Losing a part of me

Category: Friends

  • Day 232

    I had a nice day yesterday after my walk, even though a lot of things got turned around. I had a very decent lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, after which I went to see my friends Caryl and Lawrence. They have a fourteen-week-old puppy named Miss Lucy who is absolutely adorable, and filled with all of the puppy energy and love that puppies of that age will have. She and I got along just fine!

    I was on my way to Stephane’s house for the evening when he texted and suggested I come over at 9:00pm – it was currently 6:00pm. I rerouted and came back to my friends’ house, where I had a meal replacement soup (which I have not done in a long time), and had a great conversation with my wife before heading over there.

    The plan for today involves a meal that I have to be careful with. I am meeting my late father’s best friend for lunch at Snowdon Delicatessen, which has Potential For Weight Management Disaster written all over the menu. I will not be ordering a large smoked meat platter with French fries. While I do not know what my options are there, I do know that they do have healthier choices on the menu. They may not be healthy, but they are healthier.

    After that, I am meeting my friend Jess on Mount Royal Avenue for a coffee. It will be nice to see her, save for two things: She is going to give me grief for not bringing Princess Sophie, and she is going to try to press me to tell her why I went dark over the summer. She will not be the first to do that, and I hope I am able to gently convince her that I am not discussing it.

    My evening plans are up in the air, but one of the cigar boys from last night suggested he might invite me over for a coffee. We will see. I understand he makes a truly world class cup of coffee, and I am looking forward to trying it… but doing so in the evening may prove counterproductive to my ability to sleep tonight.

    Everyone in my local cigar clique is excited about the herf this weekend, which is the original reason I planned this trip to Montreal. It will be nice to see everyone, but when Mark asked me yesterday if I was excited about it, my honest answer was that I am not. I know I will enjoy it, but excited? No. I am excited that in two weeks I will be with my wife. This is just another gathering of friends (and several people I do not know) to smoke cigars and enjoy a barbecue. As I cannot really partake in the food part of the festivities, that leaves the friends and the cigars. Most of the people who will be there that I am actually friends with (and not just people that I know) were at Stephane’s house last night… and we smoked cigars. Yes, I will go. Yes, I know I will have a great time when I am there. Excited? No.

    I am kitted out to go for my walk. I am going to pay attention to my right knee, which I noticed last night has what feels like a bruise right in the middle of it. As I do not remember smashing it on anything, I have to assume that it is something else. Knees are funny things, and I do not want to mess around with this. I will remember the two things that I forgot yesterday though… I will take my water and my sunglasses, which will combine for a more comfortable walk than yesterday’s.

    I will write about it upon my return!

  • Day 213

    I love hitting milestones on my weight loss journey. They are one of the ways I measure progress, and to remind myself that the last eight months of depriving myself of so much has paid dividends and has not been a waste.

    As I mentioned the other day, the bathroom scale can be mean, so when my weight jumped 2.4 pounds Wednesday morning I was quite upset. Fortunately, Thursday morning it dropped .8-pound, then Friday another 2-pounds. This morning it dropped another 1.2 pounds, which incredibly dropped me below the 320 pounds mark for the first time since March 26, 2021. It felt absolutely amazing, and the only thing that could have made it better would be if Leslie was here to celebrate with me. As it stands, I have not told her yet (I hope she has been able to sleep in this morning), and I will not publish this entry to my blog until she knows.

    I have lost 22 pounds since I flew to Dallas in June, and just over 75-pounds overall since January. Both of those are huge accomplishments, and the fact that I have so much more to lose will not discourage me. For the first time in a year and a half, I am 100-pounds away from what I weighed in basic training… twenty-eight years ago. I put on a shirt this morning that had been in the bin for over a year, and it felt great that it fit. Hopefully, one day in the next year or so, I will be able to wear my Army uniform again… if only for a moment.

