Losing a part of me

Category: Meal Replacements

  • Day 324

    Yesterday was the first day that I remember that I did not eat or drink anything off my program. I had a meal replacement shake for breakfast, my usual lunch, a meal replacement shake in the afternoon and that was it. It was my intention to have another shake in the evening, but I got distracted; by the time I realized I was allowed one more, it was 11:15pm, and I have never been happy the following morning when I had something to eat late at night. Princess Sophie spent the evening at Charlie’s next door, so she had a good time. I am still very down but trying to get focused.

    I started the day yesterday optimistic. That did not last. I had a lot of work to do, so it was three o’clock by the time I got up and went out. I had to go back to the lab to get more blood drawn. I was going to get an x-ray of my knee, but by the time I was done at the lab, the radiologist was not taking any more patients for the day. I guess I have another trip to make down there before my next doctor’s visit, which is in two weeks. I did drop my prescription for the anti-inflammatories off at the pharmacy, for when I am going to run out.

    When I came home, I realized that the video I had been downloading for my learning was complete, but I had accidentally recorded it (and the last two) without sound, which means that I have to start over from the beginning. Crap. I started it again and will be done in a few more days. Just one more thing that went wrong this week.

    I got an interesting offer for a contract today, which would have been a great opportunity. It would actually have been a full-time job with a company that would in turn have been contracting me to another company. The problem is that the opportunity started with ‘Are you willing to relocate to New York City?’ While I would be for the short term, I am hoping that once my visa comes through, I will be relocating to Texas to live with my wife. The search continues.

    I did accomplish all of the goals I set out for myself today. It took longer than I thought to properly translate my CV into French. Once it was done, I sent it off… or at least I thought I did. A couple of hours later, my contact responded that there was no attachment. Sigh, how often have we done that? Okay, it is sent.

    Today’s plan is to stick to the program again. Eduardo and I had discussed going to the sports bar to watch the World Cup, but when we talked in the evening, I think I convinced him that watching it at his apartment with cigars was a better plan. The real method to my madness is that at his apartment, I am less likely to cheat. I will bring a meal replacement shake with me, and a few cigars. If Eduardo does entice me with food, I know that it will be relatively healthy, and that I can control the portions.

    I have given some thought these last few days to revising my program to be orthodox – five meal replacements per day, no other food. If I cannot get through the next few days without cheating, then I am going to drop the hammer on myself and do that. I hope it does not come to that. If I can get back on the downward weight trend, losing weight consistently, then I will not have to do that… yet. It is a tool that I have in my arsenal in case I cannot get back on track. I know that if I want to force myself back on track at some point, it will be there.

    The bathroom scale was, once again, quite kind to me. I know that is because I was strict on my program, but I also know that there have been days when I have been good, and still unhappy the following day. As it stands, I am now .2 lb. from tying my best-weight-yet, and I am now 8.2 lbs. from achieving my goal of losing one hundred pounds in the year 2022. With three weeks left to go, I am hoping and praying that I will be able to stay true to the program, and actually achieve that goal.

    Speaking of goals, I am going to add a second one to my short-term list. While the New Year is three weeks away, the one-year anniversary of my embarking on this journey is forty-two days away. I would like to be able to claim a 50 kg loss in that time. The difference between 100 lbs. and 50 kg is little over 10 lbs… or 4.7 kg. That means that I have 12 kg to lose in just over 40 days… 26.5 lbs. Can I do it? Maybe… but it will be a challenge. I am going to try for it, but if I do not succeed, then I will at least not be a total failure; to lose 47kg in a year is still no mean feat!

    I am off to watch the football. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 265

    Yesterday went mostly well, and then I had a Wendy’s hamburger for dinner. I did not expect good results on the scale this morning, although I did expect that some of the water weight (from the excessive salt intake the previous day) would drop off. As I prepared to step onto the bathroom scale this morning, I was saying to myself ‘Please, just be under 315lbs.’ I stepped up, and when the numbers stabilized, I was actually just under 312lbs! I was happy with that indeed, and while I will not celebrate with a cheat meal, I am happy that my cheat last night did not affect me.

