Losing a part of me

Category: Travel

  • Day 1156

    With another two-pound drop in my weight this morning, the first week of my ‘No Groceries’ plan has me down a little over seven pounds in eight days. I know I could have done better in several ways, but I am not going to gripe about that. On my last day before I leave for Montreal I just need to stay the course, and then hopefully not do too badly over the four-day trip. In preparation for the trip I have purchased and downloaded a new audio book, and will be listening happily to the story of zero-day malware for the duration of the drive to and from the city of my birth. While for many people this would sound like torture, I assure you that it is right up my alley.

    My sleep this week has not been great, but last night it was abysmal. I tossed and I turned and I just could not fall asleep. When I got up to pee around 5am I pushed my wake-up alarm by forty-five minutes, knowing that I had probably only fallen asleep two hours earlier. I am not sure if the sleep score of 31 that my fitness watch recorded was the worst night sleep I’ve had since I started tracking it, but it would have to be close. If I am going to get through today without falling asleep on camera it will be only with large doses of caffeine, which of course will in turn affect my sleep tonight. It may be the last day of the week, but before we celebrate the weekend, I have fourteen hours of teaching to do. I’ll make it… but I likely will not enjoy it.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1154

    I did better yesterday than I had the previous day, but I still have work to do before I am in top form on my program. My weight, which was up a pound yesterday, is now down two pounds this morning. I am reminded that it is not the points on the graph, but rather the trend that matters. With that said, I have to keep the trend going or else it is a huge failure.

    The meal replacements that I ordered Monday are due to arrive today, and I am stocked up to hit the ground running upon my return from Montreal Tuesday afternoon. While I am still planning to work at it until I leave, I know that on my trip (Saturday through Tuesday) I will be a giant ball of anxiety and stress, and expecting to stay true to the program is not reasonable. I set that expectation before I posted my ‘No Groceries’ calendar on the inside of my door. While I am not going to go crazy with eating and snacking, I am also not going to try to consume only meal replacements. Yes, I will take some with me. No, I am not planning on sticking to the program. That will begin in earnest Wednesday.

    Spring is in the air, and my walk with Her Floofness this morning was quite pleasant. That being said, every year Canadians experience their first warm days in March and are then shocked to find out that we are not quite done with winter weather until mid-April. With today’s forecast high temperatures of 18°, some may think that it is time to store their coats in the cellar and to change out their winter tyres. They do not notice that tomorrow’s forecast low is the freezing point, and by Saturday and Sunday that drops further to -6°. The forecast for Montreal for the duration of my stay predicts a maximum high of 7° and a low of -9°. I am not even making the appointment to change my tyres until that is in my rearview mirror.

    With all that, it was still nice to walk through the park this morning unmolested by ice and snow and slush. What were extremely hazardous walking paths a few short days ago are now mostly dry with the occasional puddle or wet patch. It is a relief to not worry about injuring oneself due to slipping and falling as a price for walking my dog through the park. While I am sad that I will be stuck behind my computer for most of the day and evening, I do plan to spend my lunch break on the balcony… and that door will be open to allow Princess Sophie to sit out and bask in the sun as she watches over her subjects walking through her realm.

    My weight is still way too far above the terrible mark, but I have a plan. That is important. My first short-term goals are to drop below that permanently, and to hopefully drop below 290 lbs. by April 11th – the night of my Lodge’s banquet.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1125

    I took Leslie for breakfast yesterday as planned. I ordered the French Toast with strawberries and bananas and drizzled it with maple syrup. It was delicious! Before driving her to the airport we then went to the pub, and I enjoyed a plate of fish and chips. I was tempted to change that up but decided that many of the other options were somewhat less healthy for me. We drove to the airport and were so early that we decided to stop off at another restaurant to share a dessert. I dropped her off at the exact time we had planned for our tearful goodbye, and I drove back to Burlington.

    I was already back in Burlington when my phone rang. Leslie told me that the airport was shut down, and that she needed for me to come back to pick her up. I had already completed my (safe and calculated) U-turn before I asked her what had happened, and was back there in precisely the least amount of time one can safely drive from Burlington to Pearson International Airport. A plane crash on an active runway (which you have probably already heard about by now) had the entire airport shut down until… nobody knew. My wife, ever the smart one, had already rebooked her return flight for Wednesday morning when she called me. The reasons may be terrible, but I have another full day with her, and I am not complaining about that.

