Losing a part of me

Category: Trends

  • Day 1283

    I did not expect to see another huge drop this morning, so imagine my surprise when the numbers on the bathroom scale were another 1.4 lbs. down from yesterday!? That puts my loss-to-date at 31.8 lbs. on Day 27 of my latest attempt. I am thrilled with that! As well, after dropping only 3.2 lbs. last week, So far this week I have dropped 5 lbs.! What I am not thrilled with is that I am still well above the terrible mark. I hate that I let myself get so out of hand this calendar year.

    Analyzing the past data, while my weight first crept above the terrible mark at the end of September, in October it was higher than that for fifteen days, and then November it was fourteen days. In December I was doing better for a while… only seven days above that terrible mark. And then there was January… where I dropped below the terrible mark only once – and not since that day have I been there.

    If all goes well then by the middle to end of August I should drop below it once more. I will breathe a sigh of relief when I do.

    As it stands, the clothes that I ordered in June are a bit loose on me. I am wearing them comfortably, but you can tell I have lost a pound or two… or rather 18.4 lbs. to be precise! I am still disgusted that I cannot even button up the biggest of my sports jackets (although I am more comfortably able to wear my suits), and have reluctantly made a decision. Each time I have lost all of the weight, I have said ‘I will never gain it back again!’ and I have given away all of my fat clothes… which is why I had to get a new sports jacket and three new shirts made for me in June. When I can finally wear my slimmer clothes again I am going to take these new shirts and jacket and put them in a garment bag marked ‘If I am ever Fat and Ashamed again.’ I will not throw them out… but I will put them away in my storage locker.

    (I should mention that while I gave away the largest of my sports jackets, I am currently wearing a shirt that I had made in 2022, when I was first losing the weight. I have several shirts that do not fit yet, but I now have several from the down swing that do. They did not fit a month ago.)

    I mentioned yesterday that I had not moved my bowels in the morning… well in the afternoon I had what was probably the best movement since I stopped eating solid foods. I would not be surprised if that was a big contributing factor to this morning’s significant weight loss. What a relief! This morning I have thus far been unsuccessful, but there is still hope for the afternoon.

    My sleep score was up to an 87! I was surprised because of a number of factors:

    1. Even though I was in bed at a reasonable hour, I had a lot of trouble falling asleep.
    2. There was an Amazon delivery driver who decided to phone me at 6:30am to let me know he was leaving a package at my door. That is really my fault for disabling Sleep Mode on my phone… but I did not think I was going to get back to sleep after that. I did (phew!)

    I cannot think of the last time I had three nights in a row with a sleep score in excess of 80… Saturday night through Tuesday morning I registered 86-84-87. Woohoo! This, in addition to the nap I took yesterday afternoon.

    Yes, I took a nap. I spent most of the day trying to record a video for the course I am writing, and there was not one minute when I was not holding back a yawn. I could not figure it out, and finally I decided to walk away from the computer. I took Her Floofness out for a walk (she did not really feel like being out, so we only walked the perimeter of the building before coming back inside). She ran to Sue’s (the neighbour) for a visit, and I sat on the balcony with a cigar and a book. I thought that just maybe a break from not only sitting at my computer but also from studying computers would be beneficial. After my cigar was done I was feeling no more awake, and gave in to the temptation. I slept for an hour.

    While the nap certainly did my body good, I was still yawning all evening. On something like take 87 I was finally able to submit my video. (There was one take, maybe twenty or so takes earlier, that was definitely good enough… only for me to realize that while the screen and the mic were working, my camera was not. ARGH!) Video work is a lot more frustrating than teaching a live class… when I stumble over my words in class I can make light of it. That would not work for a recorded class.

    I did have a handful of peanuts yesterday…and I will again today. I am, as I said a few days ago, eating them in lieu of my fourth meal replacement. Three shakes and a handful of peanuts is not a bad compromise. I also suspect (with no scientific basis for it) that the peanut oil is helping the fibre in easing that last part of the digestive process. Maybe yes, maybe no… but I had the peanuts yesterday and recorded a huge weight drop, so maybe in moderation even if it doesn’t help… it doesn’t hurt.

