Losing a part of me

Category: Sadness

  • Maybe Today is Just a Hard Day

    **I am writing this entry for many reasons, but part of it is because it might be easy for most of my readers to think that I am always upbeat, even when I am failing. I try to maintain a positive mindset. Today I am failing, but that is okay… tomorrow will be better. It is also okay to feel down and depressed… and not to cheat. -MDG

    I was trying to think when was the last time I wrote two journal entries in a single day. I certainly cannot think of the last time I did so because of how sad and depressed I was feeling. Today has just been a really hard day.

    I honestly did not even realize it for most of the day. I wrote my article in the morning. I went out to the balcony with my cup of coffee and a cigar, and I put my ears in to watch TV for a bit. After my cigar, I prepared my meal replacement shake, which I also enjoyed on the balcony. I recited the grace after meals, washed my dishes. I was just going to select another cigar, but I decided to spend twenty minutes organizing the trays of my humidor. I then selected a cigar, I poured a glass of iced tea, and I continued to watch TV on the balcony. Following the cigar, I decided to go into the house and possibly nap for a little while. I did not fall asleep, but I lay in bed and continued to watch TV.

    I just had no drive to be productive. I did not want to go for a walk. I did not want to read a book. I did not want to study. I had zero drive.

    Around 8:00pm Leslie texted me, and we chatted for a bit about the difficulties we are faced with on this program, and how hard it is. Earlier in the day she had told me that it was one of the hardest things she has ever done. I agree with her. She has to take care of her son, and that involves feeding him… and that involves smelling the foods that he eats. It is the smells that can kill you on this program.

    Here’s the thing… if you read everything that I ate today, you will notice that there was no cheating. The only omission is the meal replacement I had at 8:30pm, which I actually prepared and drank after I wrote that paragraph. I have not cheated at all today, and I am not actually hungry.

    What makes the program so hard is that last sentence, which is actually just the first part of it. The complete sentence should read: I am not actually hungry, but I want to eat anyways. Why do I want to eat? I suppose that is the $64,000 question. To quote Leslie’s question from our chat: ‘Bored, lonely, sad, depressed, angry?’ The answer? Yes. To be fair, I am not bored so much as my mouth is bored. I am lonely because my wife lives in another country, and we cannot always be together. I am sad not only because of that, but because I started thinking about my relationship with my children, and a bunch of other things. Depressed because… well, maybe I should not add depressed and sad; depression for some people is chemical, but I think my down is just sadness. Angry because I had been doing so well, but I threw that away yesterday and could not control myself. Granted, in days past I would have done much more damage. I only had about 3oz of steak, no potato, one corn on the cob (in season it is absolutely so heavenly), some potato chips, some popcorn, and some blueberries. Yes, it was bad. Yes, I fell off the wagon. Yes, I am bloody well angry with myself over it. Anyhow, all of these and more are reasons I wanted to devour all sorts of food today, and by not doing so, I suppose I was fixating on it, and that vicious cycle made it a very hard day.

    I hope tomorrow will be easier. I will have my omelette in the morning and then study for a couple of hours, and then in the afternoon Lyle is coming over, and Michael might come as well. I am teaching in the evening. After my morning bathroom ritual, I will step onto the scale and see that I lost the weight that I gained this morning… or at least most of it. It will be a better day than today.

    It will have to be.

  • The Sadness of Misplaced Optimism

    After realizing that I probably had pants that would fit in my locker, I walked down to the basement and went through the bin. I found several pair of Size-36 jeans and pants (most of which still have the tags on them) in the bin. You might have thought that my first reaction was ‘Cool! I have all of these clothes for my next big drop!’ While I eventually came to think that, my initial reaction was sadness. I thought back to where I was when I bought those pants and realized that I was doing so well, certain I was on track and was never going to stop losing weight. I was so certain, in fact, that I proactively bought hundreds of dollars worth of pants. I was at my lowest weight in at least 20 years and saw no reason why I would not keep losing weight, so I was ready for that next drop in pants size. And then it all went to hell. All of the work I did over the course of a year… every inch of progress that I made was lost. It did not disappear overnight, of course… it doesn’t work like that. It started with a cookie and a shot of tequila. After that, it was fried chicken… but only a piece or two. In the meantime, I stopped jogging because I started golfing, and exercise is exercise, right? What difference does it make if I am riding the cart instead of walking?

