Losing a part of me

Category: Passover

  • Day 1191

    I am feeling no more cheerier or positive today than I have been; this despite a lot of positive things going on in my life. It is the negative stuff that are so much stronger and harder to cope with. I am going to have to find a way.

    My weight seems to be normalizing, which is to say that after a week of Passover I am back to where I was before the holiday. Really the only bad thing I ate over the holidays was a lot of chicken soup with matzah balls, but the salt content of that is tremendous, and I spent a week and a half flushing it out.

    Now if only I could flush the sadness.

  • Day 1183

    I did a good deed today. I felt like I needed to because maybe that would pull me out of my sorrow and stupor. I am very happy that I did it… but I am still hip-deep in sorrow. At least the wind has finally abated.

    One of my Lodge brothers texted me out of the blue yesterday and asked if I was free for breakfast Friday (tomorrow). I told him I was, but because of Passover I cannot go to any restaurant. He and another are going to come here, and I will make them a traditional Passover breakfast… one that I made last year for Leslie (much to her delight). I hope it works out. I truly do not feel like seeing people right now, but I know I cannot allow myself to settle into an abyss because it will just keep getting worse.

  • Day 1172

    Over a two-week period, I gained ten pounds. I have now lost that weight again, but I have a very long way to go. After four straight days of weight loss, this morning I was expecting to see a bad number on the bathroom scale; instead, my streak extended to five days. It was a relief indeed, but I hope that I can keep it up.

    I did not sleep well again last night. Friday night I slept marvelously, and my sleep score was 89. Last night my sleep was quite fitful, and my score was down to 65. How lovely would it be to have a long streak of great sleep? I am not holding my breath. Hopefully when I am able to start exercising again, I will be able to see some improvement.

    It was nice to sit with my lodge brother last night for dinner and a cigar. He is a mental health care advocate, and he knows a lot of what I am going through. While he cannot actively help me, at least he can listen. I know that he cares. He told me last night that I am not alone. If I were always among friends then it might feel that way, but as I lie in bed at night, awake, with only my wonderful doggie to keep me company, it is hard to remember that there is anyone in the world who really cares.

    Nobody knows what the future will bring, but I am hoping that things will be better. It is hard to see it from where I am… but I must hope.

    With Passover starting a week from today, and with the first Passover Seder next Saturday, I am tempted to make a pot of chicken soup with matzah balls for the week. I will decide shortly, but the idea of not having chicken soup with matzah balls during Passover is completely anathema to me. Even last year, when I was helping Leslie with an untenable situation that had us staying in a hotel for safety concerns, I found some to keep things normal. This year… well, I might drive into Hamilton to see if there is a Jewish deli that sells it and if not? Yes, I will make a pot. I suppose that will be one of my tasks for the day. Tracking down soup for Pesach. While it is not terribly fattening, it is very salty, so I will be retaining water for a few days.

    Also in advance of the holiday I am having my cleaning lady come in tomorrow to clean the place up. I do a decent job of keeping it neat, but I am woefully inadequate with certain aspects that she just does better. It will be nice to have a clean house for the holiday… even though from Tuesday through Saturday I will be away.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 831

    Happy anniversary to my beautiful wife Leslie! A year ago today we were in Westlake Village getting ready to drive over to the synagogue. She was a beautiful bride indeed, and I could not help but realize that I was marrying way up.

    On this, the last day of Passover, my intestinal tract have finally succumbed to the matzah. That’s right, I did not successfully move my bowels this morning. Despite that, I was thrilled to see a drop in my weight from yesterday – nearly a pound! While this evening I will not go nuts, I am happy that I will at least be able to enjoy our anniversary dinner without terrible guilt.

