Losing a part of me

Category: Sleep

  • Day 1080

    My day yesterday did not go as I had planned. I did not drive to Niagara Falls (we will go one day this week) and I spent several hours waiting to see a doctor and then to get an x-ray of my hip. Hopefully it starts to feel better. I also slept a ridiculous amount – I was in bed shortly after 6:00pm, and while I did not fall asleep right away (nor stay asleep right through) I did not get out of bed until 7:30am. My sleep score was only a 78, but that is better than it might have been.

    I did not eat terribly yesterday, but my weight continues to creep up. I hope that in a few days my hip is back to normal so that I can resume my exercise routine.

    I am meeting a couple of people for coffee today. Hopefully I will stay on track.

  • Day 1078

    It was a relief to see my weight drop a little this morning. Actually, it dropped quite a bit… but because of the terrible increases over the past week, it is still way over the terrible mark. Add to that my hip is still in agony, so there will not be any exercise today (or likely for the next few days).

    I am still unsure if we are going today or tomorrow, but it is likely that my buddy and I will be driving down to the USA tomorrow to pick up our packages. As long as I do not get tempted by junk food this should not be a problem. Additionally, this evening I have a meeting at the Lodge, but we are not serving dinner (that is next week) so I should be able to get through today without too much trouble.

    While my hip is still in agony, I finally got a good night sleep last night, with my fitness watch registering 7h59 minutes, and an excellent sleep score of 93. At long last I got some much-needed rest. Phew! Also, Chanukah is officially ending at sundown, but other than the Lodge dinner I did not overdo the holiday. I am just grateful that the holiday invites for Christmas and such are behind me. Now it is time to try to get back on track.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1074

    I woke up this morning after a slightly better night’s sleep than the previous night; then again, with a sleep score of 48 it would have been hard to not beat it. I got into bed at a relatively early and really tired, but that did not help me sleep one bit. I tossed and turned until I finally nodded off around 2:00am. I ended up logging just shy of seven hours of sleep according to my fitness watch, and my sleep score was a 76.

    My weight stayed right where it was yesterday, which is not a bad thing considering some of the cheating I did.

    I am not sure what my plans are for the day, as I am still waiting for a friend to get back to me. Either I will smoke cigars with friends, or I will smoke cigars alone. That is the daytime. In the evening I will be with my boys to light the candles. It will be nice to see them.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1060

    I was not nearly as disciplined as I needed to be last night, and because of that I am much closer to that horrible mark than I should be. Why is it that after doing well for just a few days I fall off the cliff and cannot stay disciplined?

    Tomorrow is the first day of the week-long class that I am sitting for my next certification that I hope to earn. I will have to be at my computer from 8:30-5:30 every day, so if I do not go shopping and buy any cheats then the only opportunity I will have to cheat badly is at the Lodge’s holiday party Tuesday evening. I will get through it. In the meantime, today’s challenge will begin with taking my son the younger for lunch… most likely to his favourite Lone Star Texas Grill, which means that I will either not eat, or I will be very careful. It is easy to do there because I know that the slightest misstep will cost me. After that, I am going back to their house to work on his computer. It is amusing for me to see my fourteen-year-old son hacking his way through a computer that I am monitoring.

    (Six hours later)

    I am back from lunch, and a lengthy conversation with my ex-wife. We had some issues regarding both of our sons to discuss. Additionally, it seems that some time ago she had DNA profiling done on her and our son the younger. I assume she had it done for our son the elder as well, but as he and I do not share DNA it was not discussed. It came as no surprise that Gilad was just short of 50% Ashkenazi Jew… although there was also a trace (on his father’s side) of Mizrachi, Sephardi, and Georgian Jewish as well. While I cannot say for certain that this is proof that my ancestors were all faithful, it shows that if they did stray then they did so with other Jews.

    The conversation about our son’s computer was interesting. I let her know that children are able to circumvent just about any security that we put on their computers. Knowing that, it is no different than the adversarial side: if the easiest way to hack a system is through social engineering, then that can also be the best way to defend against misuse. During our lunch I let my son know that I can see everything that he does on the computer, and his level of embarrassment shot up to a nine. He promised that he would stop doing what he had been doing while he is supposed to be studying (or when he is in class). As for my ex-wife’s concerns about ‘what is becoming of our little boy’ I reassured her that everything he is doing is perfectly normal and is the 2024 equivalent of when we would sneak out as teens. At least with what he is doing online I can monitor it and keep him safe.

