Losing a part of me

Category: Non-Scale Victories

  • Day 293

    While I did have a (smaller than usual) handful of peanuts yesterday, I mostly stuck to the plan. I had a good day with regard to food intake. I wish my bathroom scale was not being wonky again. Yesterday and today I got two (or three) very different readings. Yesterday, they ranged from 305.6 to 303.2 lbs., while today they were 305.2 to 304 lbs. On both days I settled on the lower number, which means that in theory, today I gained nearly a pound. Knowing that yesterday was a doctor’s office day, I am less concerned by yesterday’s weight, and will gladly discard it, meaning that this morning’s 304.0 lbs. has be back in best-weight-yet territory.

    Yesterday was a good day for non-scale victories. First of all, I joined a gym. This will not be like my Los Angeles fitness club debacle, where I joined with my ex-girlfriend, and then for the nearly two years I was a member hardly ever went. No, I plan to go to the gym… a lot. I plan to go five times per week over the next few months. I am meeting today with my personal trainer (I bought a package of seven sessions and will work with her to develop a plan for going forward). Today’s meeting is just to discuss my goals, which I think are continued weight loss plus building muscles. I have never had (and do not really want) a body builder’s body, but it would be nice to have slightly larger muscles than I do.

    Today’s meeting with Kezi is only a consultation, and we will work out for the first time on Friday. For today, my plan is that after our meeting, I will hop on the treadmill for a good walk – maybe an hour or so – and then shower and sauna there. While I packed my workout bag last night, I realized this morning that I will need a sundries bag. I have one for travel, but I do not want to take that to the gym. Fortunately, it is the time of year when the pharmacy puts the kits on sale in preparation for Christmas, so I will pick one up before I go in. We are meeting at noon, which means that I will likely not be home before 3:00pm… and that my daily meal will have to wait until after that… and that I had better prepare for this by taking a protein bar or shake with me so that I do not spend three hours starving and with no energy.

    Last night I told Leslie of this plan, and she reminded me (in the strongest terms) that it has been a few weeks since I went for a fitness walk, and that I should take care to pace myself, and not hurt or injure myself as I go. On the one hand, she is a bit of a worrier. On the other hand, she has a point. I have come home from my fitness walk a few times with painful and blistered feet. While most often this was because I wore bad shoes, I still have to remember that I am a fifty-year-old man who is still fat, and I cannot push myself like I once could.

    I opened this entry with talk of non-scale victories. The first was joining the gym… although really, the victory will be when I am going to the gym on a regular basis, and not just handing them my credit card. The second was clothing related. Last week I mentioned that I accidentally put on a pair of Size 40 jeans, and that while they were tight, I thought that if my finger was not injured, I might be able to wear them. Last night while speaking with my wife I put them on, and indeed was able to button them up. This was huge for me, and while I will likely wait another week or two before wearing them, it is amazing to know that I can. What I should do is open up my storage bins and see what other Size 40 pants I have, and if they fit me yet. I might do that later today.

    I just finished chatting with my weight-loss buddy, who had her surgery yesterday. She is in good spirits and is quite impressed with the level of care there. I am very happy, because as I likely stated previously, I was worried about the tourism surgery issue. I am relieved that she is doing well.

    What else do I have to do today? I am running out of coffee, so there will be a trip to the supermarket on the calendar. As well, my bank card has been having issues, so I am going to go into the branch and see what is going on… and probably order a new card. I am also going to the pharmacy for a sundries kit. I should also put the empty propane tank into my car, and get it filled up – the petrol station where I can do that is just down the street from the gym, which is convenient. When I get home from the gym, I will have a mid-afternoon meal. I will take Princess Sophie for a walk in the evening. I do not think I have anything else planned for the day. I will relax in the evening. I do not know if the weather will be amenable to a cigar on the balcony, but I will think about that too.

    Have a great day everyone!

  • Day 282

    I actually followed the program pretty well yesterday, save for a handful of peanuts. I cannot complain, knowing the stress and anxiety I am living with right now. I did not sleep very well, but none of my troubles are because of my weight management, which the bathroom scale showed me down .6lbs, putting me squarely back into the Best-Weight-Ever category. A few more days of this would be nice. Of course, knowing that I am taking my son the younger for dinner this evening might be a bump in the road, but I will do what I can.

    I am looking forward to saying the Sabbath prayers this evening. I am hoping that the request I usually make – to bring peace and joy into the hearts and minds of my loved ones – will extend to me this time. I certainly do not feel peace or joy in my mind this week.

    Three weeks from today, I will be anxiously preparing to drive to the airport to pick Leslie up. It truly does suck being apart. We are newlyweds after all, and we are supposed to be together. Don’t get me wrong, the time that we do spend together is magical… but the time apart is very difficult for both of us. It is harder on Leslie I suspect, for so many reasons… but it is very hard on me as well. I love her and I miss her, and I truly do count the hours until we are together.