    It took me fifteen months to gain back what had taken me fourteen months to lose.

    I am not yet where I was on the day that I started my slide of regression in 2020. I have about 30 lbs. left until I am there. It is easy for me to say that ‘It won’t happen again.’ How often have I said, ‘This will be the last time I ever have to lose all of this weight!’? I have said it so many times… it is a mantra that I swear by, reminding myself how important it is for me to stay on track, and then to never lose focus? I am sure every alcoholic said the same thing, right up until that first drink. It is possible that this time will be different, but how can I be sure? Is there any way that I can guarantee it? It will require eternal vigilance and mindfulness… and it will require me to never fall off the wagon.

    I spoke with Leslie about this, and she told me that I have to focus on how well I have been doing. She is astounded by my progress and is truly proud of the progress I have made. She really has been a wonderful support since I started. When I went on this journey in 2017, I was alone and had nobody supporting me… but I also did not have anyone distracting me. In 2019-20, I started the program while in a relationship, and within a few weeks of starting I moved in with her. That was a disaster, but I eventually moved out and was able to be very successful on the program. This is the first time that I have had a supportive partner since the beginning, and hopefully that will never end. In the end, while that may be helpful, there is only one person responsible for my weight management… me.

    Leslie is right. I need to be proud of the progress I have made, encouraged that I am going to succeed in losing all of the weight I want to lose, and optimistic that I have to motivation and willpower to stay slim once I have lost it… long term. It is easy on the way down to think like that. When the numbers on the scale have been down fifteen of the last sixteen days, and I have not deviated from the program in that time, optimism is much easier than three days into a slide, when the program is too hard, or when I succumb to temptation… or even when I have gone a few days without seeing any downward movement on the scale.

    I have learned that in this life there will be positive days and there will be harder ones. I like to think that I am a positive person, but at the same time, it is easy to compare us to goldfish… when we are happy, it is like we have always been happy, but when we are down, well… you understand the analogy. Today I am thrilled by the progress that I have made, and I am energized to continue. I am not at all tempted to go out and eat. Okay, I wouldn’t mind cooking up something that I have in the house, but I am not doing that. I will be rewarded when I get to Dallas, and I can eat a little… under the watchful and supportive eye of my wife. How will I feel three months from now? Will I finally be able to remove the tags from the Size-36 pants? Will I be all excited and optimistic and buy the next size down, and will they sit for years in a bin because I failed again? I cannot think like that… but it is so hard not to.

    Like any addict, I can only live one day at a time, trying to stay on track for that day. Yes, I would like to lose X number of pounds between now and Y date… but beyond following the program, I cannot do much more. I have to stay optimistic, and I cannot let things trigger me and get me down… or worse, pull me off my positive track. I can be sad for a few minutes… I can even spend an hour talking about it and then writing a thousand words on it… and then I have to refocus and stay on track. As Leslie said, there is nothing that I can do that will change the past. I just have to learn from my mistakes and try to succeed for the present… and for the future.

  • Day 359

    Yesterday was exactly as long as I thought it was going to be, and by the end of it I was exactly as tired and worn down as I thought I would be. I achieved all of my goals… but some of them just barely. I once again only drank four of my five shakes, at 7:30am, 1:30pm, 4:00pm, and 7:30pm. By the time my class was done I was hungry, and I was exhausted, but I also knew that if I eat late at night there are consequences. Yesterday was my first day in Two-Town, and I want to stay there… permanently. That means that I cannot go off the program for a couple of days and splurge… not even with the crap that I am going through in my life. I read my list of goals for the day to my therapist, and she thought that it was an amazing list. She also told me that I did a wonderful job of focusing what we should be discussing and that it demonstrated that the new meds – and likely the increased dosage – are working wonders. She was concerned about the extreme weight loss plan and asked if I was being medically supervised. I am… by the same physician who referred her to me however many years ago.

