Losing a part of me

Category: frustration

  • Day 271

    Welcome to Canada… and to a week of work! I am not really employed, and I do a lot of contract work. This week, I will be teaching an IT Security class, which I rather enjoy.

    The plane ride home was quite comfortable. I was in an exit row on the aisle, and when I took my seat, I joked to the woman in the window seat that we now had to pray that the middle seat remained vacant. I do not know where I get my luck from, but on an aircraft that had two empty seats, the one next to me was in fact one of them, making for a slightly more comfortable flight. As anticipated, I did have the proffered pretzels and cookie, but only one… plus a meal replacement bar at the beginning of the flight. While in the air I wrote an article for my cigar blog on different types of lounges, and then I watched part of a movie I have seen before we landed.

    Getting from the airplane to the house was a lot less stressful than it could have been… and than it has been. I am not sure if it was just a quiet Sunday afternoon, or if the elimination of the Covid procedures at Canada’s airports made it so, but the line to get through Customs and Immigration was much shorter than it has been in recent trips. That, of course, is counterbalanced by the fact that I would have to wait longer for my luggage. The only stressful part of this was my son, who kept texting me and asking where I was. He was collecting me and can be a little tense. Once I was in the car, we headed home, stopping at the supermarket to collect the necessary provisions for the evening, and the next morning. They did not have the chicken pieces I usually get, and I decided to buy a seasoned Portuguese chicken that I would cut in half and make two meals of. I did not think of the sodium content until after I was home, but that’s not the worst thing in the world.

    As I was putting my groceries away, I was surprised to see that I had most of a quart of milk left, and that it still had a couple of weeks before it expired. I was almost disappointed that I bought milk. That disappointment turned to elation when I opened that container to realize that while it did not smell bad, it was much creamier and thicker than 1% milk is meant to be. I did not take any chances, dumping it and starting my new container fresh.

    I did have a snack last night that I should not have eaten. I finished an open container of Goldfish crackers. If that is the worst I did, then I will consider it a pretty successful travel day. The bathroom scale this morning was almost exactly where it was yesterday, but I was unable to move my bowels so I expect that I did well except for flushing my system. It would be nice if by tomorrow I could lose another pound… or at least, part of one.

    I started the day by taking Her Royal Floofness to the park, where she played with some friends, and had a much more successful time pooping than I did. We came home, and while she lounges on the couch, I am at the computer, ready to start my class. I will prepare my lunch during the morning break, which will give me an hour to relax and eat. I had a Canadian meal replacement shake this morning but will have the American ones the rest of the day. I think that is going to be my routine until I run out of Canadian meal replacements, at which time I will be on US ones only. I do not expect the extra 65 calories in the morning will make a huge difference, but we’ll see how I feel.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 123

    Mornings like this are why dieting is so frustrating. Aside from my peanuts (which were not excessive), the only straying I did from the program yesterday was that I made my final meal replacement shake very late at night. Normally, I would like to be done with it by 9:00pm; last night I came in from smoking cigars at 11:30pm. I should have skipped it, but I did not. The results? A full 2.4 lbs increase on the scale this morning.

    My plans for today: While I do have a lot of preparation to do for tomorrow’s class that I am teaching, I first have to go visit my son the younger. That sounds wrong. I love visiting with him and would be thrilled to be taking him for breakfast. That is not what will be happening. His mother (my ex-wife) told me that she has information about an assessment for him, which we need to discuss. She suggested I just come over, and we have breakfast there. Really, the timing could not have worked out better, as I have spent much of this week trying to figure out how to tell her that I am getting remarried. This will be that opportunity.

    Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous and glorious day… if you can discount the one hour when the winds picked up to 100 km/h and the heavens opened up as if expecting me to build an ark. The morning was hot and sunny, the afternoon was hot and sunny… and from about 12:30pm to 1:30pm, Hurricane WTF came through Burlington. I had gone to visit with Lyle, and Ryan, Josh, and Dean were there too. We were sitting out on the patio (basking in the sun) when Ryan said they should hit the road because of the weather. I figured I would do the same – I stopped off to do a couple of errands, and I parked the car in front of my building in time for the rains to start… and my hat and yarmulke both flew off immediately; lucky for me they were caught in the tree in front of the house, else they both would have been long gone. I got into the building with just a few drops of wet… I turned around and saw that I escaped the deluge by three seconds. It was raining sideways.

