Losing a part of me

Category: Memories

  • Day 878

    I don’t know how I wrote this but did not press publish. Sorry about that… Here is yesterday’s article! -MDG

    It is funny how certain things can bring back memories from however long ago; when I was a child my father’s phone number at the office was 878-3371. Typing in the title of today’s article that came flooding to the fore. When I write ‘when I was a child,’ I truly mean it… he left that firm when I was not yet eight years old… nearly 44 years ago. Because of that, I second-guessed myself, so I typed the number (with the area code) into Google and sure enough, the website of the firm that he was with when I was a child came up. I miss him so much.

    I gained another .6 lb. this morning, bringing me up 2.4 lbs. in the last two days. Fortunately, I think that my brain is back to normal, so I should not have to worry about eating for that. I will, however, need to worry about eating when I go for lunch with my son (or sons – that is not yet clear). My son the younger wants Lone Star Texas Grill, and I am more than happy to accommodate him… even if today was not Father’s Day, which it is. I am thrilled to be seeing him (or hopefully them).

    A couple of notes on this morning’s weight gain:

    1. Yesterday I ate more than I had planned to; I had bought a carton of eggs for breakfast, and had quite a few left. I ended up making a large omelette for dinner with the remainder of the onion, and sliced up the remainder of the cucumber which I had on the side. There is now no food left in the house to tempt me this morning;
    2. It was only after I returned from taking Princess Sophie for her walk and then drinking my morning shake that I was able to successfully move my bowels, and there might not really have been so much weight gain had it come prior to my weighing myself.

    With all of that said, I am still pleased that I did not gain more weight than I did. As I prepared to step onto the scale, I said to myself that if my weight was 283 lbs. or less then I would be satisfied. It came in at 282.4 lbs. … I was relieved that I did not gain more than I did over the two days.

    And so, today I restart the program… with a possible necessary exception of lunch with my sons, but I will order very intelligently, and will eschew the proffered chips and salsa. I enjoyed my first meal replacement shake of the day at 10:30am, which means that I should not be too hungry when I get to the restaurant. I will order the same dish that I did the last time I was there… although I confess, I do not recall what that was. If I do not recognize it on the menu then I will look up the nutritional values on their website. The afternoon and evening will be meal replacements only.

    It is possible that a friend may be coming over to join me on the balcony for a cigar this afternoon, but that is still a very tentative thing that we discussed in passing. We will see, and if he does not then I will still enjoy the afternoon. I plan to retrieve the dresser from my locker so that I can use it as the chest of drawers in my office area… replacing the plastic monstrosity that I have been using for nearly three years (and which sat in my storage locker for four years prior to that… and which was probably in my office in my previous apartment in Burlington, although I confess I do not remember that far back.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 844

    After two terrible days in which I was up a disgusting 5.4 lbs., it was small relief to see another drop on the bathroom scale this morning; even so, I am only down three pounds in the last two days, so I am still net up from Thursday morning, and still over that dreaded 285 mark. It is some comfort to know that while I flirted with it, I did not actually hit the 290 mark. I know that this has all been my fault, and all because of some terrible decisions that I and I alone made. My emotional state be damned, I cannot falter like this. Saturday morning I had gained fifty pounds from my best weight in October, and my clothes do not fit me properly. I have to get back on track.

    I went shopping yesterday and followed the plan. I purchased chicken, eggs, vegetables, and cleaning products. The only cheat item was yoghurt, which I am fairly certain has aided my morning bowel movements. If I can limit them to two per day then I should be fine. If I cannot then I deserve to be a fat slob.

    Last night I lit three candles for Yom HaZikaron – Israel’s Remembrance Day for our fallen soldiers and victims of terror attacks. I wrote the following and posted it on Facebook and LinkedIn:

    Some gave all; all gave some.

    In memory of my brothers from my Army days, both those who made it… and those who did not. Every year on Yom HaZikaron I light the best cigar in my humidor and I lift a dram to their memory and to their honour. I always say that Remembrance Day is not for soldiers to remember… we remember every day of our lives; Remembrance Day is a day for those who did not serve to reflect on what we gave for our countries, and to remember those who did not make it back… or who came back injured, dismembered, disfigured, or with mental trauma from which they might never recover.

    Every year I light a yahrtzeit candle for our fallen brothers. This year I lit one more for those who were massacred on October 7, and for the ones who have fallen in our efforts to retrieve our hostages and to destroy Hamas. I lit a third candle, but not a yartzeit candle, to show the world that all of our remaining hostages are in our minds and in our hearts every day; if every Jew and friend of a Jew or of the Jewish people were to do the same, maybe together we could make a light so bright that the hostages will see that light.

    The full name of the day in Hebrew is יוֹם הזִּכָּרוֹן לְחַלְלֵי מַעַרְכוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל וּלְנִפְגְעֵי פְּעֻלּוֹת הָאֵיבָה‎, or Yom HaZikaron le’chalilei ma’arechot yisrael ve’l’nifge’ei peulot ha’Eiva… or in English: ‘Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the Wars of Israel and Victims of Actions of Terrorism.’ This year, more than ever, we have all felt the effects of terrorism and war… and the hatred and lies that our enemies spread about us around the world. This year, more than ever, it is important to remember what we as Israelis – and by extension every Jew in the world – live with. It is also equally important to remember that we will continue to survive… and to remember our fallen.

    I stand with Israel. The nation of Israel is alive. We always have been… and we always will be.

    I sat on my balcony smoking my cigar and remembering my friends… and the others. I did not eat and I only drank a cup of tea, which I consider a small victory.

    Have a great day.

