Princess Sophie has gone to spend the next few weeks with her friend Susan, who will take very good care of her. My bags have been packed and near the door since yesterday, although each of them has made at least one trip back to the bedroom for repacking. I decided to alter my plans somewhat and am heading to the airport in 20 minutes.
The Uber is ordered for 9:30, I am going to publish and then wash out my coffee cup and then go downstairs.
Have a great day folks!
It was 1:30pm yesterday when I sent my wife a text reading: Player 1 Achievement Unlocked: Airport Pickup. Yes, I did my walk. While I did not extend the walk down to Mainway, I did make it my longest walk (but only by 50 metres). I am also happy that not only am I able to keep my average pace under 10m00s, but aside from my first kilometre and the final half kilometre, every kilometre was below that time. I am happy that I am able to turn on my jets… and keep them lit.
· Distance: 10.5km (9.35km)
· Duration: 1:42:06 (1:31:03)
· Average Pace (Min/km): 9:43 (9:44)
· Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9.26s (9m17)
· Steps: 13k (11.2k)
· Calories burned: 1,261 (1,147)
· Elevation gain: 31.7 (46.2)
· Average cadence (steps per minute): 126 (124)
I continue to be disappointed by my weight loss. Yes, down is better than up… but I wanted to get back below the 315 mark before I flew to Dallas (tomorrow), and that is looking extremely unlikely. It is so easy to gain the weight, and exponentially harder to lose it.
Yesterday, I was pretty good on the food. Instead of three meal replacements in the afternoon/evening, I had another single piece of chicken with a salad. I was really hoping that, coupled with the excellent fitness walk that I did, would have shown better than a .4-lbs loss this morning. No, that’s it. Thank you for playing!
The weather today is pretty nice, and I thought I might go for a walk this afternoon. Then I ran into my neighbour this morning, and she asked if I could look after Charlie for a few hours in the afternoon. It is my absolute pleasure to take care of him, firstly because he is really easy to take care of, but also because he and Princess Sophie are such good friends and companions, and they play so well together. When he is here, I do not have to do anything, other than to take them for a walk if it’s been too long. I might take them for a walk, but a fitness walk is unlikely. This is not only because of the puppies, but also because my legs are definitely feeling the residual effects of yesterday’s walk.
I miscalculated with my shopping and have no more chicken for today’s lunch. Rather than going to the store to pick more up, I decided to defrost a steak for lunch. I have plenty of veggies for my salad, which I am going to start preparing shortly after publishing this entry.
Tomorrow is the big day. I am so looking forward to seeing my wife, it is almost painful. Barring unforeseen events at the airport, I will be seeing her tomorrow afternoon. I am jumping out of my skin with excitement! I know it has only been three weeks since I was there last, but we are married and are supposed to be together… always. Fortunately, I received the certified divorce certificate from the Quebec Ministère de la justice yesterday, which means that the only thing left to do is for us to get passport pictures taken (which we will do Friday), and for me to review the application… which at this point is just about dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. At that point, we submit the application, and wait… too long, but at least it will finally be in motion.
At this point, I am going to go about my day. I have laundry to fold, a suitcase to pack, and a puppy to snuggle with. I don’t have a lot more planned for the day – I cannot think of anything I need to buy or anywhere I need to go during the day. There is a chance that in the evening I will be meeting up with Eduardo and Sam for a cigar, but that is not yet confirmed. We’ll see. In the meantime…
…have a great day folks!
I thought I did pretty well yesterday, although I did have some goldfish crackers – the last of them. Unless I go shopping for treats, I have no more temptations in the pantry that I can think of. I have no further need to shop – I went to the supermarket last night to pick up an onion and to collect my dry cleaning. I want to be able to wear those suits in a month; unless I stay on track, that is unlikely to happen. So, I will stay on track.
Yesterday, I bought my ticket for Disneyland. There are not a lot of options for getting discounts, and rather than spending excessing time on this, I decided to just pay full boat. I am disappointed that my friend will be out of town – his wife works for the company, and they could have signed me in for free. I am really looking forward to it though – Leslie and her son are worth it!
