Losing a part of me

Category: Travel

  • Day 555

    I neither lost nor gained weight this morning. Thus, the day before I fly home to Canada, I still weigh about 1.6 lbs. less than I did the day I flew here… although that morning I weighed myself at 3:00am, so it really does not count. By the following morning (my first day waking up in Dallas for this trip) I weighed 2.6 lbs. more than I do this morning. I am satisfied that while I could have done better during this trip, I also could have done much worse.

    I know these last few days I have been snacking more than I should; I have to put a stop to that. When I am back in Canada, I am going to redouble my efforts to do that. I might even go back onto a partial program for a few weeks, but that will depend on a number of factors. In the meantime, today is the last day that I am going to have to worry about the actual meals having to appeal to an eight-year-old boy, which should make my eating a little better going forward.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 542

    It is wonderful to be in Texas with my wife and stepson. As expected, I ate too much at the airport and on the airplane. Combine that with the travel, and my weight was up significantly this morning over two days ago. I will eat better today, and I will get a hold of myself.

    While it was mostly cloudy yesterday it was still very hot. We all spent a little over an hour in the pool enjoying the nice day and splashing about. This morning it has been rainy, with a forecast to continue raining (and with the temperatures not hitting 90) which means that we will not be swimming… but we will still have a nice day together. For the moment we are relaxing, and I am going to do some writing.

    As I was ready to publish the entry to my blog I realized that I made a numbering gaff again. I had published yesterday’s article as Day 540, which made for two consecutive 540s. I have since corrected that on the site, and it should be correct going forward.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 541

    Today is the day I fly to Dallas to be with my wife! I am extremely excited about that. As a result, I am writing this early so that I do not forget. I know that once I am on the ground in Texas I will not be thinking about my blog.

    I was mostly good yesterday. I got all of my errands done, my buddy (and former co-worker) came over in the afternoon for a cigar, and I taught in the evening. I had lunch (a little more than I should have), but after that I had only my meal replacement shakes. I did not step onto the scale this morning (I was out of the house at 3:15am) but when I weighed myself last night I weighed exactly what I did the previous night. Let’s see what I weigh tomorrow.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 540

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

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

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

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

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

  • Day 521

    We spent a lovely day together knowing that it was going to end with my waving to her as she walked into the terminal at Pearson International Airport. That her flight was a couple hours late gave us a little more time together, but it is difficult saying goodbye to her… even if we will be together again in less than three weeks.

    Tomorrow I start exercising again.

  • Day 515

    We departed Niagara on the Lake yesterday afternoon after another delicious meal in the old town. I had fish and chips (again), and Leslie had a roast beef sandwich. We diverted from the direct path back to our parking spot to find the candy shop where we had discovered some rare Japanese sweeties that Leslie loved when she was living in Japan, and to the wine shop to pick up a couple of bottles to take back as tokens of appreciation for the ladies who care for Her Floofness when I am out of town. I say the wine shop but should really say a wine shop. Niagara is wine country, and there is no shortage of them along the main street.

    We arrived home around 4:00pm. After getting settled we went out to the supermarket. When I asked if she might like a baked potato with dinner, she replied that she could make baked potatoes for dinner, which I had never done before. Trusting her, we collected the necessary staples and did just that. Her concoction of baked potato, baked beans, non-beef burgers with onions, and everything topped with cheese was delicious! We agreed that it would be a great winter comfort-food meal, but it was still amazing in the middle of June.

    I was not sure what to expect from the bathroom scale this morning but was hoping that I did not gain more than a pound (as I speculated yesterday morning). I was pleasantly surprised to see that my weight actually dropped 1.4 lbs. over the weekend! I guess it goes to show that when I eat smart and am mindful that I can lose weight and still have a good time… including drinks. That is not to say that I will not continue to diet; I would still like to drop another thirty to forty pounds before I am truly satisfied. I am just under 30 lbs. from dropping out of the obesity classification, which will be nice. Yes, I will still be overweight; I think after twenty-five years of obesity I could be happy with that. Everyone talks about ‘the Dad Bod.’ Well, I have been a father for many years, and I have been obese for all of them. Just having a dad bod would not be so bad.

