It is 11:08am, and my day is done. I have been up since midnight after nearly three hours of sleep. Because of my class schedule this week my schedule is completely off. I did not weigh myself this morning because I essentially woke up yesterday. I had breakfast when my class broke for lunch, but I am thinking that right now I am going to have a cigar and then maybe I’ll eat a protein bar before hitting the sack.
Have a great day folks!
After yesterday’s slight rise in my weight, it was nice to see a solid drop in it this morning. While I did not get out to exercise yesterday (owing not only to the networking issues, but also to a bit of an ache in my knee) I was a bit worried, but I ate better than I had in many days and was rewarded with a two-pound drop on the bathroom scale this morning. Yay!
I am teaching again this week, and hope that I will be able to stay on track. I did go into the supermarket over the weekend, and while I was tempted to buy things that I should not be eating, I was good. Yay.
Before I weighed myself this morning I had a bit of a bowel movement, but after my breakfast I had a much more productive one. The fibre that I add into my meal replacements is doing its job, even though I wish it would have happened prior to my weighing myself. Oh well.
Have a great day folks!
I increased my meds again yesterday. The upside is that I do not seem to be in as much pain, and I am seeing improvements in my knee. The downside is the constipation. Owing to that, my weight peeked back above that dreaded and disgusting number again this morning. Grr.
I am teaching a class today that I have been stressing over these last few days. I am not looking forward to it. I am, however, looking forward to the end of the day.
My weight is up this morning, but only by .2 lb. which is up… but within the margin of error of any given day. Considering my stress and anxiety levels, I am not pleased… but I am also not giving up. I did not eat more, but I also did not cut out my starch with the evening meal. No wonder.
My food plans for today are to change it up slightly. Rather than having chicken for lunch and dinner, I will have meatless burgers and air-fried potatoes for dinner.
I have three more days of the 14-hour teaching schedule, and then I have ten days off. I am looking forward to being able to being able to get some exercise back into my schedule. That should help to reverse the trend of these last three days.
One of my students last week broke down emotionally after failing her mid-course exam, and I spent a lot of extra time tutoring her. This morning she told me that she passed it and was feeling better about understanding more of what I am teaching. There are some very rewarding moments in my job!
Okay, it was bound to happen, especially how I’ve been eating. My weight jumped a little today, which took me just above the 260 lbs. mark again. I am not at all upset by this. I know that last night, after preparing a lovely roast chicken dinner for the family (with French fries, which are immediately a bad idea), I decided to have a piece of toast with peanut butter. I knew then that the carbs of the bread and the sugar of the peanut butter were a terrible idea, but I did it anyways. I will do better today!
Speaking of today, I finally slept last night. I do not remember when I fell asleep (nor do I even remember going to bed) but I woke up around 2:00am to use the washroom and realized I had been asleep for a while. According to Garmin, I was asleep by 9:15pm, and got ten full hours of sleep. I feel much better today than I have the last couple of days, and I am ready to go for a light jog. My Body Battery is at 81/100, which means that I am not really at risk of running out of steam. With that said, I have not jogged in the last ten days so I do not expect too much of myself. I will not be trying to win any races.
This evening is my last class with the group that I have been teaching since the beginning of February. Three nights per week for three months I have spent with this group, and I am so proud of their progress. They still have exams to take, but they are on their way to becoming networking professionals. Next week I will be starting with a new group, but only for a couple of weeks. It is not often that I get to work with a group for this long, and I have loved every minute of it… despite a lot of frustrating moments.
The end of class means that starting next week my Monday evenings will be free. This works out perfectly because I have been invited to sit a class for cigar professionals that is Monday evenings for the next few months. I am very excited about the class, and only hope that I can keep up… they told me that they will be delivering it simultaneously in Spanish and in English, but I know one of the instructors and his English is almost zero. I do not know how they will do it, but my dues are paid and whether I need to use a translator or not, I am ready to start.