    I may have gotten out of Lone Star Texas Grill without cheating, but when my ex offered me a cookie that she and our son the elder made (and was quite insistent) I could hardly say no. Fortunately I was able to stick to a single cookie. I came home and prepared chicken and salad for lunch. I am letting it digest for a bit, but in the next thirty-minutes (or so) I will be getting onto the treadmill. My current step-count is just shy of 4,000, and yes today is Day 16… I need to hit 11,140 steps before midnight to extend my steps-goal streak to sixteen days which will tie my streak from April last year. If I tie it today, then I can beat it tomorrow… but if I do not then I would have to start over at the beginning.

    On the subject of the steps-goal, I cheated yesterday. No, I did not put my fitness watch into the clothes dryer. What I did was this: I hit my steps-goal before going to the party… and I took my fitness watch off for the evening. I did not want to record 15,000 steps yesterday… that would have adjusted my steps-goal for today way up. As it stands, my daily goal is 11,140 steps, and that is doable… but not easy. I have been having trouble keeping my pace these last few days, so I have slowed to a walk. I do not want to do that today… but I am currently a bit over 7,000 steps from hitting my goal (about 7km) and I would rather reach that goal at a slower pace than miss it at a faster one.

    My body battery was up to a 75 this morning after a sleep score of 83. Neither of those is bad, but I wish I could consistently do better. I might have to research how to do that.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1059

    It was a much earlier morning than I would usually experience on a Saturday. I got up to pee at 5:30am and could not fall back asleep. I had a couple of things on my mind, one of which was the welfare of a friend who is quite elderly who I usually get a response from pretty quickly but who failed to reply to my messages yesterday. When I finally decided that I was going to get out of bed, I found a message from him on my phone which was a relief. That did not change the fact that I was up and at ‘em much earlier than I necessarily needed to be. I took this as a sign that I should go down to the USA this morning to mail my stuff… and I am going to try to meet a couple of friends for breakfast in Grimsby.

    My steps-goal streak was extended to fourteen days yesterday. I hopped onto the treadmill mid-afternoon and jogged 3km then slowed to a brisk walk for another 3km. There were a few distractions I was facing – all in my head – that had me stop between kilometres, but never for more than 30 seconds or so. I would prefer to be able to go right through (as I did earlier in the week) but 6km with a few short breaks is better than nothing. After I came in to get ready for bed, I realized that I was still short about 1200 steps for the day, and so I got onto the treadmill and walked at a reasonable non-exercise pace and knocked off the last bit. With my strategic planning I knew I needed to hit 11,070 steps on the day. As I ended up getting up to check on something before I fell asleep, I ended the day with 11,132 steps. The goal for today is 11,090. When I get back from my daytrip I will get onto the treadmill and get as near to that goal as possible so that when I go out to the brewery this evening I will not be pressured.

    My sleep score was lower than it likely would have been had I fallen back asleep, but knowing that I only slept six hours I am pleased with the 76. My body battery was up to 93 this morning which is also quite a success. My weight, after two days up (a combined 1.6 lbs.), is down again this morning (by 1.2 lbs.) so I am still under the terrible mark, but I have to be vigilant to put more distance between me and that point before the Christmas dinners start. Of course, I do not know what is on the menu for this evening – whether it is finger foods or an actual meal – so I will plan for it by bringing a meal replacement bar… just in case whatever is served should be incompatible with either my weight loss or religious dietary needs.

    It is another very cold morning in Burlington, Ontario. While the temperature should rise briefly to 0° this afternoon, when I took Princess Sophie out this morning the mercury read -12°… not taking the dreaded windchill into account. Looking at the long-range forecast, today is the last bone-chillingly cold day for the week, with high temperatures ranging from 1° to 9° until it finally drops back below freezing next Saturday. Keeping in mind that it is mid-December in Canada, I am not going to complain!

    I guess I should hit the road so that I can get there and back in a reasonable timeframe. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1058

    Despite all of my eager gung-ho attitudes yesterday morning, I did not have the energy to attack the day as I had planned. With that said, I was not about to break my streak. Yes, I took Her Floofness for her two very cold walks during the day, and I went out to pick up and then drop off my cleaning lady at the train station… but with all that, I still did my very best to stay inside.