    I am somewhat disappointed by one thing. I looked back in this document (over 700 pages and 485,000 words) to see where that point is – dropping out of obesity – and I saw that with my weight drop this morning I now weigh one pound more than I did when I wrote about that nearly three months ago. These last months have been an emotional rollercoaster and a whirlwind of activity. There have been trips and more trips, a wedding, too many classes to count (including two weeks of 13-hour days that precluded me from jogging), and a lot of excuses. With that said, I am less than ten pounds up from my lowest weight. In 2020 when I got to my best weight, I started to slip… and three months later I was forty pounds heavier. I am okay with being on a plateau; I can recover from plateaus, as I have several times during the last year and a half. Falling off the program completely is a sign of giving up, or maybe denial. I do not know if those would be equally bad, but I refuse to give up and I will not be in denial. I have written in this journal so many times about my need to remain aware and mindful of my weight and what I eat. I will continue to be that, and I will continue to focus, and I will continue to lose weight… although I suppose the last forty pounds will likely drop off more gradually than the last ones, even if I did decide to resume the full-fast, meal-replacements only diet.

    Leslie was a great support for me this weekend, and I will continue to push ahead knowing that I do not want to disappoint her. I know that is a fallacy, but it is one that works for me. Leslie loved me at my heaviest weight, and if I were to remain at my current weight, she would continue to love me. She knows that I want to be mindful, so her encouragement has been for my own sake much more than for her own. When, for example, she was finished with her fish and chips at the pub the other night she offered me the rest of her fish… but doused the French fries with malt vinegar (which she knows I cannot stomach). When she saw that I was picking at the dregs of my meal (a long-time habit of mine) she would stop me. Some might think that she was nitpicking, but I asked her to do it and it is quite helpful. I do not know if I would have made it this far without her love, support, and encouragement.

    It is a beautiful day out and I have plans for the day. I am going to go for a jog (my first in weeks), and I am going to do some studying for my next certification. I also have some calls to make regarding services (I already spoke with my credit card company; next up is my Internet provider). I am going to call a few friends with whom I have not spoken in a few days or longer. I am going to prepare a delicious dinner for us of portobello mushrooms. Lunch will be a hodgepodge of leftovers of last week’s spaghetti and last night’s potato. From 6:00pm I will be on the patio for my cigar sommelier class. All in all it will be a busy day… but very different from how my days were last week when I was teaching from morning until night.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 514

    As Leslie and I sit in the garden oasis of our bed and breakfast enjoying our cigars and lattés I am in bliss and do not want this weekend to come to an end. Alas, dark becomes day and the day turns to night. It has been exactly as planned with no stress, anxiety, or deadlines.

    We enjoyed a Greek meal for lunch yesterday and we lamented how difficult it can be to keep within the dietary constraints of our faith, which severely limits our choices at restaurants. On the flip side of that, I think that by not being able to mix the meat with dairy keeps my eating somewhat healthier than it I was not following to rules. At the very least it makes me think about everything I am going to eat before I order it. As such we have not eaten any meat since Thursday. It has allowed us to enjoy dishes with cheese, and if we chose to we could also have ice cream (as we did following our Italian dinner).

    While I am not sure where my weight will be tomorrow morning, I am not terribly concerned. It would not have been difficult to eat so that I would gain five pounds this weekend. I do not think that I will have gained more than a pound… if that. It definitely could have been worse.

    While we did not order drinks with dinner, we did buy a bottle of Niagara sparkling wine which we shared with cigars after dinner. That makes two bottles of wine in two nights, plus the beer that I drank with dinner Friday. That is more than I have had to drink in a long time. I did not feel drunk either night, and I also do not think the wine will be a major contributing factor to weight gain… and we enjoyed ourselves. We will likely not drink tonight, but tomorrow I will open a bottle of 10-year-old port to pair with my cigar for the sommelier class. I am not a big drinker, but should be able to integrate reasonable consumption of alcohol into my life when the mood hits me.

