Losing a part of me

Category: Sleep

  • Day 1156

    With another two-pound drop in my weight this morning, the first week of my ‘No Groceries’ plan has me down a little over seven pounds in eight days. I know I could have done better in several ways, but I am not going to gripe about that. On my last day before I leave for Montreal I just need to stay the course, and then hopefully not do too badly over the four-day trip. In preparation for the trip I have purchased and downloaded a new audio book, and will be listening happily to the story of zero-day malware for the duration of the drive to and from the city of my birth. While for many people this would sound like torture, I assure you that it is right up my alley.

    My sleep this week has not been great, but last night it was abysmal. I tossed and I turned and I just could not fall asleep. When I got up to pee around 5am I pushed my wake-up alarm by forty-five minutes, knowing that I had probably only fallen asleep two hours earlier. I am not sure if the sleep score of 31 that my fitness watch recorded was the worst night sleep I’ve had since I started tracking it, but it would have to be close. If I am going to get through today without falling asleep on camera it will be only with large doses of caffeine, which of course will in turn affect my sleep tonight. It may be the last day of the week, but before we celebrate the weekend, I have fourteen hours of teaching to do. I’ll make it… but I likely will not enjoy it.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1152

    Day One of my renewed efforts saw slight but not total fails. I found myself away from home for longer than I expected, and I bought a bag of potato chips. I was certain that when I weighed myself this morning I would be back up to 212 lbs.; what a relief that my weight was in fact down by a pound from yesterday, making for a total drop since Thursday morning of 4.4 pounds. Considering how disgustingly heavy I was then I am not calling this a resounding success, but at least I know that I am trying to regain my footing and begin to make progress.

    I was sitting with a Lodge brother yesterday and I told him, without going into the details of how, that I decided to drop twenty pounds before the banquet. He told me that he would encourage me and discussed his weight loss goals as well. I was glad that he did not try to discuss his strategy and did not ask me about mine. I really do not feel like discussing my plans for how I will do it but am happy to have the support of people who are encouraging me to do it.

    I also had a lovely video chat with my wife yesterday. It is hard living so far apart, and I am glad that technology allows us to not only talk but to see each other as well. I cannot imagine how much more difficult a long-distance relationship would have been before the era of video chats, let alone reasonable phone calls. I dated a girl when I was in the Army, and she lived in the United States. I cannot imagine how much money we wasted on long-distance calls… before she came to Israel to see me, and we both realized that it was a mistake. My marriage to Leslie is absolutely the right thing, but I am still glad that we do not have to pay thousands of dollars on phone bills!

    I did not sleep very well last night, and it was in large part because of my shoulder which has been bothering me. I spoke with a Lodge brother who is a chiropractor, and he is going to help me out, but first I have to have a day when I can go to his office. That will not be for a couple of weeks yet, and so I am thinking about taking a couple of pain killers in the evening before I go to sleep. I am hoping that helps, but we will see. If not, then I will stop taking them and I will try something else. In the meantime, my sleep score of 63 from last night does not bode well for how this day will go; I will be teaching from 8:30am until 5:00pm, and then from 6:30pm until 10:30pm. It is going to be a very long day… and I have three of those this week, while Tuesday and Thursday I am only teaching the daytime class.

    I said last week that I was hoping the packed schedule would help me with my eating, but it did not… if one can go to the grocery store to buy provisions, one can eat; also, once one is at the grocery store already then it is easy to just buy a couple of things that are counterproductive to weight loss. Knowing that I will not be shopping this week, but will be relying solely on meal replacements, is going to be most helpful. I am still weaning myself off food and will likely have my last plate of pasta for lunch today. Okay, I actually have plenty of pasta in the house, but only one meal worth of pasta sauce, so that should do it. I am giving myself this option because I know that the first few days of the program are extremely difficult, both emotionally and physically, and so if I find myself lagging in class this morning then I will give myself the option. I will not absolutely eat, but if I need it then I shall. I also know that if I do not eat it for lunch, but after a long day of teaching I feel I might need it to make it through the evening of teaching then I will have it between classes. It is a safety net if nothing else.

    So far this morning I am doing well on water and coffee, and I did remember to add fibre to my morning meal replacement. Also, in anticipation of a resounding success getting back onto the program, I have ordered more shakes.

