Losing a part of me

Category: Sleep

  • Day 383

    Today is the first day of a very long and grueling week, all of which I am very excited about. I love teaching, and I especially love that as a contractor who ‘eats what he kills,’ my dance card is filling up nicely for the next little while. Knowing that my daytime class today starts shortly, and that my evening class follows immediately after the culmination of the early class and continues to 9:30pm, I was in bed at a reasonable hour last night, my alarm set for 7:00am, ready to face the very long day well-rested. What happens then when you cannot sleep? I fell asleep just fine, but my eyes popped open around 3:45am, and for love or money I could not fall back into slumber. When I finally gave up on sleep (for the short term), I decided to go through my phone’s picture library from the past three years. I am very good at taking lots of pictures, and because I was notified recently by Apple that my cloud storage was full, I even went through them a few weeks ago and deleted hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures that were just not needed. In the middle of the night, my mission was to add a few mew pictures to my Favourites folder. It turns out that meant nearly two hundred pictures of Leslie, several of HRF Princess Sophie, and maybe 5-10 of friends and others. By the time I finally got back off to sleep (around 5:15am) that folder had ballooned from 18 pictures to 230. I broke my general rule and took another melatonin gummy, and finally closed my eyes again… and even though I did not sleep through to my alarm, that extra 90 minutes of sleep was important. I feel that I can now face the day.

    Yesterday evening I told Leslie that after two days at the same weight, I was really looking forward to seeing the numbers on the bathroom scale drop this morning. She told me that if my weight stayed the same, I am still winning. While we had a minor misunderstanding over the homonym lose, I agreed with her that staying where I was would not be a loss. I am glad we had that conversation, because guess what I weighed when I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning? If you guessed exactly what I weighed yesterday and the day before, then you win the prize! I did not drop below 285 (see my psychology rant from yesterday… I originally wrote 385), but I did not gain. I will stay on track again today, and hopefully tomorrow I will break the plateau. If not, Leslie is right… as frustrating as it might be, it is nowhere near as bad as that plateau just above the 300-pounds mark. I will also mention that today was the third straight morning that I was unsuccessful moving my bowels… that is not uncommon while on my full-fast program, but I do hope to end that streak tomorrow.

    My plans for today are to stay on track, and with my schedule I doubt I will have any opportunity not to. While I have three 15-minute breaks throughout the day, I am supposed to have a 1-hour lunch break, but I have an important appointment that will take up most of that time. As such, the order of the day is coffee with meal replacements… and nothing more.

    My diet buddy came over for a cuppa yesterday, and we had a great talk. It really is great that both of us have stayed (mostly) on track. I had my modified program, and she had her surgery, but a year later and we are both doing great. I really hope our friendship continues to grow even after we have both achieved our goals. We discussed yesterday how difficult it is to know that we will always have to be mindful of what we eat and will never be able to eat like we once did again. It is sad, but an alcoholic cannot have just one drink… for us it will be more difficult because we will still have to eat, just differently. I told her all about the Chinese meal that I planned out beforehand and enjoyed in Dallas, and that gave us both a little hope that while we cannot eat like we once did, at least we can eat and enjoy it. I think one of the big tricks will be for us to switch from eating to enjoy the experience to eating in order to fuel our much healthier bodies. That will not be an easy change for either of us to make… we both love food so much! She was telling me about a brunch she enjoyed that included eggs benedict on avocado toast, and while it sounded delicious, it also sounded dangerous. She enjoyed it but got right back on track. Maybe she is further ahead with the psychology than I am.

    One more thing that we discussed was getting rid of our bigger clothes, which led to a much more important discussion. She told me that she had a colleague who was larger, and she was going to give all of her larger clothes to. I asked her how close she was to that colleague, and she told me not at all. I then advised her not to do it. I reminded her how personal our weight loss is, and that giving her the clothes can be seen in several ways, but almost all of those ways would include having to share her journey with yet one more person… and each extra person you share with takes a toll. That is before we even hear from them their experiences and struggles, and why what we are doing is wrong, but their way is better. She agreed with me and will be donating all of those clothes to charity. The colleague’s loss will be the charity’s gain.

