Losing a part of me

Category: Food

  • Day 122

    Another day, another 1.6 lbs down. I definitely have no complaints about the bathroom scale this morning! I still have a couple of pounds left to get back to my lowest weight from May 5, but I am making good progress. I am still relieved that the week of vacation did not set me back much further than it did… which is to say, it kept me where I was!

    Yesterday was a stressful day. Those will happen, and I accept them. I did, at one point, decide to completely fall off the program. I was quite that upset with things. It was only Leslie who talked me down from that ledge. I was nearly out the door ready to go pick up Chinese food… and not the healthy stuff. Yes, I have bad days. In the end, I did veer from the program: I had peanuts (which I seem to be doing every day), and I had a second meal of chicken for dinner, rather than the tuna salad I was going to have. While I will not make a habit of it, I guess doing it the once did me no harm, with the numbers on the scale agreeing with me.

    I will say that I had a tremendously satisfying bowel movement this morning. While that is not something I generally discuss, there are days when you finish on the toilet and say ‘Wow, I must have lost weight there!’ It was a healthy BM, just a large one.

    The plan for today is to stick to the plan, and yes, I will have my peanuts. I am off to Lyle’s to enjoy a cigar with him and Ryan – it is a fabulous day out, and I cannot imagine not being outside enjoying it. Princess Sophie and I went for our walk earlier, and I’ll head out to Hamilton now.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 121

    I really have to start reining in my peanuts buying. I did not go terribly overboard yesterday, but I did buy more than I should have… unless I was going to spread them across a couple of days, which I did not.

    Other than the peanuts I stuck to the plan, and I am happy to be nearly one pound down from yesterday’s weight. My plan for today is to stay the course… make my chicken for lunch (with some steamed vegetables), and a tuna salad for dinner… which will be bracketed by the morning and evening meal replacement shakes.

    A friend might be coming over for a cigar during the day, but he has been historically unreliable, so I am not holding my breath. I also have to prepare for my Monday class, which is a Fundamentals (beginners) class, but that does not mean that I do not want to be prepared for it. I also want to look into the fiancé visa for the US. Leslie has been doing a lot of the work so far (as she is sponsoring me, she has to fill out most of the paperwork), but I still want to review it and see if there are any questions that I can think of that we should ask our legal counsel. We want to do things right, and I feel bad that right now she is doing all of the work. Yes, I know that is because she has to initiate it. I just wish there was something that I could do. As I used to live in Los Angeles, I am a member of multiple Facebook groups for Canadians living in the USA, and I reached out to the groups to see if anyone has any advice or guidance. While I have already received multiple congratulations from members, so far, the helpful advice has not been forthcoming. Grrr.

    Einstein described relativity thusly: “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.” I looked at the forecast for this afternoon and my initial reaction was: “Wow… 24°C… it’s going to be a real scorcher!” Then I realized that every day in Cuba was within a degree above or below 30°C… and that in Dallas today’s projected high is 34°C. It is true then… everything is relative. With the low temperatures around or below 10°C at night, and knowing I needed to wear a hoodie to take HRF for her walk this morning, 24°C seems pretty hot. It’s really mild… and either way, I have no complaints. Tomorrow will be the same (but with rainstorms in the forecast), and Sunday will be cooler (also rainy). Monday (a holiday in Canada) will be cloudy and 14°C. I guess I should not complain about the weather today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 120

    Today is the day that I get back on track. I dropped Leslie at the airport yesterday morning, but before I did, I took her to Stacked for breakfast. While I had the healthy option, I did take a few bites of her French toast. The drive to the airport and dropping her off is always very difficult and sad for both of us, and there were a lot of tears. When she finally made her way to the terminal, I drove home to pick up Her Royal Floofness, who was in serious need of a haircut. I dropped her off at the spa at noon, and went home to have lunch, which was leftover Lebanese food. Folks, I love Shawarma, and while it is healthier than most other fast foods (and healthier still with the salad in place of the rice and potatoes) it is still a bit fattening. This is one of the reasons I knew that this meal was to be my last indulgence… at least, mostly.

    After a short nap, I picked up Princess Sophie… and some peanuts. Let me tell you, she looks so absolutely gorgeous! If you don’t believe me, check out her Instagram posting, where she is showing off her new necklace! Wed came home, and we rested for a bit again. Yes, the late night/early morning return from Cuba took a toll on my nearly fifty-year-old body, and I took two naps yesterday.