    For the record, I did eat the hamburger with only half the bun. I have never been big on open-faced sandwiches, especially burgers. However, in this case I decided to reduce my starch intake by half. I felt the burger itself was bad enough, and while some bread was bad, more bread was worse.

    Aside from the burger, yesterday went exactly as planned. I was very comfortable hanging at the cigar lounge, and I did pick up my salad from Salad to Go. I also had a couple meal replacement bars for eating throughout the day – I only ended up eating one of them – so the day was relaxing and satisfactory. I was not hungry, and I lost weight. Yes, I know… the weight that I lost was a combination of the travel weight and the salt weight. I am okay with that… I just wanted to lose any weight that I gained in California. I was 311lbs the morning I got onto the plane, and am now 311.8lbs. In another day or two I will be back to where I was, and that is a success. I have too many times gone on vacation and taken three weeks or longer (if ever) to lose the holiday weight.

    My plans for today are similar to yesterday in most facets except location. I will hang around the house while my wife works. I will go to Salad to Go to pick up lunch for us (I introduced her to them before we left for California, and she loved it), and will probably smoke cigars on the balcony while watching TV and reading. In the evening, we will have dinner with her son (likely tamales or chicken nuggets), but I do not think that will be a disaster for me. As I said, if I can lose that last .8lbs in a couple days, I’ll be satisfied. If I can get down to 309lbs before flying back to Canada in five days, well that would be an absolute home run! The day I came to Dallas, I weighed 319.4lbs. A ten-pound loss in just under a month would be excellent!

    My foot is still in pain. It is less pain, and hardly feels like gout. It is just like someone dropped a bowling ball on my foot a week ago… which to be clear, nobody did. I am starting to suspect it is muscle fatigue from a lot of driving on California freeways (and in California traffic) … although just three days ago, it felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. It is improving every day… but there’s still a day or two to go before I fitness walk again.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Flying (mostly) Smart!

    I mentioned earlier today that I got to the airport several hours early, in light of my beautiful wife’s work schedule. That all of her morning meetings canceled, and that we could have spent an extra couple of hours together is not relevant to this story, other than to say I wish I could have spent more time with her, and that I love her and miss her already.

    As expected, I was through Security relatively quickly, and had a few hours to kill. I could have sat down at one of the restaurants, but decided instead to take a 2km walk through the airport. Yes, I walked the length of the Dallas-Fort Worth B Terminal… twice. Once that was done, I decided to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee. I also decided that rather than buying something to eat (as I normally would when I sit at a table near a food area), I sat with my coffee, and pulled out a meal replacement bar. Through two cups of coffee, this was my first smart move of the day.

    On the airplane, I did have the proffered cookies and pretzels, with a can of Coke Zero. Yes, I should have eschewed the cookies and pretzels, but if that is my worst transgression, then I am already ahead of the game. Instead of asking for another pack of those, I opted form my next meal replacement bar. It was, by then, after 2:00pm Central Time, and the timing was about right. By the time I land, I will be three meal replacements into the day, plus an airplane cookie and bag of pretzels.

    The problem with ‘when I land’ is that I am going back in time. I am landing in Pacific Time, so it will only be 2:15pm. Once I have my luggage and rental car, I am heading to Inglewood to have a cigar with a buddy. On the phone last night, he tried to convince me to stay for dinner. His wife Cecelia is a lovely woman and a fabulous cook, and I have enjoyed her cuisine before. I told Robert that I would have to leave before dinner, and that I would have to refuse their lovely and kind hospitality. We will have a cigar, but I will not eat. Yes, I might have to enjoy one more meal replacement bar on my way to Inglewood in order to give myself the strength to refuse again.

