Losing a part of me

Category: Tracking

  • Day 1271

    I do not remember at what point I stopped updating my offline journal – that is, the one large document that included all of the posts from my online blog – but it occurs to me that I should seriously think about going back and updating it. I do not really want to see a lot of the worst of my entries from the deepest times of despair, but I suppose I can just copy-and-paste without reading them. We will see. That will not happen before Thursday – today is my last complete day to study for my exam which is at 1:00pm tomorrow afternoon, so my main focus until after the exam will be that. Wednesday I will be at a provincial Grand Lodge event, which takes us to Thursday.

    I should mention that I did resume updating my weight tracking spreadsheet from my bathroom scale. That is much easier to do, and does not involve going to each individual day to cop-paste. All I needed to do was to expert all data from the scale since the beginning of April and then copy-paste that into my spreadsheet.

    The new shirts and jacket that I ordered are out for delivery according to FedEx, and I will have them in time for my event on Wednesday. That is a relief. While I do have a suit that I can wear, it is tight and I will feel more comfortable wearing something that is tailored to my size. The disturbing truth is that from the day the tailor measured me for these new clothes I gained over ten pounds… that is just over a month ago. Fortunately I have these last five days lost all of that. Phew! As terrible as I feel that I needed to have bigger clothes made, that would have been amplified had they now been tight.

    Yes, today is Day 5, and according to the bathroom scale I have dropped a little over ten pounds. I am pleased but far from satisfied. I have a long way to go, as I said yesterday, until I am anywhere near satisfied. Maybe ‘satisfied with my progress so far’ is a better way to write that.

    I need to start exercising in order to make sure I continue to not only lose weight, but also to ensure I get back into shape. My doctor will tell you that I am in great shape for a man a fucking overweight as I am (she would not use those exact words), but that is not good enough for me. I would like to run a marathon next year. Before I do that, I need to start walking again before I can start jogging again. I am going to wait a couple of weeks before jogging for a number of reasons, but as for walking I might start as early as Thursday, depending on the weather. Yes, I have a treadmill… but if the weather is nice I would much rather begin my journey again in the fresh air.

    My sleep score last night was equal to the previous night. I suspect that if I was not drinking what amounts to a small swimming pool every day it might be a bit higher… but alas, I am going to continue to drink as much water as I can. Water is great for the body, but it is also a big contributor to weight loss… even if it did not help to fill my occasionally hungry stomach. I only woke up three times to pee in the night last night which is a 25% improvement over the two previous nights.

    I did finally move my bowels yesterday which was a relief (no pun intended). I neglected to add fibre to my morning meal replacement, but will make a point of doing so this afternoon.

    Owing to something I needed to get done for a buddy yesterday, I was not as productive as I would have liked to be. I did get some studying done… but not as much as I hoped to. Today there will be no disturbances, and that is what I am going to do.

    There are so many things I probably should do with regard to tracking my renewed weight loss efforts, but I am not ready to do that yet. I know that my Body Mass Index (BMI) is a disgusting 42.6, up twelve points from my best ever in October 2023. I have to assume that means that I would again be classified as morbidly obese, but looking to see at what point I would drop out of that… I am not ready for that. I know that I need to set short, medium, and long-term goals for myself, but for the time being I just want to follow the program like an automaton. I will drink my meal replacements and do nothing more other than journal about my emotions.

    The friend who came over yesterday is one of two who has gone through the same medically supervised program that I did. He understands a lot of what I am going through. He and his wife went through it and they lost a lot of weight. It is good to have people that I can speak with who have been there.

    My only plans to go out today are to go to the store to pick up milk for my coffee. Other than that, I expect I will migrate between my desk and my balcony, studying either inside or outside. I will continue to try stabilizing the timing of my meal replacements, which might be easier today at home than tomorrow (when I have my exam) and Wednesday (when I will likely be in Toronto for the day). Speaking of which, I had better remember to bring my meal replacements with me if I go to Toronto… I do not want to be caught having to break the program as I am still trying to make it a habit… and while I am doing so well.

