Losing a part of me

Category: Health

  • Day 327

    Yesterday was mostly a success. I had an extra protein in the evening – Not a full meal, but one chicken leg – because I was quite hungry after a good workout. I also had some dried apricots before the workout for carbohydrates. Neither of those is likely the reason my weight was slightly up this morning. That is most likely from the inability to move my bowels this morning. If I can get back on track these next few days, then I have confidence that my weight will begin to fall again.

    I am not worried about the bowels by the way. I have a good friend who spent a week suffering from constipation so bad that he tells me he was vomiting and needed to see a doctor. While I am usually regular enough to set a clock by, I have been known to miss a day… especially when I have had diarrhea for a day or two, followed by a really good BM. If I go two days without a successful poop, then I might consider speaking to my doctor… if I am in pain, which thus far I am not.

    I mentioned that I had a good workout yesterday. Yes, I finally got back into the gym. I did a little over two miles on the treadmill, and then some weight machines. While doing leg extensions, I started to feel that the issue with my knee might not be gout after all. As my doctor requested, I will get an x-ray done this week. It is entirely possible I have a touch of osteo-arthritis… not a pleasant option. With that said, it is still a manageable condition that if I have to, I can live with.

    While it was supposed to come Friday, I finally got the call this morning that my new (replacement) mattress is being delivered today between 1pm-4pm. Yes, it was always supposed to be delivered today, they just told me I would get the call about the timeframe three days prior, rather than the day of. Okay, that is not a problem. I was scheduled to be here all day until the call came. Now I can manage the rest of my day… I did not have plans to go anywhere today but decided in the end to change my haircut appointment from next week. After all, I am teaching on camera this week, and as my wife pointed out last night (again), the beard has gotten quite a bit out of hand!

    My personal trainer emailed me that she is back from vacation, and we are scheduled for our next two sessions. Tomorrow morning at 10am is the next one, which means that if I want to be ready, I have to be at the gym by 9:00am to do my stretches. I think she is great, but I also think she is completely unrealistic with the stretches that she wants me to do. I plan to tell her that tomorrow. I know, she wants me to be buff and toned and everything… I do not believe that in order for a fifty-year-old man to stretch for his exercises, he needs to balance his back leg on a bench and do maneuvers that he feels zero balance on and is afraid he is going to injure himself on. With all due respect, there has to be a better way. I know that what she is showing me is great, and probably better for people who plan to be hardcore… anything. I do not have to be hardcore; I just need to be limber enough to not injure myself when I work out. I will go into the gym early tomorrow, and I will stretch… but I will stretch as I would in advance of a Taekwondo class, which will not involve any apparatus or implements, just me.

    Today is a cool and cloudy day. The forecast is for a high of 0°, which is about average for this time of year. It is also calling for wind gusts up to 20 km/h, which means that there will be a sustained breeze. All this to say that it will be a comfortable day for walking my Princess Sophie, as well as for sitting on the balcony with a cigar this evening, should I choose to do so. We will see. In the meantime, I am going to try to do some studying today, as well as preparation for my class which begins tomorrow evening. I am currently waiting on someone else for something, which is never fun… I do not understand why the site is saying that they can reset my password automatically, but that option is just not working. Yes, I know it is a technical glitch, and that they are not open on the weekends… but what a pain!

    I guess I forgot to close this as other errands and tasks came up. My day has so far gone well – I went for my haircut (without any stops for cheats along the way), I had my lunch (the normal chicken with salad), and my mattress was delivered. I think I should go do some grocery shopping because I finished all of my vegetables today.

    I realized that tomorrow will be tight – after my morning workout with the trainer, I will come home and make a quick lunch. The World Cup match is at 2:00pm, which means I need to be done with lunch and on the road by 1:30pm. In the worst-case scenario – if the game goes to extra time and then to penalties – the game will be over by about 5:00pm… but if it does go that long, I will have to cut out around 4:30pm. I am teaching tomorrow evening, and I like to be logged on early for my class – especially the first day. Here’s hoping that my Argentina side wins handily in regular time!