    My original plans for dinner last night were complicated by this, and I left the leftover shawarma for my wife to eat. After all, it was her leftovers! I prepared a couple of meatless cheeseburgers for myself – one with a bun, the second without. I had some mini crisps on the side. I had to be finished with my meal by 6:15pm so that I could be online to teach my class, and so I had plenty of time to digest before bed. While I do not think my food intake was the healthiest yesterday, it could have been much worse.

    My weight dropped this morning by over a pound. I actually weigh less than I have since the beginning of February – I have vacillated between this morning’s 305.6 lbs. and Friday’s high of 311.2 lbs., which tells me that while I have not made any progress, I have also not lost ground. In truth, expanding that date range back to December 20 and I have been as low as 299.8 lbs. twice (December 22 and January 19), which means that I have not changed a lot since before Chanukah. With all of the stress and anxiety and problems I have endured in that time it is no small success that I have not done worse.

    My food plans for the day today are currently up in the air. I decided to wait until Leslie is awake to discuss breakfast, as I would normally just make myself an omelette and she would make whatever she had planned (usually instant oatmeal), but I know she had planned her oatmeal down to the packet for her original Monday departure, so she has none left. She is not a fan of my omelettes. I will give her the option of taking her out for breakfast again, and if she agrees then we will probably do something similar to yesterday. I will skip the desserts, as I will also take her out for a nice dinner. I had planned to do so Saturday evening, but those plans were thwarted by the inclement weather. Where we will eat is up in the air, but it will most likely be either sushi or steaks. I have not discussed this with her yet, and she might not want to eat out because of her very early flight tomorrow morning. We will see.

    I usually only discuss my sleep score when it is really good or really bad, and even then, I often forget. Last night it was down to a 77, which is still on the high end of fair. The fact that it was down from two nights in the 80s (88 Saturday night and 82 Sunday night) means that I have actually been sleeping pretty well. I am quite pleased by this, because good sleep is so important to good health.

    Leslie is now awake, and she has told me that she does not want to go out for breakfast. That is good for my eating, and I will shortly make my omelette. Lunch and dinner are still unknowns – I will discuss them with her once she has had her caffeine and some food.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1114

    I drove home last night in terrible weather, but I was safe and did not rush or speed or try to be a hero. I pulled off the road every couple of hours to pee, top off my windshield wiper fluid, and that stuff. I pulled into my parking spot around 3:15am. You would think that would have been the end of my stress for the day, but no… I discovered that my Internet service had, for the second time in less than three weeks, been cut off. I did a couple of quick diagnostic checks to make sure it was indeed cut off, and not an internal connectivity issue. I was not going to try to call them in the middle of the night, so I did my best to go to sleep. I would deal with it in the morning.

    It turns out that without asking me the service provider switched me to paperless billing (despite my telling them twenty times that I did not want that). It also turned out that they had the wrong e-mail address for me (.com instead of .ca) so I did not get the bill, which means that my account was past due. Just one more annoyance that I had to deal with, but I did.

    I went to my appointment today that I needed to go to in order to fix the one piece of paper that I was told was wrong at my appointment yesterday. They were happy to redo it for me at a discount… and they even admitted that their employee had made a mistake. Hey, it cost me over a thousand dollars, and I have to reschedule my interview that took months to schedule that will affect the rest of my life, but I’m glad you gave me the discount and apologized for the inconvenience. Stress, anxiety… Grrr!

    I gained a couple of pounds in Montreal. The fact that I did not gain ten pounds frankly surprised me. I did not eat well at all… but I did not expect to – especially after the unhappy results of yesterday’s appointment.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1111

    I arrived in Montreal… I brought my stress and anxiety with me. Thursday can’t come soon enough. I am eating like crap. I am going to gain ten pounds before I get home Friday evening.

  • Day 1043

    As planned, I drove to Niagara Falls, NY with my buddy yesterday. As expected, I had no issues with the cigars that I declared. I was quite proud of myself that even though I walked into Wegmans (and a few other stores that sell lots of tasty things) I did not buy anything. The only thing I ate was once I had dropped Mitchell off, I stopped at Bulk Barn and picked up a handful of almonds. I really should get into the habit of bringing protein bars in the car with me… just in case. In fact, I think I will take a couple down with me when I go out.

    Okay, I just took two protein bars out and left them near the door where I will not (or at least should not) forget them.