    When we woke up (of course, HRF naps with me too) I prepared dinner – my usual chicken with salad. Of course, it was later than I like to eat my dinner, especially knowing that I had been doing so well making my big meal the lunchtime meal. I was still hungry, and I had another helping of peanuts… and eventually I had a meal replacement shake as well. All in all, yesterday was not a good day on the diet. I am ashamed to admit that I also went searching for a couple of other snacks throughout the day. Fortunately I did not find them, otherwise the result on the scale this morning could have been even worse.

    Leslie (my fiancée! I love saying that!) is extremely supportive of my diet. She will love me no matter what I look like (as was proven in December) but knows that I want to make serious changes for me and for my health. She confirmed with me last night that this morning I was going to be getting back on my diet, and I promised her that I would be… and so far, I have done just that. I had my shake when we got back from our walk, along with my coffee. My plan is to make chicken for lunch, then a salad with tuna for dinner, and another shake in the evening. I am hoping that gets me back on the right track.

    Speaking of that track, yes… my weight was up again this morning. It is not terribly up, but it is enough to give me a strong reminder that the vacation is over, and it is time to start eating right again!

    By the way, we did bring sugar home from Cuba. We did not go into a grocery store to buy it, but we did empty a few containers that were on the table with coffee into a Ziplock bag. If you don’t know, Cuba was once one of the world’s leading sugar producers, and they still make a fine product… all natural, no chemicals or refining. Just pure cane sugar. It is amazing, and I now have a pound of it in my kitchen. It will go well with the Cuban coffee that we brought home… which we did buy from a store!

    I will spend a couple of hours at Lyle and Dorothy’s house today, and then will come straight home. It is always good seeing friends! Lyle asked me to bring him something from Cuba, so it will be a good opportunity to deliver that as well.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 119

    There are several reasons why, over the past few days, I have missed blogging. Yesterday, Leslie and I landed at Pearson International Airport shortly after 3:00am; by the time we were through Customs and Immigration and collected our luggage, then drove home to Burlington, we poured ourselves into bed at 4:42am. If it was not for the annoying Covid screening test that she had to take within 24-hours of her flight home to Dallas, we could have stayed in bed and relaxed until we had sufficient rest. As it was, we got four hours of sleep, and while we made it through the day (and through today), we did so quite tiredly.

    There are people who say ‘I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.’ This was not the case for us. Indeed, we got quite a lot of relaxing done over our six days in Cuba. It was a late night flight that was delayed (no surprise) that caused our state.

    No matter. After the screening test, we picked up Leslie’s favourite Lebanese food for lunch, which she truly enjoyed… and which I enjoyed as well, both yesterday and today as leftovers. Yum! We had twenty-four hours left together, and we were going to make the most of them. We picked up HRF Princess Sophie after a quick trip to the grocery store, and we came home and enjoyed a lovely dinner together. It is sad that she had to go home… and that it will be another twenty-nine days before we are reunited.

    All of this time, and no mention of weights. Let’s clear that up. I stepped onto the scale yesterday morning, and I had lost two pounds in the last week. That is a resounding success when on holiday! It is also likely a mostly meaningless number. Travel messes with my system, and I knew that todays and tomorrow’s numbers would be a better reflection of reality. Nonetheless, down is better than up. I was worried that vacation indulgences would see my body weight creep over the 350 lbs mark again. It did not. This morning, I was up from yesterday… but not up to the weight that I was at the day we left. I am about .4 lbs down from then, which is, as I said, a huge success that I will celebrate.

    I should mention that last night I indulged. It was all emotional eating – I knew that Leslie was leaving today, and I was extremely sad. I was also stressed knowing how upset she is every time she has to go home. Let’s assume that the dinner that we shared – chicken gyoza and vegetarian spring rolls from the frozen food section at Fortinos, air fried to perfection, was a necessary meal. The handful of dried mangos that I ate was possibly excusable… fruit may have a lot of sugar, but it is still healthy. The chocolate covered marshmallow with M&Ms was a complete diet aberrance with no redeeming qualities other than taste. It was good, but the sugar rush made me sluggish and almost immediately sleepy. For someone who is not always good at seeing the immediate cause and effects of food, I am happy to see this. Lots of sugar equals no energy a few minutes later.

    We slept well, and this morning, after Leslie took HRF for a walk, we carried her luggage to the car, then went out for breakfast. Yes, I ordered the Healthy Start meal, or whatever they call it. I did not indulge… beyond having two mouthfuls of Leslie’s French toast. Lunch was leftovers, and I am now back on my plan… I hope.

    It was a great week, but now I have to get back to the serious business of losing weight.

    Have a great day everyone!