There is no rain in the forecast for today, and that means I will head out for a good walk. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which are the consequences I mentioned a day or two ago. In truth, I am still trying to make fitness walking habitual. I am long past the stage when I worried if I was able to walk well, and most of the time when I embark on a fitness walk, I am going to try for a certain distance (almost always in excess of 8km). However, I have still not become addicted to it. I still have to say to myself on any given day, ‘Okay, I should go for a walk. This is what time I am going, and this is the route that I will take.’
I really want fitness to be part of my nature that I just go. I want it to be an addiction. Of course, it will never be that simple… as it will never be as simple for me to lose and keep off all of my excess weight. I think, really I know that I will always have to work at these things. I have to admit that I was never a fitness junkie, which probably would have made a lot of things in my life much easier. If I had been, I likely never would have gotten to where I am. It is a sad realization maybe, but it is an honest one. Guys in my unit would wake up, roll out of their bunks, and be doing pushups before they even peed. I would always grumble something about coffee, even though I was in just as good shape as they were. I have never loved it… I just always knew it was good for me, and important to do. For far too many years, I ignored it. Wisdom comes with age, and at fifty years old I know that I can never ignore fitness, just like I will never be able to eat without thinking. That is a very certain recipe for failure, and I do not want that.
Aside from my walking, I will likely stay pretty close to home today. If he were around, I might invite my son the elder for a drink; he is on the west coast with friends, so that’s a non-starter. I might reach out to a friend to see if they want to sit and chat, but I suspect that Lyle is busy preparing for his aunt’s visit. We’ll see.
Speaking of my son (and his absence), I am going to have to get an Uber to take me to the airport on Thursday. That’s usually an opportunity to see my boy, but with his not being in town, I am deprived of that option.
As it turns out, Lyle is free for a cigar. After my walk I’ll have lunch around 1:00pm, and then drive over there for a couple of hours. I do not plan to make it a late night – or even evening – because I am going to do laundry this evening, so that tomorrow afternoon everything that I want to take to Dallas (and of course to California) will be clean. I won’t pack tonight, but I will try to fold and organize everything.
I was speaking with Leslie this week, and I told her that I am going to bring a lot of my summer clothes and just leave them there. After all, by the time I am back (October 16) it is a safe bet that the short-pants weather will be behind us for the season. When she asked if I won’t need them in the spring, my initial response was that I could bring them home in time for that. When I gave it some thought, I was happy to tell her that if all goes according to plan, all of the shorts that I am wearing now will be too big for me by the spring, and I will need new ones anyways. Despite the bumps along the road (like this past couple of weeks), my goal is to be down another fifty pounds by next spring… if not more. Leslie agrees that if I am able to accomplish that, it will be a pleasure to have to buy new shorts!
I have procrastinated enough. It is time for me to hit the trails. I am not sure now steady my knees feel, so I am going to plan for an 8km walk, with the option to extend it if I am feeling up to it. I will walk through the park to Appleby Line, up to Dundas Street, then back down. If I am feeling ambitious at that point, I can continue down to Mainway for the extra couple of kilometres. We’ll see. For now, I am going to start by suiting up and heading out.
Have a great day!
My plan for this morning was to go to the courthouse in Milton to get a copy of the divorce certificate from my marriage to Theresa. Last night I started to worry that I might have a problem… today is the funeral for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and it is a federal day of mourning, with all federal and many provincial offices closed. I did not know whether the courthouse, a joint provincial and county building, would be affected. I decided to call ahead in the morning.
Before I wrote my article I did just that, and it’s a good thing that I did. Yes, the courthouse would be open… but counter services were only offered until 11am, which meant that if I dawdled at my computer, I might miss the window. I went, I got it, I am home. The day goes on.
I rather expected to be at the courthouse for hours. In fact, I was out within fifteen minutes. While I was in Milton, I went to visit a couple of friends for a few minutes each, but I am now home. In a couple of minutes, I will start preparing lunch. This afternoon, I am getting my haircut, as well as hopefully selling an end table that I have been trying to offload for months. If the person does come to pick it up, I will be quite pleased.
