Losing a part of me

Category: Temptations

  • Restaurant Delivery: Begone, evil temptress!

    imageAt no point in my life do I remember not being able to order pizza in for delivery. In fact, as a child living in the suburbs of Montreal, I remember there were always two types of food that would always deliver: pizza and Chinese food. I remember Pendelli’s Pizza on Cote St. Luc Road was our first go-to pizza delivery joint (which happened to be three doors down from my elementary school); I cannot remember if it was House of Wong or Hong Kong House (they were owned by the same people and had the same menu) that was on Queen Mary Road above Decarie Boulevard that was our original Chinese food source, but it was one of the two.

    Somewhere along the way, the availability of food delivery exploded, and at a certain point, my mother had a drawer full of take-out and delivery menus in the kitchen that we could dig through whenever we were hungry. We had long since abandoned Pendelli’s for something else, and the Chinese food was changed from the Cantonese to Szechuan… but now our options included Cote-St-Luc Barbecue (the best rotisserie chicken), Buffalo Bill’s (the best wings in town), as well as Greek, Lebanese, Indian, Persian, and I’m sure many other regional cuisines, on top of the pedestrian burgers and Montreal smoked meat (deli) sandwiches… and whatever else you might want. The restaurant industry wanted our money, whether it was the mom-and-pop joint or the large American pizza chain that had recently come to Canada… they wanted to make it as easy as possible for us to buy their product.

    Sometime after I moved back to Canada in 1997, I heard about a service that would pick up your food from any restaurant or even multiple restaurants and would deliver them for a fee. For too many years I was used to the free delivery offered by so many restaurants and wondered how they would ever survive. I do not know what happened to them, but they were certainly still around when I moved away from Montreal in 2007… and for my frequent return visits to see my parents and friends.

    An hour ago, I was so pleased with my progress, and that I had done so well resisting every temptation since last Sunday’s nacho chips and salsa incident. I was ensconced in my apartment, not quite ready to prepare my second meal replacement of the day, when an alert popped onto my phone. Enjoy $$20 off tonight! Order and save with Uber Eats! Terms and Conditions apply.

    Are you %*@$ing kidding me?

    It is not bad enough that you can get any sort of food by driving less than a mile in any direction; a lot of these restaurants will bring the food right to your door if you simply pick up a phone… and if you watch television, listen to radio, or ever see a billboard then you are going to be bombarded with mouth-watering advertisements for it all; if you are smart, or strategic, or just lucky enough to avoid all of that temptation, they are now sending it right to your damned phone… with coupons no less!

    I know that I got fat because of me, and that my post-Army constant obesity is nobody’s fault but my own; I have written about that so many times over the last four hundred days or so. Nonetheless, it would be ignorant if not irresponsible to deny that all of the easily accessible and oh-so-tasty food what made my mother’s and then my own life so much more convenient by eliminating the need to go grocery shopping and then actually prepare the meals was a huge contributing factor.

    I am not going to say that these services are evil, because they are not. For someone who is not a food addict struggling with obesity they provide a service that, while by no means necessary, is nevertheless convenient for the rest of the population. I can imagine that when the only three options were pizza, Chinese food, or rotisserie chicken that my parents would have welcomed the variety offered by these services. They were never morbidly obese and struggling to lose hundreds of pounds.

    I cannot remove the Uber app from my phone because I do use it every time I have to go to the airport… which is frequent. I cannot even block the notifications for much the same reason. I can, however, curse them every time one of these ads comes up, and declare victory for deleting them as soon as I see them.

    As for the other delivery services, I have done my best to eliminate them as well. The last time I used one, I was sitting on the patio at my cigar lounge in Glendale, California… and it took a year of deleting their emails before they finally took me off their list. If I was still living in Glendale then it was pre-pandemic, and I have not used one since. If I get a notification from one then I will immediately delete it, and if they persist then I will make sure that I block them in every possible way.

    It is hard enough that when I drive to the grocery store, I pass restaurants that serve Lebanese food, Chinese food, pizza, sushi, and wings. I avoid those by staying in my car. Why do these restaurants feel the need to invade the privacy of my own home, coming into my quiet sanctuary, trying to lure me out into the cold, fat world? Begone!

    Of course, on Valentines Day it was nice that I could order dinner for Leslie from another country. As well, I seem to recall that there might have been one meal that she ordered in for us when I was there last. I cannot recall for sure, but I remember we discussed it. Whether or not it happened, I am not sure. Not only is Leslie not morbidly obese, but she also does a wonderful job of supporting me, letting me know when I have had my fill. She does not tell me this based on her own judgement, rather based on what I tell her I should be eating before we begin. ‘Mitch, you said you were going to have half the portion, and then save the rest for tomorrow.’ That is support. The restaurants deciding that portion sizes should be able to feed a small village is not supportive at all.

    There are those who would try to make these ads illegal, because it should be against the law to advertise any unhealthy option. I am not in that camp. I do not want to ban them… I just want to find a way to avoid them.

  • Day 391

    One thing I should have realized yesterday from my disgusting weight gain was that I had not had a successful bowel movement in a couple of days. It was only after I wrote my article – not to mention after my morning meal replacement and a couple cups of coffee – that I had one. I wonder, had I done that in the morning, if I would have fared better. Probably not, but it is nice to think about.

    I got through the day pretty much unscathed. I did not get any exercise in, and the embarrassingly low step count is something that I would have more closely associated with a day when I taught all day and hardly left my desk. I did do a little bit more walking than I had done most days last week because I went to the supermarket to buy distilled water for my humidor. I have to tell you, the deeper I get into my weight loss journey, the more tempted I am to splurge. I am not going to lie, walking past the aisle of potato chips to get to my distilled water did make me think twice, and I had to redouble my focus to not splurge. I know those potato chips would taste oh so good and would scratch an itch that I have been feeling for weeks. I also know that if I give in to that momentary temptation that I will be paying for it dearly the following morning when I step onto the bathroom scale. I already fell off the wagon with the nacho chips and salsa at the restaurant… but those chips are not the type that really tempt me. I have to stay focused and get through the next twenty-three days until I get to Dallas… hopefully ten pounds lighter than I am this morning. If I don’t then I will never succeed.

