Losing a part of me

Category: Schedule

  • Day 1286

    This morning’s weight was worse than the last couple of days, and it is infuriating… even though I know it does not really mean anything. What I might weigh at 2:30am is always going to be different from what I would weigh at 8am. I also know that it had been three days since I had any sort of bowel movement, and when I was finally able to do that later in the morning I was quite relieved… and expect that will impact my weight tomorrow morning.

    Today is my last day of teaching overnight… until Monday, when I start a two-week class doing the same thing. In short, my sleep schedule is going to be quite horked through to August 22, and there is very little I can do about it. I am not about to turn down huge amounts of work so that I can get a good night sleep. I am excited to begin that class, and once I get into a rhythm I should be able to manage the six hour offset quite well. The hardest part of it will be the following weekend, when I am meant to be back on a normal (Eastern Daylight Time) for two days and then immediately pop back to Central European Standard Time. I’ll survive!

    Since I will be doing it for two straight weeks, I am going to establish my 1:00am weight as my normal through the fortnight. At that point I will not be worried about the hour because it will be consistent. Hopefully I will still be losing weight; hopefully I will be able to follow a reasonable routine.

    I wrote the previous paragraphs earlier. It is now my lunch hour (that is, 7:15-8:15am). I just came in from walking Her Floofness, and I prepared my first meal replacement shake. I have a few more minutes to enjoy it before my lecture starts up again, so I will do that and wish you all well.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1030

    My weight was not up to what it was at a couple of days ago, but I gained back nearly two of the three pounds I had lost yesterday. Boo.

    My sleep score from last night was 73… much better than the previous night, and about on a par of what it normally is. I’d like to get it up above 80 on a regular basis, but I had a meeting to help a friend with his computer at midnight, and I wouldn’t think any night that I get into bed after 2am it would be much better than what it was.

    I was wrong, I did not have the time to go to the pharmacy yesterday. My day got much busier than I had expected. I will go today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 863

    I admit I was hoping to drop below 276 lbs. this morning, but it was not to be. My weight stayed exactly where it was yesterday… and I have to wait at least another day before I can cross off another number on the fridge chart. I should mention that while my caloric intake and activities were about right yesterday, I was not able to move my bowels this morning. Hopefully that will happen later in the day.

    I knew when I stepped onto the treadmill yesterday that I likely would not be able to jog as far as I had the previous day. I set my goal to jog at least 4km (at a slightly quicker pace), but then to walk another 3km if I could. That would match the distance for the previous day, and almost guarantee that my steps goal streak would be extended. Indeed, it was extended to twelve days, and with the progressive scale of my fitness watch, today’s goal is 15.400 to extend that streak. I would really like to extend it today and tomorrow, giving me a 14-day streak (possibly my best since switching from Fitbit to Garmin nearly five years ago. Of course, knowing what my work schedule looks like next week, that is the extent of what is possible. Monday I am working from 8:30am until 9:15pm, and while it is theoretically possible for me to fit in a workout, it is unlikely. With that, my goal is to hit my 14-day goal streak. I will try to do that by actually going out for a jog this afternoon, but I am not sure yet. It is a beautiful day out, and I think I am caught up on my shows… but I am really enjoying the audio book that I am listening to (Mario Puzo’s The Godfather).

    I stand corrected. My longest goal streak was actually sixteen days… from April 10-25, 2023. That is probably at the peak of my jogging – looking at the record, I see eight workouts of over 10km, and one two-hour jog of 15km! Wow, I would love to be able to get back to that in the next few months. I have my work cut out for me… but in the meantime, I see that my weight in that period fluctuated between 264 lbs. and 253 lbs. … and when I was jogging 15km I weighed about 23 lbs. less than I did this morning. I will get there; I am sure of it!

