Losing a part of me

Category: Stress

  • Day 630

    The number of calls and texts I am getting from my amazing friends checking up on how I am doing through this war supporting me and telling me that they have me and my family and my country in their prayers continues to bring tears to my eyes. I just wish I could get over there to join the fight… even in a support role.

    My son the elder came over for a drink after my class yesterday evening. He won’t admit it but he is worried that I might get the call. He tried to convince me that once I tried and was denied (twice now) then I have done my duty and I should stay here and get on with my life. It is very sweet of him… even though he knows that I cannot do that. We discussed a lot of other things too, and it was good to catch up. I love him and when he opens up to me it warms my heart.

    That is not to say that his visit did not cause me some level of anxiety. That, coupled with the fact that I had bought a pre-cooked barbecue chicken earlier in the day, resulted in bad things happening on my diet. I am un 1.4 lbs. from yesterday. I will get back on track today and do better.

    I bought the chicken with the intention of trying to integrate a second meal into my day. I originally thought to buy raw chicken to cook, but the timing would not have worked so I bought the cooked one. That was a mistake. It was easy to fall off the program at 11:00pm when the chicken was right there. It would have been a very different story if I had to actually cook it.

    Yes, I am thinking about making that transition from one meal per day to two meals per day. I am going to try again today, which means I will be going to the supermarket shortly. I will not be buying anything prepared. I will buy the provisions to prepare a healthy and tasty lunch. Before I go I should make sure that I have the proper herbs and spices in the pantry… it has been a while since I have needed them!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 624

    Yesterday was another stressful day of teaching, but I did not try to relax by eating. In fact, at the end of the day I had originally planned to go to a friend’s house for a cigar but decided instead to go for a long walk to clear my head (and to get some exercise). How did it go? Well, when combined with the evening cigar I smoked after showering I think it turned out fairly well.

    My weight this morning was up from yesterday. It was not a significant increase – .2 lb. – so I am not concerned. When I was first gaining the weight in early adulthood, I would make the excuse that muscle was heavier than fat. Looking at the stats from my bathroom scale app it might be, for the first time ever, that might have something to do with it. There are only three stats that increased from yesterday to today: weight, BMI, and muscle mass. Maybe the 12km walk did build my leg muscles somewhat… and increased my weight ever so slightly.

    The measures on the scale yesterday were all over the place. After my walk I weighed less than I did in the morning. Before bed it was four pounds up from the morning. That worried me because I usually drop as much as 2-2.5 lbs. overnight, but seldom more. What I did not take into account was how much water I must have consumed and been retaining. I was feeling a discomfort in my bladder all day, but I couldn’t figure out why. If you want to know why I did not sleep well last night it is probably because I got up to pee seven times, each of which was a long and steady stream. While my weight was up this morning, it was not up enough to worry about… but the excess water is what caused my concern (and the discomfort).

    I should mention that I have once again not moved my bowels for four days. As I promised my doctor I am not going to wait until it gets painful and will take a laxative. I do not want to take it until my teaching is done because I do not know how my body will react. I will say that I have been feeling the sensations that I would like to go the last hour but will have to wait until lunch. I know that it will likely be more than a 2-minute pain-free experience. In my life I never thought I would be in the market for stool softeners and things like that. Not fun.

    My class lectures are done for the week! My students now have a few hours to work on their labs and of course I am happy to help them with those, but the lecture portion is done. I will take my lunch break in a few minutes during which I have some calls to make and will try to do those from the balcony. It is a beautiful day out, and in the Great White North we should never take those for granted.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 623

    For the second day in a row my weight remained where it was. Not only did I not cheat yesterday, but I also did not have all of my meal replacements. I am teaching a very stressful class during the day (for very different reasons from my previous stressful classes) and so I did not have the opportunity to prepare my first meal replacement until nearly 2:30pm. At the end of my daytime class I was so stressed that I needed to sit on the balcony with a cigar to decompress. I knew that I would have an easier class in the evening (which I did), but I was thinking about anything but food. Combine that with the fact that it was less than two hours since I had finished my first replacement. When I began my evening class I figured I would take it at the break… which was late as well.

