Losing a part of me

Category: Meal Replacements

  • Day 559

    I have to remember that when I have a large meal at night it will have a very different effect from having it at lunch. Of course, I did not have the option of a large lunch yesterday because I did not have any food in the house, and my main meal was prepared after class… and after walking the dog… and after shopping. The result? I ended up gaining back 1.6 lbs. of the pounds I had dropped yesterday morning.

    I am still not fully back on track, but I want to keep pushing for it. It did not help that last night I forgot to turn on the dishwasher, which meant that this morning as I was preparing my lunch (which I prepare during the class’s morning break, and then will turn on to cook 30-40 minutes before lunchtime) I had to prepare my chicken in a baking pan instead of my regular (and healthier) air fryer. Drat. I will also forego the potatoes I have been having of late and simply prepare a side salad.

    The class I am attending is now done, and I have a few minutes before the class I am to teach is to begin. I think I will prepare a meal replacement shake and try to calm down. I am wound up and my anxiety is going through the roof. I am not entirely sure why… but I am not turning to food to calm my nerves.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 544

    As I sat on the balcony waiting for my wife to join me last night I thought back on my day, what I had eaten, and a John Lennon quote: Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. Most of what I had planned for yesterday did not really happen. I did not get to CVS so I did not pick up meal replacements; I had a salad for lunch (which was planned), and then before class I ate a bowl of cereal (partly planned… I had planned to eat a meal replacement or a small meal). After class I was hungry and so I went to pick up another salad (not bad and not really a cheat, but still not planned). Somewhere in there (spread throughout the day) I enjoyed a reasonable portion of dried mango, a Takoyaki (a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special molded pan… usually filled with seafood, but this one was filled with red bean paste), and two Timbits (yes, I brought a box of them from Canada, and have now had four of them). All of that on top of the omelette I had for breakfast. There was too much snacking in there, but I still did not really go overboard. If I had been concerned then the bathroom scale this morning put my mind at ease… I am back down to what I weighed Friday morning (the day before I flew) and have fully shed the three pounds I gained on Saturday (mostly from gorging at the airport, but also on our fried chicken dinner). If I can eat reasonably well today then I will be happy that I am back on track.

    To refer to the weather today as hot would not do it justice. The forecast calls for temperatures approaching 110° Fahrenheit, with no sign of clouds anywhere in the vicinity. I would love to try to get some exercise today, but walking outdoors would be a monumentally bad idea. My body is simply not used to this level of heat as it once was… when I was young and stupid. I might spend a couple of hours at the pool and would do some swimming but would also sit there passively for a while with a cigar. We’ll see. It was originally my intention to take my stepson to the pool for a while, but he has not been feeling well these last couple of days so unless his mother says something then I am not going to even bring the subject up.

    I had my usual omelette for breakfast today and will likely pick salads up for Leslie and myself… and possibly something else for the boy. I am not worrying about that right now. When I do go out I will stop in at CVS and see if there are any meal replacements that work for me. If they do then I will grab those and should be able to stay on track for the day. I am teaching again this evening, so if I have a meal replacement before class, and either another one, or else a salad afterward, then I will be able to call this a very successful day… and the numbers on the bathroom scale tomorrow morning should reflect that.

    I spent a couple of hours at the cigar lounge yesterday, but that Is not in my plans for today. I do need to go back one day this week to discuss a couple of things with the owner, but that is not going to be today. I love it there… but I do not feel like venturing out more than I need to today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 543

    I was not very mindful in how I planned my eating yesterday. To be fair, I was… but not with regard to my weight loss. When there are other people involved, including an eight-year-old boy and a restaurant where, if you try to go at the wrong time (which would have been the right time) you might end up waiting two hours for a table… trust me, I made the right decisions. I could have done without the ice cream afterward, but I did compromise by requesting the smaller portion. All in all it was a lovely day with my family.

    The problem with those things arose when at 8:30pm I realized that I had not eaten since 3:00pm, and that if I ate anything substantial at this point then I would be eating too late. I was legitimately hungry, but I decided to take a small snack rather than a full meal.

