Losing a part of me

Category: Milestones

  • Day 400!

    Four hundred days. If you would have asked me on Day 1 if I would place bets that I would still be persevering and moving forward with my weight loss journey after four hundred days, I would not have put money down. It is not that it has been a straight and unobstructed path, nor an easy one. I have faltered, I have plateaued, I have so many times thought about giving up. I remember one day nearly a year ago when I was getting into my car with Princess Sophie, and I spilled my coffee all over the place. It was the last straw that morning. I was so pissed off that I drove to Wendy’s down the street, and I ordered a burger and French fries… I think I ordered fries. I then remember needing to collect myself before going back to the drive-thru window, wanting to kill everyone on spec, and politely telling the cashier that I did not order a cheeseburger, and had them replace it. I did it calmly and did not lash out… and that might have been my saving grace. I remember so many more days when I thought that just having this or that would have been fine. How many bags of Goldfish crackers did I open thinking they might last a week or two… knowing they might last a day. Through good times and bad I have not been perfect, but I have not given up. There have been so many times when I wanted to… but I know that I cannot. I have to lose all of the weight, and I need to find a way to keep it off when I do.

    I was so happy yesterday morning to be 3.2 lbs. from my best weight from 2017. I also know that any day that I drop so much weight, I am likely to give back a couple of ounces the next day… or at least stay stagnant for a day. Today was predictable in that. Despite my sticking to the program religiously yesterday (save for two coffee candies that gave me the boost of energy I needed to get through my class), and despite a very productive bowel movement this morning, the bathroom scale took back .4 lbs., causing my comparative weight to 2020 to drop from 4 lbs. better yesterday to 1.4 lbs. today. I knew that was likely to happen because of the tremendous day-over-day drop from that year. Back then I was on a roller coaster, mostly because of my modified program. I also know that I started a new job that week, which caused a lot of fluctuation. I know I will be back on track on that tomorrow, and that my slow and steady progress, and my dedication to the full fast program, will eventually win the race. Looking ahead at that chart, I suspect I will beat myself in the race to my best weight from 2017 by nearly a week. After that I will think about my race to best weight yet!

    The weather sucks today. There is no nice way to put it. We had what people in much of the world would call a blizzard, and what in Canada we call Wednesday in February. Yes, it was bad, and yes, there is 15cm of snow on the ground this morning that was not there yesterday. HRF Princess Sophie was not having any of it, and she would not venture out more than fifteen feet from the front door. It is still nearly -10° outside, with the windchill making it feel much colder. While it will warm up slightly, there are still calls for freezing rain today. Today will be a good day to stay inside and dressed warm. I cannot think of anything that I would need to go out for, so with the exception of taking the puppy to pee a couple of times, I will not be venturing out at all. Yes, the drivers here know how to drive in this weather, and yes, I drive a Subaru with winter tyres. None of that means that going out in this weather is a good idea. I will stick to the full fast program, and I know that tomorrow morning the bathroom scale will be a little nicer to me than it was today.

    After the rise on the scale, I decided that this morning called for a non-scale victory. Last week, I tried on a few pair of Size-36 pants, and only one of them fit (and it was tight). I decided that today was the day. I ripped the tags off of it and I put them on. I do not know if it is all in my mind, or if they really do fit better than they did just six days ago. Either way, I am wearing the first pair of Size-36 pants that I have worn in eighteen years! Yes, I bought them three years ago… but I bought them in anticipation of losing more weight and them fitting soon, which never happened. I guess my weight distribution today is slightly different from it was then, and just different enough that the pair of pants that did not fit yet (I am 15.6 lbs. heavier today than I was at my best) can fit today. A week from today, knowing that I will continue to lose weight, I will revisit the other Size 36 pants that were not even close to closing around my waist last week. For now, I’ll take this victory and smile.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 395

    Holy crap it is cold outside. Knowing that the forecast high is well above the freezing mark, I was not expecting the biting wind and cold of -8°, with the wind chill making it feel ten degrees colder. Princess Sophie, lower to the ground where I suppose the wind is not so harsh, was happy to go for the full turn through the park, which meant that I did get over 2,000 steps in before my coffee, and it also meant I was quietly thanking G-d for the wonderful scarf that Leslie knit for me last year. Even through my leather gloves my fingers were chilled. Nevertheless, I am Canadian born and bred, and I knew to dress properly for this February morning, and aside from my digits, the only discomfort I felt was to the only exposed part of my body… my face.

    I met my goals yesterday. I stayed on track. Save for a single sugar-free lozenge during class, I did not veer from the program. I remember writing yesterday, the words still on the screen if I look at the last paragraph in this immense journal, that I would drop below the 280-pound mark in the next couple of days. I did not have to wait any longer than that; when I stepped off the bathroom scale this morning, I could hardly believe my eyes, but after re-checking it several times, the numbers read 279.8 lbs. As an added bonus (but wait… there’s more!) my body mass index (BMI), that measurement that earlier this week I railed against, dropped below 36. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov), I am about 7.5 lbs. away from dropping out of Obese Class II into Obese Class I. That precise milestone happens to coincide with another upcoming milestone, which is my best weight from 2017. I have added that as a note on my comparative chart from 2020, which this morning has me 1.2 lbs. better than I was on the corresponding day from that year (Day 16 of my comparison), although that is not entirely accurate, as I was in Las Vegas at the time, as I would be through Day 19.

    I have written before that setting short-term goals is one of the keys to long-term success because they give you something to reach for that is not years away but can be reached within a reasonable period. If I were only looking eighteen months ahead then in the grand scheme of things, why would it matter if I took one day off? With short-term goals, I know that last weekend’s failure with the nachos and salsa delayed today’s milestone by four or five days. I did not cheat again during the week (although that latté also slowed my progress), and I got here. When I started out, the idea of losing the 115 lbs. that I have so far lost was impossibly distant… so I set goals for 20, 40, 80, 100, 120, 140, and 170 pounds. I also set milestones at every 10 pounds, and several other benchmarks along the way. I have strived to reach those… and I have celebrated both the scale- and non-scale victories. Without setting short-term goals, I do not know if it would be possible for anyone to achieve that long-term success. Hitting milestones feels wonderful, and it is these short-term victories that spur us on to not cheat today.

    At the same exact moment that I was about to step onto the bathroom scale, I noticed a text message on my phone from a woman that I am trying to support through her weight loss journey. Through no fault of her own, she ran into a huge obstacle on her journey, and she was desperate to figure out how to handle it. I called her, and we spoke at length about different ways she could get past it. We also discussed how she should start making small lifestyle changes that will increase her chances for success by limiting her exposure to temptations. I have said since the first time I started this program in 2017 that I was lucky that I lived alone and did not have to be around someone else’s food… let alone have to prepare it for them.

    She has a teenage son for whom she has been cooking every evening, requiring her to be in the kitchen with the food every evening. I am not a gourmet chef by any measure (well, measured against the chefs in the Army I suppose I am) but I can tell you that I cannot imagine preparing food properly without tasting it to make sure I got it right. Her husband spends a lot of time on the road for work, but the son has to eat. I suggested that she come up with several meal ideas for him, then take him shopping… and teach him how to cook for himself. This is not only a good plan for her weight loss but will also greatly benefit him for the rest of his life. Start with a simple dish like spaghetti… here’s how to cook the noodles (and if there is anything easier than this other than toast then I don’t know what it is), and here’s how to empty the sauce into a pot and heat it up. Hamburgers! Here’s the patty, here’s the frying pan. You like onions and tomatoes on your burger? Great! Here’s a knife. Let’s make chicken! Here’s chicken-quarters, here’s a pan, here’s some seasoning. You get the picture. Oh, and by the way, kiddo… everything you use, you have to clean… so here’s how to minimize the mess that you make so as to facilitate the clean-up. Trust me, when you move into a university dorm… or when you are sixteen and your parents go away for the weekend… or when you are fifty-years-old, twice-divorced and living apart from your new wife because of the US Department of State… knowing how to prepare your own healthy meals without relying on ordering in all the time will be a huge lifesaver… not to mention that women find guys who can cook for them hot.