    My housekeeper (who is also a friend whom I have known for a decade) came over yesterday afternoon, and we were discussing weight loss because she weighs herself every time she comes over… and she does not weigh herself anywhere else. I have not bothered telling her that when she weighs herself with her clothes on, she is not accounting for that extra weight, but I do not want her to think that I am trying to get her to take her clothes off. Far from it! Anyhow, she was telling me how much she wants to weigh ideally, and she discussed some of the downsides to that weight loss. We then discussed some of the pitfalls to any weight loss journey, and I gave her my ‘I can never order Buffalo wings in a restaurant ever again’ shpiel. Fortunately, before I had to tell her anything more, Eduardo came over and we went outside to smoke.

    How wonderful was it when Eduardo walked into the apartment, looked at me, and said ‘My G-d, Mitch! How much weight have you lost? You look amazing!’ If feels great when friends notice. I generally do not like to discuss my journey (and especially the program that I am on) with anyone, he is aware of it because when I was on the program the first time, he and I went on vacation together a couple of times, and he had to be aware of it so that he would not pressure me to eat. Anyhow, he is extremely proud of what I have been able to lose so far. He told me that he has never seen me this thin before, but I told him that in 2017 I was actually about eleven pounds lighter than I am right now. I am close enough to that milestone that he can be forgiven for thinking I am lighter now than I was then. In any event, it was great to see him, and to catch up after nearly a month.

    The numbers on the bathroom scale dropped only slightly this morning, likely because I did not get any significant exercise. I will try to make up for that today; I might go for a jog later in the day when it has warmed up. When Princess Sophie and I went out for our walk this morning it was gorgeous and sunny… and it was still -2° outside. With a forecast high of 9°, it should be a brilliant day to hit the road again. I am not at all displeased that my appointment to help someone with their network in downtown Toronto was deferred until next week. Not only can I jog during my freed-up afternoon, but it also means that I can have a wonderful and relaxed video date with my wife this evening without worrying about rushing home. It is, after all, Valentine’s Day, and she is my beshert. She told me that I should be expecting a parcel from Canada Post sometime today, and I am really excited to get it! I know that she received her Valentine’s Day gift a little early, but she loved it and her getting it earlier does not detract from the sentiment of it.

    My plans for today are to get my hair cut, and then see if I can get my sunglass lenses taken care of. I will not bore my readers with the details of that. After that, depending on a number of minor factors, I will likely go out for a jog/walk. I know that Sunday I was able to jog 3km before pulling up and walking the rest of the way. It would be great if I could make it to 4km today, but whether I do or I do not, I know that it is most likely irrelevant to my weight loss. What is most important is that I am getting out and exercising, and no matter if I jog two or five kilometres, it is still better than not jogging at all. I also suspect that by finishing the >6.5km circuit, by jogging or walking, constitutes a huge success. Additionally, I will stick to my full fast program and only consume my 900 calories, plus my pot of coffee. I am not lecturing at all, which means I do not have to worry about extra coffee (or tea), or lozenges. While I realize that all of those are likely insignificant it at all relevant to my program, today is a day without them which means I am full-bore on the program.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 389

    I did not expect that.

    As I was driving home from Toronto yesterday afternoon, I was amazed by how beautiful the weather was, and I decided to try to actually go for a jog. Yes, in the morning I decided on the spur of the moment to jog lightly with my dog… but that was an ad hoc thing. I came home and called my wife, and while I drank my midday meal replacement, I told her of my plans. She told me to make sure I did not hurt myself, which is certainly a possibility when an obese man of my age decides to go for a jog. I dressed warmly in layers, I took a bottle of water, I laced up my shoes, put in my ears, and off I went.

    Because of my fitness walking, I know the approximate distances of the routes I usually take, and I opted for the shorter of them. I was not sure how far I would be able to jog on my first outing, and I decided not to try to push myself. I also decided to not jog through the park; while the sidewalks are dry, there are a lot of icy patches on the paths that I had to be careful on this morning, and I did not want to get hurt – I promised Leslie!

    I am not sure if I am proud that I got as far as I did, or disappointed that I did not go farther. I do know that I jogged for twenty minutes at an average pace of 8m11s/km and came close to 2.5km overall, before stopping the jog (and my counters). I re-started the counters to walk the rest of the way home, which was just over 3.75km (with an average pace of 10m14s/km). I will say that while I was certainly dressed warm enough for the jog, the walk was chilly. I do not know if that was because I was not generating the heat, or because the wind picked up. It could absolutely be one or the other of those. The next time I go out for a jog in similar conditions, I will pack a scarf that I can wrap around my face if necessary.

    After I showered, I had a lovely cigar date with Leslie. We really enjoy spending time together, which I suppose is the whole point of getting married, right? The distance is frustrating, and while we are counting down the months until the State Department approves my visa, we are also counting down the days until my next visit. We now have just under twenty-five days until then, and they will be twenty-five very difficult days of separation. Why does flying have to be so damned expensive?? Why can’t the government just look at us and say ‘Yep, you are married to an American Mr. Garvis… come on in!’?? Such are the things that test a relationship.