    It is amazing how easily a day can get away from you. What I thought would be a simple day in a simple week has since changed completely. While I usually close my journal entry early in the day, it is now 4:15pm, and I just got off the phone with a training broker who wants to work with me. That phone call lasted over an hour, most of which was not discussing professional topics… although he was extremely complimentary about my speaking voice and cadence, which as a trainer is important. I also had to spend some time on the phone with tech support for the company that provides the labs for my class that starts tomorrow. I have not gone shopping, but plan to try to do that now. I am not going to the gym this evening – I have a session with my trainer at 10:00am tomorrow, and those two would be too close together. I will do my shopping, and then at some point I will take my Princess Sophie for a walk. I forgot to put it on this morning, so my fitness watch is reading 1,000 steps at 4:15pm. Not nice. Gotta make some of them up!

    Have a great day folks… whatever is left of it!

  • Day 309

    I have said before that I am blessed for my health. Not once, but three times I have been so morbidly obese as to worry doctors. And yet, with the exception of my gout, I have never had an actual health scare that turned out to be a real something. When I was turning thirty-nine, I was getting dizzy and light-headed and came close to passing out when driving. After a number of tests, it turned out that I needed glasses. That does not count as a real scare. Before I started losing weight the first time, my doctor told me that I had indicators of being pre-diabetic. Those disappeared when I lost a few pounds and has not reoccurred since. That too does not count as a real scare. My gout, for all of the pain and discomfort that it causes me, is relevant to my diet, but not to my overall physical condition. As I said before, I have been blessed. There are not a lot of middle-aged men who are morbidly obese who can say that.

    I am reflecting on this today because a very close friend told me yesterday that he had a minor stroke last week, or rather a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack). It happened the day after I collected him and his wife from the airport to drive them home. It happened the day after they gratefully handed me a slice of pizza that they had smuggled into Canada from Rome, Italy. It happened a day after we talked about how great he was feeling, and how much walking they had done on his trip to Italy. It shook me. I messaged him yesterday to ask him what time Leslie and I should come over today for our scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner. The response was unusual from him: Call me now please. While we speak on the phone all the time, it occurred to me that he has never asked me to call, certainly not with any urgency in his tone.

    I hope I can be forgiven for not reaching out to him these last ten days. On the day that he suffered his TIA, I not only started teaching my class, I also realized how much pain my knee was in. Over the next few days, my ability to walk was hindered, and I could hardly go to a doctor as I was teaching my class all week. I was stressed that in the middle of this class I was teaching, I also had to take time out to meet with the psychologist who was evaluating my son the younger for his educational assessment. I was stressed about that and was also anxious that Friday my wife was coming to visit. For a couple of days, I was also stressed that Eduardo had asked me to pick him and his wife up early Friday morning and drive them to the airport, meaning that it would be an extremely long day. While the stress of that would be relieved, it would soon be replaced by a call from my ex-wife that my son the elder had a series of seizures and was transported to hospital for unknown reasons. For three days he lay in intensive care, sedated and intubated… for reasons nobody could explain. All of this weighed on me, and in fact it is not uncommon for me to not speak with even my closest friends for weeks on end. It does not mean that we are angry, it simply means that we are busy.

    When Lyle told me what happened I was truly shaken to my core. As he continued to try to apologize that he had lost track of time and would not be preparing Thanksgiving dinner for us, Leslie and I were just concerned for him and his health, fancy meals be damned. Today at lunchtime she and I will take him a quart of soup. We will sit with him for however long he is comfortable, and then we will take our leave. We will likely not even stay for lunch; we will just deliver the soup for him.

    Leslie and I talked after we got off the phone with him, and we discussed how this is a strong reminder that I have to keep to my weight loss and workout goals to get healthy and slim. I want to spend a very long and healthy life with her. In order to do that, I have to live a very long and healthy life. The steps that I am taking (and must continue to take) are a big part of that. I have been so lucky all these years to be healthy despite my obesity. I have likened it before to gambling; I have been ‘playing with the house’s money’ in a casino; anybody who knows anything about gambling knows that given time, the house always wins their money back. The trick to winning is knowing when to get up from the table and to be happy with what you have won, rather than pressing your luck and expect to continue to win. I have to walk away from the table now. I need to lose the weight and get into shape now, before the casino takes its money back. I need to get healthy before my not-unhealthy streak comes to an end.

