Losing a part of me

Category: Temptations

  • Day 416

    Yesterday’s jog was definitely solid, with several personal bests including fastest kilometre. I thought I had to have best pace overall, but it seems like last Monday’s 3km jog was faster. Oh well, no big deal. I am still happy to have done the 5km. There is a caveat to that: I stopped at the 3km mark, but not because I was tired or winded. I received an important phone call that I needed to stop and take. It was an 8-minute call, and I paused my devices, rather than stopping them. I truly felt that had I not stopped I would have been able to continue on. I will try again today or Sunday.

    Jogging

    · Distance: 5 km (3 km)

    · Duration: 39:40 (23:08)

    · Average Pace (Min/km): 7m55s (7m42s)

    · Steps: 6,200 (3,600)

    · Calories burned: 596

    · Elevation gain: 13.99m

    · pb Average cadence (steps per minute): 157 (156)

    Walking

    · Distance: 3 km

    · Duration: 31:43

    · Average Pace (Min/km): 10m34s

    · Steps: 3,700

    · Calories burned: 351

    · Elevation gain: 40m

    · Average cadence (steps per minute): 117

    I feel silly… there is a Garmin Challenge (on my fitness watch app) that awards a badge for a 5km run this weekend. Yesterday’s run would have earned it, except for some reason I did not restart the run on my watch when I resumed. By the time I realized it I had lost nearly 7/10ths of a kilometre. Of course, the badge is meaningless… except it is another badge that reminds me of the amazing progress I have been making. I have a few friends that I am in challenges with, but this one is a self-challenge. I need never win a race against anyone else… I just need to beat myself… specifically, my old self. I want to be better today than I was yesterday; I want the me of next week to make the me of today look fat and slow. The collection of badges in an app are meaningless but they encourage me to get out and push myself just a little bit farther and harder than I might have otherwise. Knowing that it is available, I will get out tomorrow (or Sunday) and I will push myself to the 5km mark… or who knows, maybe past it!

    My modified program yesterday, combined with a lot of exercise, resulted in the expected slight drop in my weight this morning. I am down nearly half a pound from yesterday, which is exactly where I was hoping to be. This week I am not going to worry about the little things… minor improvements will be welcomed, and I am not going to get upset about not losing more.

    As we lay in bed this morning, Leslie once again showed herself to be a huge support for my weight loss. I offered to take her out for breakfast. She was softly pushing back, reminding me that it might not be a good idea. When I told her that I have proven before that I can eat a healthy breakfast out, she pushed back a little firmer, reminding me that we will be eating dinner out for sure, and possibly lunch. She was not forcing me, but she did everything to encourage me to make the right decision, which I finally did. In the end, I enjoyed my meal replacement shake for breakfast. In an hour or so I am going to go to Starbucks to pick up café lattés for us. This alone will be an indulgence for me, but it will not be anywhere near the indulgence that any restaurant breakfast might have been. I already had my airport breakfast this week, and I will be having plenty of other meals out while I am in Dallas. I set my goals for this trip over a week ago, or rather, my plans for how to achieve those goals. Restaurant breakfasts were never part of that plan. I have done so well sticking to my plans so far; this morning I have my wife to thank for keeping me on track.

    Last night we shared a challah roll to welcome in the Sabbath. It was delicious! For dinner I prepared a chopped salad with a little sesame oil and balsamic vinegar to accompany the main dish of chicken breasts breaded with Corn Flakes breadcrumbs. It was all quite delicious, and very healthy. This, after a lunch from Salad and Go. Overall, while I did not stick as religiously to my plan as I could have, I will put the day in the ‘success’ column.

    Speaking of columns, I am losing ground on my comparative chart to 2020. I am still half a pound ahead of the pace, but that is down from just a few days ago. Looking ahead, for the next seven days I fluctuated in a three-pound range just above 270 lbs. and would not finally drop below that number for another two weeks. If my weight stays where it is for the rest of my trip, I will still be well on my way to beating the pace from that year. This is not going to be my primary focus, but I do like to keep track of this.

    Have a great day folks… it is time for me to spend the day with my beautiful wife!