    I am happy that I was able to stick to the program again yesterday. A friend wanted me to drive down to Niagara to join him for dinner and drinks. While I usually would, I decided I did not want to sound like I was making excused, and I told him that I was on a strict diet and was neither eating nor drinking but would gladly sit with him while he did. He told me that he would rather put off getting together until I was able to indulge. Frankly, I am glad that he said that. I did not want to drive to Niagara, but I really did not want to be tempted to break my program. A lot of people might say that ‘hey, after two jogs and a walk today, you deserve it!’ I say that I would rather see the benefits of the exercise on my weight loss, either this morning or tomorrow, and not eat to counterbalance my activity.

    I was feeling light-headed by mid-evening, but I am not sure if that is because of the low-calorie program, or because I woke up so early. I do know that it is the second or third evening this past week that I have felt that. Fortunately, last night I did not have to teach. I was feeling fine on the balcony until it was too cold to enjoy it, and it was only a little while after I came into the apartment (around 7:45pm) that I started to feel weak and light-headed. I am going to have to find a way to get more sleep. For the next two weeks I do not have the same crazy schedule as I did, so I will be able to take a nap during the day. After that, I have another week of 12-hour days. Hopefully by then I will either be more used to the program again, or at least I will be sleeping better.

    I will be breaking the program today for one meal. My son the younger wants to go to Lone Star Grill for lunch, and I took a few minutes to look at menu online. The Grilled Chicken Fajita Bowl is 810 calories with 35g of carbs, and I can eat half of it and then pretend to forget my doggie bag to take home. Of course, I will tell them to withhold the cheese because of my religious dietary preferences, and probably the rice as well… but even if I ate it all, half of that would be 405 calories, and that is not the worst thing in the world. If that is the only cheat meal I eat between now and my trip (okay, there might be two of these) then I’ll be okay.

    I cannot help but think that yesterday’s jogging contributed directly to the tremendous numbers on the scale this morning. In the previous eight days (Friday to Saturday) I had lost 1.4 lbs. This morning’s day-over-day loss was 1.8 lbs. I was so excited to see that extreme drop that I nearly whooped out loud! I know it is unlikely that I will see consistent drops like that, but when I do it feels good. I am a lot more confident this morning that I will reach my first goal (under 280 lbs. before my appointment with the haberdasher on March 2) than I was just a couple of days ago. Of course, if I can do that, then I must also be more confident that I can achieve that second goal of getting to Dallas on March 9 under 275 lbs.

    If you were to scour through the 350,000 words of this journal you would not find the name of the weight management meal replacement program that I have been following (often more loosely than I currently am). I said at the outset that I did not want to discuss that program by name because one day it would be replaced by something else, and I did not want this journal to be seen as obsolete as irrelevant when that happened. Well, it happened… at least in some places. I received a message from a member of one of the Facebook support groups for the program that claimed that the clinic in Hamilton where I first went on the program has officially changed to another product. She says that the product is similar to the old one, but I am not able to find any information about it yet. I have asked her to share details when she can. Whatever it is, I feel more justified now in my original plan to withhold the name of the product. What works for you should work for you, and nobody should tell you otherwise unless there is confirmation that one program or another has severe negative health consequences.

    It is a beautiful day out, and while it was cold this morning (it is still below zero), the forecast high is 6°, and by Wednesday that will be 15°… after which it drops down to zero by Friday and will once again start rising over the next few days. As I have said so often, if you are unhappy with the weather in Canada… wait a few minutes. I do not think I will be going for another jog this afternoon, but you never know. It is Super Bowl Sunday, and I have been invited to several friends’ houses to watch the game. I have politely declined each invitation, knowing that the food temptations will be too great. That is one of the topics of discussion in the Facebook support groups. My plan is to avoid the temptations completely by not subjecting myself to them. Other feel they have more willpower… or possibly they might be able to get away with just a little bit of cheating. Whatever it is, I am going to be home alone, probably on a video date with Leslie. As I have said so many times before… Lead me not to temptation! I know exactly where to find it.

    My diet buddy is coming over this morning for a cup of coffee. It will be great to touch base with her, knowing that there are so many temptations out there on this the most commercial sports day of the year. She and I started on a similar journey, but I was worried that we would lose that commonality after she had her surgery. I am glad that did not happen, and that we can both continue to support each other. We joked last week that when we are both slim, we should go to a bar together dressed to the nines and see which women check us out… yes, she would be trying to attract women as well. Both of us are married so it would just be an exercise in vanity, but it is still amusing to think about it.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 361 (fixed)

    .2 of a pound. Two tenths – one fifth of a pound to go! After yesterday’s .4 lb. drop, I said that if I repeat that same drop every day for the next four, I would meet my goal of losing one hundred pounds in one year. Honestly, when I woke up this morning, I was hoping for that consistency. Instead, I registered a 1.4 lb. drop, which left me .2 of a pound shy of that amazing milestone. To put that in perspective: my bathroom scale records changes in .2 increments… which means that the next drop of any size will put me at or past that milestone. I am really excited about that!

    Yesterday, I decided to get right into the face of temptation. As my friend was contemplating her lunch order, I strongly and persistently encouraged her to order the Buffalo wings. I should mention that this particular pub has some of the best wings you will ever have; as Liz debated with herself, she spent quite some time describing just how big they are, and she does not know how they do it. My mouth was watering, and I tried to convince her to do it. I should mention that in the last year I have lost the equivalent of her body weight… and I have to lose nearly another one of her in the next year. I say this to underscore that she is a very petite woman. It was only when I explained that I would not be eating that she decided to order the Greek salad. With that, my testing my ability to resist temptation was foiled not by failure, but by forfeit of the other side, rather than my own surrender.