    I want to clarify one thing about my occasional sleep issues. A year ago, I had trouble sleeping because I could not get comfortable with the massive bulk of my body. That is not the case now… but sometimes I simply cannot sleep. I know that the meds I take for ADHD can affect that, which is why I take that pill first thing in the morning, which my doctor assured me is the best way to make sure that it does not affect it too much. There have been several nights over the past few months when I had trouble sleeping, but that was usually due to stress and anxiety caused by factors that were (at the time) beyond my control, but which were still very real. Last night? There is no reason, other than sometimes people have trouble sleeping!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 367

    Yesterday’s realization regarding my falling out of that extreme classification (Morbidly/Severely Obese, or Obesity Class III) felt so good. I could not stop kvelling about it! I called my wife and told her that I was obese! She could not figure out what I meant… until I explained it, at which point it was definitely something to celebrate. She has been my number one supporter throughout the process… even if sometimes (more often than either of us wish) she has had to show it to me through tough love.

    I have said often that when I look in the mirror, I still see a fat man. I have said often that this might be a psychological thing that will never go away. However, I looked in the mirror this morning; a day after spending a lot of time reading my thoughts and feelings and perceptions from the beginning of my journey – as well as where I was after I fell off and started gaining weight and losing ground – and tried to evaluate myself realistically. I still have a belly… but it is nowhere near as immense as it was a year ago. I still have man-boobs that hang down, but they do not hang down as far nor feel as heavy as they were. I still have ‘love handles…’ but they are not sticking out from my centre nearly as much as they did. When I stand with my hands to my side, if my arms are completely rigid then my hands do stick out… but only a little, and not nearly what it was. I can look at myself objectively and see real progress. That could be because of the exercise I did with the tape measure the other day, or maybe it is because as my body shrinks, the mental anguish of being morbidly/severely/Class III obese is shrinking as well. It may not shrink as quickly… but I think that my mind is starting to accept that I was not always fat, and I do not have to always be fat.

    Yesterday was weird. I had a lot of disruptions – some of which were professional and important, others… less so. However, in the afternoon I sat at my desk, and for the first time in I don’t know how long… I studied. I probably spent five or six hours working on my new certification, which is really exciting. It is not really the certification that is exciting, it is the knowledge and skills that I am learning from the studies. Additionally, I realized something that I have told my students countless times… the class materials are a great starting point, but they are not enough. I spent a couple of extra hours building a virtual lab environment for myself so that I can play with the tools we are being taught… and not just press the buttons that the labs tell us to press. This is taking me outside of my comfort zone – I have always been able to do absolutely anything related to Microsoft Windows, but my experience with Linux is much less complete. Building the machine was a challenge (that took me hours to overcome), and then realizing that the differences between this particular version of the Linux distro that I downloaded – in name, the same as the one that CompTIA integrates in all of its labs, but in practice the differences between that and this look like jumping from Windows 7 to Windows 11. In short, things that I thought I knew I would have to relearn… or more accurately, learn better. This journey is also helping me to see that if I keep it up, I might be able to change my descriptor from ‘IT Professional with a strong understanding of security’ to ‘IT Security Specialist.’ We’ll see.

    I said at the beginning of the last paragraph that it was weird, but I want to elaborate on that. It has been years since I have been able to sit at a desk and focus on studying. I am not saying that I did not get distracted, which would be a lie. I am saying that every time I was distracted, I did what was called for, and then went back to studying. It was truly amazing that over the course of six or seven hours, I probably did a legitimate five hours of studying. With my inability to focus and concentrate for so many years I have not been able to do that, and I see this as a direct result of my ADHD meds actually working. I am thrilled that I am seeing huge improvements, and so far, no noticeable side affects. I do not know if that will change, but I have discussed some other improvements with Leslie, and will be reporting back to my doctor once again that I (we) are seeing noticeable results.

