Losing a part of me

Category: Meal Replacements

  • Day 1332

    I love what I do… but I cannot lie – I am relieved that I am now officially done with the overnight classes for the next little while. After a really weird Friday (which reminded me that there are some activities that I was really hoping I was done with) I got a luxuriant night sleep… which would have been slightly longer if I did not share my bed with a floof. It is my responsibility as a fur daddy to take her out when she asks nicely, and so I probably slept a little bit less than I would have. I will have another night to catch up tonight.

    My new order of meal replacements arrived yesterday. I think Monday I am going to start a new routine with them. I am not sure what that will be, but I will think of something.

    My plans for Saturday include seeing a friend in the afternoon. It will be a fun time.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1328

    The seasons change. Yesterday was the first day that I took Her Floofness out for her morning walk (during my lunch break, from 6:00am-7:00am) and I was genuinely chilly. Today was the same, and I prepared this morning by putting a vest on under my blazer. I was not frozen, but I recognize that the summer is waning and autumn is nigh.

    I slept yesterday afternoon! I am not sure, but I might have gotten as much as 5 hours of sleep. It was glorious. I was awake at 6:00pm, and stayed awake until midnight when I lay down for a nap. All this to say that I was pretty well rested for my class today, which is just about done.

    When I get paid for a couple of engagements that I did in August I am going to place an order for some more of those meal replacements. I am not out of them, but my first order confirmed which I like better than the others. Some of them I enjoyed immensely, which some of them I am forcing myself to choke down.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1309

    I forced myself to stay awake as long as I could… which is to say until about 3:30pm. I then crawled into bed and slept for a couple of hours. As happens far too frequently, especially when I try to sleep during daylight hours, my eyes popped open a couple of hours later. I then did something that I do not usually do. Despite feeling like I was awake, and knowing that I was still exhausted, I stayed in bed. I probably got up to pee, but then I got right back into bed. I might have checked my email quickly, but I did not stay on my phone for any other purpose. I stayed in bed, and I eventually fell back asleep. While my fitness watch did not register it as such, I probably slept a full nine hours last night. It was blissful. I feel much more awake today than I have these last several days.

    These last couple of days I have eaten one of the new meal replacements for my mid-night breakfast. Aside from the fact that I would not have had time either day to prepare anything, it was a healthy and convenient ‘meal’ that I would not feel guilty about. I had the wafers both days – yesterday’s was mocha, today’s was chocolate – and they were both tasty and satisfying. By the time my lunch hour comes around (at 6:00am) I will make an omelette. As I mentioned, I have enough food in the house for a couple more days; by the weekend I should be able to get back onto the program… as long as I can do it with these meal replacements. It will be an adjustment, and I am not sure if I will succeed. I just looked and the product I usually use is still sold out. That is frustrating, and I am not sure how I will adjust… or if I will stick to a revised partial program for the time being.

    For the third night in a row, my weight dropped… significantly. I am now 5.8 lbs. lighter than I was just a few days ago. That is great, except that I am also still six pounds heavier than I was on my best day. I have a long way to go to even be back on track.

    This program is easier when the product is available but maybe the non-availability will force me to use some sort of self-control which might, in turn, become a habit.

    It is now 8:15am and I have less than three hours left to go before the end of my work day. I am hoping that a buddy is coming over for a cigar in the afternoon. I am also hoping that I can repeat yesterday… sleep from 5pm-1am. We’ll see.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1308

    We are half way through the week. This morning I woke up at 12:45am and said to myself that there are only two more ridiculously early mornings left before I can resume a normal schedule. I am truly looking forward to that. Once again, I got a bit of sleep in the afternoon yesterday, and then I got four hours of sleep at night. I would have slept much better in the afternoon had I put my phone onto ‘silent’ mode. I do not ever ignore phone calls from my sons, and I was happy to hear from my son the elder. After he gave me a not-so-brief rundown of what was happening in his life I told him I wanted to go back to sleep and he understood. As inconvenient as if initially felt to be awakened, it was fortunate that I was because there was a message from a friend that he was coming over… I had completely forgotten that I had invited him! Aside from wanting to catch up, he also had a portable hard drive that I had loaned him. When I thought to back up my computer over the weekend I realized I did not have it and knew exactly where it was.

    The friend who came over is one who was on the same program that I am on. He was even under the care of the same doctor that I originally did it with. As such, I felt comfortable discussing the frustration I am feeling over the company’s supply chain issues. We discussed possible alternatives, and he had some good insight for me. In the meantime, the replacement meal replacements did arrive yesterday, and I had my first one just a few minutes ago. It was palatable if not delicious. I just have to remember that it will be six per day rather than my usual four. With that said, I will not be resuming the full program today; I have food in the house for two more days, and I do not want to waste it. I also do not want my class to suffer for my Day One Syndrome.

