I did not eat very well yesterday, and I paid for it. Yes, I woke up at a ridiculously early hour, and yes I had breakfast before the sun was up… but I also took the opportunity to clean out (read: eat) all of the leftovers from the fridge.
At least I slept well last night.
I took Leslie for breakfast yesterday as planned. I ordered the French Toast with strawberries and bananas and drizzled it with maple syrup. It was delicious! Before driving her to the airport we then went to the pub, and I enjoyed a plate of fish and chips. I was tempted to change that up but decided that many of the other options were somewhat less healthy for me. We drove to the airport and were so early that we decided to stop off at another restaurant to share a dessert. I dropped her off at the exact time we had planned for our tearful goodbye, and I drove back to Burlington.
I was already back in Burlington when my phone rang. Leslie told me that the airport was shut down, and that she needed for me to come back to pick her up. I had already completed my (safe and calculated) U-turn before I asked her what had happened, and was back there in precisely the least amount of time one can safely drive from Burlington to Pearson International Airport. A plane crash on an active runway (which you have probably already heard about by now) had the entire airport shut down until… nobody knew. My wife, ever the smart one, had already rebooked her return flight for Wednesday morning when she called me. The reasons may be terrible, but I have another full day with her, and I am not complaining about that.
My original plans for dinner last night were complicated by this, and I left the leftover shawarma for my wife to eat. After all, it was her leftovers! I prepared a couple of meatless cheeseburgers for myself – one with a bun, the second without. I had some mini crisps on the side. I had to be finished with my meal by 6:15pm so that I could be online to teach my class, and so I had plenty of time to digest before bed. While I do not think my food intake was the healthiest yesterday, it could have been much worse.
My weight dropped this morning by over a pound. I actually weigh less than I have since the beginning of February – I have vacillated between this morning’s 305.6 lbs. and Friday’s high of 311.2 lbs., which tells me that while I have not made any progress, I have also not lost ground. In truth, expanding that date range back to December 20 and I have been as low as 299.8 lbs. twice (December 22 and January 19), which means that I have not changed a lot since before Chanukah. With all of the stress and anxiety and problems I have endured in that time it is no small success that I have not done worse.
My food plans for the day today are currently up in the air. I decided to wait until Leslie is awake to discuss breakfast, as I would normally just make myself an omelette and she would make whatever she had planned (usually instant oatmeal), but I know she had planned her oatmeal down to the packet for her original Monday departure, so she has none left. She is not a fan of my omelettes. I will give her the option of taking her out for breakfast again, and if she agrees then we will probably do something similar to yesterday. I will skip the desserts, as I will also take her out for a nice dinner. I had planned to do so Saturday evening, but those plans were thwarted by the inclement weather. Where we will eat is up in the air, but it will most likely be either sushi or steaks. I have not discussed this with her yet, and she might not want to eat out because of her very early flight tomorrow morning. We will see.
I usually only discuss my sleep score when it is really good or really bad, and even then, I often forget. Last night it was down to a 77, which is still on the high end of fair. The fact that it was down from two nights in the 80s (88 Saturday night and 82 Sunday night) means that I have actually been sleeping pretty well. I am quite pleased by this, because good sleep is so important to good health.
Leslie is now awake, and she has told me that she does not want to go out for breakfast. That is good for my eating, and I will shortly make my omelette. Lunch and dinner are still unknowns – I will discuss them with her once she has had her caffeine and some food.
Have a great day folks!
As planned, Leslie and I had a lazy and relaxing day at home. The only exception was when mid-afternoon I suggested we go down to dig out the car. I was actually joking when I suggested she come to help, but she was happy to. After receiving over 14” of snow (35cm) of snow, the car was literally unrecognizable as anything more than a heap. We trudged through the snowbanks that were up to my mid-thigh to brush off the entire car. We then pulled the car out of the spot for a couple of reasons: I wanted to pull out and pull back in so that some of the driven snow would be tamped down, but there was also something that I wanted to get out of the trunk, which would not have been easily doable without much better snow boots had I not done so.
Leslie and I were just finishing up our dinner last night when I got a call from a cousin that I do not hear from very often. While we had a great conversation, and it was wonderful catching up with him, the reason for the call was sad. He told me that an uncle of ours (who is really our first cousin once removed, but he was my mother’s generation, so we called him uncle) passed away. While I had not spoken with that uncle in several years, there was a time when we were very close, and it was sad news indeed. Partly to remember him, but also partly because it was Leslie’s last night here, I went out to the supermarket and bought us a half pie for dessert. I have to assume that this pie, coupled with my not successfully moving my bowels this morning, is why my weight stayed the same as it was yesterday morning.