    I have so often vented my frustration at the numbers on my bathroom scale, often because of the unstable flooring in my apartment which so often gives inaccurate readings, often varying as much as a couple of pounds from one reading to the next just seconds later. This morning was no different. My three readings ranged between a 1.2 lbs. gain and a 3 lbs. loss. In the end, I opted to keep the measurement that seemed the most reasonable. I kept to the program religiously (again), so the 1.2 lbs. gain did not seem realistic. At the same time, it is unlikely that I dropped three pounds overnight. In the end, I kept the reading that has me down .6 lbs. from yesterday, which means I am four pounds down in a week. I am happy with that. I would be happier if the floors here were consistent though. While that is not even in the top-twenty ‘Reasons I am excited to be going to see Leslie this week.’ I know that when I step onto her scale, I will know exactly what I weigh on any given day.

    I have had a headache since last night. I know it is not because of dehydration; I am drinking enough water daily to float a canoe in. That does not make it any less real. I noticed it after smoking with a couple of guys last night, but let’s be honest… I have enough experience with cigars to know that they do not cause me headaches. I will stay aware of it and see if it continues longer than a day or two. It is not bad enough for me to want to take a pill for it, but If I am still feeling it tomorrow then I will reconsider.

    I did not sleep well last night. I probably fell asleep around 3am. I was not watching TV, I was just… not sleepy, no matter what I tried. I also woke up to pee (wow did I have to pee) three times between getting into bed and waking up this morning. I was relieved to see that at least I was able to sleep until 8:30am. When I have trouble getting to sleep, I am always worried that my eyes will pop open at 7:05am, despite not having anything pressing to do that day. If Princess Sophie really needed to go out, then she would tell me… but otherwise it was good to be able to sleep a little bit later than usual.

    Where has the morning gone? I am amazed to see it is after noon already. I helped someone by editing (read: ripped to shreds) their CV, but I cannot imagine that took me as long as that. I have written a bit, I have answered some emails, and I wasted a little time on Facebook. With that said, I realized this morning that I have not watched TV at all this week. That is really new for me. I knew that when I was teaching during the day last week that I would not have time for it, but this week I had plenty of free time, and did not do it. I thought about it for a few minutes yesterday, then decided to try to work out a few of my Linux issues. Whether or not it is because of the medications I do not know, but I do know that I have been a lot more productive this week than I usually am on weeks when I am not teaching.

    While I am not actually hungry, I should probably prepare my second meal replacement of the day. I am trying to keep a regular schedule which should help me to stay on track and waiting several hours until I am really hungry is probably a bad idea. I think there are a few drops of coffee left in the pot so I might make that last half-cup… we’ll see. I will do some studying today, but then I expect I am getting together with friends.

    Have a great day folks!

  • 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 358

    It is not often that I get out of bed in the middle of the night and come to the computer to write. I have not fallen asleep yet, so while it is now tomorrow, I feel like it is yesterday because I have not slept. As expected, I had a very uncomfortable conversation yesterday evening, and I cannot get it out of my mind… nor the repercussions, and things that I will have to do to finish that off. It is too painful to sleep, and I wish I was not on a diet so I could crawl into a bottle of scotch and drown myself in my sorrows. I do not really have that option though, do I? It is the middle of the night, and I have to be bright and alert to teach tomorrow… and what a long day it will be; I am scheduled to log on to my daytime class at 9:00am, and I will sign off of my evening class shortly before 10:00pm. I will have three 15–20-minute breaks during the stretch but my lunchtime, usually reserved to sit, relax, and eat, will be taken by an appointment with my therapist. While it will be a very long day indeed, I can think of no day more in need of a conversation with a therapist.

    The only thing I am looking forward to tomorrow (today?) is stepping onto the bathroom scale. After my first full day on the strict program, I expect I might be down a pound. Yesterday morning (or today?) I weighed 310 lbs… which means that in the next day or two I will finally break through that elusive 300-pound mark and into what I once dubbed two-town. I do not know how my stress and inability to sleep will affect the numbers on the bathroom scale; while I am hopeful for progress, I am not expecting anything. The stress of the day might affect my body in unpredictable ways. I might be five pounds down or five pounds up for all I know. There is no way to predict it. I am just going to have to wait and see.