    The fact that I made it to the end of the day still amazes me, but it is not really true. At 8:30pm I assigned the class their labs for the last hour of class, which meant that while I was prepared to answer questions, the lecture was done for the day. Unfortunately, I realized when I was asked a Linux question that as I tried to focus on the screen, it was a fruitless endeavour. My eyes were done… as was my voice. The students understood and were happy that I excused them if they were done with their work. Two of them were there until the end, but that was fine.

    Let’s go back to the subject of the meal replacements and other ingested items. While it was a conscious decision to refrain from enjoying the last meal replacement (which would have been at least 10:00pm), I did make a concerted effort to drink more water. No, I did not keep track of it. I was on three fitful hours of sleep, and I had to focus on other things. I do know that I drank at least three and possibly four of my Blender Bottles full, each of which holds about 750ml. three litres of water is a good amount. Contrary to what was expected (and even planned for), I did not make the second pot of coffee. I drank the same amount as I would on a normal day – tired or not, teaching or not, completely destroyed on the inside or not. Once again, my caloric input for the day did not exceed 650 calories. I really should work on that. What that says though is that – at least on busy days – I will not have any issues with the four meal replacements once I start on the Canadian program next week. Someone in one of the support groups on Facebook posted a link to a couple of clinics that are much closer to me than the one that I found. I am going to reach out to them tomorrow to see if I can purchase the meal replacements from them. It would cut the round-trip drive from over two hours to about 25 minutes. I am crossing my fingers.

    The numbers on the bathroom scale were once again down significantly this morning. For the second day in a row, I lost two pounds. My fears of peaking above the three-hundred-pound mark were unfounded; rather, I am now only two pounds shy of my next major milestone. Having dropped two pounds two days in a row, it is not out of the realm of possibility that I might hit that milestone tomorrow morning… but it is unlikely. It is, however, quite likely that, if I stick to the program, I will succeed in achieving that goal before Wednesday, which will be Day 365. One hundred pounds lost in one year. How about that. I think back to my thoughts from October and early November, when I was on track to lose quite a bit more than one hundred pounds by New Year’s Eve… but that was when life was still good, when I was happy, and when I thought that I was on my way to living happily ever after. Life gets in the way, and sometimes you have to adjust your expectations… if not your ultimate goals. It was less than a week ago that I was thinking, ‘what if this is as good as I can do? What if this time I cannot crack the 300 lbs. mark, and I have to live the rest of my life struggling to tread water right here?’ I have lost seven pounds since thinking that and cannot think like that anymore. It is vital for me to keep my mind focused on achieving my goals. That way, if I stumble (as I have for the past two months), I will not give up. I will keep at it. I will find the strength within myself to get back on track. I will not, as I have twice in the past six years, get close, and then give up… and end up back where I was at my heaviest weight.

    My therapist and I spoke yesterday, and as I mentioned earlier in this article, she was very happy with my progress. Her focus is not on my weight loss, rather my mental health and ultimate happiness. This last month I have taken plenty of hits to both of those, so the main focus of our session yesterday was about the causes and consequences of those, and how I can cope and get past them to eventually find happiness. We did, however, spend a few minutes talking about my weight management program, as so much of it requires mental fortitude. As I mentioned yesterday, I received terrible news on Wednesday, but that the news had been expected for about a week She was worried that my starting back on the strict program was a knee-jerk reaction to that news. I told her (truthfully) that I have been giving thought to ‘going full regimented program’ for a couple of weeks now, and that I have expressed these thoughts in this journal. I should mention that I have never, not even once, gone back to a previous day and altered an entry for content. What I wrote two weeks ago is and will always be what I was thinking and sharing on that day two weeks ago. The timing of my change in program is unfortunate, especially since, going through the emotional anguish that I have been and continue to suffer, it would not only be so easy for me to turn to food for comfort, but it is also what I always did. Frankly, I still feel that it would be quite satisfying for my emotional pain to do that… but I will not. I am trying to stay on track… and truthfully, it also feels good to be losing weight.

