Losing a part of me

Category: Meal Replacements

  • Day 218

    Welcome to Dallas! I arrived at Pearson International Airport yesterday four hours in advance of my flight, expecting there to be a ridiculous line followed by a lengthy interview at U.S. Customs. There was absolutely no line (as in, I walked up to the queue and was directed immediately to an unoccupied agent). He asked me maybe five or six questions, and wished me a pleasant journey. It was the first time I ever had more time to kill at the airport than the actual duration of my flight.

    I did not bring meal replacements with me, which was a mistake for two reasons. The first is that there are few (if any) really healthy options in the airport, and the second is that everything at the airport is priced ridiculously. Of the available options, I opted for a pad thai salad with tofu. I later cheated with a small can of Pringles and a small bag of almonds. On the airplane, I had the biscuits and pretzels offered, with a Coke Zero and a cup of coffee.

    Leslie and I had discussed what to do for dinner once I arrived. After debating Mexican, steak, and a few other options, I suggested she eat before coming to pick me up, and that I would have a protein shake (or bar). She brought a bar (and a bottle of water) for me to the airport, which I ate on the ride home. I do not know if it quite makes up for the cheats, but I know it was the right thing to do. When you falter – and you will falter – the best thing to do is to recover and continue on your path.

    I slept well last night, after the happy discovery of another unmentioned benefit of weight loss. It was good to sleep next to my wife again. It has been too long!

    This morning I made a mistake with my meal replacement shake. Forgetting that the American formula is different from the Canadian one I put too much water into the mix, and ended up with a diluted shake. I will learn from that, and for my next shake will measure out the necessary ingredients. Once I have done so once, I will be able to do it by sight again… but the watery shake left me unsated, leading to my taking a couple small handfuls of peanuts mid-morning, along with a slice of dried mango. Leslie reminded me that she should not have to police my food intake, and she is right. I know what I did wrong, and I will adjust for it so that this afternoon and the rest of my visit will be better.

    I was going to make dinner tonight, but Leslie is going to her office in the afternoon, which means she will be near the really good Shawarma restaurant. I will order well, and will only have meal replacements aside from that. I am really looking forward to that meal!

    In the evening, I suspect she and I will either go sit by the pool for a cigar, or we might go to my cigar lounge to say hi, and to enjoy a stick there. I don’t know, but I do know that I am happy that we have a date together, and that there are no phones involved!

    The reading on the bathroom scale was down this morning, despite the cheating yesterday. I am not quite back to my previous milestone, but I am getting there. I know that I beat myself up over what really are minor cheats, but that is the only way that I know to not have them escalate into larger cheats over time. I have done that before, and I will not do it again.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 211

    My weight loss program is extremely important to me, and my routine is fairly important to my progress. With that said, sleep is even more important; without sleep, I do not have the energy to get through the day. I have not been getting nearly enough sleep this past week, and I needed to figure out a way to end that streak. I decided, for one day only, to have a second meal. Yesterday evening I prepared a second meal identical to my first – chicken and salad – and enjoyed it around 6:30pm. I did this in place of the two evening meal replacements, so while I certainly consumed more calories than I would normally, it was not obscenely so. I then spent the evening on the balcony with a cigar, watching television and then talking with my wife.

    Is the extra meal the reason I slept well last night? I do not know. I could have happily stayed in bed another couple of hours, which was obviously not an option. That’s okay… and I am hoping that this evening I will be able to catch up on even more sleep… hopefully after a Taekwondo class.

    My weight was down nearly a full pound this morning, but is still a full 1.5-pounds higher than my low from Tuesday. These corrections are annoying and often disheartening, and I have to remember that it is the downward trend that is important, and frankly the weigh-ins at the doctor’s office. The bathroom scale, which I have known to be notoriously inaccurate, is a bellwether, not expected to be scientifically accurate.

    The forecast calls for a 30% chance of rain at some point today, but if I am going to Taekwondo and not for a walk, that will not be an issue for me. It will affect Princess Sophie, who has never been a big fan of precipitation… she might just step out for a few minutes to pee, rather than taking her full walk.

    I am wearing a golf shirt from the Size-XL bin today, on top of a pair of pants from the Size-40 bin. It feels good to be able to feel my progress with such victories!