Despite what the forecast predicted, it is a beautiful day outside. Between now and noon it is going to hit 85°, but for now it is in the mid-70s. The rain is predicted to start around 3:00pm, with the high temperatures forecast to hit 95° by then. That would not be comfortable jogging weather, but right now it is. It is time for me to suit up and hit the road so that I can be back before the worst of it starts. I had a few things I needed to take care of before getting out, but I think most of them are done so I am ready.
My goal for today is to get back on track, both with jogging and with eating. Let’s see if I can drop below 260 again tomorrow. I know that I will likely not be able to jog tomorrow or Sunday, but if I can have one good day in Dallas before returning to Canada then I will be happy.
Have a great day folks!
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday afternoon during my lunch break I sat outside on the balcony smoking a cigar and chatting with my wife. This morning I looked outside and there was nearly a foot of new snow on the ground. What a difference a day makes on the bathroom scale? I would have liked to get down back into best-weight-yet territory, but that was not on the cards for this morning. Yes, I dropped .8 lb. which takes me back to where I was Monday, but that is nearly half a pound from best weight, and nearly two full pounds from dropping below 270 lbs., which I have had as my goal for Thursday. What just a few days ago looked to be an easy lock is now back in the possible, but not certain column. I also want to maintain my pace of losing at least three kilos between doctors’ visits, my next appointment being Wednesday. Today I am down barely 1.5kg from my last appointment. I would say that I just have to redouble my efforts, but really there is nothing left that I can cut out of my diet. I would love to go for a jog, but we got 20cm of fresh snow yesterday evening. I am not sure if I will go out for anything today. We’ll see. Hopefully by tomorrow the roads will be clear and if I cannot jog then at least I will dig my car out and go to the gym.
I was relieved to be able to move my bowels yesterday afternoon without any pain or discomfort. I am truly glad I started taking the fibre. It was not as productive as my previous attempts this week, but that is partly because it was not several days between tries. This morning I felt like I might but was unsuccessful. Okay, with zero solid foods, that is to be expected.
My daytime class ended yesterday, and the student evaluations were perfect for the instructor category, which is always nice to see. If nothing else, it ensures that the training company will be eager to continue hiring me. Strong evaluations are the currency that keep trainers like me in business. When they are happy with me then I can continue to afford the necessities in life… child support, rent, trips to see my beautiful wife, and cigars. Oh… and dog food. I think I might do well to pick up a new bag of that before my flight Thursday. I do not want to leave that responsibility up to Sue, who is so wonderful as it is.
After initially writing that I was unsuccessful, I took a break from writing to visit the latrine and was extremely successful. Equally important is that it was not painful. I am glad that I am taking the fibre, and that it is helping. I am not sure that it is not a contributing factor to my stalled progress on the weight loss journey, but the painful strain of the bathroom is not something that I want to endure unnecessarily. Also, hopefully I am now back on track. I hope to continue to downward weight trend this week. It would be disappointing only to myself if I were to fly to Dallas without dropping below 270 lbs., but that is a goal that I set, and I would like to achieve it. As of this morning, I weigh 16 lbs. less than I did the day I left Dallas on February 1. If I can edge that up by a couple more pounds, I will be extremely happy. I would have liked for that number to be an even twenty-pound loss in my absence, but though it might seem longer, that is only a five-week period… and that would be a lot.
With the drop this morning, my BMI once again drops below 35, hopefully for the last time. I am sick and tired of this yoyo between obesity classes. I want to be on the road to overweight, and not straddling this line. Argh!
My diet buddy is coming over for coffee this morning so I will be able to talk with her about my frustrations. She will definitely understand. This will be our first meeting since early January at which I will not be excited about a tremendous weight drop. I am almost exactly where I was when we met last weekend, and that is frustrating. That is why we have diet buddies… to share the good, but also to support each other through the bad. I do not know if my frustration with a plateau is really a bad, but it is not a good. Oh well.