  • Day 117

    I guess the last few days I have let my journal fall by the wayside. The trip has been a rollercoaster of mostly good and a couple of hard moments, but it is hard to avoid those. As I sit here on the last morning in Cuba, I think back to what I have eaten, and if I will have gained or lost weight, or stayed the same. The simple answer is that I will know tomorrow.


    I have not eaten great these last few days… but I don’t think I have eaten terrible either. I have not eaten anything with sauce, and have mostly had roasted (or grilled?) chicken as my main meal. Yes, I have had deserts with my meals… but I have also walked over 10,000 steps every day. I have had bread with my breakfast a couple of days, and have had mid-afternoon snacks of sandwiches and French fries. I have not been gluttonous about it though. I have had a few drinks, but have not drunk to excess. I have had a lot of coffee beverages, and drank a lot of water.


    The end result is that I don’t feel worse (fatter) than I did a week ago, but I also don’t feel better (slimmer) either. I will easily call a status quo a win after a week on an all inclusive resort.


    It has been hot and humid… about what you would expect from Cuba in May. I did not expect the rainstorms, but we had two of those (Friday evening and Sunday mid-afternoon). The first one was a real storm… Leslie and I were at the fancy restaurant (you can reserve one such meal per visit) when the heavens opened up. We had a coffee and chatted – I love that we have so much in common and can talk so easily – and waited, not for the storm to end, but until it relaxed a little. Yesterday afternoon, we came back to the room as well. There is something to be said about air conditioning when the temperature is in the low 30s, and the humidity is in the 90s!


    Friday and Saturday we spent at the pool, owing mostly to a towel mix-up. Don’t ask. Sunday morning we finished breakfast, then collected our towels and walked down to the beach. Sitting with my fiancée watching the ocean was just amazing. At one point I walked over to the bar and picked up a couple of piña coladas, which for some reason were blue. We then went into the water, and we spent an hour frolicking in the waves. I highly recommend it!


    After breakfast today we will have to pack our stuff and check out of the room by noon, although we will have another six hours on the resort. It is sad that we have to return to reality, but it was a wonderful week, and we will get more wonderful weeks together in the future. I am really looking forward to being able to start our life together as a married couple!


    I should mention that I probably smoked fewer cigars this trip than I usually would have, but that is not because of Leslie, rather because of the box that I decided to smoke. It is a stronger cigar than I could have chosen, and because of that my usual 6-7 cigars per day in Cuba was dialled back to 3-4 cigars per day. I enjoyed every one of them… and so did Leslie.


    Tomorrow we return to reality but we have a few more hours in paradise. We will make the most of them!

  • Day 114

    So yesterday was one of the great romantic days… and no, I did not take time out to blog.

    There will be, at some point in the next week, a full article on Operation National Proposal, the way I proposed to Leslie, the planning, and the lead-up. I will not go into more detail now other than to say that she said yes!

    I have not been eating very well these last couple of days, but I have also not been eating terrible. Yes, I had desert with dinner both nights, and I should not have… but I am on vacation. Yesterday morning I had a vegetarian omelet with a bowl of bran flakes, and some fruit (the fruit down here is absolutely amazing!!). For lunch, my fiancé and I shared a cheese sandwich, and yes I had two glasses of champagne to celebrate. At dinner I had a beef stir fry, some noodles, potatoes, and veggies. Could have been better, could have been much worse. Again, the desert… oh, and I had a glass of rum in the evening. Gotta do it when you’re in Vuba!

    I do not know if I have gained or lost weight so far. I suspect I’m about the same. However I have lost the weight that I have been carrying for seven weeks that was Operation National Proposal; planning, perfecting, putting the pieces into place, and executing… all the while keeping Leslie in the dark. Down to the peacocks it was perfect and it was magical!

    Okay, today is a do-nothing day. Have a great one folks!

  • Day 110

    Travel, whether by air or by car, will always wreak havoc on the bathroom scale for a day or two. The fact that I am up significantly from Thursday is frustrating, but not overly worrisome. The fact that I did indulge somewhat – I had more peanuts than I should have, I had some karnatzl from Smoked Meat Pete’s, I had Corn Flakes for breakfast, and at lunch on Friday I helped Red with some of her poutine… not a lot you understand, but some. Also, of course I had two lovely chicken meals on Saturday – are factors as well, and I will not blame the entire weight gain on travel. I did not let myself go this weekend, but I did not completely maintain discipline.

    I will say though that I did show a level of restraint that I did not previously think possible. There are two feats that I accomplished that I am more or less stunned by.

