Losing a part of me

Category: Walking

  • Day 236

    Phew.

    I suppose I should start with an explanation for that… as well as yesterday’s one-line post. Yesterday morning, after five days in Montreal, I stepped onto the scale. To my horror, I had gained 8.2lbs since Tuesday morning. I was heartbroken. I know that I ate poorly in Montreal, making more poor choices than I ought to, but over eight pounds in less than a week? Especially a week in which I went on three monster walks (8-10km each)? That was harsh.

    There are a few things I should mention about weighing myself on a regular basis:

    • My weight fluctuates depending on the time of day. That is not necessarily about what I have eaten that day, it is simply that at 9am I might weigh more or less than I do at 11am.
    • Changes to my sleep will affect my weight. For example, if I go to bed very late or very early one night, it will be affected.
    • Travel, whether by car or by airplane, always affects my weight for a day (and sometimes for two).
    • When I have a bad cheat day, the next day may be hell on the scale, but if it is only a single bad cheat day, it often works itself out the following day.

    Yes, I made a lot of bad decisions in Montreal, culminating in a series of bad decisions at the cigar garden party I went to on Saturday, and then more on the drive home. All of that, combined with the long car ride, the very late night, the very late morning, and weighing myself two hours later than I usually do… well, I was over eight pounds up from my previous weigh-in on Tuesday. I was really not happy… but Leslie reminded me that the travel day will affect me, and that I am usually so good, from time to time I am allowed to fall off the wagon… as long as I can pick myself up and get back onto it.

    Since I woke up late yesterday, I decided to not have my morning meal replacement. That decision was partly due to the fact that I felt like a fat pig from the weight gain, but mostly due to the fact that it was nearing 11:30am by the time I was ready to go, and I simply made myself lunch. I did end up taking a nap for a bit in the afternoon… I had so missed having my Princess Sophie cuddling in with me that it lasted longer than expected. We then went out for our walk before I settled onto the balcony for a cigar and a video date with my wife.

    As I prepared to step onto the scale this morning, I was hoping beyond hope that I would see a 3-lbs drop. It was all that I could hope for. Seeing the numbers on the scale announce a six-pound drop was just euphoric. I was so thrilled to not only be back below the 320lbs mark, but significantly so, was amazing.

    Knowing that at least part of my weight gain was not owing to the travel and timing, but to poor food choices, I doubt that the remaining 2.4 lbs will fall off tomorrow morning, but if I can lose them by the end of the week then I will be happy. Remember, next Thursday I am flying back to Dallas to be with my gorgeous wife, and I want to be looking my best for her. Yes, I am losing the weight for myself… but I think she deserves the best me that I can offer to her.

    It is going to be raining off and on today, and so I do not know if I will be able to take a walk. According to the hourly forecast, the rain should abate by 4pm, which means that I can hit the trails anytime after that. Not having walked since Friday, I would like to get in a good walk to start the week off. Also, there is a challenge on the Garmin Connect app to hit 100,000 steps between September 1-14. I am just over 14,000 steps shy of that goal, which means that a good showing today (even 10,000 steps) will guarantee that I hit it tomorrow, as any day that I do not fitness walk still hits 4,000 steps.

    I have to go shopping now so that I have food for lunch. I need chicken as well as vegetables, and we will see what else I might be missing.

    Have a great day folks!

  • My Second Ten

    I was not pushing myself for speed today, as my first kilometre demonstrated way too clearly, with an abysmal 11m02s pace. I picked it up after that, with only one of the next nine kilometres paced over 10m10s.

    It felt good to record my second ten-kilometre walk knowing that I could have gone longer. I did not want to push myself too hard, or at least not further than I actually did.

    • Distance: 10km (8.21km)
    • Duration: 1:41:33 (1:24:56)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:08 (10:20)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m44s (10m02s)
    • Steps: 12.6k (10.3k)
    • Calories burned: 1,188 (971)
    • Elevation gain: 62.7 (53)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 124 (122)

    I was disappointed to look back to look back to July 25th, my first 10-km walk, and see that I actually did not break my time for that distance. I missed it by only six seconds, which means that my disastrous first kilometre made the difference. I am not going to lose any sleep over that; it was an excellent walk, and my elevation gain was much higher today than then. Of course, I need to remember that for the first 1500m of my walk, my knee was bothering me. I am going to see about picking up an ace bandage to wrap it for tomorrow’s walk.