    My eating yesterday was not great, but I think I did okay with regard to mitigating my lapse. After my post-workout shower, I ate a protein bar, as I said I would. My energy level was still bordering on zero, so I decided to go to the car and eat the break-glass almonds that were there. I did that prior to my class at about 5:15pm. I then prepared my third meal replacement at around 7:45pm. After my class I debated whether or not to prepare the last one and decided that I should not. I was a bit hungry for my last couple of awake hours, but I made it through to bedtime.

    I have a Zoom call in a few minutes with an old friend and colleague who now lives in Prince Edward Island, and then an hour after that I will have a video date with my wife. At 2:00pm my buddy Eduardo is coming over. When he leaves, I will try to go out for my jog. All in all, I have a relaxing but very busy day ahead of me. I guess I should get on with it.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 847

    I did something yesterday evening that I do not remember doing in a very long time: I ate half of an apple. It was a very large apple, and while I could easily have finished it I thought that would be ill-advised. I accomplished this by cutting it in half before biting into it, and I immediately put the other half into the fridge. I was not sure that I would have the willpower to not go back to it later in the evening, but I made it.Woohoo! I also did not eat all of the French fries, opting to prepare a reasonably sized portion, and then putting the rest of them back in the freezer.

    I reached out to my diet buddy, as I promised I would. She is going to be unavailable this weekend, but we are planning to connect the following weekend. I hope she has been doing well, and look forward to catching up with her.

    Yesterday was my last 12-hour teaching day of the week. Today I am teaching from 10am to 5:30pm, and Friday I am teaching from 5:30pm to 9:00pm. It is a relief to get back to a more reasonable schedule, and I hope that I can use that to get some exercise in. These last couple of days I have looked out the window during the day and wished I could change into my running kit and go out for a walk or a jog or some combination of the two. Tomorrow I know I have to take Her Royal Floofness for an appointment, but that is the only daytime commitment that I have. If it is a nice day then I am going to try to push myself to get out for a walk.

    Despite eating pretty well yesterday I was shocked with a two pound gain on the bathroom scale, and I was not pleased about it. If a couple of yogurts and half an apple are going to kill me like that then I should probably just give up. No, I am not giving up… but I will try to eat better today than I might.

    I got very busy after writing the previous paragraphs, and did not get around to finishing… or publishing the article until the following day. Oops.

  • Day 698

    I picked my diet buddy up at the airport yesterday morning at 6:00am. The problem was that I had only fallen asleep about two hours before I had to wake up to do that. Result? I was exhausted all day. The fact that I did not fall asleep at any point was a miracle! It was great that my buddy Rob came over in the evening for a cigar, and he was certainly a good person to chat with… but had he not come over, I likely would have been in bed and asleep by 8:00pm. As it was, I was asleep at 11:00pm… more or less.

    I checked to make sure my alarm was properly set last night… I swear. In fact, I am even reasonably sure that it went off when it was meant to. That does not mean that it did its job. When I finally opened my eyes – with no recollection of the alarm having gone off or of my having disabled it or hit the snooze button – the clock read 8:05am… I jumped to it, took an Army shower, and then took Her Floofness out for an abridged walk. Fortunately, it was -4° outside and she was not interested in dawdling. I was able to start class on time, and the only thing missing was breakfast. I gave my students labs to do an hour into class, and I made myself an egg sandwich… which I ate in front of my computer (although off-camera).

    I did not weigh myself yesterday morning. Had I done so I would have hated the number. I did weigh myself this morning, and while I was still over 260 lbs. today, I suspect that yesterday would have been much worse. Tomorrow I will be back below that.

    I want to thank the people who check in on me when I miss a day blogging… I had actually written yesterday’s very brief entry but forgot to press Publish. I took care of that after receiving an email from a friend/reader, and yes… I backdated it to yesterday, so my streak continues.

    I’ll see you all tomorrow.