    I do have some more video work to do today, but I also have an exam to prepare for this afternoon. As such, my plan is:

    • Head out after publishing this journal entry to visit with my son, stopping for a handful of peanuts along the way.
    • Come home, study for my exam for a few hours.
    • Clean off my kitchen table so that it will be completely clear for my exam.
    • Set up the exam computer.
    • At 4:45 I will either drop Her Floofness at Sue’s, or if she is not home I will put her in my bedroom so that I can take my exam.
    • After the exam, I will try to record the next video in the series.
    • After the sun goes down I will sit on the balcony with a cigar… if I pass my exam it will be a celebratory cigar (yes, it is a pretty advanced certification); if I do not pass then it will be an everyday pedestrian cigar. Let’s hope!

    Okay, it’s time to get moving. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1282

    I was not at all impressed this morning to see that my weight was up more than a pound from yesterday. I have to assume that was mostly related to the extremely salted peanuts I had eaten the previous day, but also the (unsalted) peanuts I ate yesterday. Other factors would include not moving my bowels (which I did quite successfully some time after weighing myself)… and the fact that weight loss is about the downward trend and not individual plots on a graph. Yes, I ate a handful of peanuts yesterday… a conservative estimate of my total intake yesterday would be 1050 calories which is by no measure excessive, and there was no significant sodium or carbohydrates or starch added to my usual four-per-day meal replacements. There is only one measure by which yesterday was a dietary failure, which is only the strict interpretation of the strict rules of the medically supervised program that I am on. I am not going to feel guilty about that.

    By the by… a clear indicator that my weight issues are likely related to the previous day’s salted peanuts is that my ring, of which I wrote just three days ago, is much tighter than it was. Fingers swell from water retention which is caused by sodium. I expect it to once again fit much better tomorrow or the next day than it does this morning.

    What I do feel guilty about is that I gave serious thought yesterday to switching to a partial program – two or three meal replacements plus an actual meal. I did not do anything about it, but I gave it thought. Why should I feel guilty? Maybe guilt is the wrong word, but I know it is, for the moment, a bad idea. I set out on this renewed journey only two weeks ago (today is essentially Day 16) and I have done very well so far… I have lost 22.4 lbs. so far, which is great… until we factor in that from my best weight ever (October, 2023) until my worst day ever (Day 1 of this new effort) I had regained 106 lbs., at which point we have to recognize that I have only scratched the surface of what I want to – what I need to do. I am still 83.6 lbs. heavier than I was when I was at my best, and that will not just melt away in a heartbeat. It will take much longer if I start compromising now on what is working. Yes, I see images of food and I am tempted. I should by no means give in to that temptation, and there is currently no justification for my doing so. All of the times since the beginning of the year that I have tried to start on a modified program were failures. Why? Because I negotiated with myself. ‘This works… but if I just put in some of the effort instead of all of the effort, then it should still work.’ No. I am not saying never, but for the time being I have no intention of compromising.

    My sleep score this morning was the best that it has been since January 2 of this year. I suspect that it has been over 90 only a handful of times in all of the years that my fitness watch has been tracking it. When I saw the tremendous score of 93 this morning I was relieved, knowing that a good night sleep is crucial for health in general, but it also helps weight loss in particular. My body battery was an unprecedented 97. Hoorah!

    I just did something that I should have done on Day 1. I went onto Facebook looking for the support group that I was a member of previously. In fact, I am still a member, but because I had not participated in quite some time it was not prioritized in my feed. I posted my first message there in a very long time. The group does not seem to be very active – beyond being a buy and sell group – but hopefully I will get some response, and some support.