    I realized last night that I would be running out of milk, but I did nothing about it. This morning’s first cup of coffee had dairy, but that will be it. I have to remember to pick up a litre this afternoon… and to not get the larger container, as I am going out of town Wednesday for a week.

    I have reached out to my diet buddy to confirm that we are still meeting this afternoon. We are supposed to meet every Thursday, but life often gets in the way. I love having Leslie’s full support, but I hope that Julie and I can touch base today to see how we are both doing.

    With regard to my meal replacements, I realized this week that I was running low, which is to say that I have 36 shakes left. To put that in perspective, at the peak I had twelve boxes, or 168 shakes. I thought briefly about going onto Facebook to buy more, and then decided against it… for now. I have a large case of shakes (84 servings) and a small case of apple cinnamon bars (42 servings) waiting for me in Dallas, and while they are the American formula (which means I have to adjust my schedule to compensate for the caloric differences), there is no reason I cannot bring some of them back to Canada with me… and I will only be back in Canada for three weeks before my next trip, so I only need bring enough to get me through that. Assuming with the American formula I plan for four meal replacements per day, that is 84 meal replacements that I need to bring back. No problem, and unlike here (where I have to buy them on the grey market), I can always order more in the US off eBay.

    Okay, so my diet buddy and I touched base during my break. She is not having a very easy time of it, and I gave her some tips… including the importance of telling people ‘I CANNOT EAT THAT (or THERE)’ instead of just going along, either to please them or because you are embarrassed to say that you are on a diet. It is embarrassing too, because it is vocalizing that you are fat. Also, if you tell someone you are on a diet, you always have to be on a diet with them, lest you slip and they think you are weak. All of those issues are psychological and deeply embedded into us, and we have to let go of them. Yes, it may hurt… but eating a poutine will hurt more.

    It is nearly time for me to get back into class, so have a great day folks!

  • Day 203

    I woke up in the middle of the night to pee (by far not a unique occurrence) to discover that I have a discomfort in my groin area when I walk. It has persisted through the night and into the morning, although it seems to be better after taking Her Floofness for her walk. I do not know if it is something to worry about, but it is something I will be keeping my eye on for the next few days. To be clear, it is not pain. It just feels… weird.

    It was good to see the scale go in the right direction this morning. Three days after achieving it the first time, I am back at my lowest weight, although I am pleased that I never went more than half a pound above it. I was thinking this morning that with my recent pace, it would be optimistic to believe that I could lose another ten pounds before I fly to Dallas in two weeks; with that said, even if I lose five more pounds, I will be more than twenty pounds down from where I was when I was there last.

    I have mentioned how good it is to have Leslie supporting me in my weight loss. Last night I told her that I was, once again, tempted to cheat… although I did not in the end. She asked me to confirm what I eat on a daily basis, and asked if I might not be getting bored or burned out on the monotony. I agreed, and decided that I would change things up a bit this week, and will buy a steak for lunch Friday to take a break from the chicken and fish that is my norm. She asked me about the meal replacement bars I used to have – the chocolate and apple cinnamon bars that are available for the American version of my weight loss program, but which are not available in Canada. She reminded me that those were a good way to break the boredom of three shakes and one meal per day. On her advice, this morning I ordered a case of them to be delivered to her place, and which will be there when I arrive.

    With the American meal replacements that I have ordered (I also ordered a case of shakes last week) I have to remember that the program is different, and that instead of each portion containing 225 calories (as they do in Canada), these will only have 160 calories each. I will adjust my intake accordingly, although that is not something I am going to think about now.

    Princess Sophie has her spa appointment today, so I will have to take a short break from class to drive her over there around noon. As gorgeous as she always is, she will come home even more gorgeous and coiffed. I suspect that for the summer heat she will appreciate the shorter hair.

    If my groin is not really bothering me, I would like to resume my fitness walking today, but I am not going to risk injuring myself if it is still an issue. Stay tuned.

    I went to speak with the owner of the Taekwondo school where I had an issue a few weeks ago, and all is good. I am going to train there, but I am not going to help teach. He told me that until the students know me, they can be intimidated and spooked by me. I told him that I was happy to help when he had asked, but I do not want to spook anyone… as long as I can continue to train there, I will not help the instructors unless asked. While there are certainly advantages to being big and strong and powerful (in both size and presence and voice), there are also disadvantages. Even my wife asked that I keep my powerful voice in check… which is easier to do in conversation than in a Taekwondo class setting.