    Plans have just changed a bit. I will be taking my son the younger for lunch instead of dinner. His schedule is very confusing… he slept all day yesterday so I could not take him for dinner last night, but he is… forget it; I do not understand what is going on, so I cannot explain it. Suffice it to say, I am going to take him for lunch. I do not know yet where he is going to want to eat, but I am betting it will be somewhere quite diet unfriendly. I will happily suffer to spend time with my son, not eating if I have to. I will take a meal replacement bar with me in case his choice makes it impossible for me to eat anything reasonable, and when I come home, I will make my meal. In the event we go somewhere I can only have a salad, then I will still come home and make my chicken.

    Leslie got a huge accolade from her company today, congratulating her for five years of employment. I am so proud that in the face of all that she went through, she was able to come out the other side, be accepted back at the company as a full-time employee again, thrive. It is hard for any woman to succeed in the technology field; how much harder for a woman who has been kept down at home too. I will never do that to her. I will boost her up and celebrate her successes and laud her accolades. She deserves each one because she works so hard for them!

    I bought a shirt on Facebook Marketplace yesterday. It is a long sleeve cold-weather workout shirt that is from the same company as one that I used to have, but the colour is much nicer… not to mention it does not have a giant black ink stain on it. Fashion aside, it is a size XL (the old one was a XXL) … and I bought it without trying it on, knowing that it might be tight. It fits perfectly. Even three months ago I would have never bought a shirt without trying it on… especially not in a size that I had not fit into at all recently! In other words, another non-scale victory!

    I did have my meeting with my diet buddy last night. She is so excited and so scared about her upcoming surgery. I am not sure if I am more worried about the major surgery, or about the fact that she is flying to Mexico (and Tijuana of all places) to have it done. I have considered having a dental crown done in Cuba, but that’s a tooth… not invasive surgery. I am going to say a few extra prayers for her. We have one more meeting before she flies, and I am glad that I can be an outlet for her anxiety. She referred to it last night as ‘buyer’s remorse’ but I do not think that is what it is. She is scared, and that is understandable.

    Okay, I want to do my daily Torah studies before I head out and pick up my son. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 278

    Another mostly good day to report. Yes, I did have some pop chips, which are not exactly on the program, but which are also not the worst transgression I could make. Aside from that, I was on track. I had a pretty good lunch, a couple of meal replacements in the afternoon and evening. I relaxed most of the day, which is to say that I sat on the balcony, smoking cigars, and watching James Bond movies. I did not go for a walk. I am having trouble getting my heinie in gear again. However, I have decided that I will join the gym this week. That will motivate me!

    I did not go to the doctor’s office to get weighed last week because I was teaching. Unlike a couple of previous times, I did not have the time to give the students labs and tell them I would be back in an hour. I was way behind on my schedule, and I did the right thing in not trying to fit that in. As such, I am going today. Normally, I like to go before I have had a morning meal replacement (or even coffee), but I did not make the call to schedule my visit until this morning, so they want me to come in at 11:15am. Okay, I can do that. On my last weigh-in, I was at 143.5kg. I am skeptical that I might drop below 140kg, but that would be amazing! Frankly, even if I weigh 140.5, I will be pleased.

    Yesterday was a massive day for non-scale victories. I was thinking about how I feel about myself and decided that I wanted to check in to see how close I am to fitting into my custom-tailored suits and shirts from five years ago. I was floored when I realized that not only did the shirts fit, but they were not even tight! The buttons were not pulling at all! I tried while I was on the phone with Leslie. She watched, and we celebrated! My sports jacket from that time is tight, but wearable. What does all of this mean? Aside from being a huge NSV, it means that when Leslie comes to town in a few weeks, I will be able to take her out wearing a suit that fits! Whatever bad thoughts I have had, this really perked me up and gave me the motivation to keep going. My next goal is for these suits and shirts to not fit me anymore because they are too big… but that is still a long way away.

    The more I succeed, the more I realize I can succeed. At this point, it is extremely likely that 2022 will be the year I lost 100lbs. What would be amazing, and I think this will be my ultimate goal for the year, would be to lose 50kg in the year. That converts to 110lbs, which means that I am still about 22lbs away from it, with a little over two months to go. Of course, in those two months we have the holidays, which means that temptations will be everywhere. We also have the coming of winter, when I will no longer be eager to head outside to walk (hence, joining the gym, which I might even do today). Can I lose 22lbs in that time? I don’t know… but I am going to try my best!

    I am off to the doctor’s office for my weigh-in. I will continue to write when I am home, if only to report back on my progress!

    Weight: 140 kg (down 3.5 kg, down 37.25kg overall)

    A weight loss of 3.5kg in 39 days? I could certainly have done better. How about in 39 days that included a month on the road (between Dallas and Southern California) where I was tempted to eat more and worse every day, despite the encouragement not to by my lovely wife? How about throwing into those 39 days another week of weather-related sadness and work-related stress and anxiety? I think we can change the first sentences of this paragraph to read: ‘A weight loss of 3.5kg in these 39 days? I could certainly have done much worse!’ In short, I will take it!