    I do not know what else we have planned for today, but Leslie and I will likely just take it easy. It is going to be warm out, so we might sit on the patio with a cigar (or two) this afternoon. We’ll see. Right now, I am only concerned about seeing Lyle, and making sure that he is okay.

    Today is Thursday, and so I am supposed to meet with my diet buddy. We have not spoken since her surgery, and I know she was recovering in, of all places, Yukon. She was supposed to fly back into town this past Monday, and I have reached out to ask her if we are speaking today. I hope we do, but that will be up to her. I still wonder if now that she has had the surgery if she will be as motivated to meet. We’ll see.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 206

    I was expecting the numbers on the scale to be higher this morning, owing to two factors. First, yesterday’s 2.6-pound drop was one of those great ones that is usually too good to be true, and dials itself back the following day. Additionally, I treated myself with a gorgeous (if too large) steak yesterday for lunch, and I expected the consequences to be a slight weight gain. In fact, while there was no drop, there was also no weight gain. This could be because I pushed myself on a 10-kilometre walk, which compensated for (and burned calories from) the steak. Whatever the reason, I am happy with it.

    I have two bags of clothes waiting to go today. The first is clothes I am going to take to drop in a donation bin. The second is clothes I am taking to the tailor to have her alter because of the weight loss. I have worn the vest and the sports jacket a few times, but of the three shirts I had custom made, one of them has never even been unfolded. I suspect that there will be little she can do about the shirts, but the jacket and pants should be adjustable. I hope to have them back in time to take to Dallas with me, so that if I take my wife out for a nice evening, I can dress up for her.

    There are several side effects to being fat and fifty years old. There are even more to being an active fat and fifty. One of these is that the morning after I walk, my ankle causes me problems. Once I am walking (even just walking the doggo) it is fine, but as I am puttering around the house to get ready, and then walking to the elevator, my ankle is bothering me, and feels like it is going to give out. It never does, and once I get moving it seems fine. The joys of age and weight… my body does things that remind me constantly that I am neither young nor slim, and that it has been many years since I have been consistently active.

    I could have slept more last night, but sometimes our bodies or minds do not cooperate with that. I seem to have no problem getting back to sleep after getting up to pee at 6:15am, but if I get up to pee after 6:30am, I am done for the night. I do not think it is substantially lighter in my room, but there is something about that 6:30am threshold that seems to be a barrier to my returning to sleep… unless I am zonked, at which point it is possible. This morning was not such a morning, and so I was up and hitting my bathroom routine at 6:40, and by 7:30 I was out with Princess Sophie. Of course, that gives me the entire day to be productive. I remember the old saying ‘Early to bed, early to rise…’ The early bird might get the worm, but I am not a big fan of worms and would just as soon have gotten another hour of sleep.

    Plans for today: I will be going to the tailor of course. I hope she is able to help. After that, I am driving to Hamilton to spend a couple of hours with Lyle, whose wife is visiting with her father today. It is always good to sit with friends and enjoy a cigar. Because of that, I will adjust my eating schedule somewhat, and will have my meal in the later afternoon, rather than at noon. Afterwards, I hope to go for another fitness walk. It will likely not be as long as yesterday’s, but getting out is what is important, and not beating my previous score.

    I had a realization about habits yesterday which I am going to write about in a separate entry, but suffice it to say that I have not yet gotten into the habit of walking on a regular basis… at least, not to the point where it is automatic. I really need to get there. Until I do, I will continue to remind myself how important it is that I keep walking for my continued improvement, both in weight loss and overall health.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 197

    It could not last forever. After a seven-day streak of my weight dropping (by nearly six pounds), this morning it was up… and rather significantly, if not disastrously. Yesterday morning the numbers were flirting with crossing a major milestone, which this morning is a full two-pounds away. I know I will get there in the next few days, but my hopes of crossing below 325-pounds this morning were dashed, and I am now a full two pounds from that goal. Tomorrow is another day, right?

    There is a tendency that I remember from my first ever true attempt at weight loss, maybe eighteen years ago. It was not uncommon for me to cheat on a particular day, see no ill-effects the following day, and then see weight gain on the second day. Likewise, if I had a really good day, I might not see weight loss the next day, but the day after I would drop.