  • Day 408

    It is not often that I actually swear at the bathroom scale, but this morning it could not be helped. I am truly angry that after a successful week of no cheating, of eschewing every temptation, that I could actually gain over a pound this morning. This is now the first week that I weigh the same on Friday as I did on Sunday. Had I cheated… had I gone off the program or taken a piece of something… had I opened one of the bags of snacks that I ordered to take to Dallas with me, then I would be a lot more accepting of this. How in the name of all that is good and right can I fucking weigh the fucking same as I fucking did five fucking days ago? This, after not one but two jogs in that time frame; after adding fibre to my diet (although admittedly it has not helped yet); after a week of religiously sticking to the program to the extent of not even taking an extra cup of tea in the evening? One day to the next I can understand, but over the course of nearly a week I should absolutely be seeing a downward trend. This fucking sucks. I would not be surprised that if you were to count the times I have used that word in this journal, now amounting to 387,000 words, fully half of them were in this paragraph. (Okay, I counted. 12 usages of the word in the previous 407 days, five in this paragraph. Not half, but almost one third!)

    At the end of my class yesterday I took HRF Princess Sophie out for a quick walk; she ran into a friend, and they played for a few minutes. We then went back into the apartment (with the normal inducement of a treat) so that I could grab my shake and go. Knowing that traffic on the highway could be terrible, and on the advice of my GPS system, I opted to take the toll road. It only extends only one exit from where I got on to where I rejoined the traffic leading to the Burlington Skyway, and from the looks of things behind me it might have saved me twenty minutes. Good choice. After circling the block, I decided to park in the hotel’s underground parking lot. I walked into the room with two minutes to spare.

    There are times when you look at how things turn out and you realize that they are a sign from G-d that you are an adult, and you have to be able to do things on your own. When the associate showed me to the fabric samples for jackets and vests, I tried to video chat with Leslie, only to find out that she and her son were huddled in their safe room with dinner, the hamster, and a number of his toys because of the tornado sirens. It was not a good time for her to talk. I was reticent because I really do value her opinion, and I have never been good at looking at a small piece of fabric and visualizing what it would look like as a vest, or sports jacket, or shirt. She had given me guidance on colours for the shirts, and with that, the associate and I looked at several options, and then I finally made my final selections. One sports jacket (blue and grey – darker than the one I got last year, and not quite as loud), one vest (burgundies and greys, which we agreed would go very nicely with both my grey and beige pants), and three shirts (a burgundy with white prints, a very light green with blue and green leaves, and a light – to royal blue). At the last minute I also splurged on a funky fabric for the inside lining of the vest which should match it really well.

    Leslie texted me that the all-clear had sounded as the tailor was taking my measurements, and that she approved of all of the fabrics… well, she was not a huge fan of one of them, but that is still a pretty good average for me. To counter the one she doesn’t love, she went nuts for the light green one. I am pleased with my selections… and what I am paying for the lot. I have a buddy in California who used to be in the industry, and he has no respect for my Hong Kong haberdashery. I get that, but at the same time, I am not prepared to pay Five Thousand Dollars for a suit and hundreds of dollars per shirt…especially knowing that hopefully by my birthday nothing that I ordered will fit properly anymore. While I know there are much higher quality clothes available, I think that what I ordered looks good, and knowing that I am still wearing clothes that I ordered from them six years ago, the quality is damned good as well.

    I do have to wonder about one thing though. This is the second year in a row that I have gone to the tailor and Leslie was unexpectedly unavailable to help me choose. Last year she was called into a customer meeting, this year tornado sirens. Maybe G-d really does want her to only pick my final weight clothes! Okay, I am being silly.

    I had another uncomfortably difficult bowel movement yesterday and decided to up my dosage of fibre. I put one or two teaspoons into three of my shakes yesterday, and hope that will kickstart my colon to start behaving. So far, so good… although I still have not had any solid foods, so I do not know from whence is coming all of the solid waste.

    As I drove toward the tailor, I was tempted momentarily by a fried chicken chain restaurant… the same one I wrote about in my article titled Temptations and Cravings that I wrote on Day 9 of my journey. I am not sure which came first – seeing the sign, or smelling the… I don’t know what it is that I smelled, because I do not think you can smell the eleven herbs and spices from the car. Maybe it is the grease that I smelled. Whatever it was, I was tempted briefly, before remembering two things: 1) However it might taste, the last few times I ate it I felt horrible afterwards, so it does not like me; and 2) I have been doing too well on my weight loss journey to throw it away on that garbage. I kept my eyes on the road, and shortly after I got home a couple of hours later, I had my fourth and final meal replacement of the day. I realized again that I am seeing these restaurants and being tempted, but so far, I have been able to resist those temptations. In less than a week from now, Leslie and I will dress up and go out for our first cheat meal… our favourite sushi restaurant. The following day I will likely have gained a pound or two on the scale (as I did on my first day in Dallas the last trip… following the same indulgent meal), and I will know that the meal I succumbed to, which had been planned a month in advance, was worth it… and a good decision. I will take my first bite and feel the juices rush through my mouth, knowing how long it will have been since I had a proper meal. I am not throwing that away – not to mention the forward momentum I have been making with my weight loss – on fast food chicken that has no redeeming qualities to it other than the addictive salt and grease.