    My weight had shot up terribly over the previous week, and I am relieved that after a peak a few days ago I am back on a downward trend, even though I am not back on the program, and my circadian rhythm (sleep cycle) is shot to smithereens. I have dropped three pounds from my peak (not Day One)

    I am tired as I type this, but I am sure I will be able to make it through the day. I only have 8.5 hours left of teaching. How fun.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1306

    I need to get back on track. This morning I was disgusted by the ground lost on the bathroom scale… or I supposed I should say last night. I was in bed by 5:30pm but never fell asleep. I might have gotten 20-30 minutes of sleep at some point, but I forced myself to stay in bed with my eyes closed until 11pm or so, at which point I got up and showered and shaved and got ready for the day. My very unpleasant encounter with the bathroom scale was therefore around 11:30pm.

    I do not know how long it will take for my new meal replacements to arrive, and I do not know what to expect when it does. My daily caloric intake on my usual ones is 900 calories spread across four 225 calorie shakes. These products are, as memory serves, 150 calories each, which means that to keep cadence I will be on six products per day until the other ones are available again. I can live with that. I am excited and reticent at the same time knowing that these are not all the same old shakes… which I do actually like and do not find boring. These are different types of chips and cookies and things like that. If they are really good then I will have to remember to maintain my self-control and not over-indulge.

    It is 8:45am and yes, I am exhausted, but the hardest part of my class is over. I have no more lecturing to do today – they are doing practice exams all afternoon. In just over two hours the class will be over for the day. I have to run to the post office, but other than that I can come home and relax. Hopefully with my current level of exhaustion I will get to sleep for real this afternoon.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1304

    I nearly opened this article with the word DISASTER… but then I realized that with everything that is going on in the world in general and my world in particular this does not rank very high. The vendor of the meal replacements that I rely on is out of stock, and there are supply chain issues so they do not know when they will have them again. I am, for the next few days, off the program. I have ordered a different type of meal replacement from a different vendor, and they should arrive by Thursday. In the meantime, I am going to try to eat smart.

    After a week of terrible sleep and difficult if any bowel movements I closed my eyes last night at 5:00pm, and with the exception of of getting up to pee a couple of times I slept thirteen straight hours, with a sleep score of 89. I then had a great bowel movement. I started my day as well as I have in quite some time.

    My weight shot up this week, but I will try to keep it steady where it is at now until I get the new meal replacements. It will be a challenge, but I am not going to go nuts eating. The overnight classes make it harder to stay true to the program, but I hope that since I am back eating it might be a bit easier this week. We will see.

    I am off to see some friends this afternoon. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1303

    I tried to sleep right after class, but interruptions plagued me. I finally gave up because I knew that I had an engagement at 2:15pm. My cleaning lady was coming over. The long and the short of it is that I finally got to sleep at 7:00pm and slept uninterrupted until 1:05am or so. While that is certainly not a good nights sleep, I slept deep and should now be able to make it through my class without nearly falling asleep on camera.

    I tried to order my meal replacements yesterday and discovered that the supplier (the manufacturer) has them listed as ‘sold out.’ I am not sure if that is due to a supply shortage, or if they are discontinued. I am going to do some research, but it is entirely possible I will need to find something else. That product is the only thing that has really helped me to lose weight… and if it is discontinued I am going to find the next thing that will help. I am not going to make this an excuse.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1302

    I realized yesterday that I made a mistake. I thought I had two full boxes of meal replacements (which is enough for a week). It turns out that I only have half a box left. I am hoping that by this afternoon my credit card payment will have gone through and that I can order more today, but even if I did I would not get the delivery in two days. I am until I get more stock on a partial program. I had some chicken yesterday, and this morning I had my first meal replacement after coming in from walking the Floof… 7:00am. I have chicken and vegetables for salad later today.

    I did not sleep at all last night. I got perhaps two hours of sleep in the afternoon, but could not manage any more in the evening. As a result, I have been extremely tired through the first half of my class. I have four hours left of my day, and then I will be able to get three hours of sleep before my cleaning lady comes. Scheduling her for today was a bad idea, but how could I have known?

    By the way… I do not think I have moved my bowels once this week. I am starting to think about proactive measures in case that extreme pain situation comes back.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Dat 1301

    Wow did I sleep! Yesterday after class I slept at least five hours. It was very nice. I got up and did whatever I needed to do, and then sat on the balcony with a cigar. When I realized how tired I was I decided to go in and try to sleep again. I slept another four and a half hours. In fact, I slept so deep that I overslept. When I opened my eyes and saw that it was 1:40am I jumped out of bed and scrambled to be online with three minutes to spare… not for the ‘I’ll be online thirty minutes early in case you have any questions’ but three minutes until class started. I will not make a habit of that.