    I expect that my buddy Tam (with whom I am staying this week) will want to order chicken in for dinner. As long as it is just chicken and salad, I will gladly accept. I will call him as I leave Robert’s house to confirm this is his intention. In the event he wants to do something else, I will have to discuss my weight loss program with him. He is familiar with my issues, so I do not expect it will be a problem. He and I will enjoy another cigar this evening. Cigars will be a very common thread throughout this week.

    We have a little less than an hour left in the flight, and I suspect that I will not have any more temptations between now and then. If I do, I do have that last meal replacement bar that I was planning to eat on my way to Robert’s. I am trying to be good, and the fact that I did not pop into any of the stores to pick up a bag of chips or nuts or other snack at the airport is already a victory. Hopefully I can keep it up.

  • Day 255

    Saturday, October 1, 2022. The beginning of the tenth month of the Gregorian calendar, and the sixth day of the Jewish year 5783. The forecast shows a sunny day, and while it is currently 60° outside, we are looking at a high of 82°. It should be a nice day in Dallas.

    I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night, but when I finally did, I was happy to get eight hours of mostly uninterrupted sleep (interrupted only by a couple of trips to the latrine). I woke up refreshed and ready to face the day… and ready for an unhappy trip to the bathroom scale, which I anticipated because of how yesterday went.

    Not to keep you in suspense, not only was I pleased by the numbers on the scale, I was really pleased. I am back in ‘best ever’ territory again! It has been over three weeks since I was last under 315lbs, but the last time I weighed what I weigh today was March 11, 2021. That was the week I met my wife! Looking at that week, and looking at the numbers today, I am probably about three pounds from dropping below a BMI of 40. This morning, my BMI (Body Mass Index) is 40.2, and falling. I am still in the morbidly obese category, but I am only a couple of pounds from dropping from Obese Class III to Obese Class II. That will be a big psychological improvement.

    Yesterday did not end up going the way I expected, but it went better than planned. Leslie and I went to get new eyeglasses, which will only be available in a few weeks. Mine will be a new look for me, which is exciting and scary. We then decided to have a salad for lunch from a drive thru restaurant called Salad and Go. I had a Thai Chicken Salad, worth 360 calories. Leslie had a Cobb Salad with tofu and no bacon. Both of us really enjoyed our lunch. I did not end up walking in the afternoon, instead opting to spend it relaxing with my wife. Knowing that we were going to have to spend the entire weekend entertaining a rambunctious seven-year-old boy, it would likely be our last relaxing time together until we are back from California.

    For dinner we had nachos and tamales. The nachos were made with Impossible Meat, so I was able to have them with cheese… not the healthiest meal of course, but we make sacrifices for children sometimes. Also, while I did not end up going for a fitness walk, I did walk to the store (nearly two miles round-trip) to pick up wine for the kiddush. I decided that I am going to try in this new year to not only light the Shabbat candles, but also say kiddush and hamotzi (the prayers on the wine and the bread). Last night we did all of those, and it really made me feel better… and closer to my ancestors, starting with my father.

    Today’s plan involves an arcade, and whatever else may come our way. Leslie and the boy discussed going out for breakfast as I was getting up, and decided that they should just eat here. That is a relief for my weight management, as I love eating breakfast out, but should be eating a meal replacement for all but one meal. Yesterday’s salad was a perfectly acceptable replacement… just about anything I might have eaten at an American breakfast restaurant would not be. We will likely eat lunch out today, and I will be as sensible as I can be, based on where we eat. In the worst-case scenario, I will only eat a salad. We’ll see.