    It is interesting to think that she (my therapist) thought that I might respond to stress and anxiety by going full-on with my weight loss. I reminded her that as long as she has known me (going on eight years) I have never starved myself in the hard times. Quite the opposite, I have always turned to food as a source of comfort, or to compensate for whatever was going on in my life. Food (especially bad foods) makes me happy, so when I have been unhappy with life, at least I could find some happiness in those foods. I have used foods to celebrate – ironically, I have had indulgent meals to celebrate weight loss milestones – and I have used it to commiserate. Often, I have simply used it to fill the time and to alleviate boredom. The fact that I am going through this terrible anguish, and I am redoubling my weight loss efforts without any cheating or indulgences… frankly, it is surprising even to me. She was shocked, knowing what I shared with her, that not only did I not indulge in food, but I have not even had a sip of alcohol through it. My original plan was to break that this evening so that I could say the Shabbat kiddush, but I have mostly decided against it. I will light my candles and say the prayers for that… but I will not be blessing (and drinking) the wine, and I will not be blessing (and eating) the challah. This is a time to focus on losing weight, and not because of my stresses and anguishes, rather because I need to succeed.

    I lied a couple of paragraphs ago. There was a day a couple of weeks ago that someone read something that I wrote that day (or the previous day), and felt it made them look like a bitch (their words, not mine). While I did not agree that it was how it read, and it was certainly never my intent, I did go back and re-write the paragraph for the on-line version of my article. I did not make the change in my private journal, but it is never my intent to make anyone feel bad or offended, so when that person called out that they felt I showed them in a bad light, I made the change. Other than that, I never change what I wrote.

    I decided this morning to shave my beard. It is not completely gone, but what yesterday might have made me look like an orthodox rabbi is now shorter and cleaner… and I expect will be easier to maintain. I am thinking that on my next visit to the barber I might go down to the goatee once more. We’ll have to see. As I have written several times this week, I am changing my look to be more professional, but also to make myself feel better. As with most people, I like looking better. I liked the rabbi-beard look, but it was very hard to maintain, and so often I would look at myself in the mirror and see that I was looking shaggy and scraggly. If that’s what I saw, then that is likely what others saw as well. The beard that extended two or more issues below my chin is now trimmed to a couple of millimetres and is a uniform length on my cheeks. This too should not be perceived as reactionary or knee-jerk; I have changed the look and length of my beard many times over the time that I have worn it, and with the exception of when I had to grow it for religious obligations (the deaths of my mother in 2018 and then my father in 2021), I have always done with it as I – or at times, my partner – has pleased.

    It is almost time to start teaching, but when the class gets to the point where the students are running labs, I will write about my goals for the day. As you the reader will not notice the 30–60-minute lapse, I will just go right into it.

    It is noon, and in a little while I will prepare my second shake of the day. I called the first clinic on my list, and they told me that at the very least, I would need a referral from my family physician to see their doctor to even discuss it. I do not know if, following that, they would sell me the meal replacements, or if I would need to be enrolled in their weight loss program specifically to be able to purchase them. I will ask my doctor if he can refer me, and I will mee with the doctor for the initial consultation, but I do not think that, if I have to be enrolled with them, that I would want to add an extra doctor’s appointment part of my routine. With that said, I am not making any decisions, and I will pursue the option. The second clinic has not answered their phone, but I will try again this afternoon.