    The bathroom scale had my weight ever so slightly down this morning, which means that I did not do nearly as bad as I might have. I will take it as a win.

    My plan for today is to have a salad for lunch, and then something small for dinner after I am done teaching. Come to think of it, I might switch that up and have my dinner before class… but I have to be in front of the computer at 4:30pm, so that might not work. I think the smarter move would be to buy some meal replacements for the next couple of nights. After the boy goes to his father’s (Wednesday afternoon) Leslie and I will start eating together right after my class.. but for tonight, tomorrow, then next Wednesday and Friday I should plan for the meal replacements. I am not ordering online; I will go to CVS and look at the nutritional values to see what is best.

    For the daytime? I am going to spend some time with the boy, and then I will spend a couple of hours at the cigar lounge. I promised the boy we would go swimming while his mom works, and that would be a lovely way to spend an hour… except my forecast shows thunderstorms starting in the next hour and lasting until 7:00pm. Not exactly swimming pool weather.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 539

    I stepped off the bathroom scale this morning pleased with another drop in weight. In my coffee- and sleep-deprived state I was trying to calculate my weight loss from yesterday to figure out how it compared to the last few days to total a very respectable 8.6 pound loss over a three day period. It took a couple of moments for me to realize that it was not a three-day streak… I have lost that over two days. I am utterly amazed that after just two days since I resolved to get back on track, I am making such tremendous strides. Of course I know that the tremendous weight drop in the first 2-3 days will reflect the loss of water weight, and I cannot expect to continue at this pace. Still, I am thrilled that I have been able to stick to it for two days.

    In truth, I stuck to my program better than I intended yesterday. My plan was to drive into Toronto, see an old colleague, and then be home by 4:30pm. I would prepare a cross of lunch and dinner, and then either at my evening break or else after class I would have had another meal replacement shake. Driving into town I was worried that I might falter at lunch, so I had a meal replacement shake in the car. As a result of that I only had the one bite of pie that was forced upon me. Stuck in traffic for over three hours on my way home, I prepared another shake. I do not remember why I had two packaged shakes in the car, but I am glad that I did. Arriving home far too late to prepare a meal (I was even late for work) I debated between making a late dinner after class (which would have meant eating after 9:00pm), or just having another meal replacement shake during my break. I opted for that choice, and the results on the bathroom scale this morning were clear. I have had a spring in my step ever since!

    I am teaching again this evening, but before I do I have a friend coming over after lunch. I usually go to see him, but it is nice to host him from time to time. We will enjoy a cigar on the balcony and shoot the shit about this and that. Because of this visit I will be eating lunch relatively early today. I will have to make sure that I do not slip and eat anything other than a meal replacement shake (or possibly two) later in the day and evening. How nice would it be to not weigh more when I arrive in Dallas than I did when Leslie left Canada three weeks earlier‽

    For those who are wondering, I did indeed use a strange bit of punctuation at the end of that last paragraph. While I knew about the interrobang previously, I was reminded of it while listening to a podcast about marketing the other day. It ( ‽ ) is the amalgamation of the question mark and the exclamation mark ( ?! ) and is meant to mean just that… a question with an exclamation. I doubt I will be using it frequently, but I decided to throw it in for gits and shiggles. For more information about this cute little punctuation mark please refer to the Wikipedia article, which while not as authoritative as Merriam Webster or Cambridge Dictionaries (which both have entries, while the Oxford English Dictionary does not), it is nevertheless more complete.

    Have a great day folks, won’t you‽

  • Day 493

    I was bad yesterday, and I paid the price for it this morning. My weight jumped by .6 lb., which made me think about something that I don’t think I had considered for a long time. I have always said that one of the main goals of my extreme weight loss program is to change my unhealthy relationship with food. This morning I had the opportunity to think about some real changes that have happened. I had some snacks yesterday, and I should not have… but I stopped at a single portion of each of those snacks, even though the entire bag or container was available to me. I did not stop because I was ashamed that others would see my gluttonous appetite, I stopped because I knew that I was eating something that is fattening and I wanted to enjoy the taste, but I did not need to overdo it. The second change is that I gained .6 lb. from my cheat, where in the past (when my body was much larger and so were my cheats) I would often gain 3-4 lbs. overnight. I think going forward I will be able to live a life of moderation. That will mean the occasional moderate gain, to be followed on by a moderate loss.