    It is not surprising that when I went dark a couple of months ago a lot of my friends started to worry. I let them all know that I was going through some things, and I did not want to talk about it. I did that to let them know that I was okay, I was just down. As I came out of my funk, I started to see friends again (albeit very slowly). Today I am going to see one of the friends which I have not seen since he threw my birthday party for me. While I had planned to not eat meat until I was back from Dallas, Ryan told me he is going to smoke some burgers for us, and I did not have the heart to tell him not to. Also, the timing of the visit will completely interfere with my meal planning here, so I really should eat. I will not be having bread with them, but I will have a hamburger and some salad. I am now especially relieved that I decided to not have a steak yesterday.

    Princess Sophie will not be coming to Ryan’s house. She is having a play date with her very good friend Charlie, and she would not have it any other way. In fact, when she heard Charlie in the hallway, she begged me to take her to Susan’s to play with him… and when he got to the door, she actually knocked on it! Well, she scratched at it loudly, which is essentially the same things, what with dogs not having knuckles. I love that she has friends and that she is so expressive, yet so well behaved!

    On days when timing permits, we have expanded our morning walk. We now do a 2,000-step tour through the park, past the playground, and out to Forest Run, then back down Tobyn to my street. It likely does not change my daily step count by that much, but it is definitely noteworthy insofar as when we first moved here, walking that much would have me winded and sweaty. Today it is no more effort than going to the washroom. It also serves to ‘get the kinks out’ first thing in the morning. When a fat fifty-year-old man exercises as much as I have been, there are aches in the morning; if I did not have to go out for a walk, I might easily say ‘let the aches heal for a day or two.’ By the time Her Floofness and I are back from that turn, I will usually be feeling ready to go for a proper walk… which I usually cannot do, owing to the obligations of work and such. The proper walk will wait until the end of the day.

    The forecast for today is dry, but tomorrow will be rainy, as will every day through Wednesday when I leave for Dallas. I will go for a good walk when I come back from Ryan’s, knowing that while I might be able to walk tomorrow, it will likely be a wet one.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 205

    After five days of stagnation, the numbers on my bathroom scale were tremendous this morning. I saw a monster 2.6-pound drop from yesterday, taking me to my lowest weight! On the one hand, it is probably an aberration, and tomorrow it will correct itself up a bit. On the other hand, woohoo! I love seeing those numbers… and being able to demonstrate that what I am doing on my weight management program is working is huge for me.

    After four days of not walking, I will be back on the trails todayI I think I mentioned the other day that I plan to substitute my regular chicken (or fish) for a nice juicy steak for lunch today, as an occasional (very occasional) treat to relieve the monotony. While that is great, I still know that I will be paying for that transgression tomorrow (and subsequent days) if I do not work it off, starting immediately. So the steak will be my lunch, and then after teaching this afternoon I will hit the road, hoping to work up a good sweat. It would be nice if I can get 8km in, but I am not promising myself anything beyond suiting up and getting out there. I still feel a slight sensitivity, which I suspect is all in my head. If I detect it returning and getting worse, not only will I cut my workout short, I will also take a trip to the walk-in clinic to have it looked at. I am assuming that it is nothing… but if it is truly something, then there is only one thing that I can think of, and I do not want to think about that.

    My buddy Etienne, a fellow cigar sommelier from the North Shore of Montreal, came in yesterday afternoon. We shared a couple of very nice cigars on my balcony, but at the back of my mind I was thinking to myself that if he was going to spend the night on my couch, I was going to have to speak with him about food. I was concerned that if he wanted to go out for dinner (or order in) that I would be tempted.

    I told him that I did not have anything in the house, but that we could order in or go out. In the end, we opted to go to Fortino’s (supermarket) which has great prepared food options. He picked up a couple of slices of pizza; I picked up coffee beans (I had run out), my steak for today, and four (yes, only four) slices of dried mango. It is a shame that the dried mango you buy in the large bags (at Costco and elsewhere) is so much better than what you can buy at the bulk foods section of the supermarket, but I was not going to risk having that ambrosia in the house as a constant temptation. I ate them as Etienne enjoyed his pizza. Princess Sophie looked at him, then at me, and then decided to sit at his feet, having decided that the dried mango was nowhere near as delicious as the pizza.