    While I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night, when I eventually did, I slept. I was too tired not to. I do not remember if I woke up in the night to use the bathroom or not, but I do remember waking up an hour before my alarm, stretching, and doing something to my left calf muscle that I have done a few times when stretching in bed. I do not even know how to describe it, but for the minute or so before it relaxes, it is quite painful. Fortunately, there are no lasting effects of this… issue. After the requisite time, it abated, and I was asleep again in no time. I did press the snooze button a couple of times when my alarm went off. I knew that it snowed all night (and was still snowing), and that meant that if Princess Sophie was willing to go out at all, she would walk the five metres from the door to the near grass, pee, and then turn around and walk right back into the building. On a nice day, our walks will be thirty minutes long, and I have to plan for that on mornings that I have obligations. I knew that I would get that time back as soon as I looked out the window. I was right.

    The next couple of days I have a few dates with friends that are going to test my resolve. This evening, I am going to Eduardo’s house for a cigar. It will be the last cigar that we share indoors at his apartment, as tomorrow his wife returns from Uruguay. A lifelong chain-smoker, she now suffers from emphysema, and the smoke would bother her. Tomorrow I am meeting a friend at a pub, ostensibly for lunch, but also to catch up, and discuss the possibility of preparing for a new certification together. I have no problem showing up and just ordering coffee and know that if she presses me that I can rebuff her. It matters not at all that I know the pub where we are meeting makes delicious wings; I have to be good, and I will picture the long-term satisfaction of weighing less the following morning (and the elation it brings for a few hours), which will outweigh the immediate satisfaction of the greasy and fattening foods. In the afternoon I am meeting with another friend, a former colleague when he and I taught Taekwondo together. He has been trying to connect with me for some time, and it has just never worked out. We should be able to meet tomorrow for coffee, and while I might have trouble resisting the temptations at the pub, I doubt the goods at a café will be quite so enticing. A very close friend (the only friend aside from Eduardo) who knows or at least suspects what is going on) has been asking to see me because he knows (or suspects) what I am going through and wants to support me like the true friend that he is. In addition to that, he asked me this morning about the weight loss program that I am on, as he is also morbidly obese; he has been losing weight of late, but he told me that he hit a plateau (his words, only an echo of my own) and wants to really kickstart a true weight loss plan. I will discuss it with him, and let him know my thoughts, feelings, and experiences with it.

    It is nearly 12:30pm, and my students have five more minutes to work on their labs. I am hungry but decided to wait until the actual lunch break (at 1:00pm) to make and enjoy my shake. I have a few reasons for this, but one of them is that I am trying to teach myself that I do not have to start eating the minute I feel hunger. I can live with it for a little while and it will not kill me. This is just another piece of trying to change my unhealthy relationship with food.

    Have a great day folks… and Shabbat Shalom.

  • Day 89

    I am ashamed to admit it, but I ate a bunch of crap last night. I had my dinner earlier than I should have, so my last shake of the night at about 7:30pm. I was not satisfied, so I added a meal replacement bar to the evening. I was still emotional, so I broke down and had a bag of popcorn.

    I won’t go into the details, but sometimes we get emotional, sad, or whatever… and we veer from the program. I only hope it does not happen too often. I really have to get a handle on my emotions and exercise self-control.

    I am fighting with Air Canada. I have a flight credit that dates to August of last year; they assured me that I would have an e-mail confirmation with the code in ten days. Six weeks later I had not received it, but I needed to use part of it, and after spending several hours on the phone with them, I was able to… and they assured me that within ten days I would receive an e-mail with the code for the balance. That was September 20, more or less. That is 209 days… slightly more than ten days, once again. I spent an hour on the phone with one of their agents who assured me (after nearly an hour) that within ten days I would receive an email about it. I told him that his company was lying, as they have historically lied about this issue. Try as I might, he would not let me speak with a supervisor or manager. I am absolutely furious.

    My stress- and emotion-eating could have been worse. I was really tempted, especially after drafting my complaint letter to Air Canada, to go out and pick up… something. I don’t know if it would have been wings or a steak or whatever… it couldn’t be a pizza because of Passover, but it could have been a lot of things. I do not know what stopped me… other than knowing that I am going to the doctor’s office later this week, and I want to be able to reward myself after hitting that very important milestone; as bad as the crap that I ate was, it would only get worse if I didn’t stop.