    I should mention, as an asterisk to my weight gain, that I did not move my bowels this morning, and that had I done so my weight likely would have not gone up… although it is unlikely that it would have dropped either.

    I have come to a decision about my meal program. Yesterday morning I weighed in at 250. I have been plugging away at the program for almost a year and a half. I have realized tremendous weight loss and a body transformation that is nothing short of spectacular. I have thought about ‘what’s next’ often and have written about those thoughts in these pages. These next few paragraphs are my current thinking.

    If I were to walk into a bariatric clinic today without any underlying medical conditions, they would not accept me as a patient. They would tell me to eat less (and healthier), they would tell me to exercise more. They might run a battery of tests to make sure that I was not pre-diabetic or that I did not have a thyroid condition, but they would send me home and tell me to lose twenty pounds and then see my family doctor on a regular basis. Even six months ago when I was hovering around the 300 lbs. mark I could not have said that, but that is my new reality. I am absolutely overweight… but I am not in any extreme medical danger from it.

    In addition to that, I know that when I tried to jog last week (while I was on the full-fast program) I was not able to jog as much as I had, and I found myself completely drained the rest of the day – to the point of being unable to function and stay awake. Both of the clinics where I have gone through the program before told me that the full-fast program was not compatible with heavy exercise, and that I would get to a point where I would have to pace myself. I suspect that ketosis is good when your fat stores are plentiful, and your body can burn that for energy. When your body fat is not so high your body can find itself starving for energy, thus the exhaustion. If I had a job where I could take a nap for an hour to recuperate it might be different, but as a teacher I need to be on (and on camera) for the duration of my class. Knowing I have days when I start teaching at 8:30am and end at 9:30pm, I cannot take the chance of falling asleep (or even displaying listlessness).

    With all of that said, knowing that the full-fast program is not a lifetime solution, only an extreme weight loss program, and knowing that such a transition would have to happen at some point anyways, I have decided that now is the time for me to start the transition back onto eating food. This will be a gradual process that I will ease into over the next couple of months. I will start with a single healthy midday meal, while still having the meal replacement shakes for breakfast and for my evening nutrition. I will, over time, ween myself off the meal replacements, until I am eating three healthy meals per day.

    I was going to begin this paragraph with ‘the most important…’ but in reality, there is no single most important factor, rather there are many that I will have to remember. I will have to stay mindful; I will have to watch my weight, and if I see the numbers go up over a day or two then I will have to take the next few days to reverse that trend. I will indeed start ‘counting calories’ which will include weighing my foods and using an app to keep track of what I eat. I will have to make sure I am exercising on a regular basis, whether that is jogging or walking or Taekwondo or whatever else it might be. There are so many things that I am going to have to make sure I never stop doing so that I can continue to lose weight and stay healthy.

    —

    It is a beautiful day out today. My diet buddy came over for coffee this morning. After she left, I had a lovely date with my wife over video chat. Both of these were on the balcony because it is too lovely to stay inside today. My son asked if I would take him for dinner this evening, and I am thrilled to… even though he wants to go for pizza. I checked with his mother, and the place we are going does serve salads, so I do not have to be too bad. Nonetheless, I made sure to eat my midday meal so that I will not be hungry, and therefore tempted to veer from my newly-modified program. I am just thrilled that he reached out to me – that has not happened in a very long time.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 487

    I have been having a much more difficult time getting back into the groove of the full-fast program than I had previously, and I think I know why that is. I pushed myself with exercise. On previous attempts I might have walked, but this time I started the full-fast program (900 calories per day, plus maybe another 25 if we count my coffees) with jogs and walks that combined each day for over 10km per day. While I know that I am able to do those workouts, my body these last couple of days has sent me a clear message that doing it on reduced calories is either something I will need to work up to, or else something that I need to rethink. If the former then I need to take a couple of days off from exercising (which begins today – I rethought my 5:45am alarm last night and reset it for 7:15am), and then start back once my body is used to the full-fast again. If the latter, then I need to adjust from my full-fast program to a modified program that will either include a fifth shake, or else replace one meal replacement with an actual meal. I am leaning toward the latter.