    Speaking of Her Floofness, we did not sleep very well last night. We got to bed early enough, after a third walk of the evening. Because Etienne was sleeping on the couch, I closed the bedroom door when we went into the room. Sophie almost always gets onto the bed, and stays there the whole night. However, it would seem, she is comforted by the open bedroom door, and the potential for her to roam the entire apartment. It took her a very long time to get settled, twice going down from the bed and barking (very softly) at the door. Despite being in bed earlier than I had been in weeks (or months), I do not think I was asleep before 1:30am… and her unease woke me at least three times throughout the night. Needless to say, I hope to sleep much better tonight.

    —

    THIS JUST IN! STOP THE PRESSES!

    I was wearing a pair of pants yesterday and I realized that when I tightened the belt to hold them up, the top of the waist folded over the belt. This, for those of you who have never been really fat and then lost a lot of weight, is an indicator that the pants might be too big, and are being held up by a too-tight belt. At the same time, I knew that it was less than two months ago that I dropped comfortably and completely from Size-44 to Size-42 pants, and so I doubted I was ready to drop another size that fast.

    Nonetheless, this morning I decided (halfway through this entry) to pull out the bin of Size-40 pants. On the top of the pile was a pair of Dockers (which are, in theory, the same pants I wore yesterday). I held them up by the waist, and they looked… small. I tried them on anyways… not only did they go on, they fastened comfortably!

    I did not have time this morning to try on any other pair, and it is entirely possible that this is a larger Size-40. This evening, I will try on the rest of them (while on video call with Leslie), and I will see what I can start wearing. If there are more than two pair, then all of my Size-42 pants are being donated.

    Dropping pounds is great, but even a huge drop like I experienced today may show on the scale, but you still do not look smaller from one day (or even one week) to the next. The biggest indicator of success in weight loss is how your clothes fit, and dropping from a higher size to a lower size is big, huge, flashing neon sign non-scale victory, and a true bellwether that what I have been doing is working.

    Of all of the bins of clothes that I separated out early this year, the heaviest was the smaller sizes. Why? When I weigh less, I want to look better, so I buy better clothes… and more of them. During the summer of 2020 I bought several pair of pants, as well as lots of shirts. I am excited that this evening I will be trying those on, and while some of them will stay in the bin (I am sure that a lot of my XL shirts will not fit yet), I am hopeful that several pair of pants will be moved onto my shelves, and the bin will get a whole lot lighter.

    Today is going to be a good day. Despite my fatigue (thanks Princess), I am now invigorated and excited to get on with the day. I frankly wish my class was canceled so that I could spend the day walking and jogging. Of course, I cannot do that, but as long as I stay the course – my meal at lunch, my long fitness walk in the evening, my meal replacements, and no cheating – then I can continue to see results.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 176

    Yesterday I ate relatively normal… but yes, I ate shawarma for lunch and rotisserie chicken for dinner. I avoided temptation several times, including when my friend asked me to get her a Boston Maple Cream doughnut at Tim Hortons.

    This morning I met Esti for brunch and I was mostly good… a bagel with lox and cream cheese with a couple of poached eggs. From there we went to a funeral, and after that is where I went wrong. I picked up 4.5 dozen Montreal bagels to take to various people… two of which I ate with a couple of slices of cheese. Bad Mitch!

    I have now reorganized my trunk three times this trip. I truly regret not leaving my golf clubs at home… and maybe a few other things! I think I am finally mostly satisfied with it, and as long as I can drop my suitcase off at the hotel before collecting Leslie and her son from the airport tomorrow I should be fine.

    I had to make a very difficult decision last night. I have cut two friends out of my life, which is always very difficult for me. However there are things that I can live with, and there are things I just cannot accept. One of the friends I told, but the other I am just going to fade away. It is sad, but it was necessary… for two very different reasons.