    Have a great day folks… It is getting cooler here as we get to the middle of August, so whether I fitness walk or not, I will have the patio door open at times during the day, and will enjoy a cigar on the balcony this evening.

  • Dragging My Ass

    I was exhausted by the last hour of my class today, and I just wanted it to be over. I did not want it to end so that I could embark on a trailblazing walk, I just wanted to crawl into bed. No Mitch, you set a goal for yourself, and if you do not go for a good walk today, you will never be able to make up those crucial kilometres by Sunday. I had to go.

    I was just a little out of sorts, which is to say that things were not falling into place. I have a usual routine that I follow in the afternoons, and despite my intent to punish myself with a long walk, I just could not get into my after-class pattern. I cannot point to any reason for that, but that does not make it less true. I did get into my exercise kit, and prepared my satchel with a bottle of water and a face towel. I left it by the door so that I could take Princess Sophie for a walk, and then grab it when I dropped her off… and that is exactly what happened. Still and all, something was missing. Something just wasn’t right.

    It was warm, but that did not account for the slower than usual pace of my walking. Kilometre after kilometre I was disappointed by my times, especially after how well I have been doing this week. Even wearing my swiftest shoes (the Adidas that Leslie bought me), my best split-pace time was 10m38s. That, my friends, is not nearly at the standard I have been setting for myself these last few weeks.

    I did have a little trouble with my ankle in my second kilometre, but that sorted itself out. I did not feel any aching in it once I got past that second km. It was not the issue.

    After 6.5 kilometres I needed to stop for a break. I could not figure out what was wrong, I just did not have the energy I usually do. I was two kilometres from home, and I would be able to resume after a five-minute siesta, which is exactly what happened. It was as I sat on that bench that I figured it out. Eureka!

    I missed two activities as part of my pre-walk routine. The first was speaking with my wife; while I enjoy it, that was not what was wrong. The second… I make a meal replacement protein shake, which I usually drink while speaking with her. Protein is fuel. By skipping that step, I doomed today’s walk to mediocrity.

    • Distance: 8.5 km (8.5 km)
    • Duration: 1:33:00 (1:27:43)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:56 (10:19)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m38s
    • Steps: 10.8k (10.6k)
    • Calories burned: 991 (1,156)
    • Elevation gain: 34.1 (34.6m)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 116 (122)

    While today’s walk is not going to impress me in any way, it did accomplish one important mission. I said this morning that I was setting a goal to walk 55km this week, from Monday to Sunday. Today’s 8.5km brings my total to 40km, which means that I do not to break any speed records this weekend, I just need to go out for my usual walk, making sure that I do not fall short. If my body cooperates, tomorrow I am going to try to push my distance, knowing that there are thunderstorms in the forecast for Sunday. The more I get in tomorrow, the less that is needed for Sunday.

    I had my protein shake as I wrote this entry; it is nice to know that I still have one more shake that I can have this evening without cheating. I will probably have it after my cigar… we’ll see. For now, I am hitting the shower, and then I am calling my wife.

  • Day 188

    I am still reeling from the monster walk I took last night. I am also reeling from some conversations I have been having, and am starting to believe that things will be okay. As I have alluded to over the past ten days or so, my emotions have been in turmoil, and have felt pretty hopeless. The fact that I have not only stuck to my meal plan, but have also started and maintained a rigorous exercise routine with my fitness walking, is a testament to the fact that I do not have to turn to food when life turns to shit. That has always been my default, but it does not make it healthy. Over the past two weeks, following my old patterns, I have every reason to be up 5-10 pounds. Instead, I am down eleven pounds. To put that into perspective, that is the difference between weighing nearly 350-pounds and weighing under 330-pounds. I have to call that my greatest attitude and behavioural victory since… I don’t even know when!

    I did cheat yesterday. After my lunch of chicken and salad, I decided to have a Japanese biscuit. The fact that each time that I eat one I am proud of myself that I can stick to just one. I am also proud that I have had them since my birthday, and I have not devoured the entire box. This is another great success… the old me – the gluttonous me – would have knocked down at least a couple (if not more) every single day until they were gone.