Although the trip to the supermarket was unplanned, it was indeed a fortuitous decision. As I drove back into our parking lot, my upstairs neighbour (whose parking spot is next to mine) had pulled his car out, and the snowplow was clearing our three spots so that the snowbanks were gone, and the spots were once again flat. For those of you who have never lived in snowy climes you may not fully understand how advantageous this is but trust me… when you get 14” of snowfall then the banks between parked cars is often as high as 4’ high. Thank you, Mr. Plow, and thank you neighbour who thought of asking him!
Leslie and I are going out for breakfast shortly, and then we will likely come home to relax for a few hours before I sadly have to drive her to the airport. This visit was too short, but I think we made the most of it. We did not do any socializing (which is too bad because some of my friends would have liked to see her), but we really just wanted to spend the time alone. It is so important with us living apart and only seeing each other every couple of months… and who knows when the next visit will be? It is hard, but I am so grateful for the time we do get to spend together.
Have a great day folks!
All the weight that I gained since last Sunday is now gone. Phew! I also slept very well, with a sleep score of 88. Things are looking up!
Leslie and I went to the supermarket yesterday to make sure we had the necessary provisions to make it through the worst snowstorm of the year (and probably the worst since I moved back to Canada). We then ordered a pizza for lunch and came home. We spent the rest of the day relaxing, which included a cigar on the balcony, a lovely dinner, and then we got into bed and watched a movie. We have so little time together, and we are trying to make the most of it.
Last night’s dinner was a veal chop, and at the last minute I decided to try my hand at making garlic bread. I did not have a lot of what I would normally use, but I gave it a shot. It was a total failure, but at least it is something that we can joke about.
Her Royal Floofness was not impressed by the snow this morning, and our walk was as short as it has been these last couple of weeks. Leslie and I then enjoyed our breakfast together. I got some work done, and in a little while I am going to choose a book and then go lie down next to my wife to read. It will be a nice relaxing day… all that we are missing is the fireplace!
Our lunch will be meatless cheeseburgers. For dinner I am going to try my hand at a new recipe that I have not tried before. I take comfort in knowing that if I screw it up completely (like the garlic bread cum croutons) then we have the raw ingredients to make an entire new meal. I hope that it does not come to that.
Have a great day folks!
I could not believe how thirsty I was last night! We had shawarma for dinner which was probably way too salty and a contributing factor, but there was more to it than that. I drained four litres of water between the time Leslie and I started watching our first movie and when we got up in the morning. My output was not even close to keeping up with my intake. This would be one of the reasons my weight ballooned up this morning. I hated seeing that number.
Today will be a bit more reasonable. While yes, we are having fried chicken for lunch, it will be a much more reasonable portion size than the shawarma plate that I ate last night. It will also be earlier in the day. We will then have dinner around 5:30pm so that I can be online and ready to teach my class.
My cold seems to be getting a little better over time, which is the usually and expected progression of a head cold. It was really bad for a couple of days, then yesterday it was a little better, and today it is a little better again. I do not know how much of my thirst and dry mouth/nose were from the cold, but I have set up a humidifier in the bedroom in case that happens again.
Have a great day.
I drove home last night in terrible weather, but I was safe and did not rush or speed or try to be a hero. I pulled off the road every couple of hours to pee, top off my windshield wiper fluid, and that stuff. I pulled into my parking spot around 3:15am. You would think that would have been the end of my stress for the day, but no… I discovered that my Internet service had, for the second time in less than three weeks, been cut off. I did a couple of quick diagnostic checks to make sure it was indeed cut off, and not an internal connectivity issue. I was not going to try to call them in the middle of the night, so I did my best to go to sleep. I would deal with it in the morning.
It turns out that without asking me the service provider switched me to paperless billing (despite my telling them twenty times that I did not want that). It also turned out that they had the wrong e-mail address for me (.com instead of .ca) so I did not get the bill, which means that my account was past due. Just one more annoyance that I had to deal with, but I did.
I went to my appointment today that I needed to go to in order to fix the one piece of paper that I was told was wrong at my appointment yesterday. They were happy to redo it for me at a discount… and they even admitted that their employee had made a mistake. Hey, it cost me over a thousand dollars, and I have to reschedule my interview that took months to schedule that will affect the rest of my life, but I’m glad you gave me the discount and apologized for the inconvenience. Stress, anxiety… Grrr!
I gained a couple of pounds in Montreal. The fact that I did not gain ten pounds frankly surprised me. I did not eat well at all… but I did not expect to – especially after the unhappy results of yesterday’s appointment.
Have a great day folks!
My weight dropped a bit from yesterday, but I am still a bit more than five pounds over the terrible mark. I really need to get below that. The stress and anxiety that is my life for the next few weeks may not kill me, but it is certainly not doing my weight management any favours.
My sleep score from last night was a respectable 80, but I know that I woke up too many times for it to have been great. I finally gave up trying to get back to sleep again a little before 5:00am. It is not often that I can actually dawdle a little in the morning before working.