    Needless to say, I made no further plans to venture out of the apartment yesterday.

    HRF had gone for her walk but was begging to go out again. I smiled inwardly… I showed her what the weather was like outside, and she immediately decided that she did not want to go out, but that a treat was in order. She got one, and we stayed inside and dry until the weather front passed.

    I was shocked when, at 4:00pm or so, I looked outside. Not only was it sunny, but there was no wind. It stayed like that until 9:00pm, and shortly thereafter it started raining again… sans wind.

    Knowing that I am going to the doctor’s office for my official weigh-in this week, I am hoping that my weight loss hiccough of this morning was just that… nothing more than a reminder that A) I should never eat late at night, and that B) Weight loss is neither linear nor predictable… at least, not the points on a graph. Over time, the trend should be predictable, based on honest weight management techniques. It is not abnormal to starve yourself on a particular day, only to discover that you gained a pound the following morning.

    My friend Rabbi Barclay is a very difficult man to reach, except in case of emergency, at which point he is always there immediately. While I had very important need to speak with him these last few weeks, it was not an emergency. We finally connected last night, and had a great conversation about the wedding, including the requirements and possibilities. Yes, Leslie (who lives in Texas) and I (currently living outside Toronto) are going to fly to Westlake Village, California to get married. This is partly because I want him to perform the ceremony, but also because I have a lot of people in that part of the world. I have a few people here, and Leslie has a couple of people there… in SoCal we will have a lot of people who will be thrilled to be able to witness the nuptials. Of course, I might have to fly a couple of people into town… but we’ll see. All in all, I am thrilled that my good friend will marry me to the love of my life. Stay tuned for details… there will be no invitations, but you are welcome to join us in our celebration!

    Have a great day folks! I’m off to see my sons… and my ex-wife.

  • Day 94

    Today’s article could just as easily be titled ‘Perception of Progress: Do not trust your memory!’ I suspect I will have a lot of people who know exactly what I am talking about.

    I am in the phase where I feel like I have lost a lot of weight, and that I haven’t lost anything.

    Anyone who has ever had a huge belly will know that you can put your hands under it and lift it and see just how fat you are. The same goes for man-boobs. You lift them and bam, they are huge. I will not discuss the obesity of a woman’s chest for two reasons. First, having no first-hand experience having them, I cannot speak to it, and secondly, I expect that this is the one area where many women do not necessarily wish to shrink.

    I put my hands under my belly this morning and lifted, and it is truly large. It is easy to get discouraged by the sheer size of my belly. It is hard to remember that three months ago it was that much bigger… and while it is easy to say, ‘I’ve gotten nowhere,’ in truth I know that is it much smaller than it was.

    In fact, when Leslie was here a couple of weeks ago, I remember saying that I noticed that my man-boobs were much smaller than they had once been.

    With regard to weight loss and the shrinking of our body, perception is not in fact reality. That is why we need to measure ourselves. While I weigh myself on a daily basis, I only measure myself very occasionally, and I mark those numbers down even less frequently. My reasoning is simple: Every time I measure myself, I am disappointed. It disheartens me to see that I have only lost half an inch, or whatever it might be, after a month or two or three. It is interesting that I get excited by a 2kg weight loss over a fortnight, but not over losing 2” around my belly in eight weeks.

    After I wrote that last paragraph, I decided to measure myself. I have actually lost about 3” around my belly and a little over 3” around my chest. That is pretty huge, even if I have so far to go. What I have to remember though is that three months ago, my Size-44 pants were all tight, and there wasn’t a single size-42 pair that I could hope to wear. I had shirts that would not even come close to buttoning up, and I had to buy a larger winter jacket because neither my ski jacket nor my spring/fall jacket came close to doing up. Today, some of my size-44 pants are too loose to wear, and the ones that are not are getting there. I am wearing size-42 blue jeans. Most (but certainly not all) of my larger shirts fit or are close to fitting. Both of the jackets that I had set aside are a little tight, but certainly wearable.