  • Day 789

    I would have had decent things to write yesterday had I had the time, but alas I did not. And then… Then I had some bad thoughts last night. I started thinking about calling her… reaching out to talk to the person who I thought was and would forever be my person. That would not have been a good idea, but it put the thought into my head, and I started eating. I ate way more than I ever should in an evening. The result? After a two-day streak of losing weight, I gained… a lot. For the second time in a week my weight jumped by a ridiculous amount. It actually peaked over the 280 lbs. mark for the first time in a very long time. I have to get control of it… but I also have to deal with my emotions. I have five more days until I am on an airplane, and I will lose a bit of weight in Cuba. After that, I might return to my extreme program for a week or two… just to get back on track.

  • Day 454

    Today is Yom HaShoah. It is the day every year that Jews set aside to remember the Holocaust. Perhaps it would be more accurate to write commemorate, as for most of us – at least those of my generation – seldom does a day pass when we do not remember it. There are reminders everywhere if you know what to look for. If that makes it sound like we are all wallowing in misery, let me clarify; it is vital that we remember because if we do not, and if we do not teach our children about it, then it is bound to happen again. I have stories that I will not share here of encounters with survivors. I remember meeting them as a child, as a soldier. So many encounters with so many incredible people who, when I was lucky enough, would share their stories with me. More than one of those stories changed my life. It has been seventy-eight years since the camps were liberated; the survivors who are still with us are octogenarians (and nonagenarians). They have seen so much, but one day they will all be gone, and it will be my generation’s responsibility to continue to share their stories. We must never forget.

    Sometimes you fall off the wagon, and getting back on track is painful and grueling. I spent three days off my program (although still jogging), and I was determined to get back onto it yesterday. As I said I would, I walked the kilometre to the post office to ship my package. I also bought a bundle of pocket tissues because it was raining, and I could already feel my nose dripping. As I walked out of the pharmacy, I started my run. I honestly did not know how far I would be able to go and did not set out with any particular course in mind. I wanted to extend my current streak of hitting my steps goal, and the fact that it was raining a little would not stop me. That I felt a weird and nagging ache in my hip would not stop me, as long as I stayed true to my self-promise that I would listen to my body. I had almost arrived at Guelph Line, but rather than crossing the shopping centre parking lot and then the thoroughfare, I turned down onto the walking/biking path (which would take me to that same street in a few moments anyways). I crossed Guelph Line, staying with the off-road paved path. I knew there were several streets onto which I could turn up when I realized I was running out of steam. I was not entirely sure where the path ultimately led, but I was sure I would not find out on this outing.

    Something strange happened on my run yesterday. I have jogged over 5km something like 30 times in the last couple of months, whether on the streets or treadmill. Every time I do, I pull up for a break for just a minute or two every couple of kilometres, sometimes every kilometre. At a certain point I realized the walking/biking path was coming to an end. I saw Costco in the distance, and tried to reconcile where exactly that was. Oh, right… North Service Road near the corner of Brant Street, which means the path had curved down a bit. Okay, should I stop? No, not yet. It’s still raining a bit… maybe I’ll pop into a store and get dry for a moment? I know I don’t have my Costco membership card with me, and anyways if I turn up Brant then maybe I will stop into one of the stores at the corner of Mount Royal. What happens if I stop, and my hip locks up? I would have to take an Uber home, and that is not what I want to do. Maybe I’ll just keep going for another kilometre. We’ll see.

    The only time I paused my trackers during the entire outing yesterday was when I was stopped at a red light at the corner of Guelph Line (on the return trip). I peaked down and I was 7.5km into my run. I was stopped for fifteen seconds. I realized at a certain point that it might have been my first jog over 5km during which I did not stop to rest. If I can keep that up, then who knows? Maybe there is hope for me yet!

    Jogging

    • Distance: 10.08km (5.18km)
    • Duration: 1:18:17 (39:58)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 7m46s (7m43s)
    • Steps: 12,150 (6,120)
    • Calories burned: 1,200 (600)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 155 (153)

    I should also note that my per-kilometre pace was below 8m0s for every kilometre except one; for reasons likely pertaining to wind and elevation, the seventh kilometre was clocked at 8m03s.

    Where does this leave me in my challenges? When I checked yesterday after coming in I was ranked 22,154 (of 144,259 participants), in the top 15.36%. Oddly enough, in my age and gender bracket I am not even cracking the top 25%… I stand 3,395 of 13,167 participants, only good for the top 25.78%. I do not know who the leaders are, but the leader is averaging nearly 40km per day, which leads me to believe that something might be rotten in the state of Denmark. I honestly don’t care though… If I complete the challenge then I am equally eligible for the prizes as he is, as they are drawn at random from everyone who completed the challenge.

    I have to admit, between the killer jog, my staying true to the program (for the first time since Thursday), and a really good bowel movement this morning, I was a bit disappointed that the numbers on the bathroom scale did not drop a little more than they did. .2 lb. is really just a statistical blip. No matter, it will come… I just have to prove to my body that I am serious about not cheating. My only aberration from the program yesterday was a cup of Japanese milk tea, which I needed because my throat would not have made it through the last hour of my lecture last night.

    We always say that if you don’t like the weather in Canada, just wait a few minutes. As Her Floofness and I walked this morning in the near-freezing temperatures, more than one fellow fur-parent expressed their shock at the drop in temperature. I reminded them that last week was the anomaly, and that this is the norm for mid-April. That does not change the fact that all of us long for a speedy return to the high-20s, but that is not normal for this time of year. With a high temperature forecast as a windy 5°, I decided early that today will be a day to work out in shorts and a t-shirt… at the gym, followed by a hydro massage and a stint in the sauna. After all, what am I paying them for if I am not going to use the facilities, right?