    It is another lovely day in Niagara, and I am going back to enjoying it with my wife.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 513

    Leslie and I checked into our Bed and Breakfast last night and then drove down the street to a local pub for dinner. I did something that I have not done in years… I ordered a pint. It went very well with my fish and chips! After dinner we picked up a bottle of wine to enjoy with our cigars in the garden of the inn (and for the Shabbat blessings). So far the weekend is going great!

    I am not on a diet this weekend but I am also not going to go overboard. There will be opportunities to indulge, but I will make a point to not overindulge. Leslie is being very helpful with that! As an example, when she was full, she offered me the last bites of her fish… but spoiled her remaining French fries, which I appreciated. At breakfast I could have asked for more toast, but decided not to… both to be good, and to not let Leslie think I was falling.

    We are currently enjoying our latté and cigar in the garden, which is truly a peaceful oasis. Our plans for the rest of the day are to do whatever tickles us at the time. That might include picking strawberries, a vineyard tour, or who knows what. We are together and we are not working, and that is our only goal… to enjoy being together.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 512

    Okay, I am back on track this morning. My weight is not only significantly down from yesterday morning, but it is also the lowest it has been in ten days. Don’t get me wrong, I have been fluctuating in that time in a six-pound range, but it is nice to be closer to the bottom of that range than in the middle or the top.

    The last few days have been hard and stressful on both of us, and I am glad that my 13-hour days are over. Yes, I have to teach today… but my class is on schedule to end about an hour early, which means that Leslie and I can hit the road and drive down to Niagara Falls to check in and then to have dinner at a reasonable time. After this past week I think I owe it to her to take her somewhere nice, and the weekend in Niagara Falls is just what the doctor ordered. I am sure that I will step onto the scale Monday morning and see that my weight is up again… and I have no problem with that as long as my wife and I have a wonderful and carefree romantic getaway together.

    So what did I do differently yesterday? For one thing, I prepared dinner so that we could eat during my evening break instead of after class. I had a reasonable lunch (a piece of chicken with the last of the leftover rice), and as I had planned, I prepared a cauliflower-crust pizza for dinner, adding mushrooms (for the entire pizza) and onions (for my side only). I had not planned the cheese properly, so when I realized that I did not have enough mozzarella for the entire pie, I improvised by adding cheddar. It was good, and the two slices (half the pie) that I ate was enough to satisfy my hunger. Sticking to that plan did exactly what I had hoped it would. Knowing that Leslie and I will eat out this evening, we will have a light lunch (most likely an almond butter and jam sandwich). When we pick the restaurant where we will eat this evening, I will make sure I do not go overboard. By keeping mindful, there is a good chance that I will not come home too much heavier than I was this morning.

    It was still wet outside this morning when I took Her Floofness for her walk, but the sun is starting to peek through, and the temperatures are going up to 22° today, and is forecast to be sunny and in the twenties all weekend. I predict that we will enjoy ourselves tremendously on our getaway. Next week I am still teaching in the evenings, but my days are free. When Leslie has time, I will spend that with her, but when she is working, I am going to try to get out to exercise. It has been too long since I did that, and I need to get back into it. In the meantime, I am packing my overnight bag during my lunch break and have told my training manager that we will likely be finishing early today. At the very earliest moment we will hit the road and be outta here!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 473

    Okay, I gained weight again this morning. Yes, I cheated again yesterday – it was a travel day, after all. I still weigh slightly less than I did the morning we flew to California, which means that I absolutely succeeded in my goal of not gaining too much during the trip.

    I taught this morning (as I will all week), and class will end in a few minutes. Once it does, I will have lunch and then I will go for a jog. Don’t ask me why I am having lunch, it has to do with my final cheat yesterday. I will be on the partial program for a couple of days, and then back on it by Wednesday or Thursday. The weather is nice – partly cloudy for the rest of the afternoon, reaching 20° by 3:00pm. As there is no rain in the forecast, I plan to jog outside.

    My body battery is a paltry 52/100, after another less than ideal night of sleep. If Leslie was concerned that I was not sleeping because of here, last night proved that she was not the reason. I will try again tonight, but in the meantime I am not setting my expectations too high for my jog – hopefully I can hit 5km.

    Have a great day folks!