    While yesterday was supposed to be my first day on the strict program, I actually did not conform completely. I was meant to have five meal replacement shakes for a total of 800 calories. In fact, I only had four, totaling 640 calories. Add to that my three cups of coffee, including almond milk and raw sugar, and I did not even come close to seven hundred calories on the day. Yes, I have been hungry for the last couple of hours… but I do not want to eat after 9:00pm. I did drink a lot of water during the day as well, which is prescribed on the program. I really should keep better track of my water intake, but it was probably at least two large Blender Bottles – probably between 1.5 and 2 litres. I will try to keep that up for the next few days and will endeavour to keep better track of it.

    Okay, I am going to go back to bed and try once more to sleep. I will eat another melatonin gummy in the hopes that sleep will not continue to elude me. One can always hope, right?

    —

    It is perhaps a bitter irony that on the morning after I got the terrible (but expected) news, after the restless and mostly sleepless night that followed that news, I stepped onto the bathroom scale and I saw the number that has been just out of reach for two months. My weight this morning has dropped below 300-pounds for the first time since I started my diet just under one year ago. I wish I could share the celebration with Leslie. Unfortunately, that is not in the cards. I am at a loss for words on that subject.

    Yes, today is the first day of my residency in Two-Town. I was going to say that I hope that I am now a permanent resident, but I remembered that hope is not a strategy. I am going to have to work hard to stay here, and to become more deeply ensconced in it. While the Jeffersons moved on up, my goal now that I am here is to move downtown… I am at the very top of the Two-Town neighbourhood; by spring I hope to be in the 260s, and by the end of autumn I would love to be around 210. Is that possible? I do not know. These are goals; whether I will achieve them in that timeline I cannot say, but I am going to work on it. To quote Paul Simon’s Crazy Love: “Well this will eat up a year of my life… and then there’s all that weight to be lost”

    When life gives you shit, it is important to try to find at least some positive. You can see shit as smelly waste that leaves a bad stench, or you can see it as fertilizer that eventually give you roses.

    • Let’s start with the fact that I was able to stick to the full, unmodified program yesterday. I was truly concerned that I would not be able to. Whether that will be sustainable for a couple of months or even a week or two is still unknown… but I will do my best to stick with it for as long as I can. More on that in a few minutes.
    • As I mentioned in an earlier article, I have decided to wear a shirt and tie (often with a jacket) when I am on camera from now on. The first three days of this week I wore shirts that I had custom-tailored for me when I weighed sixty pounds more than I do and had altered to fit me again about forty pounds ago. Today I put on a shirt that I had tailored when I weighed thirty pounds less than I do today, in 2017. It fits perfectly… even over an undershirt. In honour of that, I am also wearing the tighter sports jacket that I had made at the same time.

    …yeah, that’s about it. I cannot think of any other positives this morning. I am glad that when I start telling them I will have the full support of all of my friends… but I am not ready to start telling people yet. I will start with my therapist, with whom I have my first regular appointment today during my lunch hour (which, with the consent of my students, I pushed by 30 minutes to accommodate). Two of my friends knew (not suspected) that it might be coming. Everyone else? I do not feel the need to advertise my pain.

    I want to get back to the meal replacement program. I mentioned that yesterday was my first day on the strict program, and that I have enough product to make it through next week when I will have the time to drive into Scarborough (with the current traffic it would be a one-hour drive each way). This is a combination of the American and Canadian products, which are different in a number of ways. I have done the math, and I have enough American shakes to get through the third meal replacement Sunday. If I replace two of the shakes with soups (also American product), then I make it through Sunday night. I will have a couple of soups left over, but that’s neither here nor there. Monday morning, I will start on the Canadian product, which changes the program in two significant ways. The advantage of the Canadian program is that it gives you an extra 100 calories, which is that much more energy consumed. From experience, I know that I have been able to survive and even thrive on the Canadian program. The advantage of the American program is that while it is fewer calories, you eat more often throughout the day – five meal replacements instead of four. Eating less, but more often throughout the day, has real psychological advantages, and even with fewer calories, I know I was able to survive and thrive on this program too, and eating less but more often is a good solution to the boredom-eating that I am prone to. Starting with a few days on the American program and then changing to the Canadian one after a few days will give me those few days to get used to only eating meal replacements… five of them for five days, before transitioning down to four of them on Monday.