    One thing that I thought for a minute might have made a difference was that I was wearing long training pants. Normally I am wearing shorts, which are not only lighter, they are much less constricting on my legs. That could have been a factor, but knowing how well I was able to pick up the pace after that first kilometre, I suspect it was not as much a factor as I thought at the time.

    King Charles III just finished his first public speech as the monarch, and he spoke well. I am not sure what to think of him, knowing that there have been so many negative stories around him throughout his life. I do know that aside from being our new King, he is a son who lost his mother and is mourning. I hope that he does well as our monarch, but today I wish him my condolences as a mourner.

    I am going to head out to lunch, and then to the cemetery. On reflection, I do not think that I will be heading to a cigar lounge this evening, but will stay close to home. After all, there will be less temptation to drink with my cigars here.

    Have a great day folks… and G-d save the King.

  • Day 233

    Okay, so I did not write about my walk yesterday. That is in no way meant as commentary that I did not walk, or did not have a good walk. I got back and realized that if I did not get ready and leave immediately, I would be late for my lunch engagement.

    I did not break any records on my walk yesterday, but it was a good and respectable outing. I did not break the ten-minute mark for any kilometre, let alone my average. I was walking on a knee that I was worried about, and did not want to aggravate it.

    • Distance: 8.21km (8.5km)
    • Duration: 1:24:56 (1:24:24)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:20 (9:55)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m02s (9m45s)
    • Steps: 10.3k (10.3k)
    • Calories burned: 971 (1,033)
    • Elevation gain: 53 (56)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 122 (120)

    Hearing at lunch that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II passed away was devastating for me. Many people do not realize that she was the Queen of Canada, as well as of the United Kingdom. She has been a constant presence in my life, with her face on the coins that I played with as a very young child. While I am sure it was not unanimous, I believe that her style and class made her universally loved and respected around the world. Long live King Charles III, but his mother will be missed.

    I have no plans for today. Yes, I will go for my walk shortly, after which I will come back to the house, shower, and then I will drive to the cemetery, where I will spend a couple of hours talking with my father. I will probably take a cigar to smoke with him, but we will see. I will probably have Lebanese food for lunch, which I think he would appreciate. Of course, he would be calling it Israeli food, which is just fine by me.

    In the evening, I might go to one of the cigar lounges I used to hang out at here… either Dreamcatcher (on the Kahnawake native territory), or Stogies downtown. More likely, I will sit on the patio here, reading my book, and quietly smoking a cigar alone. I am sure there are more friends in Montreal that I would like to see, but I cannot think of anyone right now.

    Tomorrow, as long as my knee is still cooperating, I plan to go for a walk on Mount Royal in the morning. At the end of my walk, I will go back to Esti’s house, shower, and then buy her lunch. She had laser eye surgery yesterday, otherwise I might have done all of that today. There is a difference between getting into the car all sweaty and driving five minutes to her house versus driving nearly an hour to get here. I suspect that if I do that too often, my car will begin to smell like a gym locker… and we cannot have that, especially not ahead of my five-plus hour drive back to Burlington.

    As I sit here writing, I decided to be somewhat luxuriant. I poured myself a second cup of coffee, which is absolutely normal (as indeed would be the third cup) back home, but has not been my habit since arriving in Quebec. I think it has been mainly the timing issue that has prevented it, and I am wondering if that might be one of the reasons I have been having trouble sticking to the parameters of my weight management program since Tuesday. I know that some people think coffee is only coffee, but it is actually a drug that affects your body and attitude throughout the day. I know that yesterday afternoon I met my friend Jess for coffee (at a very nice café in the Plateau de Montreal area), and I had a pastry with it. I do not blame the pastry on my coffee imbalance, rather on my mourning the passing of the monarch. With that said, I have made a few wrong decisions these last few days, and I wonder… and I hope that my daily walks will at least keep my weight from slipping too badly on this trip.

    I should mention that while I was not great on my weight management plan yesterday, I could have done worse. My father’s friend Arnie and I met for lunch at the Snowdon Delicatessen; rather than ordering the large Montreal smoked meat platter with fries, I ordered a bowl of chicken soup with a matza ball and a salmon salad sandwich. Arnie ordered a plate of French fries which he encouraged me to share, so I had a few… and I only did that because he doused them with vinegar. Really good fries with vinegar are one of my kryptonites! Even so, I ate much better there than I could have… and normally would have.

    Okay, I have used my writing to procrastinate enough. I just sipped the last sip of my coffee, and I should hit the pavement. I will grab my sunglasses and my water bottle, and I will turn on my music. As is my habit, I will first listen to the CBC news, but I think I can guess what that broadcast will be focused on. I miss her too.