    After my video chat with my diet buddy yesterday I went out for my jog. To read yesterday’s journal entry you would think that I was ready to run 10km without hesitation. I realized a couple of kilometres in that I was optimistic in that belief, and my energy drained much quicker than it had previously. While I jogged the first 4km without stopping, only the first kilometre was of a pace that I was seeing the previous days. I walked the rest of the 10km and had very little energy the rest of the day. Even sitting with Lyle and Dorothy on their patio they mentioned that I did not have my usual energy. Usually that would have been because was down emotionally. Yesterday I was perfectly happy… but completely drained physically.

    While I was originally planning to wake up early and jog today, I decided against that late yesterday afternoon. If I was unable to get through my day off yesterday without almonds and then a can of salmon, I did not want to risk that on a day when I have to be teaching and fully on. Tomorrow I am going to the vampires to have my bloodwork, so I was never planning to jog tomorrow. I will see after that how my body is feeling, and one of two things will happen. Either I will be ready to continue on my journey, or I will have to go shopping so that I can start integrating a meal at lunchtime to supplement my regimen. While I love seeing the progress on the full-fast program, I also know that getting out and exercising is equally important. I also know that one day in the not-too-distant future I will be weaning myself off the program (full or partial), and the two keys factors to my not regaining all of the weight are diet and exercise. By getting used to the exercise now I will not need to force myself to start later on.

    My plan for today is to stick to the program. The bathroom scale was kind to me this morning, showing a very slight drop, even though I cheated yesterday. I needed to cheat because I was literally falling over. Today I will not exercise (beyond taking Her Royal Floofness for her walks), so I expect that sticking to the meal replacements should not be too difficult. If I truly feel like I cannot get through the day then I will go shopping during my break and I will put the full-fast program off until the weekend. I do not expect that will be the case. I am teaching all day, and then in the evening I have my sommelier course. After that I will speak with my wife before getting into bed at a reasonable hour. I have changed tomorrow morning’s alarm to 6:30am so that I will be able to get my morning routine in before running to the lab to have my blood drawn and be back at my desk in time to start class. I have to stay mindful not only of my food intake, but also of my resting. The last two nights I could hardly stay awake until 9:30pm, but that was with me pushing myself. Today I will not push and should be able to make it through the day and then get a good night sleep.

    I am happy to be in best weight ever territory again this morning, but I need to balance my amazing progress with my ability to get through the day. My weight loss must be not only achievable but sustainable. Yes, I love when people stop me when I am walking with Princess Sophie to ask me if I have lost weight… but I also need to make sure that I can get through the day without collapsing.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 486

    “I know that the scale giveth, and the scale taketh away.” I wrote this quote in the last paragraph of yesterday’s journal entry, knowing full well that after the tremendous weight loss of the last few days, even if I stuck to my program there was a good chance that my weight would not drop more this morning. While it did not drop like it had the previous few days, I was still down. That means that I am, once again, in best weight ever territory!

    Yesterday was not an easy day to be successful. Indeed, it was a struggle, but I made it through. I think if I look back on my previous jumps from partial program (or falling off the wagon completely for a few days) back onto the full-fast program, the third day has always been difficult. True to my plans, I went out for a jog/walk around 1:30pm after my second meal replacement of the day. When I returned home I showered and relaxed a little. While my plan was to have a cigar on the balcony, I was starting even then to realize just how tired and worn down I was. I decided to have my third meal replacement, and then lie down to try to take a nap. I am not sure if I slept, but I rested for an hour or so before Her Royal Floofness told me she wanted to go out for a walk. It was a longer than usual walk for a late afternoon, but I was happy to accommodate her. I told Leslie that I was exhausted and would be going to bed and to sleep early. We spoke for a while as I enjoyed my final meal replacement, and I was asleep by about 9:45pm. Yes, this old man was asleep before 10pm on a Saturday night. My younger self would be pointing and laughing at me.