    All this to say, I am wondering if the numbers on the scale this morning might be reflecting the bag of popcorn I ate on Tuesday. It probably is not, but it will be interesting to watch for going forward. I know that I has very good yesterday, and my only cheat was a Japanese biscuit after lunch. That was followed by a seven-kilometre walk that saw my fastest cadence (steps per minute) recorded yet.

    I am thrilled that Princess Sophie had, for the first time since Saturday, a solid bowel movement this morning… after sleeping through the night for the first time in that time. Her Mommy and I have been very worried about her, and I was planning to take her to the vet on Saturday if she was not better by then. I am still going to keep a close eye on her for the next few days, but I am hoping she is better. I will say that she had a helluva romp this morning, first with her friend Charlie, and a few minutes later with Lewis and Louis. While she has not lost her playfulness in these last few days, I still see it as a good sign.

    I had another wonderful video date with my wife last night. She is such a wonderful woman, and I am really not liking this long-distance thing. When I am down there in a few weeks, we are going to have a serious discussion about how to remedy that as quickly as possible. Because of the immigration issue, it will not be overnight… but however quickly it can be, we both really want to be together. I love that I can see her every night, but I hate that I cannot hold her in my arms. It is time to figure out the ultimate solution so that we can be together forever.

    My plans for the day are to stay the course. With the exception of the popcorn the other day, I have been good, and the results have been obvious. I am currently three kilograms slimmer than I was on my last official weigh-in day, which is far and away the best two-week loss I have had since I started getting weighed at the doctor’s office. Of course, owing to my teaching schedule I will not be back for another weigh-in until August 24, which is nearly three-weeks from today. I am hoping that in that time I can lose another three kilos, and hear the doctor say to me ‘Is this right?’ He has known me for fifteen years and knows that I can achieve anything I set my mind to; he has also seen me stagnate, and he has certainly seen me falter a number of times. He is a nice guy, but I am not trying to make him happy; I want him to be impressed because of my success, I do not want to succeed to impress him.

    While my heel is reminding me that I might want to change out my footwork, I am not feeling any other ill effects of my working out. That includes my ankle, which did not seem to bother me when I took Her Floofness for her walk this morning. I note that for two reasons. The first of which is the obvious and immediate… yes, I am feeling better, and I can plan for a good walk this afternoon and not have to worry about taking time off for injury.

    The other reason is because I remember back to my first few walks, and then to the first few where I pushed myself. After all of those, I would come home and nearly collapse in place, avoiding falling into bed only because I was disgustingly sweaty. The following day, I would feel my muscles aching with the reminder that they were not used to being used, and needed time to heal. While I certainly can feel in my leg muscles that they are recovering from the walk, I am raring to go for another one this afternoon after class. That is a sure sign of real progress, and a real non-scale victory.

    Adding to that NSV is the fact that I am walking better. I do not mean when I am pushing myself to exercise, rather when I am walking down the street, taking Princess Sophie for a walk, or whatever. Even walking through the supermarket, I feel lighter. It is, frankly, exhilarating. The phrase ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’ comes to mind, knowing that as I continue to lose weight, my stride will continue to improve.

    It is good for me, on days when I am disappointed by the numbers on my scale, to remember how far I have come, and how sluggish I was just seven months ago. Forget that, just a couple of months ago I was still strides behind where I am today. For reasons I cannot recall, the other night I reached down between my legs from behind with one arm, and was able to clasp my hands through my legs… without my enormous belly getting in the way, and without the pains of ‘fat bodies do not move like that!’

    Don’t get me wrong… according to the numbers, I am still morbidly obese. Hell, according to what I see in the mirror, forgetting the numbers. According to the charts I look at online, I am still a good twenty-five pounds away from a promotion from morbidly obese to simply obese. According to those same charts, I am roughly one hundred pounds from simply being overweight. Those numbers are daunting, but they are also the goals that I am setting for myself.

    If it sounds like I am getting down on myself, let me assure you that I am not. I am being realistic and using that to encourage myself to keep going. I will not lose one hundred pounds in this calendar year – that is simply not realistic, and if it is, there is no healthy way to do so… at least, without surgery (either stomach surgery or limb amputation). However, rather than saying ‘It has to be done this year’ I say ‘I want to do it, I am committed to doing it, and I am willing to be patient with my progress knowing that I am doing the best that I can.’