    See you soon folks!

  • Island Walking

    It is funny what we do not pay attention to when we are driving. Of course, I am always aware of pedestrians and bicycles; I have probably spent more than one hundred nights at my friends’ house in Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot (just off the island of Montreal), and it never occurred to me, as I tried to think where to walk around here, that there is a walking path right outside the house. This quaint town is actually replete with them, and I will be exploring them more as my stay progresses.

    My walk this morning ended at 8.5 km, and I could have done more if I felt like it. If I am feeling this good tomorrow, I will try for ten kilometres. However, I will do it without forgetting one important item… Despite having prepared it, I left my water bottle at home, and so I did not drink until I got home (at which point I drained my bottle, and another). It was a sunny day, and the temperature was around 22° Celsius, which is not prohibitive by any measure. If I had been uncomfortably thirsty, I would have stopped to buy a bottle at any of the convenience stores that I passed along the way.

    • Distance: 8.5km (9.2 km)
    • Duration: 1:24:24 (1:27:44)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:55 (9:29)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m45s (9m10s)
    • Steps: 10.3k (11.4k)
    • Calories burned: 1,033 (1,127)
    • Elevation gain: 56 (27.8)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 120 (128)

    I only broke the record for elevation today because most of the time I am walking around Burlington or Dallas, two very flat cities. In contrast, Montreal and the surrounding areas are anything but. Because of that, I am thinking that tomorrow or Friday I might end up at Mount Royal, and go for a walk on the mountain trails. That would be a nice walk, and one that I used to do quite a bit when I was living here, and when I was living in Toronto but visiting here a lot.

    I am going to get my lunch, and then go visit my friends Caryl and Lawrence. They adopted a new puppy, and I am looking forward to meeting her. This evening I will spend a few hours smoking cigars with Stephane, which is always a good time.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 231

    Wow did I fall off the wagon yesterday. Driving days are usually hard for me, but yesterday went off the rails when my buddy called and told me that his wife was sick and that I should not come over in the evening. It was sitting with my friends who offered me all sorts of delicacies that things went south. I have to do better today. I will do better today.

    I slept really well last night. The drive was long, and by the time bedtime came around I was out like a light. This I still woke up to pee a couple of times, but that was not the worst thing in the world. When I finally checked my watch, it was 9:00am, which is nearly unheard of for me… especially when there is a floof who wants to go for a walk at a reasonable hour.

    I got dressed in my walking kit this morning, and that is what I am going to do. I do not know what the route will be, but if I get somewhere between five and eight kilometres in then I will consider it a successful walk. I did not bring as many workout kits as I thought, so I will have to do laundry if I plan to work out more than 2-3 times. I’m okay with that… as are my friends with whom I am staying.

    In the afternoon, I will see Stephane for a cigar, and then I will visit with Caryl and Lawrence for a couple of hours. After that, who knows? I only know I have to avoid bad foods. I will likely have Lebanese food for dinner, which is not very healthy, but is reasonably safe.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Break Em Again!

    The weather has to play a big factor in my walking performance. Frankly, so does how well rested I am between walks. I have had eight days of rest since my last outing, and with a very light drizzle, the temperature was hovering around 20° Celsius… and I broke the record for the three most important stats that I track: Best overall average pace, best split-pace kilometre, and best overall average cadence. I happen to know, from having looked down at my watch at exactly the right moment, that my best per-mile was also shattered, at 14m49s.

    • Distance: 9.2 km (7 km)
    • Duration: 1:27:44 (1:09:46)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:29 (9:58)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m10s (9m40s)
    • Steps: 11.4k (8.5k)
    • Calories burned: 1,127 (832)
    • Elevation gain: 27.8 (31)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 128 (122)

    I was noticing a few things about myself as I walked. My belly does not appear to be jiggling like it did. While I know it is slightly smaller, I suspect that I am holding it firmer than I used to. As well, when I am walking, I keep my jaw very clenched. I am going to have to figure out what to do about that… although I suspect it is not the worst thing in the world.

    My first eight kilometres all registered under 10m00… and while my best (and record-breaking) split-pace kilometre was actually kilometre six, I actually broke my previous best on four of them and tied it on one more.

    I was really pushing myself today, to be sure… but there is another factor that I cannot discount the importance of. I am simply carrying less weight than I was. The more weight that I lose, the less weight that I am carrying, the better walking performances I register. It is as simple as that, so I expect that over the next eight weeks or so – before the first snows come – I will be breaking even more records.