    I should also remind myself that I did not weigh in first thing in the morning, before meal replacements and coffee. We should also point out that today’s was the first weigh-in since June that I wore long pants and not shorts. Those two factors could easily account for another kilogram. One way or the other, I am making progress. I am down, and I am happy about it. Earlier in the article, I mentioned that if I weighed 140.5kg then I would be happy. I beat that by an entire half kilogram. Woohoo!

    It is time to continue on with my day. I went to the supermarket and picked up tomatoes and celery to add to my salads, and I have chicken in the air fryer. After that, I suppose I will enjoy a cigar on the balcony before heading over to the pharmacy to get my Covid-19 booster and my flu shot. Who knows? I might even walk over there.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 225

    I did not get nearly as good night’s sleep last night as I had been getting sleeping next to my wife. I do not think it is that the air in Dallas is somehow cleaner, I just suspect that I am more at ease sleeping with her. I suppose for the next three weeks I will have to put up with it. I did not really have trouble falling asleep, but I was up a couple of times in the night. That, before Princess Sophie decided at 6:45am that it was time for us to get out of bed.

    She did allow me to complete my bathroom rituals in peace, although I was… unproductive. Yes, it is an unpleasant topic, but when discussing weight management, bowel movements are occasionally something we have to mention. I will not write off the poopless morning to travel, nor to food – I ate yesterday. I just could not. Maybe later today, and if not, then there is always tomorrow.

    Speaking of travel and food, let’s review what I ate yesterday. The morning started with a meal replacement shake. At the airport, knowing that they would not be selling food on my flight, I bought a (small) can of Pringles, which I did end up supplementing with two bags of airplane pretzels. When I arrived home (later than anticipated, due to delays on the airplane, followed by my son forgetting to collect me, so I needed to wait for a taxi), I almost immediately went to the supermarket, where I picked up my salad fixings, chicken to prepare for dinner, and milk for my coffee. I also found (to my delight) that they had Salt and Vinegar Goldfish crackers, which have been missing from the store shelves (with no explanation) for eight or nine months. I like them, Leslie loves them. I bought five bags of them.

    I prepared my chicken and salad for dinner (while I will be back to my regular timing today, yesterday’s meal was the same old), and then decided to splurge. I opened one of the bags of Goldfish and ate a couple of handfuls. I will, over the next week or so, likely finish that pack… I will not be opening any of the others, which are all going to Texas with me for my beloved. I sat outside with a cigar, and as I prepared for bed, I had one last meal replacement shake to curb my hunger.

    With the cheating I did yesterday, I was expecting that my weight would be at least slightly up this morning. Not so, I was actually down 2/10ths of a pound. I do not know if I was truly excited, but I was certainly relieved that after traveling and with my cheating that I did not gain weight.

    Today is the first day of September, and while autumn does not start until the 21st, I have always seen the 1st of September as a boundary. We have crossed over from the completely summer month of August into the soon-to-be-fall month of September. As a kid, school would start around now. The weather traditionally starts to turn now… or at least, that is what it always felt like. I checked the weather before dressing to take Her Floofness for her walk, and was surprised to see that it was sunny and 55° Fahrenheit (12.5° Celsius), meaning I not only had to wear long pants (which I was wearing during the day when I was teaching, but I have not worn otherwise in weeks), I would also have to wear some sort of upper ware to reinforce my golf shirt.

    I thought about a hoodie, but opted to go into my front closet instead, where without thinking I pulled my Taekwondo vest, pulling it on and zipping it up. As we hit the trail, it occurred to me that the last time I tried the vest on (Day 96) was when Leslie resewed the patch on for me, and it did not come close to fitting me. There was easily over an inch between the zipper sides. While it is a little tight, it zips up without any issues. This is a huge non-scale victory for me!

    Speaking of that, I renewed my membership to Taekwondo Ontario today for another year. I also reached out to Taekwondo Canada to find out where I can purchase gear, including new patches. I do not think I want to replace my current patch, only because it has the old name of the organization on it (World Taekwondo Federation has been renamed World Taekwondo – WTF has become WT), and I like having WTF on my uniforms and vest.

    I was thinking about sizes as Her Floofness and I walked. I remember more than twenty years ago I starred in an amateur play, and the man in charge of wardrobes made a comment to the effect that ‘fat men do not wear their pants right – you wear it all the way under your belly, when normal people wear them around their navel.’ Judgmental much? Anyhow, the thought was that because I do indeed wear my pants under my belly, which means that I am wearing a Size 40, despite having a waist that is about 56” around the belly. I am thrilled, by the way, to see that I have lost about 7” in the belly… but because I do not wear my pants there, I do not actually know (until I pull out the tape measure) how much I have lost there. It is only when I try on clothes that did not previously fit me that I can really see the difference… and when I do, I am very happy with it.

    It is turning into a beautiful day. My friend Eduardo is coming over in the afternoon, both for me to look at his computer, and to have a cigar. It will be good to see him again, especially since I know he has been going through a lot and needs a friend. Also, while I would rather not be working on his computer, I would rather do it here than at his house… my allergies have been kicking my butt today, and I do not want to add his cat’s dander to the pollen.

