Losing a part of me

Category: Stress

  • Day 174

    As I was hoping, this morning I was down nearly two pounds on the scale. I ate reasonably well yesterday, although I did eat a bag of popcorn, as well as two of the Japanese biscuits that Leslie bought for me. I like good low numbers, and I am back below 340lbs which is the milestone that I have been flirting with for the last week.

    I am having a very bad morning so far, and everything is just overwhelming me. I want to throw things. I want to yell and scream. I want to go out for a very fattening and unhealthy breakfast. Instead, I am trying to get organized. I have a few more small things to do before I head out, and anything that I miss will be done when I get back. I am just… ARGH!

  • Day 146

    There are moments of anxiety mixed in with the excitement, knowing that in a couple of days I am flying to Dallas to be with my fiancée. The last time I tried to enter into the United States, I was denied entry. I do not think this will be a concern on Thursday, although I do suspect that I will be taken into the office for extended questioning. Fortunately, as my motives are pure and true, I am almost certain there will not be a problem.

    Now if only I could tell that to my emotional brain, which has fleeting moments of real anxiety over it. The levels are not debilitating; it is more like how I felt before embarking on a mission in the Army. You planned for everything; you just need to get through it. Okay, at least with this, there is no chance of anyone dying.

    I am back to eating peanuts, and I have to stop that. I think it is part of my anxiety, which means that in a couple of days, I’ll be off the peanuts

    On my second screen, I am watching the video of my Black Belt test, twelve years ago this week. It is amazing that it has been so long. It is amazing to look back and see how many things I would correct… and to know how many things I would have to correct to get back to that form today. I need to get back into a dojang, but first I have to figure out where I am going to be.

    I woke up really early today – 6am – and did my regular morning bathroom routine. I hardly slept five hours at that point… I had gone to bed at a reasonable hour but had trouble getting to sleep. Fortunately, when I got out of the bathroom, Princess Sophie was not gung-ho to go out, and I went back to sleep… for another three blissful hours! I cannot remember the last time I woke up at 10:00am when jetlag was not involved. Fortunately, I had nothing on my calendar for the morning, and all went fine.

    Despite the earlier predictions of rain, the forecast for today and tomorrow is sunny and clear, so I might get a round of golf in tomorrow. Today I am going to relax around the house, maybe do some writing.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 130

    I was terrible yesterday, and the numbers on the scale reflected it. Normally, when I go to Ryan’s house for cigars, I can withstand the temptations. For some reason, yesterday was an exception. I had nuts; I stayed for dinner (hamburger patties, not terrible); I had cookies for dessert (terrible). I even had one (yes, only one) gummy worm… which in contrast to the cookies, which do have some nutritional benefit, has absolutely none. As I walked into the apartment last night, I felt the shame and disappointment that I failed… but would do better tomorrow. I will.

    There are reasons I will not go into why I was down. I was not depressed nor disappointed by news that I received Friday, but I would lie if I said I was not distracted by it. It was the distractions that caused me to veer.

    As a former soldier and hopefully a good friend to some, I know the importance of keeping confidences. There are things that people have shared with me that I will not share with others. Just as I do not like having my confidences betrayed, I try to not betray that of others. Where this complicates issues is that there are times when someone shares something with me that I could really benefit from the advice and input of others… but I am not really allowed to seek it. On the other hand, there are people who I would trust with my life, so if I discuss someone’s confidence with Leslie, for example, I know that the secret is safe… but it does not make me feel less guilty for sharing.

    Speaking of Leslie, she went to the beauty salon yesterday, and OH MY G-D does she look gorgeous! Combine her hair do with the makeup she did when she got home… yes, she is MINE, and I will never forget how lucky I am to be able to say that. She shared with me an interesting quotation yesterday. It was something like this: “When you get the woman that everyone wants, never forget that she is still the woman that everyone wants.” I have to remember to treat her like a queen every day… to treat her like I know how wonderful she is… because I do.

    My plans for today include trying to do better on my diet, but they might also involve going to see a movie. My fiancée does not like Tom Cruise, so I am free to see the new Top Gun movie on my own… I might just catch the early showing. After that? I will likely sit on the balcony with a cigar or three.

    Oh, and how happy am I? I have my first golf game of the year booked for Thursday! A cigar buddy and I have an 11:40am tee time, and I am thrilled. So that I do not go out there and look stupid, I might just go to a driving range either today or tomorrow… and who knows? Once my golf clubs are in the trunk, I might just book another round or two

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 124

    I cheated yesterday, and I paid for it on the scale this morning. Yesterday morning, after a breakfast shake, I went to see my ex-wife and my kids. She had some things to tell me about Gilad’s development issues and tests, and I had to tell her that I was getting married again. Not to be outdone, she mentioned that her boyfriend will likely be moving into their house to live with them at some point soon, and the only reason they are not getting married is because he would then have to start filing tax returns in the US.