    So, what is realistic for this calendar year? We are in the eighth month, and I am 7.5 months into my weight loss journey. I have lost nearly seventy pounds in that time. Another seventy pounds is not realistic… but would it be doable to lose another forty pounds in the remaining months of the year? That would take my weight loss to about 110-pounds, and would bring my weight down well below the 300-pound mark. That is possible. Now, if I stick with my regimen, it is possible that I could lose even more… but I am not going to get myself excited and set myself up for failure. Yes, it would be nice to get down to 260lbs, but doing that by the end of this year – or even by Day 365 (January 19, 2023) is a lofty goal. I will get there… but I will get there when I get there.

    Leslie and I had a conversation last night about my weight loss that resonated with me. She has been encouraging me to lose the weight, but at the same time, I know that she was attracted to me when I was at my heaviest. She made it clear last night (although not for the first time) that she wants me to lose the weight because she wants me to be healthy, because she wants to spend as many years as possible with me. I want that too. I want to be able to live a long and healthy life with her, and losing weight (and getting back into shape) is a huge part of that. I do not want to find myself ten years from today with a pacemaker and a bland diet that is medically prescribed lest I drop dead of another heart attack. I want to live a long life with her… and I want to be able to eat whatever I want!

    Over the weekend my friend Eduardo is coming over for a cigar, and I am going to ask him to take a picture of me exactly where and how I was standing when we took the ‘before’ picture on the day I started this journey. I look in the mirror today and I still see a fat man, but with all of the progress I know I have made, I am looking forward to seeing those two pictures side-by-side. Yes, I will post the two on my blog for the world to see… but I am not doing it for them. Leslie sees my progress, and it is easy to see so many ways that I have improved these last seven months. It is important for me to stop seeing myself as a fat man, and start recognizing the huge improvements I have made… even on days when I cannot see positive changes from day to day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 167

    I got onto the bathroom scale this morning and got a huge shock. After my 2.4lbs drop yesterday, this morning I was down another 3.8lbs from yesterday. I still say that every small increment helps, but these occasional huge drops are always nice too! The real tell will be tomorrow morning. I will be seeing the doctor for my official weigh-in. I have not been to his office for an official weigh-in since Day 139, so it is nearly a month. Unless something goes very wrong between now and then, I am expecting to see a huge drop – at least four kilos down from my last weigh-in, conservatively. I am crossing my fingers. At the same time, I know that hope is not a strategy, and so I will also be eating well today.

    Speaking of that, we started with a very nice omelet this morning. I sautéed some mushrooms and onions on one burner, while preparing the six-egg omelet in the other. I have been playing with blending the eggs rather than beating them by hand; yesterday it was too… something. I had them in the blender for seven seconds. This morning I kept it to three seconds, and according to my lovely wife, I got the consistency perfect today. Yay! Of course, I also added some cheese and dill to the mix, and it was quite lovely. Add to that my morning coffee, which is quite important. For nearly three weeks in Dallas, I made do with an inferior coffee blend (which was nobody’s fault but my own). It is wonderful to be home to my Pane Fresca blend of French Roast mixed with Belgian Chocolate.

    It was raining this morning when I took Her Royal Floofness for her walk. Not a big deal, but we did get wet. Fortunately, I have hats to keep me partially protected. We did not go as far as we often do, but she was able to accomplish what she needed to, and that was the important part.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 153

    I have posted on my blog these last few days, but I have not written in my journal. Why? Here’s what has been going on.

    Friday, I thought I was just exhausted because of the release of anxiety from being allowed back into the United States. I also felt I was catching a cold, which at the time I attributed to sleeping with the ceiling fan on high. Leslie and I went to get our marriage license, and we went shopping for a few things. I am honestly having trouble remembering some of the things that we have done… reasons to follow. Because Leslie is not a coffee drinker, we decided that we would stop at Starbucks on the way to get our license. They did not have the usual low fat turkey sausage sandwich I would usually order, so I decided to try the Impossible sausage something or other. It was very tasty! We came home for lunch – Leslie steamed dim sum for us, which was really tasty! For dinner, Leslie had marinated chicken, and I made roasted veggies. Afterward we went down and sat by the pool with a cigar. It was lovely.