    This morning Leslie was talking to me about the pace of my weight loss. She is truly amazed by my progress, and that I have stuck with it. She noted that if I keep it up, I should be under the 300-pound mark by New Years Eve. I told her that if I keep up my current pace, I will hit that mark sometime in the next nine weeks. My logic: From July 6 to August 24, a seven-week period, I lost 13lbs on the doctor’s scale. I am less than sixteen pounds from that mark now, so nine weeks is a fair estimate. If it is ten weeks, then that’s life… but I would like to do it by November 22nd if I can… and I would really like to be able to wear my blue suit on that day, for reasons I will discuss later.

    As long as I do not fall off the wagon, it looks like I will be able to call the year 2022 The Year I Lost 100-Pounds. Wouldn’t that be something?

    As I mentioned earlier, I am going to Montreal for a few days tomorrow. It has been a few years since I have done this, but I have to remember to schedule fitness walking into my daily routine there. I will bring the appropriate outfits (including training pants, a windbreaker, and a hat of some sort), but I have to force myself to do it. Whether that is around the outskirts of the city where I am staying, or if I drive up to Mount Royal, park my car there, and walk on the mountain… I have to keep exercising. It is bad enough that this trip will interfere with my Taekwondo plans, I cannot let it break my fitness regimen, which has already been broken these last couple of weeks. I am not going to push myself to my limits, but I do want to get my walking in… especially since I will likely have a couple of not-entirely-healthy meals while I am there.

    It is time to hit the showers, and then make myself a meal replacement. The weather is not the greatest, but it is still nice enough that I can put on a sweatshirt and sit out on the balcony with a cigar. That is how I will spend my evening. Make sure you enjoy yours!

  • Beat the Heat

    It was closer to 95° Fahrenheit than 85° by the time I hit my stride this morning, and let me tell you, it was hot! I decided to try to beat the heat though, and I pushed myself… hard. The one concession I made to it was trying to stay on the shady side of whatever street I was walking on, which makes a big difference when it is this hot and this sunny.

    I have not worn these shoes in nearly two months, and they felt really good. My feet were on fire, and not only because the pavement was so hot. When all was said and done, I recorded three split-paced kilometres under the 10-minute mark, which allowed me to finish with a combined average pace of 9m58s. While that is not nearly a personal best, it is 56 seconds better than my previous best walk in the Texas heat (from June). Yes Ma’am, I am extremely pleased by that.

    • Distance: 7 km (9.5km)
    • Duration: 1:09:46 (1:37:15)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:58 (10:14)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: (x2) 9m40s (9m43s)
    • Steps: 8.5k (12.1k)
    • Calories burned: 832 (1,187)
    • Elevation gain: 31 (32.6)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 122 (122)

    I am really happy that I did the 7-kilometres in under 1:10:00. A couple of walks ago, I was extremely upset that I was over 1:15:00 on that pace, and being below it is important to me. I do not know why, but it is a milestone I try to stay under.

    I stopped at 7km. Could I have gone further? Yes, I could have… but it was extremely hot outside, and I was running out of water. I also felt that had I gone on, there were only a couple of routes I could have taken without doubling back, neither of which would have provided much shade.

    Leslie and I splurged for lunch, enjoying a lovely dim sum meal. I do not think that I overate, but I will not make a habit of having dim sum often. It is a lovely treat though. Later in the afternoon, we will probably go to the Asian market. For now, I am going to sit and relax for a bit, allowing lunch to digest.

  • Better Together

    This morning, for the first time ever, I set out on a fitness walk with another person. Leslie and I started out from home, and did a strong 6.5 km walk in the heat. I was expecting to have to slow my pace for her, but that was absolutely not the case. Leslie is in better shape than I thought, and while we did not try to beat any records (I was wearing a new pair of shoes, on top of a slightly painful foot), we had a great time of it. I know that when she participates in her company’s 5km walk next month she will absolutely knock ‘em all dead!

    We are going to split the leftover Lebanese food for lunch, and then for dinner we will find something in The Colony, around the Cigars International Superstore (where we will end up for a cigar and a beverage at the end of the evening). It is so wonderful to have a partner with whom I share so many interests!