    I returned home from Niagara Falls earlier than I had expected, and since I had not slept very well, I was tired and tried to nap. I rested, but did not manage to fall asleep. At a certain point I gave up and decided to walk… indoors. I cleaned out the area under the treadmill and suited up. I turned on the TV and walked for seventy minutes. My decision to walk specifically for that long was because I wanted to replicate the walking from the two previous days, allowing me to properly recalibrate my fitness watch’s treadmill pace. I don’t think the calibration is exactly right… but it is much better than it was.

    A complete breakfast, a handful of almonds, two meal replacement shakes, and a 7.3km walk on the treadmill. All in all, that accounts to a pretty good day for my program. The results? My weight this morning was down nearly two pounds from yesterday, which comes to a two-day loss of 5.4 lbs., bringing me to within half a pound of that horrible mark. How cool would it be if I could cross under that threshold tomorrow or Saturday? Step one: DO NOT CHEAT.

    This afternoon I am heading out to Grimsby for a cigar with Mitchell before we head to a meeting at the Lodge. I am going to walk on the treadmill before I go so that I can get some exercise in. The variable steps-goal on my fitness watch is now up to nearly 11,000 steps per day, and I would like to extend my current streak to four days. Let’s see if I can do it!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1019

    My weight was up this morning by more than a pound. As we know, yesterday was a travel day and airports are not conducive to good eating. After Leslie and her son dropped me off I got through the security checkpoint and then found a pub where I could safely get a plate of fish and chips – not great for my diet, but safe for my dietary restrictions. I then boarded the plane with a bag of almonds and cashews which I had picked up earlier in the week. All in all, I did not eat terribly. The problem is that I am still backed up! I am hoping that sometime today that will begin to pass. If not, then I am thinking I might want to take a laxative, or at the very least some fibre. We will see how the day goes.

    My sleep score dropped down to a 67 this morning. I am not surprised because I got into the apartment very late last night, and after greeting Her Royal Floofness I did some unpacking (I wanted to make sure that all of my cigars were properly stored in my humidor), and then did not really get to sleep until 1:30am or so. Despite that I did not sleep in… I was awake around 7:15am as usual, and probably tumbled out of bed around 7:30am. I dove into my usual morning routine, including taking the Princess for her walk, and the day went from there. Hopefully I will sleep better this evening… we’ll see.

    I am auditing a class this week that is set in the Pacific time zone which means I’ll be learning from noon until 8:30pm… a bit of an offset from the norm, but not terrible. I will not be adjusting my wake/sleep schedule at all, but I will adjust my eating as necessary. It is now 1:30pm and I just had my lunch… which for the first time in a long time consisted of a meal replacement shake. Yes, per what I wrote several hours ago in the previous paragraph, I added fibre to it. I will be preparing a full meal for dinner, which I will prepare for the mid-class break (around 3:00pm local time). I will likely have another meal replacement after class (around 8:30pm) but that is all I plan to eat today.

    I went shopping this morning and despite all of the temptations I was true to my plans… I bought milk (despite the expiry date the milk in my fridge had turned), eggs, and vegetables for salad. Nothing more. I was tempted by so many things… and bought none of them. It is a small victory because I will have to do this again and again every time I shop. I know that sometimes I will fail, but I will try to succeed more often. As a simple example, I looked at the bakery section… and walked by. Yes, I like to have a fresh roll with my breakfast, but I was strong and did not buy them… today. I will have to continue to be strong.

    I suppose I should be paying closer attention to my class so I will close here. See you all tomorrow folks!

  • Day 1018

    There is nothing impressive or noteworthy about a .2 lb. drop… except that did absolutely no activity yesterday, I did not eat particularly well (although I also did not eat particularly badly), and have still not been able to move my bowels these last three days. Down is better than up.

    Yesterday morning I ate a bowl of breakfast cereal instead of my usual omelette. For lunch we ordered sandwiches from Panera; I was good and ordered a vegetarian sandwich and opted for the side of fruit instead of the bag of chips. For dinner Leslie made an angel hair pasta with non-meatballs in a tomato sauce. The pasta she explained were chickpea noodles which I had never heard of, but which tasted just like regular pasta. Other than all of that, the only snacking that I did was I ate half of an apple (a very large apple). The result is that down by .2 is better than up.

    I had another good night’s sleep last night, although (according to my fitness watch) nowhere near as good as the previous night. Anytime I wake up and see a sleep score over 80 I am thrilled… this morning it was 86. My body battery only crept up to a 73, but that is still better than it could have been.