    Saturday morning, I made us an omelet (which turned into a scramble). We made a valiant effort at making coffee in a device she had, but that failed… we decided to buy a French press coffee maker during the day. We went to a mall after breakfast, where I was able to buy Leslie something cute. After that, we found a good shawarma restaurant for lunch which was very tasty. For dinner we went out for pho, which was quite good as well.

    Sunday was Father’s Day, which is still hard for both of us. We both lost our fathers in the past few years, and we miss them. In the morning we went to a Guatemalan restaurant that her father introduced her to. By the time we sat down to eat it was more like brunch, so we did not eat again throughout the day until dinner. I made a breaded salmon with grilled vegetables for dinner which was quite tasty. We spent the afternoon in the pool, relaxing. It was when we returned to the apartment after dinner, both of us extremely sick and run down, that we decided that she should take a Covid-19 test. She failed, which is to say that we are both suffering the effects of Covid. Not fun, but at least it explains why neither of us was in very good spirits or was very energetic these last few days.

    We spent Monday chiefly in bed. We ventured out only to get the necessary supplies – that is, we found a Jewish delicatessen that makes chicken soup with matzah balls and kreplach, which we took to go (along with a couple of nice deli sandwiches). Leslie called in sick (and considering that her team had an in-person lunch meeting, everyone will agree this was a good decision), and we did little other than resting. For dinner, we polished off the rest of the soup, as well as the sandwiches (they were large sandwiches, so we only had half of them for lunch). Additionally, Leslie did her best to finish her leftover shawarma.

    Tuesday (today) Leslie decided to work… mostly because she had no customer calls, so she could log on and do research without actually speaking with anyone. We went back to the deli for more soup, and for dinner I made chicken and salad. While she is still feeling like crud, I can tell that Leslie is on the mend, comparing her ability to sit upright today to yesterday. I am really getting better, although that is not to say that I want to go for a run yet.

    I was very excited to see that my weight is where it was Thursday morning. I say that because Friday through Sunday it was up about five pounds, which I initially attributed to the travel (which always adds some weight), but also to the delicious tacos we enjoyed when I arrived. I do not know that I did anything special then through now to lose the weight – I have certainly not been exercising, but at least my portions are much smaller than they usually are. I hope I can continue with that going forward… large portions equals slow or no weight loss.

    Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 152

    Covid sucks. That is all.

  • Was it a Workout… or Two?

    I set out to go shopping this morning… on foot. It is the second time that I have done that since I started the program, and we are sixteen days since my last one. I have not worked out in that time.

    More than two weeks ago, upon returning from that first (grueling) walk, I wrote a piece which I titled: “But Was It a Workout?” I always find it important to keep track of my walks and eventually jogs so that I can push myself to do better than I did last time… even if I am just walking to the store.

    Granted, the store that I walked to today was 2.5km away. Like I did the last time, I paused my tracking when I walked into the store and restarted it when I started walking home again. I do not want my browsing the aisles (which I will obviously not do at an ‘exercise pace’) to skew my statistics.

    Here is the summary of today’s walk:

    · Distance: 5.00 km (4.02 km)

    · Duration: 56:00 minutes (50:05 minutes)

    · Average Pace (Min/km): 11:11 (12.16)

    · Steps: 6.3k (5.4k)

    · Calories burned: 519 (402)

    · Elevation gain: 14.1m (12m)

    · Average cadence (steps per minute): 114 (110)

    While this is only my second measured workout of the year, there is marked improvement in every measure. I put the previous workout in brackets. The workout was six minutes and one kilometer longer, my pace per kilometer was more than a minute less… all of that, with a heavy wind in my face on my trip back. Still and all, my worst kilometer this time (5th kilometer, 11m43s) was over 30 seconds faster than my best kilometer last time (1st kilometer, 12m16s). My best kilometer (2nd, 10m32s) was 1m44s better than my best kilometer last time.

    Improvement is expected; what is not tracked by my app is that my first time out, I made three stops. Today I made only one. As well, my last 2.5 km were done with five pounds of groceries in each hand.

    I have a long way to go until I get back to jogging, or even to my extremely respectable pace of walking. Hopefully by the summer I will be there. In the meantime, I am not at all upset about today’s workout. I just wish that I would not be so frustrated by other things when I came home!