    My weight was up significantly this morning. It is partly because in my rush I did not position the scale properly, but also because my system has been out of whack. I am not going to beat myself up over it.

    I have to wait one or two days more before I can reorder my meal replacements, but it is nearly that time. I am about to open my last box of 14 shakes… that is 3.5 day. If I cannot order them in time to get them by the weekend then I am going to be short. In anticipation of that I am going to cut down to three per day, plus one meal. That will start this afternoon, but will end when I receive my new shipment.

    With that said, I have a weight in mind at which I am going to make that transition to three plus one – three shakes and one meal. The meal will be much smaller than it was the last time I tried this, but I have to start eating responsibly. I expect that by mid-September I will be there.

    Because I was so late getting up, I did not have my meal replacement until my morning break – three hours later than normal. I was not feeling hunger pangs, but I do expect that had I waited much longer, I would not have been operating on all cylinders. That was not intentional, and will not be repeated.

    It is time for me to get back to class. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1277

    It has been three months (and then some) since my fitness watch measured a sleep score of 89. Last night was bliss. I only slept 7.5 hours, but I woke up refreshed and ready to face the day.

    After ten complete days on the program, my weight has dropped slightly over twenty pounds. Yes, that is a great feat. I am still just about fifteen pounds heavier than I was the day my terrible issues started near the end of March. I will be past that in three weeks, mark my words. In fact, by Friday August 1 I would like to be there. I am hoping that it will not take as long, but within six weeks (from today) I would really like to drop below the terrible mark… and hopefully that will be the last time I ever cross that threshold in either direction.

    There are some things that are seldom discussed, and others that are just taken for granted. However, it has always been the purpose of this blog to be open with my journey. You read these past two days that Friday was a difficult day because of a blockage in my colon that affected my back as well as my bladder. All of that is behind me, but I was standing in the washroom last night peeing and thinking to myself how easy it is to take for granted the satisfaction from a strong urinary flow. I have been peeing well since the blockage cleared (as can be read in yesterday’s journal) but it has been consistent. I am trying to drink more water than I had been (which is hard because I was drinking a lot) so it is frequent, but knowing what it was like Friday to try to squeeze out a few drops… just a big relief.

    I placed an order for more meal replacements yesterday. I have enough shakes to last me until Friday midday, and I ordered two more weeks’ worth which should take me through the first week of August. If I can continue to order every two weeks then I think it will be easier to manage both from a financial and from a space standpoint – after all, the boxes are not small and do need to be stored. Two weeks at a time should be just fine.

    I will be at my desk working for most of the day today. Not only do I have to study for my exam (which is more important than anything else), and I also have to prepare for the class I am teaching tomorrow, but I also have to rebuild my demo lab environment. Owing partly to flaws in the version of Windows Server that I used, and partly to a very minor but critical error I made some weeks ago, the environment that I had built is no more… or at least, a lot of work needs to be done to restore it. That work will be done today (and in fact is already underway) so that tomorrow during class I will be able to demonstrate my concepts should I need to. In other words… it’s going to be a long day for me.

    I have been having issues with the computer keyboards that I have. I have three of them but one the keys stick (especially when it is humid, but not exclusively); one of them some of the keys do not work unless you hit them twice. The last one (the one that I had been using) seems to randomly pop open other windows as I type – as an example, if I am typing into a web browser it might randomly open a new tab. While it is possible that it happens because I am fat-fingering, I suspect that it happens far too often and far too consistently for that to be the reason. Either way, I need to be able to type quickly and reliably without needing to constantly delete fifteen consecutive characters after a key stick, or having to stop six times mid-post so that I can close out new tabs and then find the original browser tab that I had been working in. I do not consider myself extravagant with regard to keyboards – the three that I have include one that was purchased for me by my company six years ago, one that was gifted to me, and one that I needed for a second computer (on which I needed to be able to type simultaneously and without needing to un-plug and re-plug the keyboard. I did not order a cheap keyboard, but I also did not go wild. I am hoping that this Bluetooth Logitech keyboard and mouse set will last me for years to come. It will arrive tomorrow. Yay.

    I suppose, with that, I have procrastinated quite enough for the day and should be getting to work. Actually, I have been working on the servers all this time, but only on reinstalling the host operating system on the two physical servers… and copying the contents of my Storage Area Network (SAN) onto a physical disk so I can re-configure the SAN while I am at it. I will take 30 minutes to prepare my notes for tomorrow’s class, and will then spend the remainder of the day studying.

    …and I should mention that this keyboard is sticking as well. I wonder if it is the humidity? Just in case that is the case I have closed the balcony door and turned on the air conditioner. That will drastically lower the ambient humidity of the apartment!

    Have a great day folks!