowing how tired you are and how the extra calories of whatever food you have in the pantry would give you the energy to get through;

    · When you are faced with student issues that make you question your life choices, but rather than pouring a glass of fine whisky, you settle in for the night with your fourth and final meal replacement of the day;

    On days such as this, we decree that when you step onto the bathroom scale the following morning, your body is ordered that you will have lost weight from the previous day.

    This law should be written on parchment in beautiful calligraphy and distributed throughout the land. Until such time, despite my best efforts of the day yesterday, my body was legally permitted to show a very slight weight gain from yesterday. Rather than bringing me back into best-weight-yet territory, it pulled me away ever so slightly. Fuck you body.

    I should mention that during the day, I did indulge in the following luxuries:

    • Ryan invited me to enjoy a non-fat latté from Starbucks. According to MyFitnessPal.com, somehow this is a 250-calorie drink with 23g of sugars… how the hell would I have known that the sugar content in this was so high? I will have to be much more conscious of my coffee orders and remember that fat is not the enemy… carbs and sugars are.
    • A cup of Royal Milk Tea whose caffeine helped me to get through the evening class. 58 calories and 12g of sugar. Damn… but when I need to stay awake for my class it will be a necessary choice.
    • Three lozenges because I realized that my throat was not cooperating, and I needed to get through my lectures. 8 calories, 0g sugar. I can keep these with no guilt.

    Do you see what I mean by the need for constant vigilance and mindfulness? Who would have thought that a non-fat latté could have 23g of sugars? I knew about the Royal Milk Tea, but I never realized how bad the coffee was. I might love my latté but going forward this will also be a very occasional indulgence (like for when Leslie and I sit on the balcony with a Davidoff Signature No. 1 Limited Edition 2023 cigar which we discovered pairs oh so well with it). Even with coffee, which alone has no calories, I will have to be vigilant and mindful.

    My plans for today are to stay on track. I might go to the gym later in the day, but that will depend on my mood and my progress studying. I want to spend a lot of the day studying and trying to catch up on a couple of certifications that I am working toward. I also know that I have my study group this Sunday, and I let that preparation go these last few weeks. Today I will get back on track. I would like to get to the gym because it is really not pleasant enough to go for a jog outside. The forecast high for today is a cloudy 3°, and it goes down to -5° overnight, only reaching a high of -3° with a chance of snow tomorrow. Fortunately, I see that Saturday and Sunday will be nice, but if I am going to get any movement in today (aside from walking with Her Floofness) then it will be at Goodlife.

    My comparison chart to 2020, which had me ahead by 1.8 lbs. yesterday, has me up by 1 lb. today. That is obviously not because of the .2 lb. that I gained this morning, rather because of the 2.6 lb. drop day-over-day from my previous attempt. Looking forward to the next few days on that chart (and then reading my journal from that time) I can catch up pretty quick… I spent four nights in Las Vegas, and while I miraculously came back home only one pound heavier (actually .8 lb.), I am still looking at the chart and knowing that over the next five days I will make progress… as long as I stay on track. In 2020, I would fluctuate around the 280-pound mark until Day 360, and while I would gain and lose ground on it, I did not drop below the 270-pound mark until Day 399. I was going to say that I did not permanently drop below 270 because I realize that from the day that I dropped below 270 lbs. (on my push to my best weight ever) until I creeped above it for the last time (on the slide to completely fall off the weight loss train) was sixteen days. That’s right, it took me nine days to drop from 270 to 260.4 pounds, and then seven days to jump to 272.2 pounds. From there, it took me seventy-one days to get back up to over 300-pounds, and while I did not stay above that permanently until February, my weight loss success was over; on September 28 I began that terrible fall back into obesity and slovenliness. To compare that to this attempt, it would be fifty-six days from today.

    I am not going to let that happen. Firstly, I am not going to let myself plateau and fluctuate like I did in 2020. I just spent thirty minutes re-reading three weeks of that journal, which included my trip to Vegas, starting a new job that I was excited about… and then losing it less than two weeks later, going for long walks and even jogging, and a lot of other weight loss challenges that I encountered during that time. I discussed all of the foods I was eating, and how the fact that I only had a single large quarter chicken piece (rather than the full half-chicken) was a success. It seems that it was during this time period that I originally switched from eating my meal in the evening to midday was better for digestion, especially if I ate it after coming in from my walk or jog. I can hear the pain in my words over the loss of my job, knowing that it would not only affect me financially, but it would also put my residency in the United States at peril (which would be proven within the year). I read the words that I wrote, and I started to relive the events in my head, and I felt the sadness and sorrow begin to return. I have to remember these failures, and how difficult they were, and not let myself get down and eventually fail again. In 2020 I had friends, but at the end of the day I was alone – it was just me and Princess Sophie… and she loved when I ate chicken because she always got the cartilage. This time around, I have her, but I also have Leslie. Three weeks from today I will be landing in Dallas, and we have discussed some of my cheat meals that will be included on my modified program… and how I am going to stay mostly on track. She has been so encouraging and helpful, even from 1,400 miles away. She just might be the factor that helps me tip the scales from eventual failure to long-term success.

    One thing that I remembered from rereading those weeks from that old journal was that I was on a quest to beat my previous (2017) weight loss record. On Day 368 I hit that mark, which I would do eighteen days from now on the comparative chart. I wrote a number of times in the weeks leading up to that milestone that it was the last comparative milestone from the previous attempt and going forward there would be no looking back. I suppose that is how I feel now, knowing that I am 21.6 lbs. from matching my best-weight-ever. In 2020, I achieved that record, and it was all downhill from there. The day that I reach that next major milestone (260.4 lbs) I can celebrate for a minute… and then delete the comparative spreadsheet and never look back. I might read what I was thinking and feeling as I tried desperately yet unsuccessfully to cling to that weight loss, but I cannot imagine there will be much in there to encourage me. I think that once I best that previous number (which would also make for my best weight in twenty-four years) I should put all of my previous journals into a folder marked ‘Do not read: Studies in short-term successes and long-term failures.’

    In any event, I am going to now go back on my word from 2020. I am 9.6 lbs. from my best weight from 2017, and I am going to make that a milestone, and have added a column to my spreadsheet to track that. It would require slightly better than a half-pound loss per day to beat my pace from 2020, but that is not completely impossible. Let’s see how we do.

    Have a great day folks!