    I cannot lollygag around on the computer for a few hours before finally changing into my workout kit today as I did yesterday. I have to be at my therapist’s office in Oakville for 1:30pm, which means that I will try to remember to bring my meal replacement with me to the gym so that I do not face the same quandary I did three weeks ago when I scrambled to pick up peanuts in my mad dash from the gym to the therapist and then to my barber. If I get to the gym by 10:30am then I should be able to get through a leisurely workout and then post-workout routine in time to leave and drive unrushed to her office. My buddy Eduardo might be coming over for a cigar later, which will be nice despite the unpleasant weather. We have not seen each other in a few weeks, and he just returned from Cuba with some goodies for me. I am unsure of what he brought, but if there is a box worthy of the occasion, I am still undecided on which cigars to hand out to guests at the wedding. He might just have the answer for me when he comes over this afternoon!

    This evening I will be in the dojang. I am so happy to be back at Taekwondo and wish that I had the freedom to do it more than twice per week. We must always be patient, especially when we are studying an art in which the mental aspect of patience and calm are so important. I also know that in mid-May I am starting a new teaching contract that will have me teaching the two evenings when I am usually able to go to the dojang, and that will continue through mid-July. I will be speaking with the Master to ask him if there might be some accommodation that can be made for me to train outside the hours of the adult/Black Belt classes… after all, I should not need anything other than the gym. If that is not possible, then I could also use one of the studios at my gym for the same purpose – after all, didn’t I write just two paragraphs ago that I should be using the facilities as long as I am paying for them? Maybe I will speak with the gym manager today to ask if that would be alright. I cannot imagine it would be an issue.

    I found out this morning that a close friend is in the hospital, and I am worried. I spoke with his wife, and she assured me that it was not a heart attack, but the doctors still need to run some more tests to figure out what is going on. In the meantime, my buddy is nearly thirteen years my junior, but I have thought on several occasions that he is working himself into an early grave. I have one more person to pray for today. Four, actually… I will pray for his wife and my godchildren as well (although I always do, but not with the specificity I will today). This is just one more reason why I am glad that I am getting myself into better shape and taking care of my health. I do not want Leslie to have to call an ambulance for me because I am on the floor clutching my chest.

    Okay, it is time to get moving. Today will be my second day true to the program, although if I need to grab something, it will be a very small handful of nuts. With a morning workout and an evening Taekwondo class I would not begrudge myself that if it is needed. Tomorrow through Friday I might be able to jog outside, although Friday through Sunday they are predicting rain. We’ll see. Today is a gym day for sure.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 396

    For no good reason, I started reading articles from my original weight loss blog. In an article I wrote in January 2015 I wrote that when my first wife left me in February 2005, I weighed about 255 lbs. According to the article, his was down from a previous peak of 310 lbs. that I weighed in 2003. I guess I was a little off on my calculations for my best weight in twenty-five years… but only by about five pounds. Okay, that gives me a new milestone to add to my list of mini milestones that I keep handy!

    Another one of the entries I read was about everyone who wants to offer their advice and opinions. Thank you, but I am doing well on my own. I looked at one person who tried to tell me how I should lose weight and I said, ‘You know, in this conversation, at least one of us has lost over one hundred pounds. Anyone who has may offer advice.’ This offended them… possibly as much as their unwanted and unwarranted advice offended me.

    I wrote my article on food delivery services yesterday, and I decided to share it to my Facebook support group. I got a lot of positive feedback, but one busybody decided to scold me. I told her that before she scolds me and chastises me, she should read the whole article, rather than just the highlights… and if she still wants to speak down to me, she should just keep it to herself. She responded defensively of course, and I blocked her. I do not need that kind of negative energy in my life. I am doing well, and when I face challenges, I write about them. She took offense. Thank you, go away. Why can’t people understand that supporting others can be positive, and if you have nothing positive to say, then just don’t say anything? It took me years to understand that.

    I was not expecting a huge drop on the bathroom scale this morning, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was thinking that if I nudged back up to 280 lbs., even for a day, it would not be the end of the world. I did not veer from the program at all, but I was prepared for it anyways. Sure enough, I was down 1.6 lbs., which made me feel elated. Punching that number into the comparative chart from 2020 I am now 2.8 lbs. ahead of Day 17 from back then. What’s more, back then I dropped below but then back up, and it was not until Day 28 when I was at today’s weight, and then continued to drop. It also means that I am now 8 lbs. from achieving my best weight from 2017, which feels good as well.

    It took until Day 15 for me to be ahead of the 2020 pace. Now, unless I fall hard and drastic, it is likely that the number in the Compare column will be in the positives for good. If I can lose ten more pounds in the next eighteen days before I fly to Dallas – a stretch, but not impossible – then even if I were to gain two or three pounds during the trip, I would still be on pace to beat my 2020 pace to my best weight ever. I enjoy playing around with the numbers on the spreadsheet, so for the fun of it I did the math for if I came back to Canada on March 19 weighing 270 lbs., and then lost 2.8 lbs. per week, I would match the final day perfectly. Here’s the thing though: I plan to come home from Dallas under 270 lbs., and if I do not veer from the program at all then that is a very conservative estimate of my potential pace. It is not out of the question that on April 1st I could be at my best weight from 2020… and by April 12 (which would match the best weight pace from 2020) I might be at that best post-Army weight that I recorded from February 2005. Just for fun, I punched that same weight loss pace in from today, which would mean a .4 lbs drop per day. At that rate, I will be 255 on April 18. I could live with that!