    In the end, I did walk the kilometre to the pub, and then back again. Liz and her boyfriend offered to drive me home; despite the chilly temperatures, it was a gorgeous sunny day, so I decided to hoof it. According to my fitness watch, I did more walking yesterday than I have any day since Sunday… and possibly more than a couple of days combined. It was a good opportunity to get some steps in, knowing that I have not been to the gym since last weekend. When I got home, I took twenty minutes to answer a couple of emails (or at least to compose them… I am going to reread one of them before sending it, and I know that my response is not expected over the weekend anyways). I then drove to Oakville to have coffee with a friend who I used to teach Taekwondo with. It was good to catch up with him – I have not seen him since 2014.

    I got home from that meeting after 6:00pm and realized that I had only had two meal replacements. I prepared my third one immediately, knowing that, once again, I would only be having four shakes on the day. While I know that it is bad form, and never recommended by the doctors who monitor the program, it is my reality over the last four days. I decided this morning that if I am only getting four shakes in anyways, I have just enough Canadian meal replacements in the cupboard to make the jump to them today. Tomorrow morning, I will make the drive into Toronto to pick up my new stock of shakes, which should energize me to stay on track. Also, if I buy a four-week supply (so that I do not need to go back to Scarborough for a month) then I will have too much to put away in my cupboards, which means I will always see it… so when I do get peckish, before I think to go into the fridge or pantry for a treat, the shakes will be in my face. By the way, because I did not have my third meal replacement until after 6:00pm, I forced myself to have my fourth shake at 9:30pm, even though I usually do not like to eat that late. There’s a difference between eating only 700 calories in a day and eating fewer than 500 calories. One is too little, the other is ridiculous and probably unhealthy.

    My plan for today is to visit with my buddy. Depending on how we are both feeling (and what the weather ends up doing), we might sit outside and smoke a cigar, or we might just sit inside and talk. The last week or so has been a combination of bitter cold and snow… and with the fact that I taught all day every day (and 9am-10pm Tuesday and Thursday), I have not been in the mood to sit outside… even with the heater going. Eduardo and I smoked in his condo Friday night, but that’s not the same as bundling up to sit outside. However, if my buddy is in the mood, that is what we will do. I know he wants to hear more about the program I am on, and the clinic that I originally went to for it. I do not know if the program will be right for him, but I will happily tell him all about it. The more I think about it, the more I think I might put off going to see him for a few days. I am just not feeling very motivated, nor very conversational. I know, I can help him… and he might be able to comfort me. I just do not think I feel like talking, and I do not know that I really want anyone’s comforting right now. Tomorrow I am tentatively going out to see my buddy in Cambridge, and I know that with him, I can either talk… or not. We might just sit there smoking cigars and watching TV. I just do not think I am ready to open up about what is going on.

    In the next few days – maybe even today – I am going to go through my entire wardrobe and start making piles… things that no longer fit because they are too big (or frankly things that I do not think will look good on me) are immediately going into a donation bin. Things that do not fit yet will go into bins (although knowing that I am less than 35 lbs. from my best weight in the past 30 years, this will likely not fill an entire bin anymore), and things that currently fit and are fashionable. It is strange that I have to do this again. This morning as I was getting dressed, I realized that the button-down shirt that I usually wear is hanging to dry after last night’s laundry… and then I remembered that I have a few other shirts that might fit. Sure enough, another Polo shirt that is smaller by quite a bit than the pink (salmon?) one that I have been wearing fits perfectly. I looked at the shirts hanging and counted at least six of them that I have not worn in three years because they did not fit. It is time once again to make more room in my closet… and at the same time, I can look at what is left in the bins of ‘do not fit yet’ – from the bins that I separated out almost a year ago – and do a bit of cleaning. If there are fewer than 40 t-shirts in that bin I would be surprised, and a lot of them are going to go to charity.

    It was January 30th when I first sorted those bins, and the stack of five bins has been in the corner of my room since then. That will come to an end today. If all goes well, I will be down to one bin of ‘does not fit yet’ and one bin of Taekwondo uniforms and belts from years (and schools) past. The first of these bins will stay put where it is. The rest of them will go into my storage locker downstairs, empty except for the one with my Taekwondo kits. While I am still nearly ninety pounds from my ultimate goal, as of this morning I am 34.8 lbs. heavier than I was the morning of September 27, 2020. That morning I weighed less than I have any day since 2005.

    As I have taken that stock right now, I decided to look at my numbers (today compared to my best day from 2020). Keep in mind that aside from the weight, these measurements are measured by a scale that cost $30 on Amazon and might not be completely accurate. With that said, the scale from 2020 and from today are the same make and model, so as inaccurate as they may be, those inaccuracies should be consistent.

    Today (January 15, 2023) September 27, 2020
    Weight 295.2 lbs. 260.4 lbs.
    BMI 37.9 33.4
    Body Fat 33.4% 29.7%
    Muscle Mass 169.8 159
    Basal Metabolic Rate 2280 2072

    I am not quite there… but I am not nearly as far as I was when I started out almost a year ago… or even a month ago. To be clear, the September 2020 numbers are not my goal. They will, however, act as my next major milestone once I have surpassed that 100-pounds-lost mark (hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday morning). I realized today that once I do achieve this milestone, I had no plans for the next one. Of course, I still have the decades (290, 280, 270…), but those are minor ones. The major ones are bigger and should be recognized… if not celebrated. I was speaking with a friend yesterday who told me that once I achieve something (which had nothing to do with weight loss) then it will be a cause to celebrate. In my current state of sadness (I am intentionally not using the word depression), I told him that it would not be a cause to celebrate, it would be just one more thing to recognize that I should have accomplished much sooner in life. Milestones are important though, whether they are celebrations or not.