    My early night to bed paid off. My Sleep Score was 81. Could it have been better? Yes… but it has not been better in a long time, and I will take it!

    I had a huge non-scale victory yesterday! I went to put on my jeans and was again miffed by how loose they were. Remember a month or so ago, when I noticed that my Size-38 jeans were loose and I tried to fit into my Size-36 jeans… only to realize that they were still way too tight? Well, I tried again… and they fit! To be clear, I did not go through every pair until one of them fit; I grabbed the first pair of Levi 501s off the top. They are tight, but they button to the top without too much effort. Hooray!! Sometime today I will probably go through the rest of the bin and see if the others fit, and I will do a bit of rotation in my armoire. I doubt they will all fit, but we are getting there. I predict that sometime in the not-too-distant future I will no longer have any bins labeled ‘clothes that don’t fit me yet.’ Sometime after that, I predict that I will need to start shopping for clothes again!

    I have been giving thought to how to approach the coming week. My calendar is packed during my usual waking hours. Tomorrow morning I start teaching a daytime class (which, unlike my last class, is 8-hours per day). In the evening tomorrow I have my Cigar Sommelier class, then Tuesday through Thursday I am teaching in the evening. Fortunately my daytime class is in the central time zone, which means that the 9-5 class is actually 10-6 where I am. I have set my alarm for each morning this week to go off at 5:55am. It is my hope that I am able to get out of bed, finish my usual morning bathroom routine by 6:45am, then take Her Floofness out for her walk. I should be home from that by 7:30am, at which point I will go out for my jog/walk. My last few outings have been between 80-90 minutes, so I would be home by 9:00am. I can then shower, get dressed, and prepare my coffee and morning meal replacement, say my morning prayers, and be ready at my computer by 9:30am… exactly the thirty minutes prior to class that I am asked to be in class. I will try to do this for at least three days of the week… and I will see how well I am able to do. I am not usually a morning person and getting up and at ‘em that early has not traditionally been my thing. At least, not in the 27 years since I finished active duty.

    Of course, this means that I will be trying to go to bed earlier than I usually do. My evening classes finish by 9:30pm, and I will immediately get ready for bed and jump into the rectangle with my wife. If I am able to keep this up, there will be no cigars for me until Friday… or at least, from Tuesday through Thursday, as my evening class on Monday is in fact my cigar class, which I am going to try to join from the balcony so that I can smoke during the class.

    Tuesday morning will not be a jogging morning, one way or another. I have to get my bloodwork done one day this week (in advance of my appointment next week with my doctor), and so I put it onto my calendar for Tuesday morning. Of I cannot get there Tuesday, then it will change to Wednesday… but that has to be done, one way or another.

    My plans for today are simple. In a few minutes, I am meeting with my diet buddy. She is unable to meet face to face today, so it will be a Facetime call. No problem. After that, I will suit up and go out for my jog. After a good night of sleep, my Body Battery was charged up to 79/100 when I woke up, but somehow has dropped in these last three hours to 66. No matter, that is still good enough to get a really good Sunday jog in. It is a sunny day and warm but not hot, and I am going to see if I can jog a full 10km today. After that, I will come home to shower and enjoy my second meal replacement. In the afternoon I am going to visit with my buddy Lyle and his wife, which should be a nice time. I have not seen them since before I flew off to Dallas last, and it will be nice to catch up. In the evening I will come home and relax and test some new technology – I ordered an electronic picture frame to hang in my apartment, and I want to hang it and load it up with pictures from the wedding. After that, I plan to relax on the balcony, and when her son is asleep I will chat with my wife for a few minutes before hitting the sack.