    Today is a rainy Friday, and in a sense that is a good thing. I have been delinquent on a project that I need to work on, and I will put in a lot of work on it today. I am also going to try to get help with that other issue that I have been dealing with, which will involve a support session with Microsoft. I am not looking forward to that, but I am hoping that it can get resolved satisfactorily.

    I just got off the phone with my son the elder who is off to university next weekend. He wants to see me this weekend (which is great). He also respects the fact that I am back on my diet, and that because of that I would rather he come over for a drink than go out for a meal. I look forward to seeing him and having a nice chat.

    With that, I am going to try to get some work done. 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 997

    I am still not sleeping nearly as well as I would like, but sometimes I wonder how accurate the scores on my fitness watch are. I trust it completely for my walking and heart rate, but whether my sleep score is correct? I’m not sure. Yes, I think I could have slept a little better last night, but a sleep score of 69? Hmph. I did have trouble falling asleep last night… I was in bed by 9:00pm, but could not fall asleep until I decided, at midnight, to get up and take a shower. I know I saw 12:30am on my clock, but I do not think I saw 1:00am. According to my fitness watch app: ‘You slept long enough, but not well enough to bring your stress levels down overnight. You might feel higher stress or fatigue today.’ I do not know that I feel stress or fatigue, but I will try to get a good night’s sleep tonight.

    After a disastrous week of gaining weight (about 8 lbs.) I am glad that my weight dropped significantly once again this morning. I am down over 5.5 lbs. in two days… after gaining nearly 7 lbs. in under a week. I should attribute the last two days of my weight dropping to Yom Kippur; let’s see how it looks tomorrow.

    Speaking of tomorrow, it is Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. To honour that, when I went shopping yesterday, I bought a smoked turkey leg. This is always a dangerous buy because of the extremely high sodium content in smoked turkey, but I decided to take the chance. Hopefully it will not hurt me too badly, and if it does then it will be from water retention and should be gone within a couple of days.

    No, I do not have any Thanksgiving plans this year. My friends who traditionally invite me every year decided to spend the weekend camping, and most of my other friends are either away, or else serving ham. I am neither upset nor lonely for this… growing up in my family, Thanksgiving was never a big deal for my family so while I am always happy to spend it with friends, tomorrow will really just be another day for me. I think back to where I was a year ago – Thanksgiving fell on October 9th, which means that it was just two days after the October 7 attacks in Israel. I put on the happy face to spend that Sunday with my godson and goddaughter (and their parents and grandparents), but there was nothing happy in my world. I was waiting in earnest for a call that would never come recalling me to active duty. It is had to believe it has been a year already, and what a horrible year it has been on so many fronts. My weight is 60 lbs. heavier than it was a year ago; the roller coaster of my personal relationships (owing chiefly to the massacre) felt like a free-fall abyss for much too long, and while I am relieved that they survived… the last year has been fraught with far too much pain. I have wept for every one of our hostages in Gaza as well as for those Israeli soldiers who have fallen in the war. I have spent the year in a red-hot rage over the worldwide hatred and vitriol spread against my people, proving once again that the only socially acceptable form of racism is against Jews. With every false accusation spread and every protester shouting for Israel to accept an unconditional cease fire (at best) to the death and destruction of our nation and all Jews (at worst) I want to scream and lash out… but I cannot because if I do the useful idiots (Hamas’ term, not mine) will accuse me of aggression and violence. How is it that people who have never set foot in my country can hate us so much? How is it that they do not understand that they would be welcomed in Israel, but they would be executed in the streets of Gaza just for being who they are… and yet they call us genocidal oppressors.