I don’t have much else planned for the day. I originally thought the day was going to be really busy, but the short time at the courthouse essentially ended that notion. I will probably do some reading, but if the weather cooperates, I might go for a nice walk. We’ll see how it goes. It rained for a bit this morning, but as of right now, the forecast is quite nice.
There are two dogs playing behind me. Charlie (Princess Sophie’s very good friend) is over for a visit, and they are play-fighting on the couch. It is so nice to have them playing. Happy dogs are such a joy!
I will also print a return label for Amazon, which I nearly forgot about. I bought a hard drive for my friend’s computer, but now that he is buying a new computer, I can return it. So often in the US, Amazon returns do not require a box or a return label. I forget that in Canada it is never so simple. I’ll print it and drive down to Purolator on my way back from the barber. It is only a $50 hard drive… but it is my $50!
As I hoped, the bathroom scale was going the right direction this morning. I am now only 2.5 lbs from my best weight, which means that if I keep up the routine, I might hit that again by Thursday. Eating well, walking a lot… not tough, right? Sure…
Have a great day folks!
I know that I have hit a plateau on my weight loss journey. It is not a physiological plateau, rather a mental one. I am not sticking to the program as well as I need to in order to continue to lose weight. I need to stop cheating, and I need to start exercising daily… or at least near daily.
I feel like I have turned self-destructive since my trip to Montreal began. That my weight is not up more than two pounds since I left for Montreal is astounding. I need to figure out what is wrong with my head, and why it is that I cannot stay on track. Only then will I be able to get back onto the track and keep losing weight.
The psychology of weight loss is not a simple one. I love food. I love losing weight. I love eating. I love being slim. I hate dieting and starving myself and being fat and gaining weight and wearing big clothes and above all I hate that I am not completely in control of my own self, that I cannot just will myself to succeed with my weight loss program. If only there were a recovery program, like there is for drug addicts. I remember the scene from The Sopranos where Chris goes into the treatment centre. They take away even his candy bars because the caffeine in the chocolate is equally a drug to the cocaine or whatever he was doing. They encourage his smoking though, which is one of those dichotomies that Hollywood does not properly explain. If I could be committed to a facility where veering from the program was not an option, where I was given 1,000 calories per day, where I was forced to exercise… but I do not have that option.
The option that is available to me is that in five days I will be getting onto a plane to see my wife, and when I am with her, I have the support and encouragement that I need to make the right choices… and that’s really what I need. I need to make the right choices every day, and if there is a day when I make bad choices, then I have to come back the following day to make better ones.
To be clear, these last two weeks I have made a lot of bad choices… but none of them have been massive. I had some crackers and popcorn a couple of days. I had an extra salad and popcorn another. I bought bread for the prayers, but not the huge loaf. I suspect that the first sentence of this entry used the right word… I am on a plateau. It may take a few days, but I will resume my downward descent. It is not a valley, where I have hit my lowest (best) weight and am now on my way up. No way. I will get back on this weight loss horse and keep losing the weight.
What is it that I have to do then? Leslie has been encouraging me to schedule cheat days. Whether they are weekly or monthly, there can be one scheduled day that I can look forward to when I can go a little crazy. I don’t mean ‘a big plate of wings and a large pizza’ crazy… maybe a reasonable meal on top of my one reasonable meal. Maybe I have to break up the monotony of the chicken and salad (which I really and truly do enjoy) with more fish, or even beef. Maybe it is a bag of chips. I don’t know what a cheat day should look like, I only know that I am going to give a lot more thought to how it should look, and how often I should take them.
This morning, on top of my meal replacement shake, I finished the challah roll. It was very good, and I do not think it was the worst cheat in the world. As long as I do not snack the rest of the day, I do not think I will be punished for it. Starches and carbohydrates are fuel, so what I need to do is to burn them off throughout the day. I’ll do that.