    The problem was that I did not have the energy. I got onto the treadmill after Sophie and I came back in, and I just could not run. This was partly because I did not have the energy, but also partly because I felt a bit of pain in my ankle. It was not injured, but it felt like it had the capacity to be hurt. I did my best to keep a decent pace, but the instant I hit my steps-goal for the day I shut it down. I completed 4.87km I shut it down and got into the shower. The steps-goal for the day was 11,050. I went to sleep with 11,140 steps recorded (and only because I got up to transfer my laundry into the dryer). Today’s goal is 11,070 steps, and my streak is up to 13 days.

    I have mentioned before that I have been strategically metering my steps so that the daily goal does not jump too high. I am three days short of my best streak (since switching from Fitbit to the Garmin fitness watch), and I do not want to set the bar too high which might force me to fall short. It will be easy to regulate my steps today because I will be home for most of it (not only because it is extremely cold outside, but that is part of it). If I achieve my steps-goal for today that will extend the streak to 14 days… and will bring us to Saturday, the only day where the strategic metering might be difficult. I will definitely make sure to exercise before, but in the evening, I am going to a holiday party for a Lodge, and I do not know what to expect. I doubt that it will be a sit-down meal, and do not know how many steps to expect while milling about. Because of that, I expect that assuming I do extend the goal streak until then, Sunday (the potential Day 16 of the streak) might be the hardest day. I will do whatever I can to beat the streak… even if that means a longer and more arduous Sunday.

    Both my sleep score and body battery were tremendous this morning. My sleep score was 91, and my body battery was an almost unprecedented 99. That means I should be able to jog the full 5km today, depending on a few factors. I still have not decided whether or not to drive down to New York State (I have to decide very shortly) but if I do not then I will make lunch and then hit the treadmill.

    The weather is slowly warming. That is to say that the windchill, which was -20° when Sophie and I went out, is up to -8°. It is by no means warm or comfortable, but at least it is closer to reasonable than it was. It is sunny out as well which makes it pleasant to look out the window. I will try to keep that in mind throughout the day… especially if I decide to stay home.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1055

    At long last I had a productive bowel movement this morning. While it did not completely clear out my system, it certainly had a negative affect on another one… but nothing that a little plunging could not fix.

    I decided to buy a package of rice cakes yesterday. I will not be doing that again. I have disposed of what is left.

    I was relieved that the lodge that I visited yesterday ordered pizza… and that the only ones that did not have meat on it had olives. The former I cannot eat for religious reasons, the latter because I just do not like olives. As such the only cheating I did after the lodge meeting was a dram of whisky proffered by one of the lodge officers. They also invited me to their holiday party this Saturday evening which is being held at a local brewery. I am seldom tempted by beer, but I will go for the camaraderie.

    Yesterday did not go as planned (mostly owing to the rice cakes I would think), but I managed to eke out one small victory. It was 10:30pm before we left the lodge, and I had not yet hit the 6,500 steps mark on my fitness watch. I wrote yesterday that I wanted to extend my steps-goal streak, but when I got home, I still needed to take Her Floofness out for a walk (which would never amount to the 4,500 steps needed to hit the goal. By the time she and I got back in (around 11:15pm) I was still below 7,500 steps. With very little time to spare I changed into my workout kit and got onto the treadmill. I knew that my workout would not be a good steady one, but I wanted to hit my steps-goal. I did the first kilometre at the same 4mph pace I had done my previous jogs at. For the second kilometre I kicked it up to 4.5 mph, and actually felt like I could have gone farther at that speed… or faster. For the last 1.3 kilometres I dropped the pace to a brisk walk. The daily goal was 11,000; I got off the treadmill at 11:45pm with 11,018 steps registered and finished the day with 11,027 (I take my fitness watch off when I get into the shower of course).