    Today has been a very stressful day with my course but it is almost over. It is now 2:30pm and I just prepared my meal replacement. It looks like today might be another ‘less than normal’ day. I am hoping to go for a walk this evening but there are a number of factors that might depend on. We will see.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 603

    I had a terrible day yesterday… and not only because of the bathroom scale. It was professionally a crappy day that was made worse by something that Leslie is going through as well. I cracked. For the first time in more than two weeks I fell off the program. Not only did I have some peanuts, but I also came home from picking up my prescriptions and made another omelette… and it was 9:00pm which means not only did I eat what I should not have, but I also ate when I should not have.

    By the grace of something I did not gain any weight this morning. I did not lose any weight either, but I am quite relieved that is stayed the same. I will try to do better today. I have nearly seven more hours of teaching before this dreaded class is over and I can turn off and prepare to light the candles to welcome the Sabbath… and the New Year. I swear I will not let professional petty garbage prevent me from decompressing and relaxing this evening and this weekend.

    Whether or not I buy a challah, or apples and honey, or anything else that might remind me it is a holy day, and which would help me to forget this dumpster fire… that is still to be determined.

    Have a great day folks… and Shana Tova uMevurechet uMetukah to all my Jewish readers.

  • Day 560

    I was not as successful with my plans yesterday evening as I had hoped. I stupidly bought two boxes of breakfast cereal when I went to the supermarket the other day, thinking that it could be a nice occasional morning treat that I could keep around for when I did not feel like preparing an omelette. Over the last few days I have nearly finished both boxes of it, and decided in the middle of this sentence to throw out what was left. Really, I stopped typing where I was, went to the kitchen, and poured the remainder of the box into the garbage bag.

    Other than the cereal, I ate pretty well yesterday. Unfortunately it does not take very much to throw off a good day. While my weight was only up by .2 lb. this morning, I would much rather have seen it drop by that amount (or more). I have to continue remembering that hope is not a strategy.

    For those wondering how or why I fell off yesterday, I had a lot of anxiety over something that happened during my daytime class – right at the end of class too, so it was fresh when I stood up to stretch my legs. I have to stay mindful and vigilant and not let myself go like that! I will try harder today.

    The class that I am sitting was supposed to be a 4-day class, but it was shortened to three days, which means I have tomorrow off (until I teach in the evening). Weather permitting I will go out for a jog and walk and redouble my efforts to get back on track. I will also work on my final presentation for the cigar sommelier course that I have been doing; I will be presenting it Monday, and I want to make sure I do the best job that I can!

    As for today, I am not teaching this evening… but that does not mean I have to eat. I will eat a reasonable dinner, and then after I take Her Royal Floofness for a walk, I will spend the evening on the balcony, chatting with my wife and smoking cigars. I might even pour myself a drink, depending on how I feel.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 540

    Another day, another fight with American Airlines. For some reason their online system will not let me check in because it believes I am traveling with an infant in my lap. I can assure you that is not the case. I have been fighting with their online site and their app for the last hour… and then I got an urgent phone call so I lost my place in line on their customer service line.

    Okay, that if finally dealt with. Now I can go about the rest of my day. I have some errands to run, including a trip to the UPS Store to ship a number of returns back to Amazon, as well as some shopping for goodies for my wife and stepson. I’ll do that now, and then when I come home I will have a quick lunch. I have done most of the preparation for packing for my trip, which is to say that my laundry is folded, the clothes that I am planning to take are out neatly on the bed, and all I have to do now is to run down to the storage locker and grab my suitcases. I will do that after I do my shopping.

    Looking at what I have laid out, it is amazing to see how much lighter I am packing now than I have before. There are a couple of reasons for this, not the least of which is that in the middle of summer in Texas I will not need sweaters or even a long-sleeved shirt. In fact I do have a couple of those in the closet there, but aside from the single pair of long pants I am taking (we are going to a couple of nice restaurants where I think long pants are appropriate) I will be wearing shorts and short sleeves the entire trip. With that said, I also know that I am wearing smaller clothes than I used to, and that is another reason for the smaller piles on the bed. It feels good, even knowing that I have faltered these last few weeks, to know that I have made so much progress from where I started… and that I am back on track.

    Speaking of back on track: The bathroom scale giveth, and it taketh away. Yes, despite eating pretty well yesterday (I had one breakfast, lunch, and some yoghurt… and then I had two meal replacements in the afternoon and evening) my weight was up a pound from yesterday. Yes, I know that it was astounding to be down nine pounds in two days, and that it was almost certainly going to correct itself a little this morning. I am not upset; I am only hopeful that I can stay on track today.