    While I have felt hunger at times, I suspect that yesterday was the first day that I did not consider the program (which is by any measure extreme) a hardship. I was able to get through it without a great deal of difficulty. There have been times these last few days when cigars have helped to distract me from my hunger, and I will continue to use them as a tool. I was going to use the word crutch but no, it is not a crutch. I am not leaning on them, rather I am using them to bridge the hunger meal replacements, much as a snack might bridge the hunger between meals.

    I have said before that forcing a happy face when one is down can be a way to actually induce the happiness eventually. I am trying to put on that positive and happy air these days, and I hope that after tomorrow’s exam I might start to feel it. Until then? The exam and its implications are all consuming.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 947

    I did not expect it to happen this morning, so when I stepped onto the bathroom scale and saw that my weight had dropped below 290 lbs. I was somewhat elated. Woohoo! My plans for today are to have a conversation with my diet buddy, and then I hope to go for a walk and I might even jog for a bit of it. When I am back I will shower, and then I will prepare the rest of the chicken that I bought yesterday. I don’t feel like writing much today, but I will try again later.

    It is now approaching 8:30pm. I ended up preparing the chicken and salad prior to going out for my walk/jog, which would have been bad only if I had decided to not go out for the walk/jog afterward… but I did. I donned my jogging kit (shorts and a t-shirt) and sauntered downstairs. When I got to the sidewalk I decided to jog the first kilometre, knocking it out in under seven minutes. I then proceeded to walk another 10km, averaging about 9m50s per kilometre. Not bad for a fat guy striving to be thin, huh?

    I achieved it Thursday, but it did not occur to me to cross off the 290 lbs. milestone on my refrigerator chart until this afternoon. I realized at that point that it was a little crowded, and so I decided to replace it with a new chart that started August 11. Now let’s see how long it takes for me to drop the 62.8 lbs. that I had gained from my best weight ever. We’ll see.

    It is time for me to turn off the computer and sit on the balcony to talk with my wife. Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 936

    I am not going to lie and say that yesterday was easy… but it was worth it. I found myself without energy much earlier than I normally would. Of course I got through my class without any issues, but by the time I signed off I was quite hungry for that second meal replacement. I then sat on the balcony with a cigar and relaxed. Around 8:30pm I took Her Floofness out for a walk, again realizing that I was quite hungry. We got home around 9:15pm and I immediately prepared my final meal replacement of the day. My plan was to finish that, and then pick another cigar and sit out on the balcony and wait for Leslie to come home from her evening activity and join me on a video call. Realizing how tired I was, I decided instead to get ready for bed. Leslie and I did have our video date, but it was not a cigar on the balcony date. 

    It was hard to get through yesterday, but when I got onto the bathroom scale this morning I was glad the effort had paid off. My weight dropped a full three pounds, bringing me back down to 295 lbs. Even. It is the first time this month that I have dropped to that number. Now I want to try to keep the streak going and lose more weight every day this week. 

    I hate the fact that so many of my clothes do not fit, and I hate the fact that I have to plan my daily wardrobe based on what will and what will not. My first major goal is to get back down to 265 lbs. Which is what I weighed the last time my tailor was in town. I do not know if I will be going back to him when he is here at the end of September, but whether or not I do, I still want to make sure that my clothes from my last fitting fit and fit well. 

    My next major goal after that remains to get my weight back to 240 lbs., which is when I will shave my beard for Leslie. It also means that I will be back to within a couple of pounds of my best weight ever. 

    In the meantime, I am renewing my minor goals of the five- and ten-pound milestones and am going to resume tracking my progress on the chart on my fridge door. I hate the fact that nearly three months later, I weigh more today than I did when I first drew up that chart (on May 22). I am a few days away from getting back down to that weight (291.8 lbs.) and will use the same chart to track it. My goal is to get myself back in shape. It was only ten months ago that I was at my best weight of this millenium and I want to get back to that… And I do not want to take ten months to do it. I am hoping that before the spring of 2025 I will be able to shave my beard at 240 lbs. 