    Today is the final day of Passover which means that at sundown we can resume eating bread… and every other leavened food that contains yeast or any of the other grains we are not allowed to eat. Leslie and I were discussing it this morning, and she mentioned how she is really looking forward to getting back to her normal routine. I thought about it and realized that while I am not looking forward to not having to worry about everything that I eat, I am also not jonesing for bread. I suspect there are two reasons for this. For one thing, I have been Jewish my entire life, which means that for fifty-one years I have been keeping kosher for Passover. Leslie is new to it, and is doing extremely well… but is just not used to the week off from bread. Also, over the last two years of weight management I have cut bread (and all carbs and starch) out of my diet completely for long stretches of time. I prefer the proteins to the carbs, so it is easier for me. With that said, when the server brings the bread or dinner rolls this evening, we will be digging in with gusto!

    Until we head out, my day is open. I am going to go for a walk, my first in some time. After that, I will come home and shower, and will relax. I need it.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 828

    I feel like I am starting to get back on track. I ate well yesterday, almost completely sticking to my plan. Breakfast was the usual, and for lunch we had the rest of my chicken salad, but because there really wasn’t enough we supplemented it with a piece of chicken as well. For dinner Leslie made a lovely steak with sautéed mushrooms. After dinner we shared a bottle of Niagara ice wine which was the recommended pairing with a new cigar we were trying. Both were fabulous on their own, but the pairing was pure magic.

    I stepped onto the scale mid-afternoon yesterday and did not like the number, but I never do when I weigh myself out of cadence. This morning I had lost 1.4 lbs. from yesterday, and my weight was the lowest is has been in nearly three weeks. I smiled.

    Before I came to Dallas Leslie asked if I would make her French toast. Of course, during Passover we cannot eat that, but there is a Passover version called Matzah Brei. I prepared that for our breakfast this morning, topping it with fresh strawberries and blueberries, and then drizzled Quebec maple syrup over it. After two bites Leslie told me that you could not tell that it was not bread, and she ate the whole plate. Those are two compliments that brought joy into my heart! I finished my portion as well, and we both agreed that it was delicious and filling. It is now 11:00am and neither of us will need to snack before lunch.

    As we always do on weekends, we are now enjoying a cigar and a latté, which we would usually do on our balcony, but decided to do at our cigar lounge. When we are done we have some shopping to do, and will then go home for another yummy lunch of my chicken salad… I made another bowl of it yesterday because we agreed that it tasted better the next day. I don’t know what we will do for dinner, but we will both be mindful of my diet.

    As I told Leslie, I am happy to be out of the hotel. It is so hard to eat well when you have to order food in.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 827

    Yesterday went exactly as planned with regards to eating. I had my omelette and some matzah with almond butter and jam for breakfast, and then for lunch I prepared a lovely salad for Leslie and myself: sliced cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and Vidalia onion with a chicken breast chopped into it. I poured a little bit of olive oil and some balsamic vinegar into the bowl and then tossed it. Leslie crumbled some matzah on hers, but I decided not to. It was delicious. For dinner we had our Passover seder (three days late) which consisted of a bowl of chicken soup with matzah balls, a hard-boiled egg, matzah with charoset, and a roasted chicken that I seasoned with zaatar. For dessert we had a couple of macaroons. All of this was (of course) kosher for Passover, and aside from the four glasses of wine (which are required for the service) I think I did well both with content and moderation.

    Around 4pm I got a call from an unknown number in Hamilton, Ontario. A young lady had found Her Royal Floofness and called the number on her necklace. It seems my buddy had let her and his (much larger) dog out into the backyard, and when she discovered a hole that a rabbit had dug under the fence, she decided to go exploring. I immediately called my buddy who went and got her (she had not gone far), and Princess Sophie was home safe and sound within a few minutes. With my heart racing a mile a minute, I decided to take a dram of scotch. I doubt anyone would fault me for that. Leslie saw me doing it and approved.

    Due to my recent travel issues and other stressors, my finances are not in a good place right now. I decided yesterday afternoon to email one of my vendors who had an outstanding balance, and he apologized for the tardiness… he had been on vacation with his family, so everything was a few days late. The money was in my account this morning, and I was able to pay down my credit cards so I have a little breathing room, as well as transferring money to my Canadian bank so that I will be able to pay my rent and child support on or before May 1. Phew! I may not be the best father to my children, but I have never missed a child support payment and I never will. My policy is that I will not buy food or drink or cigars before paying that particular obligation.