    My plans for the day will depend on a couple of factors. I have reached out to Sam to see if he is still free to smoke cigars for a couple of hours. It would be nice to see him and Eduardo, but I understand that he is a busy man. The forecast calls for a high of 9° and partly cloudy, which means that if they do not come through, I will almost certainly suit up for a jog. I have not been out in a few days, and it will be good to get active. Looking at the hour-by-hour forecast, the highs are expected between 2-4pm, which is a perfect time for me to hit the trails… so to speak. Although now that I think of it, I might look up online to see what trails there are in Burlington. Even if I have to drive to get there, it would be nice if I could jog through wooded parks, and not on the sidewalks along semi-major streets. I will see if I have time to do that before my study group, which starts in a few minutes.

    Once again, I will stay on track. I will stay focused, and I will not fall off the wagon. It felt great when Lyle and Dorothy told me yesterday that even since they saw me last (about mid-January) they can tell that I have lost more weight. Yesterday I changed my Facebook profile picture, and several people commented that I was looking great and must have lost weight. If I can keep this pace up and shatter all expectations, then I can get to Dallas 18 lbs. lighter than when I left just thirty-six days earlier. I love feeling better with every pound I drop, but I am not going to lie… there is one person for whom I want to look good, and that is my wife. When she fell in love with me, I weighed a lot more than I do today, but that does not change the fact that she is younger than I am and prettier than I am, and she deserves the best looking me that I can give her. She was shocked when she put her arms around me and for the first time, she could wrap them completely around me… every drop in my weight will make that even more pronounced.

    I said just yesterday how important it was for long-term success to set short-term goals. It astounds me that after hitting all of those short-term goals that I have set for myself over the past thirteen months, I am just over three pounds shy of having lost one hundred and twenty pounds. It is a number that I am still having trouble wrapping my head around. It is hard to believe that yesterday I gave away the last of my fat clothes, and that I will never have to wear a XXXL shirt or a Size-40 pants again… and most of my XXL shirts don’t fit well either, to say nothing about my Size-46 pants that I started in. I look at myself in the mirror and when I am naked, I still see a fat man; when I put on clothes that are somewhat stylish, I am beginning to see the man that I want to be looking back at me. The first time that happened was on Day 267, when I walked into the washroom at the Mexican restaurant where Leslie and I were eating. It has gotten progressively better since then, although it is sad that in 130 days, I have only lost 30 lbs. At least I know that I am past that two-month plateau from Hell, and that I am back on track… I hope for good.

    Okay, it is time to get moving. My study group is about to start, and I do not want to be late. Have a great day folks!

  • Restaurant Delivery: Begone, evil temptress!

    imageAt no point in my life do I remember not being able to order pizza in for delivery. In fact, as a child living in the suburbs of Montreal, I remember there were always two types of food that would always deliver: pizza and Chinese food. I remember Pendelli’s Pizza on Cote St. Luc Road was our first go-to pizza delivery joint (which happened to be three doors down from my elementary school); I cannot remember if it was House of Wong or Hong Kong House (they were owned by the same people and had the same menu) that was on Queen Mary Road above Decarie Boulevard that was our original Chinese food source, but it was one of the two.

    Somewhere along the way, the availability of food delivery exploded, and at a certain point, my mother had a drawer full of take-out and delivery menus in the kitchen that we could dig through whenever we were hungry. We had long since abandoned Pendelli’s for something else, and the Chinese food was changed from the Cantonese to Szechuan… but now our options included Cote-St-Luc Barbecue (the best rotisserie chicken), Buffalo Bill’s (the best wings in town), as well as Greek, Lebanese, Indian, Persian, and I’m sure many other regional cuisines, on top of the pedestrian burgers and Montreal smoked meat (deli) sandwiches… and whatever else you might want. The restaurant industry wanted our money, whether it was the mom-and-pop joint or the large American pizza chain that had recently come to Canada… they wanted to make it as easy as possible for us to buy their product.

    Sometime after I moved back to Canada in 1997, I heard about a service that would pick up your food from any restaurant or even multiple restaurants and would deliver them for a fee. For too many years I was used to the free delivery offered by so many restaurants and wondered how they would ever survive. I do not know what happened to them, but they were certainly still around when I moved away from Montreal in 2007… and for my frequent return visits to see my parents and friends.

    An hour ago, I was so pleased with my progress, and that I had done so well resisting every temptation since last Sunday’s nacho chips and salsa incident. I was ensconced in my apartment, not quite ready to prepare my second meal replacement of the day, when an alert popped onto my phone. Enjoy $$20 off tonight! Order and save with Uber Eats! Terms and Conditions apply.

    Are you %*@$ing kidding me?

    It is not bad enough that you can get any sort of food by driving less than a mile in any direction; a lot of these restaurants will bring the food right to your door if you simply pick up a phone… and if you watch television, listen to radio, or ever see a billboard then you are going to be bombarded with mouth-watering advertisements for it all; if you are smart, or strategic, or just lucky enough to avoid all of that temptation, they are now sending it right to your damned phone… with coupons no less!

    I know that I got fat because of me, and that my post-Army constant obesity is nobody’s fault but my own; I have written about that so many times over the last four hundred days or so. Nonetheless, it would be ignorant if not irresponsible to deny that all of the easily accessible and oh-so-tasty food what made my mother’s and then my own life so much more convenient by eliminating the need to go grocery shopping and then actually prepare the meals was a huge contributing factor.

    I am not going to say that these services are evil, because they are not. For someone who is not a food addict struggling with obesity they provide a service that, while by no means necessary, is nevertheless convenient for the rest of the population. I can imagine that when the only three options were pizza, Chinese food, or rotisserie chicken that my parents would have welcomed the variety offered by these services. They were never morbidly obese and struggling to lose hundreds of pounds.