    Wish me luck folks… and have a great day!

  • Day 1145

    My anxiety kept me up last night… and then woke me up early this morning. In two weeks I will have my appointment and hopefully things will go well and very hopefully that will make things a bit easier. We will see. In the meantime, this is going to be a very long week of working… and I am thrilled by that.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1126

    I am tired. It has been a long day which was supposed to begin with a 3:00am alarm to drive Leslie to the airport… but my eyes popped open at 2:00am and were not shutting. She is home safe… although there is an issue with her luggage which I will not address here.

    This afternoon she and I had a frank discussion about both my finances and getting back on track with my weight, which necessarily will include exercise. Yes, the last couple of months the stress and anxiety have nearly killed me, but even though not all of my issues are resolved, it is time to start up again. That will be this week.

    Have a great day folks… I have to teach which means I cannot sleep until after my class ends at 10:00pm… but I doubt I will be awake by 10:15.

  • Day 1125

    I took Leslie for breakfast yesterday as planned. I ordered the French Toast with strawberries and bananas and drizzled it with maple syrup. It was delicious! Before driving her to the airport we then went to the pub, and I enjoyed a plate of fish and chips. I was tempted to change that up but decided that many of the other options were somewhat less healthy for me. We drove to the airport and were so early that we decided to stop off at another restaurant to share a dessert. I dropped her off at the exact time we had planned for our tearful goodbye, and I drove back to Burlington.

    I was already back in Burlington when my phone rang. Leslie told me that the airport was shut down, and that she needed for me to come back to pick her up. I had already completed my (safe and calculated) U-turn before I asked her what had happened, and was back there in precisely the least amount of time one can safely drive from Burlington to Pearson International Airport. A plane crash on an active runway (which you have probably already heard about by now) had the entire airport shut down until… nobody knew. My wife, ever the smart one, had already rebooked her return flight for Wednesday morning when she called me. The reasons may be terrible, but I have another full day with her, and I am not complaining about that.

    My original plans for dinner last night were complicated by this, and I left the leftover shawarma for my wife to eat. After all, it was her leftovers! I prepared a couple of meatless cheeseburgers for myself – one with a bun, the second without. I had some mini crisps on the side. I had to be finished with my meal by 6:15pm so that I could be online to teach my class, and so I had plenty of time to digest before bed. While I do not think my food intake was the healthiest yesterday, it could have been much worse.

    My weight dropped this morning by over a pound. I actually weigh less than I have since the beginning of February – I have vacillated between this morning’s 305.6 lbs. and Friday’s high of 311.2 lbs., which tells me that while I have not made any progress, I have also not lost ground. In truth, expanding that date range back to December 20 and I have been as low as 299.8 lbs. twice (December 22 and January 19), which means that I have not changed a lot since before Chanukah. With all of the stress and anxiety and problems I have endured in that time it is no small success that I have not done worse.

    My food plans for the day today are currently up in the air. I decided to wait until Leslie is awake to discuss breakfast, as I would normally just make myself an omelette and she would make whatever she had planned (usually instant oatmeal), but I know she had planned her oatmeal down to the packet for her original Monday departure, so she has none left. She is not a fan of my omelettes. I will give her the option of taking her out for breakfast again, and if she agrees then we will probably do something similar to yesterday. I will skip the desserts, as I will also take her out for a nice dinner. I had planned to do so Saturday evening, but those plans were thwarted by the inclement weather. Where we will eat is up in the air, but it will most likely be either sushi or steaks. I have not discussed this with her yet, and she might not want to eat out because of her very early flight tomorrow morning. We will see.

    I usually only discuss my sleep score when it is really good or really bad, and even then, I often forget. Last night it was down to a 77, which is still on the high end of fair. The fact that it was down from two nights in the 80s (88 Saturday night and 82 Sunday night) means that I have actually been sleeping pretty well. I am quite pleased by this, because good sleep is so important to good health.

    Leslie is now awake, and she has told me that she does not want to go out for breakfast. That is good for my eating, and I will shortly make my omelette. Lunch and dinner are still unknowns – I will discuss them with her once she has had her caffeine and some food.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1123

    All the weight that I gained since last Sunday is now gone. Phew! I also slept very well, with a sleep score of 88. Things are looking up!