    When I set out on this journey, I looked at my end goal – a 180-pound weight loss – it was daunting, out of reach, and completely unrealistic. On Day 2 – Friday, January 21, 2022, or about 360 days ago (looking at the math, I suspect I misnumbered a day, and my Day 362 of today might be off by a day!? I’ll go back and look later) – I set out major goals to accomplish at the 20, 40, 80, 100, 120, 140, and 170 pounds-lost mark. Some of them I accomplished – especially with regard to the sizes of my clothes and my wardrobe. I wrote at the time that I would begin jogging again at the 80-pounds mark, and that did not happen. Instead, when I had lost about fifty pounds, I started doing a lot of walking. I see that I hoped that when I was down 120 lbs. I would be ready to run a marathon. That is not realistic. I would have to start jogging first – and while I will, I think weight training at the gym is more of a priority. I don’t know if I will resume teaching Taekwondo, as I had set out as a goal for the 140-pounds mark, but I do hope to get into the Size 6 dobok (uniform) by then… and start working toward my next belt. The last of my goals was for when I have lost all of the weight – I had written 170 lbs. at the time, which would get me to 225 lbs. – I said I would put on my Army uniform and take pictures. That one is still achievable… I am just on the fence about whether I am going to do it or not.

    It has been about a year since I wrote those goals. While I am about to reach the fourth of the markers I set out for my goals, I think it time I start thinking about what the actual new goals should be. My life is not where I thought it would be a year ago – or a month ago for that matter – so while I still plan to continue losing weight and achieving my ultimate goal of being slim and trim (whatever the number on the scale might be), I guess I have to take a long hard look at things and take stock again. It is not what I thought I would be doing… but like John Lennon said, life is what happens while we are busy making other plans.

    I have been sitting at my desk for the last four hours. I have not been writing this entire time, but it is time to get cracking and do whatever I play to do for the rest of the day. I might just go out for a drive in the country – it is a beautiful, sunny day, and that would give me an opportunity to just put my music on and clear my head. In fact, I think that is exactly what I am going to do.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 268

    I knew that after a few days of tremendous weight loss, I would be adjusting for a couple of days. The only thing I am looking forward to about being back in Canada is the boring normalcy of my regimen… I will not be traveling, I will not be going to restaurants, I will not be going to cigar lounges where the host insists I try a dram of Irish whiskey to give my opinion on a particular pairing. I will not be invited to backyard barbecues where I am fed liberal quantities of carne asada.

    I was speaking with Leslie yesterday, and lamented how nice it would be if by the time she arrived in Canada next month I could fit into my 2017 suits. I know that will be an amazing non-scale victory, but I also tie it to a scale victory… about the same time I drop below 300lbs, I should be able to fit into those suits and shirts. I remember that the first time I wore one of them to synagogue services in 2020, I was around 296lbs. Leslie loves wearing dresses, and I would love to dress up in a nice tailored suit to accompany her. I do think I look pretty good wearing my custom-tailored pants and sports jacket (which I had made in March, and then tailored down in August), but there is something special about a suit… and while I do have ‘fat suits,’ I do not ever want to wear one of them again. I want to wear clothes that make me feel like I deserve to walk into a room with my wife, and not look like Fat Albert.

    Yesterday went almost, but not exactly the way I expected it to. Both Leslie and I completely forgot about the leftovers, and I went to pick up salads for us for lunch from our favourite drive-thru salad place. I do want to state, for the record, that it feels really weird to have a favourite drive-thru salad place, but that is a conversation for another time. For dinner, we did go for Chinese food, and while I did make a bad choice, and ate more than I should have, I did not really overdo it. However, I do know better than to have the sweet and sticky Szechuan sauces. Next week, I will eat much better, but today and tomorrow I am going to enjoy dinner with my wife!

    I have a lot of work to do this morning, and I have a 12:30pm meeting about a class that I am teaching next week. Before that meeting, Leslie and I will sit down for a lunch of leftovers – I’ll finish off the Mexican food, and she will attack the Chinese food. After my meeting, we are going to the Davidoff event at Cigars International, because that is far and away Leslie’s favourite brand of cigars. I will find time between this and that to shower and dress up, as it will be a fun and special dress-up outing for both of us. After the event, we will likely have a nice dinner around that area.

    After dinner last night, Leslie got the confirmation email that my laptop has shipped, and will be here in time for me to take it back to Canada. I am quite happy about that, as it means that as soon as I get home, I can advertise this laptop for sale. While the two devices are reasonably similar in specs (both Core i7 processors with 16gb of RAM), the new one is 15” (this one is 13”), and most importantly – the reason I actually decided to buy it – the new one will be under warranty. With the amount of travel I do, I consider that a huge benefit. For the last year, I have been using a laptop that is not under warranty, and while I am not doing the same amount of travel I once did, it still has 15,000 miles on it – which includes three round-trips from Toronto to Dallas, one round-trip from Dallas to California, and several road trips from Toronto to Montreal. I am hardly concerned when it is sitting on my desk, but a laptop in motion always has the potential to break. In short, new laptop = geek-out fun!

    You can tell that autumn is in the air, even in Dallas. Last night, Leslie and I sat out on the balcony with a cigar and a beverage. While it was not cool enough that I thought to put on long sleeves, it was definitely not hot enough to worry about my wife being uncomfortable. Yes, she much prefers the cool weather to the hot. I can only imagine the shock to my system when I arrive back in Canada…

    My diet buddy and I had our weekly check-in yesterday, and she told me more about her decision to have the surgery. I am going to continue to try to support her, although I suspect that she might decide later on that she needs someone that can relate to her experience. We will see.

    While it might get cooler this evening, the forecast high today is 86° Fahrenheit, which will be quite warm. I will not wear my sports coat in the car on my way to the event. As I mentioned, I have some work to do this morning, which I guess I should get at.

    Have a great day everybody!

  • Flying (mostly) Smart!

    I mentioned earlier today that I got to the airport several hours early, in light of my beautiful wife’s work schedule. That all of her morning meetings canceled, and that we could have spent an extra couple of hours together is not relevant to this story, other than to say I wish I could have spent more time with her, and that I love her and miss her already.