    Okay, we have addressed that problem… but what about the meal replacements that her clinic refuses to sell her until she comes in for an appointment, but they cannot fit her in until the beginning of next month? Okay, here’s a solution to that… and until they ship to you, here’s an interim solution.

    Perfect… I just wish that my friends understood. Guess what, lady? Nobody does. Your husband is wonderful and understanding and supportive and that is amazing. That does not mean that he understands. Your friends, who think that the program you are on is unhealthy because they are all so much smarter than you? Not only are they wrong, but they will never understand. This may sound obnoxious or arrogant (and it would not be the first time this week that I have been called either or both of those), but that’s why you have me. I told her the story about the guy who fell into a hole, which rather that typing out, I will copy and paste from the site http://www.westwingtranscripts.com, as it quotes the great Leo McGarry (played by the incredible John Spencer):

    This guy’s walking down a street, when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep. He can’t get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up “Hey you! Can you help me out?” The doctor writes him a prescription, throws it down the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up “Father, I’m down in this hole, can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. “Hey Joe, it’s me, can you help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole! Our guy says “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here!” and the friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”

    Like so many others, she is afraid to ask for help. Asking for help is not easy. I asked her what she was afraid of, and she told me that she was afraid that she would disappoint me when she failed. I told her about the nacho and salsa incident last Sunday… how I dealt with it, and how I recovered my footing the next day. I told her about how I did my research and planned out the meal in advance so that I would not fail… and then how I failed… not months ago, mind you; this happened six days ago. I could have told her about myriad other failures along my journey… not to mention the fact that my journey has started three times now, and I have now lost over one hundred pounds three times now… and twice I have regained it all back. I told her that people who do not fail, do not need my support. I told her that if she could do it alone, she would have done it alone. I told her that I would never judge her because I have been her… Hell, I am her. It is far too easy to gain weight and far too hard to lose it. The difference is that there are all sorts of people who will help you to gain it… in fact, it is so easy that you do not usually need their help. While there might be psychological reasons why we gain weight, it is a simple process… make bad choices, eat too much of it, repeat. If she wants my support then she should take advantage of it when she is about to cheat and needs someone to offer her alternatives… or when she has already cheated and needs someone who understands, and who can guide her away from the slippery slope.

    In January 2002 I was on a ski trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I had not been on skis since 1981, and I knew that I would need lessons. After being fitted for my rental equipment, I spent the morning of that first day on the slopes with an excellent instructor who helped me to remember that I was once a skier, and he spent more time showing me the best trails than he did showing me technique. It really was just like riding a bike. I bade him farewell at the end of the morning, and after lunch at the top of the mountain, I headed out on my own.

    I found myself at a divide between two trails, and I decided that the green dot trail would be too easy for me. I opted for the blue square trail, which after remembering that I used to be a skier was more my speed. It was an unfamiliar trail, but I had been down many ‘blue runs’ that morning, and I would be fine. Pretty soon, that trail split into two… a blue run, and a double black diamond run, which would be far too advanced for me. I was about to make the turn to stay safe when something got in my way… I do not remember if it was another skier or a critter. The slight delay in turning forced my hand, and I was on the double-black run. I was feeling exhilarated! I was doing great… until I realized how fast I was going, and I tried to slow down… but the slope had gotten too steep, and nothing that I remembered from my childhood or from my two hours of lessons that morning taught me anything about stopping on a 70° downward slope of pure powder. My legs did everything they could to stay under me, and I made every turn possible to slow my descent, but it was to no avail… pretty soon I was on my ass (wholly predictable), and it took me another 60-100 metres to stop. I collected my skis (which took longer than you might expect, considering all of the factors), and walked down to safer ground. A ski patrol who had seen what had happened came by and clipped my lift ticket. I was done for the day.

    The trauma from that day stuck with me. I spent the next day (a gorgeous sunny ‘champagne powder’ day) sitting at a bar called The Tap House in town. The following day I did something else. My three-day ski trip turned into a one-day ski trip, with two more days of drinking, eating chicken wings, playing trivia at the bar, and sitting in the outdoor hot tub at the Steamboat Grand.

    The following year, I went on a ski trip to Montana, and I stuck to the green slopes. A year or two later, I went to Park City, Utah… once again, skiing the easiest slopes, except for when I was with a guide… who knew that I was not an experienced skier. The guides knew this from what I told them, not from watching me ski. They all tried to encourage me to try again, but I never got past that slippery slope at Steamboat Springs.

    If only I had not excused my instructor that first day. If only I had the courage to say, ‘I still need help!’ If only I had not thought to myself that I could do it myself and did not need anyone’s help. I wonder how much more enjoyment I would have gotten out of those trips had I just admitted that I needed help.

    That slippery slope can kill you and thank G-d you did not go off a cliff.

    Had I asked for help I likely would not have been on the slippery slope… and had I done so, the help would have guided me to safety.

    I did not need any help on the green and blue trails, and had I stuck to those, everything would have been fine. If my friend lived alone, never needing to expose herself to other peoples’ foods, she would be just fine. There is no shame in asking for help… and if the person that you ask knows what you are going through then they will never judge you for what you perceive to be your weaknesses. They will understand.

    People who do not make mistakes, do not slip, do not falter… they do not need support. The rest of us can truly use the support of others, and we are foolish to eschew it and try to go it alone. Weight loss is a very difficult uphill climb, and as with mountain climbing it is so easy to make one misstep… and fall off the cliff. The difference between recovering and failing is the support that we have. Refusing to reach out to them for fear of judgement is no different from making that last mistake that sees you falling to the bottom.

    Whoever you reach out to for support will be thrilled to celebrate your successes and victories with you… but they will also be there when you falter to remind you that you are not alone. They will give you tips and tricks on how to do better… and they will help you to remember that any weight loss journey will be replete with successes and failures, and that you are human and will make mistakes. Can you minimize those mistakes? Sure. Can you avoid them completely? Probably not. Along the road to being slim a few nacho chips with salsa will fall in your path. Get by them and continue on your journey.

    My plan for today is to stay on track. The fact that I achieved a milestone this morning does not mean that I get to rest on my laurels. I am now 19.5 lbs. from reaching my best post-Army weight… I am 4.6 lbs. from going to my tailor’s appointment under 275 lbs., and I am 9.6 lbs. from flying to Dallas under 270 lbs. These are all short-term goals that I have set for myself, and while they are on the far end of realistic, a single misstep would likely put them out of reach. I will not sabotage myself by falling down now. After my second shake of the day, I am going to drive into Hamilton to see Lyle and Dorothy for a couple of hours. I asked Lyle what I could bring, and he reminded me that I have had a bag of Montreal bagels in my freezer for them for the last several months. I will be glad to be rid of them at long last, and they are currently sitting in my travel cooler by the front door. I might stop in at Bulk Barn near them because there is a snack that Leslie asked for that was not available in the Bulk Barn near me. Unlike so many other snacks that I might pick up for her, these are just too decadent to tempt me seriously. Yes, I would love them… but unlike Goldfish crackers or Pop Chips, I cannot look at a chocolate-covered pretzel covered in M&Ms and make any justification that would sound plausible. ‘Hey, Goldfish crackers, eaten in moderation, are a reasonable snack!’ Maybe so… but who am I trying to kid that if I open the bag today that there will be any left by bedtime tomorrow? No, the pretzels for Leslie and her son will be safe… and by going into Bulk Barn on a day when not only did I hit a milestone, but also on a day when I spent so much time supporting (and then writing about supporting) others through missteps will not hold the same temptation as it might if it were just any other day. Stay the course. Stay on track. When I wake up tomorrow morning, I might weigh 280 lbs… or I might weigh 279.2 lbs. If it is the former, it will not be because I cheated today. If it is the latter, it will definitely be because I did not cheat today.

    (Holy crap! I do not know if I have ever written over 3,000 words for a single journal entry. If you read all of it then power to you!)