    What else is planned for the day? I don’t know, but it will be a great day whatever we do… and if we end up back home early enough, I might go for a fitness walk to kick off October. I fell 16,000 steps short of the September Step Month challenge; I do not plan to fall short this month. I am going to make October a month of successes, remembering how two years ago it was the beginning of my slide into weight loss failure. I started October, 2020 at 263lbs… and gained 24lbs that month. This October will be different… October 2020 was a month of failure; October 2022 will be a month of success. Will this actually be the month that sees me drop below the 300lbs milestone? I do not know… but if it is not, then it will get me close to it. I only dropped six pounds in September this year, mostly because of cheats and stuff. My goal for October is to avoid as many obstacles as I can, in a month that will have me in the USA for half of it, in California for a week of it, and at Disneyland for a day of it. Disneyland will be a challenge, but fortunately that will only be one day. Everything else I am hoping I can handle.

    My wife is absolutely gorgeous today in her lovely frock; her beauty reminds me of just some of the reasons why I should continue to lose weight and get back into shape. A beautiful and sexy woman deserves her man to keep up… or in our case, catch up! I also want to be healthy to spend as many years as possible with her.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 254

    Day 254

    Yesterday I registered my first twenty thousand steps day. I am extremely happy with that, even though I strongly suspect that my attempts to get that Garmin badge will still fall short. I am 21,500 steps shy, and I have fifteen hours to do it. I think I need to hit fifteen kilometres on my walk today to clinch it… and that is not likely to happen, especially since my legs this morning were feeling jelly-like following yesterday’s push. That is not to say that it cannot happen, just that it is not likely. In the month of September, there were seventeen days that I did not go for a fitness walk. The fact that I made a major push this last week does not make up for that.

    My weight this morning was the same as it was yesterday. I joked with Leslie that it is too bad that I only count my early morning weight, because when I came in from my walk yesterday, I registered my lowest weight of the year. Nothing doing, because water loss from exercise does not count. Unless, of course, I wanted to get up at 5am and walk before my 7:00am weigh-in! (The fact that we had dim sum for dinner might also contribute to the non-loss…)

    I can talk about the dim sum and sushi all day long, but the truth is that I am happy with how I have been managing my eating these last few days. Rosh Hashana was a disaster, but today is the third day in a row that I will only have a single meal, plus my meal replacements. Add to that the fitness walking, and I have a lot to be proud of. No, I am not on the extreme, no-cheating program I was on a couple of years ago… I want to lose weight safely, but more important, I want to be able to maintain my weight loss once I revert to eating normal foods and eschew the meal replacements.

    My diet-buddy and I spoke last night (as planned). Her announcement is that she decided to have gastric sleeve surgery in Mexico, which will reduce the size of her stomach, and help her to lose the weight. I am not sure how I feel about this, and it is not my place to judge. I know that when someone has tried over and over again to lose weight, and nothing they have done has succeeded, then they may feel that there is no other choice but the surgical route. The fact that I do not think it is for me does not mean that I do not think there are people who will benefit from it, or for whom there is no other reasonably alternative. My biggest concern is the medical tourism issue. I do not know what the conditions of the hospital are, nor the qualifications of the surgeon. She tells me that the hospital is American owned and that the doctors are American. That scares me even more… the better trained American doctors usually work in the USA. I would probably feel better knowing that the hospital was American owned, but the doctor is a really respected Mexican. None of this is my place to say, of course. Her father is a retired physician and has already told her what he thinks. His credentials far exceed mine, but she has made up her mind. I will support her as a friend, but I will still worry.

    My other concern with her decision is whether we are still suited to support each other. While she knows what I am going through, I will have no idea whatsoever how to support her, other than to listen to what she says. Right now, when she tells me about her issues, I can relate to them. I can advise her on how to handle things. If she fails, I can advise her how to try to succeed in the future. Once she has the surgery, I don’t know anything about that. Will I be able to continue to advise and support her? I don’t know, but I will give her that insight, and let her decide. She might just appreciate having someone who can listen to her.

