Losing a part of me

Category: Stress

  • 2026 Day 26

    I am going to blame my weight this morning on my neighbour. No, I am not up… but I am not down either. And no, I never actually blame anyone else for anything that goes into my mouth. When my downstairs neighbor offered me some of her homemade cauliflower soup yesterday I accepted. When she told me she was giving me a couple of slices of fresh bread I could have said no… in fact I did, but then I said ‘Okay, okay… one slice won’t hurt.’ When she gave me four slices I could have refused, of I could have politely accepted them and then thrown them out when I got home. I did dispose of them… but not in any way that I should have. They were delicious with the soup. I hate myself for having done it, but I did it.

    Owing to that, this morning my weight was exactly where it was yesterday morning. While there is still a chance that my weight will measure 10kg less than my last visit to the doctor, that will depend more on the time of day than my actual success. I fell slightly short of my promise.

    For those avid readers who obsess over these things, I mentioned in yesterday’s entry that following the first part of the entry I finally had a successful bowel movement. This morning I actually had two – one before stepping onto the bathroom scale, and one more productive one later on in the morning. By later, it would still have been early enough to get back onto the scale… but I decided not to. In truth, the only weight reading that matters today will come in about ninety minutes when I step onto the scale at my doctor’s office. As we say in French, on vera.

    My sleep would have been excellent across the board last night… had my eyes not popped open at 1:35 and stayed open for an hour. Yes, right in the middle of a great night sleep there was an hour that I was awake and could not for the life of me close my eyes. While I try to avoid screens when this happens, I knew that doing some reading on my phone would at least tire my eyes. When I finally felt the fatigue come on I embraced it immediately, throwing the phone to the side and it happened. My overall sleep score, even with the hour awake, was a 78 (fair). Three of the six other readings were in the Excellent range. I’ll take it after the previous night’s abysmal score of 37.

    I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on a project that I took on nearly two years ago, and on which I am now sixteen months late on completion. I have put a lot of work into it these last three weeks or so, and I am satisfied that the end is near. Of course, I have to wait for approval on everything that I have written so far before I can do any more recording (it is a course that requires both content creation and video delivery). With that said, the project is one that has had me lying awake in bed many nights. For over a year it was the stress of having to sit down and do the work. Last night it was not what popped my eyes open, but as I lay awake I did give some thought to some improvements I could make to what I wrote… and how to better go forward.

    While my appointment is not until 9:15am, I am glad I set my alarm for 6:15am… and was not displeased that my eyes popped open a few minutes before it sounded. I have gotten a few things done already, and will be ready to leave home in plenty of time to get there early.

    Over the last few minutes I stepped away from the computer once again for another bowel movement. This third BM of the morning was by far the most productive of them, and I feel a relief I have not felt in a few days. It is almost as if my insides know that when I was at the pharmacy a few days ago I purchased the powder that I used last year to flush out my colon when I was in so much agony from being stopped up. Yes, I am back on the fibre… but this was a bit more than I expected!

    Okay, now I am off to the doctor’s office. I will leave this entry open so that when I get back I can write about the results.

    Okay, I am back. My doctor was pleased by my 9kg drop, and the improvement to my blood pressure. I promised I would continue to stay on track. I did admit to her that the entire weight drop is the result of of these last nearly four weeks of effort, with a big fall in the middle of that. As long as I can keep showing improvement she is happy. I will see her again in six weeks.

    After a couple of weeks of absolute bitter cold, this afternoon the temperature is set to rise to an almost bearable -5°. What a relief!

    I have a lot to get done before I head out for my afternoon in Grimsby and Beamsville, so I will close out here.

    Have a great day folks!

  • 2026 Day 24

    One day I will be able to write about what stress and anxiety I have been going through, and how yesterday played a part. I will be able to explain why I had to make the 90 minute drive into Toronto, and after twelve minutes I turned around and drove home… having accomplished my goal. I will be able to explain why I lay in bed last night realizing that my stress was not over because of that, but it had shifted to the next phase of it. That will not be today.