    Today is Friday and I had planned to wear my grey Copley suit. After this morning’s terrible results from the scale, I was not in the mood to don that piece, and I decided to try on my light-gray sports jacket that I bought off the rack in 2017, and which did not fit the last time I tried it on. It fits fine today, so at least I have that. During the course of a five-day class, I do not like to repeat any piece of my outfit; until today that would have required me to wear the light-blue sports jacket which I have had altered down twice, and which I no longer feel fits me properly. I am glad that I can take that jacket out of the rotation. In eight weeks, I will receive my new sports jacket and vest (and my three new shirts), and I will retire this one as well. I do not like to think myself a snob and have never been a clothes snob. I simply feel the difference in the quality between the custom-tailored jackets that I wear and this one. There are plenty of off-the-rack brands that would likely be just as good as the ones that I get tailored; this one was bought off a liquidation rack at Sears, and probably cost me no more than $75. While there is a point at which I would not know the difference, at the lower end of the line you really do get what you pay for. For the time being, it fits, and on camera it will probably look fine… but it will not be a regular featured piece of my wardrobe.

    There is a winter weather advisory for the region. According to the radio, we are set to receive as much as 30cm of snow starting this afternoon and going through midday tomorrow. I have no place to be other than here, so aside from taking Her Floofness out for her business, I do not expect the inclement weather will affect me. I will, before class starts, run down to my car to put my windshield wipers up. If you do not understand why, it makes scraping ice and snow off the windshield much easier after the storm. With that said, unless something comes up, I have no plans to drive anywhere this weekend. My repaired shoes will be ready to be picked up tomorrow, but they will still be there Monday. Oh, I might try to go to the gym… but I am not going to dig my car out of 30cm of snow to do so. Hibernation may be the order of the weekend!

    I suppose I should log on and get my class started. Today is Day Last of my daytime class, and I promised my students (as I usually do) that I will be online early to answer questions and to offer any help they might need with their homework assignments.

    I called the pharmacy to renew my prescription (it would not do to run out of pills when I am in Dallas), and they told me that they cannot renew it until next Friday, the day after I fly out. I told them I was flying, and they told me that because it is a controlled substance, they have no wiggle room, and they would have to get authorization from my doctor to refill it in advance. That, I told her, is why I called so early. While it is possible that Wednesday we will be changing my dosage, I did not want to leave this to the last minute and have to fly without the pills. The pharmacy has a procedure in place for this contingency and will fax my doctor’s office for authorization. Even if he might not be working today (he often takes Fridays off), it will be dealt with on Monday, and I will absolutely be able to collect my prescription Wednesday, with plenty of time to spare. Pre-planning avoids all sorts of problems.

    I’ll run downstairs now to prepare my car, and then I’ll start my class. My plan for today is to stay on track… even though this last week that has not done me any good. Yes, I know it would have been worse had I cheated, I just feel… well, I feel like I have been cheated!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 403

    I told Leslie last night that this morning I would weigh less than 274 lbs., and I was right. In fact, I beat it by a whole pound. Who knows? Maybe it is because according to my comparative chart to my 2020 race for my best weight, in that attempt I knew there was a tremendous day-over-day loss… or maybe it is simply because I have been sticking to my program, not cheating at all, and I had a really good bowel movement yesterday afternoon. More on that later, if you can believe it. Even dropping 1.6 lbs. from yesterday, I still lost ground on my comparison, based on a 2.6 lbs. drop from then. No matter… in the race to my best weight from 2017, I am now just over half a pound away… if I do not achieve it tomorrow, then it will certainly be by Tuesday.

    This is not the first time during my journey that the bathroom scale has shown a very slight gain from Day X to Day X+1, only to make up for it greatly on Day X+2. Looking back on the last few weeks, this is the third time since I am home from Dallas that it has happened. With the exception of the Great Nacho Chips & Salsa Debacle, my weight loss trend has been down quite steadily since then. For me to lose twenty pounds in one month is tremendous, but it is hard to see when just looking at the scale day after day. I decided to export a graph from Excel to show it:

    clip_image002

    While there are a couple of distinct spikes, the overall trend is undeniable. The only conclusion that can be derived from this is that what I am doing is working!