My plans for today are to try to stay on track. There is a slight chance that I will drive up to Milton for a cigar, but I do not think that will happen. I will stay close to home and just relax. It was a very long and stressful week, and I could really use the time to decompress. If it is not too windy then this afternoon, I will likely have a cigar on the balcony if I do not drive up to Milton. The important thing is that I stay on track with my program.
Have a great day folks!
For the first time in a few days, I had a productive (if small) bowel movement. For the first time in a few days, I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning and weighed less than I have these last few days. It was not a huge loss, but something is better than nothing… and that something took me below the 285 lbs. mark! It was also the first day since I started my spreadsheet comparing my weight loss now with my weight loss from three years ago that this morning’s comparison to 2020 is lower than it was yesterday. While that may falter these next few days, that is more a commentary on how well I did in 2020 over that first ten days. I then lost momentum, so while the total weight loss from Day 1 of that sheet is nearly 9 lbs. on Day 11, that number drops to under 4 lbs. on Day 19. In 2020 it took me 69 days to drop from 285.2 lbs to 260.4 lbs. I still believe that in 2023 I can do it in less.
Of course, there might be a bit of a delay in that. Yesterday, after much fighting with American Airlines, I booked my next trip to Dallas. On March 9 I will fly down for ten days, and I will once again go back on my modified program. With all of the worries I had, it worked really well the last time. I am going to expect, once again, that I will gain as much as two pounds on that trip to consider it a victory. If I do anything like my last trip, I will do much better than that!
Yesterday went exactly as planned. Both my daytime and my evening classes are good groups, although I did not hear a lot from the daytime class (except when I asked them midday if they wanted me to change anything, and three of them told me I was ‘crushing it.’ I felt really good about that and will do my best to keep going. My evening class was a lot larger, and because of the different format I was able to force each one to turn their mics on to introduce themselves. That was a pretty good ice breaker, and while very few mics went on the rest of the night, I had them using the feature where they raised their hands… a lot. I stuck to the program, with the only aberrations being a cup of tea in the evening and a couple of lozenges. I essentially spoke straight from 9:45am to 10:30pm (with the last 90 minutes being on the phone with American Airlines), and I doubt anyone would begrudge me my throat soothers.
Today I will do essentially the same… but I do have to step out. I was worried yesterday that I might not have enough oat milk for my coffee today. It seems that I do, but I will definitely not have enough for tomorrow if I do not go to the supermarket. There is nothing else that I need, so I will get in and out as quickly as possible. I wish the oat milk was not all the way at the back of the store, but I know that I can get through without succumbing to any temptations. I will also take the opportunity to drop a couple of my shirts and a pair of pants at the dry cleaners. I may be saving a ton of money on that bill by wearing undershirts, but that does not change the fact that they do need to be cleaned from time to time. Of the four shirts that went me to Dallas, three of them are in need… as are a pair of pants.
Last night I was worried about sleeping, as I have had trouble the last couple of nights. I woke up twice to pee, and the second time I felt like I might not get back to sleep… it was 3:15am. Before I even went to the washroom, I proactively ate a melatonin gummy, so when I got back into bed I might have an easier time. Indeed I did, and was asleep within 15 minutes or so. I did not sleep through to my alarm clock, and again was out of bed 10-15 minutes early… but that is not the end of the world. At least it was not another mostly sleepless night.
Stay on track today. Stay focus, stay mindful. Do not veer, and you will succeed. Right, Taz? Yes Staff Sergeant!
Have a great day folks!
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!
I was at the park with Princess Sophie by the time I realized that I did not feel any discomfort from my previous aches. I suppose I will keep an eye on things for another day, but I hope that I am out of the woods with that.
Yesterday’s cheat was a handful of pumpkin seeds that I usually reserve for my salads, but which was a very fine nosh for my mid-afternoon pangs. My plans for today are to not do that… although knowing that I have a friend coming over for a cigar, I suspect that he will try to entice me to join him in a glass of whisky. I am probably going to tell him I am on antibiotics, and am unable to drink. We will see. He is a fellow cigar sommelier, and it is not often I get to sit and share a pairing with another trained smoker.