    Who am I kidding? There is not old me / new me. Not yet, anyways. I am the same me, with the gluttonous tendencies toward large portions of extremely unhealthy foods that I have always been. The fact that I have been suppressing that side of me does not mean that I have changed; it means that I want to change, but I am still who I have always been. It is too easy to give myself credit for change… like congratulating myself on my Nobel Prize when I dress up as a brilliant scientist. I have to remember every day that I am still the same man with the same desires, and that I will likely never change. I can change my habits, but I cannot ever let down my guard. It is the vigilance that I have forced upon myself that is responsible for my weight loss… and certainly not my actual nature.

    On a few of Leslie’s early visits to see me last year, the last night before she flew home, we went to QB’s Sports Bar for dinner. I remember the foods that we ordered, which even in moderation would have been terribly unhealthy. I can hardly believe that I could sit there with a gorgeous and sexy woman, order a large pizza and a plate of wings, and devour them with no shame. Just the thought of doing that embarrasses me, and I have to remember that not only the next time, but every time I sit down to eat… whether I am eating with Leslie or alone.

    Today is a new day, and I am psyched to keep going. After yesterday’s slight bump up, my weight was once again down today, so I am happy with that. If I keep it up, I might actually fit into my smaller suits by mid-September, which would be amazing. Because of my class schedule for the next few weeks, it will be a month between weigh-ins at the doctor’s office. If I keep my pace of progress up, it is not unreasonable to expect I could be down ten kilos in that month. It is an unbelievable number to hope for, but it is my goal. My appointment is for August 24, which is just under 30 days from today. If I can weigh in under 141 kilos, I will be absolutely over the moon thrilled! Even if I miss that goal, but weigh seven kilos less than I do now, it will be a tremendous success.

    I noticed after eating my main meal today that I was, once again, still peckish. I looked (unsuccessfully) for a healthy snack, and quickly realized that there is no such thing as a truly healthy snack that resides in the pantry. I ended up having a single Japanese biscuit, which is not healthy, but as long as I only eat the one, I will not lose a lot of traction on my weight loss program.

    I think yesterday’s schedule worked really well, and I am going to try to repeat it today. After class, I will take Princess Sophie for a walk. I will then come back home and change into my workout kit. Before I go out though, I will have my second meal replacement shake. I will go for a good fitness walk (which I suspect it will be somewhat less intense than yesterday’s record-shattering outing. When I come back in, I will shower, write up my activity, and then I will have my final meal replacement of the evening. I will get into bed and hopefully speak with my beautiful wife, who might or might not be able to, owing to the child situation. I really do love ending my day by sharing a few moments on video chat with her. It makes my heart soar, and even if I do not fall asleep right away (as has been the case these last few nights), it puts my mind at ease so I can rest.

    I will be back after my walk, but until then… have a great day!

  • Day 183

    I do not know how far it will go, but the recent changes to my diet routine are paying huge dividends. The bathroom scale has me down another two pounds today. What I mean to say is that when I start a new diet – each time I have started on the meal replacements program – I see profound weight loss for a few days, which will then taper off. What is important is that as I keep losing weight, I should not expect tremendous drops on a daily basis. I have to be satisfied with smaller losses. As Leslie has reminded me many times, a weight loss journey is not always a smooth and steady road.

    With all that said, I cannot imagine that cutting five hundred calories from my daily intake (while at the same time increasing my daily physical activity) can possibly be a bad thing. I seem to recall writing (or at least thinking) when I started the two-meal regimen that I would stick with it as long as I was losing weight… and when I was not, I would make another adjustment. I suppose that time has come, and I am happy to get on it.

    After three days (two religious ones) of my new food plan I have not found myself wanting for more food. Yes, I have felt hunger… but much of it was my stomach telling me it is used to having more, not that it actually needs more. I will keep resisting that nagging, as I would resist a child who wants three new toys instead of just one.

    As I was walking yesterday, it occurred to me that I have not gone back to look at my previous weight loss journals in quite some time. I then realized that today is exactly half a year since I started on this journey, and I have never lasted that long. By this point the first time around, I had already gained back about half of the weight that I had lost. My second go of it lasted longer, but after a few months I took a long hiatus, and came back later. Yes, I would eventually lose a lot more weight… and I would gain it all back.