    Needless to say, when they then put food down in front of me, I ate. I do not think I overate terribly. I ate two slices of sourdough bread (with chocolate chips – a collaborative creation of my son the elder and his mother) with margarine, and a bowl of oatmeal with nuts, and some freshly sliced fruit. Oh, and they also made eggs… and had I known at the outset that there would be scrambled eggs, I might have stuck to that… except for the information exchanged between my ex-wife and myself, which caused no small amount of stress.

    I should mention as well that while my son the elder knew about my engagement, and has in fact met my fiancée, my son the younger did not, and I had to tell him as well. Fortunately, everyone seemed to take the news well, and it is possible that the stress and anxiety with which I spent the last week might have been for naught.

    Tomorrow morning, I am going to the doctor’s office to get weighed and will then take Gilad for breakfast. He and I like to spend time alone once every couple of weeks, so even though I did see him yesterday, I will see him tomorrow as well… unless Theresa tells me that Thursday or Friday would work better. We shall see.

    Yes, I am writing later than usual today. I had a class to teach, and now that it is behind me, I have some leisure time to write. Have a great evening everyone!

  • Day 122

    Another day, another 1.6 lbs down. I definitely have no complaints about the bathroom scale this morning! I still have a couple of pounds left to get back to my lowest weight from May 5, but I am making good progress. I am still relieved that the week of vacation did not set me back much further than it did… which is to say, it kept me where I was!

    Yesterday was a stressful day. Those will happen, and I accept them. I did, at one point, decide to completely fall off the program. I was quite that upset with things. It was only Leslie who talked me down from that ledge. I was nearly out the door ready to go pick up Chinese food… and not the healthy stuff. Yes, I have bad days. In the end, I did veer from the program: I had peanuts (which I seem to be doing every day), and I had a second meal of chicken for dinner, rather than the tuna salad I was going to have. While I will not make a habit of it, I guess doing it the once did me no harm, with the numbers on the scale agreeing with me.

    I will say that I had a tremendously satisfying bowel movement this morning. While that is not something I generally discuss, there are days when you finish on the toilet and say ‘Wow, I must have lost weight there!’ It was a healthy BM, just a large one.

    The plan for today is to stick to the plan, and yes, I will have my peanuts. I am off to Lyle’s to enjoy a cigar with him and Ryan – it is a fabulous day out, and I cannot imagine not being outside enjoying it. Princess Sophie and I went for our walk earlier, and I’ll head out to Hamilton now.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 100

    I was slightly better yesterday than I was today. After my initial fear that I had nothing in the house, I discovered a piece of salmon in the freezer. I also had tomatoes and onions, and while that is not much, my mother used to make a lovely salad with just those two ingredients and seasoning. She called it Maichel, which is really just the Yiddish word for food. When I sent a picture to Leslie, she was impressed by what I had scrounged up.

    After my class, I did go shopping. I now have lettuce and chicken and broccoli. Yes, I bought a handful of peanuts. Add to that, I also had an extra meal replacement bar. I was just a bit out of sorts last night. My weight stayed exactly where it was on the scale, and I know it would have been down, save for that late-night bar.

    My class went very well… I think. In truth, an instructor might have his (or her) feeling, but you do not know how well a course is received until the students submit their evaluations, which I expect they will do this afternoon after class. I do know there was active participation, and that everyone completed the exercises that I assigned. I was also very pleased with the timing of the course – I have taught some classes in which I can go through three or four modules in a single day, so creating four modules was a risk. I was also worried that the exercises might be either too simple or outright ignored. They actually seem to have been well received, and there was active participation in the review process. I suspect that at the end of the class the students (and thus the customer who hired me) will be satisfied. YAY! With luck, they will ask me to deliver it again in the future. While I am being paid my maximum daily rate as an instructor, when you factor in the time it took to create the course, it drops me down to under my minimum daily rate. Essentially, the first delivery (this week) paid to create the material; another delivery would make it profitable.

    On the other hand, while at the end of the class I was relieved and elated, I was also fried. I went shopping and then came home to make my salad. I tried to sit through my class in the evening, but I was just not in any frame of mind to focus on networking and subnetting and port security after the stress of the day. I sat on the balcony with a cigar and spoke with some friends I have not chatted with in a while.

    That, by the way, is my plans for this evening as well. I will either be smoking on my own balcony, or with friends. That will be determined at some point today. I just know that the culmination of this class will be something to celebrate, and good cigars will be smoked!

    Today is the one hundredth day of my diet. Truth be told, I have not achieved nearly the success I would have liked to have achieved by this point. Okay, that’s part of life… No, I did not get as far as I wanted to, but I got this far. The old expression, “Aim for the stars, and if you miss then you still hit the moon” comes to mind. No, I have not hit the moon… but I’m also no longer as big as it is. This journal is also less than eight hundred words from hitting the 100,000-word mark. As I have said before, I can be verbose. However, this time around, I am not just writing for myself. Each article that I post (and I have posted at least one article every day for the last one hundred days) is written into my journal in Microsoft Word, and is then transposed into my blog, www.losingapartof.me, which I hope might be an inspiration to someone. When I share my articles on Facebook, they get noticed. When I do not? Well, I still know that my biggest fan is reading what I write every day.