    It is 3:15pm and I am still waiting for my passport to arrive so I can head down to New York. I am really stressed, because if it does not arrive today my entire weekend will be ruined. I really need to leave tonight, and if not everything goes to crap. I am sitting, outwardly calm, smoking a cigar. Inside, I am going nuts.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 173

    I am not surprised that I gained four pounds over the weekend, and nearly six pounds since the day of my birthday. It could have been worse. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that in my sadness yesterday evening I had two large bowls of cereal right before bed. Yes, I had a great time at the concert with Lyle and Dorothy and Tamara, but I miss Leslie when she is not there, and so rather than having something reasonable to quench my hunger, I sat down at the table at midnight and chowed down. Today will be better, and tomorrow’s numbers on the scale will be as well.

    Of course, tomorrow morning I am driving to Montreal, which means I will have to be extra vigilant with sticking to my diet, or at least to eating reasonably healthy. At Leslie’s I was able to control what I ate because Leslie and I did the shopping, and she does a good job of helping me to stay honest and on track. While we are meeting up Friday in Long Island, I will be on my own at my friends’ house tomorrow through Friday, and there will be a lot of long-distance driving to boot. There is only one person who can keep me on track, and I shave his face in the mirror every morning.

    I have a neighbour who will be looking after Princess Sophie for the week. She is so wonderful, and I will miss her. Leslie told me that her son really wants to meet her, but first things first. He will meet me on Friday, and next month he will meet Her Royal Floofness.

    I have had a headache for the past hour, so I am going to finish up a couple of things and then try to relax with a cigar, and hopefully talk with my wife.

    Have a great day!

  • Kindly Shut Up!

    I mentioned earlier that I was at a friend’s birthday party over the weekend, and it was a lovely day… that was marred by my friend trying to get me to eat something that I should not eat. In this particular case, he was telling me how good the blood sausage was. I told him that as a practicing Jew, I cannot eat it because it is not kosher. My friend, who was born Jewish but has never practiced the religion, told me something like ‘I know… but today it’s okay to eat it.’ I was truly offended. My friend knew me before I started observing many of the dietary laws of my faith, so I suppose he knows that I would like it.

    It is amazing that thirty-three years after I graduated high school, I am still subject to peer pressure… and this, from an 82-year-old man.

    My relationship with G-d is nobody else’s business, and it is my responsibility alone to eat or to not eat in accordance with my faith. My friend did not hold me down and force non-kosher food into my mouth. I had to make the decision on my own… and I made the correct decision.

    Where I made the wrong decision was when the deserts came out, and I was handed a piece of birthday cake. Again, as someone on a diet, it is up to me to eat or to not eat what I should or should not be eating.

    Where that argument starts to weaken is when people try to tell you ‘Oh, you can diet tomorrow!’ or ‘Just take a break… one piece of cake won’t kill you!’ The (ironically phrased) icing on the cake is ‘Oh you are doing so well! Just have this, it is so good!’

    Let’s put this into context by replacing some of the words:

    ‘Mitch, you are a heroin addict, but you have done so well kicking the habit… one shot won’t kill you!? Just have this, it is so good!’

    Do you see where I am going with this? Food is an addiction and getting off the foods that are so terrible for us – and not just for a day, but for the long term – is extremely difficult, and requires a discipline that many people just do not have. I have been overweight for nearly as long as I have been out of the Army and kicking those terrible habits that I learned for so many years (from people who I thought loved me) is the hardest thing I have ever done. How hard? I have done it twice… and each time I ended up back where I was and am not on my third attempt.

    What is worse is that so many of the people who encourage you to take a day off from your diet are the same ones who told you that you needed to lose weight (or more often made fun of you behind your back). They are often the same people who tell you how great you are looking, and that you should keep it up. They are too often the people who claim to be your greatest advocates for success.

    By the way, some of these people are not actually trying to sabotage your diet… although that is exactly the result. Many of them think that after so many weeks or months of work that you actually deserve that piece of cake, bowl of ice cream, whatever. They do not know what temptations you were exposed to or succumbed to yesterday because they were not there. They do not know what will happen tomorrow because they will not be there. They assume that you can be on a diet 100% of the time… when you are not with them, but when you are with them you should enjoy the same foods that caused you to need to diet in the first place.