    Getting back to the title of the article. The last time I went out for a measured walk, I made several stops, and so I asked myself if it was really a workout. Today I walked five kilometers, but was it a workout? It was really split pretty evenly into two 2.5km walks. I know that I was pushing myself from beginning to the end of each one. Maybe, instead of looking at it as a single 5km walk, I would have to split it into two 2.5km walks. Either way, I am happy with it. My feet were starting to feel it by the fourth kilometer, and I know I built up a sweat. Yes, it is a workout… or maybe it is two.

    As an added note: The last time I came back in, I noted to myself that I was not dressed appropriately. Today I was also inappropriately dressed… but differently. On my last outing, I wore my heavy winter jacket. Today, I wore a better jacket with a breathable shirt. Check! Instead of my felt hat, I wore a golf hat. The only thing that I did wrong was to wear my blue jeans. They are comfortable for everyday wear, but they are still pretty tight, and they are not the right pants to exercise in. I will make a note to change that up on my next walk.

    Although I accomplished none of the work I was planning to do today, I did manage to book my airfare to go to visit Leslie in June. By that point, she will have visited me seven times, and I really want to see where (and how!) she lives. I am really excited about it… although I am also nervous about something that has nothing to do with her or with flying. With any luck, things will go fine and there will be nothing to worry about.

    I just looked out the window, and it is snowing… I mean, really snowing. I thought the cashier at Fortino’s was crazy when she told me that it was going to snow later today; I suppose I owe her an apology. I will say that I am glad that I went out in the morning, rather than waiting until the afternoon. Yes, I have to take HRF Princess Sophie outside, but she will not want to spend more time outside in this weather than is absolutely necessary. After we come back in, I will start preparing dinner, and then to prepare for my evening class. Have a great afternoon/evening folks!

  • But Was It a Workout?

    As I prepared to leave on my walk, I decided I should install the Endomondo app on my phone. It is what I used to track my walks. I searched the app store, and it was not there. It seems it was discontinued. Oh well. I decided to try another one, which I installed, logged in, and hit the road. Of course, I had my earbuds in, and I was listening to my music.

    As I was approaching the pharmacy, the music dimmed, and I heard ‘One kilometer…’ and it continued to read off the statistics of my first kilometer. I forgot that Endomondo used to do that as well. Cool. I decided that while I was in the pharmacy (and then the supermarket) I would pause the app. I did this for two reasons. 1) I do not know if my phone’s GPS works inside the store, and 2) If I am using the app to track my pace, then walking the aisles is not quite the pace that I want to be tracking. I just had to remember to restart it when I walked outside again.

    From the pharmacy I walked to the supermarket, where I picked up my vegetables… and a treat for Leslie, who will be here in a few days. I was halfway home, thinking to myself that If I was going to get home around the 2.5km mark of my walk, I should walk around the block to round that up to three kilometers even. I was most of the way home when I realized that I had bought everything at the store… except what I originally went to pick up.

    I decided to turn around and walk back to the store. I walked around a little bit, finishing off that third kilometer before going into the store. I paused the workout (again), went into the store (again), and picked up the milk… the entire reason I decided to go out in the first place. As I left the store (again), I resumed my workout (again), and headed home. Except this time, instead of trying to round it up to three kilometers, I was rounding it up to four. Near the end of that I stopped to chat with my landlord for a few minutes, and then headed into the building… stopping the workout at 4.02 kilometers. The summary:

    · Distance: 4.02 km

    · Duration: 50:05 minutes

    · Average Pace (Min/km): 12:16

    · Steps: 5.4k

    · Calories burned: 402

    · Elevation gain: 12m

    · Average cadence (steps per minute): 110

    All in all, not a bad day’s exercise… but is it a workout? I think I am going to have to differentiate between the two. Workouts should not be going for a walk to run errands or taking HRF Princess Sophie for a walk. They should be when I am dedicated to the activity, and not doing the activity while doing other things. That way, I will not have to pause my workouts to go into stores, I will not have to try to account for parcels that I am carrying, I will not have to follow specific routes which have me waiting at red lights to cross the street and so on. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy with what I was able to accomplish… but I will make it a point to start working out, and not choosing my supermarket based on how far I think I can walk on a given day.