    I cannot remove the Uber app from my phone because I do use it every time I have to go to the airport… which is frequent. I cannot even block the notifications for much the same reason. I can, however, curse them every time one of these ads comes up, and declare victory for deleting them as soon as I see them.

    As for the other delivery services, I have done my best to eliminate them as well. The last time I used one, I was sitting on the patio at my cigar lounge in Glendale, California… and it took a year of deleting their emails before they finally took me off their list. If I was still living in Glendale then it was pre-pandemic, and I have not used one since. If I get a notification from one then I will immediately delete it, and if they persist then I will make sure that I block them in every possible way.

    It is hard enough that when I drive to the grocery store, I pass restaurants that serve Lebanese food, Chinese food, pizza, sushi, and wings. I avoid those by staying in my car. Why do these restaurants feel the need to invade the privacy of my own home, coming into my quiet sanctuary, trying to lure me out into the cold, fat world? Begone!

    Of course, on Valentines Day it was nice that I could order dinner for Leslie from another country. As well, I seem to recall that there might have been one meal that she ordered in for us when I was there last. I cannot recall for sure, but I remember we discussed it. Whether or not it happened, I am not sure. Not only is Leslie not morbidly obese, but she also does a wonderful job of supporting me, letting me know when I have had my fill. She does not tell me this based on her own judgement, rather based on what I tell her I should be eating before we begin. ‘Mitch, you said you were going to have half the portion, and then save the rest for tomorrow.’ That is support. The restaurants deciding that portion sizes should be able to feed a small village is not supportive at all.

    There are those who would try to make these ads illegal, because it should be against the law to advertise any unhealthy option. I am not in that camp. I do not want to ban them… I just want to find a way to avoid them.

  • Day 393

    There should be a law for days like today.

    By this law, we hereby state that:

    · When you spend a day surrounded by temptations, when you are at a friend’s house where there are tens of thousands of delicious calories all around you within easy reach, but you hold true to your program;

    · When you stop for petrol on the way home, and the pay-at-the-pump is broken, so you have to go into the station which is replete with delicious decadence, but you resist and walk straight out;

    · When you come home and change into your jacket and tie, and knowing how tired you are and how the extra calories of whatever food you have in the pantry would give you the energy to get through;

    · When you are faced with student issues that make you question your life choices, but rather than pouring a glass of fine whisky, you settle in for the night with your fourth and final meal replacement of the day;

    On days such as this, we decree that when you step onto the bathroom scale the following morning, your body is ordered that you will have lost weight from the previous day.

    This law should be written on parchment in beautiful calligraphy and distributed throughout the land. Until such time, despite my best efforts of the day yesterday, my body was legally permitted to show a very slight weight gain from yesterday. Rather than bringing me back into best-weight-yet territory, it pulled me away ever so slightly. Fuck you body.

    I should mention that during the day, I did indulge in the following luxuries:

    • Ryan invited me to enjoy a non-fat latté from Starbucks. According to MyFitnessPal.com, somehow this is a 250-calorie drink with 23g of sugars… how the hell would I have known that the sugar content in this was so high? I will have to be much more conscious of my coffee orders and remember that fat is not the enemy… carbs and sugars are.
    • A cup of Royal Milk Tea whose caffeine helped me to get through the evening class. 58 calories and 12g of sugar. Damn… but when I need to stay awake for my class it will be a necessary choice.
    • Three lozenges because I realized that my throat was not cooperating, and I needed to get through my lectures. 8 calories, 0g sugar. I can keep these with no guilt.

    Do you see what I mean by the need for constant vigilance and mindfulness? Who would have thought that a non-fat latté could have 23g of sugars? I knew about the Royal Milk Tea, but I never realized how bad the coffee was. I might love my latté but going forward this will also be a very occasional indulgence (like for when Leslie and I sit on the balcony with a Davidoff Signature No. 1 Limited Edition 2023 cigar which we discovered pairs oh so well with it). Even with coffee, which alone has no calories, I will have to be vigilant and mindful.

    My plans for today are to stay on track. I might go to the gym later in the day, but that will depend on my mood and my progress studying. I want to spend a lot of the day studying and trying to catch up on a couple of certifications that I am working toward. I also know that I have my study group this Sunday, and I let that preparation go these last few weeks. Today I will get back on track. I would like to get to the gym because it is really not pleasant enough to go for a jog outside. The forecast high for today is a cloudy 3°, and it goes down to -5° overnight, only reaching a high of -3° with a chance of snow tomorrow. Fortunately, I see that Saturday and Sunday will be nice, but if I am going to get any movement in today (aside from walking with Her Floofness) then it will be at Goodlife.

    My comparison chart to 2020, which had me ahead by 1.8 lbs. yesterday, has me up by 1 lb. today. That is obviously not because of the .2 lb. that I gained this morning, rather because of the 2.6 lb. drop day-over-day from my previous attempt. Looking forward to the next few days on that chart (and then reading my journal from that time) I can catch up pretty quick… I spent four nights in Las Vegas, and while I miraculously came back home only one pound heavier (actually .8 lb.), I am still looking at the chart and knowing that over the next five days I will make progress… as long as I stay on track. In 2020, I would fluctuate around the 280-pound mark until Day 360, and while I would gain and lose ground on it, I did not drop below the 270-pound mark until Day 399. I was going to say that I did not permanently drop below 270 because I realize that from the day that I dropped below 270 lbs. (on my push to my best weight ever) until I creeped above it for the last time (on the slide to completely fall off the weight loss train) was sixteen days. That’s right, it took me nine days to drop from 270 to 260.4 pounds, and then seven days to jump to 272.2 pounds. From there, it took me seventy-one days to get back up to over 300-pounds, and while I did not stay above that permanently until February, my weight loss success was over; on September 28 I began that terrible fall back into obesity and slovenliness. To compare that to this attempt, it would be fifty-six days from today.