This afternoon I am taking Her Floofness to Ryan’s for a few hours. I am looking forward to seeing my buddy, and only hope that his sister’s classless boyfriend is not there. I hate that I was either seeing my friend or not based on whether or not that guy would be there. I am done avoiding him. I can easily sit in a room and ignore his racist moronic crap… even if it is aimed at me. I will do my best to not be goaded into a fight… either verbal (which I would certainly win) or otherwise. How often have I advised people to never enter into a battle of wits with the unarmed. I have to follow my own advice. It is not always so simple.
We are not going to leave for Cambridge until after lunch. I will make my meal and will hit the road on a full stomach. Otherwise, I would be tempted to stop along the way to pick up a handful of peanuts, or I would snack at Ryan’s place. Going on a full stomach is the smarter play, and one that I have not played a lot. The last few times I have driven out there, I have planned to eat when I got home. That is just a bad idea, considering how peckish one can get when breaking their meal plan.
Have a great day folks!
I am relieved to see that the numbers on the scale were slightly down this morning. I had some popcorn yesterday, which I know I should not have. I also had another salad, which I shouldn’t do, but which is not the end of the world. I know that I should be trying to stick to my plan, but I was really out of sorts yesterday. I hope to do better today.
I have to do some shopping this morning. I do have a steak that I could defrost, but I do not think that I have done well enough on my program recently to deserve that treat. I will pick up some chicken, as well as vegetables. I have onion and tomatoes, but I am out of cucumber and lettuce. I am also going to see if they have any sesame oil, which they did not have the last time I went.
My friend Eduardo and I are supposed to get together today for me to replace the hard drive in his computer. I honestly hate helping friends keep computers going that are over ten years old, but what can I do? He is a friend on a budget and does not want to spend the money to buy something new. We will of course smoke a cigar together, which will be nice. I like hanging out with my friends. Tomorrow I will be going to see Ryan, which is always a nice way to spend the afternoon. I just hope that his sister’s boyfriend isn’t there… he’s a real tool. I have no interest in breathing the same air as anyone who tells antisemitic jokes. We’ll see… it might turn into a short afternoon.
I have a couple of things that I want to post for sale on Facebook Marketplace. I only mention that here because I know that it is the first time that I have written or verbalized it, despite having thought of it for weeks. If I write it down, I might actually get cracking on it. Let’s hope.
Have a great day folks!
Boy did I get that one wrong somehow. I lost a lot more than a half kilo in the past three weeks. In fact, I lost 2.6kg, which makes me quite happy. The procedure went well, and I am home. The chicken is in the air fryer, the salad is made, and in a few minutes, I will have my lunch as planned. In fact, it looks like my entire day will go as planned.
The doctor told me that the nurse was extremely pleased with my overall progress, in addition to my incremental progress. I won’t lie… I’m pretty pleased with it too!
My next appointment with the doctor is scheduled for a month from now, right on the heels of my three-week trip to Dallas and California. As long as I remember every minute of every day that my weight loss is more satisfying than the often-indulgent foods that will be offered to me, there is hope that in that time I can lose another 3-4kg in that time. I will work hard to make that happen. 4kg in a month should be not just doable, but very doable.
I had a nice day yesterday after my walk, even though a lot of things got turned around. I had a very decent lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, after which I went to see my friends Caryl and Lawrence. They have a fourteen-week-old puppy named Miss Lucy who is absolutely adorable, and filled with all of the puppy energy and love that puppies of that age will have. She and I got along just fine!
I was on my way to Stephane’s house for the evening when he texted and suggested I come over at 9:00pm – it was currently 6:00pm. I rerouted and came back to my friends’ house, where I had a meal replacement soup (which I have not done in a long time), and had a great conversation with my wife before heading over there.
The plan for today involves a meal that I have to be careful with. I am meeting my late father’s best friend for lunch at Snowdon Delicatessen, which has Potential For Weight Management Disaster written all over the menu. I will not be ordering a large smoked meat platter with French fries. While I do not know what my options are there, I do know that they do have healthier choices on the menu. They may not be healthy, but they are healthier.