    I should mention that my knee is not yet completely healed, but it is feeling better than it was. I hope that by the weekend I can get out for a nice long walk without aggravating it any further. I am still taking the anti-inflammatory meds, but I am down to a single pill, three times per day. I expect that by the end of the week I will not need them at all.

    Okay, I’m going to go back to my class now… we are on a break, but I also want to check my email. 

    Have a great day folks! 

  • Day 882

    Wow. I wrote to Leslie late last night (after we were usually both in bed and asleep) that I would not be adding fibre into my shakes today. The way things have gone since then, I am going to hold off a couple of days before resuming with a single teaspoon of the powder. I honestly lost track of how many times I had to run to the toilet between yesterday morning and this morning, but it is certainly over ten. I am relieved that I did not need to do so either while I was out walking or during my class. With that said, just between the time I climbed into bed and the time I finally fell asleep I made four or five trips… plus one at 5:15am; yes, I have also had two movements this morning. While in moderation fibre will indeed help keep your bowels regular, in excess it can cause days where you are better off just camping out in the loo.

    I joked with Leslie this morning (prior to my weighing myself) that with all of those trips to the bathroom, combined with my actually staying true to the program yesterday (with no additions or substitutions) it was likely I would have dropped between 7-10 pounds. In fact, my weight dropped another 2.2 lbs., bringing my weight drop since Saturday morning to 8.8 lbs.! I gleefully crossed off another number on the fridge chart for the second day in a row. The last time I weighed less than I did this morning was March 5. I am only 6.4 lbs. from my weight on January 1, and thirteen pounds from my best weight of 2024 (January 22).

    Excuse me while I run back to the toilet…

    Okay I am back… and this is getting a wee bit ridiculous. It is a good thing that I am drinking as much water as I am, because otherwise I would have to start worrying about dehydration. As it is, I might head to the supermarket to pick up some Gatorade Zero to ensure my electrolytes don’t drop below acceptable levels.

    When I was a kid, I had a friend named Mark Nadler who I remember had to drink a glass of Metamucil every day (in addition to taking Flintstones Vitamins… it’s amazing the things I remember from before I turned ten). I never understood why, nor why I did not need to. I assume it was because whatever else I might say about her (and I can say plenty), my mother made sure we ate well balanced meals… or else!

    As I spoke with Leslie last night, I was reminded of my last visit to my Hong Kong tailor who commented that I had gained quite a bit of weight since my last fitting. It was only a seven-pound difference, but it was noticeable… and I can certainly notice it, as some of the clothes that I ordered in September do not currently fit… or I should say that they did not fit a week ago, but they seem to all (except for one vest) fit now. Yay! I suppose there is something to be said for the fibre cleaning out my colon! Nevertheless, I am this morning 7.2 lbs. heavier than I was when I visited the tailor at the end of February, and about 15 lbs. heavier than I was on the previous trip in September. My goal is now to make sure I lose at least those 20 lbs. more before they return in September, and that not only will all of my current wardrobe fit, but I will also be able to order new clothes with a smaller cut than I ever have. That will take some work, but it is certainly a short-term goal to strive for… assuming the end of September counts as short-term?

    I kept my promise to myself yesterday and walked but did not jog. It was hot! For the first time in recent memory, not only did I finish the water bottle that I brought with me from home, but toward the end of the walk I also stopped off and bought another bottle of water and a bottle of Gatorade Zero. I walked 7.35km with an average pace of 9m44s/km. Not bad, considering the mercury was pushing 33° Celsius, and there was almost no cloud cover to speak of.