    On that same topic (my children) I just had a very upsetting phone call with my ex-wife. My son the younger is having a lot of issues, and we are working to get through them. I am hoping and praying that he will be okay, and I am going to do everything I can to help. I thank G-d that Theresa is such a good mother.

    Okay, it is time for me to get working. Have a great day!

  • Day 825

    Ding! Dong! The witch is gone! I do not want to go into any great detail on this here (although it might one day be the subject for a book). Suffice it to say that the woman who has gone out of her way to make my wife’s life unbearable is finally gone… we think, we hope. We suspect that she has now moved on to her next victim and I feel terrible for whoever that may be.

    This morning we dropped Leslie’s son off at school, and then after walking the dog we went back to the hotel to pack up and check out. It will be a relief to sleep in our own place again tonight. As I type this I am sitting at Leslie’s desk waiting for my class to start. I have some lovely chicken breasts marinating in a barbecue sauce that will be our dinner afterwards, along with some charoset (a Jewish dish traditionally served at the Passover seder, made of apples, walnuts, sweet wine, cinnamon, and honey).

    Speaking of the Passover seder, thanks to the issues we were having we were unable to do it the last two nights. Because I have to teaching this evening, we cannot do it this evening either. We are planning to do it tomorrow evening which is late, but it is better thank nothing. Leslie knows that it is an important celebration, and even though it will only be the two of us… we can celebrate it and I will recite to her the story of our exodus from the land of Egypt and the bonds of slavery.

    Of the myriad reasons I am relieved that we are back home, one huge one is that I have had a lot of trouble with my eating this past week. It is just easier to eat well when we are preparing our own meals. This afternoon we had a bowl of chicken soup with matzah balls (store bought but still tasty). This evening is our chicken breasts. Hopefully there will not be a lot of snacking in between. As it is, I am deathly afraid of what the bathroom scale is going to tell me tomorrow morning. I am certain I will weigh more than 290 lbs., which means that I will have gained a full fifty pounds since my best weight ever… just seven short months ago. It is time to get back on track.

    Have a great day folks! It’s time to teach!

  • Day 824

    My wife and I are dealing with a situation that is extremely stressful for us, and it is all that I can do to not dive into all sorts of really bad foods. I am staying strong because she needs me to be strong, and we are getting through it together. In the meantime, there is someone going out of her way to make our lives miserable. It is disgusting that some people just take and take and take some more, and when you are not willing to do everything in their power to make your life difficult. We will get through it, but until it is behind us, we will likely not sleep very well. I have to continue to remind myself that my pants are far too tight as it is, and I do not want to slip any further after the last six months.

    This evening we will have our very small and abridged Passover seder, and I am looking forward to it. We have Chicken soup with matza balls, I made a batch of charoset, and for the main course I will make air-fried chicken breasts. We will tell the story of the exodus from Egypt and I will remember that while we escaped slavery, we have been an oppressed people for most of our existence. We will read the line ‘B’chol dor vador chayav adam lir’ot et atzmo k’ilu hu hatza mimitzrayim. “In all generations it is the duty of man to consider himself as if he had come forth from Egypt.”’ We will also read the line that ‘In every generation, they rise up to destroy us.’ How fitting is it as we are in the seventh month of our war in Gaza we are still fighting the Amalek – the evil enemy hellbent on our destruction. They have realized that they cannot only do it with weapons, so they have engaged in a misinformation campaign of lies that too many people are ready to believe… partly because the deep fake is so good but mostly because so many of them hate Jews… either consciously or not. I have spent the last seven months combatting the lies online but it is like swimming against the tide. I will not give up, and I will remind my wife and my son that we are wonderful people just trying to survive… tonight and always.

    There are so many problems in this world, and it is easy to forget that eating right is my best way to get slim and to stay that way. I have written a thousand times in this journal that I have to remain mindful. I will continue to remind myself.