    I do not know when was the last time I was at 8,000 steps before lunchtime, but it feels good. There are a couple of things I will have to remember though… whether I am going for a workout, or a long fast-paced walk to run errands.

    1) My winter jacket may be great at these temperatures for the slow-paced walk with Princess Sophie, but I was uncomfortably warm in it as my heartbeat got going.

    2) It was not an issue for today, but if I had gone much longer, I would need to take a shower when I got back in. That is not a problem, just something that I can tell would have come up.

    3) I have to pay attention to my footwear.

    Footwear is extremely important… and more so at my weight. When I got dressed this morning, I put on a pair of running shoes that I bought when I was training in 2020. I never quite got used to them – they are a weird shoe, and it is hard to explain. I wore them when I took Her Floofness for her walk, but I felt a bit of a pain in the top of my foot. I decided, before embarking on my run for errands, to change them out. I have several pair of trainers, and I decided that if this pair was not right for me, I would wear another pair that were tried and true. I opted for my only pair of Nikes, and the walk went fine. I felt a tiny reminder of the pain I had in my foot earlier, but it was a shadow of what had been. Also, my knees seem to be cooperating. I am not ready to go for a jog just yet (how sweet that would be!) but I suspect it will not be long before my workouts are up to 6-8km per day.

    Doing it once is a dot, not a trend. I have to make sure I go for these walks at least several times per week, if not daily. I can imagine that if I do get in 5-7km, three times per week, that my weight loss will get better. I know that my doctor will be happy to hear it… he asked me about exercise the last time we met, and he told me that walking my dog was likely not a good enough exercise regime. Let’s see if I can keep this up… I hope Leslie will join me every morning for an hour!

    I have a long road ahead of me, but the first step is the most important one. After that, the next step is just as important… and the next. I have started, and hopefully I will be able to keep at it and turn it into a habit rather than an obligation.

    Here’s hoping!

  • Day 72

    One of the most infuriating parts of my life is the bathroom scale, and the unreliable floor underneath it. There are mornings when I want to drop to my knees and hug them. There are mornings when I want to set off huge explosives at ground zero and let them both leave this world to the hell that they so often make my life.

    Over the last couple of days, I was upset that I was not losing weight at the rate that I would like to, and yesterday I chalked that up to a lack of bowel movement. This morning, after a very respectable make-up for yesterday’s unproductive bathroom attempt, and after a pretty decent diet day (I did have a handful of peanuts, but that shouldn’t destroy me) I got onto the scale to see that I was actually up a pound. You can never find an M-18 Claymore when you need one. I figured it was time to give up on my diet, because obviously nothing that I was doing was working.

    After my shower, I decided to step back onto the scale. Not only was I down from before the shower, but I was also two pounds down from yesterday. I intentionally do not move the bathroom scale – not even an inch – to make sure that any inconsistencies are consistent. I do not know if the scale somehow knows that today is April Fool’s Day and decided to have a little fun with me, but I decided (against habit) to leave both weights in my register. I would usually delete the first and leave the second, so I only have one weight registered on any one day. For today, I decided to make an exception. We will see tomorrow what it says, and hopefully I will be back on track.

    Yes, I know. Either this coming Wednesday, or in the worst-case scenario on my following doctor’s appointment two weeks later, I will start to be able to register my weight on the proper medical scale. I was hoping to be able to start this coming week, but unless I lose five more pounds between now and then, it is unlikely that I will be under the limit. We shall see. In the meantime, the experts say that I should not be weighing myself every day. That has to be exponentially true for people with unreliable floors. If it wouldn’t disrupt my dog’s schedule, I would seriously consider moving the scale into the bedroom.

    I have taken a nice piece of fish out of the freezer for dinner, so my food plans for the day are to have a nice salad (with canned salmon) for lunch and a piece of fresh salmon with a side salad for dinner. I suspect though that I am going to have to start cutting down on my portions of canned salmon, so rather than having the full tin, I will use half of it, and finish it tomorrow. I might also lessen the number of pumpkin seeds I put on both my afternoon and evening salads. We’ will see. I have to find a way to lose more weight – I have been depriving myself for 72 days, and while I made good progress, it is definitely not great progress.

    Happy April Fool’s Day folks… and have a great day!