    I do not know how it happened, but despite all that I ate over and above what I should be eating, my weight was down this morning. While it is still .4 lb higher than my best weight (last Tuesday), I was happy to be down nearly one full pound this morning. If I am able to maintain my rate of progress, then later this week I will be rewarding myself… with a steak.

    Yes, I said it. I have not had a steak since January. I told myself nearly a month ago that the day that I reach that milestone – losing enough to be able to weigh in on the doctor’s scale – that I would have a cheat day with a steak. I thought briefly about Buffalo wings or pizza or Chinese food… but all of those would have been too extreme. Yes, there are nearly 600 calories in an 10oz ribeye steak, which is more than I would eat in a meal on the program. It is a one-time reward… and I will enjoy it. I might wait until the weekend to enjoy it, but I will enjoy it nonetheless!

    I have some work to do today on the course I am writing for the end of next week, and this evening I have class. Somewhere between this and that I have to go shopping… I am out of vegetables, but that’s about it. Maybe I will take the opportunity to go for a good walk, which I have not done since my first 10,000 step day a few weeks ago.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 26–Monday, February 14, 2022

    Happy Valentines Day. My Valentine is 1600 miles away, but at least I will be able to speak with her. I sent her and her son a couple of gifts which they received and enjoyed over the weekend, but I really need to remember to ship her box to her this week!

    Yesterday was not a good day. I started out by visiting my father’s grave, and while it was -28° with the wind chill, I had some things I needed to say to him. It was cold but I said my peace. I did not rush it. I lit up a cigar, and by the time I was done, my cigar was nearly finished too.

    As I prepared to leave the house, I made sure to take my shake pouch with me. What I neglected to take was my shaker bottle, which meant that I could not actually make it. As I left Stephane’s house (where I smoked my second cigar, while chatting with a few friends), I took a handful of mixed nuts. As I sat with Caryl and Lawrence, I had a few slices of cheese. Either of these (or even both of them) would have been fine. It was the breaded foods and egg rolls that I had during the Super Bowl that were the killers. I did not overly pig out, but I did have a couple of egg rolls, a couple of chicken strips, and six wings. While the chicken was breaded, I take at least some comfort in knowing that they were baked and not fried, which would have been so much worse.

    Today has to be a better day for my diet. I have to get through it without cheating. I will be driving much of the day – I only sat down at my computer so that I could write and maintain my routine. Once I finish, I will pack up my kit (most of my stuff is already packed, and I am somewhat relieved that I am leaving Montreal with fewer bags than I came with) and hit the road. I will stop in Brockville to top up my fuel… or at least, fuel up enough to get to Tyendinaga, where gas was $0.16/litre cheaper than it is anywhere else along the road in Ontario (which is another $0.10/litre cheaper than it is in the Province of Quebec). Fuel prices have skyrocketed these last few weeks. I do not know if they are at an all-time-high (which is possible), but they are certainly higher than I have ever seen them.

    The drive will look like this: Brockville for gas, Tyendinaga for gas and a chat with a friend and potential business partner, and then probably one more stop to pee. I just finished my morning shake (it is 9:10am) so I will pull over somewhere around 1:00pm to prepare Shake #2. That should already be past Tyendinaga, but I do not need to map out everything with military precision. Taking a leisurely pace and the planned stops, I would like to be home by 3:30pm or so. There are advantages to not needing to stop to eat!

    I do have to pick up Princess Sophie from Nathalie’s house. I really have missed her this weekend, and especially knowing all of the crap that I have been going through it would have been very nice to have her here. If the timing works as planned, and if nothing else comes up, then when we get home we can take a nap before I have to start teaching at 6:00pm. Oh, and I should make sure I have lozenges and lip balm.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Psychology, and taking responsibility for one’s own life

    There is a quote from The West Wing that “…Presidential elections are won and lost on one square foot of real estate.” (Meaning in one’s head). It occurred to me this morning that weight loss succeeds or fails in one’s head.