    It was because of so much of what happened yesterday that I had a meal… but even knowing that I was going to cheat, I was good. I did not order Chinese food; I did not go to the pub and order Buffalo wings. I went to the supermarket, I picked up chicken and challah rolls, and I had an early afternoon Shabbat dinner. I added to the chicken and challah a side of rice which I had in the house.

    It is because of that meal – a cheat to be sure, but worse for the carbohydrate and starch-heavy side dishes – that my weight was up this morning. I gained two full pounds from yesterday.

    This morning is my Lodge monthly breakfast for men’s mental health, and I will go after I press Publish on this journal entry. I will not order my usual French toast, rather I will order an omelette. It is still not on my program, but it is healthier than so many things I might do.

    After breakfast, I am meeting with my old diet buddy. We have not seen each other in over a year, but as we are both getting back on track we decided to support each other. I am not dropping my new diet buddy, I have the cycles for two. I am looking forward to seeing my old friend.

    Have a great day folks.

  • 2026 Day 21

    I was sleeping quite well until I wasn’t. My eyes popped open at 4:45am, and there was absolutely nothing that I could do to close them again. I finally gave up and decided to start my day around 6:00am, although I never did end up getting out of bed. I was tired enough that I guess I was hoping beyond hope that I would be able to nod off again. I eventually did nod off for a couple more hours of sleep… but the damage was done. I hope I am able to make it through this day (and especially my class this evening) without falling asleep!

    • Sleep score: 45 (Poor)
    • Duration: 4h01m (Poor)
    • Stress: 29 avg (Average)
    • Deep: 1h33m (Excellent)
    • Light: 2h20m (Excellent)
    • REM:8m (Poor)
    • Awake/Restlessness: 7m, 17 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    I did not expect my weight to be down this morning for a number of reasons… and for one other reason I am not putting a lot of stock in the reading I got.

    Reason #1: I ran some errands yesterday and decided to pick up some peanuts. My former habit, when I was on the program but adding peanuts to it, was to buy a single (mostly) measured serving. That way I knew what I had, and I did not have to worry about willpower to stick to the proper amount. These last few times I have bought them I bought two or three servings; I knew that I would keep them in the car, and I have not been doing a lot of driving, so it would be okay. Yesterday’s errands had me in motion for a couple of hours, by the end of which the two servings of peanuts were gone. I was back home by 4pm, having consumed two meal replacements and two helpings of peanuts already. I decided that I would not eat anything else for the rest of the day. Despite my going to a buddy’s house to smoke cigars and watch the hockey, I stuck to that plan.

    Reason #2: Getting a good nights sleep is so important to weight loss, and I did not get that last night.

    Reason I don’t put stock in the reading: I usually weigh myself between 6:30am and 9:00am. This morning I weighed myself shortly after 11am. I know that my weight fluctuates throughout the day, which is why I weigh myself (when I can) at around the same every day. The lateness of my date with the bathroom scale makes me wonder how much it might have fluctuated. I hope this evening I will be able to sleep well, and that I will be able to trust the measurement tomorrow morning… as much as I can trust the questionable scale on the unsteady floor.

    There is a lot going on with regard to one particular part of my life which has been throwing my emotions asunder these last few days – and really since mid-December. I have not and will not discuss it until everything is signed and sealed and finished… but I will say two things about it: 1) One of the reasons it has been so difficult for me to get back on the program and stick to it – both in December and January – is because of this. It is absolutely life-changing, and it is the hopeful culmination of a very long process. 2) The fact that these last few days the worst that I have done on my program is a few extra peanuts, knowing what is going on, is a complete shock.

    All of this to say that my weight this morning was indeed down by 1.4 lbs., which puts me just .2 lb. above the best weight I have had this month, which was the morning before I stepped onto my scale to see a 5 lbs. gain from the previous day (a day during which I had been good and stuck to the program). Since that day I have gone up and down within about a six-pound range. This includes my ‘bender’ which began when I fell off the wagon and gained five pounds in one day thanks to General Tao and his army of fried Chinese foods, and lasted through my getting back onto the program this past Sunday morning. As far as benders go… the fallout from this one was not too bad.

    While I still have enough to last me another week or so, my diet buddy is running low and so I placed an order for more meal replacements yesterday. I should be okay through mid-February at this point.