  • Day 338

    I am running late this morning, but it is not because of a lack of focus. In fact, quite the opposite. I have had a very productive morning. The training company that I am starting to work with in January asked me for some of my previous course evaluations, and I had to track them down. Some of them are easy – I have them in my e-mail, and for the Microsoft courses I have delivered there is an online evaluation system called Metrics That Matter which has been in use as long as I have been a trainer. With that said, most of the non-Microsoft courses (the ones that I am currently focusing on) are not as easily accessed, as there is no central collection repository for them. I have found (and shared) what I could, but I have also requested more from the other training centres I have worked with. We’ll see what I get – for a top trainer (which I like to consider myself) it is always nice to see the evaluations that come from the students, many of whom I will stay in touch with long after our week or weeks together are done.

    I did something this morning that I do not remember doing in recent memory. I woke up at 7:30am, got up to use the washroom quickly, and then went back to bed and slept until 9:15am. I do not know if it has anything to do with the new meds that I am on, or if I have simply been tired for a few weeks and knew that I had no obligations this morning, but it was glorious. Princess Sophie, who had been sleeping in her own bed on the floor most of the night, climbed up onto the bed and snuggled in with me, as if to let me know that not only was it okay to not take her out right away, but that it was a really good idea to have a lazy morning.

    After finally getting out of bed and doing my morning washroom rituals, I took a look out the window and knew right away that Princess Sophie would only step foot out the front door is she really needed to go. I usually do not start the coffee pot until we are back from our walk, but this morning I opted to do so before we went out. Sure enough, we got to the front door, she took one look outside, and set her feet firmly on the indoor carpet. She is not a fan of precipitation in any form, and the blowing snow that she saw the second I opened the door was not at all to her taste. We came back upstairs, and we were settled in before the coffee pot was half full. She did ask for a play date with her friend Charlie, and the two of them are currently frolicking around the apartment behind me.

    I had a very productive bowel movement this morning, which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means my bowels are purging a lot. It also means that I have eaten more in recent days than I am used to, which is not a good thing, and is something that I will work on starting today. As I mentioned yesterday, because of the forecast weather I am essentially hunkered down inside for the next few days, and there will be little opportunity to cheat – I have enough food to last for nearly a week, but I do not believe I have anything really bad for my diet… unless I decide to defrost the Montreal Bagels that I have in the freezer – which I do not intend to do. No, these next few days should be easier to stay on track.

    Again, I have been distracted while writing this journal entry, but not by Facebook or other nonsense. I had a positive email exchange with the training company and have another contract with them starting in February. Additionally, I received a message from Esti (my father’s partner) and called her back to not only to catch up and to wish her a Happy Channukah, but also to discuss with her a number of issues pertaining to myself, my family, and hers. These may be distractions, but at least one of them was a necessary one (for professional reasons). Income is important, and when a call goes out to trainers, the difference between signing a contract for $11,000 dollars and getting nothing can be a matter of minutes. I think we can all agree that this is a distraction worth being distracted by!

    My psychologist called me yesterday to offer me a regular meeting time beginning in January. I am thrilled by this, but I will have to be careful about scheduling. My classes will conflict with the appointment time, and I will have to remember to schedule meal breaks around that. It is not something I have no experience with, but I will have to remember to look at my schedule carefully when planning courses out. Hopefully with my newfound focus (thanks to the chemical help) I will not forget to do that.

    With a little over a week to go, I think I have given up on my one hundred pounds lost in 2022 plans, but I do still hope I can achieve that goal in the year since starting the program (January 20, 2023). All I have to do is focus. Isn’t that a huge overarching subject of my last few weeks, and especially my hopes to address the ADHD issues? Focus, Focus, FOCUS!

    Because I slept in, I ate my morning meal replacement earlier, which means that I can now start preparing my lunch to eat at 1:00pm, rather than at 11:45am. I hope that will help me to get through the day successfully, without having to worry about adding extra meals (or even meal replacements) throughout the day. These last couple of days I had an extra meal on my plate (and on Wednesday it was actually two extra meals). Today’s only program aberrance will be my Shabbat challah bread.

    Have a great day folks!