    There are a couple of temptations that I need to avoid today. I have too often stopped in at Bulk Barn to pick up a handful of peanuts on my way to or from (or both) Lyle’s house. I have to stay mindful and make sure that today can truly be my fourth straight day of sticking to my program. I am now three pounds from a very major milestone, and I do not want to dilly-dally on my way there. It is possible that one or two days this coming week I will not lose weight or even possibly gain weight… but that goes back to the scale giving and taking away. My goal is to make sure that if it does happen that it is not because I cheated. I will stay mindful. I will stay focused. I will achieve my goals.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 484

    I did it. I got through my first day back on the full-fast program without faltering. The only ‘cheating’ I did was two cups of Royal Milk Tea… not really cheats, although still 65 calories per cup.. I was hoping for a slight drop in weight this morning when I stepped onto the bathroom scale. I was not expecting the monster drop of 4.6 lbs., which brings me within three pounds of my best weight ever. I know that it will take me a few more days to get there (the first day can be a tremendous drop, followed by less tremendous drops the following days), but I am certainly encouraged to continue doing what I did yesterday.

    Of course, one day does not a pattern make. I have to follow up my success from yesterday by doing just as well today… and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and so on. Fortunately my wonderful wife is holding me accountable. For those who might be wondering, she is not being a nag. I have asked her to support me and to hold me accountable, and to make sure that I am staying true to my plan. This is a very good thing!

    Something that I doubt I will be able to do today that I did yesterday is jog. I am still teaching until 1:15pm, at which point I am going to drive into Scarborough to pick up my meal replacements. That will likely be a three-hour shlep. Assuming I get home by 5:00pm, I might still be able to head out, but it will depend on several factors. One thing that it should not depend on is my making plans to see friends. I am hoping to have a relaxing evening at home, and while the forecast calls for a 30% chance of rain around 9:00pm, I still suspect I will be able to enjoy a cigar on the balcony. After this past week I think I deserve it.

    I did exactly what I was hoping for yesterday. I jogged just over 6km, and then walked the remaining 4.75km to get home. I followed my previous track almost exactly. On my next outing I hope I can increase the jogging to 7km. We’ll see!

    Jogging

    • Distance: 6.1km (5.13km)
    • Duration: 42:32 (35:01)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 6m58s (6m49s)
    • Steps: 6,720 (5,600)
    • Calories burned: 750 (650)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 158 (160)

    I was not breaking any records, but I do not need to… All I need to do is keep getting out there and running. It is the movement that helps me to lose weight, and I am not in a race against anyone for speed or distance; I am only in a race with myself to lose weight and to be the best me that I can be.

    My goal for today is to stay on track and to stay mindful. It would be nice to get that jog in when I get back from Toronto, and then when I have lit the Sabbath candles I would like to sit outside with a cigar and my book. I know Leslie has her son this evening so while she can video-chat after he goes to bed, she will likely not be available before that. I will relax and decompress, and when we can talk I will be much happier.

    Yesterday as I finished my article I realized that it had been a few weeks since I used my previously ubiquitous sign-off. I thought that it might have been either a sign that I was off-track and it was affecting my previously positive mindset, or if that sign-off is just something I do as I am losing weight, and while I was not, I didn’t think to do it. Either way…

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 483

    Today is the first day of the rest of my weight loss journey. A few days ago, I made a promise to myself (and to my wife) that I would, starting today, resume my program with gusto and intent. Over the last few days I have been a little more cavalier with my eating, knowing that this resumption was coming. I did not really eat anything bad, but I was certainly not on my strict or even my true modified program. That all ends today. I woke up this morning with a renewed sense of purpose, with a plan to follow the full-fast program. I took stock of my meal replacements, and if I stick to the program completely then I have 9.5 days’ worth. I will drive into Scarborough tomorrow to pick up another case, which is enough for four more weeks. I have to do it tomorrow because next week I am teaching all day every day, and they are not open on weekends.

    While I have certainly not been true to my program since returning from Dallas, I will consider it at least a minor victory that everything that I have eaten, I have cooked myself. There was one exception to that, which was at the herf I went to last Friday (they had chicken wings, and I ate six of them). I have not eaten at a restaurant even once; I have not ordered food, and I have not even bought any food from the prepared food counters at the supermarket. I have said before that however difficult it may be to eat well at home, it is exponentially more difficult to do when eating out. Do not get me wrong – I still bought mini-crisps and even Goldfish crackers a couple of times… but other than those, almost everything that I have eaten has still been relatively acceptable… on my modified program, if not on my full-fast program.