There was a news article a couple of days ago that really shook me about people in Colombia who showed up at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota for their immigration interviews only to find their appointments had been cancelled. My appointment is in a week, and while I do not let on about it very often, I know that the rest of my life hinges on the results of that meeting. Leslie and I have been married nearly three years, and the process has been a very long and trying one… not only is it miserable to live in a different country from my wife, but it has nearly bankrupted me from all of the travel and other expenses. I really need for this to be over so that I can live with her at long last.
I will try to eat well today. As I had so much time to spare this morning, I prepared my lunch. I am marinating a piece of salmon with some vegetables, and I will serve it over a bed of rice. For dinner I will likely have the same chicken I would normally have prepared for both lunch and dinner.
While I really cannot afford it, I decided to book a haircut appointment for tomorrow. My hair really is too long to keep under control, so I bit the bullet. A couple of days after I booked the appointment, my barber told me that the shop she was working at closed its doors, and so she is coming to cut my hair at my apartment. That will definitely be a first for me. At least I will be able to look at myself without wretching.
Have a great day folks!
My wife had very good advice for me today. She told me that I am stressing so much because of the holidays, and it might not be a bad idea to take a break from my diet (which has not been working anyways) until after New Years. That is not to say that I should go nuts and eat everything, but trying to stick to the severe plan has not only been failing, but it has also been causing me stress and anxiety. Thanks Leslie!
Tonight is Christmas Eve, and it is not a holiday for me, but I miss being with my family. I bought a nice veal steak for dinner which I will prepare later on.
Have a great day folks!
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.
At long last I had a productive bowel movement this morning. While it did not completely clear out my system, it certainly had a negative affect on another one… but nothing that a little plunging could not fix.
I decided to buy a package of rice cakes yesterday. I will not be doing that again. I have disposed of what is left.
I was relieved that the lodge that I visited yesterday ordered pizza… and that the only ones that did not have meat on it had olives. The former I cannot eat for religious reasons, the latter because I just do not like olives. As such the only cheating I did after the lodge meeting was a dram of whisky proffered by one of the lodge officers. They also invited me to their holiday party this Saturday evening which is being held at a local brewery. I am seldom tempted by beer, but I will go for the camaraderie.
Yesterday did not go as planned (mostly owing to the rice cakes I would think), but I managed to eke out one small victory. It was 10:30pm before we left the lodge, and I had not yet hit the 6,500 steps mark on my fitness watch. I wrote yesterday that I wanted to extend my steps-goal streak, but when I got home, I still needed to take Her Floofness out for a walk (which would never amount to the 4,500 steps needed to hit the goal. By the time she and I got back in (around 11:15pm) I was still below 7,500 steps. With very little time to spare I changed into my workout kit and got onto the treadmill. I knew that my workout would not be a good steady one, but I wanted to hit my steps-goal. I did the first kilometre at the same 4mph pace I had done my previous jogs at. For the second kilometre I kicked it up to 4.5 mph, and actually felt like I could have gone farther at that speed… or faster. For the last 1.3 kilometres I dropped the pace to a brisk walk. The daily goal was 11,000; I got off the treadmill at 11:45pm with 11,018 steps registered and finished the day with 11,027 (I take my fitness watch off when I get into the shower of course).
The steps-goal of my fitness watch is a progressive goal. I am not entirely clear on how it works, but apparently Garmin calculates the steps-goal based on the value of the previous week (about) achievements. As such, were I to stay in and do nothing then my steps goal would drop tomorrow, but if I had blown my steps-goal away then it would jump. As an example, there was one day in February when my steps-goal was 8,700, and I took 14,700 steps. My steps-goal the following day was 9,910, and I took 17,742 steps. My steps-goal the day after that was up to 11,480, but I only took 10,900 steps. That would have been enough to crush the steps-goal from any previous day, but because of the huge surplus on Days 1 & 2, it was below the actual goal for Day 3. I am currently on a 10-day streak, but I have been somewhat practical about it, in that I have not vastly exceeded my steps-goal on any given day. On November 30 the goal was 9,740. While there have been a couple of days during the streak when I ‘crushed’ it, most days I have only slightly beaten the calculated goal, so while the goal for yesterday was 11,000, today’s goal is 11,010. I will definitely need to hit the treadmill (or go out for a jog… it’s pretty nice out today), but I will not need to up my game to a new level to extend my streak to eleven days.
My sleep score was 79, the best it has been in quite a few days. This despite the late-night workout. My body battery peaked at 66, although that is now down to 54. I am sure that before the day is done it will get all the way down again… but hopefully I will have a good night sleep and will be able to recover completely.
A lodge brother is coming over for a coffee in a little bit, but aside from that and a Zoom meeting I have to attend this evening it should be a quiet and relaxing day. I will certainly hit the treadmill, but I do not think I have too much else going on. With the weather I might even sit outside with a cigar.
Have a great day folks!