After that, I am meeting my friend Jess on Mount Royal Avenue for a coffee. It will be nice to see her, save for two things: She is going to give me grief for not bringing Princess Sophie, and she is going to try to press me to tell her why I went dark over the summer. She will not be the first to do that, and I hope I am able to gently convince her that I am not discussing it.
My evening plans are up in the air, but one of the cigar boys from last night suggested he might invite me over for a coffee. We will see. I understand he makes a truly world class cup of coffee, and I am looking forward to trying it… but doing so in the evening may prove counterproductive to my ability to sleep tonight.
Everyone in my local cigar clique is excited about the herf this weekend, which is the original reason I planned this trip to Montreal. It will be nice to see everyone, but when Mark asked me yesterday if I was excited about it, my honest answer was that I am not. I know I will enjoy it, but excited? No. I am excited that in two weeks I will be with my wife. This is just another gathering of friends (and several people I do not know) to smoke cigars and enjoy a barbecue. As I cannot really partake in the food part of the festivities, that leaves the friends and the cigars. Most of the people who will be there that I am actually friends with (and not just people that I know) were at Stephane’s house last night… and we smoked cigars. Yes, I will go. Yes, I know I will have a great time when I am there. Excited? No.
I am kitted out to go for my walk. I am going to pay attention to my right knee, which I noticed last night has what feels like a bruise right in the middle of it. As I do not remember smashing it on anything, I have to assume that it is something else. Knees are funny things, and I do not want to mess around with this. I will remember the two things that I forgot yesterday though… I will take my water and my sunglasses, which will combine for a more comfortable walk than yesterday’s.
I will write about it upon my return!
As I gushed with Leslie yesterday about the massive weight loss I achieved over the previous day, I did tell her that I was resigned to the fact that I knew that I would be giving some of that back today. Nonetheless, I ate well yesterday. I did not veer from my normal weight management program, enjoying three meal replacements and one meal throughout the day. I also went for a great record-breaking walk. All this to say that as I lay in bed last night, I was still holding out home in my secret heart that I might actually hold my weight. After stepping onto my scale this morning, I realized I had not held it. Indeed, I was down… nearly another full pound.
Dropping below the 315 lbs threshold was an amazing way to start my day, but again I am not going to hold my breath that it will hold. Fortunately, I will not be weighing myself again until Monday, when I am back from Montreal. My hope is that I will maintain my current weight over the five-day trip; hoping to actually lose weight is more than I will hope for.
I chatted for a few moments yesterday with one of the organizers of a party that I am going to on Saturday. I asked what foods would be served, mostly because I do not want to be at a party that only serves non-kosher foods, but also because I suspected there might not be any healthy options for me. I was okay on the first, but from what I can tell, there will not be a lot of diet-friendly foods available. I will do my best to stick to my meal replacements, but I also know that if I have a little bit of bad foods in moderation then it will not be the end of the world. It will give me incentive to try to be good the rest of the week… and even if I am, I cannot hope to succeed if I go overboard. My goal is to not go overboard.
We are less than a month from the Yom Kippur holiday. It is a day when we spend the day in synagogue praying and asking G-d’s forgiveness. Last year, I attended services online. I just do not have a connection to the Jewish community where I live, whereas I have a very close one to the community in California, where I used to live. That is where I was two years ago, and that is where I will be for Yom Kippur this year. I was thinking this morning how nice it would be if I could attend services weighing 305 lbs. Two years ago, I weighed 260 lbs when I attended. I know that was a fateful and terrible day for my diet – it was the day that my steady weight loss came to an abrupt halt, and my fall into failure began. It started with a cookie and a shot of tequila. That will not happen this year.
I doubt that I will be able to comfortably attend services wearing the same suit I wore then, but I do plan to wear that suit just a few weeks later. There is a picture of me from 2020, coincidentally at the synagogue, wearing that suit for the first time in three years. I remember clearly weighing 298 lbs and being thrilled that I was able to wear it. If all goes well, Leslie is coming to Canada for American Thanksgiving, and I would like to take her out to dinner wearing that suit. I love looking good for her, and I happen to know that she has a bit of a thing for a well-dressed man. For the first time in a couple of years I feel that I am within reach of being able to be that. I always did it for myself – I quite enjoy putting on a suit and tie – but this time I want to do it for her. She deserves me looking my absolute best.