    Okay, all of that is great, and hugely meaningful. Some of the other things I have to remember though are that it is not strictly about size. As I walked HRF Princess Sophie this morning, I realized how much more comfortable I am walking her, and how much easier it is to bend down to pick up after her. I am not even referring to the fact that earlier in the week I was able to go for a five-kilometer walk, which is huge… but the everyday things that need to get done are easier to do than they were. I am finding it easier to put on my socks and my shoes. I am not having the same difficulties walking. My knees still hurt when I walk up or down stairs, but that is in part due to injuries. I have an easier time getting out of bed, standing up (either from a chair or from the porcelain throne). I still do not find my low couch to be very comfortable, but I have no problem sitting or lying on it, because I can much more easily stand up from it. All of the activities that were (and still might be) more difficult with all of the weight are getting easier. It is a gradual process, but it is progress.

    A month or so ago, my doctor asked me what exercise I am doing. I told him that I am walking HRF a couple of times per day. He told me that unless I had a larger and more energetic dog, it was unlikely that the start-stop pace of dog-walking was going to get my cardio going. He was right, but now I can go out for those much longer walks when I want to. I will try to do it more often as the weather gets nicer. I know that in a couple of weeks I will be in Cuba, and I will try to get some good walks in there (no excuses on the weather, other than some might find it to be too hot).

    I have a long way to go; in truth, I am probably under one third of the way to the total weight loss I want to achieve. Every journey starts with a single step, and every diet starts with a single day. Today is the ninety-fourth day of my journey, and while there have been bumps and even severe bumps along the way, I am confident that I can continue to lose weight so that in time, hopefully within a year, I can have the slamming body that I always wished I could have.

  • Day 85

    I splurged a little bit and picked up some peanuts when I was at the supermarket yesterday, but that was really my only cheat. Oh, and I had a bunch of lozenges again.

    I am completely fed up with my bathroom scale. This morning I got ten different readings in a six-pound range. You would be fed up too. I decided in the end, after moving the scale into the bedroom and trying again, to keep two measurements in my journal – the one from the bathroom that was about the same as yesterday’s reading, and the one from the bedroom (which has me one pound heavier than yesterday). I am not going to move simply because I live in a nice apartment with absolutely terrible floors… but there are days when I am tempted to.

    My eye has now been bothering me for three days. It was because of that I thought to walk into an optometrist near my barber to make an appointment for a checkup. That will be next week, which is not a problem… or is it?

    It was supposed to be a relaxing day, and when I got back from having my haircut and doing some shopping, I made lunch (the usual), and then decided that I might like to take a little nap. I was not nearly asleep when Leslie called on video chat, and she asked about my eye. She told me that she could tell it was getting worse, and I decided that I would go to the walk-in clinic to see if there was anything seriously wrong with it. Sure enough, it looks like there’s a minor scratch on the eyeball. I have to put drops in twice per day (blech!) for the next five days, and I am wearing an eye patch for a few days to try to rest that eye. Hopefully it will be completely healed in time for my appointment with the optometrist, but I will ask her about it anyways.

    I defrosted chicken for dinner and had the usual chicken leg quarters and a salad. I had a shake for breakfast and another for my evening snack, and so aside from the peanuts, I did exactly what I should be doing. Even though the temperatures were pretty warm (I wore a short sleeve shirt out today, although it was a bit chilly when I walked from the barbershop to the bank and optometrist… in the rain) I did not have time to sit on the patio with a cigar… the surprise trip to the clinic fixed that. Hopefully today I will be able to do that.

    Today is Thursday. I have some reading to do, but aside from that, it is only my class this evening. The forecast predicts rain until around 1:00pm, at which point the sun will come out. I will stay inside until then and will go outside for a cigar and some reading once the weather is a bit nicer. I decided to wear Leslie’s favourite shirt today, and I hope that when the sun comes out it will be warm enough that I can show it off for her. Other than that, the plan is to try to enjoy the day. I hope you enjoy it too!