    As expected, I was through Security relatively quickly, and had a few hours to kill. I could have sat down at one of the restaurants, but decided instead to take a 2km walk through the airport. Yes, I walked the length of the Dallas-Fort Worth B Terminal… twice. Once that was done, I decided to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee. I also decided that rather than buying something to eat (as I normally would when I sit at a table near a food area), I sat with my coffee, and pulled out a meal replacement bar. Through two cups of coffee, this was my first smart move of the day.

    On the airplane, I did have the proffered cookies and pretzels, with a can of Coke Zero. Yes, I should have eschewed the cookies and pretzels, but if that is my worst transgression, then I am already ahead of the game. Instead of asking for another pack of those, I opted form my next meal replacement bar. It was, by then, after 2:00pm Central Time, and the timing was about right. By the time I land, I will be three meal replacements into the day, plus an airplane cookie and bag of pretzels.

    The problem with ‘when I land’ is that I am going back in time. I am landing in Pacific Time, so it will only be 2:15pm. Once I have my luggage and rental car, I am heading to Inglewood to have a cigar with a buddy. On the phone last night, he tried to convince me to stay for dinner. His wife Cecelia is a lovely woman and a fabulous cook, and I have enjoyed her cuisine before. I told Robert that I would have to leave before dinner, and that I would have to refuse their lovely and kind hospitality. We will have a cigar, but I will not eat. Yes, I might have to enjoy one more meal replacement bar on my way to Inglewood in order to give myself the strength to refuse again.

    I expect that my buddy Tam (with whom I am staying this week) will want to order chicken in for dinner. As long as it is just chicken and salad, I will gladly accept. I will call him as I leave Robert’s house to confirm this is his intention. In the event he wants to do something else, I will have to discuss my weight loss program with him. He is familiar with my issues, so I do not expect it will be a problem. He and I will enjoy another cigar this evening. Cigars will be a very common thread throughout this week.

    We have a little less than an hour left in the flight, and I suspect that I will not have any more temptations between now and then. If I do, I do have that last meal replacement bar that I was planning to eat on my way to Robert’s. I am trying to be good, and the fact that I did not pop into any of the stores to pick up a bag of chips or nuts or other snack at the airport is already a victory. Hopefully I can keep it up.

  • Day 211

    My weight loss program is extremely important to me, and my routine is fairly important to my progress. With that said, sleep is even more important; without sleep, I do not have the energy to get through the day. I have not been getting nearly enough sleep this past week, and I needed to figure out a way to end that streak. I decided, for one day only, to have a second meal. Yesterday evening I prepared a second meal identical to my first – chicken and salad – and enjoyed it around 6:30pm. I did this in place of the two evening meal replacements, so while I certainly consumed more calories than I would normally, it was not obscenely so. I then spent the evening on the balcony with a cigar, watching television and then talking with my wife.

    Is the extra meal the reason I slept well last night? I do not know. I could have happily stayed in bed another couple of hours, which was obviously not an option. That’s okay… and I am hoping that this evening I will be able to catch up on even more sleep… hopefully after a Taekwondo class.

    My weight was down nearly a full pound this morning, but is still a full 1.5-pounds higher than my low from Tuesday. These corrections are annoying and often disheartening, and I have to remember that it is the downward trend that is important, and frankly the weigh-ins at the doctor’s office. The bathroom scale, which I have known to be notoriously inaccurate, is a bellwether, not expected to be scientifically accurate.

    The forecast calls for a 30% chance of rain at some point today, but if I am going to Taekwondo and not for a walk, that will not be an issue for me. It will affect Princess Sophie, who has never been a big fan of precipitation… she might just step out for a few minutes to pee, rather than taking her full walk.

    I am wearing a golf shirt from the Size-XL bin today, on top of a pair of pants from the Size-40 bin. It feels good to be able to feel my progress with such victories!

    I realized last night that I would be running out of milk, but I did nothing about it. This morning’s first cup of coffee had dairy, but that will be it. I have to remember to pick up a litre this afternoon… and to not get the larger container, as I am going out of town Wednesday for a week.

    I have reached out to my diet buddy to confirm that we are still meeting this afternoon. We are supposed to meet every Thursday, but life often gets in the way. I love having Leslie’s full support, but I hope that Julie and I can touch base today to see how we are both doing.

    With regard to my meal replacements, I realized this week that I was running low, which is to say that I have 36 shakes left. To put that in perspective, at the peak I had twelve boxes, or 168 shakes. I thought briefly about going onto Facebook to buy more, and then decided against it… for now. I have a large case of shakes (84 servings) and a small case of apple cinnamon bars (42 servings) waiting for me in Dallas, and while they are the American formula (which means I have to adjust my schedule to compensate for the caloric differences), there is no reason I cannot bring some of them back to Canada with me… and I will only be back in Canada for three weeks before my next trip, so I only need bring enough to get me through that. Assuming with the American formula I plan for four meal replacements per day, that is 84 meal replacements that I need to bring back. No problem, and unlike here (where I have to buy them on the grey market), I can always order more in the US off eBay.

    Okay, so my diet buddy and I touched base during my break. She is not having a very easy time of it, and I gave her some tips… including the importance of telling people ‘I CANNOT EAT THAT (or THERE)’ instead of just going along, either to please them or because you are embarrassed to say that you are on a diet. It is embarrassing too, because it is vocalizing that you are fat. Also, if you tell someone you are on a diet, you always have to be on a diet with them, lest you slip and they think you are weak. All of those issues are psychological and deeply embedded into us, and we have to let go of them. Yes, it may hurt… but eating a poutine will hurt more.

    It is nearly time for me to get back into class, so have a great day folks!