    We have another heat warning in effect for today, but the high temperature is forecast to hit 30°C and no higher. With that said, I might take another break from exercising because of my current bowel issues… I do not think it wise to stray too far from the toilet, and my Lodge brethren who are coming over will understand completely.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 858

    I had a feeling yesterday that I couldn’t shake that I would not be losing weight this morning. I had four great days of weight loss, and my body was going to steady or correct its trajectory and slow things down. This despite knowing that I had jogged 5km and had not veered from the weight loss program. Leslie reminded me that whether or not I lose weight on one given day should not be taken as an omen, but also that I might lose weight, but not as much as I had the previous four days. She was right of course… on both parts. I dropped a little over a pound this morning. I am going to keep doing what I am doing… even on days when I do not like what the bathroom scale tells me.

    Something else that I admitted to Leslie yesterday is that I am angry with myself for having thrown away so much of my weight loss progress over these last seven months. I was doing so well, and then I pissed it away (or rather ate it away). When I felt that my weight was safely below 250 lbs. I vowed that I would never let it go above that number again. I dropped below 250 ‘for the final time’ on September 17, and was going to keep at it… and yet it happened: on November 24 my weight peeked above that ugly number, and then ten days later it would jump above it and stay there… and there it is today. It only took 15 days to jump above 260 (which I had dropped below on August 21, vowing never again…) and yes, I was going through a rough spot… but suck it up Mitch! Don’t eat your feelings! It would take nearly three months for my weight to peek above 270 (March 4 for the first time, and then permanently on March 10). I had dropped ‘forever’ below that number on July 13, after a long diet break. I had not weight more than 280 since February 18 (first hit March 21), and my last weigh-in over 290 lbs. was January 31, 2023 (where I spent two days May 21-22).

    It took me 68 days to drop from 250 lbs. to 238.6 (Oct. 18 – 31 days), and then back up to 250 (Nov. 24 – 37 days). It took me 119 days to drop from 260 to that best weight, and then back up to 260 (December 19). It took 223 days to drop from 270 to by best weight and then gain it all back. The numbers for 280 lbs is a staggering 382 days… and for 290 lbs. it is 417. It took me 201 days to drop from 290 lbs. to my best weight ever… it took me 216 days to gain it back.

    What a fucking waste of energy.

    Leslie reminded me that we cannot change the past, we can only focus on now and the future. While this is true, I hope that tracking the past and studying it may help me to not repeat it.

    I am essentially starting the program anew with a fresh head, so it should not take me 200+ days to drop 42 lbs. … but just knowing that I wasted so much of it – I essentially threw away a year – upsets me. Getting back on track is hugely important, and I will do it. As of this morning’s reading on the bathroom scale, I am 41.6 lbs. from my best weight ever.

    Assuming there is no way that I will continue to lose over a pound per day, I would be happy if by the time Leslie arrives (in 38 days) I could lose another 15-20 lbs. I had originally told her than my goal was to drop to 270 by then, but I am amending that because I know that for that week I will not be on the program. If I could stay below 270 (or even 265) by the time she leaves the next week then I would consider that a huge success, and I will at that point get back onto the program.

    How long will it take for me to get back to my best weight ever? In other words: from today, how long will it take for me to lose 42 lbs.? I don’t know… but I would like to set a goal for the end of the September. That gives me 126 days to lose 40 pounds, or a little under 2.5 lbs. per week. It is an ambitious goal, but hopefully an achievable one.

    For the short term, I would really like for my pants to fit better… and for my sports jackets to start fitting again. I would like to be able to comfortably wear my guayaberas this summer, which I was able to do when I was last in Cuba (I have another 5 lbs. to lose until I weigh what I weighed on my last trip, but I am still 16 lbs. bigger than I was the previous month). I need patience.

    While my weight did drop again today, it is the first day since I started that I could not cross off a goal on my fridge tracker. To quote Maxwell Smart: Missed it by that much. Hopefully I’ll be there tomorrow.