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 385

    I cheated yesterday, but not on the program! At lunch I went out as planned to buy a not-really-milk product for my coffee. As I was driving to the store, I realized that my gas tank was nearly empty. I was about to pass a petrol station when I realized this, so I pulled in and filled the tank. The station is in the same plaza as a supermarket (but not the one I would usually go to), and I did not expect that store to have what I wanted… but I decided to chance it. Sure enough, they had the oat milk I wanted! The advantage of FreshCo over Fortino’s is that they do not have the huge prepared-foods and fresh bakery sections between the door and where I needed to be. I cheated temptation, and also put fewer miles on my car. It was a win-win situation. Stay tuned for more life hacks! The only downside is that I did not get to the dry cleaner which is adjacent to Fortino’s… but I had left my shirts at home, so it did not matter.

    Staying on track is not easy, but I am doing everything that I can. I am flying down to Dallas in under a month, and I know that I will not be down to my best weight ever by then, but I will certainly weigh less than I do today. Even if it is 10-15 pounds less, that will be so much better than I am now, and certainly less than when I was there last week. All I have to do to achieve that is to stay on the program, and not cheat. I might not lose fifteen pounds… but if I stay on track, at least I will not gain weight. All I can ask for day over day is to do better than the previous day… whether that means my weight is lower, or I have a better attitude, or whatever better might mean on any given day. I know that I was thrilled last week when I was losing so much weight and it felt like it was just melting off, but most weeks will not be like that. These last few days that I have hardly lost any weight are not failures, I simply have to look for other wins. For example, yesterday I went to the supermarket and did not cheat! Also, I have gotten through the first two of my 12-hour teaching days without falling… or yelling, cursing, or anything bad. Today is day three, and once I am through it then tomorrow is a shorter day… I only teach during the day (and it will be the only day this week). Now that I think of it, I am really looking forward to the weekend when I can relax a little.

    I really enjoyed putting on my suit for class yesterday. I knew that my evening class was ending after three months, and I wanted to celebrate it. I was not entirely impressed when I saw the grades on their end of class quizzes though… I truly hope that all of them will study hard for the exam before they take it. As for my daytime class, the two really boring and grueling days are done, and tomorrow we can start with some labs and hands-on stuff, instead of just eight straight hours of lecture (which for the last couple of days was then followed by 3.5 more straight hours of lecture).

    This morning I was going to put on my blue sports jacket, but instead decided to wear my vest. I decided that I really like the look, and while this vest is at the very limit of my being able to wear it (it was tailored to me 80 lbs. ago!) I can get a couple more uses out of it… and when I go to the tailor for new shirts in a few weeks, I will order at least one and probably two more!

    It is funny that I woke up this morning, did my morning rituals, got dressed, and took HRF Princess Sophie for her walk, and it was only as we were coming in from that walk that I realized that I was scheduled to go to the doctor’s office to get weighed. I panicked for the three seconds it took me to realize that I was nowhere near late, and then I took Princess Sophie upstairs (she insisted on going to see Sue) and then I got into my car and drove to the doctor’s. I told the nurse as I was preparing to step onto the scale that if the number read at or below 129 kg then I would be celebrating because I would have hit the fifty kilos lost milestone. I missed it by 200g – I weighed 129.2 kg. I was hugely disappointed… until I realized that meant that in the past three weeks since my last official weigh-in I have lost 4.6kg, and that includes a trip to Dallas where I cheated a lot. I changed my tune and called it a huge success! While that ‘official’ milestone will need to wait another couple of weeks, I look forward to smashing it, rather than just eking by.

    Yesterday afternoon I was feeling weak and hungry, and my body told me that I needed my meal replacement now. I do not remember that happening too often these last few weeks. This morning (it is now 11:55am) I am again feeling a bit hungry and a bit weak, but I am going to wait until my class breaks for lunch… unless I really feel that I need it. I am planning this because I know that it will be a very long day, and that while I have been teaching now for 2.5 hours, I have another nine hours of teaching to go. I cannot cheat because if I do, I will likely find myself with an empty tank way too early in the evening. My plan for the day is, once again, to stay on the course and not cheat. If I can get through the day, I know that tomorrow is a shorter day (which is to say that I am teaching from 9:30am until 6:00pm, rather than to 9:30pm), and I will be able to get through it with greater ease… and if the weather cooperates, I might even be able to enjoy a cigar on the balcony with my wife (over video chat). I am, however, looking forward to the weekend in a way that I have not in a very long time.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 381

    I have been waiting for the shoe to fall, but it has not. I fully expected that after four straight days of weight loss that had me 7.6 lbs. down, the bathroom scale (and my body) would finally correct themselves to show at least a minor gain. Not today! While the downward trend slowed, I still lost .2 lb., which puts me on the cusp of a minor milestone. At 285.0, my next drop – however minor – will take me below that number.

    I have written a great deal about major and minor milestones, both with regards to absolute numbers (e.g.: when I dropped below 300 lbs.), progress numbers (e.g.: when I had lost 100 lbs.), and most recently comparative numbers (comparing to my last weight loss attempt). Because North America thinks in the imperial system for weights, I almost neglected to see a huge milestone coming in the next few days… although I will not celebrate it officially until my weigh-in at the doctor’s office on Wednesday morning. While my bathroom scale is set to pounds, the nurse weighs me in kilograms. Doing a quick conversion, I realized just now that my current weight has me down 49.9 kilos – a mere 100g from tipping over the 50kg lost mark. Of course, when the nurse weighs me, I am fully dressed, so there is a chance that as of this morning it might be closer to 49kg. I have four more days before she weighs me, but if I stick to the program (as I fully intend to do) then I should be there. I might not let out a loud whoop there, but I will smile… and when I come back to write in this space, I will recognize it.

    I mentioned in yesterday’s journal/blog entry that the last time I lost weight, in 2020, I got from where I was yesterday to my best weight in sixty-eight days… after which I started losing ground. I decided that I was going to create a spreadsheet that I will use for as long as I need it… I copied and pasted the information for every day between July 21 and September 27 – the date, and how much I weighed. I edited it down so that there would be only one entry per day – I see that I would often step onto the scale several times per day, so I deleted all but one entry for each day – as often as possible, one that corresponded to my usual morning weigh-ins. I do not know why I would get onto the scale at 1:00am, or four times at 8:30pm. The spreadsheet has five columns: today’s date, today’s weight, my weight on the corresponding day from 2020 and the date of that weight; the fifth column is the difference between this time and last time. As yesterday’s weight is exactly what I weighed on July 21, 2020, that row looks like this:

    Date

    Weight Today

    Compare to 2020

    Weight 2020

    Date

    2/3/2023

    285.2

    0

    285.2

    7/21/2020

    2/4/2023

    285

    1.8

    283.2

    7/22/2020

    I know that the next day in 2020 I had lost two pounds, so it was not unexpected that this morning’s middle column is a positive number. I am hoping that by early next week that number is squarely and consistently in the negatives.

    I see that there are four days without a measurement (August 4-7), and I came back on August 8 nearly one pound heavier. I do not know what that is about, but I will note the same weight as the day before the absence for the comparison. If I am able to stay on the program, then it should not take me sixty-eight days to get there. While I was above and below 280 a few times between July 28 and August 12, it is clear that I was stuck on a plateau for a few weeks. I know I was eating at least one meal every day at the time, which I do not plan to do now. At least, I do not plan to eat daily meals until I drop below that best-weight-ever mark… not just the best-weight-yet territory that I keep celebrating. That is exactly twenty-five pounds lower than yesterday’s weight. I will mark my weight in the spreadsheet every day until I am below that Best Weight, and then I can delete the file.