    I am not going to let that happen. Firstly, I am not going to let myself plateau and fluctuate like I did in 2020. I just spent thirty minutes re-reading three weeks of that journal, which included my trip to Vegas, starting a new job that I was excited about… and then losing it less than two weeks later, going for long walks and even jogging, and a lot of other weight loss challenges that I encountered during that time. I discussed all of the foods I was eating, and how the fact that I only had a single large quarter chicken piece (rather than the full half-chicken) was a success. It seems that it was during this time period that I originally switched from eating my meal in the evening to midday was better for digestion, especially if I ate it after coming in from my walk or jog. I can hear the pain in my words over the loss of my job, knowing that it would not only affect me financially, but it would also put my residency in the United States at peril (which would be proven within the year). I read the words that I wrote, and I started to relive the events in my head, and I felt the sadness and sorrow begin to return. I have to remember these failures, and how difficult they were, and not let myself get down and eventually fail again. In 2020 I had friends, but at the end of the day I was alone – it was just me and Princess Sophie… and she loved when I ate chicken because she always got the cartilage. This time around, I have her, but I also have Leslie. Three weeks from today I will be landing in Dallas, and we have discussed some of my cheat meals that will be included on my modified program… and how I am going to stay mostly on track. She has been so encouraging and helpful, even from 1,400 miles away. She just might be the factor that helps me tip the scales from eventual failure to long-term success.

    One thing that I remembered from rereading those weeks from that old journal was that I was on a quest to beat my previous (2017) weight loss record. On Day 368 I hit that mark, which I would do eighteen days from now on the comparative chart. I wrote a number of times in the weeks leading up to that milestone that it was the last comparative milestone from the previous attempt and going forward there would be no looking back. I suppose that is how I feel now, knowing that I am 21.6 lbs. from matching my best-weight-ever. In 2020, I achieved that record, and it was all downhill from there. The day that I reach that next major milestone (260.4 lbs) I can celebrate for a minute… and then delete the comparative spreadsheet and never look back. I might read what I was thinking and feeling as I tried desperately yet unsuccessfully to cling to that weight loss, but I cannot imagine there will be much in there to encourage me. I think that once I best that previous number (which would also make for my best weight in twenty-four years) I should put all of my previous journals into a folder marked ‘Do not read: Studies in short-term successes and long-term failures.’

    In any event, I am going to now go back on my word from 2020. I am 9.6 lbs. from my best weight from 2017, and I am going to make that a milestone, and have added a column to my spreadsheet to track that. It would require slightly better than a half-pound loss per day to beat my pace from 2020, but that is not completely impossible. Let’s see how we do.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 365 Facebook Group Post

    clip_image002On July 30, 2020, I posted this picture with the caption: “This IKEA bag is filled with clothes to go to charity tomorrow… none of it fits anymore!”

    I was so proud of myself. I weighed 279.2lbs, down from 394. I would, by two months later, lost another 19lbs… and then that was it. Something happened, and I started slipping. Eventually, by November 2021, I was back at that original starting weight… thinking that it was lucky that I had not donated that IKEA bag filled with clothes, because I would have had to buy an entire new wardrobe.

    365 days ago, I started on my own modified <meal replacements> program. I was not following it completely, but I was losing weight. It has been slow, it has been emotional, and it has had far too many plateaus that lasted far too long. Today I weigh 293lbs, and once again, none of the clothes in this picture fit. This time they have been donated. I did not wait for a giant mass; I have been getting rid of them immediately as they become too loose. I never want to wear them again.

    My weight loss blog has over 450 articles on it from this last year, and the offline document that compiles them all is over 320,000 words long. I have transposed my thoughts into the written word so that I can share my experience with others, but also so that when I do get to my ultimate goal and I do get complacent, I will always remember to put a stop to my backward slide before it can take root. All of those words might make for interesting reading, but it is all captured perfectly in images such as this: This is a bag of my fat clothes, and I never want to wear fat clothes again.

    For those of you who wonder if I am a failure for having lost and gained so much weight before – twice – I will say that I have slipped and I have fallen and I have given up, but I have never quit. I have never resigned myself to being fat forever. I have never said that I cannot do it. Like Thomas Edison who learned 2000 ways how not to make a light bulb, I have now learned two ways how to not achieve my final goal, and to maintain it. As with the Wizard of Menlo Park, I have learned from my failures and am at it again… using similar methods and materials, but a different way of implementing it.

    Friday is the beginning of my second year of weight loss, and with the recent (last week) shift from my modified program to the full and strict <meal replacement> plan for the next few months, I know that I can achieve the goal. With the support of my friends and those of you who have helped to support me and who I hope I have support and encourage as well, and with the grace of G-d, I hope that 2023 will be the last year that I ever have to lose weight again. It is my goal that within the year I will achieve my goal body, and that for the rest of my life – knowing how easy it is to get fat – I will mindfully work to maintain that goal body.

    Weight loss is simple… but it is far from easy. Anyone who reaches out to me for my support will have it. Ask, I am here. You are somebody, and you deserve to have the best body you can!