    Have a great day folks! I am going to try to take a nap.

  • Better Together

    This morning, for the first time ever, I set out on a fitness walk with another person. Leslie and I started out from home, and did a strong 6.5 km walk in the heat. I was expecting to have to slow my pace for her, but that was absolutely not the case. Leslie is in better shape than I thought, and while we did not try to beat any records (I was wearing a new pair of shoes, on top of a slightly painful foot), we had a great time of it. I know that when she participates in her company’s 5km walk next month she will absolutely knock ‘em all dead!

    We are going to split the leftover Lebanese food for lunch, and then for dinner we will find something in The Colony, around the Cigars International Superstore (where we will end up for a cigar and a beverage at the end of the evening). It is so wonderful to have a partner with whom I share so many interests!

    When we came in from the walk, as we were cooling down, hydrating, and regulating our body temperatures before showering, we had a great conversation, during which Leslie told me something that I can never know for myself, but which is a huge non-scale victory. She told me that I am not snoring anymore. I know that I am sleeping slightly better and definitely more comfortably than when I was at my heaviest, but the snoring is something that I have always been aware of, either because of partners, or when I shared a hotel with a friend or co-worker. When I am heavier, I snore; when I am lighter I do not. While I do not know exactly where the line of demarcation is; I know that the last time Leslie and I spent the night together I was twenty pounds heavier, and I assume I was still snoring then. So I have a pretty good idea where the line is.

    Time for lunch. Have a great day!

  • Day 205

    After five days of stagnation, the numbers on my bathroom scale were tremendous this morning. I saw a monster 2.6-pound drop from yesterday, taking me to my lowest weight! On the one hand, it is probably an aberration, and tomorrow it will correct itself up a bit. On the other hand, woohoo! I love seeing those numbers… and being able to demonstrate that what I am doing on my weight management program is working is huge for me.

    After four days of not walking, I will be back on the trails todayI I think I mentioned the other day that I plan to substitute my regular chicken (or fish) for a nice juicy steak for lunch today, as an occasional (very occasional) treat to relieve the monotony. While that is great, I still know that I will be paying for that transgression tomorrow (and subsequent days) if I do not work it off, starting immediately. So the steak will be my lunch, and then after teaching this afternoon I will hit the road, hoping to work up a good sweat. It would be nice if I can get 8km in, but I am not promising myself anything beyond suiting up and getting out there. I still feel a slight sensitivity, which I suspect is all in my head. If I detect it returning and getting worse, not only will I cut my workout short, I will also take a trip to the walk-in clinic to have it looked at. I am assuming that it is nothing… but if it is truly something, then there is only one thing that I can think of, and I do not want to think about that.

    My buddy Etienne, a fellow cigar sommelier from the North Shore of Montreal, came in yesterday afternoon. We shared a couple of very nice cigars on my balcony, but at the back of my mind I was thinking to myself that if he was going to spend the night on my couch, I was going to have to speak with him about food. I was concerned that if he wanted to go out for dinner (or order in) that I would be tempted.

    I told him that I did not have anything in the house, but that we could order in or go out. In the end, we opted to go to Fortino’s (supermarket) which has great prepared food options. He picked up a couple of slices of pizza; I picked up coffee beans (I had run out), my steak for today, and four (yes, only four) slices of dried mango. It is a shame that the dried mango you buy in the large bags (at Costco and elsewhere) is so much better than what you can buy at the bulk foods section of the supermarket, but I was not going to risk having that ambrosia in the house as a constant temptation. I ate them as Etienne enjoyed his pizza. Princess Sophie looked at him, then at me, and then decided to sit at his feet, having decided that the dried mango was nowhere near as delicious as the pizza.

    Speaking of Her Floofness, we did not sleep very well last night. We got to bed early enough, after a third walk of the evening. Because Etienne was sleeping on the couch, I closed the bedroom door when we went into the room. Sophie almost always gets onto the bed, and stays there the whole night. However, it would seem, she is comforted by the open bedroom door, and the potential for her to roam the entire apartment. It took her a very long time to get settled, twice going down from the bed and barking (very softly) at the door. Despite being in bed earlier than I had been in weeks (or months), I do not think I was asleep before 1:30am… and her unease woke me at least three times throughout the night. Needless to say, I hope to sleep much better tonight.

    —

    THIS JUST IN! STOP THE PRESSES!

    I was wearing a pair of pants yesterday and I realized that when I tightened the belt to hold them up, the top of the waist folded over the belt. This, for those of you who have never been really fat and then lost a lot of weight, is an indicator that the pants might be too big, and are being held up by a too-tight belt. At the same time, I knew that it was less than two months ago that I dropped comfortably and completely from Size-44 to Size-42 pants, and so I doubted I was ready to drop another size that fast.

