Losing a part of me

Category: Sleep

  • Day 980

    I was doing well yesterday… and then I had to wait for my prescription at the Shoppers Drug Mart. I do not know what possessed me to buy a bag of chips and a bag of dried mango. I have to get a hold of myself!

    My knee has been hurting the last couple of days and I decided that I would proactively start taking the meds that healed it up a couple of months ago. That required a trip to the pharmacy. It is feeling much better this morning – not perfect, but definitely improvement.

    I did not get a great night sleep last night, but it was better than it has been in several nights. Around midnight I heard Princess Sophie asking to come into the bed and my first instinct was to get up and finally take the sleeping pill that I have been trying to not take. It took me a minute to realize that I had actually been sleeping! It was the first time since last week that I was able to sleep before midnight. Woohoo!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 978

    I did better yesterday than the day before… but I am still slipping. I know that if I could finally get a decent night’s sleep then I might have the energy to get through the day without falling off the program. That decent night was not last night. 

  • Day 975

    I fell off the program yesterday. I did not think I did that badly… until I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning. I might want to hang myself, but instead I am going to go for a long walk and jog to try to get back on track.

    Aside from gaining an astonishing and unheard of 6.2 lbs. from yesterday morning, I slept terribly (sleep score: 62), my Body Battery did not exceed 49, and I feel like garbage. That does not change the fact that I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get back on track.

    The hourly weather forecast predicts rain from 12-1pm and then from 5-6pm, and so I plan to go out for my walk between those hours. I will start with a jog and will see if I can go farther than the 1km which has been my jogging limit these last few months. Even if I can up it to 1.25km I will consider it a success.

    In the meantime, I also have some work to do to prepare for the class I am delivering Monday, so I will make sure that gets done before I head out for my jog.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 974

    I went for another good walk yesterday that began with a 1km jog. My times for both walking and jogging were not my best, but I still got 9km in. I am starting to think that it is high time for me to invest in a new pair of running shoes though… or possibly two, if I am going to keep at it.

    I nearly went off the rails on eating yesterday… fortunately I was able to rein myself in, and while I did have one more roll than I should have I still did not do terrible.

    My sleep score was up to 81, although somehow my fitness watch says I did not sleep until 12:30am. I suspect I lay in bed thinking for an hour, but I was in bed earlier than that for sure. My Body Battery only recharged to a 48, which is truly abysmal. I think today will be a day to take it easy and try to recover a bit. I might even take a nap.

    Come to think of it, I might just do that now. Have a great day folks.

  • Day 973

    I woke up this morning all excited to see significant weight loss on the bathroom scale. After my first decent bowel movement in days, I was a little disappointed that the drop was less than a pound. I took Princess Sophie for her walk, and then prepared breakfast. Before I bit in, I felt the urge, and was able to take my second decent bowel movement in days. I decided to weigh myself again, and was happy to see that from yesterday morning my weight is now down 1.2 lbs.

    I did not exactly kill it on my walk yesterday, but I did push myself for 10.4kms, averaging 9m35s/km. It was one of my most stable walks, with each split kilometre coming in between 9m26s and 9m43s. I was happy with my performance and will try to repeat it today. I have a few things on my mind, and I might not be able to get out, but we will see.

    Despite the exercise, and despite being in bed and trying to sleep by 11:30pm, I still did not have a great night sleep. My sleep score was 75m and my body battery only recharged to 41. Hopefully I will be able to do better this evening.

    The weather is going to be nice and sunny again today, so I should be able to get out there and put in a good workout… as long as I can keep my mind focused.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 972

    I was very down yesterday. I tried to nap unsuccessfully. I did not try to walk. I will try today. In the meantime, I also hope to get back on track with my weight loss, as I am up three pounds since the weekend. I have not moved my bowels in days and suspect a lot of the weight is backed up in there. My sleep score was a 75, and my body battery did briefly peak above 51 this morning… but that’s terrible. Hopefully I will get out for a walk today and will sleep better this evening.

    Speaking of this evening: Leslie’s son returns home to her tomorrow, so this evening will be our last cigar date for a while. At least I have that to look forward to.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 970

    I ate more than I should have yesterday, but again that was not unexpected. As is often the case, no single transgression is egregious, but combined they account for a very slight weight increase this morning. I made French toast for Leslie and myself for breakfast, and then on our way to the airport we stopped to pick up sandwiches from Subway. When I got home from dropping her off (usually the saddest part of our visits) I made chicken and salad for dinner… I simply ended up making more than I should have, and eating more than I should have eaten. Combine that with the fact that I am not moving my bowels regularly these last couple of weeks and yes… my weight was up a whopping (sic!) 0.2 lb. from yesterday morning.