    My goal most days is to stay on track, or right the course, or to not cheat. Today is a much harder day, and my goals are:

    • Make it through the day without falling apart.
    • Do not fall off the program – consume my five meal replacements, and nothing else.
    • Figure out how to be completely professional all morning, then open up to my therapist at lunch, and then immediately transition back to being professional right after lunch.
    • Stay awake! I am working on a total of three hours of fitful sleep, and I have a twelve-hour day ahead of me. While I seldom do this, I expect that I will be preparing a second pot of coffee today.
    • Try to get a good night’s sleep tonight. However tired I might have been, sleep eluded me last night, and I will pay for it today. I might need the coffee to stay awake today, but however tired I might be, I will need to cut myself off around mid-afternoon so that the only thing impeding my sleep is my brain, and not the chemicals.

    Will I succeed? I have to… my career depends on it. No matter what is going on in my personal life, I have a reputation of being a top-notch technical trainer; I have learned the hard way a couple of times that a minor slip can have devastating consequences… and this cat is on his seventh if not eighth life in some things. No matter how sad and depressed I might get, I have to put on a brave face for the students… and for the training centre. I can fall apart on the weekend… as long as I schedule it in advance.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 352

    Once again, I did not veer from the program yesterday. Two meal replacements, one meal. Lots of water. I also drank more coffee than usual, but that has never really been a factor…. especially since I finished my last cup before 2:00pm.

    Once again, despite all of that, the bathroom scale reading this morning was up… by more than a pound.

    I am not happy with this damned plateau. If the rest of my life was going smoothly then maybe I would be less concerned, but it is not. I am having a hard time of it, and I wish at least when I stick to the program that I could see some damned progress.

    I am not sleeping well, which is mostly due to the emotional turmoil that is my life right now. I really wish things could be simpler, but that is not in the cards.

    I have a few errands to run today, and on my way home I will go to the supermarket to pick up some vegetables and challah for this evening’s Sabbath blessings. Unless there is a drastic shift in the way something is going, I do not expect that the peace and joy that I pray for will be come. I hope at least it will come for the others that I pray for.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 339

    It is Christmas Eve, and, as usual, I have received a couple of notes from friends asking if I was okay. They know that with Leslie in Texas, I am alone for the holiday. What they do not understand is that it is not my holiday. I respect that with all the hype around it, people naturally think that everyone celebrates Christmas. I do not. I will not sit about the house sulking the next two days. I will go about my business as I normally would on a day off. Why? Because that is what it is. I am not sad or morose being alone… at least, no more so than I usually am when Leslie and I are apart. I wish all of my Christian friends a very merry Christmas, as I look forward to lighting the candles for the seventh night of Chanukah this evening.

    HRF Princess Sophie is not a fan of weather. She does not like extreme cold or wind and is truly opposed to any form of precipitation. She is my true California Girl. I was not surprised, knowing that she was out late in the afternoon yesterday, that she was not setting foot out the front door last night… but I knew that sometimes comes with consequences. No, she did NOT have an accident, but at 4:20am she told me that it was time to go out. The snow was still coming down lightly, the winds were howling, and the thermometer read -17°. We got to the threshold, and she took one look outside and thought better of it. We went back upstairs, but she looked at me with those expressive eyes and said ‘Daddy, I HATE the weather… but I am a princess, and this princess will NOT do her business inside her castle. Let’s go back downstairs… but it’s going to be FAST!’

    All of this to say that between the storm and my dog, I am not getting a lot of steps in these few days. While the storm seems to have passed, I am staying true to my plan to stay home unless I get an unexpected last-minute invitation from someone that I cannot turn down. The snow may be over but that does not mean that all of the roads are properly cleared and salted. Yes, I drive a Subaru, and yes, it is not only equipped with all-wheel drive, but also with four snow tyres. As I reminded a friend yesterday, you can have all of the right equipment to stay safe, and you can drive as cautiously as you will; that will not protect you from the dunderhead coming down the road who is neither equipped for winter driving nor smart enough to drive slowly and cautiously who will crash into you because they cannot control their car on the icy roads. I would rather stay safe than embark out in possibly dangerous driving conditions if I can avoid it. Of course, the fact that it is seventeen degrees below zero with howling winds does not increase my desire to risk it!