    Today I do not have much planned. Leslie and I are going to run an errand at lunch, after which I will probably go for my last walk of the month. I will not do it to break records or to get challenge badges, I will do it because fitness walking is good for me and is helping me to lose weight and to get into shape. I also do not know what the weekend has in store, and if I will be able to get out to walk or not. I will try, but with Leslie’s son here, I know I will be at the mercy of his schedule, and that is fine. Leslie is making tamales for dinner, and I will stick to my meal replacements aside from that. I confess that I did not know what a tamale was until I looked them up. They look tasty!

    Not only did I order my shaker bottle to take to California yesterday, I also ordered meal replacement shakes and bars. The shakes are the same ones that I have been used to. The bars are not. There are usually three flavours of bars available, and I like to alternate between the apple-cinnamon and the chocolate bars. While the apple cinnamon bars are available on eBay, the chocolate bars have not been available for some time. However, there is another company that makes bars with similar nutritional values, which come in many different flavours. I ordered three boxes each of s’mores and chocolate-almond. Either I will like them, and I will stick with them, or I will not, and I will revert to the tried-and-true original brand. Either way, by the time I am ready to go back to Canada, I will need plenty of stock. This should hold me over for a while.

    The weather today is similar to yesterday. It is sunny and pleasant, with a projected high of 82° Fahrenheit. I can definitely work with that on my walk this afternoon! Tonight the sabbath begins, and I will light the candles, say the prayers, and remember the day as holy.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 253

    As I had hoped, I was happy with the numbers on the scale again this morning. At just over 315lbs, I am hoping that I can have a few more good days before heading to California. Don’t get me wrong. I do not plan to indulge in California. I am just saying that I want to stay on track here. I will be taking meal replacements with me and will even be fasting for Yom Kippur.

    I was chatting with a friend that I will be connecting with when I am there, and he said I was looking good in a picture that I posted. I thought about it for a minute, and then looked it up. This morning I am 33lbs lighter than the day that I left California. I forget, when I remember back to what I weighed two years ago, that sixteen months ago I was hovering just below the 350lbs mark, never mind what I weighed 253 days ago. I remember around February when one of my California buddies was video chatting with me and said something like, ‘Mitch, what happened? You were doing so well!’ I felt horrible, even though I was back on the program, trying to get healthy again. I am glad that I am going back there looking… well, not as slim as I did two years ago, but still much slimmer than when I left there.

    The forecast for today is not as hot as it was yesterday. I have a meeting for an hour this morning, and then I will kit up for a walk. I do not know if I will be breaking records today, but with the slightly cooler temperatures, I should be able to have another epic day. Over the past nine days I have averaged over 11,000 steps per day… and that includes four days that were abysmal with regard to step count. If I had registered just one more good fitness walk this month, I would likely be ready to collect the September Step Month badge from Garmin Connect… which would mean 300,000 steps for the month (or at least 10,000 steps per day). With only today and tomorrow left in the month, I am 41,700 steps short of that goal. Two good days will leave me short by about 10,000 steps. I would have to make both today’s and tomorrow’s fitness walk 13km each for it to be on the table. That is not likely. I will, however, try to get the October Step Month badge!

    As we hoped, Leslie and I took her son for sushi last night. It was very good, and I indulged. I did not go over the top, but I did have a good healthy meal. I suspect that had I held back, I might have been .2lbs lighter this morning. In the balance, I think the indulgent meal was worth it.

    I am hoping to speak with my weight loss buddy today. I hope she is doing well, and we have a lot to discuss. I also realized that I should probably plan to order another case of meal replacements to be delivered when I am back in Dallas after California, so that I will be able to take them back to Canada with me. I will take inventory today and see what I have left, and then plan accordingly. I will also be taking meal replacements with me to California, and if I am going to do that, then I had better think about ordering a proper shaker bottle… while my buddy might have a blender, I will be out and about most of the time, and I cannot rely on that. Amazon, here I come.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Killing It!