    Leslie and I went to the supermarket yesterday to make sure we had the necessary provisions to make it through the worst snowstorm of the year (and probably the worst since I moved back to Canada). We then ordered a pizza for lunch and came home. We spent the rest of the day relaxing, which included a cigar on the balcony, a lovely dinner, and then we got into bed and watched a movie. We have so little time together, and we are trying to make the most of it.

    Last night’s dinner was a veal chop, and at the last minute I decided to try my hand at making garlic bread. I did not have a lot of what I would normally use, but I gave it a shot. It was a total failure, but at least it is something that we can joke about.

    Her Royal Floofness was not impressed by the snow this morning, and our walk was as short as it has been these last couple of weeks. Leslie and I then enjoyed our breakfast together. I got some work done, and in a little while I am going to choose a book and then go lie down next to my wife to read. It will be a nice relaxing day… all that we are missing is the fireplace!

    Our lunch will be meatless cheeseburgers. For dinner I am going to try my hand at a new recipe that I have not tried before. I take comfort in knowing that if I screw it up completely (like the garlic bread cum croutons) then we have the raw ingredients to make an entire new meal. I hope that it does not come to that.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1120

    My weight was up again this morning, but I should mention that right before I ate I had a much better bowel movement than before I got dressed. I did not sleep very long, but I slept next to my wife which makes up for a whole lot. My cold is slightly better today than yesterday.

    I taught all day today, and I believe my students were happy with the class… despite my cold changing my voice somewhat.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1119

    My cold keeps getting worse. I was really hoping that yesterday would have been the worst of it, but no such luck. I will spend most of the day resting, and then will wake up to shower, then teach for four hours before heading to the airport. There will be plenty of fluids and vitamins in me today!

    I neither lost nor gained weight this morning… and while I slept over eight hours, my fitness watch gave me a lousy sleep score. Boo. Fortunately my anxiety did have some relief yesterday. Thanks goodness for friends… and my father z”l.

  • Day 1113

    All of the stress and anxiety that led up to today led to… one single incorrect sheet of paper that was not properly formatted (by a third-party). I was up at 4:20am to be in downtown Montreal in plenty of time for my interview; I had breakfast and then waited in line, and when I got to the clerk, she told me that I would need to get that paper corrected and then make another appointment to come back. I was not happy. The stress and anxiety shall continue… but at least I had a few of my questions answered.

    Obviously, my sleep score was lousy, what with my teaching until 10:30pm last night and then needing to decompress, and then eventually recorded 3:51 of actual sleep, and a commentary of ‘short, poor recovery.’ No kidding. When I finished at the cemetery, I came back to where I am staying, answered some emails, arranged my appointment, and then took a nap. I did not sleep much, but I did rest for two hours.

    I made an appointment for tomorrow to redo what needs to be redone, but in the meantime, I am going to have an early dinner with my friends and then I will drive home tonight instead of tomorrow during the day. This so that I could take the appointment with them for tomorrow afternoon.

    Despite the -12 temperatures and having to slog through (and stand in) seven inches of snow to do so, I visited my father’s grave site and had a cigar while I spoke to him. I miss him so much.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1105

    My weight is not cooperating, but it seldom does when I am under the weather. At least I got a good night sleep at last. I woke up in the middle of the night once or twice and was afraid I would not be able to fall back asleep, but I did. Here’s hoping that I can stay reasonably true to my game plan today.

    Whatever I may be sick with is still with me, but it is neither better nor worse than it was the last couple of days. If it does not get worse then I’m not worried about getting through the day.

    The weather is not pretty. While the temperature is reasonable, the wind is wild so the windchill is not pleasant. Princess Sophie and I made it almost to the end of the block before turning back. She does not like the howling winds. She hates wet and precipitation as well, so combining the two meant it was going to be a short walk. At least she did all of her business before we turned back.

    Today is Day 3 of my class. I am pretty much on schedule, and I hope the students are enjoying it. I did get a bit of good news from a student I taught last year – he passed one of his exams yesterday and thanked me for the class. That always makes me feel good.

    Have a great day folks!