    The steps-goal of my fitness watch is a progressive goal. I am not entirely clear on how it works, but apparently Garmin calculates the steps-goal based on the value of the previous week (about) achievements. As such, were I to stay in and do nothing then my steps goal would drop tomorrow, but if I had blown my steps-goal away then it would jump. As an example, there was one day in February when my steps-goal was 8,700, and I took 14,700 steps. My steps-goal the following day was 9,910, and I took 17,742 steps. My steps-goal the day after that was up to 11,480, but I only took 10,900 steps. That would have been enough to crush the steps-goal from any previous day, but because of the huge surplus on Days 1 & 2, it was below the actual goal for Day 3. I am currently on a 10-day streak, but I have been somewhat practical about it, in that I have not vastly exceeded my steps-goal on any given day. On November 30 the goal was 9,740. While there have been a couple of days during the streak when I ‘crushed’ it, most days I have only slightly beaten the calculated goal, so while the goal for yesterday was 11,000, today’s goal is 11,010. I will definitely need to hit the treadmill (or go out for a jog… it’s pretty nice out today), but I will not need to up my game to a new level to extend my streak to eleven days.

    My sleep score was 79, the best it has been in quite a few days. This despite the late-night workout. My body battery peaked at 66, although that is now down to 54. I am sure that before the day is done it will get all the way down again… but hopefully I will have a good night sleep and will be able to recover completely.

    A lodge brother is coming over for a coffee in a little bit, but aside from that and a Zoom meeting I have to attend this evening it should be a quiet and relaxing day. I will certainly hit the treadmill, but I do not think I have too much else going on. With the weather I might even sit outside with a cigar.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1053

    I am not sure if today is Day 3 or Day 4 without even a half-decent bowel movement, and I suspect that is having at least some effect on my weight. Yes, I ate the rest of the chicken and salad (that I had purchased on Friday) yesterday, but it was not an unreasonable amount. I also jogged five kilometres on the treadmill. All this to say that I am reasonably sure that if my system was not backed up then I would have dropped more than a couple of ounces from yesterday morning. I am still 3.2 lbs. heavier than I was Wednesday morning.

    Today is going to be a challenge. We are having a holiday get together at a buddy’s place. We will mostly be smoking cigars, but the host asked about our pizza preferences. I told him to not account for me in his pizza planning. He then posted this morning that he is going to pick up special doughnuts. I am going to have to avoid those as well. I have packed three protein bars to take with me and will try to stick to eating only two of them. Whatever I do, when I get home this evening I will be hitting the treadmill.

    Speaking of the treadmill, I did a strong 5km jog yesterday evening. The difference between my quick-walking and actually jogging is the difference between setting the speed to 3.6 to 4.0. It feels good to be able to jog and not tire out as I would have a couple of months ago. I actually feel that the factor that stopped me from a longer jog yesterday was the time constraints – I had a meeting I needed to get to, so I had to cut it short when I did. I will see if I can go longer this evening.

    Over the course of the last couple of hours I have gone to the washroom a couple of times, trying to produce… something. It is hard and painful, but slowly over time I am getting some of that blockage out. It feels as if I have not had any fibre whatsoever. I am thinking that this evening I might consider a laxative to see if that helps.

    My sleep score last night was fair – a 76, which is mostly because I woke up earlier than I might have (especially for a Sunday morning). My body battery was up to 48. While I certainly slept better last night than the previous night, it would seem my body did not recover as well. Hopefully that will get better tomorrow. We will see.

    Speaking of tomorrow, I am teaching for the day. It is an intro course so nothing too deep, but I am looking forward to it. It is my only day teaching this month… yikes. I am glad to have not wasted my downtime… I sat a class, passed two certifications, and next week I am sitting another class to hopefully earn another cert. These two certifications will really increase my value as a trainer and as a consultant. I have gone through slow periods before and truly wasted them. Between November and December, I will have had two days of actual work… but I have definitely not wasted the downtime. Professional advancement is crucial in my line of work, and I have done a lot of that in this period.

    The plan for today is to NOT fall off the wagon, right? Okay… let’s try to make that happen.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1051

    The 5.5km treadmill workout I did yesterday put me over the top. I have officially completed the MapMyFitness.com ‘You vs. the Year 2024’ challenge. I am in the top 12.16% of participants (186,000 participants). Completing the challenge does not mean I am going to slow down. I am hoping to continue to make progress with my working out and losing weight for the rest of the year, and well into 2025.