    • I was planning on walking after my afternoon meeting. When we got home from the bank, I looked at the forecast and changed my mind. The current temperature at the time was 78°, but by 1:30pm it would be up to 90°. I did the math and knew that I had just under 2.5 hours to walk, cool down, shower, and be at my computer in time for the call. I could do it if I did not try to overdo it. I did not think it would be a problem, and it would be fine.
    • Distance: 9km (10km)
    • Duration: 1:27:49 (1:40:51)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:44 (10:03)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m18s (9m40)
    • Steps: 11.4k (12.7k)
    • Calories burned: 1,083 (1,203)
    • Elevation gain: 39.1 (47.5)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 130 (126)

    Owing mostly to the heat, I never expect to break records when I am in Texas. I hit the ground running though, and I knocked out the first five kilometres in a whopping 47:24, which had my average pace at under 9m30s! I was thrilled, but I was also losing hydration and electrolytes. I stopped at the 6km mark and bought a Gatorade Zero to supplement the bottle of water I was working through. My pace for the last four kilometres was about 10m03s per kilometre, the same pace of my entire walk from yesterday.

    I walked into the apartment sweaty and thirsty, but very proud of my accomplishment. I do not expect to be able to maintain this sort of pace every day, but every once in a while, it is good to push myself. I do not know if I did it knowing that I had to hurry home for my meeting, but whatever it was, I did it. Let’s see if I can do it again tomorrow!

    Today’s fitness walk was my eleventh such walk for the month of September. It has not been a very successful month, but at least I can finish strong, and spring into October on a good roll. Yes, of the eleven fitness walks of the month, four of them have been in the last five days. If I hit the road tomorrow and Friday, I will have a great streak to end the month with.

    Knowing that Leslie and I will be spending most of the weekend entertaining her son, I doubt I will be able to walk Saturday or Sunday, and Monday I am flying to California. Tuesday I will walk, but Wednesday is Yom Kippur, so I will be fasting and at synagogue services all day. Really, with my California jaunt, I likely will not be able to get into the swing of things for October until I am back in Dallas the afternoon of the ninth… but I will make sure to get right back on track starting that afternoon.

    Leslie was worried that the boy would want to go for fried chicken this evening, which I would not have been able to eat. Fortunately, when they came in, he announced that he wanted sushi, which is absolutely doable for me. In preparation for the evening meal, I have only had meal replacements today (three of them in fact, exactly what I should be having). All this to say that tomorrow I am looking for a happy number on the scale.

    It’s a gorgeous day in Dallas, and I am just happy to be alive, loved, and healthy.

    Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 252

    I said something in a meeting on Friday last week that was haunting me yesterday. Fortunately, I got a good response from the head of the team I am working with. We were meant to have a meeting scheduled for today, and I had not heard back from them, so I started to worry that they took offense. When I got a meeting request from them this morning, it lightened my load somewhat. Yes, we are all good, and yes, I remember my French-Canadian slang. There are a few words in the dialect that can be used both gutturally, and to describe something in business as a disaster. I used one of those words to describe part of their systems, and it bothered me for a bit that I might have stepped over a line. The good news is that the people who implemented the systems are no longer with the company, so there should have been no personal insult. It all worked out.

    I mentioned in yesterday’s article that I had toast for breakfast, and then after my walk, I had a sandwich for lunch. After that, I only had meal replacements. I hope that as of today I can be completely back on track. My last two weigh-ins were bad, but this morning I was back in the right direction. I am not quite back down to 315lbs, but I am close to it. With any luck, I will be able to stay on track today. No, luck has nothing to do with it. I have to stay on track, and blaming or crediting luck is silly, and possibly counterproductive.

    This morning I walked into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. I almost went for the last of the raisin challah from Rosh Hashana, which would have been delicious with some peanut butter. I picked it up… and I put it down. I prepared my meal replacement shake and a cup of coffee. There is no luck involved in weight loss, and there is no raisin challah either. I have said it before; however tasty and satisfying it would be, the satisfaction of weighing less tomorrow morning outweighs the tasty challah treat. I also know that this evening, Leslie and I are going to take her son for dinner this evening, and that will be my only meal. I said at the beginning of the holiday that I wanted to be back on track today. I meant it!