    My plan for today is to stay on course. HRF Princess Sophie has an appointment at the vet to get her shots, which she is not at all excited about. I will bring her straight home and give her treats to make up for the ordeal. I will spend most of the afternoon at home, and I might go out this evening to see some friends and light a cigar. Tomorrow morning, I have a study group meeting in the morning, and I am reasonably sure I have a couple of tentative engagements in the afternoon, but I cannot remember what they are right now. As long as none of then revolve around food, I should be okay. The coming week is going to be a bear – I am teaching every day from 10am, and with the exception of Thursday, I teach until 9:30pm every night. I will be keeping my head down and will have very little opportunity to cheat on my diet. When the doctor’s office phoned me a couple of days ago to let me know that the doctor cannot see me Wednesday morning, but I can still come in to get weighed, I breathed a sigh of relief. I did not want to be sitting with the doctor looking at my watch. I will go early, be in first, and get out of there so that I can be back at my desk by 9:30am.

    Stay mindful; stay on course. That is my motto for the week. Tomorrow’s forecast is forecasting a high temperature of 6°, which means it will be a good day to be outside if I need to be. I am hoping to connect with a couple of other friends tomorrow afternoon for a cigar, but if that cannot happen then I just might sit on my own balcony with a cigar and my book.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 368

    There are changes that are happening to my body gradually as I lose the weight that are neither immediately obvious to me nor impossible to ignore. A few days ago, Leslie and I were on video chat, and she told me that for the first time ever she could visibly see my collarbone. As the padding peels off, the body that is supposed to be underneath all of that fat somewhere will gradually show itself. I did not think much of it at the time, but a day or two later I realized the implications. What will my body look like when it is not insulated by two hundred pounds of fat? I do not know… but I know that I am looking forward to finding out. I look at myself today and then look at a picture from a month ago – not even a year ago, but a month ago! – and I see huge changes. I then look at people on the street, at the gym, at the store, and wherever else I see normal people, and wonder how I will compare to them when I am at their BMI. It is exciting, but it is daunting.

    I do not know what was so different yesterday, but I felt like I went to the washroom a lot more often than I usually do during the day (and with power and force each time), and then only woke up once in the night to pee. I did not eat or drink anything different that I can think of, other than that at the cigar event I went to I drank a few bottles of Dasani water (which is not my favourite but was all that was available). I will say that I did walk more yesterday than I have in a long time – it was a relatively nice day (for the middle of January in Canada) and I ended up with just short of 12,000 steps… walking HRF accounted for 1.6km, and when I could not sleep in the afternoon I walked just short of 5km. It was not a power walk, and I did not turn on my app, but my fitness watch tracked it, nonetheless. I suppose the exercise does help somewhat. I remember thinking yesterday evening that I seemed to be peeing more than I was drinking (quite the feat!) and I was sure to see a drop on the bathroom scale this morning. I came in from that event late (I had driven into Toronto without my phone, let alone my meal replacement) so I had it when I came home much later than usual, so I was worried that would counterbalance the good of the day. Nope! The bathroom scale registered nearly a full pound drop from yesterday!

    On that subject, I have written extensively about milestones and short-term goals. Since the very beginning of this journey when I started keeping a journal, I have said that every ten-pound loss – into the 320s when I was at 329.8 lbs., down from 330.2 lbs. – was a huge milestone. Since I started back on the strict program ten days ago, I have also realized that every change to the last whole-number-digit of my weight feels huge. Yesterday morning my weight finally dropped to 292.6, down from three days of 293.6 and then 293.2. This morning it dropped to 291.8 lbs. It is unlikely that tomorrow that last integer will change again, but every change to that ‘ones’ column feels like an accomplishment. Whether it is or it is not, it is a sign of actual progress… especially after the two-month plateau that showed such little progress, and when it was made on one day, it was so often eliminated on the next.

    I have another busy day today. Starting in a few minutes I have a study session with a couple of friends for a couple of hours; after that I am driving into Toronto once again to spend some time with another friend who is going through some stuff. If I cannot give wise advice, then I can at least be a friendly ear to let him talk out his own issues. I will bring cigars because that is what we do… it is not the solution for everyone, but for a cigar smoker, a good cigar is more than just a comfort and an enjoyment; it is a conversation starter and can be the lubricant to letting one more freely share difficult emotions… something that many (if not most) men of an age were never really comfortable doing. Unlike yesterday, I will bring my meal replacement with me. My study session is scheduled to go until 12:30pm, so before I leave the house, I will have my second of the day, and will bring my third with me in case (as I expect) I am there longer than a couple of hours. I will endeavour to take my phone as well, but I think I am going to start a new habit of turning it off when I am in serious conversations with people. I notice that since starting my medications I am less likely to pick it up to look at it every time it beeps or buzzes. I can go one step further and change it from being an appendage to something I pick up when I need to… and not a constant (and disrespectful) interruption.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 365

    What a number. Today is the last day of the diet year one. Looking at myself now versus then is… well, the transformation is amazing. While I am still a work in progress in so many ways, I am absolutely a different person. I have shed in one year just over twenty-five percent (25%) of my bodyweight! In pants, I am down from a Size-46 to a Size-40. My shirts are down from a very tight XXL to a comfortable fit XL. While I still have a few pounds to go before I am at my best weight from 2017, the custom-tailored suits and shirts that I had made back then fit, and only the jackets are slightly tight. While it is not really measurable, my face is noticeably slimmer. These are just the physical changes.

    A year ago, I hated myself. I hated what I looked like, I hated what I had let myself become. I absolutely hated myself knowing that not only had I lost over one hundred pounds and then gained it all back… but I had done it twice in under five years. I honestly did not know if I had it in me to do again, and if I might not be destined to spend the rest of my life as a fat man. I hated knowing that one day I would be a burden on the medical system and on my family because I did not have the discipline to control my appetites. I hated that I had the choice of wearing XXXL shirts that exposed my belly or spending money on XXXXL shirts that would cover it… but would also make losing weight a less pressing issue. I absolutely despised myself for having to buy a 4XL winter jacket, because in Canada having a winter jacket that fits is non-negotiable. On the eve of my weight loss program’s 1st anniversary, I have not worn that jacket… I am wearing the much smaller one that I have had since 2006. I know that next winter I will have to buy a new winter jacket… this one will be too big on me. All of my XXXL shirts have been donated to charity or given away to friends. My blood pressure is extremely low (yesterday it was 107/62), and my pulse is on the verge of imperceptible (58 beats per minute). The two medications I am on have nothing to do with my weight issues (or any health issued caused by them). With that said, they are both directly contributing to my quality of life, and that directly affects my happiness. The difference between today and a year ago is that when I look at myself in the mirror naked today, I still see a fat man… but when I put on a nice shirt and pair of pants, I look in the mirror and realize how good I look… and how far I have come.

    I will be dealing with food addiction for the rest of my life, which means that obesity will be hanging over my head, like the sword of Damocles. It would take only one slip – forgetting to be vigilant with how I eat – for me to fall back into it. That is a difficult reality to contend with, but to underline the importance of it, let’s review the lesson of the previous paragraph: the more weight I lose, the less I hate myself. Corollary: The slimmer I am, the more I love myself. If the size of my body is directly related to the feelings I have for myself, then every time I start gaining weight, I have to remember that as much as I might dislike myself for gaining five pounds, how much worse will I hate myself for gaining twenty… or fifty. Mindfulness, vigilance, and dedication to maintaining a me that I will love. Of course, I am sure that aside from my wife, every psychologist in the world would tell me that I have to learn to love myself no matter how large or small I am. That is a great theory, but if I can stay slim, then I can continue to work with my therapist on all of the other issues that I have that contribute to negative feelings about myself.

    This morning was the first day in a while that I did not lose any weight. Actually, that is not entirely true… As with so many mornings, I did not weigh myself once, but thrice. The first time, I was .2lbs. down from yesterday. I decided to not save that and stepped back onto the scale. I was .4lbs. heavier than yesterday. That really would not do! I weighed myself one last time, and the number was exactly what it was yesterday morning. Even a week or two ago I would have kept trying until I got back below that weight… even to the original .2lbs. down number. I decided that the stagnant number would be a punishment for my impatient to lose weight that I am losing… even though I am not losing it as fast I want to lose it. As my wife has pointed out to me several times, my weight loss is not going to be the constant downward trend on a line graph. There will be ups that counter the more frequent downs. I also need to remember that every weight loss expert in the world tries to discourage people from weighing themselves every day. It is exactly because of the discouragement that people experience when the numbers do not do what we want that they give this advice. There are so many reasons we fail on our weight loss journeys, and discouragement is a big one. I will not be discouraged. I will continue on. If I persevered the last two months of plateau and zero progress (despite extreme emotional crises), I can look at a single day of not dropping any weight and laugh it off, continuing on my journey.