    Nonetheless, this morning I decided (halfway through this entry) to pull out the bin of Size-40 pants. On the top of the pile was a pair of Dockers (which are, in theory, the same pants I wore yesterday). I held them up by the waist, and they looked… small. I tried them on anyways… not only did they go on, they fastened comfortably!

    I did not have time this morning to try on any other pair, and it is entirely possible that this is a larger Size-40. This evening, I will try on the rest of them (while on video call with Leslie), and I will see what I can start wearing. If there are more than two pair, then all of my Size-42 pants are being donated.

    Dropping pounds is great, but even a huge drop like I experienced today may show on the scale, but you still do not look smaller from one day (or even one week) to the next. The biggest indicator of success in weight loss is how your clothes fit, and dropping from a higher size to a lower size is big, huge, flashing neon sign non-scale victory, and a true bellwether that what I have been doing is working.

    Of all of the bins of clothes that I separated out early this year, the heaviest was the smaller sizes. Why? When I weigh less, I want to look better, so I buy better clothes… and more of them. During the summer of 2020 I bought several pair of pants, as well as lots of shirts. I am excited that this evening I will be trying those on, and while some of them will stay in the bin (I am sure that a lot of my XL shirts will not fit yet), I am hopeful that several pair of pants will be moved onto my shelves, and the bin will get a whole lot lighter.

    Today is going to be a good day. Despite my fatigue (thanks Princess), I am now invigorated and excited to get on with the day. I frankly wish my class was canceled so that I could spend the day walking and jogging. Of course, I cannot do that, but as long as I stay the course – my meal at lunch, my long fitness walk in the evening, my meal replacements, and no cheating – then I can continue to see results.

    Have a great day folks!

  • The Hairs on My Chinny Chin Chin!

    A few days ago, Leslie and I were chatting about my progress. She had looked at my before picture, and told me that I hardly look like the same person. She then pulled up a picture that we took on our first date, and told me how much slimmer my face is today than it was just ten months ago. I was thrilled that Leslie sees such a difference, and take it as an honest measure of my progress.

    She and I joke a lot that my beard is especially good for stroking as I think, and this morning I was thinking about something, stroking my beard as I do. I realized that something was missing… the rolls of fat under my beard that once made me look like I had several chins. It is not all gone, of course… I have over a hundred pounds to go before I reach my goal of being just overweight and not obese. There is no way that I could expect any body part to not have some fat, and I accept that.

    In order to stay motivated, we look for non-scale victories, and this is a big one for me. I am really happy with it, and will continue to look for them… and work toward them, because there is no way that any of them will happen on their own. I have to continue to eat right. I have to continue to exercise. I have to stay on track and keep my eyes on the prize. Only by doing that will these non-scale victories come… and eventually not only transition from morbidly obese to obese, but then to overweight, and eventually – one day – to healthy body type!

    I posted earlier that I was thrilled last night to see muscle definition in my legs, and that is a real non-scale victory that comes from the combination of weight-loss and exercise. Unless there has been a discovery that I am not aware of, there are no exercises one can do to lose weight in your face and neck, which means that progress is based solely on the weight loss.

    When I first tried to lose weight nearly twenty years ago, I went to Weight Watchers. One of the tools they liked to use was to show what certain weight loss milestones meant. A pound was demonstrated by showing a pound of butter. Ten pounds was a large bag of flour… and so on. It is not as easy to visualize what seventy pounds looks like. I did a quick image search on-line, and did not really find anything suitable. Then I searched ’70-pound dog images’ and came up with Labrador Retrievers, Boxers, and Bulldogs. Imagine that I have lost the equivalent of one of those.

    With that said, if you want to know what it feels like on my body to be that much slimmer, try this: Pick up a seventy-pound Labrador Retriever. If he or she is amenable, put him or her into a backpack. Go for a walk. Then put the doggie down gently, give them plenty of treats for cooperating, and walk back to where you started from. You feel it? That’s what it is like to lose that kind of weight.

    My children have a German Sheppard named Thor who weighs 95-pounds. I still have to lose a little more than Thor’s body weight before I am slim, but I have made progress, and recognizing that is one of the best ways to continue on the right path. Having a loving and supportive wife who stands by me and encourages me is another, and likely more important than everything else.

    Of course, my doggie, Her Royal Floofness, Princess Sophie, weighs in at a whopping sixteen pounds. Since July 11 (a little under four weeks ago), I have lost her body weight. As such she maybe a wonderful companion and a terrific friend, but when it comes to substantial weight loss, her body weight is not really an indicator of significant progress. I would be remiss, however, to discuss dogs without mentioning the best dog.

    I have a long way to go, but I am on the right track. The only way to measure success is with scales and measuring tapes, along with the size of my clothes. With that said, the best way to continue achieving success in those measurables is for me to see progress in my non-scale victories.

  • Day 199

    Tomorrow will mark the two hundredth day since I made the decision to lose a lot of weight. It was and is a daunting challenge that cannot be taken lightly. When someone is twenty-pounds overweight, they can cut out alcohol and bread for a few weeks, or cut out desserts, or whatever it is that someone who has a relatively minor amount to lose will do.