    The weather has turned. These last couple of days I have been wearing my jacket out, whether to take Her Floofness for her walks or to sit on the balcony with my cigar. Autumn has arrived in Canada and while Leslie is jealous, she is so from the heat of Texas; I know that Canadian autumn leads all too quickly to Canadian winters! With that said, I am flying down to see her a week from today, and I will spend two weeks in her warmth of her embrace, and in the warmth of the Texas October. If you cannot tell from the previous paragraph, I think I need Leslie’s warm embrace now more than ever. Going through this alone very often leads me to despair… and I cannot let it influence my eating this week.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 932

    I did not expect it, but my weight dropped nearly three pounds from yesterday. I did not expect it because around 10:45pm last night my knee was in so much pain that I needed to take a double dose of the anti-inflammatory meds, which meant that I had to eat. I had a challah roll and two yoghurts. I always assume that no matter how well I did the rest of the day, when I eat bread after 9:00pm then the following morning’s weight will not be a good one. I was worried that my weight would be above that dreadful number for a second day in a row. Fortunately, it was not. I might not be breathing easy about that if I cannot keep myself on the right track going forward.

    Tomorrow is going to be an incredible day for me, but it is going to start very early. I am picking my buddy up at the airport at 5:15am, which means that my alarm is set for 4:00am. I have to shower and shave, and I have to be dressed in a suit and tie for the morning. It is exciting… and nerve wracking. I won’t go into detail, but tomorrow should be a day that I will not soon forget. There will be a celebration in my honour after all is said and done, and I just have to remember to keep my eating in check.

    I have an appointment with my doctor in a little while. It is for a yearly checkup, which means that she will have checked my blood and EKG results from last week. I am not worried about anything, but I do want to discuss my knee with her. I am hoping that it is just a flareup of gout, but we will see.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 563

    I have now dropped 6.2 lbs. in three days, and I am feeling more confident that I am starting – ever so slowly, mind you – to get back on track. I am now back to what I weighed toward the end of Leslie’s trip to Canada, although I am still six pounds heavier than I was just a few days prior to that. While it is nice to see how I am doing compared to different points during my plateau, my current short-term goal is to get back down to my best weight ever; on May 27 (Day 492) I weighed 250 lbs., and that is when my plateau and slipping began.

    I went to bed hungry last night. I had eaten my salad for dinner around 8:00pm, and then I had a lovely cigar date with my wife on the balcony. I considered having a meal replacement when I came in, but I decided against it. I will say that I have been drinking a lot of water these last few days, and that is probably helping with my appetite somewhat.

    My plans for the day are all close to home. I have my presentation to work on, and when Leslie is ready, we will have another video date. After lunch (around 2:00pm) my friend Eduardo is coming for a visit, and it will be nice to catch up with him. I cannot remember the last time we got together, but that does not matter. He will come over and it will be as if no time has passed.

    My food plans are simple. I had my omelette this morning. I will have a salad for lunch. In the late afternoon or early evening I will make a meal replacement shake. Whether I have a second one later in the evening will depend on what time I have my earlier one. I am not going to allow myself to eat late at night… even if it is a protein shake.

    My next doctor’s appointment is at the end of the month, and I am really hoping that by then I am really back on track so that I can show my new doctor that I am serious. When I was there last week she asked if I wanted the nurse to weigh me and I declined, knowing how bad I had been. That was a mistake; I always advocate facing up to those embarrassing weight jumps because when you do get back on track you will see what you recovered from. I weigh myself on the bathroom scale ever day, so I know that I weighed an embarrassing 271.2 lbs. (123kg) that morning. I know that this morning (6 days later) I am eight pounds down from that morning. My next appointment is in 2.5 weeks and by then I would really love to be back down below my best weight ever… and according to the medical records that is 116kg, which means I only need to lose another 3.4kg from what I weigh this morning… about 7.5 lbs. I want to do much better than that though. If I can lose 13-14 lbs in that time, then I will break right through that 250 lbs. mental barrier that I have no recollection of ever weighing… at least not since the Army. It is an ambitious goal to be sure… now that I do the math that would mean I need to lose about 5 lbs. per week. While that is not unheard of, I think it happened a lot more when I had much more weight to shed. Okay, I will be happy to get down to 255 lbs., which will still be slightly under my previous best medical weigh-in.

    Okay, it is time for me to stop procrastinating. Let’s get some work done.

    Have a great day folks!