    I have not slept well these last couple of nights. I should probably amend that to I have had trouble falling asleep, because really, once I fall asleep, I am fine. I tried to sleep without taking a melatonin gummy last night, but at 1:00am I relented and downed one. The fact that I had to wake up in the middle of the night, get dressed (for very cold and snowy conditions), go outside (twice), and then come back upstairs, get undressed, and try to fall asleep again did not contribute to my good night’s sleep… but it did contribute to my deciding to sleep in again this morning.

    Last night, for reasons I cannot figure, I indulged in a large bowl of Corn Flakes. Added to the challah rolls that I ate for Shabbat, and we have yet another failed day. My weight stayed where it was the previous day, but that is not a success. Today will be better. That seems to be another theme these days. I need to get through today and tomorrow, knowing that Monday I will be driving to Strathroy to see my godchildren, and knowing what their mother is likely to serve (and how powerless I am to decline her oh so yummy kryptonite). My goal is to be two pounds lighter by then, which I can only achieve if I do not cheat on my program the next couple of days.

    They say that when it rains, it pours. In October, I had a major career setback, which I thought might put an end to my career as a technical trainer. These last few weeks I have made some new contacts, and reconnected with a couple of old ones, and have some great prospects (not to mention actual training contracts) coming in the new year. I remember how despondent I was when I realized where I was at just two months ago. Now it seems like I have a bright future in my preferred field… if we put aside that I’d rather spend my life as a cigar-smoking sommelier and raconteur!

    While we only stepped outside for a brief moment this morning, Princess Sophie is happy to have her friend Charlie here for a playdate. While the pair of them combine to be one hell of a distraction to my writing (between begging for treats, jumping on my lap, and whatnot), they are happy, which makes me happy. I admitted to Leslie earlier in the year that Princess Sophie is not really an emotional support animal. With the emotional turmoil I have gone through these last weeks, I am beginning to think that what started as a farce to bring her into my office at Sony Pictures might not be a real benefit to me. I have been terribly down at times in the last month, and she has made life a little more bearable for me. I will speak with my therapist about that when she and I begin meeting mid-January.

    Yes, I have been distracted while writing this journal entry, and not only by dogs. But hey, it is Saturday, it is Christmas Eve, and it is holy-crap-degrees-below-zero outside, so I am in no rush to be done with it. I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday, and the best for a great new year!

    Have a great day folks!

  • 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!

  • Day 328

    I was good yesterday except I had a bowl of homemade soup in the evening. I do not know what the nutritional values are for my soup, but I know that I did not veer from the program at all aside from that, and I know that I gained weight again. My emotions are killing me these last couple of weeks, so I do not know which way is which.

    My new bed was delivered yesterday. I put fresh sheets on it and climbed gingerly into bed around midnight. I did not expect to sleep well, but that had nothing to do with the bed or bedding. I am dealing with a lot of emotions that I am completely uncomfortable with. Nonetheless, once I was able to get to sleep, I was able to sleep through the night. That might mean six hours of sleep, but that is still better than it might have been. My original intention was to have Princess Sophie sleep on the couch, but last night she could tell that I really did need my emotional support animal, and she insisted. Thank you, Princess Sophie, I needed you last night. Actually, what I needed was not available to me. I wanted to climb into a bottle. I wanted to dive into a plate of disgustingly fattening foods. That I did neither of those is a testimony to my dedication to not giving up.

    My plans for the day have only changed slightly. In a few minutes I will leave for the gym. I will work out (first alone, then with the trainer). After showering, I will come home, take Her Floofness for a walk. Depending on what time it is at that point, I will either make my lunch, or I will head straight out to Eduardo’s to watch the football. If I do that, I will make sure I have a meal replacement with me, as I do not want to cheat. I just do not know that I will have enough time between working out and the start of the match to prepare and eat lunch, but we will see. After the match, I will come straight home so that I can be ready for my class delivery. In a perfect world, I will be online by 5:00pm, but that will depend on a lot of factors. I mentioned yesterday that if the game goes to extra time and then penalties, as hard as it will be, I will have to leave Eduardo’s at 4:30pm at the latest. Yes, my Argentina squad is playing in the semi-finals. Yes, I am extremely invested in that emotionally. No, I am not willing to compromise my professional integrity and reputation for a football match. Go Argentina! Work must still take priority.

