Yesterday was a little better… not much, but a little. I will weigh myself in the morning and then tomorrow morning hopefully I will be able to start back on track.
Category: Uncategorized
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2026 Day 35
I think I did a little better yesterday… but I still feel like crap about the way I have fallen off the wagon.
I did do one smart thing yesterday. After my class I got maybe five hours of sleep. I got up, took the Floof out, and then had dinner. I tried to reschedule an exam that I am taking tonight for last night, but was unable to get an appointment; I was about to sit on the balcony with a cigar, but then I realized that I was a bit tired. It was 9:30pm, and I did not start work until 1:30am. I went back to sleep for nearly three hours, and it was the right thing to do.
Have a great day folks.
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2026 Day 30
This morning’s exam is behind me. I have no idea how I did it, but I passed. It is the eleventh straight exam that I passed (dating to May of last year), and extends my current streak to 32 of 35 exams passed dating back to November of 2017. The pass streak of eleven exams surpasses my previous best streak which was ten exams (nine of which were technical) from November/2017 through June/2020. I am also confident in saying that unlike that previous streak, this one included four of the most difficult exams I have ever sat. I definitely get to celebrate today.
With that said, I am exhausted. I was in bed by 9:00pm last night (in anticipation of the 4:30am alarm that I set), but it took me three hours to fall asleep. My eyes popped open five minutes before the alarm (which is good) and I was out of bed and ‘at it’ with plenty of time to spare. According to my fitness watch my sleep score was an abysmal 50 based on 3h59m of actual sleep. I am glad that I did a few things last night that would otherwise have had to be done this morning – I cleaned off the table and set up my testing environment, and I prepared my coffee machine so that when I woke up I just had to press the button. I also ran through the pre-test verification procedures that are required before taking an on-line proctored exam. I would usually be more cavalier about that, but realizing that the testing platform was completely new to me I decided to not take any chances… and it turns out it was the right decision!
Following the exam completion I wrote a couple of emails to people who needed to know immediately (which was accompanied by my morning meal replacement shake and half a cup of coffee), and then went to my neighbour’s to pick up Her Floofness. We went out for a walk that was longer than most from the last few weeks, but still much shorter than usual. I hope that within a week or two the weather will be consistently better and we will be able to resume our usual morning walking routine. As there is another deep freeze predicted for the weekend, I know it will not be before Tuesday… by which point I will be back to teaching overnight for the week, so that might have to wait for next weekend.
In the meantime, while the winds are forecast to pick up around dinner time, the forecast high for this afternoon is a balmy -2°… which means that unless the forecast is wrong, or if something comes up between now and then, I will be able to sit outside on the balcony with a cigar for an hour or two. I have not done that since the cold spells began several weeks ago, and I am looking forward to it!
I did not step onto the bathroom scale this morning, but I can’t imagine I would have liked what I saw. I was very bad yesterday. The stress of the exam I was preparing for (which, despite being related to information security, was quite a bit outside of my usual comfort zone) had me stressed, and I stress-ate. That included carbs and starches, in addition to more chicken than I normally would eat to make positive progress. I will do better today.
Have a great day folks!
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2026 Day 22
After a full day of sticking to the program religiously, my weight this morning dropped ever so slightly below the previous best measurement of the year. It was only .4 lb. lower than yesterday’s reading, but if you read yesterday’s post you might recall that I was unsure of the veracity of that one. Today’s weigh-in, at 7:43am, was exactly within the sweet spot of when I usually aim for, and so I can trust it… at least, I can trust it as much as I would any reading on this scale and on this floor.
As of this morning, I have lost 17 lbs. in the three weeks since I restarted started the program (with several days of falling). Possibly more important is that I have dropped 19.2 lbs. since the morning of November 28, or 8.7 kg. That date is relevant because the previous afternoon I saw my doctor and promised her that I would lose 10 kg by the time I saw her again… which is Monday next. While it would be nice to lose that last 1.3 kg by then, and if I stick to my program that should be realistic, I nonetheless expect that even if I do not, she will not be upset with an 8.7 kg drop. In truth, had it not been for a deadly combination of the holidays and some extremely stressful situations then I likely would be a lot further along. As it stands, I hope to be able to walk into her office at the weight I promised I would try to hit by then.
Yes, those stressors can be deadly. Speaking with one of my diet buddies last night we discussed stress, and stress eating. As a school teacher she had to deal with a very unruly parent, and came home to stress eat.
** Writer’s Note: I obviously got distracted at this point. It was a very busy and stressful day, and I never got back to the article. Ooops!
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2026 Day 20
When my bathroom scale is obviously wrong, or even slightly in doubt, I step off reset it, and then I reweigh myself. I then delete the incorrect reading and go about my day. This morning was an exception. I do not know what forces collided to show me a reading that I was fourteen pounds down from yesterday. There is hope, there is optimism, and there is the realm of complete impossibility. I reset the scale… but I kept that other reading. How sweet that would have been indeed… and I know I was strict on my diet program yesterday and I know that I had another decent bowel movement this morning… but no, I am not living in a fantasy land where two days of dieting can shed seventeen pounds. After resetting the bathroom scale I was indeed down… by 1.8 lbs., not by the weight of a small dog.
After a few days of terrible slipping I am back to 15.2 lbs. down from the day I started. I know I have nothing to complain about with that kind of loss in less than three weeks, but at the same time I know that I could have been so much farther along with my progress had I not fallen off the wagon. I have to stay true to the program and keep losing… otherwise I will never be slim again. I simply have to redouble my efforts and not let myself fall off again.
I slept very well last night. After my class was over I was in bed at a reasonable hour, and after watching one episode of a show I am binging I was turned out the lights around 11:30, and was asleep by 11:45. I slept until nearly 7:40am!
- Sleep score: 93 (Excellent)
- Duration: 7h48m (Excellent)
- Stress: 14 avg (Good)
- Deep: 1h51m (Excellent)
- Light: 4h23m (Excellent)
- REM: 1h34m (Fair)
- Awake/Restlessness: 7m, 31 Restless Moments (Excellent)
I am not going to complain about any of that. I would love to know how one could adjust these things… it seems to me that they are nothing that I can control. I suppose if they are good more often than bad then I’m satisfied.
I must have forgotten to press PUBLISH twice after writing this. oops!
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2026 Day 16
My overnight class is over. What a relief.
Yesterday afternoon, as I said I would, I went to the supermarket and picked up some healthy protein. I probably ate too much of it last night, but it was still healthier than the crap I had eaten the previous two nights.
I am about to start my evening class and am glad I got through the week. GROAN!
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Day 2
I was hungry a few times throughout the day yesterday, but I got through it. I was going to write that the first day is always the hardest, but in truth I know that every day for the next month will be really tough. I will do my best to get through it, and I will do everything I can to avoid potential pitfalls. That will likely include skipping my Lodge’s monthly breakfast at the end of the month… I do not want to put myself in the position to fail if I am doing well. That is in twenty-two days, and if I do fail before that we will see… I hope that I will still be on track.
I spent over an hour on the phone with my diet buddy last night. We did not spend all of that time talking about the diet, but the conversation did a good job of keeping me distracted when I was hungry and longing for that fourth meal replacement of the day. In the end, I accidentally skipped that last shake, which is not a good habit to get into. The human body – especially one as large as mine – requires more than 675 calories to make it through the day. One day will not cause me any issues, but I will not make a habit of it. My program calls for 900 calories per day, and since I am adding sugar and milk to my coffee I am just about at 1000 per day. I will try to stick to that.
Have a great day folks!