    Outside of the Army and my mother’s house (which was stricter and louder), nobody has ever held a gun to my head and forced me to eat. All of my food choices have been mine, and they were just that: choices. How many times could I have made a healthier choice instead of an unhealthy one? Could I have decided to not go for that second (or third) serving at the all-you-can-eat buffet? How many times should I have opted for the salad instead of the French fries, or ten wings instead of twenty (or thirty)? How many bags of chips should I have poured one small portion from and then sealed, rather than eating out of (and finishing) the bag… or should have not bought in the first place?

    Some of these choices were made out of ignorance. More were made because psychologically I was not strong enough to make smarter, healthier, better choices. Yes, I probably rebelled against the Army’s discipline when I was discharged, and I went on an uncontrolled eating frenzy. That frenzy lasted what – seven years before I first tried to do something about it? Something like that. For one who is (in so many respects) so strong, it is a disaster that I could not have picked myself up by the bootstraps and stopped the unrestrained gluttony sooner. Let’s review:

    When I was engaged to my first wife, I started on Weight Watchers. By the time she left me I had lost nearly forty pounds. The first meeting after she left, I walked out in disgust after my weigh-in and never went back. It was not until years later that I found out that the facilitators really dropped the ball and were supposed to call me to after I missed one or two meetings. I will not blame them… but maybe two weeks after my separation I might have been in a better state of mind to get back onto the program.

    I do not think that I had a slip after my separation from my second wife, mostly because I was very active in Taekwondo. I was teaching several nights per week, which kept me in pretty good shape. About a year later, I had my final showdown with my mother, which prompted me to reevaluate many aspects of my life. I will not spend any time on the long-term emotional trauma inflicted upon me by my abusive mother; suffice it to say that I had an epiphany, realizing that if I was ever going to be a good person, I had to unlearn a lot of the behaviours and attitudes that she had taught me were normal. A few days later, on a day when I was particularly vulnerable because of the sheer immensity of the changes that I would have to make, my GrandMaster (who I suspect was also having a particularly bad day) yelled at me inappropriately, causing me to walk out… and I have not returned to that club since. Owing to the sudden lack of exercise, I started to gain weight again.

    In 2017 I started the program for the first time, with a medical (non-surgical) bariatric program. I lost a tremendous amount of weight. While I slipped back a little from October through January, I was back on track, losing weight at a respectable pace. I am not sure how much of that slipping was due to my mother’s diagnosis with brain cancer. Around the time I started regaining the weight, friends convinced me (against my will and better judgment) to visit her in the hospital. I went the day that she went in (for the last time) and stood there making small talk. She was a grandmaster in the art of the backhanded compliment, and even as she lay there on what was probably her deathbed, she complimented my sweater… and told me how lovely it would look if I just lost some weight. I was sixty pounds lighter than the last time she had seen me, and I had just lost a hundred pounds. Grandmaster indeed.

    Over the course of the next few months, I drove to Montreal almost every weekend to see her. I watched this once powerful and mighty force degenerate before my eyes. I told her one day that I forgave her. I said it to put her mind at ease. I was lying. I did not forgive her what she had done to me, and despite years of therapy, I do not know if I ever will. My weight crept up throughout that time, despite a couple of efforts to control it.

    And then she died.

    I always had an extremely complicated relationship with my mother, but her death essentially put an end to her and I ever being able to resolve things. I suppose it would have been nice had she, even lying on her deathbed, apologized, or taken responsibility. Now that would never happen… could never happen. Over the course of the next year and a half, my weight was back up to where I had started.

    I tried again… and while there were bumps along the road, I got back onto the program in July 2019. By October 2020 I was the lowest weight I had been in nearly two decades. My weight valleyed below what it had been when my first wife left me. And then it started creeping back up. It took time to get to bad, but from bad to worse was again due to psychological and emotional losses and traumas. My father died, and I shot up another forty pounds. My sudden and unexpected return to Canada, and I shot up another forty pounds. Relationship trauma, another twenty pounds… and I realized I was at my heaviest weight ever, and nearly 130 lbs up from my best. Not all because of psychological trauma and issues… but a lot of.