  • Day 353

    I am well into the second month of this plateau, and I am frustrated. I suppose that had I not eaten two challah rolls yesterday evening (instead of a meal replacement bar), I would have greater moral authority to be indignant with myself and my (lack of) progress. Yesterday I had a meal replacement for breakfast, my usual lunch, and the challah rolls in the evening. There is no way if that is all that I ate in the day that my weight should be up again this morning… and yet it was. It is time to shake things up a bit. I have to spend some time thinking about what that will be, but I am leaning toward cutting the size of my daily meal in half and seeing what that does… both to my appetite but also to my progress. I said a few months ago that I would have to make this adjustment at some point. I just did not think it would be now. I am also thinking that I might spend a week doing the full program… which is five meal replacements per day, and nothing else. Sure, I will still drink my coffee… but if I can do the full program for a week and kick my body off this plateau, then maybe it is worth the sacrifice. I just checked, and there are six pieces of chicken in the fridge, and I know I cannot put them back into the freezer. If I do not cut my meal size down, that is three days worth of food, which means that (depending on something I will discuss later in this journal entry) I have food until either Monday or Tuesday. After that, I will put myself onto the full program for a few days and see what comes of it.

    In my last ‘great weight-loss journey’ which spanned 2019-2020, I remember hitting a frustrating plateau for the weeks leading up to my birthday. It was in the same place as well – right around the 300-pounds mark. Before today, it had been a long time since I referenced that file, and it is interesting to read back and see where I was at what point. I started the program in August 2019 weighing one pound less than when I started this attempt in January 2022. By Day 308 I reached the plateau of which I spoke (it took only a little poking around to find it), and I see how frustrated I was. I also see that, despite the plateau and frustrations, I was celebrating non-scale victories, including being able to wear my suits again. One of the things I discussed was the possible inaccuracy of my bathroom scale; I did not remember the details, but this all makes sense, now that I did some simple checking. In August 2019 I ordered a bathroom scale from Amazon. It moved with me from Hollywood to Glendale and then to Westlake Village, California. In the time around this plateau, I started to mistrust it, and decided to buy a new one – which I did on June 19 (a simple check of my Amazon account). While that new scale did not move to Canada with me, I did buy the same model when I got settled here. I wondered a few times these last few days if the scale might not be the issue… but then I realized another difference between then and now: I am seeing my doctor every two weeks, and I am being weighed on the scale in his office. No matter if my bathroom scale is accurate or not, or whether the unstable floor in my apartment is a contributing factor, it is the bi-monthly weigh-ins that really matter, and by which I should really be gauging my success.

    Wow, looking back on that journal – even a brief perusal – reminds me so much of the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. I was doing so well… I made such amazing progress. I dropped from 394 lbs. in August 2019 to nearly 260 lbs. in September 2020. My last official journal entry in that file was on Day 566, which looks like it was March 4, 2021… about a month before that terrible night when I got the call telling me that my father passed away. It reads:

    I imploded yesterday. Okay, maybe not quite that bad… but I did not have a good diet day. Before my evening event, I went to the store and had them make me a large roast beef sandwich. I added a bag of chips and a sushi roll to my dinner. That is not a good way to do things. Today needs to be better.

    If you are a regular reader of this journal, then you know that I do not have a lot of entries that short. Even on my worst days, I usually write something about my mood, my plans, what I have eaten, how I failed, how I plan to do better. A few days before I wrote that (on March 1) I registered my official weigh-in at 308.4 lbs.… and the commentary was: ‘Up from best: 47.6 Total Weight loss: 65.6 lbs.‘ Just a month earlier, on February 2 I weighed 291.2 lbs. (As I was not being monitored by a doctor, I picked a day of the week that would be my ‘official’ weigh-in, and while I would still weigh myself daily, I would only write down that day in my journal). I am sure that if I had continued to write in the journal, I would have continued to make excuses for myself, and how I have to do better tomorrow. We’ll never know though… by December of that year I had regained every single pound that I had lost. In the book, Charlie Gordon is a mentally challenged man – what science used to refer to as an idiot. Doctors perform surgery on his brain, and he becomes a genius. The improvement is not permanent, and through the last part of the book we see the regression from genius to idiocy. Do you see the direct comparison?

    I am not Daniel Keyes, and my life is not science fiction; nor is my destiny pre-ordained by science. Yes, my body is not blessed with a metabolism that will allow me to revert to eating as I used to. I do not know how much better I will do with my weight loss, but unlike Charlie Gordon, I can fight to maintain my progress… and if I fall down one day then I can get up the next day and do better. That is what I have to do if I want all of the work that I have put into getting here to mean something. If I want to stay healthy, stay relatively attractive, wear stylish clothes, and not be a punchline or even the subject of pity, then I have to stay on track. Even during plateaus like this – weeks or even months of not making progress – I cannot give up. Do you know how many times I have wanted to eat unhealthy foods? I’ll give you a hint… it is always. I want to eat all of the crap that contributed to my obesity every single day. I have to resist so that I can be healthy… for myself, for my family.

    This week I am teaching during the day, as well as in the evenings Tuesday and Thursday. The upside of this is that I will have less opportunity to cheat; through Monday, I will have the food that I have in the house available to me, and nothing more. Tuesday through Friday, I will have meal replacements. The downside of this is that I will not have as much opportunity to go to the gym, but I will still make an effort to go a couple of times. I know that if I want to make it a habit then I have to try to fit it in, even when I am slammed with work.

    Don’t get me wrong… I am thrilled to be slammed with work. As a contractor, I am either slammed with work (and earning a living), or relaxed (and not earning a living). If I were independently wealthy, I might prefer the latter… but as I do not have that luxury, I like to live well. To do so requires money, and earning money requires working. I am fortunate in that I have skills that are in demand; I am even more fortunate in that I truly enjoy what I do. Teaching is a passion, and I thank G-d on a regular basis that I do not hate my work… as so many people seem to. There is a mentality these last decades that if you do not love your work, quit and find something you love. If the entire world followed that principle, there would be no garbage collection, our sewers would fall into disrepair, food and other supplies would never get delivered. Do you see where I am going with this? Yes, I could be in a much worse position than I am… and as the expression goes, you make hay when the sun is shining. Right now, there are teaching contracts coming in, and I will not complain about a single one of them!