    My intention – what I needed to do in order to be healthy again – was to lose roughly half my body weight. To put that in terms that will show how unrealistic that felt at the time, I needed to lose the equivalent of a UFC Light-Heavyweight. Look up the current champion, Glover Teixeira, and then think about what it means to lose his entire body weight.

    While I am nowhere near that goal, this morning I hit a milestone; I have given myself more short-term milestones by measuring at home in pounds but at the doctor’s office in kilograms. This morning’s milestones are both in imperial weights – I am both seventy pounds down, and at the quarter milestone of 325.0-lbs. It was an exciting number to see on the bathroom scale readout this morning.

    My friend Eduardo is coming over for a cigar today, and I am going to ask him to take a picture of me in the exact same spot and pose I took my before pictures. I look forward to seeing myself side by side with what I looked like in mid-January. He is coming around 2pm, which means that despite it being a weekend, if I am able to go for a walk, my schedule will not be too different from my working weekdays, in that he will be here until around 5pm, and then I will have a meal replacement shake, and then I should be able to go out around 5:30pm.

    I say in the previous paragraph ‘…if I am able to go for a walk.’ The if is because this morning I am feeling my legs. I have pains in my shins, and no they are not shin splints. They are simply my legs telling me that I am exercising much harder than I have in a couple of years, and that I am doing so while carrying 110-pounds of excess weight (according to the body fat scale app I use, my lean body mass is actually 116-pounds less than my current weight). They are not telling me that I am overdoing it… but that I am approaching that threshold and I should be aware of it.

    While I had set my goal yesterday for a fifty-five-kilometre week, I gave it a bit of thought last night, and again this morning. Fitness walking every day without respite might be overdoing it. I might try to walk 10-kilometres today (making for fifty-kilometres in the past six days), and then taking a day off tomorrow. I am not making any decisions… it will depend on how I feel if I am able to go out for my walk this afternoon, and then how I feel afterwards.

    I will say that over the last couple of evenings, I have noticed muscular definition in my legs that I have not noticed in a long time. It is great to see and feel the progress which results from the combination of eating less and exercising hard. Even on a day with great scale-related victories, those non-scale victories are huge for me.

    Numbers are great; I know numbers, I trust numbers. My emotions need to see progress though… what do those numbers mean where the rubber meets the road. It is nice to know that I have lost the equivalent of a tweenager, but actually seeing the muscular definition was a great boost for me. If I was tempted to succumb to temptations this weekend, that put an end to it. If I am on the fence this afternoon about going out for my fitness walk or not, that will help me to make my final decision.

    I am looking forward to the day because my friend is coming over. Leslie was worried about me when I was shutting myself in and not seeing or speaking with any of my friends. While my state of mind is greatly improved, I am coming out of my self-imposed isolation at a more comfortable pace than could have been. I saw Lyle and Dorothy last weekend; I will see Eduardo today. I am not looking to have a seemingly endless string of get-togethers, and I have not initiated any phone calls or message threads (although I have started accepting calls).

    Tomorrow my son or sons and I are going to Costco, which should be fun. I asked my son the elder last weekend if he wanted to, and when he agreed, my son the younger asked if he could come. That does not mean that he will, but I hope he does. I love seeing them, and watching them grow. Of course, it will usually be an expensive outing for me. I am happy to pay for their groceries on top of my child support, but it can be pricey. No matter, they are worth it. I will also take the opportunity to pick up vegetables, and anything else I might need for the house. Nothing comes immediately to mind, but if I see something, I’ll pick it up.

    The weather forecast for today is sunny and hot. It will not be nearly Texas-hot, but that does not prevent Environment Canada from issuing a heat advisory. As such, if and when I do go out, I will make sure to stay well hydrated along the way.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 196

    While the popcorn yesterday was not a great idea, I am happy that it did not seem to hinder my weight loss progress. I am down sixteen pounds from the day I flew from Dallas to Toronto, and ten pounds down since my birthday. On that measure, it is important to know that in the week following my birthday I actually gained five pounds, so the loss is even more meaningful.

    Her Royal Floofness is still not at 100%, but she seems to be getting better. Two other dog parents today said that if she is under the weather, she is hiding it very well. She is playful and active and happy… and has diarrhea. Even after we went out right before bed at 11:30pm, she asked to go out again two hours later, which interrupts my sleep but it also limits the amount of cleaning soft poop off the floor I have to. It also gives my girl the dignity of not having to have accidents in the house. If this persists for another day or two, we will go see the vet to make sure it is nothing serious.

    It is intriguing to me that I was able to walk nine kilometres yesterday without issue, but when I took her out (four times through the evening and night) my ankle was hurting. It is something I will have to pay attention to for the next little while. I do not want to stop walking, but at the same time I do not want to damage my ankle to the point where I have to stop walking.