    It would be easy to blame my mother, my ex-wife, my Army trauma, and so many others for my weight gain. Everyone suffers psychological trauma, and it is how they deal with it that matters. I dealt with my trauma poorly. I am not going to say that there were no worse ways for me to deal, but the long-term effects on my weight and health are obvious. I can blame others, but the buck stops here. The responsibility lies with me, and nobody else.

    Owning one’s own shortcomings is never easy. It is so much easier to lay the blame on others. How could that possibly help me to lose the weight and to keep it off? If I blame anyone or everyone else, then the next time I am slim and suffer a trauma I will have the easy out… I can eat to my heart’s content, gain as much weight as I do, and it will be someone else’s fault… but the consequences are mind and mine alone, so in the end, that is not a healthy way to deal with it. Taking responsibility for one’s own actions and state and course means that there is nobody to blame for where I am going; I am at the helm of my own future, and no matter what external voices may tell me, I can lose the weight and keep it off because turning to food and especially to unhealthy foods is an obstacle to avoid, but when I am at the wheel then I can do it without listening to the voices telling me to eat.

    I am not writing any mantras to recite, I just have to remember every day to do as well as I can… and that slipping one day does not mean I have to go down the slope, it only means that I have to redouble my efforts to stop my fall, and to get back up again.

  • Memories Of A Friend

    A couple of weeks ago I got a reminder from Princess Sophie’s vet in California that she was due for some of her vaccines. After confirming the name with my son (the elder), I made an appointment for her with the vet that my family has used since before I met them. At 11:15 my girl was sitting happily in the passenger seat of my car, and we headed out there. We were only a few blocks away when I realized the reality of the last time I had been there.

    It was May of 2016 when Jacob-Pup went in. He was in pain, having suffered from a degenerative illness that essentially fused his spine. I had a difficult decision to make – either pay for a $12,000 surgery which had a less-than-50% success rate, or say goodbye. I held my best friend in my arms as the pain (and his life) drained out of his eyes. He was so brave, and even then he was trying to comfort me, reassuring me that I had made the right decision.

    It is nearly six years later, and as we approached the clinic I started to weep, just thinking about it.

    There are not many positives to the restrictions that the Covid pandemic have forced upon us, but had I been able to walk through the front doors of the clinic I might have lost it. As it was, handing Princess Sophie off the the technician at the door, then sitting in my car in front was not easy.

    The doctor called and we had our quasi-tele-vet appointment. As she kvelled about how wonderful my little girl is (beauty, temperament, and health), I was proud… but holding back tears, remembering the last conversation I had with her.

    While I never needed an excuse, I have always been an emotional eater. As we drove down Trafalgar toward the highway, I tried to avert my eyes. There is a pub along the road that makes among my favourite buffalo wings in the city, and how easy would it have been to stop in to pick up a pound or two? Who would have blamed me if reliving the death of my best buddy was the impetus for a cheat meal? I doubt it would have been one meal. It would have been the first step at jumping off a very dangerous slope, and I could not do that to myself. As Leslie said this morning, hate the diet, love the results. It would have been so easy, and so easily explained, had I just fallen off right there… but there are 365 days in a year, and if you live long enough, every day is another memory of something that would be another great excuse to fall off the plan.

    I drove right past the pub, speaking with Leslie for much of the drive. She is a great support when I need it. I had an errand to run (which involved walking through a supermarket full of tempting food), and then we were home… and I had not veered from the program. I did not even, as I said I might, go straight for my meal replacement, a little earlier than normal. I put my things away and sat down to write.

    After I press Send I will have that meal replacement, and then I will sit on the balcony with a cigar. Princess Sophie might join me, and if she does, we will honour the memory of my Jacob Doggie, taken from me way too soon.