    I am truly looking forward to this weekend and having this class in my rear-view mirror. I only hope that I do not stress-eat at any point today before it is over.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 99

    It was 5:25pm yesterday when I pressed SAVE, and I knew for the first time that the material I need to present for my classes today and tomorrow were ready to go. That does not in any way alleviate all of the stress I am feeling over the class, but at least if I fail miserably, it will not be because I missed the deadline. I am hoping and praying.

    Yes, the stress yesterday caused me to ‘fall off the wagon.’ I had an extra meal replacement bar in the afternoon, and a bag of popcorn in the evening. Neither was either necessary or warranted, but stress and anxiety make us do things that are neither necessary nor warranted. I am hoping that I get through the class today unscathed, and can come out the other side, tomorrow afternoon, with a very good cigar.

    I realized too late (i.e.: this morning) that I have no food in the house. I have neither the protein nor the vegetables to make either lunch or dinner. Depending on how the class goes, I will either run out and do some shopping at lunchtime, or my lunch meal will have to be ordered in. Poor planning on my part, but getting my work done yesterday (and then attending yesterday evening’s class) had to take priority over shopping.

    My dietary transgressions of yesterday were apparent on the scale this morning, which registered my weight as 1.4 lbs heavier than I was yesterday morning. My goal at this point, knowing what is going on and what is coming up, is to just stay below the 350-pound mark through the weekend. If I can do that, then I should be okay for next week, and right through to my trip to Cuba.

    Have a great day folks!

  • The End of a Stressful Day

    It is 9:15pm, and I am looking back on the day. I tried to cut my lunch down to a smaller portion. A few minutes later I was very again… only to realize it was nearly two hours later, and I had been so immersed in my work that the time flew. It was not yet the time for my evening salad (nor would it have been convenient for me to stop working just then), so I decided to have a meal replacement bar.

    I went about my evening as usual, but an hour after my final shake, I was hungry again. I needed to focus in class, and I decided to have another meal replacement bar. All in all, I am 320 calories more than I should have been, but that is likely nearly entirely offset by the smaller lunch. Tomorrow I will readjust back to my larger lunch, in the hopes that I will not need to snack.

    I am not going to lie, it was a stressful day… but I made great progress in my work, and I suspect that I am back on schedule. I do not have a lot of work to do on the class tomorrow, and I will be ready to teach it on Thursday. I will not really be stress-free until Day 2 of the class is over… and that’s not until Friday afternoon.

    Next week should be slightly easier!

  • Day 97

    This week I am more stressed than usual. I have a deadline to finish creating a course which I have been working on, and which I must deliver Thursday. I will make my hard deadline, but it will be close. If I had been able to work Sunday afternoon (as had been the plan, then I would be much less tight about it. Such is life.

    While my weight was up this morning, it was not by any significant number. I am under no delusions that I will lose weight every day, so knowing that I was down the last two days is quite satisfying, and the .4lbs that I was up this morning is a minor adjustment.

    I took a chicken breast out to defrost last night, and that will be my afternoon meal… along with either steamed vegetables or a salad. Food will not be my main focus today, for I have too many other things to think about. The only thought that I shall keep at the forefront is that I will not veer from the program. Yes, I have a lot of work to do today. That does not mean that I should be snacking while I do so. While I have what to cheat with if I wanted to, I have, thus far, no desire to do so and indeed, I am hoping that by next Wednesday, a fortnight since my last weigh-in, I will have once again lost the 2.5 kilograms that I had been happy to lose each previous weigh-in… until the last one.

    In December, before I started on my program, I saw the doctor, and he proposed I get my bloodwork done. I told him that I would rather wait until I have lost a few pounds, but that I would. Now, on the cusp of having lost fifty pounds (although not quite there yet), I think it is time. I have the requisition form (which his office recently emailed to me), so all I have to do is pop into a lab and get stabbed. The next four days will be very tight, but I should be able to do it either Saturday or Monday at the latest. While it would have been interesting to see the difference in readings that forty-five pounds makes, I was too embarrassed to do it then, knowing how bad it would have been.

    Every doctor I have seen in the past twenty years or so has told me that I need to lose weight. It is nice to be going to see a doctor who is encouraging me to lose weight, but knows that I am on track, and knows that nagging me will not be helpful. In my article Awareness and Honesty which I published just yesterday I wrote about the positive long-term relationship I have had with this doctor, and hope to continue. When I went through the program in California, I saw a doctor who was also very encouraging. He helped me through the program for a few months as well. What a difference a good doctor with a positive bedside manner makes!

    It is another lovely day outside, and it would be nice to be able to sit out with a cigar. My schedule today will not allow for that, but by the weekend I will be able to relax and do just that.

    Have a great day folks!