    I am teaching this evening, but let’s see if I can get a couple of hours of productive work done between now and then.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 1288

    With my weight down another pound this morning, I am, after three weeks, down 26.8 lbs., and while I am impatient with my slowed rate, and somewhat disappointed by the week-over-week loss of only 3.2 lbs., I nevertheless have to remember that while my commitment to the program has not wavered, nonetheless my strict adherence to it has this past week has not been great. It has also been quite an emotional week, what with my passing my exam, my son the elder going off to begin his Master Degree, of course that on top of all of the usual excrement that is pervasive in my life… I will take it and run.

    With all of that said, I have no excuses for this week coming… at least, not that I can think of. I will be taking care of my son the younger from this afternoon until next Wednesday – he will not be staying with me, but I will be dropping in to see him twice per day as his mother and her partner drive our son the elder down to university. She specified that I can take him out to eat only once maybe twice… and I will use her instructions as my excuse to him. For the times that we do go out to eat, I will simply not eat. If I am terribly tempted then I will do what I did Tuesday evening… I will order a plate of carrots and celery. I cannot allow anything to get in the way of my success. If in the next week I achieve the same weight loss as I did the last week then I will be able to say that in four weeks I dropped thirty pounds. If I falter? Well to put it bluntly then I will not succeed.

    I was in bed and asleep at a more reasonable hour last night, and while my sleep score was up, it was only a 75. Nothing to write home about. With regard to my other bodily functions, I have not been able to move my bowels this morning. Thinking back to how I was two weeks ago, I am tracking this because I do not want to be back in the position where I am in pain because of it… let alone such extreme pain as I was in on Day 8 (Day 1275). I know that I moved them yesterday, and that while I am not eating solid foods it is not always going to happen every day… but if I go more than two days without voiding my bowels then I am prepared to take the second of the two packets the pharmacist gave me that helped clear me out. I do not want to be in a position where I am in agony before I act.

    After I pop in to see my son this afternoon after my class, I then have to drive down to Grimsby again to meet with someone with whom I have been trying to connect for the last six weeks or so. For this meeting I have no choice but to meet at the resto-pub that I was at Tuesday… the man I am meeting with is the owner. I hope he does not get offended that I will refuse his hospitality but my diet cannot afford for me to eat. If he insists then I will accept the carrots and celery that I indulged in the other day.

    Last night as we sat on my balcony, it started to rain… and rain it did! I do not know how long it lasted, but this morning was notably cooler than it has been these last couple of weeks; they say the rain broke the heat wave. While it was not raining when Her Floofness and I were out, it was clear that it had rained quite a bit overnight. There is no more rain predicted for the day, and while the rest of the week’s forecast is sunny, the temperature predictions are definitely lower than they have been. It will not be chilly, but they will be seasonable.

    My goal for the day is to get through it, then go to see my son, and then get to Grimsby and back without breaking my program. Wish me luck!

  • Day 1280 – Afternoon

    I still cannot believe it.

    I left home at 11:15am so that I would be at the testing centre thirty minutes before the scheduled start time of noon (that is not only recommended, but ISC2 states that if you are not at least fifteen minutes early then you are considered late). I was driving down Walker’s Line when I realized that I had not taken my meal replacement shake with me, which had been my plan. With all of the stress and anxiety in my gut, I did not want to make things any worse by going into the exam room hungry. I stopped at a convenience store and picked up a sleeve of peanuts. They did not have any unsalted peanuts, and I know I will be paying for that tomorrow morning when I step onto the scale. With my emotional turmoil I decided that was a problem I was willing to live with. I even splurged… seeing that the nutritional facts were pretty close, I picked the salt and vinegar flavour.

    The staff were welcoming and helpful, but that would not be helping me to get through the next two hours. They had me take off my watch, ring, and my dogtag (although they let me keep my chai necklace), and empty my pockets of everything except my drivers license. It all went into a locker and I was escorted to the exam room.