    I do not want that to happen this time around. My intentions are to keep at it, albeit slightly slower than the previous two times. Unlike those times, I have not cut out real food completely. I have also had a wonderful woman by my side through It all, and while she has not been with me physically for a lot of it, she has been an excellent supporter. I am losing the weight for me… but also for her, and for my kids.

    While I am still in a real funk of a mood, I have been in healthier spirits, owing in large part to my exercise routine. I have gone on two incredible power walks this week, and I did a Taekwondo class on Tuesday… and will do another one this evening. It is keeping me on track, and I have a lot of reasons to stay on that track. As such, this week (or at least the three days of it that are passed) has been my most successful food week in I do not know how long. I have stuck to the plan of eating only one meal each day, and three meal replacement shakes. Yes, Monday I had some of the popcorn (which I then threw out), as well as a Japanese biscuit. Tuesday and Wednesday I did not veer from my program at all, and I can feel the difference.

    While Monday and Tuesday were chicken days, yesterday when I finished my walk (and my article about the walk) I prepared a piece of Atlantic salmon, topped with black sesame seeds, and a few slices of pickled ginger. A garden salad accompanied it, and while the piece of salmon was quite large (nearly 600 calories worth of it) I was still under 1500 calories on the day. Considering the walk/jog I did, I do not feel guilty about it.

    I am enjoying my book. Last night I sat on the patio reading with a cigar, and stayed there until the thunderstorm hit. When I do not have to be on the road, I enjoy the romance of a storm with thunder and lightning, and for the hour before the rain encroached on my balcony, I loved seeing the tremendous lightning from the corner of my eye as I read. I then went inside, had my final meal replacement of the evening, and then went to do some shopping, only to discover that the supermarkets close at 10:00pm, and it was five minutes past the hour. Oh well, I’ll go this morning.

    I am preparing for my class that begins Monday, but there is not really a lot of preparation needed. I am teaching for a new client so I have had a number of meetings with them, mostly about the (mostly) proprietary tools that they expect me to use. None of these are overly complicated. One of the people I needed to talk to is a senior instructor there, and we figured out that we have at least two colleagues in common, one of whom is among my dearest friends. It is nice when meetings do not have to be all business.

    My legs were really feeling the effects of my walking in the afternoon, and my housekeeper friend joked that I looked wobbly. I told her about my exercise, and that since I saw her last, I am down ten pounds. As she has gained five pounds in that time, she stopped harassing me. I do not know why exactly, but she only weighs herself on my scale… and my scale reports her weight to my phone as an unknown weight. I am glad it is smart enough to realize that no matter how strict I am about my diet and exercise, I cannot possibly lose 185-pounds in six weeks!

    I would imagine that were it sentient, my fitness watch would be wondering what has changed. I am blowing through 15,000 steps several days per week, which has not been the norm for a while. I hope to keep it up, and continue to surprise it.

    As I prepared for yesterday’s walk, I realized that my new workout shorts were in the laundry, and I decided to see what other workout shorts I have that fit. I pulled out maybe six pair from the bottom drawer, and sure enough, at least one pair (and possibly two) fit me just fine. I also found a sleeveless t-shirt that almost fits me, and knowing how hot it was, I decided to wear it anyways. I had vowed some months ago that I would never again go out in public wearing a shirt that exposed an inch (or any) of my belly… but when I am power-walking and jogging in the 35° heat, I would rather comfort over looks. Also, if anyone commented, I would simply say that I am wearing it to inspire me to exercise to fit into it!

  • Day 127

    My Bulk Barn experiment failed, but only marginally… and only because my ability to convert grams to ounces is weak. I should also mention that while the experiment did not go as planned, I did nonetheless learn a great deal from it which will help with my weight loss going forward.

    I went in and measured out a much smaller portion than I usually do. I weighed it, and it came to precisely 100g. That looked to be about a reasonable portion, right? For the fun of it, I then measured out a portion the size that I usually would have taken and weighed it. That weighed nearly 350g. Alright, the first bag it is (of course). Little did I realize that the 100g of peanuts contains 643 calories, and the portion that I had thought was a reasonable serving size was actually 3.5oz. For the fun of it, yes… I now realized that the serving I was buying previously was actually over 2,000 calories… more than I want to be consuming in a day, let alone in a sitting. It is time to seriously rethink my snacking… which is to say I am done with peanuts for a while.