    Chag Sameach… and have a great day!

  • Day 823

    Tonight the festival of Passover begins and I am going to begin my annual ritual of not eating any bread or ‘risen’ products for eight days. That does not mean that I need to eat healthier, but it definitely limits what I can eat. I will try to be mindful of what I put in my mouth.

    I have given a lot of thought to how I have fallen again and am not going to let it happen. I have already said that when my friend starts his program that I will be joining him on that journey to support him. In truth I will be restarting the program because I have, once again, let myself go. I know that I have had tremendous emotional stress over these last six months… it began October 7 with the terrible attacks on Israel, and the realization that so many people around the world are working to spread disinformation designed to spread hatred of my country and my people. The problems in my marriage, many of which stemmed from that attack, made things worse. None of that should matter though. I need to stay strong and focused.

    It has been a terrible slide from my best weight in October and I have to put an end to it. While the actual reset on the program will not start until the second week of May, I am going to try to get back to at least not overeating and not eating so many of the wrong foods. If I can do that then I can hopefully start to get back into the mindset of making progress… or at least stopping the slide that has resulted in my gaining nearly fifty pounds from my best weight ever.

    This is going to be hard, but I think one of the things that I need to work on is making sure that I start taking this journal serious again… not just writing placeholder articles for days that I miss because when I do not think about weight management then I do not think about my journal.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 445

    When I press publish on this journal entry for my blog, I will get a notice that I am on a 219-day streak. In just a few more days, my current streak will exceed the original streak of 225 days, which lasted through September 1. I will match that on Saturday, surpassing it Sunday. This is one of those irrelevant statistics that I like to keep track of. For example, while I post absolutely every single day, there are fully 101 more blog entries than days on my diet (this entry will be blog post #546). I know that in the first few months I would write a couple of times per day, especially when I was writing about my fitness walking. No matter. My blog now has 182 subscribers, although I wonder how many of those are bots who are just collecting data to try to market to me. In 2023, the blog has 1,941 views, which will eventually dwarf the 4,995 views that it had in 2022 (today is April 9 so we are just over a quarter of the way through the year). There are much fewer comments this year (15 so far, compared to the 81 from 2022). The journal is slightly more than 432,000 words… still not approaching the 587,000 words in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, verbose nonetheless.

    I made it through the movie yesterday without any issues, but when we got home, I was hungry. I enjoyed some matzah before dinner, which was Leslie’s scrumptious chicken salad. As it is still Passover, my sandwich options were limited, so I decided to simply eat it with a fork. She does something with Tony Sachere seasoning that is simply delicious!

    I woke up this morning after another good night of sleep. I was only very slightly productive in the bathroom. I am not surprised, with three days backed up (which is not unusual for one with a high matzah diet), to be up slightly. I am happy I am still under my 2020 best weight yet, but when I get back to Canada, I am going to kick the matzah diet, and do my best to lose a couple of pounds this week. I have not yet decided if I am going to go back to the full program, or to the partial program… but I do know that I am going to be back in the gym (and running in the street) again. This week has been lazy in that regard for a couple of reasons; starting tomorrow, any day that I do not exercise will be an excuse.

    My plan for today is to stay mindful. I will have lunch with Leslie and her son, and then around 4:00pm we will head to the airport for another tearful goodbye. Fortunately, this time we know that it will not be a long separation, as I will be back in Dallas in under 18 days… and we will then be flying to California to get married.

    Speaking of which, everything that I ordered for the wedding arrived yesterday. The ketubah, which seems to be correct, arrived in the largest flat package we had ever seen. It was definitely protected! The kippahs (yarmulkes) arrived as well, in a much smaller package (probably because they are not as delicate). As Leslie’s wedding band arrived earlier in the week, that ends the non-consumable items. The rest – food and such – will be delivered to the synagogue the day of. It is amazing to think that the big day is three weeks from today! Leslie is anxious, and so am I… but when it is all over, it will have been worth it. And yes, I will be eating cake that day.

    Have a great day folks!