    I should mention that I did two things worth mentioning yesterday: I did indeed jog my 5km (although I did not walk the rest of the hour, so my workout ended up as 5.23km in 49m51s). I also got through the day sans almonds, which means that I was probably at 940 calories on the day. I’ll call those both huge successes, as I had not previously been able to hit the 5km mark, and it was only the second day that I was able to get through the program without the added help.

    It is a wet and rainy morning in Burlington, and I am glad for the treadmill. I think I’m going to publish this entry and then change into my kit. Owing to the weather, Princess Sophie did not want to go for her usual 1.5-2km walk this morning, and so I am still under 1000 steps. My next jogging goal is 6km, followed closely by jogging for a full hour. Will I make it? We’ll see… but as I have said before, I may be tracking my workouts, but I am not competing with myself. My goal is to get into shape, and not to hurt myself.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 857

    While this will still be Sunday morning’s article, I am starting it Saturday afternoon. Why? Mostly because of how proud I am of myself for having taken my son the younger for lunch at Lone Star Texas Grill and I did not even take one chip. I did not cheat at all! This, despite the fact that I had forgotten that I would probably be hungry and should consider consuming my second meal replacement of the day before I left. This, despite having knocked on the door to the house (needing to pee) and being greeted by the man who had an affair with my ex-wife while we were married, and while I had socialized with him prior to (and possibly during) the affair, I have not seen him in ten years. It seems that my ex-wife got the days mixed up so nobody was expecting me to show up… otherwise I assume he would have hidden himself away (as he has always done previously). No, I did not cheat… and as I was driving home, I stopped at the supermarket because I needed to buy coffee, and I still did not cheat. Saturday morning was a series of huge non-scale victories for me!

    With that said, it is now 2:20pm, I have had my second meal replacement of the day, and I am still quite hungry. I have to take my mind off of it. I’m going to change into my workout clothes and get on the treadmill for an hour. That way, if I do falter and decide to buy a handful of almonds, I will at least have earned them.

    —

    Wow, Saturday is/was definitely not the day to exceed previous expectations. I wrote earlier that I hope that “…I am hoping that today or tomorrow I will be able to push that to a full hour of jogging…” well that really did not happen! I slowed from a jog to a brisk walk after 3km, and only did another half kilometre. I showered and realized that I needed energy. I broke down and drove to the store to pick up some almonds.

    I’ll write more Sunday.

    —

    I spent the rest of the day yesterday in a state of hunger or lethargy or whatever it might have been, and I was tempted to give up. I did not. I did eat my almonds, and I joked with Leslie that I was going to pick up Chinese food, but it was only in jest. I spent a few hours in bed watching television but did not nap. When it was finally time for my final shake, I got up and prepared it, then Leslie and I had a lovely video date on the patio.

    When we were chatting, I told her that one of the things that I am really looking forward to is ketosis kicking in. I did fine the first couple of days, but yesterday I hit a wall and my energy level dropped to nil. With my almonds (I am estimating that I had 250 calories worth yesterday) and my coffee with milk and sugar I estimate that my caloric intake was around 1200 calories, and that is not enough to sustain high energy levels until the body starts fueling itself by burning fat instead of the usual carbohydrates. Once I hit that then I should be good to go. It should be today or tomorrow… and I likely won’t know for sure until I get onto the treadmill later.

    I have not mentioned the weight loss chart that I printed and put on my fridge. Since pinning it there I have crossed off five marks in four days, which means that as of this morning my weight loss is over ten pounds, a tremendous feat for four days of dieting. I have a long way to go before I start celebrating though. While I know that I lost 17.5 lbs. in the first week when I first did the program in 2017 (I checked my records), looking at my spreadsheet from this time around (which starts on Day -11 – January 9, 2022) it took me ten days to lose fourteen pounds… but then again, that was also from the time when I know that my bathroom scale was not accurate. Whatever it might be, I will be thrilled if I drop 15 lbs. in the first week of the program… but even if I do not then I will still be happy with the ten-pound drop that I have already achieved.