    To put things into perspective… if I was going to knowingly add 2,000 calories to my daily food intake, here are some of the things I could have gone in for:

    • Sixteen Double-Dusted Chicken Wings at Montana’s… if we add the Starter Caesar salad, that takes us to 1,890 calories. If we add ranch dressing to the wings, that should tip the scale.
    • A whole medium hand-tossed pizza with extra cheese from Domino’s would be 1,840 calories… but I could add a salad to that to get over 2,000 calories.
    • A 16-ounce rib steak is only 1,480 calories, so if I were to add a medium baked potato for nearly 200 calories, I would still have room left over for dessert.
    • At P.F. Chang’s (not my favourite, but easy to get honest nutritional information for) I could have a cup of Hot & Sour soup, two vegetable spring rolls, an order of Sesame Chicken, a side order of fried rice, and four fortune cookies for 1,990 calories.

    Are you getting my point? This is likely a major reason why my weight loss has been more or less stagnant over the last couple of months. The peanuts are out.

    What I will be doing though is ordering more meal replacement bars for when I get to Leslie’s place in Dallas. I have been nursing the last two boxes that I have but decided over the last couple of nights to have one instead of the regular meal replacement shake… they have fewer calories, so when I am eating later in the evening it just makes sense. They still satisfy my cravings and sate my hunger, while doing so with significantly fewer calories. I see no reason why I cannot start replacing the peanuts in the middle of the day with the meal replacement bars.

    It is this sort of thinking that I will have to use going forward. I do not mean just now, rather for the rest of my life. If I want to lose weight and keep it off, I need to start thinking like this always. As I have said every time I have started this program, while it is important to stick to the program to lose the weight, what is most important is that I change my relationship with food.

    Sometimes it takes an outside voice to show you that you are going astray. That voice can be berating or demeaning, but that just makes you feel lousy. When the voice is encouraging and trying to help, it can make you think about what you have been doing and make you evaluate your choices… and how to go forward. I am so grateful to my loving fiancée for pointing out that I was eating a lot of peanuts.

    This morning the bathroom scale had me up from yesterday, but only by a little. Having lost over two pounds yesterday morning, it is not surprising that I gave back a little less than half a pound, despite a tremendous bowel movement. Yes, that is gross… but it is something that people trying to lose weight have to be cognizant of.

    Today I am planning another relaxing day. My allergies are kicking my butt this morning, so I took my pills and sprayed my spray, and they are much less debilitating than they were an hour ago. I am hoping that by noon I will not feel them at all. I suspect it helped not at all that HRF Princess Sophie decided to go traipsing through a field of dandelions this morning on our walk. At least we got some steps in. I have invited Eduardo to come for a cigar, but he is not sure if he can because he is waiting for a repairman. If he does, great; if he does not, he will come tomorrow. Either way, it will be good to see my friend.

    This evening, I will spend a few hours with my son the younger. He will want to get dinner, and I hope he picks somewhere that I can make reasonable choices, rather than somewhere that I cannot eat, and just sit watching him enjoy his (whatever he orders). Either way, I love spending time with him… and I will do my best to stick to the program.

    I just realized that dinner with my son will interfere with my diet program support meeting. I will ask my diet buddy if she can reschedule.

    After that, depending on what time he wants to go home, I have been invited to a cigar event at Alec Bradley’s, so if I have time I will show up. If not, then my son is and always will be more important.

    My son the elder said that he will come over tomorrow evening for a dram. I originally invited him to come celebrate finishing his exams, but it seems he has one last exam in a couple of weeks. He suggested he come over to celebrate my engagement. I’ll take it!

    The weather is a cloudy but warm, with a forecast high of 23°C. While it felt like we were going to get rain when we were out, precipitation is not in the forecast for today. Welcome to Canada… we’ll see!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 104

    Microsoft technology is annoying me again today. I am not spending the same time trying to figure it out as I did a couple of weeks ago, I just shifted to another computer. Argh. You would think that a set of technologies that I know so well would not be quite so frustrating.