    My plans for today are to start studying. I have wanted to continue on my certification journey for a while, but my ADHD has really hindered that. Honestly, I always knew that I had trouble concentrating and setting my mind to studying, but I never realized that there was a medicinal solution for it. While I had heard of people who used drugs to focus, I never thought that I would be one of them. Today will be the first time in a very long time that I am going to sit down and study… I do not know how far I will get today, but I will do what I can. After all, it will be a huge adjustment. I do have incentive though… I will be working together with a couple of friends (well, one friend and her adult son) in a study group to prepare for the exam. Liz has always seen me as some sort of certification prodigy. I don’t know about that, but I have been able to pass a lot of exams… as long as the content is in my comfort zone. The course we will be working on is probably adjacent to my comfort zone, but unlike so many other exams that I have passed, there is no way that I could sit down at the exam computer today and pass it. Maybe in a few weeks… we’ll see.

    Of course, this evening I am teaching again, which is great because not only do I love teaching, I also love the knowledge that sometime in the not-too-distant future someone will be paying me for teaching! While I am looking at job opportunities, right now the only income I have is from my teaching contracts… so woohoo, teaching tonight!

    I plan to stay on track with my four meal replacements today. Aside from taking Her Floofness out for her walks, I have no reason to leave the house today. I thought about going to the gym, but I think studying is more important. The other benefit to that is if I do not leave the house, there are fewer temptations. For example, I know that in the next couple of days I need to go to Bulk Barn. I am running low on doggie treats, so I need to pick some up. In addition to that, there are a couple of other items that I want to get, but if I did not need to get Scooby Snacks, I probably would not walk into that store… there are just too many temptations there. I am going out tomorrow, Saturday, and probably Sunday too… I will gird myself to go into the store and not pick up peanuts or almonds or anything else.

    I also think it is time for me to change the theme of my blog. The more I look at it, the more I see that the theme that I picked is missing a lot of things that it should have. I’ll try to spend no more than twenty minutes on that.

    There is a simplicity to being on the strict program that I had not put together before. Since the Army I have said that best way to make sure that people make the right choice is to only give them the one option. When I was on my modified program, I had so many choices to make. Many times, but not always, I made the right choice. If I had made the right choice every single time, then I would have lost a lot more than one hundred pounds in the year. The strict meal replacement program means that I do not have to choose what protein to cook for my meal… and trust me, I know that I was always making too much. I do not have to decide what vegetables to add to my salad, or how much olive oil I should sprinkle on before dousing it with (how much?) balsamic vinegar. The only choices I have to make are: 1) What time should I have my next meal replacement, and 2) Have I had enough water today? That’s it. There are no other choices to make… which means there is so much less opportunity to make the wrong choice. I have already made the decision that I will have one pot of coffee per day (three cups), with 1/3 teaspoon of raw sugar and a splash of It’s-Really-Easy-To-Believe-It’s-Not-Milk. By eliminating all food, let’s look at how my life is simpler… and how my weight loss program is actually easier:

    • I know what I am eating… every meal, every day.
    • The only time I ever need to go into the supermarket (the den of temptations) is every couple of weeks to buy milk/not-milk for my coffee.
    • Portions are not an issue… every meal is contained in a single pouch.
    • I can work through lunch (if I want to) because it is as easy to drink the meal replacement shake at my desk as it is at the kitchen table.

    There are probably other benefits, but these are four that really stick out to me. Of course, Princess Sophie is a bit miffed because she is no longer getting the cartilage from my chicken… but we have plenty other treats in the house, and she is not going hungry. Just because I need to lose weight does not mean that she needs to go without.

    Okay, it is time for me to get off my butt and get things done. It is time for my second meal replacement of the day, and when that is prepared, I will sit down and answer a few emails before I start studying.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 362 (For real this time!)

    As I wrote yesterday, there was no way for the bathroom scale to register a weight loss this morning without bringing me to the point of a one-hundred-pound loss. Following my morning washroom routine, I walked into the bedroom and looked at Princess Sophie and said ‘Girl, let’s hope to see the integer drop. Even if the fraction is .8, I would love to see the whole number as 294. 295 would reach it, but let’s hope that I surpass that number. I stepped onto the scale, looking straight ahead for five seconds as I always do so that the weight can be confirmed. The numbers on the scale read 294.6 lbs. I did it. Three days short of the one-year anniversary of my weight loss journey, I have surpassed the one-hundred-pounds milestone. I do not have a mirror in my room, but I can only assume there was a big smile on my face. I am not nearly at my goal weight, but I reached the next huge milestone.

    In the end, I did not go for my drive yesterday. I did not go to see Lyle yesterday. In fact, I did not leave the building except for when I walked Her Floofness. So, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that I did not accomplish anything. In fact, I went through all of my shirts (and I had a lot of them!) and tried them all on… or at least, I tried on all of the ones that I have not worn in the last week or two. I know that my custom-tailored shirts all fit, so that is fine. I was thrilled that all but one of my guayabera shirts fit. There are a couple of long-sleeved ones that I am really happy I can wear again. There is one that does not fit, but it should fit in a couple of months… if I keep up with my progress.

    I actually made three piles, in addition to the nineteen shirts that I put back into the closet: Shirts that don’t fit yet went into a bin with the rest of my pants that do not fit yet, along with a few t-shirts. Shirts that are too big were divided into two piles: one to donate, but the other pile is of really nice button-down shirts that I am offering to a friend who is bigger than I am, but who might be able to wear them. That pile has a dozen shirts that were all very expensive and are in very good condition. If he does not want the then I will offer them to another friend, and if he doesn’t want them then they are all being donated. This will all happen this week. In the meantime, my closet is so much cleaner with so muck more space that it has had in a very long time! I even re-hung the hang-down soft shelves unit that I was planning to take to Dallas with me. Only this morning did it occur to me that I am not quite done… there are shirts hanging in the closet in Dallas that will either come back to Canada with me or will be donated in Dallas. The timeline for that is not clear, but if nothing else, some of those shirts might make the trip back to Canada to be donated here, if only so that I can use them as packing material.

    I could not understand why my apartment was so cold yesterday. I was absolutely freezing by around 4:00pm, which was weird because yes, it was cold outside… but it was much warmer than it had been even earlier in the day, let alone the last few days. It was only after I got up to turn the thermostat up – and realized it was already at 75°F – that I knew something was wrong. I am feeling fine – not a hint of sick – so what is wrong with me? And then it dawned on me… I had already drunk 4-6 litres of water in the afternoon, and that makes all the difference. During both of my previous extreme weight loss attempts, I had made notes that the huge quantities of water that I drink have several effects, including, most relevant to this topic, is that it causes me to feel really cold… especially my extremities! While that does not solve the problem, at least it helps to know what is causing it. Yay.

    Something that I was worried about as I prepared to start my intensive program was that I have food in the house. When I first did the program in 2017, I emptied the fridge and the cupboards. I threw out everything… including spices. The only thing that I had in the cupboards for the twelve-week intensive program were boxes of my meal replacement shakes. This time around, I did not make that jump. If I wanted to, there is plenty of tuna and salmon in the pantry, plus a couple of cans of soup… and yes, all of my spices are still there. I don’t have much other than condiments in the fridge (except for a couple jars of pepperoncini, partly because I really like them but also partly because I always thought it was fun to hear Leslie’s reaction when she saw them. In the freezer I have a lot more… aside from a half-dozen Montreal bagels, there are a couple of steaks, several pieces of fish, a couple of packages of Beyond Meat burgers (and a package of the ground beef), and a box of a Buffalo Cauliflower meal that I think I bought to make when Leslie was here last but never did. The point of this is that I have plenty of opportunity to cheat… and like at lunch on Saturday, I get to prove to myself each time I open the fridge that I have the willpower to resist the temptations. In addition to everything else, it is another way that I can try to change my behaviours for the long term, all with the goal of breaking my unhealthy relationship with food.