    I wrote yesterday that I would be able to achieve a full hour of jogging this weekend. Obviously, it did not happen yesterday, but I am going to try again today. Even if I do not achieve that, I would still be happy if I could jog 5km and then finish the hour power walking. At the pace that I have been setting my treadmill at (4mph), I am tracking about 9m20s per kilometre, which means about 47 minutes for 5km… if I achieve that, then I will slow the pace to 3.5mph and will walk at least one more kilometre. This is all speculation of course and will depend on how much energy I have. If I cannot do better than I did yesterday, then at least I will make sure to do that much and will call it a day and try again tomorrow.

    While it is cooler than it was during the week, it looks to be turning into a lovely day, and I look forward to relaxing on the balcony with a cigar shortly. A Facebook friend (who is a member of my cigar group) has come into town, and he told me that he will be coming by for a visit this afternoon. I look forward to meeting him and enjoying a cigar and conversation with him. I will offer him a drink if he wants one, but I am going to stick to water and coffee. If I did not cheat on the program yesterday at Lone Star with my son, then I am certainly not going to do so at home with a friend who is still really a stranger. Who knows? Maybe he will just want coffee as well.

    I am not sure if it is because I have been adding fibre to one of my shakes every day, but so far, I have been able to move my bowels every day… although there was one day when it did not happen in the morning, but later in the afternoon. As for water, I have been drinking way more than is required, and as such I have been urinating in excess of ten times per day. I know that water is helpful not only for hydrating the body and flushing the system, but it is also supposed to help kerb one’s hunger. Thus far I do not think it has been working, but I will keep trying. It helps that the weather is nice… I usually want to drink less water when it is cold and rainy, and the mostly warm and sunny weather we have been experiencing this past week has helped.

    My weight loss buddy was out of town again this weekend, so we decided to push the meeting to Wednesday evening. I look forward to hearing how her life has been.

    Okay, I think it is time for me to wrap up. I will post again tomorrow… even if I end up starting the article this afternoon (as I did with this post).

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 787

    I was much better yesterday than I have been in a couple of weeks. I had my regular breakfast of an omelette, then lunch and dinner were both seasoned chicken prepared in the air fryer. Lunch was eaten with a side salad, dinner with a salad and rice. In addition to that, I walked to the bank and back – a 6.5km jaunt (at a decent pace) which contributed to my highest step-count day since I was in Cuba (14,400 steps). All in all, I was quite pleased with that. I would have been more pleased if the bathroom scale had given me back more than the 1.2 lbs. that I lost this morning from yesterday’s ridiculous gain.

    My plans for today include trying to stay on track as I visit with friends to smoke cigars. It is St. Patrick’s Day so I have to assume there will be some sort of festive food offered to me. I will try to summon the willpower to resist.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 639

    I was shocked to see a nearly two-pound gain from yesterday morning! How could that happen? Answer: I was not mindful. I let myself go on a lot of different small fronts that added up to a 1.8 lbs. gain.

    Okay, I had peanuts… no big deal, right? Okay, I know I bought and ate more peanuts than I usually would, but it was not a huge deal, right? Oh… and I did not want to leave one piece of chicken over which would have to go in the garbage because I was spending the afternoon away from the house on Saturday and flying out Sunday morning; it only made sense for me to prepare it as a third meal… which of course needed a salad to go with it. Then the woman I met in the jewelry store was so excited to meet another Jew in Burlington that she insisted on giving me a fresh-baked cookie from her store for the Sabbath… and of course I had to eat it.

    Small little bottles equal one big bottle.

    Alright, I am back above the 240 lbs. mark which I have been flirting with. I will do my best to get back below it before Leslie and I drive to Houston on Wednesday. I will have to be very careful.