    As I sat at the computer at the testing centre filling out the post-exam survey, I was trying to think how much more studying I would need to do before I would be confident that I was ready to re-sit the exam. I clicked ‘End Survey.’ I raised my hand to call the proctor over. She had me rescan my palm print, checked my ID, and escorted me out of the room.

    As I was reasonably certain that I would not like what I would see on the score report, I did not mind that the administrator told me to collect my things from my locker before collecting it. I was actually relieved by this because I was extremely thirsty, and along with my wallet, watch, keys, and jewelry I had also left the half-bottle of water that I was drinking as I arrived.

    ‘Congratulations! We are please to inform you that you have provisionally passed the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) examination. Your examination result is provisional in that it may be subject to further psychometric and forensic evaluation before a certification decision is reached.’

    I did not even read past the first word… my mind exploded with relief. Unlike last week, I did not wake up this morning with that sense of peace that came with the acceptance that I was unlikely to pass and that it did not matter. I was stressed, I was anxious, and I was frazzled. I wrote in my journal this morning that I was a bit out of sorts and that I had not slept well. All true. I walked into the exam room with that same heavy weight that I have been carrying on my shoulders for… how long? I don’t even know.

    I have another high-stress situation that came up this morning, but that is going on the back-burner until Friday. This evening I am going to go for a walk, then I am kicking my feet up and relaxing. Tomorrow I have several engagements that will keep me busy, but none of them are stressful – three meetings with friends for either coffee (the two in the morning) or cigars (the evening, and my cleaning lady is coming between those. On Friday I will deal with the bullshit.

  • Day 1280

    I have been a bit out of sorts since I woke up this morning. I did not sleep particularly well, and I am worried about how that will affect my entire day. My sleep score was only 60, and I know I was up several times throughout the night. A couple of times to pee… and a couple of times to fret about my exam. One way or another that will be behind me in six hours.

    The fibre that I have been adding to my meal replacements seems to be helping. Yay!

    The bathroom scale was kind to me this morning, with a day-over-day drop of nearly 1.5 lbs. On Day thirteen I am down twenty-three pounds, which is nothing to sneeze at. I always knew that Week 2 would be nowhere near as successful as Week 1 was, but I am still happy with the incredible ongoing progress I have made. To be clear, today is not the week-over-week weigh-in… that is not until tomorrow morning. With that said, in the last six days my weight is down 7.4 lbs.; even if I give back a couple of ounces from this morning’s huge drop tomorrow, I should still be down, on average, an amazing one-pound-per-day. I am getting ahead of myself though.

    This is going to be a very short journal entry. It is now 9:50am; I am planning to leave the house at 11:15am to get to the exam centre thirty minutes early, and I will spend the time until then doing some last minute studying.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1275

    It felt like I was walking around with an anvil on my back from the moment I could not sit my exam on Tuesday until the minute I received an email from ISC2 at 2:00pm yesterday afternoon telling me how I could now rebook my exam. Precisely forty-nine hours and fifteen minutes. That weight is now gone, leaving the weight of preparing for what is likely the hardest exam that I have taken in a long time and the stress and anxiety that goes along with that… but there is a deadline for that which is next Wednesday at noon. Suffice it to say I am not making any social plans for this weekend so that I can prepare for the exam, as well as for the class that I am teaching Monday. I maintain a spreadsheet of every certification exam I have ever sat, and for the first time ever I created that new line for my upcoming exam in advance. Why? I do not really know, but it likely has something to do with my anxiety.

    My food intake yesterday was in most respects identical to the previous day. Aside from two things I was able to stick to my program again, but when I got into my car to drive out to the cigar shop I realized the remaining peanuts from what I had purchased the previous day were there, so I finished them. Additionally, once again felt the need late at night to take a pinch of grated cheese. I can assure you that Princess Sophie is happy that I continue to need that as she always benefits from it.

    Even with the cheese my weight continues to drop at a rate of not quite one pound per day, which is tremendous. At this rate (which of course will not continue) I could not only drop below the terrible mark in the next month, but also by winter I could be back in almost all of my tailor fitted shirts and jackets! Wouldn’t that be something… but we have to assume that within the next week or two that rate will drop to 3 lbs. per week, which means that it is going to be springtime before I am back to where I was when I was at my lowest weight and then started slipping. I never want to be this big again… but of course I have said that before.