It is about time for me to pack up and drive to Montreal. I will be there several days, and again I have to remember that my fitness walking must be a regular part of my daily routine. I am packing several sets of workout clothes, and because it is September in Canada, I recognize that this will require several permutations, including shorts and long training pants, and long sleeve shirts as well as short sleeves. What a pain. At least the drive will be mostly relaxing… I have no deadlines to hit, so I can stop and smell the roses as it were. After an hour on the phone with the Quebec Ministry of Justice, I think I have submitted my request for my divorce certificate properly, but again, it is Quebec… so who knows? I am taking my passport and birth certificate, just in case I get a notice that I am missing a … I don’t know what.
If all goes well with that, the next few days will be a lot more relaxing and enjoyable than I originally suspected they might be, and I will be able to just chill, walk, and enjoy the company of friends.
Have a great day folks!
The weather has to play a big factor in my walking performance. Frankly, so does how well rested I am between walks. I have had eight days of rest since my last outing, and with a very light drizzle, the temperature was hovering around 20° Celsius… and I broke the record for the three most important stats that I track: Best overall average pace, best split-pace kilometre, and best overall average cadence. I happen to know, from having looked down at my watch at exactly the right moment, that my best per-mile was also shattered, at 14m49s.
I was noticing a few things about myself as I walked. My belly does not appear to be jiggling like it did. While I know it is slightly smaller, I suspect that I am holding it firmer than I used to. As well, when I am walking, I keep my jaw very clenched. I am going to have to figure out what to do about that… although I suspect it is not the worst thing in the world.
My first eight kilometres all registered under 10m00… and while my best (and record-breaking) split-pace kilometre was actually kilometre six, I actually broke my previous best on four of them and tied it on one more.
I was really pushing myself today, to be sure… but there is another factor that I cannot discount the importance of. I am simply carrying less weight than I was. The more weight that I lose, the less weight that I am carrying, the better walking performances I register. It is as simple as that, so I expect that over the next eight weeks or so – before the first snows come – I will be breaking even more records.
This morning Leslie was talking to me about the pace of my weight loss. She is truly amazed by my progress, and that I have stuck with it. She noted that if I keep it up, I should be under the 300-pound mark by New Years Eve. I told her that if I keep up my current pace, I will hit that mark sometime in the next nine weeks. My logic: From July 6 to August 24, a seven-week period, I lost 13lbs on the doctor’s scale. I am less than sixteen pounds from that mark now, so nine weeks is a fair estimate. If it is ten weeks, then that’s life… but I would like to do it by November 22nd if I can… and I would really like to be able to wear my blue suit on that day, for reasons I will discuss later.
As long as I do not fall off the wagon, it looks like I will be able to call the year 2022 The Year I Lost 100-Pounds. Wouldn’t that be something?
As I mentioned earlier, I am going to Montreal for a few days tomorrow. It has been a few years since I have done this, but I have to remember to schedule fitness walking into my daily routine there. I will bring the appropriate outfits (including training pants, a windbreaker, and a hat of some sort), but I have to force myself to do it. Whether that is around the outskirts of the city where I am staying, or if I drive up to Mount Royal, park my car there, and walk on the mountain… I have to keep exercising. It is bad enough that this trip will interfere with my Taekwondo plans, I cannot let it break my fitness regimen, which has already been broken these last couple of weeks. I am not going to push myself to my limits, but I do want to get my walking in… especially since I will likely have a couple of not-entirely-healthy meals while I am there.
It is time to hit the showers, and then make myself a meal replacement. The weather is not the greatest, but it is still nice enough that I can put on a sweatshirt and sit out on the balcony with a cigar. That is how I will spend my evening. Make sure you enjoy yours!