    However terrible my weight issues have been, I have to consider it a huge victory that through the emotional turmoil that has been the last couple of weeks I have not slipped. Yes, my weight this morning is still up from yesterday, and I have not made any progress these last two weeks… for someone who is used to emotional eating, the status quo is a huge victory. No, I have not made progress… but I have also not fallen off the wagon (or cliff, as it were).

    A project that I have been working on the last few days is nearly done, and it has to do with letting go of the past. I have been cleaning out my e-mail. It started because I realized that on my phone, when I would search for e-mails through subfolders, I had scores of them that were no longer relevant… former contracts, old jobs, and so on. I have always kept them all within my account so that I could access them whenever I would need to… and in truth, I do search old emails regularly. The benefit of being able to do that on my phone was outweighed by the sheer heaviness of the ten gigabytes of stored messages (including myriad attachments) in my active email account. I did not want to delete them outright; as I mentioned, I do need to find things from the past from time to time. Instead, I created an Archive mailbox, and have been offloading messages and sub-folders into that. I did not realize how complicated that would be, but owing to the sheer volume, it has not been a simple ‘press here, dummy’ operation. The project has allowed me to see a lot of old emails (some dating to my previous marriage). One email from three years ago even reminded me that an uncle asked me to try to find a picture of someone. Three years ago, that ask was impossible. This week, I was able to search through old photo albums (many of which had been in storage in Ottawa at the time of the original ask) to find pictures of a long-deceased aunt, which my uncle had wanted to add to the family archive. Cleaning out my Inbox has been cathartic. I did not exactly throw anything out, but I have been putting it into long-term storage, which I can call up when I really need it… but which will not bog down my day-to-day.

    Okay, I have put off the inevitable long enough. It is time to head to the gym. My knee was hurting in the night, but it was not the gout (which might or might not be gout), rather the familiar pain I have had these last couple of years when I sleep on the wrong side. To make that issue less simple, the correct side is not a constant. Isn’t getting old fun? Anyhow, I have taken my anti-inflammatories this morning, and I do not feel any pain as I prepare to head out. Nonetheless, I do plan to remind my trainer of two things: 1) We have to take it easy because of the knee; and 2) I am going to stretch before my workouts… but it will not be the stretches she recommended. I will follow the KISS principle. As I mentioned yesterday, any stretching routine that requires me to watch YouTube videos each time I go to the gym to remind me of what they are, and which make me concerned I am going to lose my balance and fall and injure myself, is simply not realistic. I do not want to be Mr. Universe; I simply want to be the best me that I can be.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 300

    I was thinking this morning of those funny high school yearbook entries: Goal: Be a good lawyer. Probable: Need a good lawyer. Things like that. I thought of that because I remember just a few days ago saying that I was hoping that by today (Day 300 on the weight management program) I would be under 300 lbs. Instead, for the first time since October 21, I weighed in at over 310 lbs. That is just wrong! No, there is no way that with what I have eaten this week that I should be up seven pounds. While I know that I have cheated these last few days, I have not cheated anywhere near seven pounds worth of cheat. I am frustrated, and I am pissed off.

    Yesterday would not have been too bad, but I decided to get a bag of rice cracker chips at the store. Big mistake, but it was a moment of weakness. My second cheat? I heated up a can of Chunky Soup. My throat was killing me after a long day of lecturing (and several nights of sleeping badly) and I hoped it would soothe my throat. For the record, it tasted lousy.

    Looking at this slide, there is no chance that I will drop below the 300-pound milestone by the time Leslie flies in on Friday. Hopefully that means that I will be able to celebrate hitting that milestone with her while she is here. The way I am feeling now though, if I look at a piece of bread my weight will shoot up another four pounds. Maybe if that’s the way it is, I should just fucking indulge. I should go have those Buffalo wings. I should go for Chinese food, eat a steak, whatever. Maybe I am just not meant to be slim, and I do not have the willpower to eat nothing but three fucking leaves of lettuce per day, which on days like today is what it feels like I have to eat in order to stay slim. Fuck that.