    I cheated slightly yesterday but not terribly. I met some of my Lodge brothers at the pub before the official meeting, and I had to order something. I ordered the least cheating (while still within my religious dietary requirements) thing on the Happy Hour menu. Thinking about it, I could have ordered the six-piece chicken wings… but I know that wings are my Achilles heel, and I did not want to risk falling off the wagon because I had to order something.

    My weight did drop slightly this morning, but I would have preferred to see a more substantial drop after yesterday’s tremendous gain. No dice. I will continue to try to do as well as I can so that I can hopefully get back to where I was Wednesday. We’ll see. My sleep score was an amazing 89, and my body battery was up to 83 this morning. While my Body Battery was better yesterday, my sleep score had not been that high in nearly four weeks. I am glad that I got a good night sleep and will try to benefit from the body battery by hitting the treadmill for another good workout later today.

    I was put on the unpopular side of a discussion at our Lodge meeting last night and I felt bad that I was the only opposing voice. I realize that I was the one nay vote, but I am uncomfortable to have been placed in that position. I am going to try to discuss it with the Lodge’s leadership so that it does not happen again. If it is going to happen then I will have to walk away from the Lodge. I am in a very bad headspace over this.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1050

    For a few months I was one of those people who had a piece of exercise equipment that was used mostly for hanging clothes on. I never wanted to be one of those people. When I first bought the treadmill (which I brought home January 1 of this year) I used it quite a bit… and then stopped. For part of the time that I was not using it I was walking outside because the weather was warmer, but for a lot of the time I was just not walking. While I do miss the warmer weather, I am glad that I am back on track with my treadmill. I will continue to walk until I feel that I am able to jog, and then I will continue to jog. I suspect that by that point the winter will be ebbing, but we shall see. It will be nice to be able to walk or even jog outside. I have currently logged about 145km on the treadmill and have found it to be a good way to stay on track when it would be so easy to fall off. Yes, I have plenty of ways to fall without the treadmill… I took advantage (sic!) of several of those ways yesterday.

    (By the way… welcome to Page 1000 of my journal! It took nearly three years to do, and I am not nearly at my goal… but I will keep at it until I am.)

    I am not sure what put the idea of canned salmon into my head, but I had it for a few days. I had told Leslie that while I might do it, I would rather do it for lunch so that I would have the opportunity to burn it off before bed. Yesterday I made the salmon salad that I had been craving. It was delicious, but I vowed that I would not eat anything else (except meal replacements) for the rest of the day. I then went to meet my friend and her girlfriend for dinner… and how much harm could a poke bowl do, right? Of course, while we are sitting to watch her show, I would never buy a bag of chips… but when the girlfriend offers me some of hers, well that’s not such a bad thing, right?

    Everything I did in that previous paragraph was wrong.

    I had done a very short treadmill walk yesterday. I did not have the energy, but I still did a 2km quick walk in the afternoon. I knew when I got home in the evening that I was still short of my steps-goal for the day. I had to take The Floof out for her walk, but that still left me about 1500 steps short of the daily goal. I had failed in so many other things yesterday, but I wanted to at least accomplish that. I got onto the treadmill at 10:00pm and walked the 1300 steps that I was still short… and then called it a night. My streak is up to 5 days. I will extend that today.

    Let’s take an inventory here. I hit my steps-goal, but in a pretty lackluster fashion. I ate horribly. I slept very well (my Sleep Score was 86, and my body battery actually hit 90 this morning). Some good, some bad. The number that matters – that on the bathroom scale – was very bad. I gained three pounds. Ouch. I have to do better today… and tomorrow, and the following day as well.

    As of this moment I am 1.7km short of reaching the 2024 goal for the MapMyFitness challenge. Had I logged my walk with Her Floofness this morning (as I usually do) then I would have surpassed that goal already. It was not really a decision to hit the goal with exercise as much as it was that I forgot to end the walk, which meant that by the time I realized it, the 1.5km walk was in its third hour. I decided to just discard it and will reach the goal on the treadmill this afternoon.

    Speaking of this afternoon… I will do at least 5km on the treadmill, and then after I am cleaned up, I have an appointment for a haircut. Once that is done, I am heading down to Grimsby where I will meet up with a buddy for a cigar. There is a Lodge meeting this evening, and a bunch of guys wanted to meet for dinner. I am not joining them because I really want to stick to my program… especially after the disaster that was yesterday.

    I fell. I am getting back up.

    Have a great day folks!