  • Habits

    I have been saying for weeks that I am pushing myself to walk until it eventually becomes a habit, and that I do not have to push myself to do it. I have been saying for years that I need to break my unhealthy relationship with food, and establish good eating habits. I have gotten into the habit of writing in my weight loss journal on a daily basis, even on days when I have nothing new (or good) to report.

    So much of our lives are dictated by habits. Someone who does not plan their time well might be habitually late. You might be in the habit of showering on a certain schedule; people who do not eat well might make it a habit of picking unhealthy restaurants or food choices at the supermarket.

    A habit is not necessarily good or bad. It is defined (by Oxford Languages, per Bing Dictionary) as a regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. It is not the same as a schedule or routine. I do not take my dog for a walk twice or thrice daily out of habit, I do so out of necessity. To wit: When Princess Sophie is not with me, I do not go for a walk in the morning. I do not log on to Zoom to start teaching on days when I am not contracted to do so.

    There are good habits (I am in the habit of brushing my teeth in the morning when I wake up and in the evening before bed). There are bad habits (of which I have too many to pick just one as an example). There are habits that are neither good nor bad, they are just how we do things. I am in the habit of shaking a sweetener pack before tearing it open. Why? It is something that I do. Frankly, I remember watching my father doing it when I was a kid, and I picked it up from him. Would bad things happen if I opened a packet of sweetener without shaking it? Unlikely… but it is a habit, and I do it every single time.

    Habits around food are extremely common, and again, can be good or bad. Why do many people eat their salads before, or after, or alongside their main course? It is a habit, based on cultural norms of the country in which they were raised. Some people say a prayer before eating, which might be out of habit, or from a deep-rooted belief that their food is a gift from G-d, and that they should be grateful.

    Some people always take a second helping of… whatever. If you were to ask them, they might answer that they are still hungry, or that it was so good that they wanted more. Oftentimes it is simply because they are used to taking seconds. It is a habit. In some cases that might be a good thing, but more often it is not.

    I do not know a fat person, and likely neither do you, who was taught healthy food choices as a child. I do not mean that they did not learn about the five basic food groups – we all learned at least some form of nutrition in school – I mean ingrained education, their day-to-day meals. If you are taught about smart choices for ten minutes in a class one day, but are given huge meals of deep-fried this and creamed that and everything is drowning in gravy every night, then that is the habit you will learn. It is not an easy one to break.

    I have said for months that I want my good eating to be habitual, and my fitness walking to be a habit. So far, I know that neither has happened. Have I ever exercised on a daily basis? Of course I have… for years on end. Have I ever eaten well? Sure, and I have lost a lot of weight a couple of times to prove it. Yet it is so hard to make those habitual. Falling into my old routines is easy… like smoking cigarettes, it is easy to start, but hard to quit.

    Do you see the difference between those? Exercise is a hard habit to get into, and an easy one to fall out of. Eating well is a hard habit to get into, and an easy one to fall out of. Overeating is an easy habit to fall into, and a hard one to fall out of. Smoking cigarettes is an easy habit to get into, and a hard one to fall out of.

    clip_image002

    This seems to me to be an unfair reality, but it is a reality nonetheless. I wish it were the opposite, where good habits were easy to establish and hard to break, but it is not the case. That is why we must be extra vigilant, once we are in a good habit, to stick to it. I do not have the answer to that… and so far, I have not heard of a good one. I know people who put entries into their daily diary to go for a walk, and I hope that works for them… but it has never worked for me, at least not for the long term. A daily reminder to do something makes it a scheduled task or routine… but not a habit.

    Good habits are hard to get into and bad habits are hard to break. We may not like it, but it is a fact of life, and one that, if we wish to control our own habits, we will need to find a way to work at every day of our lives… until our good habits are so truly ingrained into us that we do them without thinking… and until we have so truly broken our bad habits that it would never occur to us to repeat them.

    With regard to food, I have gotten into the habit of buying only the foods that I know are allowed on my weight management program. Some people would point out that I seem to eat rather monotonously, but that is what I need to do to lose weight, and so I do not veer too far from my chicken or fish with a salad for lunch. I do not keep pasta and creamy sauces or fattening salad dressings in the house because it would be too easy to say ‘You know what? I do not feel like eating chicken today.’ It took some time, but when I go to the supermarket, I buy what I need, and I do not go looking for things that would be tasty but harmful to my weight loss plan. It is now a habit more than a routine, and I am grateful for it.

    When I decided to lose weight seriously, one of the hardest habits to break was eating at restaurants. That was one of the main reasons it took until January 20th to really start, and not January 1st as I had originally intended. Eating out is a bad habit, and therefore a difficult one to break. Sticking to my meal-replacements program was a very good habit to get into… and it did not come easy.

    Some religious leaders will tell you that the devil is always there to tempt you, and it is only your strong belief in G-d that keeps you from sinning. I do not believe in those concepts in the Christian sense, but I do believe that we all have good voices and bad voices in our heads. The good voices encourage us to do the right thing – and we usually know that is, whether it be helping a neighbour or eating healthy. The bad voices are shouting at us to succumb to temptation, to be selfish and to eat whatever we want. While the bad voices might be shouting, it is our responsibility to ourselves to tune them out and to listen to the good voices and to do the right thing, whether that be by others or by ourselves.

    Doing the right thing is not always the easy thing… but it is always the right thing. Our diet habits can be good or they can be bad, and it is the decisions that we make that will determine our paths… and eventually our waist size.

  • Day 202

    I had a harder time yesterday than I have in quite a few weeks, and I am not sure where it came from. To start with, I had a bowl of popcorn in the afternoon. Thankfully it is the last of the popcorn that I had in the house, so that will not become a habit. In the early evening, after my second shake, I was still hungry. I knew there were bagels in the freezer, and I was so tempted to pull one out, defrost it, and really ruin my diet. To curb that temptation, I decided instead to make a salad. I did not add tuna or salmon to it, only vegetables, salad dressing, and pumpkin seeds. There was nothing satisfying or even enjoyable about the salad… but it did the job of distracting me from the evil bagel, which was the point of the exercise.