    We have a meeting at the bank this morning, and then in the early afternoon I have a meeting with my customer. If that meeting ends when I expect it to, I will go for my walk in the afternoon. If it goes longer, I might have to forego the walking today, which I do not want to do. It may not be an addiction, but I still enjoy it. I also enjoy knowing that I am getting closer to my goals.

    While walking yesterday, I was thinking about addictions. Why is it that it is so much easier to become addicted to food, booze, drugs, whatever than it is to get addicted to exercise and physical activity? Yes, the former are easier, but the latter is actually good for you, literally something that we need. It should be easier to get addicted to things that are good for you. After all, have you ever heard of anyone with a salad addiction? Of course not. I freely admit though that I am addicted to foods… and not the good foods. I am addicted to foods with little to no nutritional value whatsoever. That just sucks.

    I understand the science behind the addiction. Sugar and salt are both substances that our bodies crave, and carbohydrates give us energy. That energy can be used for good – yesterday, after eating my toast with margarine, I hit the road and did a ten-kilometre walk. That energy can also be wasted, at which point the carbohydrates simply convert to fat, rather than burning off. The fact that I understand the science does not mean I am any less thrilled with the fact that salads and exercise are not easy addictions to come into, and that I would happily fight someone for a plate of Buffalo wings. Life is not fair.

    Okay, so here’s the plan for the day: I had my meal replacement and am drinking my coffee. While preparing for my early afternoon meeting, I will have my second meal replacement. After that meeting, I will go for a walk – not as long as yesterday’s, especially knowing that it will be quite warm out, but a walk, nonetheless. I will come home, cool down, take a shower, and likely have a third meal replacement. When Leslie and the boy come home, we will decide what to do for dinner; it will most likely be sushi, but that will be their decision. I will go along with whatever they decide, and I will just try to make good decisions when we are at the restaurant. We will come home, and while Leslie spends some time with her son, I will either participate, or I will give them space. That will be based on how things go. By the time I get into bed, I will have ingested under 1,200 calories, and as few carbohydrates as possible. Sound good? If that works, then tomorrow morning I should once again be happy with the numbers on the bathroom scale.

    Of course, if it were that easy, I would be slim already. That is why we say ‘One day at a time.’

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 251

    On this, the second day of Rosh Hashana, I woke up and told my wife, ‘I am going to walk ten kilometres today.’ I have not come close on any walk in Dallas so far, but the temperatures were not too bad – it was in the high seventies when I started, and probably up to 85° Fahrenheit by the time I was done. I looked at Leslie and told her that if I was going to go, now was the right time to head out, before it got too hot.

    The only record that I broke today was my distance walked in Dallas, not really a measurement I track religiously. Leslie joked with me that my average pace was over 10:00/km, so what’s the use. We had a good laugh about that.

    • Distance: 10km (7.5km)
    • Duration: 1:40:51 (1:13:40)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:03 (9:49)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m40 (9m28s)
    • Steps: 12.7k (9.2k)
    • Calories burned: 1,203 (941)
    • Elevation gain: 47.5 (34)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 126 (126)

    There’s no question that I was a bit slower today than usual, and I am not sure why that was. I know that I did a couple of double-backs to wait for red lights, but that should not affect my pace that badly. I was wearing Asics and not Adidas, which definitely have a different feel to them. I also know that I felt a bit of a bump in my foot for the first kilometre, but I do not think that was anything other than a bunched up sock that fixed itself in the first little while.

    I did eat bread for breakfast and had a sandwich for lunch. I am hoping that the carbs this morning helped with the walk, but I am done with bread for the next few days. Tomorrow I will be back to meal replacements for most of my food intake… plus probably one meal per day. For that meal, I might have to bite the bullet and make it the evening meal, because starting tomorrow we will be with Leslie’s son, and I do not want him to think that I am not participating as part of the family. I am okay with that… he’s worth it, and so is Leslie.