    I was shocked once again this morning when I stepped onto the bathroom scale to a major drop in weight. While I am still above the 260 lbs. mark, I am also less than 7.5 lbs. heavier than my best weight ever (from April 14 – Day 450). It is as if my body, despite eating more than usual and even eating late yesterday, wants to encourage me to get back on track and not lose faith that I can do it. I do not know if I would have been demotivated had I gained weight this morning, but the numbers on the scale this morning did give me a spring in my step, and hopefully energized me to make it through the next few days, which are always going to be difficult. After all, going from eating normal food back to only 900-calories of meal replacements in a day is never going to be easy, either physically or emotionally.

    This morning had another surprise for me. During my usual morning ritual I had a very fine bowel movement… nothing new there. A couple of hours later, before I started teaching (as I was writing this journal entry) I took a break, and had another very good BM. Two in a morning is rare, and it felt good. I suspect that as I drop the solid foods for the next few weeks, even the one per day will not be guaranteed. Maybe this was another way for my body to help me to make that break – ridding my body of those solid foods in anticipation of not needing them.

    I am teaching until 1:00pm today, and then again from 5:30 until 9:00pm. My plan is to have a shake directly after my morning class, and then go for a jog. The weather forecast calls for a beautiful afternoon – partly cloudy with temperatures steady around 13°-14°. I will plan a course of about 10km, similar to my distance Sunday. On that outing I jogged 5km and then walked the rest of the way. Today I will try to increase my jogging distance to at least 7km, and more if I am feeling it. I just want to keep improving.

    My goal for the day is to stay mindful. Today is my first day back on the program, and I have to make sure that it stays that way. It is all too easy to eat something, which means that tomorrow would be my first day back on the program. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.” Quoting MacBeth can be morbid, but she long and the short of it is that I cannot live for tomorrow and hope to do better tomorrow. I have to life today and succeed today. It is too easy to put things off until tomorrow… that is often the best road to mediocrity and failure. I do not want to fail! I want to continue to lose weight and eventually be the lithe slim fellow that I have not seen in the mirror for more than twenty-five years!

    Something else that I need to remember to focus on today is my water intake. I have to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated and to continue to flush the garbage from my system. The simple math is that the more one drinks, the more one loses weight… as long as they are not eating crap.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 448

    On Monday, I jogged 5.6km and then walked 7.3km. Yesterday I ran the same route… except I jogged 12km, literally crushing it! Yes, I pulled up with under 1km to go, and I walked the rest of the way. It felt absolutely amazing! Five of those kilometres were under 7m42s, with three more under 8 minutes even. I know that there are two factors (aside from fatigue) that slow me down: jogging uphill and jogging into the wind. Because of that, my sixth kilometre was my slowest, at 8m43s. While I heard my app read that into my ear, I was a little disheartened, but I kept going anyways. While I would slow down afterwards, my best kilometre was actually my eighth. Yes, I was extremely pleased by my progress. I might take a break today because of a hectic schedule, but if I keep this up, I will finally earn that 15km badge in the next couple of weeks.

    Jogging

    • Distance: 12.02km (5.6km)
    • Duration: 1:36:17 (41:34)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 8m00s (7m25s)
    • Steps: 14,350 (6,435)
    • Calories burned: 1,534 (576)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 149 (155)

    I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there is a challenge on one of my apps to run or walk 1,023 kilometres in this calendar year. Following yesterday’s workout, I am now 29% done (with 299.77km tracked as activities). I am also ranked in the top 18.6% of participants. While that only has me ranked 26,222, as of this morning there are over 141,000 people signed up for the challenge. That means that I am actually ahead of over 114,500 people. Of course, there is no prize for finishing first. The prizes are a lottery drawn of the people who finish the full 1,023km in the year. If I continue at this pace, I am well on my way to accomplishing that. I do not care if I win one of the prizes or not. Accomplishing that goal will be amazing enough.