    Like every day since Wednesday, yesterday’s intake was four meal replacements only. The difference is that yesterday morning I made the switch from the American product (with fewer calories, but more shakes per day) to the Canadian product. Unlike the American program, the Canadian one calls for four shakes per day; at 225 calories each, that makes a 900-calorie day. Add the negligible calories from what I add to my coffee, I will still be under 950 calories per day. As long as I can continue to lose weight on that, I will be happy. Now if plateau again, the only change that is left to make would be to cut out coffee… or at least the sugar and milk (or non-milk) that I add to it. I have not decided how long I will stay on the program, but I do have some thoughts on it that I will share later.

    I have been spending so much time these last few weeks about achieving the under-300 lbs. milestone and the losing 100 lbs. milestone that I have not really taken the time to recognize another, which is less clearly delineated that these others. In all of my serious weight loss attempts over the past six years, I have established and then several times changed what my ultimate goal weight is. That number has fluctuated between 195 lbs. and 225 lbs.; in the app that tracks my weight that came with the bathroom scale, that number is currently set to 210 lbs., only because the app needs you to enter a goal weight. In truth, I realized a while ago that I have not weighed under 250 lbs. (which was already fat) since the 1990s… in other words, my mid-20s. As I write this, I am fifty years old, and I recognize that the older body will not look like what the younger body looked like. In other words, my goal is to be slim… but I do not know what slim at my age (and with my body type) will look like on the scale. The important thing for me to recognize is that I want to get slim, and whatever my slim weight will be, for the first time since I started this journey a year ago, I do not have to lose one hundred pounds to get there. It is unlikely that I will ever weigh under 195 lbs., but if that is where I need to be to slim, then by the time I realize that I will likely be within 15-20 lbs. of that number anyways.

    I have so much more to say, but I have to head out to start my day. I am making sure to take two meal replacement shakes with me (along with a shaker bottle, not knowing for certain how long I will be out. Unlike during my modified program, if I am out and about without a meal replacement, I cannot drop into Bulk Barn to pick up some peanuts without it being a clear violation of my program.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 361 (fixed)

    .2 of a pound. Two tenths – one fifth of a pound to go! After yesterday’s .4 lb. drop, I said that if I repeat that same drop every day for the next four, I would meet my goal of losing one hundred pounds in one year. Honestly, when I woke up this morning, I was hoping for that consistency. Instead, I registered a 1.4 lb. drop, which left me .2 of a pound shy of that amazing milestone. To put that in perspective: my bathroom scale records changes in .2 increments… which means that the next drop of any size will put me at or past that milestone. I am really excited about that!

    Yesterday, I decided to get right into the face of temptation. As my friend was contemplating her lunch order, I strongly and persistently encouraged her to order the Buffalo wings. I should mention that this particular pub has some of the best wings you will ever have; as Liz debated with herself, she spent quite some time describing just how big they are, and she does not know how they do it. My mouth was watering, and I tried to convince her to do it. I should mention that in the last year I have lost the equivalent of her body weight… and I have to lose nearly another one of her in the next year. I say this to underscore that she is a very petite woman. It was only when I explained that I would not be eating that she decided to order the Greek salad. With that, my testing my ability to resist temptation was foiled not by failure, but by forfeit of the other side, rather than my own surrender.

    In the end, I did walk the kilometre to the pub, and then back again. Liz and her boyfriend offered to drive me home; despite the chilly temperatures, it was a gorgeous sunny day, so I decided to hoof it. According to my fitness watch, I did more walking yesterday than I have any day since Sunday… and possibly more than a couple of days combined. It was a good opportunity to get some steps in, knowing that I have not been to the gym since last weekend. When I got home, I took twenty minutes to answer a couple of emails (or at least to compose them… I am going to reread one of them before sending it, and I know that my response is not expected over the weekend anyways). I then drove to Oakville to have coffee with a friend who I used to teach Taekwondo with. It was good to catch up with him – I have not seen him since 2014.

    I got home from that meeting after 6:00pm and realized that I had only had two meal replacements. I prepared my third one immediately, knowing that, once again, I would only be having four shakes on the day. While I know that it is bad form, and never recommended by the doctors who monitor the program, it is my reality over the last four days. I decided this morning that if I am only getting four shakes in anyways, I have just enough Canadian meal replacements in the cupboard to make the jump to them today. Tomorrow morning, I will make the drive into Toronto to pick up my new stock of shakes, which should energize me to stay on track. Also, if I buy a four-week supply (so that I do not need to go back to Scarborough for a month) then I will have too much to put away in my cupboards, which means I will always see it… so when I do get peckish, before I think to go into the fridge or pantry for a treat, the shakes will be in my face. By the way, because I did not have my third meal replacement until after 6:00pm, I forced myself to have my fourth shake at 9:30pm, even though I usually do not like to eat that late. There’s a difference between eating only 700 calories in a day and eating fewer than 500 calories. One is too little, the other is ridiculous and probably unhealthy.

    My plan for today is to visit with my buddy. Depending on how we are both feeling (and what the weather ends up doing), we might sit outside and smoke a cigar, or we might just sit inside and talk. The last week or so has been a combination of bitter cold and snow… and with the fact that I taught all day every day (and 9am-10pm Tuesday and Thursday), I have not been in the mood to sit outside… even with the heater going. Eduardo and I smoked in his condo Friday night, but that’s not the same as bundling up to sit outside. However, if my buddy is in the mood, that is what we will do. I know he wants to hear more about the program I am on, and the clinic that I originally went to for it. I do not know if the program will be right for him, but I will happily tell him all about it. The more I think about it, the more I think I might put off going to see him for a few days. I am just not feeling very motivated, nor very conversational. I know, I can help him… and he might be able to comfort me. I just do not think I feel like talking, and I do not know that I really want anyone’s comforting right now. Tomorrow I am tentatively going out to see my buddy in Cambridge, and I know that with him, I can either talk… or not. We might just sit there smoking cigars and watching TV. I just do not think I am ready to open up about what is going on.

    In the next few days – maybe even today – I am going to go through my entire wardrobe and start making piles… things that no longer fit because they are too big (or frankly things that I do not think will look good on me) are immediately going into a donation bin. Things that do not fit yet will go into bins (although knowing that I am less than 35 lbs. from my best weight in the past 30 years, this will likely not fill an entire bin anymore), and things that currently fit and are fashionable. It is strange that I have to do this again. This morning as I was getting dressed, I realized that the button-down shirt that I usually wear is hanging to dry after last night’s laundry… and then I remembered that I have a few other shirts that might fit. Sure enough, another Polo shirt that is smaller by quite a bit than the pink (salmon?) one that I have been wearing fits perfectly. I looked at the shirts hanging and counted at least six of them that I have not worn in three years because they did not fit. It is time once again to make more room in my closet… and at the same time, I can look at what is left in the bins of ‘do not fit yet’ – from the bins that I separated out almost a year ago – and do a bit of cleaning. If there are fewer than 40 t-shirts in that bin I would be surprised, and a lot of them are going to go to charity.

    It was January 30th when I first sorted those bins, and the stack of five bins has been in the corner of my room since then. That will come to an end today. If all goes well, I will be down to one bin of ‘does not fit yet’ and one bin of Taekwondo uniforms and belts from years (and schools) past. The first of these bins will stay put where it is. The rest of them will go into my storage locker downstairs, empty except for the one with my Taekwondo kits. While I am still nearly ninety pounds from my ultimate goal, as of this morning I am 34.8 lbs. heavier than I was the morning of September 27, 2020. That morning I weighed less than I have any day since 2005.

    As I have taken that stock right now, I decided to look at my numbers (today compared to my best day from 2020). Keep in mind that aside from the weight, these measurements are measured by a scale that cost $30 on Amazon and might not be completely accurate. With that said, the scale from 2020 and from today are the same make and model, so as inaccurate as they may be, those inaccuracies should be consistent.