    In the end I did not touch the blood sausage, and my religious dietary discipline was maintained. However, the negative advice from my friend consumed my mind, and when it came time for birthday cake, I was not paying attention to the fact that I was doing so well on my diet; I ate the cake and a couple of pastries. While I am always responsible for what I put into my mouth, I was driven to distraction by the negative encouragement. Yes, it is on me… but my friend can claim an assist.

    Let me be clear, and this applies to both religion and to weight management: You can either be my advocate and ally one hundred percent of the time, or you can kindly shut up and keep your critiques and opinions to yourself. Do you remember how well you said I was doing? I did all of that without your advice and I am certainly not going to follow any advice to stop doing well. Some would say that your negative encouragement is counter intuitive. I say it is stupid and offensive, and I don’t want to hear it. Take your ‘advice’ to cheat just this once and shove it up your ass.

  • Day 102

    I was able to stick to the plan yesterday. I admit thinking at one point that a meal replacement bad – in addition to what I had eaten already – would have been nice. I did not indulge – to whatever extent a meal replacement bar would be considered an indulgence – and I went to bed having eaten precisely what I had set out to eat throughout the day. In addition, I enjoyed a single cigar on the balcony, as well as a pot of coffee (enjoyed throughout the morning and early afternoon). It was, in short, a day that went according to plan.

    I am still unsure what my plans for today are. I will either be seeing Lyle and Dorothy, or Ryan and the gang. In the next hour I will make some calls and decide. It is a rainy day out though, so my thinking is that Ryan’s is the more comfortable option; Lyle’s would be to support him through a difficult situation, and if he asks, I will be there.

    Either way, I have to try to stick to the plan. My weight was down this morning, but only very slightly. I know I am seeing the doctor this Wednesday for my official weigh-in and would like to be a couple of kilograms down from last time. In other words, falling off the program (even for a day) would not bode well for that. Also, in ten days I will be on a beach in Cuba with Leslie, and I want to look as good as I can for her in my swim trunks! Okay, I am mostly kidding… but I did buy six shirts for the trip (along with my two bathing suits), and I want them to fit me as well as possible, and not too tight.

    I mentioned earlier that it is rainy out today. Leslie is thinking that might be the reason my knee has been hurting – that it has, as will happen with older people – turned into a barometer. She might be right, although I hope not. I am hoping that the only reasons my knee has been bothering me is because, thanks to HRF Princess Sophie, I am often required to sleep in less-than-completely-comfortable positions. I will have to pay attention to it over the next few weeks though… if it is true, then I will at least know when to expect it. Yes, my younger lady derives quite a bit of humour out of reminding me that I am getting old!

    It is a lovely and typical spring day, and my allergies are in full force. I have been taking allergy meds every day for the last week or two and will make sure I continue to do so. I have suffered from bad allergies since I was a child, and I am at peace with the fact that I might not be able to completely alleviate them, but at least by taking the proper precautions I can keep the worst of them at bay.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 96

    For the second day in a row, the numbers on the scale were lower, setting new lows for this diet plan. I am pleased that I am seeing some progress but wonder as well if I would have been more than 2/10ths of a pound lower had I not had quite so many peanuts throughout the day. I have to go back to my original routine… If I am going to stop and buy peanuts, I can only buy a single handful. While sitting in the car, I have neither the awareness of how many I am eating, nor the discipline to stop eating them. I know that I bought more than a reasonable amount yesterday. I will not do that again.

    Something else that I did differently yesterday was at brunch with my son. In this case, I think I did well. Rather than simply ordering the plain omelet with cheese a four egg-white omelette with seasoned chicken, guacamole and pico salsa served with turkey bacon and fresh fruit. 435 Cals. Considering the cheese omelette I would have ordered is listed at 735 calories, I think I made the right choice. The fruit was a minor indulgence, but otherwise I think the entire breakfast was a good choice. With a squirt of hot sauce, it was quite delicious, and for once I was not at all jealous of my son’s Oreo French toast.

    There were fewer people at Lyle’s for our remembrance of Cameron than I had expected, but that is not unusual on such short notice. Depending on the funeral arrangements, we have tentatively planned to do a proper memorial herf next Sunday, which will give everyone much more time to plan for it. Still and all, the day went exactly as I wrote yesterday that it would.