    1. Saturday afternoon I went to West Island Bagel, and I picked up a dozen Montreal bagels (If you are not familiar with this delicacy then you are missing out!) that were fresh from the oven. I split the bag into two bags of six, which then sat in my car until yesterday evening. The first six I gave to Ryan and Lyndsay, who took care of HRF Princess Sophie for the weekend in my absence. The second six are in my freezer, and I will defrost one tomorrow morning for Leslie to enjoy with Kraft Crunchy Peanut Butter for breakfast. If she wants a second one, she shall have it!
    2. Last week Lyle asked if, while I was in Montreal, I would mind stopping by Smoked Meat Pete’s to pick up a pound of Montreal Smoked Meat for him and for Dorothy. There are some people who will say that they will do anything for friends, and there are some who mean it. I assure you that while Lyle knows of my weight loss plan, that was not on his mind when he asked me to walk into this den of iniquity, this garden of temptation, the home of my absolute diet kryptonite. I figured if I was in for a penny, I was in for a pound… I asked my son (the elder) if he wanted a pound for them to enjoy as well. That is how and why I found myself, returning from the cemetery, standing in line at one of my favourite Montreal delicatessens. It would have been so easy to order the two pounds of meat, and a medium old-fashioned sandwich with extra mustard and a side of fries. How easy it would be to justify that on the day of my father’s yahrzeit I should go and indulge in his favourite meal… it was a tribute and a memorial, and not an indulgence! No. I ordered the meat, and a side order of karnatzl, which was my only deli cheat. It was not good… but it was orders of magnitude better than it could have been, and better than I expected!

    Today is the day. No, it is not the day that I fly to Cuba on holiday – that is tomorrow. However, knowing that this evening I will be picking Leslie up from the airport is, for me, more exciting than going to the island beach vacation paradise. That she and I will be doing that together tomorrow is gravy, but I would be happy just having her here. We have been apart too long! I have a lot of errands to run today, but the last checkbox is to drive to Pearson International and to wait in the Cell Phone Waiting Lot for the call that says, ‘I have my luggage.’ I miss her so much!

    What else do I have to do today? Let’s see… I have a few small things to do, but they are just close-to-home errands. I am not going to go on one of my long walks – I do not want to get onto the airplane tomorrow feeling zonked. I will try to see my son the elder (smoked meat is a good excuse) and possibly even my son the younger (as I will not be able to see him this coming weekend, owing to my being out of town). Like every Israeli, I am not one to pack the day before I travel… but I will do laundry and organize my stuff. I did not look in the fridge so I do not know if I have food in the house, so I might need to do some shopping. Other than that? I have gone to the bank, I have bought everything that I think I need to bring to Cuba (including for my buddy), and if someone were to call me right now to say ‘Mitch, you have to go to the airport in 20 minutes!’ I would have everything I need to throw into the suitcase and go. Of course, I do need my girlfriend to get here, but I am set to collect her this evening!

    One thing that I will do that will affect my blog readers: After posting today’s article (which you are currently reading), I am going to receive a notification from WordPress that reads something like: “You are on a 110-day streak!” While I might be able to blog every day from Cuba, it is not always guaranteed that the Internet will be available. What I will do is this: I am going to write placeholder articles for every day that I am away, and I will schedule them to post at 4:00pm every day. That way, if I am able to connect and post then great, but if I am not, then I will not lose my streak. Yes, that is petty… but what are we gonna do, right?

    Oh, I came to a decision this weekend. I am finishing my current games on Words with Friends and will then uninstall the game from all of my devices. I have been playing the game religiously for eight years, and I decided it is time to stop. It is a good distraction and timewaster, but just maybe I have wasted a little too much time on it.

    I am stressed. I am really looking forward to seeing Leslie tonight, which will make my life better… and then we go on vacation, which will make our lives even better.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 106

    Isn’t that the way that it always goes? Yesterday morning, I weighed myself on my bathroom scale before going into the doctor to get weighed for my ‘official weigh-in.’ Based on that number, I was not at all surprised to find that I was less than one kilogram down from my previous official weigh-in. It was lower, and that is great… it just was not a significant loss. This morning when I stepped onto the scale, I was a full two pounds down from yesterday! Had my doctor’s visit been today instead of yesterday I could have been a full 2.5kg down. Okay, I take these things in stride. Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint. The interim check-ins matter less than the final result. On the other hand, those interim check-ins are the encouragements that push you forward on those difficult days; it feels great to be able to punch your fist into the air proclaiming ‘Look what I did this time!’ I will have to save the air-punching for my next weigh-in.

    Speaking of my next weigh-in, it is three weeks from yesterday. While we will be back from two weeks from yesterday, we are landing late the night before (and really, early that morning), and I do not see me getting into Toronto at 2:00am (which means I cannot possibly be home in bed before 3:30am), then waking up to be at the doctor’s office just a few hours later. Let’s put aside the fact that I will have been off my diet. Thus, I opted to defer my office visit by a week, choosing to maintain the regular Wednesday cadence… just pushing it out by one week.