    I did end up going to Milton for a cigar with Sam yesterday, and it was delightful. Eduardo did not join us, which changed the dynamic. Sam and I have not had a discussion like we had in a while. It was quite nice. On my way there, I stopped by Starbucks, and once again I was disappointed by the coffee. Now that I am not adding sugar to my coffee, I am not sure if I simply do not like the blend that I chose, or if I am simply going to have to prepare my coffee at home from now on. The next time I go, I will try a different blend. If I don’t like that, then I will save some money, so it is not the worst thing… and I will save my shekels for when I want to splurge for a latté… especially when I am smoking a particular cigar with my wife.

    When I got home, I was finally able to have a really good bowel movement. It is rare, since I am on the full-fast, that I am able to have a really good BM, and tis was the second one this week. I am frankly a little amazed that I was able to do it… but it is painful, and I am going to have to look into a fibre supplement or something. The next time I go out, I will stop into the pharmacy and pick up a fibre supplement. I asked one of my support groups for opinions on which work best, and if there is one thing I have found in these groups it is that a lot of people are willing to share their opinions and experiences. It is one of the few places (aside from the occasional article here) where I am okay discussing my digestive tract, and the workings thereof. There are some things that I just do not like talking about with most of my friends…

    My diet buddy is coming over after my study group today. When I reached out to her yesterday, she told me that she really wanted to come because she had a bad week. I really hope that is only on her diet. I know that her kids were in town for study week, and she was worried about the food that would be readily available. I will do everything I can to talk her through getting back on track. I know that she will do fine though. I know a lot of people who have had bariatric surgery and who have gained the weight back, and I know she needs my support to not let that happen. The surgery makes it easy to lose the weight initially, but the psychology of food addiction makes it hard to keep it off. That is where having a diet buddy to call or text is most important.

    After my time in the loo yesterday I decided to once again try on my Size-36 pants. That was a mistake. I am not going to try them on again until I am at my Best Weight Ever. I am nineteen pounds away from that goal and am not even sure if they will fit then. I know that none of them (and admittedly there is a range of an inch or more when holding up the waists to each of them) are even close to fitting now, and every time I try them, I am reminded again that I am not there yet. It may take another six weeks, but I will put a note on the bin to leave it in the closet until I am there. I do not know what I was thinking in September 2020, but I have seven pair of pants in that size. It is a good thing that I should be in them for a while!

    I decided over the last few days to order a couple of new belts. It is amazing to think that when I separated out all of my clothes into bins a year ago, I had something like ten belts that did not fit me, but that once did. Looking in my armoire this morning I have three belts that fit me, one that is not only a bit long, but is stretched out and ratty, and none that are too small. Of the belts that fit, none of them are on the last hole. In fact, they are all on the third or fourth hole. A few months ago, I remember ordering Size 38 belts, and then returning them because they did not fit yet; at the time it did not seem like they ever would. I eventually bought them again, but only once I was sure. This time, despite the belts most likely not fitting yet, I know that they will within the next 4-6 weeks. I want to be ready, especially when my new tailored pants and sports jacket come in (which likely will not be until mid-May), by which point I will definitely be sporting that smaller size.

    The forecast for today is above zero for most of the afternoon. While I told my buddy in Cambridge that I will not be driving out there today (most likely we will do it next week), I messaged Sam and we might get together after my diet buddy leaves. We’ll see… I did not feel like making the trek out to Cambridge, but Milton is not nearly as long. As well, it is easier to stay on track there… the man cave in Cambridge has snacks and temptations everywhere you look, and I just do not feel like I have the capacity to avoid them all today. It is one thing to not go looking for junk; it is quite another to have it readily available and have to stay strong throughout the afternoon. There are days when I know that I have the willpower. Today is not one of those days. I have been feeling more tempted than usual to cheat these last few days. I have not done it, but I am not going to put myself in that position today. It is bad enough that I know what I have in the freezer should I decide to eat… that would require food preparation. Sitting within easy reach of a handful of nuts (and then another handful, followed by peanut-filled pretzels) requires nothing other than letting my guard down for just a moment. That moment will not be today. Once I get past today, I know that this week is a maelstrom of long days – teaching morning to night three days, and then Thursday evening I will head to the tailor to be measured for my new clothes. I am really excited about that… especially knowing that I will almost certainly weigh less than I did when I first got measured by them in 2017!

    I guess I should get moving. My study group starts in a few minutes, and I should publish my blog and get ready. Oh, I also realized that cutting my coffee down to half a pot per day is going to wait… I really felt it Friday, and that was an easy day compared to the week I have ahead.

    Have a great day folks!

  • 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!