    My class went well yesterday. I am really enjoying working with this group, and hope that the company is impressed enough to keep me on their roll of trainers to reuse. If I can continue to prove myself useful to these companies, I will be able to continue to earn a decent living doing something that I really enjoy.

    Have I mentioned how much I love my wife, and how badly I miss her? According to my countdown app, in twenty-one days, eleven and a half hours I will be disembarking the airplane in Dallas, and once I collect my luggage we will be together again. Really, the long-distance thing is not working for me. We have to find a way to be together permanently… and we will. In the meantime: in anticipation of my upcoming visit with her, I ordered a case of meal replacements to her place. Yes, I could shlep the shake packets from here to there when I visit, but that is counterproductive for a number of reasons. For one, I will eventually (as I did the last visit) forget to bring them, which will mean I have to break my routine. As well, buying them in Canada requires underground transactions on the grey market, whereas in the US I buy them off eBay… and I never have to worry about them being expired.

    Yes, it is true… despite the fact that I will be ‘on vacation’ while I am there, I plan to stay true to the program. Losing weight is hard, but establishing good habits is harder. What is easy is falling out of those good habits back into an old and unhealthy routine. Do you want to know how demoralizing it is knowing that because of just a couple of tiny mistakes that snowballed, I went from 260-pounds in September, 2020 to 395-pounds in January, 2022? How about knowing that I have fallen like that not once, but twice? Were it not for the love of a wonderful woman, I do not know if I ever would have been brave enough to try again.

    Yes, those are the numbers. That was my highest weight in January of this year… 196-days ago. Since then, I have not done everything I can and stayed true to the program, but I have lost a tremendous amount of weight. I am about seventy pounds down from my worst weight. At the same time, I am about sixty-five pounds up from my lowest (best) weight which was twenty-three months ago. I have a long way to go until I get there, but I am committed to getting back there… and then to losing even more. I want my wife to see what I look like slim, not from pictures of me in my early twenties, but in her arms. Two hundred and sixty pounds is not slim, it is slimmer… and I have to take one step at a time. It would be great to reach my goal of being actually slim by my fifty-first birthday, which gives me eleven months to lose another 115-pounds. I might need longer, but I have to keep trying to keep at it, lest I fall off again and end up where I was again. I cannot think about that… it is too depressing, and just the thought induces anxiety.

    Today will be a chicken day; I went shopping yesterday, so I have enough chicken and vegetables to last me a few days. Yesterday I decided to shake things up a little, using a fat-free salad dressing in place of the usual oil and balsamic vinegar that I usually dress my salads with. It was good, and I lost weight, so I might do that again today. We will see!

    Environment Canada has issued a special weather statement warning that the temperatures will be extremely high for the next couple of days, with daytime high temperatures reaching 33°C, and the humidex reaching 41°. For my American readers, that translates to 91°F with the humidex at 105°F. Yes, it is hot… but it is nowhere near as hot as Dallas, where 105° will be the straight-up high temperature, with humidity of 65% (as the humidex is a Canadian measurement, I could not easily find it for Dallas. Trust me, that is freaking hot!). Ankle permitting, I will go for my walk this afternoon… but I will be paying special attention to drinking every kilometre, and not just ‘when I think of it,’ which is usually the case.

    It is hot and sunny today, and Princess Sophie and I decided we will keep the patio door closed in favour of the air conditioner, which is set at a balmy 74°F. I am wearing a short sleeve shirt so it can get a bit chilly, but for the most part it is very comfortable.

    Speaking of short sleeve shirts, I have a non-scale victory to report! Last night while video-chatting with my wife, she asked me which shirt I was wearing. Of course, she had seen it a hundred times before, but she did not recognize it because it was so loose! Likewise, the pants that I am wearing, which three months ago did not fit at all, are also very loose, and for the first time I eyed the bin of clothes the next size down this morning. I am not quite ready for them… but I can start thinking about it.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 184

    I cannot speak for anyone but myself. I was going to open today’s article with the words ‘Anyone who has ever set out to lose a lot of weight will tell you…’ As I look in the rearview mirror of my life, I remember too many times that I have gotten in trouble for speaking out of turn, for saying ‘All people this’ or ‘All kids that’ or whatever it is. I am trying (against the very nature of every fibre of my being) to be more humble.

    I can tell you that every time that I have set out to lose a lot of weight that milestones are huge. They are the goals we set for ourselves to continue to strive for. Long term goals are great: Hey, I plan to lose 150-pounds. It is the short-term goals – those milestones that are more easily reachable in the incremented short term – that encourage us to keep going.

    I have always looked at the following milestones as the bellwethers of my success. The first is the Decades. When I drop below a multiple of 10, it is an achievement for me. ‘Hey, I dropped from 350.2 lbs to 349.9 lbs!’ That might not seem significant, as it is only a drop of less than half a pound. However, it is the cumulative result of losing the ten pounds it took to get from 360-pounds to below 350-pounds.