    I mentioned earlier that I will have enough food until either Monday or Tuesday, depending on something that will happen today. I am taking my son (the younger) for lunch and depending on whether I eat at the restaurant or not, I will either come home and prepare my meal… or not. He wants to go to Lone Star Grill, which has some salad options… but they are not particularly healthy ones. I might just sit and watch him eat, and then come home.

    On that subject, I just got a text from my ex-wife that he is getting restless, so I had better head over there. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 200

    I have long since gotten out of the habit of reading where I was on my weight loss journeys from my previous two diaries. As today is a milestone (Day 200) I decided to take a gander, if only to encourage me a bit.

    In my 2017 diary, I had originally dropped to 275lbs, and by Day 220 (I took a long break from journaling) I was back up to 313lbs. If memory serves, I would spend a couple of months paying lip service to trying to stick with (or get back onto) the program, but I never again dropped below 300lbs, and eventually ended up where I eventually ended up… back where I had started.

    In my 2019-20 journal I was still living in my now ex-girlfriend’s house. It was the month before the world would shut down from the pandemic, but I was still unhappy with my situation. It is not difficult to read that in my writing – on Day 202 I wrote that her daughter had flown into town and the two of them were going away together for a few days, and how nice it would be to have the house to myself. It was extremely difficult living in a house with a woman who paid lip-service to eating well and being healthy, but for all of that was extremely overweight. I understand how that is, because I spent a lot of years thinking I knew how to eat healthy when in fact I had no idea.

    Anyhow, I had originally dropped to 304lbs, but was currently hovering around the 320lbs mark… only a few pounds off where I am at now. The difference is that back then I was rebounding from a better weight, whereas now I am on the ‘original downward trend.’ I would eventually, in the months that followed, drop to a tremendous 260lbs… but that was after I got out of her house, away from her negative influences and passive-aggressive behaviours.

    It is interesting to read from that time frame (Day 201) that I was going to make the long drive to Westlake Village, where I would eventually move and thrive. At this point, in February 2020, it was just another suburb of Los Angeles that I knew how to type into my GPS unit.

    Sometimes it is these milestones that make me look back to where I was the last time around and try to remember what caused me to eventually fail. In 2017 it was the terribly planned and executed move to Ottawa, coupled with the illness and then demise of my mother. While I do not remember at the time feeling so constantly torn about it, the truth is that I must have been. To have an abusive mother whose poisonous orbit I had finally been able to escape fall ill, to be encouraged and cajoled to let her back into my life, only to watch this unrepentant shrew of a woman deteriorate and die… the four-month process (not to mention the grieving and coming to terms with that relationship following her death) was hard on me. It can be no coincidence that in that time frame I regained fifty pounds from my best weight… and after trying to hold on, eventually abandoned all pretext of the weight management program.

    I failed in 2020 because I got comfortable. I remember the day that I lost my job in August I drove home and went for a very long walk. It is hard to remember when I started my fitness walking, but I do know that I was doing it through the first weeks of September 2020. At that point I started golfing on a regular basis, and somehow fooled myself into thinking that golfing (with a golf cart) was exercise, and that if my fitness tracker read 12,000 steps then I was really exercising. I stopped walking and jogging in lieu of golfing several times per week.

    It is coincidental timing that I had been eating well until around that time, and then decided after the Yom Kippur fast to indulge… I never recovered, and by February 2021 I was flirting with the 300-pound mark again. By December I was closer to 400-pounds than I ever had been… and hopefully I will never be back there. All because I stopped truly exercising, and because after religious services one night I decided to indulge in a meal of fried chicken from Von’s. Slippery slopes are easy to fall on… especially when you do not have a good support system.

    I mention that last part because I have a wonderful support system now. Leslie is wonderful, encouraging me along the way, and when I falter, she does not berate me, but helps me to understand what I did wrong, and what were the reasons behind it. She is my rock, and while I cannot lean entirely on her for my weight loss (I am, after all, the only one responsible for that), it is a huge help to have her by my side. How different might things have worked out if the day after Yom Kippur in 2020 I had someone to remind me ‘Yes, you cheated yesterday… you fell right off the wagon. That does not mean you cannot get right back onto it today. Look at how far you have come! I am so proud of you!’ I suspect if I had not been left to my own devices without a fallback, I would never have regained all of the weight.

    On such a milestone as today, Day 200, it is almost anti-climactic for my weight loss to be only .2 pounds. As I have said so often, down is better than up… but on Day 200 you would think there would be more. No, weight loss does not work that way. You can try your hardest and do your best (not only did I stick to the program yesterday, I also walked 9km), and the results are a trickle and not a flow. Sure, there will be other days when the floodgates open, and I will lose 1.5lbs from day to day… but I do not get to choose those days. The only thing that I can do is to stay on course with my program, which means that I will over time continue to lose weight.

    While there is another heat warning from Environment Canada for today, and the weather when I too Princess Sophie for her walk this morning was hot and humid, I am nevertheless going to venture out now rather than later for my fitness walk. I am seeing my sons this afternoon, and the forecast is calling for thunderstorms starting at 5:00pm and going through the night. If I want to get my (at least) six kilometres in to hit my seven-day target of fifty-five kilometres, now is the time to do it. I should be back in time to have lunch at 12:00pm, and then welcome my kids at 1:00pm as planned. I would normally want to give my legs a few more hours to recover, but I would rather walk in the sun than in the rain any day.

    Have a great day folks!