    I was exhausted last night, so once Leslie had confirmed that she was home safe I planned to hop into bed to get a good night sleep. That was not to happen. Well, yes… was in bed by 10:15pm, that part worked. The sleep part? Not quite.

    The following might sound implausible to those of you who are not fur parents. Not that some nights Princess Sophie likes to sleep in my bed… that is not uncommon with pets. When Leslie is here though, we do not let her sleep with us. While the bed might be big enough, we both tend to move in our sleep to get comfortable, and it was decided long ago that we would not let her sleep with us. Well! Saturday evening, she (Sophie) decided that she wanted to sleep in the bed, and we were firm in our refusals. To get her to cooperate (reluctantly), I had to promise her that she would be allowed to sleep in the big bed two nights in a row if she agreed to sleep outside the room. I was surprised that when I was ready to go into the bedroom, she was comfortably laid out in her bed, so I did not disturb her. I got into bed and was slowly dozing off when I heard the pitter patter of little paws walking my way. Knowing I had promised her, I picked her up and brought her into the bed. She then spent the next hour licking my face. I do not know whether that was because she missed sleeping with me, or to thank me for keeping my promise, I do not know. I do know that I after my hour-long face-cleaning, I could not fall asleep until 2am. Sleep score: 69, and my Body Battery was only 47 when I got up. I will try to sleep well this evening so that tomorrow I’m in better condition. That is not to say that I will not try to go out for a walk, but it might be a shorter one. I have a bit of work to do today so it’s going to be later in the day – possibly even in the evening.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 969

    After what I ate yesterday, I was not expecting to see a drop on the bathroom scale this morning… certainly not a drop of 1.8 lbs., but then I do have to remember that Thursday evening I gorged on bread and cookies, and Friday evening ended with a slice of pie and a large scoop of ice cream… all after having had a shawarma wrap for lunch. I am glad that my weight is back down to 285… 2.6 lbs. heavier than my best weight of the month, but 7.8 lbs. lighter than my worst.

    I did not sleep well last night. I woke up around 1:30am to my dog barking at someone in the hall, which is a rare occurrence here. It left me with a headache that would plague me the rest of the night, and I mostly tossed and turned. The end result was a sleep score of 63. Boo. As expected, I did not come close to my steps goal… but I still exceeded 8,200. I’ll take it for an off day!

    Yesterday actually went pretty much as I had planned. We ate breakfast out, we had a small bite of leftover spanakopita for lunch, and for an early dinner we headed to the pub on the corner, where I ordered my usual fish and chips. The only aberration to my eating yesterday was that we got home from our evening plans and were a bit puckish, and so we finished off the rest of the pie. I had done the smart thing yesterday afternoon when I gave the rest of the ice cream away to a neighbour, otherwise we would have eaten that as well.

    I hate the fact that Leslie is leaving today. I made her a lovely French toast for breakfast, and we will likely do a late lunch… but all of that is hiding the fact that in the mid-afternoon I have to drive her to the airport. I love when we are together, and I hate when we have to part. Fortunately, I did do what I had said yesterday… I booked my next trip to see her in Dallas. We will be apart this time for 35 days, which is a long time… but at least it is a known quantity; when she left here in July, we did not have a date for our next meeting, and it ended up being two months. At least I have the countdown set this time.

    While she is leaving later today, it is still a lovely day in Burlington. As she packs and gets ready, I am going to go to the café to pick up our traditional lattés. It is, after all, Sunday morning… and a latte and cigar is the order of the day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 968

    My sleep score was back in the low 90s from last night. I feel much better throughout the day when I get a good night sleep… but that is not surprising or frankly very insightful. My body battery was an incredible 98 this morning as well.

    My weight was up again – Leslie made a delicious lamb for dinner, and we decided to splurge and pick up pie and ice cream for dessert. I do not mind that I am gaining a few pounds for her last few days here – we are enjoying our way too limited time together, and if that involves splurging then so be it.

    We bought a challah for Shabbat yesterday and I was going to make French toast for breakfast, but when I realized I was missing a couple of key ingredients, we opted instead to eat breakfast out. I will make the French toast tomorrow.

    While I did not exercise yesterday, between walking Princess Sophie and the many errands we ran, I still recorded 11,700 steps. I am happy with that. Because of the amount of exercising I have done of late, I still did not hit my goal according to Garmin… my fitness tracker wanted me to hit 13,950… and so be it.