    I do not know what our plans are for the evening, but Leslie understands and supports my meal plan, so we might get something for her, and I will have a meal replacement. We’ll see… the holiday ends this evening, and I am not going to make any more excuses. The next few days are weight loss days, baby! I am going to get on that plane to California next Monday as lean and mean as I can!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 219

    I suspect it is the high sodium content of the Lebanese food that we enjoyed last night that accounted for the this morning’s 2.2lbs weight gain. Yes, I cheated during the day. I had three handfuls of peanuts over the course of the day, plus one serving of dried mango. Yes, I had a salad at lunch, in addition to the meal replacement bar that I had. The Lebanese food, on the other hand, was excessive. It was not only a large meal, consisting of proteins and carbs and salads and stuff, not to mention the half piece of pita I enjoyed with way too much hummus. It was extremely tasty; it was also extremely salty. It is the reason I gained weight from yesterday to today.

    I will mention at this juncture that I have a very set morning routine, toward the end of which I weigh myself. That is the only time that I weigh myself during the day. This morning there was an anomaly – not in my morning routine, but in how my morning went after the routine. Part of my morning routine is a bowel movement, which is almost always regular, and with very rare exceptions is my only bowel movement of the day. This morning, about an hour into my class (while they were doing a test) I had a second significant movement, which may well have changed things somewhat.

    While I am going to stick to my weight loss program as well as I can while in Dallas, I know that there are going to be aberrations. I know that I will take Leslie out for a couple of good meals, and while I can order smartly for those meals, I cannot completely control what a restaurant puts into their food. I would like to cook every meal for Leslie, but that is not going to happen for several reasons. I simply have to remember that for every cheat, I have to be extra good the rest of the time. That means no more peanuts, no more snacking. That means that outside of meals, my meal replacements are my friends.

    Speaking of meal replacements, that was something that threw me off yesterday. I spoke of the difference between the Canadian meal replacements (225 calories) and the American meal replacements (160 calories). If I was on the full Canadian program, I would be consuming four shakes per day (and nothing else) for a total of 900 calories. On the full American program, I would be consuming five meal replacements per day (and nothing else) for a total of 800 calories. One of the reasons I snacked like I did yesterday is that I forgot of the caloric deficit; I did not think to modify my schedule so that I would not be hungry… and I was. This morning (as yesterday) I had my first meal replacement at 8:00am. On a teaching day in Canada, I would be having it at 8:30am, after walking Princess Sophie. The 225 calories would get me through to my lunch hour (12:30pm) without fail. The 160 calories here did not do so well; I will plan today to have a meal replacement around 11:30am, and not think that I am failing or cheating. It was that feeling yesterday that actually led me to cheating and failure.

    I did not exercise yesterday, and will not today. The schedule just does not allow me to do everything I would like to do, and while I can exercise to my heart’s content in Canada, here I want to spend time with my wife. She and I might go for a walk together tomorrow, which would be lovely. I will happily adjust my pace for her! She told me yesterday that next month her company is doing a charity walk, and this could help her to prepare for it. As luck would have it, the distance of the charity walk is exactly the distance of one of my routes here, so it works out perfectly.

    I told Leslie this morning that I am sleeping much better next to her than I do at home, which was to be expected. I also told her that one of the reasons I am impatient to lose a lot more weight is because I suspect that I will be less tired throughout the day (and especially at night) than I am as I carry around all of this excess fat. I know I have a lot more energy now than I did eight months ago… imagine how much more energy I will have when I have lost another seventy-five pounds!?

    My new water bottle arrived yesterday, and it is gorgeous. It does not fit into my shoulder sling, so I am ordering another one, which should arrive by tomorrow. I do not know if it will be here in time for us to go on our walk, but that’s life.

    Have a great day folks!