    Today is a travel day, but not until this evening. Yes, my flight only leaves at 6:30pm, which means I have the entire day with my wife and stepson . I will just have to watch what I eat until I get onto the airplane. Well, I suppose I have to be careful on the airplane as well. I bought some almonds and some cashews to snack on if I get hungry. I hope that once I get through security at the airport I can sit down and have a salad for dinner, but I do not know what the timing will be like.

    It is currently 25° in Dallas… and 9° in Burlington. Fortunately the weather will be good to me the next few days, but I am resigned to the fact that we are well into autumn, and that the temperatures in Canada will be dropping substantially. What can you do, right?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1017

    For the second time I messed up when I tried to download my data from my bathroom scale app. Drat. Oh well, I’ll live. At least I know that my weight was down one pound this morning from yesterday, despite not successfully moving my bowels. I am happy with the weight drop, although somewhat less pleased that my system is stopped up again.

    I set out yesterday to top 40km walking since Sunday, which meant that I needed to walk about 7.2km. I did not start out smart, only realizing after I was a kilometre from home that I had not brought a water bottle with me. Doh! Fortunately I am able to use my mobile phone as a credit card, and so at around the halfway point of my journey (along the DNT, where I would be turning back) I stopped off and picked up a couple of bottles of water. The 7.32km walk brought my total for the week to 40.15km. I will call that a definite success.

    Speaking of successes: I cannot find where I had written it, or maybe I just thought it and did not write it in my journal, but I did write that I was disappointed in myself for not dropping below the terrible 300 lbs. mark before this trip, and I remember thinking that I would love to drop at least a couple of pounds while I was here. The trip is not over, but as of this morning I am happy with my progress these last couple of weeks. Yes, after the first few days I had gained several pounds. Since the worst of it (Wednesday last week) I have recovered very nicely, and from my worst weight in a very long time I have now dropped over 8 lbs., bringing me comfortably under 300 lbs. (and for these past several days) for the first time since the first week of October. I have to continue to lose weight which means eating sensibly and continuing to walk. It is far too easy to regain the weight… history has proven that true too many times.

    I was shocked this morning to see the numbers on my fitness watch. My sleep score was an almost unheard of 94. It is rare for that to be above 90, and I feel it. Yes, I feel relaxed this morning after getting 8.5 hours of balanced sleep! My body batter was actually up to a 99 this morning, which I am not sure I have ever seen. I obviously did something right the last couple of days! Hopefully I can keep that up… but I would not count on these being consistent numbers.

    With regard to food: Yesterday morning I had my usual omelette. For lunch we were planning to eat leftovers, and I was relieved when Leslie asked if I minded if she ate the pizza. Mind? MIND? I was thrilled for her to eat it, and to leave me the grilled chicken and salad! We put the leftover falafel and hummus in the middle so I could dip my chicken in the hummus and Leslie could sop it up with her pizza crusts. It was delicious! For dinner we ordered fast food. The main was grilled chicken bites, and yes, I cheated a bit by enjoying the waffle fries that came with it. Sorry… not sorry. Late in the evening I was hungry again… and with so many bad choices that I could have made, I opted for a protein bar. All was well in the world, and I did not go to bed on an empty stomach.

    I do not know what our plans are for today, but I assume they will involve entertaining a nine-year-old boy, so it is doubtful that we will be eating smartly. It is my job to stay within reason on any foods we eat. We have three main meals (I take care of my own breakfasts) before they drop me off at the airport, and then the airport food court. If I can get back to Canada weighing under the terrible mark Monday morning, then this trip will have been (with regards to my weight loss) an overall success. Yes, I cheated several times, but I made up for it.

    When I get back to Canada, I have to remember the simple rules… eat less (and eat smart), and exercise. I know the exercise often falls by the wayside for time reasons… and this week coming I see a big issue right away in that I am taking a class from noon until 8:30pm every day. My plan is to get up, take Her Floofness for her walk, and then after breakfast I will get onto the treadmill. If I need any enticement, then I will remember that there is a lot of TV to catch up on. I know, most of what I watch is trash… we are all entitled to our minor harmless vices, right?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1005

    Yesterday was a very long day… a travel day no less. Yes, I ate poorly. Yes, I made some bad choices (but also had to eat what my family wanted to eat, which was Chicago-style pizza. Yes, I could have done worse… so even though my weight has continued to creep up, I am thankful for some small victories. I could have eaten much worse yesterday.