    Okay, I have a hundred things to get done and not a lot of time to do it in. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 526

    I saw my doctor this morning and she is a nice woman. We talked about what my situation is and she is extremely proud of my weight loss progress. While I have gained nearly 5kg since my last weigh-in, I was certain that would be higher so I am relieved. I am in a really crappy mood this morning – everyone wants a piece of me, so I have to prioritize. I am also not able to eat because of my schedule. I will eat when my friend goes home.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 509

    I was expecting another decent drop in weight this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see that I am down nearly one pound from yesterday. I cannot expect to drop all of the weight that I gained in a week, but I am making good progress. I ate pretty smartly yesterday, enjoying some of the leftover shawarma (with a salad) for lunch, and then a nice piece of fish for dinner (also with a salad). I determined that it was too windy to sit outside for my cigar class, so I participated without smoking from my desk. By the time the class and then our dinner was over the wind had died down somewhat, so Leslie and I sat on the balcony enjoying a nice cigar. We had some things we needed to talk about, and then we both griped a bit about our work. Leslie and I were brought together by our work, and I really like that even though I am no longer on her team we still can help each other because we understand so much of the same technology… as well as processes. I have memories of relationships past in which my partner could hardly explain what I did, other than ‘he works with computers.’ The fact that we can dig deep in the weeds on technical issues is just one more thing that make Leslie and I perfect together.

    After coming in from walking Her Floofness I said my morning prayers and then made coffee and an omelette. While there are very delicious and tempting rolls to go with it, I stayed true. I also put three pieces of chicken into a marinade, which I will prepare for our lunch. For dinner we bought a package of chicken gyoza from Costco which we are really looking forward to! I know the gyoza are naughty, but if that is my only naughtiness for the day then I might still achieve another drop in weight tomorrow morning.

    These next three days are far too long! I am teaching from 9:30am until 9:00pm Tuesday through Thursday, which makes for a very tight schedule. I feel terrible to schedule it that way while Leslie is in town, but she understands that we both need to work, and as a contract trainer it can be detrimental to my career to turn down certain contracts. Fortunately we know that Friday at the end of the day we are hopping into the car to drive down to Niagara for a romantic weekend together. While Leslie has some meetings next week, it will still be easier for us to spend time together. One day in the not-to-distant future we will be living together full-time, and these long and stressful weeks will not be as hard because our time together will not be so limited.

    I guess I should mention that last week I realized that I could back-date posts to my blog. I know I have missed two days in the last year and a half, but both of those were because I had started and was then distracted or pulled away. In any event, this morning when I click Publish on this article, I will receive a notification that I am on a 510-day streak. It is not nearly as important as my weight loss progress, but it is still nice to have.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 492

    There were three reasons I doubted today my mostly consistent weight loss would continue this morning. 1) I cheated yesterday. 2) I have been having trouble moving my bowels these last couple of days. 3) I decided last night very late (11:30pm) to have my last meal replacement, even though the plan had been to skip it because of my cheating. I made this decision because the meal replacement shakes are my best conduit for added fibre, which I decided (after a painful and failed attempt in the bathroom) was necessary. I am going to address each of these issues individually, but first:

    I did it. This morning, despite my expectations that I would not drop, the bathroom scale reported my weight at 250.0 lbs. It is a huge milestone, a threshold on which I have never, in all of my attempts to lose weight these last twenty years, stood. If I am able to stick to the program today, then tomorrow morning’s weigh-in might actually be in the 240s. I do not remember ever being there before. I am almost breathless with anticipation!

    Okay, so now that I have that out of the way, let me address the three points from my first paragraph:

    1. I love teaching. Technical training has been a passion of mine for years, and I truly enjoy it. When training went online and I had to accept that my students were not in front of me, I adjusted and found ways to make the best of it. My daytime class this week (I taught an evening class as well) was a group of military members who try as I might I could not engage. It felt like I spent the entire week speaking to an empty room. Add to that I did not plan my timing as well as I usually do, so the last day (yesterday) was a mad rush to finish. I got through it, but it was extremely stressful. As I drove to Hamilton for my evening plans (cigars with friends) I was hungry, even though I had my third meal replacement of the day less than an hour before. I know now as I knew then that my hunger was emotional, but it did not matter. I broke down and stopped at Bulk Barn to buy peanuts to eat in the car. I feel guilty and ashamed of it, but I doubt I would have made it through the evening had I not done so.
    2. As I have written about previously, one of the effects of a full-fast program with liquid meal replacements is that there will be days when I do not move my bowels. I do not think I had a good poop since Wednesday, and that can affect weight loss in the short term for sure. Unfortunately, read the next point.
    3. Last night I felt the urge to poop, and I tried… hard. It was painful, and I was unable to succeed. I realized that my solid waste was too solid and would need some help. It was past my bedtime, and I never like to eat (or whatever the term for ingesting a meal replacement is) that late, but the shakes are my usual conduit for fibre. I had originally skipped my fourth meal replacement of the day in lieu of the cheat-peanuts, but I needed the fibre… badly.

    I still managed to get to where I wanted to be this morning on the bathroom scale, even though I suppose when I had said I want to hit 250 I probably meant I wanted to be below 250… but I am at the mark, and I am happy with it. I will do well these next couple of days and I will drop below it soon enough.

    The reason I waited so long to take the fibre is because when I was taking it before I started having bowel issues that scared me… two weeks of diarrhea led me to get off the program until I was able to see my doctor and make sure I was safe to resume. My solution then was to do a partial program, where I would have shakes but I would also have enough regular solid food to regulate my system. I am probably 5-10 pounds away from making that decision anyways, so it is something I am going to start thinking about more.

    I am driving out to Strathroy today to see my buddy who has been sick. I also get to see my godchildren while I am there, and I am really excited. I wish I had thought to pick up presents for them, but honestly this week has been a shitshow. I will do my best to stay on track with my program and will make sure I have my meal replacements and my shaker bottle with me. On my way home I will drop in to have a cigar with Ryan in Cambridge. All in all, I will be doing a lot of driving today… but I will also get to see some friends I don’t see as often as I wish I could.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 476

    I walked into the doctor’s office yesterday knowing that I have gained weight. I was hoping that I would not have gained too much, and when I saw that I was 3.3kg heavier than I was a month ago I started making excuses to myself. 3.3kg (about 7.3 lbs.) is a lot of weight, but I usually get weighed in the morning… things like that. Well, last night I lay in bed thinking about it, and realized that give or take a pound, the numbers on my bathroom scale matched up with that… in the morning. What I should have been coming to terms with was not the discrepancies, but the trend, the stresses, and getting back to my normal life, normal routine, and losing the weight once again.

    With all that, I did not expect the numbers on the scale to be down significantly again today. After all, I ate (more than I should have), I snacked a bit, and I did not exercise. I also did not have a successful bowel movement (I have only had one in the past four days). When I stepped onto the bathroom scale (yes, it is still in my bedroom) I was fully expecting to be slightly up… not three pounds down. Yes, you read that right. I was truly surprised, and not unpleasantly so.

    I realize these last few weeks I have not been nearly so verbose as I usually am. I am sure that some of my readers will appreciate that. With that said, I am still writing every day. When I pressed the publish button on my article yesterday I received a notification that I am now on a 250-day streak. There have been a few days in there these last couple of weeks – especially around the wedding day – when I only posted a sentence or two, but that is enough for the WordPress platform. I hope that as I get back on track that I will be able to start sharing positive feelings and experiences again.

    As I sit at my desk preparing to welcome my students, I have already planned my meal (which I will prepare and enjoy right after class, which should have my meal done by 2:15pm). I thought for a minute about going to the store to pick up more chicken and lettuce. Instead I will open a can to make a salmon salad with onions and non-fat mayonnaise, and I will likely make a cucumber salad with the rest of that vegetable (and the rest of my onion). By not going to the store I avoid the temptations of buying… well, just about anything that could pull me in the wrong direction.

    I might go to Taekwondo this evening, depending on how I am feeling. On the one hand, the activity always makes me feel great. On the other, I have to be the senior belt in the room unless Master Sasha is in… and even if he is, I am still at least fifteen years older than he is, so seen as a senior… despite trying to not teach or guide the kids, sometimes it is hard to not do so. The last couple of days I have not felt up to that at all, and I might just stay on the balcony to have a blessed virtual date night with my wife.

    I am not going back on the full program today, but if I can contain my eating to what I said before – the canned salmon and the cucumber salad – then I should be able to get by without gaining tomorrow morning.

    Have a great day!