    Today (January 15, 2023) September 27, 2020
    Weight 295.2 lbs. 260.4 lbs.
    BMI 37.9 33.4
    Body Fat 33.4% 29.7%
    Muscle Mass 169.8 159
    Basal Metabolic Rate 2280 2072

    I am not quite there… but I am not nearly as far as I was when I started out almost a year ago… or even a month ago. To be clear, the September 2020 numbers are not my goal. They will, however, act as my next major milestone once I have surpassed that 100-pounds-lost mark (hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday morning). I realized today that once I do achieve this milestone, I had no plans for the next one. Of course, I still have the decades (290, 280, 270…), but those are minor ones. The major ones are bigger and should be recognized… if not celebrated. I was speaking with a friend yesterday who told me that once I achieve something (which had nothing to do with weight loss) then it will be a cause to celebrate. In my current state of sadness (I am intentionally not using the word depression), I told him that it would not be a cause to celebrate, it would be just one more thing to recognize that I should have accomplished much sooner in life. Milestones are important though, whether they are celebrations or not.

    When I set out on this journey, I looked at my end goal – a 180-pound weight loss – it was daunting, out of reach, and completely unrealistic. On Day 2 – Friday, January 21, 2022, or about 360 days ago (looking at the math, I suspect I misnumbered a day, and my Day 362 of today might be off by a day!? I’ll go back and look later) – I set out major goals to accomplish at the 20, 40, 80, 100, 120, 140, and 170 pounds-lost mark. Some of them I accomplished – especially with regard to the sizes of my clothes and my wardrobe. I wrote at the time that I would begin jogging again at the 80-pounds mark, and that did not happen. Instead, when I had lost about fifty pounds, I started doing a lot of walking. I see that I hoped that when I was down 120 lbs. I would be ready to run a marathon. That is not realistic. I would have to start jogging first – and while I will, I think weight training at the gym is more of a priority. I don’t know if I will resume teaching Taekwondo, as I had set out as a goal for the 140-pounds mark, but I do hope to get into the Size 6 dobok (uniform) by then… and start working toward my next belt. The last of my goals was for when I have lost all of the weight – I had written 170 lbs. at the time, which would get me to 225 lbs. – I said I would put on my Army uniform and take pictures. That one is still achievable… I am just on the fence about whether I am going to do it or not.

    It has been about a year since I wrote those goals. While I am about to reach the fourth of the markers I set out for my goals, I think it time I start thinking about what the actual new goals should be. My life is not where I thought it would be a year ago – or a month ago for that matter – so while I still plan to continue losing weight and achieving my ultimate goal of being slim and trim (whatever the number on the scale might be), I guess I have to take a long hard look at things and take stock again. It is not what I thought I would be doing… but like John Lennon said, life is what happens while we are busy making other plans.

    I have been sitting at my desk for the last four hours. I have not been writing this entire time, but it is time to get cracking and do whatever I play to do for the rest of the day. I might just go out for a drive in the country – it is a beautiful, sunny day, and that would give me an opportunity to just put my music on and clear my head. In fact, I think that is exactly what I am going to do.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 360 (fixed)

    I am hitting a lot of milestones of late. Today is the 360th day in a row that I am writing in my journal; because I missed a day (I forgot to press publish), today will be the 134th day in a row that I publish an article on my weight loss blog. While the blog does not track the number of words, every word that has been published on the blog is also in a Microsoft Word document; earlier in the week, that document surpassed 300,000 words (in 457 pages, but that can be deceiving, accounting for typeface and size). On Thursday, the blog welcomed its 150th subscriber. While I do not always know if anyone is reading, and I am really writing for myself to keep track of my thoughts, it is sometimes nice to know that someone is. Thursday morning my weight dropped below 300 lbs., a milestone that had for two months been so close, but just out of my grasp. Hopefully, in the next few days I will reach that next magic milestone… one hundred pounds lost.

    It is so important when working on losing a lot of weight to set milestones and celebrate them. That is why I spend so much time focusing on them. Yes, I have reached a lot of them over the past year. I also know that I could have done so much better… I have cheated a lot, I have strayed from the program, I have… well, simply put, I have not done as well as I could. On the other hand, I also know that weight loss – especially the kind of weight loss that is so extreme – will have those ups and downs. Twice now I have lost tremendous amounts of weight and then gained it all back. I wanted to do it slower this time with the hopes that I would be able to sustain when it is all over. The jury is still out… in the meantime, I am working on it… and will be for a very long time, I am sure.

    My class finished yesterday when it was supposed to, and I shmizzeled around a bit before heading out to visit with Eduardo. Sam was there for the first hour, and I was glad that Eduardo had the sense to not say anything about my issues until he left. I thought it would feel better to be able to talk about it. I was wrong. We had a couple of cigars, and I gave him what I hope is helpful advice for when his wife is back in the country… which is tonight around midnight. I really do pray for his happiness. I was extremely pleased that I got through the evening without eating anything… or drinking. Both were on offer, and I politely declined… the first time. The second time he offered I was slightly less polite. I spent a lot of time visiting with him when I went through the program the first time, so he knows what I am going through. He also knows that the first few days of the program are emotionally difficult. He also knows the emotional shit that I am dealing with. Once I told him firmly then he stopped trying.

    It was cold last night, and it is cold today. When I took the Princess out for her walk, the mercury was sitting at -9°… I did not check the wind chill, but it was a blustery walk, if blessedly short. I am going to the pub to meet my friend, and I was thinking about walking (it is less than a kilometre away). I am now on the fence about that. We’ll see. I also have to be very strict to only order coffee… I cannot be tempted to veer from the program, no matter what else is going on in my life. I have made it through three days of the strict program… I do not want to be tempted to fall off of it.

    I have been doing very well with my water intake. Maybe the third time I went to the bathroom at his place, Eduardo asked why I was peeing so much. I told him that I was working on my fourth (or fifth) litre of water on the day, and no there is nothing wrong with my bladder. I know that doctors say that you should drink a lot of water, and that it helps with weight loss. I suspect that not having eaten anything solid for three days, the water is flushing my system.

    Because I am going to meet my friend for lunch – a friend whom I have not seen in at least five years (and probably longer) – I will wear a shirt, but I do not think I am going to wear a tie. I am just going to try to look decent… and try to stay warm. Yes, I will need to bundle up, even if I decide to drive. Even walking to the car last night was bitterly cold!

    I wanted to write a few words about the meal replacements, and the fact that despite my initial concerns, I only had four shakes each day, which means that I got by on fewer than 700 calories each day. It also means that my bigger concern – of not being able to get through the day on only four shakes when I switch over to the Canadian program – is likely unfounded. My bogger concern now is that when I am not teaching during the day – which is to say not busy all day – I will have trouble sustaining that. I am hoping that I will be able to, but today is the first day that I am not working, so it will be the first test. Also, I know that because I am busy with friends much of the day (and Sunday), it will not be as hard. Monday I am driving to Toronto to get the shakes. Tuesday will be the first real test; hopefully by then I will be settled on the program’s routine. We’ll see.

    If I keep losing weight at this rate, it is not impossible that when I get onto the doctor’s scale on Wednesday I will be as much as 5kg down from my last visit. That would be amazing! It would mean an eleven-pound drop over the two-week period… how great would that be? If I make it through the week without veering from the program, a ten-pound drop would not be completely unheard of. I think that any time I think of cheating over the next few days I will remember that and use that as my incentive and inspiration to stay true to the program. Every once in a while, I like when Nurse Mel is really impressed with my progress. She has seen me lose 4kg in a month… that was a really impressive, one time only drop, and I think it was after a four-week absence. 5kg or even more in a fortnight would blow her mind! Frankly, it would blow mine too.