    Of course, I also look at how my clothes fit as a bellwether of progress, but it is being able to fit into a shirt or a pair of pants or whatever that previously had not fit that I see as the significant milestones. As an example: a couple of days ago, I wore a tank top on my fitness walk that I had not been able to fit into for two years. Yes, it was tight, and yes, it did not completely cover my belly… but I was able to wear it comfortably. That is a milestone. Over the next few weeks, that shirt will start to grow; first it will cover my belly, then it will stop being so tight. That is definitely a non-scale victory… but it is not a milestone.

    I have several tubs of clothing, along with quite a bit hanging in my closet, that do not currently fit. Most of them are sorted into various sizes, and every so often I pull something out that had not previously fit to see if it does yet. While I have myriad polo shirts and things that I am looking forward to being able to wear again, the next huge clothes goal is to be able to wear the custom-tailored suits and shirts that I had made for me in 2017, when I was at my lowest weight. I was able to wear them for a few months in 2020 again – I wore them to the High Holidays services – but it has been nearly two years since. I am looking forward to wearing them again.

    It will come as no shock that I wrote about milestones this morning because I achieved one. I dropped into a new decade – one that I have not been in since falling from it in April, 2021 – the week my father passed away. It has been fifteen months since my weight registered below 330-pounds, and this morning it did. Of course, owing to the instability of my floors, I am still unsure if that measurement is accurate or not. All I know is that I have been following the plan, and am not suspicious of losing six pounds in five days… at least, not since my dramatic change to my single-meal plan.

    Yesterday was my third straight day of following the new meal plan perfectly. I had three meal replacement shakes (at or about 9am, 6pm, and 10pm), and one very healthy meal when I got back from my walk, probably around 2pm. When I say healthy meal, I mean in both respects: It was protein (chicken) and salad… but I am also aware that I am still eating larger portions than I probably should. Just as I adjusted my regimen this week (shifting from two meals and two shakes to one meal and three shakes), I know that my next step – when I plateau and am not losing weight anymore – will be to reduce the size of that meal. That will be an important step for my long-term success, because I will need to start simply eating less, especially if I want my stomach to shrink and eventually require (and desire) less food.

    So why, you might ask, don’t I just do it now? My simple answer is that you take one step at a time. While there is a school of thought that diving in is better (as most weight loss clinics start you on four meal replacements per day, often dropping you from 2500-3500 calories per day to 900 calories per day from Tuesday to Wednesday), I have done this three times… each time I was extremely successful in the short term, and a complete failure in the long term. So yes, I am doing my progression gradually, and will make the necessary changes as I see fit.

    While I woke up today feeling the aches in my feet, I am still planning on going for a fitness walk. I have a meeting at 11:00am, and after that I am going to look at a map of my neighbourhood and see what paths there are that might be more interesting than the roads I have been walking. It might also help if I plan out a shorter walk, rather than just setting out and realizing when I am two kilometres from home that my tanks are nearly empty.

    For those who are worried, no I will not overdo it, and no, I will not ‘kill myself.’ If I only exercise on the days when nothing hurts, then I will never exercise. If, on the other hand, I accept that aches and pains are part of my struggle, then I will be able to overcome them.

    In the Army we were taught that the difference between a pain and an injury was huge – it was the difference between going on and overcoming obstacles, and getting a bet or a gimel – essentially a day (or two or three) of bed rest, either in the infirmary or at home. Of course, in unit training it also meant dropping out of the unit. In my case, if I was injured, I would stop… but I am not, I am just feeling achy. That is what you get when you are morbidly obese, and are working toward slim and sleek.

    One thing I know, before I set out on my fitness walk, I will be choosing the right shoes. I have several pair of running shoes, and some of them (like the ones I selected yesterday) have hundreds of miles on them, and are no longer suitable for long walks. I am not taking any chances today, I am going to the top-tier shoes… my newest pair of Adidas (gifted to me by the lovely and generous Leslie).

    —

    Several times over the past couple months, Leslie has pointed out that she can see and feel a noticeable difference in the size of my belly and my dreaded man-boobs. I have felt it too… and while it does not yet feel great, it certainly feels like I have made great progress.

    On my computer desktop I have two pictures of me called MDG-Before-1 and -2 which were taken Thursday, January 20th… otherwise known as Day 1. While I still look in the mirror and see a fat man, there is no denying the tremendous progress that I have made in these six months. I am not half the man I was… but I am certainly much smaller than I was. Losing sixty pounds is no joke!

    I write this because this morning I noticed something… when I lift my belly, when I lift my man-boobs, they feel huge… yet significantly smaller than they were. I remember what it was like in December and January, and I know that I have come a long way since then. I want to keep going, but there is only one person who can make that happen. It is my intention to keep making it happen, day by day. As with overcoming any addiction, I have to do it one day at a time. I cannot simply say ‘I will never…’ I have to tell myself every morning: ‘Today I will stick to the program. I will not cheat. I will exercise. I will stick to it. I will go to bed with the knowledge that I got through today without falling off the wagon.’

    Like alcoholics and Valerie Bettinelli like to say, it’s one day at a time.

    Have a great day, folks!