    No, I am not giving up. I am not diving into a cheat day, although I really wish I could. I am going to try to stay on track, but I am angry and pissed off and frustrated and disillusioned. If I could think of any other adjectives of feeling bad, I would likely feel those too.

    To add to my bad day, my knee (the right one) has been in serious pain these last two days. I suspect it has to do with the workouts I did with Kezi last week. I don’t know how much help the pain killers I took last night were, but this morning I added an anti-inflammatory. I am also sitting at my desk with an ice pack on it, hoping that within a day or two I can walk properly again.

    On a day with very little positivity, I can at least share one bit of good news. I slept pretty well last night. I was asleep by about 10:00pm, and while I did wake up to pee, I got back to sleep reasonably quickly. The only thing bothering me was my knee, not my psyche, which has been the case these last few evenings. Hopefully this trend will continue for the next few nights and was not a one-off due to sheer exhaustion.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 299

    There are some days when you have no choice but to cheat on your weight loss program. Yesterday was such a day. I was picking Lyle and Dorothy up from the airport and driving them home. They were coming home from Italy, and I had joked with them to bring me a pizza. I could not believe it when they did! Rather than coming home from the drive and having a meal replacement, I had a slice of cheese pizza. It was a pretty big piece, but I did not think it would do too much damage.

    I was wrong of course. Over the past four days my weight has skyrocketed. Where I was hoping to stay below 305 lbs. a few days ago, I am now relieved to be just slightly below 310 lbs. and I am extremely upset about it… doubly so knowing that I am working all week and will not get to the gym at all. I will have to redouble my efforts to stay on track with my food intake. That is actually going to be easier this week than it was last week, as I will be teaching.

    The weeks when I teach during the day are the easiest ones to stay on track with. After my morning routine (which starts earlier because I set an alarm to wake up) I am at my desk by 8:00am (7:30am on Day 1 of the class). During our morning break, I will prepare my salad, and get the chicken ready to cook. About 30 minutes before the lunch break, I will walk into the kitchen (while still lecturing) and turn on the air fryer, so that by the time it is time to break for lunch, I can enjoy my meal in a relaxed fashion. While I might enjoy some mints or lozenges during the day, there is no other opportunity to eat.

    When the class is done, I will take Her Royal Floofness for her second walk of the day – that is, unless one of the neighbours asks to visit with her, at which point it might be the third or fourth walk. I will come back in after that and have another meal replacement. The rest of the evening is mine to relax. I suspect that I will need to go shopping this evening, as I think I am going to run out of lettuce with lunch. All I have to do when I go to the supermarket is remember that I am six pounds heavier than I was Friday morning. If I do that, my eyes will not be tempted by the myriad temptations available at the store. Oh, and I should check to see if I need milk.

    To continue the pattern of the last few nights, I did not sleep well. I fell asleep just fine, but once I wake up to pee, falling back into slumber eluded me for a long while. I have too many thoughts racing around in my head, and I cannot figure out how to put them aside. Try as I might, the second half of my nights have been much less restful than the first half. This has been going on for a few nights now, and I am paying the price for it during the day. I am tired… almost constantly. Fortunately, Leslie will be here in four and a half days. I always sleep better when she is next to me. For many reasons aside from sleep, I am literally counting down the hours! It is 110 hours as of right now, for those who might be curious. I cannot wait to have her back in my arms again.

    I should write a few words about the weather. Friday it was 21° and sunny. This morning for Princess Sophie’s walk I donned my ski jacket for the first time, as the temperature was hovering around 0°. I was even thankful that my leather gloves were in the pocket, else I would have had to keep my hands in the pockets the whole time. The calendar might say that winter arrives on December 21, but every Canadian will tell you that the accompanying weather comes much earlier than that. There were snow flurries yesterday, but only a couple. It would not do for the cold and the snow to come in one jarring moment, so I was grateful that at least the skies are clear today. Partly because I am teaching, but also partly because of the predicted (and actual) cold, I put on a t-shirt this morning… under a long sleeve button-down shirt. While I did not put on my winter boots, for the first time since April I wore my Blundstones for our walk. I know the insulated boots will be needed soon, but I will wait for real weather for that. The calendar be damned, winter has arrived in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area.

    Have a great day folks!