    I will be spending the rest of the day with buddies in Cambridge which will include dinner. I hope the dinner is early enough that I can be done eating by 6:30pm or so. In anticipation of the steak that I will be enjoying there, my lunch will be a meal replacement – my first in probably a week. I will be good today. Tomorrow morning I wake up at 3:00am to catch a very early flight, and travel days are never good for the weight loss program.

    More important than all the petty stuff: I am checked in for my flight; my suitcase is packed (although my carry-on will be later); my Uber is booked. I am ready to fly. In twenty-three hours I will be with my wife again. WOOHOO!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 606

    I wrote yesterday that it had taken nine days from crossing off 250 lbs. to crossing off the next number (248.0) on the sheet on my fridge. Even with the amazing exercise I did yesterday I did not expect that I would be taking another triumphant walk to that sheet again before I returned from California. Knowing that I did not stick to the program yesterday I was doubtful I would see any progress on the bathroom scale… although thanks to the exercise I did not expect to lose any ground either. How thrilled was I then to step onto that appliance with which I have a longstanding love/hate relationship and see a drop? It was no minor drop either… I weigh 2.2 lbs. less this morning than I did yesterday! While it will be impossible to know for sure, another half-decent (and not even extreme) drop from today to tomorrow will mean that I am actually going to fly to California below 245 lbs… and I will have officially lost one hundred and fifty pounds.

    Why impossible, you might ask? With my flight scheduled for 7:00am I will be leaving the house at 3:30am to drive to the airport. Even if I was not planning to pack the bathroom scale to take with me, a 3:00am weigh-in is meaningless. I will step onto the scale Wednesday morning in the hotel room when I know my weight will be up a pound or two because of the travel day, but I will still be in good stead compared to where I was a week ago. During the trip to California having the scale there will help me (as I have discussed), but I do not expect to return from the trip weighing less than I did this morning. My goal is to not weigh over 250 lbs.

    I went for my longest walk in months yesterday and I felt amazing for it. I will go for another outing this afternoon, although I will consciously not exert myself to the extent that I did yesterday. The 15km that I walked yesterday was amazing and it felt great, but I did not have to spend the following day on airplanes. I will plan for a 10-12 kilometre walk today, and no more.

    The timing of yesterday’s walk screwed with my meal replacements. I had intended to prepare a meal replacement before going out, but something distracted me. When I returned it was after 4:00pm. While this was not my plan at the time what I ended up doing was this: I had a meal replacement immediately after my shower, and then at 9:30pm (way too late, I know!) I made an omelette. The omelette was not only an aberration from the program, but it was also way too late, which is why I was fully expecting to not lose weight today. I should mention that while both of these facts are true, I was still allowed (according to my modified program) 450 calories on the day; the omelette I prepared accounts for about 350 calories, with 27g of protein and only 14g of carbohydrates. As far as cheating goes, this was not much of one!

    I have to pack my suitcase today! I am very excited about that. No, I do not enjoy packing. When packing means that I will be seeing my wife shortly then it is a happy chore indeed! Speaking of my wife, I am going to take a bit of time this morning to have a video cigar date with her. After today our next cigar date will be together. Yay!

    The next journal entry I write will be from the airport tomorrow morning. I know that I will be eating my breakfast in the airport, and I will be careful to not indulge. I must not allow myself those breakfast potatoes which I do not love but never seem able to resist. I will do so tomorrow. Wish me luck!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 461

    I did not enjoy high school drama when I was in high school. I certainly do not enjoy it as an adult. I honestly thought that with no family coming to our wedding there would be none of the bull poop that often comes with it. Yesterday afternoon I was reminded that I was optimistic in that thinking. I am not going to lie and say that it did not cause me to eat something I should not have eaten, but it is done, and I am looking ahead to a better day today.