    We have some errands to run today as well, but nothing on the scale that we needed to do yesterday. We have to go to Walmart and Shoppers Drug Mart, but that’s it. In the evening we will be connecting with some of my lodge brothers for cigars, which is the only social activity that we had planned for the week. We still do not plan to be out too late – I hope that we can be home by 10:00pm.

    Tomorrow is a sad day… I will have to drive my wife to the airport, and we will say goodbye for another month or so. I plan to buy a ticket to go see her next month… I might even do that right now.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 966

    I woke up this morning to see that my sleep score was a 68. This, after two nights in a row of the highest sleep scores I can remember (90 and 94). I don’t know what I did wrong, but I am sure I will feel it throughout the day. My body battery is an abysmal 39 at 9:30am… I have taken Princess Sophie out so I have likely depleted that somewhat, but 39? Yick.

    I did not feel like exercising yesterday. I told Leslie as we sat on the balcony after lunch that I did not want to go out for a walk… and so I did. I jogged the first kilometre (6m46s) and then walked… and while I doubt I broke any personal records, I certainly smashed my best times for this year on a couple of kilometres! Six split kilometres were under 9m32s, and one was even under nine minutes flat! I felt great throughout… but around kilometre number seven I started to feel a blister developing on my right heel. Yes, I wore one of the two pair of running shoes I have that are extremely great for performance… but also cause blisters. By the time I had 9km behind me I was ready to limp home. I didn’t of course… but I did stop at Shopper’s Drug Mart to pick up a bottle of Gatorade and to replenish my water. For the next few days, I will be wearing the other shoes that may not let me perform as well… but they also do not tear up my feet. I will also be bandaging that heel until it is properly healed.

    Here is a tip for all pedestrians: I will gladly give you right of way for a lot of reasons, but not if your eyes are buried in your phone as you walk right at me. Even if I was not 6’2” and 280 pounds, I would still walk like a bulldozer. I am not easy to miss! As I walked up Headon Forest Drive, there were two girls from the Catholic high school who were walking toward me, side by each. One of them was looking up, the other was not. I saw them from 150 feet and assumed that at some point the one girl would look up, or at least her friend would tell her that she should do so. Neither of those happened, so when I was 15 feet from them, I said (in my best Drill Sergeant’s voice) Look Up! This is not something new to me – I remember doing it when I was in Japan a decade ago. The girl freaked out, hiding behind her friend and doing her best to get as far away from me as possible. Am I that scary? I don’t know… but I will not break my stride for you if you do not look up from your phone for that long. In truth, I suspected she might call the police because she was so frightened… but I did not look back at her, and no police cruiser stopped me (From that point I stayed on the same street for over 3km… I was not hiding!) so I guess I’m okay.

    After not wanting to exercise but going out anyways, I was pleased to see another drop on the bathroom scale this morning. I did not get to cross off anything on the chart this morning, but dropping nearly a pound still felt good. I am now at my best weight since June 16! I suspect with what I have planned for today it will be the last day of losing weight… but we will see.

    Yesterday I prepared egg salad sandwiches for lunch. It was my first attempt at egg salad, and while it was not great, it was also not bad. For dinner I made seared tuna with a sesame crust and a side of rice. Leslie and I were joking that with good tuna you just need to show it the pan… but in all seriousness I think I needed to keep them on the heat a little bit longer. Live and learn, right? We had fabulous cigars in the evening, paired with two different Cuban rums that were both smoother than silk. A good time was had by all, but we were both quite inebriated by the time we hit the sack.

    I don’t know if I mentioned it this year, but I know I did last year. One of the apps that I use has a yearly challenge called You Vs. The Year. You have to log 1,024 kilometres of activity to be eligible to win the prizes (which I have no expectation of winning). Considering I was not exercising for a few months I am thrilled that I am currently at 744.89km on the year and am in the top 14.1% of 172,500 participants. Yes, it does log my walks with Sophie, so while I was not exercising at least I was not stagnating. I seem to recall last year hoping that I would complete the challenge by October. If I continue to walk as I have been these last few weeks then that is a real possibility for this year as well.

    I mentioned a few paragraphs ago that I do not expect I will be losing weight today. I am planning on picking up shawarma for a late lunch. More often than not that is a recipe for gaining weight. I will likely not have much for dinner, but it won’t matter… shawarma is both fattening and salty, which means that tomorrow my weight will almost certainly be up. It is also extremely tasty… and a nice occasional treat that my wife and I both love.

    I am not sure if I am going to walk today or not. The only reason why I would not is the blister on my heel. We’ll see.

    Have a great day folks!