    It was a beautiful day to be outside, but because of the configuration of Lyle and Dorothy’s patio, we were truly cold… until I had the idea to move our chairs down to the driveway where the sun was shining. Just five minutes earlier, I had gone to my car to my car to put a sweater on under my jacket. As soon as we relocated, I took off not only the sweater, but the jacket as well. We sat out in the sun comfortably wearing short sleeves.

    Spring is finally here, and I have put my winter jacket away. I am hoping that I have worn that jacket for the last time. I hated having to purchase a 4X jacket, but my older jacket (which I thought had fit me the last time I was my largest weight) did not fit, and it is impossible to live through a Canadian winter without proper outerwear. I bought it on November 15th, and I was never comfortable in it… although I was always warm. I know that if I am still living in Canada then I will be buying a new winter coat for next winter. It is not that my old Colombia ski jacket does not fit – I just tried it on, and it does – but I bought it when I was either engaged or married to my first wife, which means it is almost old enough to vote. Of course, I am also hoping that, come November, the jacket that was too tight on me a year earlier will now be too loose for me… but either way, it will be a good opportunity to update my style somewhat. After all, I was in my early thirties when I bought it, and before I wear it again, I will be fifty years old.

    While I was trying on the old ski jacket, I also took a couple of minutes to try on the other jackets hanging in my front closet. I have a spring/fall jacket that is a delightful shade of light blue that fits as long as I do not want to zip it up. I might wear it in a few weeks, or maybe sooner if I feel like it. My Taekwondo vest does not fit yet, but it will in time for next fall/winter. Okay, it is really not a Taekwondo vest… the company I used to work for gave all employees a one-year gift, and I chose a voucher from Land’s End. I chose an insulated vest, which is quite nice and very comfortable… when it fits. Of course, a few months later the company let me go. Thank you Covid. While I had zero interest in ever advertising that company’s brand, I really like the vest. I had a patch from Taekwondo Canada which served perfectly to cover the company branding. Hence, it is now my Taekwondo vest!

    There are so many things that I am looking forward to being able to wear again as I lose weight. I am also looking forward to one day being able to walk into a store and know that they will have my size… and I do not mean walking into a big and tall store, I mean going into a department store and not being treated like Godzilla. For now, I am just really looking forward to feeling better about myself and looking as good as I can for my girlfriend.

    I checked the fridge, and I am completely out of vegetables. Once I finish writing I will head out to the store to collect what I need for the next couple of days. If I did not have a lot of work to do, I would consider walking it again… but that is a long stretch of time out of my day that I cannot afford today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 95

    Sad news of loss is always a potential trigger for bad behaviour. If not outward, then certainly dietary. I was saddened to receive word last night that a friend of mine had passed away. I knew that I could not let my emotions get the better of me, and I stayed the course. I did not indulge. In fact, the only food that I had after hearing the distressing news was my evening shake. I am quite proud of myself for that.

    In short, yesterday I ate what I was meant to eat on my revised program. I had a meal replacement in the morning and in the evening, at lunch I had my main meal, and for dinner I had a salad with salmon. I drank more water than I do most days, but that might be owing to my walk. Five kilometers is a long way to go, and the sweat lost must be replenished!

    While I was feeling the effects of the walk all evening, I am feeling much better for it this morning. I do not feel that my muscles are crying, and given the opportunity, I might happily go for another walk today. Sadly, after spending a couple of hours taking my son for brunch, I will be congregating with friends to mourn Cam’s passing. He was a fellow cigar smoker, and we will spend the afternoon doing just that – smoking cigars in his honour.

    Speaking of breakfast with my son, I will take him, and I will be careful. I know there are too many temptations at a breakfast/brunch table, and I will do my best to stay as true to the program as I can. If on every second Sunday I am going to break my diet routine to spend an enjoyable couple of hours with my boy, then I will do so happily; at the same time, I can focus on good behaviours, and not go nuts. The plan is to have a vegetarian omelet, no potatoes, no toast. It is near to as boring a brunch meal as I can think; my weight did not get so out of hand as to require a year-long extreme weight-loss program to recover by being boring. Knowing that is how I got to where I am (and to where I was three months ago), I will forego the exciting at the restaurant.