    My sleep score this morning was the best it has been since June 19, with the comment that it was restorative. It was such a relief after the previous night’s problems with my back that kept me awake. The only thing I took (which I do almost every night) is melatonin. I did wake up a couple of times to pee but other than that I had no problems. I had been worried the last few weeks that it was Princess Sophie sleeping in my bed that caused my sleep issues, but that was obviously not the case last night. Woohoo!

    I was reminded yesterday of two masonic events coming up this summer that I am being encouraged to attend. I made the conscious decision to decline both as they are both food-centric. I do not need to attend a corn roast as (I love sweet corn, especially in season!) and I do not need to attend a fish fry, as much as I enjoy fried fish. I was not at all tempted (nor was it even suggested I attend) by the pig roast that one of the lodges is holding. Religious observations aside, I am satisfied with the progress I have made thus far, but I do not think I am ready to subject myself to temptations. I do not think I have the willpower to resist yet.

    My plans for the day are to read, study, and smoke cigars. I was thinking that I had a couple of things I needed to pick up from the store, but I decided to order them from Amazon instead.

    In the last hour I have been experiencing more discomfort that feels somewhat similar to what I was feeling a couple of nights ago, but while it is radiating into my back, it feels like it might be related to my digestive tract. It feels like something extremely solid (akin to every other bowel movement I have had this past week) is lodged in there and is applying pressure to both my bladder and a couple of other nerves. It has gotten much worse – so much so that in the middle of this paragraph I got up, found a laxative, and then decided to take a shower to try to ease the discomfort. It might be a little better now than it was thirty minutes ago, but I am definitely looking forward to the time when the laxative begins to work. While writing these last three paragraphs I have had to stand up several times to alleviate the discomfort. Suffice it to say that as soon as I am finished with this journal entry I will be shutting my computer down for the next few hours. Hopefully my ‘throne’ chair on the balcony will be more comfortable. By the way, the answer is yes, I have been adding fibre to my meal replacements at least once per day. My program, being an extreme one, is going to cause disruptions to my body. This is not the first time I have started this same program, and I have experienced changes each time… and not the same each time. I know I have had some discomfort in the past and I only hope that this abates over the course of the day so that I do not have to reconsider staying on the program. Of course my first course of action would be to reincorporate a single solid meal per day… but I am hoping that can wait for a few weeks at the least. I would love to get down well below the terrible mark before I have to do that… but my health comes first, and if I have to then I will do it sooner.

    Okay, it is time for me to grab my book and a cigar and to see if my throne is more comfortable than this desk chair. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1272 – Afternoon

    I did not pass my exam.

    In my defense, I also did not fail my exam. I arrived at the testing centre as prepared as I could be, perfectly at peace in the knowledge that I very well might (dare I say would probably) fail the exam. At least I would know what I was up against, and what my shortcomings were. I would then come back home and relax for a couple of days… and then I would reschedule the exam (at great expense, but leave that for now) for sometime in August or September, and I would continue studying… with greater focus on the areas that I needed to focus on. Because I was comfortable knowing that I would probably not pass, I was just glad that the stress and anxiety would be behind me.

    I drove into the parking lot, I paid for parking. I walked into the building and walked down the long corridor (I have been here before so while I forgot what floor it was on, I at least knew my way there). In the hallway there were emergency lights blinking… not a good sign. I got to the elevator and a building maintenance manager flagged me to get my attention. There had been an electrical issue that was not resolved and was deemed to be a safety issue; the building had been evacuated. It did not bode well for a quick turnaround that I did not see any large groups of students or workers congregating outside of the building waiting for the all-clear signal to return to their classes or offices or whatever. The maintenance manager told me that the power company had to come in to do a safety inspection on a transformer, and if that was the case then it was highly unlikely that anyone was going back to work today.