    I had a good jog on the treadmill yesterday. I was not wrong, the audiobook I had been listening to had not been holding my interest, and likely contributed to my getting bored and stopping when I did. The new book that I am listening to now is much more gripping (I have been on a Leon Uris and Herman Wouk kick of late, especially the novels about the Holocaust (Mila 18) and the formation of the State of Israel (Mitla Pass, The Haj, Exodus, The Hope). I had never heard of The Hope (and the sequel The Glory), but so far it is very gripping. Whether that was the reason I did so well on the treadmill yesterday, or if it was just because I was energized (which my Body Battery would speak against), I don’t know… but for the first time I set the treadmill’s pace to a 12-minute mile in the first few minutes of my jogging, and I kept it there for the entire workout.

    Jogging (Treadmill)

    • Distance: 8.12km (5.05km)
    • Duration: 54:17 (35:41)
    • pb Average Pace (Min/km): 6m41s (7m15s)
    • Steps: 8,400 (5,712)
    • Calories burned: 1,034 (600)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 154 (160)

    There are a number of issues that I should address about my jogging which might cause a bit of confusion for many if not most of my readers:

    1. I spend a lot of time going back and forth between the imperial system (miles) and the metric system (kilometres). I great up in Canada during the era where we were transitioning from the former system to the latter, so I learned both. I also spent as a child (as I still do today) a lot of time in the United States, a country that never made that transition, which included a lot of road trips during which I had very little to entertain me other than the world around me. I learned at an early age to do the conversion from one to the other in my head (100km=62.5mi, which means that 1km=.625mi, thus 5km=3.125mi). While all of my devices are set to the metric system, the treadmills that I use (both at my gym in Canada, and at the gym at Leslie’s apartment complex in Texas) are set to the imperial system. I have a system in my head for how far I am going to try to push myself which would be difficult to explain, but basically revolves around round numbers… either miles or kilometres.
    2. With regard to temperatures, I also vacillate between Fahrenheit and Celsius. I almost always do this based on which country I am in, so when I am in Canada and I type that it is 10° outside that denotes degrees Celsius; when I am in the USA and I type 60° that denotes degrees Fahrenheit.
    3. I use two devices to measure my running: my iPhone (using an app called MapMyFitness) and my Garmin smartwatch (using the Garmin Connect app). The two apps communicate with each other, and if I look at the MapMyFitness dashboard after logging an activity, it will show up twice. I delete one of them, lest it look like I have run 20km in a day when I only ran 10km. With that said, the two show very different results sometimes, especially on the treadmill. Yesterday’s outing, for example, registered 7km on the fitness watch, but 8.12km on the phone. When running on the street, I almost always trust the watch because Garmin’s origins are GPS. On the treadmill, despite my trying to calibrate the watch, I think I trust the phone more.
    4. Whether stationary or mobile, running or walking, the discrepancy between the two devices for the number of calories burned during a workout is always huge. There are times when I will record the steps and distance from one device, but the calories burned from the other.

    With regard to activity, I am currently on a steps goal streak of fifteen days, and I plan to extend that today. I noticed that Garmin has started increasing my step goal, which had been steady at 8,560 for the longest time. On Sunday my goal adjusted to 8,930, yesterday it jumped to 10,730, and today it is now at 11,490. I suppose this is how it was supposed to be all along, adjusting my goal based on the last few days (or weeks) to make me strive to keep doing better. I will smash through that 11,490 goal for today, but I will also keep an eye on it going forward… we will get to a time when that goal will not be so easy to beat every day. That time is not today though. I am on the fence whether I am going to jog outside or go to the gym today, but I will probably put on my long pants and shirt and run outside. It is sunny but a cool 7° outside, which is comfortable as long as I am dressed properly, and it is not too windy. I think I will chance it! In the evening I will go to Taekwondo, which will be my last class until after I am back from Dallas. I am taking a dobok with me and will try to practice. The good thing about being at my level is that I do not really need to go to the gym to practice my patterns!

    My plan for today is to try to stay on track. While my meal was not cheating yesterday, the snacking was. Yes, it was emotional stress eating, and no, I cannot let that continue. By being mindful of it I can make sure it does not happen again.

    Have a great day folks!