    I did cheat a little yesterday. I bought a small bag of peanuts, which I ate in the car. I was stuck in traffic getting out of Toronto for over two hours, and I needed something. After all, having burned over 1,500 calories on my jog, I knew that I might get away with it. Yes, that will slightly affect my weight loss when I step onto the scale at the doctor’s office, but I needed it. I also drank a lot of water!

    Yesterday was also my best steps day in years, clocking over 21,500 steps. I may not be down from my last weigh-in… but I am certainly doing what I need to do in order to get back on track. Considering that between March 31 and April 10 I actually gained nine pounds, I am really happy that I am well on my way to losing all of that in less than a week.

    When I was speaking with Leslie last night, she mentioned that she thought that I ate pretty well while I was in Dallas. I reminded her that the day before I flew down, I broke my diet because I was not feeling well (accounting for a two-pounds gain recorded before I flew on April 1). Additionally, when I was there, aside from eating late at night a few times, I also ate a lot of matzah (with quite a bit of peanut butter), not to mention the entire bag of chips I ate on the airplane coming home. My weight gain is nobody’s fault but my own.

    In any event, according to the bathroom scale this morning I am down another 3.4 lbs. from yesterday. I have dropped all of the weight that I gained in Dallas plus nearly half a pound and am 1.6 lbs. from again reaching my best weight ever. It feels great to know that in contrast to how things usually work, it took me just two days to shed the weight that I gained over eight days. I have so often lamented that it would usually take a few days to lose the weight gained from a single cheat day. I am energized by this success and will continue to stay on track today. Unlike most mornings when I am off to the doctor’s office, I did not even brew my pot of coffee when I came in from walking the Princess. I will do that upon my triumphant return. What would I consider a triumphant weigh-in? Just yesterday I would have said that if my weight is stable from three weeks ago, or even if I am only a few ounces heavier, then I would be happy. Based on my bathroom scale weigh-in, I might be as much as 1kg down. That will be huge for me indeed, considering the last couple of weeks.

    I am off to the doctor’s office, hoping for good news (which would be little or no gain from my last visit three weeks ago). I am also looking forward to discussing my gastro issues with him, and whether or not I should start weening myself off the full-fast program now, or if I could continue through June. I also have to discuss my ADHD medication, and whether I need to increase (or lower) the dosage, or if we should be trying a different medication. There are some days when I feel fine, but there are others when I am just not as focused as I should be… and when I seem to talk a lot more than I did a month ago. I’ll see you all in a jiffy!

    —

    I have developed a great rapport with the nurse who weighs me at the doctor’s office, and she is always amazed by how well I am doing. This morning she looked at me even before I stepped onto the scale and told me that she thought I have lost even more weight. I was not sure, but in fact my weight was down 1.3kg from three weeks ago. No, it is not the same pace I have been losing the last few weigh-ins (as much as 4.7kg lost from three weeks ago), but it is still a loss. Considering the realities of the last few weeks, that is a huge win for me!

    The other issues that I discussed with the doctor were all good news. He feels I should stick with my current medication (and dosage) for another month to see if external factors may have played a part in my changes, and he feels that I can safely stay on the full fast program for another month or two without concern. I asked him about blood work, and he told me that even though I have lost 50 lbs. since he last tested me, there was nothing of concern then (December) so he does not think we need to retest now. In a few months we will revisit that. He also told me that the ultrasound of my knee was clean, so I can continue jogging, and as we have discussed before, I should let pain be my guide… if I have to slow down or shorten my jogs, then do so.

    Speaking of which, if I do not get out now then I will not be able to do it at all today. I just finished a great meeting with a training broker who wants to work with me, but it went longer than it was supposed to, so I have to hurry up. I was not planning on jogging as long today as I did yesterday, but I know that I have to be home at 11:30 so that I can shower before heading out to the dentist.

    My plan for today remains the same… I will stay mindful and focused, and I will keep crushing it.

    Have a great day folks!