    It is a beautiful day out. The sun is shining, and while the forecasted high temperature is 13°c (55°F), it looks like the daytime temps will be a couple of degrees shy of that. I don’t mind… I’ll have my jacket if I need it, and we will sit around sharing stories of our friend. Our friend who never took care of himself. Our friend who five years ago lost his leg to diabetes, and never made any lifestyle changes to prevent the loss of much more. Our friend who has been falling deeper into the depths of despair and depression, who spent so much of his time cloistered in his untidy basement apartment, and who, despite the encouragements of so many of us, did nothing to prevent his senseless and premature passing. In the large group who will be there this afternoon, we will share the wonderful stories of him. When those who were not as intimate are gone, we will lament that we did all that we could, but it was never going to be enough unless he was going to do his part. He stopped doing his part months ago.

    If ever there was a sign from the universe that I am on the right track, and that I need to get myself healthy and into shape, it is this. So yes, I will raise a single dram to his honour today… but I shall neither eat nor drink my sadness away. Unlike Cam, I have way too much to live for.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Lead Me Not Into Temptation!

    Thank you, but I know the way. I do not need any help finding temptation, it is all around me. When it is not around me, I am still tempted by things in my mind.

    To wit: While there are ‘naughty’ foods in my kitchen, most of them are things that are reserved for Leslie to enjoy during her visits. I have never been tempted by Bear Claw cookies or by marshmallows. Don’t get me wrong, they are both snacks that I would enjoy, but unlike other things that could be lurking in my cupboards, I have never salivated over either of these.

    We all have our temptations… our Achilles Heel, if you will. Among my favourites are Buffalo Wings… dipped in batter and deep-fried (or even baked), dripping with sauce… these have been a weakness of mine since I was a teenager. Of course, they have to be really good wings, otherwise they hold little appeal to me. Unfortunately, there is a restaurant which I used to frequent under three kilometers from where I am sitting, that makes absolutely delicious (and sinful) wings. According to their website (www.montanas.ca):

    “Dusted twice and cooked to a crispy finish. Try ’em sauced up just how you like ’em. Served with your choice of dipping sauce and carrot sticks. 390-410 Cals/serving, serves 2”

    That sounds pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? Until you realize that the 8 wings is not 410 calories, rather it is 820 calories, because they are saying that this order serves two. Would someone please tell me what self-respecting (or not) glutton with a food addiction and a particular predilection for Buffalo Wings is sharing this dish with anyone? Nay, pray bring forth the double portion, and if my table mates wish to taste them, they can bloody well get their own! 1,640 calories of deliciousness for myself!

    By the way, the same page of the same website is advertising their cheese nachos at 470 calories/serving… but oh yeah, that order serves four people, so the plate is 1,880 calories. Unlike the wings, this is a huge plate, and likely will be shared… by two or maybe three people, as long as they are planning on a good main course.

    Just like there are social drinkers and solitary drinkers, likewise there are social eaters and solitary eaters. There was a time when I would try to maintain a sheen of decorum… I would eat reasonably in company, and when I was alone, I would go wild. I do not know when that stopped; I do know that after I started my diet, Leslie mentioned to me that she was surprised by how much I was able to eat before. On a number of occasions, I took her to a pub for dinner, and we would devour a large pizza and a plate of wings. By we, I think you can guess who did most of the eating. No, I was no longer ashamed of my eating… or maybe I was, but I was not going to hide it anymore.