    I went to bed yesterday evening knowing that I had eaten more peanuts than I should have and knowing that I had an extra meal replacement bar in the evening. I had to assume that my morning reading would not be a pleasant one. Quite the opposite, I was down significantly… back into the ‘lowest weight since starting the diet’ territory. I am not giving up on my diet, but I might just give up on trying to understand how this damned weight loss thing works.

    I have been thinking a lot these past few days about what my long-term diet strategy should be. I am now mostly used to living without breads and starches. I am not eating out, and I am losing weight. Unlike my previous attempts at this diet program, I am only partly relying on the meal replacements. Yes, they are helpful… but as the world loves to point out, they are not a good long-term strategy.

    I counted this morning, and I have about 12.5 boxes of shakes left. With my current plan, that means I could go another twelve and a half weeks before having to either buy more or end the program. I think what I might do is continue as I am until I run out of product, with three exceptions:

    1. I will be off the program for my week in Cuba, which starts one week today.
    2. I will be partly off the program for my week in Dallas, which is in in 32 days.
    3. Leslie will be in town in July, and immediately after that I am going to a buddy’s wedding in Long Island.

    The key to everything – the long-term strategy – is knowing that I can take those breaks from the program and not go nuts and keep my weight stable (or even continue to lose weight) without the meal replacements. I have to believe that if I am able to keep my food intake to under 1800 calories, and more importantly stay away from carbohydrates and starches, I should be able to continue on the right track. I suppose that should be my ultimate goal.

    I have struggled with my weight all of my life. Yes, I was slim for a few years – that’s what being in the military (and eating and working out accordingly) will do. It is easy to blame my mother, but she is dead and I am not. Whatever trauma she inflicted on me, I have to overcome. Whatever bad eating habits she gave me, I have to unlearn. There is nobody but me who can fix my flaws. I was going to say that there is nobody but me who suffers from the results of them, but that is not true. The people who love me suffer. Leslie and my children would suffer if I were to have a heart attack, stroke, or any other obesity-related illness or death. I have to overcome these for me, but also for them.

    The last few days have been difficult for me. You might or might not know that the Hebrew calendar is different from the Gregorian calendar that is in common use in the western world (and most of the eastern one). My father passed away on April 19th last year (although because of time zones, I actually found out on the 18th). The funeral was a couple of days later, on April 21. The first anniversary of his passing was therefore two weeks ago yesterday, and of the funeral, a couple of days later. Unfortunately, on the Hebrew calendar the anniversary (yahrtzeit) is this coming Sunday. It feels therefore that I have a three-week mourning period for the anniversary. It has taken a toll on me, and I have been in pain from it. More pain that usual… I miss my father every day. I miss being able to call him, to know that he is just on the other side of a phone. I have felt that for an entire year, but this three-week period seems harder than most. I will be visiting Montreal to visit his grave on Sunday, and I will say the Mourners Kaddish for the last time in the year. I have recited it twice per day, every day, and I realized this morning how strange it will be to not have to recite it anymore. The prayer is not what makes me miss him though. I miss him every day, and I have to assume I will continue to miss him whether or not I am obligated to recite a prayer. Anyways, I am hoping that after Sunday I will start to break out of my funk. Leslie coming to Canada the following day, and the two of us getting onto an airplane for a romantic getaway the day after should help, I would think!

    My son the elder is coming for a drink this evening. It will be wonderful to spend time with him. While I see my son the younger every couple of weeks pretty regular, my deal with Aaron, so as not to make it feel like pressure, is that I let him approach me. This morning he sent me a text message inquiry about something, and I took that as an opening to invite him for a drink. It is supposed to start raining in the next hour or so, and the hourly forecast shows a 90-100% chance of rain through at least noon tomorrow, so it is unlikely that we will sit out on the balcony. That is fine, I know he is my inverse – he much prefers the drink over the cigar, where I much prefer the cigar over the drink. Frankly, that has been the case for my entire adult life. While there have certainly been days when I said ‘Wow, I need a drink!’ I have always done my best to temper my intake. I enjoy a dram, but it is seldom that I feel the actual need for it. When I was his age, I certainly drank more than I do today… I was in the military. He drinks a lot, and I do my best to not lecture him about it. He is sensitive, and I know that every time I trigger him – usually accidentally – he pulls away from me. That is not what I want. I want him to want to be in my life, and to have me in his.