    I just got the call from my bank that the Euros that I ordered are ready to collect. I do not think I need anything from the store, so I might decide to walk to the bank, which is a little further than the supermarket… but not by much. Actually, according to Waze, it is 2.4km from here, which means the round trip would be around the same 5km that I have walked very well a couple of times. The weather seems to be agreeable, so I just might do that.

    I made a different dinner than usual last night. I defrosted a couple of salmon filets and rubbed them with sesame oil before putting them in the air fryer. When they were ready, I put them on a plate, and put a line of Tabasco sauce down the middle. I then spooned salsa onto it. Served with a side salad, I think it came out very well! It is definitely a dish that I will be trying again. I got the idea after my breakfast out last weekend, where I really enjoyed the pico de gallo on my omelette. When I mentioned this with my beloved, she told me that she had suggested I cook with salsa, and she is right… and she was right! I will be doing more of this for sure.

    Okay, it is time to do a few things, then I will change into my track pants and head to the bank. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 105

    Okay, my weight is down from my last doctor’s visit… but not a lot. I have to focus. Maybe I have to eat fewer peanuts.

    Today will not be overly an overly taxing day. I will spend a couple of hours putting together my slide deck for tomorrow evening’s presentation, but that is about all I need to work on. I am tired, so I might take a nap. I am really looking forward to the weekend in Montreal and seeing my friends there.

    I did speak with my doctor about my allergies, and he prescribed a new medication that he said might work better than the over-the-counter stuff I have been using. I took the first pill today. We’ll see.

    I don’t really feel very talkative today, so rather than blathering on, I will keep today’s short and to the point. Have a great day!

  • Day 103

    Again, the only transgression of yesterday’s intake was the peanuts. I think I am doing okay. I am once again down ever so slightly from yesterday, and I hope to continue on the path… a little bit lower every day. I know it will take a year or more to reach my goal, but I will continue to press on.

    While I am not in need of more pants, I was trying to figure out why it is that I have so many pair of size 44 pants, and then so many size 38 pants, and so few in size 40 and 42. Looking back, I recall that I was playing a game with Amazon, skirting the limits but still within the rules. I would order a few pair of pants in a size, knowing that within a few weeks (when I was on the extreme program) I would return them, and then purchase the pants in the smaller size. Add to that, I also gave several pair to a buddy of mine (who also suffers from the same affliction around the waist). That explains it. Of course, the ridiculous number of shirts that I have is a different story. Pants have to fit right, but a shirt can go from tight to loose to very loose, and still be wearable. For example, the golf shirt that I wore Saturday was very loose, but still perfectly fine to wear. With pants it is different. At a certain point a belt drawn too tight just looks silly.

    It was an emotionally difficult weekend. I do not think I did very much on Saturday, but Sunday I spent the afternoon with Lyle and Dorothy. Our friend Cameron’s brother came over to take an initial look at what has to be dealt with, and I wanted to be there to offer moral support. I had some other things going on as well, but that is all part of life. I did some shopping as well – I picked up a few things from Walmart (including sunscreen, which upon my return home I realized I have a lot of, and something that Leslie asked me to pick up), and I went to Bulk Barn (where I bought a handful of peanuts for myself, and a bagful of chocolate covered marshmallows for Leslie and her son). I also finally exchanged an empty propane tank which has been sitting empty since March or the beginning of April. It is amazing how much less of that I use when it is not the dead of winter, and I do not need the heater blasting in order to smoke a cigar.

    I have some errands to run this morning, which I should have finished in time to pick the cleaning lady up from the train station at 11:00am. Once that is all done, I will spend some time working on my presentation for later this week. While it has been a long time, the subject matter is one that I have spoken on countless times and am not worried or stressed over it. I do, however, need to put the slide deck together, or else I will be unprepared, which does not appeal to me.

    Food plans: stay the course! I should mention that I thought briefly about going for breakfast yesterday. The healthy omelette breakfast meal that I had last week was actually very good, and I considered treating myself. In the end I decided against it. It was an unnecessary indulgence. It is nice to have as a treat when I take my kids out, but indulgences that are indulged in too often become habits. Next week, starting Tuesday, I will be off my diet for a week. Leslie comes in late Monday evening, and I will let myself have a little bit of freedom. No, I will not gorge or indulge, but I will put the program aside for a week. Until then, I think my peanuts are enough of an indulgence, and I do not need to go for breakfasts as well.

    Have a great day folks!