Losing a part of me

Category: Food

  • Day 1124

    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!

  • Day 1123

    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!

  • Day 1121

    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.

  • Day 1114

    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!

  • Day 1106

    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!

  • Day 1069

    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!

  • Day 1063

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

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

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

    Have a great day, folks.

  • Day 1055

    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!

  • Day 1038

    I took a nap yesterday afternoon, and paid for it at night… I could not fall asleep. So this afternoon, after I came back from my busy morning, I did the same thing. I know… that was stupid. I told Leslie that I will probably take a sleeping pill this evening (despite how much I hate doing that) in order to try to get back on track.

    I did not write much yesterday, so I did not write about the previous day; on Thursday when I brought my car in to change my tyres I went for a walk. I walked 5km, thinking I was not making very good time. In fact, I was making very good time, despite the lack of athletic shoes. I am not unhappy that I was doing about 9.5 minutes per kilometre wearing my Blundstones!

    I am still not back on track… but I am working on it. Hopefully today was better than the previous few days, and the numbers on the bathroom scale will reflect as much tomorrow. I also mentioned to Leslie earlier today that for the first time in my memory I am getting bored with chicken. While there are a lot of ways I could address that, I decided that once the chicken I have in my fridge is done, I will go back to two meal replacements per day (plus my usual breakfast). I would like to get down not only under the terrible mark, but much lower. I may not be able to do it over the holidays, but if I can get down to 280 lbs. before Hanukkah they I will be quite happy with myself.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1020

    The whole thing about being stopped up is getting kinda boring. I was able to have a small yet painful movement yesterday afternoon, but it did not help much. I am at the point where I did not even bother trying this morning. My weight is up .2 lb. from yesterday and I suspect it will not start dropping until I can finally get past this… blockage. I added a couple of teaspoons of fibre to my meal replacement shake yesterday, and I will do the same today. Hopefully sometime in the next day or two my system can start to get back to normal.

    While I did not get out to exercise yesterday, my walking with Princess Sophie, combined with my visit to the supermarket, brought my steps total to a respectable 8,600. I do not know if it will get that high today, but we will see. My sleep score was 74… not bad, not great.

    I will report that because I had a pretty bad headache for most of yesterday afternoon I did not, as I had planned, opt for the meal replacement in the evening. I prepared a meal of chicken and salad, and then after eating I took Her Floofness out for a walk.

    It is a beautiful day, but I am going to be in class all day (until nearly 9:00pm). Depending on how I feel then, I might be able to sit on the balcony with a cigar… but we will see.

    Have a great day folks!