    This morning my weight was down .4 lbs. from yesterday, which was disappointing because my thinking was that if it slowed to that pace, I would not reach my next milestone. I had not yet had my morning coffee, and I was interposing in my mind the hopes to lose 5kg to impress Nurse Mel with the actual milestone, which is the 100-pounds lost in a year. Wednesday will be Day 365, which means that while that is the day of my official weigh-in, I have until Thursday morning to reach that milestone if I am going to do it within that time frame. It would be nice to reach it with a day or two to spare, but I will not be picky. In fact, that goal is only 1.6 lbs. away. If my day-by-day weight loss continues at the pace of yesterday to today, then in four days I will reach that goal… Wednesday morning indeed. I am crossing my fingers, but I am also redoubling my resolve to stick to the plan. Hope is not a strategy… and in the Army we prayed to G-d but we relied on our training.

    Because of my ridiculous schedule this part Thursday, Julie (my diet buddy) and I postponed our weekly session. She was in the area this morning, so rather than having our check-in via video call, she came over for a cup of coffee. We spent nearly two hours talking. First, I spoke, pouring my thoughts and heart and soul and accomplishments and plans to her, then it was her turn. Honestly, we could have gone on for three more hours, except for our personal obligations and responsibilities. I am so proud of her though… despite having once had a terrible experience with it, this morning she tried a yoga class. As many of us are, she was embarrassed that she was the heaviest person in the class… and the least experienced with yoga. Her instructor did an amazing job of ensuring she had a positive experience, and she is thinking about going back. Yoga is not an easy activity for anyone but is likely more difficult for someone who is obese and who has body image issues. The fact that she did it is a victory. That she is thinking of going back on a regular basis is truly amazing. Go Julie!

    Okay, it is time for me to head off to the pub. I started this journal entry this morning (well, I actually put some of my thoughts down last night) but took a break to sit with Julie… and to write a 2,300-word article on a cyber incident from this week. While those are both distractions, I do not think they are caused by my ADHD. The fact that I am going to ask a friend to proof-read my article before publishing it is a sign that my impetuousness, which might be a symptom of my ADHD, might be tempered by the meds. I really do think that I have seen real results from the meds, but that might just be optimism.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 347–January 1, 2023

    Happy New Years to one and all! It is usually at the end of the year, rather than at the beginning, when we reflect on the past year. After sitting and chatting with Eduardo last night, I have been thinking back on it. 2023 was a great year and a troubling one. I married Leslie, I lost over ninety pounds. During my weight loss journey (which is ongoing, and at the current pace will take another year) I wrote in this journal every single day (although I missed a day on the blog because I forgot to press Publish). I have had some professional ups and downs, but I am still standing. Fortunately, my career as an IT Trainer is still going strong… despite some bad bumps on the road.

    All has not been sunshine and roses though. I experienced a lot of downs. Knowing now what I do, many of them were caused by outside interference, and many more by my only recently diagnosed ADHD. These were all very difficult, but I am hoping that with therapy (which resumes next week) and medications (which started last week, but which I hope to be able to increase my dosage of this week) I will be able to navigate my future in a much more positive way.

    Yesterday I spent a few hours with Lyle and Dorothy. As promised, they served a homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch which was quite tasty. We exchanged holiday gifts, which was quite sweet. They really are very thoughtful people. I am sitting at my desk with my new Montreal Canadiens mug, which was only one of the eight Chanukah presents they bought me! We sat outside and talked for a couple of hours before I went home to take care of a few things that needed to be done. I arrived home and realized that Princess Sophie had been dognapped! No, not really… her friend Charlie asked his Mommy to pick her up, and they spent the afternoon together. By the time she came home, she was wiped out!

    I enjoyed the soup, but it was not as satisfying a meal as I hoped for. By 4:00pm I was hungry, and I made my usual chicken and salad. I made an Israeli salad with tomato and onions. It was quite tasty! I am not sure why I held the lettuce; it probably has something to do with a photo I saw on my Facebook Memories. Either way, I will likely be back to my regular scheduled salad with my lunch today.

    I did some work on the computer that I have been meaning to do, and then at 6:30pm I was ready to head out to see Eduardo. Her Floofness wanted to go out first, so we went for a quick walk (which included taking care of all of her business). I was not going to deprive her, especially since it was raining in the morning, and she held it in much of the day without an accident. I spent a few hours with Eduardo, and then was home (as predicted) shortly before 10:00pm… in time to take the Princess out for one more walk. I then spent a couple of hours on the computer until a minute before midnight, when I texted Leslie that I loved her, and then shut down my systems.

    While I did have the soup and then a full meal, as well as some nuts at Eduardo’s, I do not think I went overboard. I think that for my first ‘back on track’ day, I did pretty well. My goal is to keep doing better, and that this year – 2023 – will be the last year that I will ever have to do a crazy intense diet. I know I will have to work on getting slim this year, and then work on staying slim every day for the rest of my life. I do not have the genes that some people have that lets them eat without gaining weight, so if I want to be thin and in good shape, it will have to be a constant in my life. I am not saying that I will never be able to have a cheat meal… only that I will not be able to fall back into the bad habits which plagued me for the past twenty-seven years. Also, I will have to work hard to stay in shape, which means not only from a dietary standpoint, but also from a physical activity one. I do not know if that will forever mean going to the gym, or fitness walking, or Taekwondo, or a combination of these and other activities. I just know that my obesity is only partly caused by my love for fattening foods, and it could have been held in check had I always remained active.

    I have a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, but for today my bathroom scale is reading all over the place. The numbers ranged from two pounds up from yesterday to two pounds down. I was able to get two consistent readings at that lower number, so I accepted it. I am, once again, half a pound from my best-weight-yet territory. Considering I did not really veer from the program yesterday, I think it is best to start the new year on a positive note. Again, I will be weighed on the doctor’s scale on Wednesday, and that will be my next official weight. For now, I can be as angry as I want with my bathroom scale… or rather, with the floor of my apartment which is absolutely terrible.

    Assuming that the bathroom scale is reasonably accurate this morning, it means I have two major milestones coming. First, I am only 3.5 lbs. from breaking under the 300-pound mark; after that, I have only another five pounds to go before I can honestly say that I have lost one hundred pounds. I confess that if it were not for life getting in my way (and myself getting in my own way) I had expected to hit both of those milestones in early December. Okay, I dealt with all of the crap I had going on, and now it is time to buckle down and lose more weight. If I am truly a creature of habit, then I can look at the past year and realize that after four months of weight loss I had lost forty-five pounds, and then plateaued for about two months. I then lost another forty-five pounds and plateaued again for a little under two months. If that is to be a pattern, then I do not mind getting down another 45-pounds between now and late April. Unfortunately, it is not so easy for me to sit on the plateau and know I will indeed follow the pattern. I also have to be careful to not aim for it, because while it would be nice to be down to that weight, I am trying to get into a healthy lifestyle, and by forgetting the pattern I could skip the next plateau altogether. We’ll see. In the meantime, I just want to press that elevator button to start going down.

    I had a very frank discussion with Lyle and Dorothy about weight loss, and especially how important it is for him and me to continue on our parallel missions to get healthy and lose weight. I told him that until his recent stroke, he and I had a very dangerous problem: we were extremely obese, but otherwise we were perfectly healthy. Of course, that is not entirely true, as is demonstrated by my gout and his stroke, but on the surface, it seemed that way. We discussed the importance of regular medical visits and checkups, including heart rate monitoring but also bloodwork and more. I am glad that I have been checking in with my doctor every month (and occasionally more frequently than that), and for my American readers who may believe the Republican propaganda bemoaning the condition of the Canadian healthcare system, I can vouch that it is both extremely efficient, and completely free.

    I suspect that stores are closed today, but that matters little as I have everything I need in the house. I took Princess Sophie out this morning, and of course I will do so again later in the afternoon. Between now and then I will likely have a lazy holiday Sunday. The only actual chore I have to do is to shine my boots, which needs to be done quite regularly during the snowy months. Aside from that, I will relax, watch some TV, maybe read a little bit, and possibly study some Torah. We’ll see what the day brings. I am sure that at some point there will be a cigar or two in the mix.

    Have a great day folks, and happy new year!