    I will also mention that, once again, I forewent my evening shake because of the ‘cheating,’ which is probably why my weight this morning is exactly what it was yesterday, and not up.

    I took a break from walking yesterday, giving my legs a chance to recover somewhat. When I woke up this morning, my legs were achier than they have been in the last few weeks. Sometime last week I realized how nice it was that I was not having the next-day leg cramps that I had at the beginning. I wonder if it is because I had not been giving myself any chance to recover. Either way, the aches are not a bad thing. They are a reminder that my muscles are being used and strengthened, and that is all part of getting back into shape.

    Speaking of getting into shape, I need to have a conversation with my friend who owns the Taekwondo school this week. I do not know how that conversation will go, but I do want to speak with him. My plan right now is to start practicing and re-teaching myself at the park… but we will see how that goes.

    My goal for today is to get through today. I was weak on food yesterday, and I did not exercise. I will try to be stronger today, and if my legs are okay, I will go for a walk. I have other things I need to take care of though… and I do not want to injure myself by not recovering fully. We’ll see at the end of my class.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 194

    Down is better than up. When it comes to losing weight, most experts, pundits, and observers tell you that you should not weigh yourself every day. I have in this space gone into details on that before, but it is the general consensus. It is not so much that I buck the trend as much as it is that I am just that kind of guy, and I want to see every day whether I am losing weight or not. On the days that I am, I am happy. On the days that I am not, I review the previous day to see if there is a reason why – something I did that might explain not losing or even gaining weight – and try to adjust my behaviour for the next day. If there is no reason why, then I remind myself that weight loss is not linear, and what is important is the downward trend of weight loss over time, and not the individual points on the graph.

    This morning, my weight was down from yesterday… very slightly. Following a four-day streak that had me down 3.4 lbs, the loss of only 0.2 lbs could be seen as insignificant. That would be wrong, for two reasons that I called out in the previous paragraph:

    1. While it may not be the individual points on the graph that are important, several points on that graph make a trend. Five days of 0.2 lbs down is equal to a pound lost.
    2. When losing weight, down is always better than up. That loss of only 0.2 lbs may be seen as minor, but it is still down, and down is better than up.

    There are so many opportunities in life to gain weight. It is the psychological game, the constant reminders of things that you would like to eat but cannot. Avoiding temptations that are constantly in our face is so difficult and yet it is one of the cornerstones of weight loss. Yesterday afternoon I sat with a couple of friends on their porch, and they told me they bought me something. It turns out they bought me a package of Hebrew National sausages, which are of course kosher. I had originally planned that yesterday’s meal would be fish, but in the early afternoon decided that I was not in the mood for fish and would instead buy chicken. Either of these are options on my diet that I am familiar with, can control, and which are quite healthy. While the sausages might be lower in fat and whatever other macronutrients, I also know that there is no such thing in this world as a healthy hotdog. I accepted them gratefully and put them into my freezer for a day when I want and deserve a special treat.

    The sausages were not my only opportunity to cheat yesterday. In fact, they were not even close. Driving to and from their house in Hamilton, I passed myriad restaurants that called to me with Buffalo wings, shawarma, hamburgers, pizzas, and more. Forget that Bulk Barn is along the way, and I could have stopped in for a handful of peanuts (or so many indulgences that are far worse). When I got to the supermarket, I bought lettuce and onions and chicken… and having to pass through the prepared foods section and bakery to get to those is never fun. How easy it would be to cheat in the breads section alone? I wouldn’t need the fancy pies and other desserts to satisfy my cravings when fresh rolls were just as delicious… and just as evil.

    The other day I was thinking to myself how terrible traditional media is for a dieter, with every restaurant and unhealthy food staple being advertised with great imagery. Even the radio commercials paint a picture of the wonderful and terrible foods that I want but cannot eat. If you turn off the radio and television, you cannot drive down most streets without seeing a billboard or an ad on the side of a bus that shows temptations. If you can steel your mind to those, just walking into a supermarket to buy the healthiest of foods requires walking past the unhealthiest. It is no wonder that dieting is so difficult, with temptations at every turn. It is worse in the United States than in Canada, but it is no picnic here. If anyone asks why losing weight is so difficult, the reasons are everywhere… because marketing is everywhere, and nobody advertises salads.

    In the end, I did indulge yesterday. I feel bad about it, but I stopped at Bulk Barn and bought a very small handful of peanuts – they cost me $0.77, taxes included – to eat on my way to Lyle and Dorothy’s. To compensate for the added calories, I cut out one meal replacement. Previously when I was eating peanuts every day, it was in addition to what I was supposed to be eating. To quote a line from the movie For Love of the Game: “A lot of little bottles equals one big bottle.” Yes, I had about 250 calories worth of peanuts yesterday, but I had them instead of a meal replacement. Is it a habit I should be in? No. Is it a way to mitigate the affects of cheating once in a while? Yes. Even so, I will not make a habit of it.

    I still did not go for a walk yesterday. My intention was to try to go after I got home from my friends’ house. Owing to the sleepless night, I did not feel that I would have been safe walking. I could hardly walk a straight line down the hallways of my building. I hope to resume my walking today. While Princess Sophie did need to go out once in the night, it was only once… unlike the previous night which was completely lost due to her upset stomach. I will wear my bigger shoes, so as to not aggravate the already aggravated blisters on my heel, and I might limit my distance… but I will walk today.
    Before I do that, I have an entire day of teaching to get through… and of avoiding temptations.

    Have a great day everyone!