My weight dropped by another .2 pound today; at this rate, it would take me seven weeks to lose five pounds, so I will continue to try to improve on that. Yes, down is still better than up, and yes, I remember that it is the downward trend, and not individual points on the graph that are important. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to resume my exercise regimen, and that will give my weight loss progress the kick in the pants it needs.
We are now inside two weeks until my trip to Dallas, and I am thrilled that I will be able to see her again. I only wish it was sooner. Good things come to those who wait, sure… but I hate having to wait to see my wife. Hopefully in the next few months we will be able to sort things out so that I can move down there and we can be together permanently. Our Rectangle Zone dates are nice, but we both need more.
HRF Princess Sophie is so gorgeous following her spa day yesterday! She loves her new coif, and was the belle of the ball (read: park) this morning. All of the doggies wanted to play with her. Can you blame them?
Today is the final day of my current class, but not of my contract with this group. I am finishing up the networking lessons today, and will start on security tomorrow. I have a good group of students, and I am glad that I will be them through the end of this month. The paid contract does not hurt either… I miss having a steady paycheque, and these contracts keep me going until I can stabilize and start looking for steady work again.
The forecast calls for a sunny day today and through the weekend, which should bode well for my fitness walking. I did not want to stop, but I have to worry about my immediate health before I concern myself with my future health. Preventing serious injury is a good reason to take a few days off, but I do want to get back to it starting tomorrow… especially knowing that tomorrow I am planning on preparing a steak for lunch, which will be my first red meat since my birthday, over a month ago.
There is no doubt that my eating habits have changed, and I find myself eating significantly less red meat than I ever did, as well as more fish. I strongly suspect that when my active weight management program is behind me, I will not be going back to my old ways. Yes, I love a good steak… but I do want to eat healthier for life, which means it will be a rare indulgence, and not a regular part of my diet.
Have a great day folks!
I really have to start reining in my peanuts buying. I did not go terribly overboard yesterday, but I did buy more than I should have… unless I was going to spread them across a couple of days, which I did not.
Other than the peanuts I stuck to the plan, and I am happy to be nearly one pound down from yesterday’s weight. My plan for today is to stay the course… make my chicken for lunch (with some steamed vegetables), and a tuna salad for dinner… which will be bracketed by the morning and evening meal replacement shakes.
A friend might be coming over for a cigar during the day, but he has been historically unreliable, so I am not holding my breath. I also have to prepare for my Monday class, which is a Fundamentals (beginners) class, but that does not mean that I do not want to be prepared for it. I also want to look into the fiancé visa for the US. Leslie has been doing a lot of the work so far (as she is sponsoring me, she has to fill out most of the paperwork), but I still want to review it and see if there are any questions that I can think of that we should ask our legal counsel. We want to do things right, and I feel bad that right now she is doing all of the work. Yes, I know that is because she has to initiate it. I just wish there was something that I could do. As I used to live in Los Angeles, I am a member of multiple Facebook groups for Canadians living in the USA, and I reached out to the groups to see if anyone has any advice or guidance. While I have already received multiple congratulations from members, so far, the helpful advice has not been forthcoming. Grrr.
Einstein described relativity thusly: “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.” I looked at the forecast for this afternoon and my initial reaction was: “Wow… 24°C… it’s going to be a real scorcher!” Then I realized that every day in Cuba was within a degree above or below 30°C… and that in Dallas today’s projected high is 34°C. It is true then… everything is relative. With the low temperatures around or below 10°C at night, and knowing I needed to wear a hoodie to take HRF for her walk this morning, 24°C seems pretty hot. It’s really mild… and either way, I have no complaints. Tomorrow will be the same (but with rainstorms in the forecast), and Sunday will be cooler (also rainy). Monday (a holiday in Canada) will be cloudy and 14°C. I guess I should not complain about the weather today.
Have a great day folks!