    I do not need to get into my car to go to the nearest fast-food restaurants to get a triple burger combo, or to the grocery store to pick up a large bag (or two) of chips. Of course, I probably would drive to either of those places if I was not actively trying to lose weight. There was a time when I would try to justify that ‘If I walk there, I will be burning off many of the calories I will be consuming there.’ No, Taz… according to www.mapmywalk.com, during the 5km walk that I did on Monday, I burned a total of 519 calories in fifty-six minutes. Extrapolating from that math, walking to Wendy’s and back (1.8km) would burn 186 calories… according to the website https://order.wendys.com, a Dave’s Double® burger (with cheese… they do not seem to list the without cheese option on their website) is 860 calories. A medium order of French Fries is another 350 calories. Assuming you add a bottle of water or a diet soda, you are still at 1,210 calories. If you burned 186 calories to get it, you are still over 1,000 calories.

    I have a diet buddy who was telling me just yesterday that she was going to visit some friends, and she was extremely nervous about the pressure she would feel to break her diet. That is very real for some people. It is difficult to say to someone, especially someone who is trying to be hospitable, that no, you do not want what they are offering. No, they cannot get you anything else. It is a bit easier when those people know that you are on a diet. It is just not everybody’s business that you are on a diet… or what diet you are on.

    There are several different responses you will get to the statement, “No thank you, I am on a diet.” These include:

    • You don’t know what you are missing!
    • Oh, come on… just one!
    • These aren’t too bad for you!
    • They are healthy!
    • You can diet tomorrow!
    • What else can I get for you then?
    • What diet are you on?
    • Dieting is bad. What you need to do is… <fill in the blank>.

    I will address these all individually.

    First of all, yes! I bloody well do know what I am missing. Do you think I got to be morbidly obese because I don’t know what really good food tastes like? I do not need to diet because I spent most of my adult life gorging on things that do not taste good.

    Just one is what we call ‘getting the ball rolling.’ Yes, it always starts with just one… and then there will be another one, and five more after that. We do not have the first one so that we cannot possibly have the second one.

    Whether something is bad for me or not does not mean that it is on my diet or not. That is for me to determine, and I do not want your help doing so.

    Avocados are healthy. They are also fattening. The fact that something is healthy also does not determine whether or not they are on my diet. Again, that is not for you to determine.

    Yes, I can diet tomorrow. I can also diet today, and that is what I decided to do. Do you know exactly how many days I said to myself ‘I will start my diet tomorrow?’ How many times did I say to myself, ‘I will just take today as a cheat day?’ I assure you, if we counted them all up, I would be slimmer than Ally McBeal.

    Please, do not get anything for me. I assure you that if I planned my diet properly, I will either eat what I feel I can from what you are serving, or I will not. I might have a meal replacement bar in my pocket, but that is not your concern. Whatever I am doing, any pressure that you might be applying to me is as unwelcome as it is unnecessary.

    If I wanted you to know what diet I was on, I would tell you about it. If I do not, then it is personal, and please do not try to pressure me into telling you.

    Yes, dieting is bad… we all know that moderation is the key. Healthy eating is the key. Eating a half a grapefruit before every meal is the key. Exercise is the key. Getting a good night’s sleep is the key. Walking is the key. Taking vitamins and supplements is the key. With all of these keys, pretty soon I am going to feel like the school janitor in the days before there were master keys. In the meantime, you do you, and let me do me. Is dieting bad? Trust me, so is being fat. Your advice is as useless as it is unwelcome.

    Do you see what I am getting at? There is temptation at every turn, and we cannot succumb to it. We got fat because we did. Is there really anyone on the planet who does not know that a diet of junk food and not exercising leads to obesity? We got fat because we were too weak to resist temptation. We are being strong now, and we do not need anyone’s help to falter. We know where temptation is, and if you think you are being helpful then I assure you that you are not.

    It is too bad that those around us who want to be helpful so often do not understand that unless we ask for their active support, the only thing they can do is to passively encourage us from the sidelines… and sometimes that will be from a distance. If they don’t understand, put it to them this way: When you are watching your favourite sports team losing a game, what can you do to help? Aside from cheering them on and encouraging them from the sidelines, there is nothing else you can do. Running onto the field of play is just not an option. Likewise, the coach does not need or want your advice. Cheer them on, encourage them… nothing else is helpful.

    Dieting is no different.

    Do not lead me to temptation. I know exactly where it is, and I will go out of my way to avoid it, if you don’t mind…