    I stood outside the front door of the building and logged onto the testing centre website to try to reschedule. With any luck, they would be able to book me for the next hour at a test site within short driving distance (there is one that is a 20-25 minute drive from where I was standing). Why did I do this all standing outside the front door? It was the only shaded area, and while I love the sun my smartphone screen does not, and would have a) been hard to read with my polarized sunglasses, and b) would have, within a few minutes, have gone into sum/heat protection mode (I do not know what the actual term is) which would dim the brightness to the point of near-illegibility. I logged into the site, paid my dues chatting with their AI chatbot, and then finally was chatting with a person. I never expected they would be able to accommodate that quick reschedule, but hope springs eternal. SPOILER ALERT: I was right and they did not.

    While I knew that would likely not happen I was at least hoping they could reschedule me for tomorrow… or later in the week… or next week. They could do none of that. In fact, the global body for the testing centre had not been informed that the local testing centre was evacuated so they are not even sure that I will get a replacement voucher (the exam costs USD$750) in order to reschedule it. As I type this it is two hours after my original exam time and at least three hours after the building was evacuated and there is still no indication (either from the testing centre or from the local news) that there was anything, so I am starting to sweat about that…

    When I got home I called them, and they told me to call the testing organization (Pearson Vue administers tests for hundreds of organizations and I would need to escalate to the certifying body). At least they gave me a direct phone number… it astounds me how difficult it is to find someone to speak with these days.

    After several minutes on hold with the ISC2 (that’s the certifying body) I spoke with a very nice and sympathetic gentleman named Edgar who promised to escalate my case and assured me that the team he was escalating to would help me to reschedule. When? That’s a good question… it might take 3-5 business days for them to get back to me with my rescheduling voucher and then it might take another 2-3 weeks for a free appointment at the testing centre.

    What does all of that mean?

    1. I am obviously no further ahead on my certification than I was when I woke up this morning.
    2. The anxiety and stress that I have been experiencing over this exam is still with me, but now instead of having a set date when I would be past it, I have another unknown which might be… who knows when.
    3. Instead of coming home with the exam behind me I know I will now be continuing to study until… WHENEVER THE F&CK THEY LET ME TAKE THE EXAM.
    4. Instead of coming home and booking airfare to Newfoundland to go visit friends, I am… well, NOT doing that.
    5. Instead of going to my Provincial Lodge event tomorrow (and hopefully smoking an extremely fine cigar to celebrate passing) I am staying home and studying.

    …the list goes on. This literally screwed up the rest of my summer.

    So why, you may ask, am I writing this here? Because it was all that I could do to not stop off at a pub and order two pounds of chicken wings. I was so sorely tempted, knowing how f&cked things are, to throw my hands in the air and to give up. I did not do that. I came home, made my phone calls, and then sat at the computer to type this. Once again, something else blew up the next few weeks of my life… but this time I was able to stay on track. How? I have no idea.

    This evening I will be smoking cigars on the balcony. I suspect I will take the night off from studying, and might even rent and stream the new Karate Kid movie. If I can be strong then I will not open a bottle of scotch (which right now I am sorely tempted to do). Tomorrow I will resume my studies and will wait… I was about to say wait patiently, but who are we kidding? I will wait very impatiently to hear back from ISC2 so that I can rebook the exam. The absolute earlies that might happen would be late next week but I doubt I will be able to book before the week after. Yay to two more weeks of my anxiety stress and dialed to a fourteen.

    …and I know that when I finally do walk into the testing centre it will take every bit of willpower for me to not yell at them that the least they could have done was phoned in that they were evacuated so I would have received an email canceling and I would not have driven down there and paid for parking. I have this image of a kid from a movie in the 1980s who is trying to collect for his paper route and keeps yelling ‘I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!’ Yes, parking cost me all of $7 but that is a very small cherry on top of the very large heap of shite that this inconvenience caused.

  • Day 1256

    I am hating myself more than ever this morning. It gives me a bit of comfort that I am now committed to restarting my extreme program a week from tomorrow – the day after my birthday. Today another friend and I are cohosting a birthday barbecue for ourselves (as we did last year). Thinking back to last year’s barbecue, when she was there… I don’t know how I will get through today.

  • Day 1255

    I made a decision that I hope I can stick to. The day after my birthday (a week tomorrow) I am starting back on the full program. I have to get hold of myself, stress and anxiety and depression and despair be damned.