    Okay, it is nearing lunchtime, and I will prepare my chicken and steamed vegetables. Have a great day folks!

  • The End of a Stressful Day

    It is 9:15pm, and I am looking back on the day. I tried to cut my lunch down to a smaller portion. A few minutes later I was very again… only to realize it was nearly two hours later, and I had been so immersed in my work that the time flew. It was not yet the time for my evening salad (nor would it have been convenient for me to stop working just then), so I decided to have a meal replacement bar.

    I went about my evening as usual, but an hour after my final shake, I was hungry again. I needed to focus in class, and I decided to have another meal replacement bar. All in all, I am 320 calories more than I should have been, but that is likely nearly entirely offset by the smaller lunch. Tomorrow I will readjust back to my larger lunch, in the hopes that I will not need to snack.

    I am not going to lie, it was a stressful day… but I made great progress in my work, and I suspect that I am back on schedule. I do not have a lot of work to do on the class tomorrow, and I will be ready to teach it on Thursday. I will not really be stress-free until Day 2 of the class is over… and that’s not until Friday afternoon.

    Next week should be slightly easier!

  • Day 92

    Yesterday was a day of triumphs, a day of celebrations. Yesterday was the day that one misguided conversation led to heartbreak.

    I left the doctor’s office slightly disappointed that while I achieved my goal of being under the maximum weight limit of their regular scale, I fell short of my semi-weekly goal of losing two and a half kilos per fortnight. Still, losing one pound per week is not the worst failure. I still hope I will lose more before the next visit.

    I think I mentioned yesterday that while I went through with my plans to celebrate that milestone with a steak, I opted to enjoy it for lunch, rather than my evening meal. It was far too big, and I have to start remembering that I cannot eat meals that big anymore. I did not vomit… but I did regurgitate a few times, which did give me relief. That will also, I hope, serve as a reminder in the future that I cannot eat meals that big, and that the consequences for doing so are unpleasant.

    The one bit of good that came out of that is that I did not have a second daily meal. My usual routine of late has been:

    • Morning: meal-replacement shake.
    • Lunchtime: a large salad (lettuce, tomato, & onion with a little oil and balsamic vinegar, and a can of salmon mixed in. Sometimes with pumpkin seeds).
    • Dinner: a piece of chicken or two, and a salad like at lunchtime, minus the salmon.
    • Evening: meal replacement shake.

    I have done reasonably well with this routine. Yesterday looked like this:

    • Morning: a handful of peanuts in the car after my visit to the doctor.
    • Lunch: a large rib steak, with a side of steamed cauliflower and carrots.
    • Mid-afternoon: another handful of peanuts.
    • Early evening: a meal replacement shake.
    • Late evening: a meal replacement bar

    Later in the evening, I reached for another meal replacement shake, but Leslie talked me out of it. She was right that I should not have had it. She misunderstood why I was going to have it (thinking it was emotional eating), but I had forgotten that I had eaten the meal replacement bar.

    In Israel, we would eat our heaviest meal at lunch, and have a lighter breakfast and dinner. Thinking back on yesterday, that might not be a bad plan for me going forward. This morning the numbers on the scale were in fact down from where they were yesterday morning. I am going to try to do that for a few days and see how it goes.

    HRF Princess Sophie woke me up at 5:00am, which she does by getting off the bed and coming around to look at me. Yes, this wakes me up. I got out of bed and started to get dressed, but she immediately climbed back onto the bed. Okay, maybe she was just a bit restless, and did not actually need to go outside. This happened again a few minutes later; when she repeated the whole routine (including getting back onto the bed) I decided she might just want to cuddle, and I held her as I went back to sleep. The third time (at 5:45am) I decided this was it… I got dressed and took her outside. We walked to the end of the block, she peed and sniffed (as she does), and we went back home to bed. This time, she stayed put until I was ready to get up.

    It is hard sometimes to walk the line between airing my feelings and keeping confidences. Without any intention to do so I hurt someone very important to me last night, and I am worried that person might not forgive me. I am in a fog of misery today, and I do not know if I will get out of it. I have a lot of work to do today so I hope I can… but this is painful. My two goals are to get through the day, and to not do any emotional eating. Wish me luck.

    Have a great day folks!