    When we came in from the walk, as we were cooling down, hydrating, and regulating our body temperatures before showering, we had a great conversation, during which Leslie told me something that I can never know for myself, but which is a huge non-scale victory. She told me that I am not snoring anymore. I know that I am sleeping slightly better and definitely more comfortably than when I was at my heaviest, but the snoring is something that I have always been aware of, either because of partners, or when I shared a hotel with a friend or co-worker. When I am heavier, I snore; when I am lighter I do not. While I do not know exactly where the line of demarcation is; I know that the last time Leslie and I spent the night together I was twenty pounds heavier, and I assume I was still snoring then. So I have a pretty good idea where the line is.

    Time for lunch. Have a great day!

  • Day 220

    I ate a couple of things yesterday that I suspected would have a negative effect on my weight loss. For lunch, I had a Montreal bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese. It was really tasty! In the evening, Leslie and I watched a movie, sharing a bag of microwave popcorn (with Dill seasoning). Again, it was really yummy. I am with my wife, and it is a very short trip. I am not going to go completely off the rails, but I do not expect to lose tremendous amounts of weight this week.

    When the bathroom scale showed me not only three pounds down from yesterday, but also below my 320 pound milestone again, I had to run into the bedroom to share the great news with Leslie. After a very good night’s sleep (the best I have had in a couple of weeks or longer), this was just the icing on the cake. Mmmm… caaaakkkee….!

    Leslie and I are going for a walk this morning. We are going to try to do a five kilometre walk along a path that I am very familiar with. The mercury is already flirting with the 30° Celsius, on its way to a high of 34°. That is extremely hot for Toronto, but not really for Texas. I think Leslie will make it just fine, and I am not expecting to break any records, just keep pace with her.

    Later in the day, we are going to go to the Asian markets… there is a Japanese store that we love, and next to it there is a Japanese bakery. We need a few things for the house, and Leslie needs bread for her son. Both will be easily accomplished there. Who knows? After a wonderful walk (and on a day my weight is at its lowest point ever) we might even treat ourselves to a Japanese doughnut. The problem is that there are so many wonderful indulgences at those stores, and I can only pick one cheat per day! Decisions, decisions…

    It is going to be another wonderful day with my wife, and I am looking forward to relaxing with her later with a cigar and maybe a drink.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Keep On Keeping On

    I knew that I was being a bad boy the second I told Ryan I would have one hamburger with a bun. Knowing my love of onions, he bought a couple of onion rolls (to go with the all-beef burgers that he was buying for me). I heard him mention to our other friend that he did not eat them, am I did not want to seem ungracious. I was carbing up… and I am supposed to be on a very low-carb diet.

    The burgers were wonderful, no doubt. I do wish he had not bought special burgers for me though. Had the only option been the patties with cheese and bacon in them, I could have begged off and not cheated… but my word, they were tasty! Yes, they… I ate one with the bun, and another without.

    On my drive home I knew I had to go for a long walk. I could not just eat like that and not exercise today… it would be a slap in the face to the milestones that I hit and wrote about this morning. I got home and changed into my workout clothes. I took Princess Sophie for her walk (the same path that we have gotten accustomed to taking most mornings, which it turns out is 1.2km), and then set out for mine… planning a route in my head that I knew would be long.

    What I did not account for was the (for Canada) grueling heat. I usually am nearly finished my water bottle (one litre) by the time I walk into the apartment. Today I realized that it was empty before kilometre number seven… and I was over two kilomtres from home. If I learned anything during my time in the Army it is that hydration is not a little important; it is huge. In truth, it is everything, because if you fall out from dehydration the consequences during training are not pleasant; in the field they can be disastrous. At the corner of Dundas and Walker’s Line, just after finishing kilometre seven, I paused my trackers and walked into the Circle K to grab a bottle of Gatorade Zero. While the bottle was gone before I had walked another 500m, the hydration and electrolytes were sufficient to get me home.

    • Distance: 9.5km (8.07km)
    • Duration: 1:37:15 (1:19:59)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:14 (9:54)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m43s (9m32s)
    • Steps: 12.1k (9.9k)
    • Calories burned: 1,187 (1003)
    • Elevation gain: 32.6 (30.3)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 122 (124)

    While my first two kilometres had me on a track to match or even beat yesterday’s walk, the heat slowed me down; while two of my first four kilometres were under ten minutes (and my average per kilometre was still under that threshold), I did slow down somewhat after kilometre four, and am not surprised that my pace fell off somewhat. Still and all, I was under 10m40 on every kilometre, so I am not at all disappointed.

    I do not know if I completely worked off the cheat-lunch that I had, but at least I did not throw up my hands in surrender. It would have been easy to just say ‘Oh well, today is a wash, I will start again tomorrow.’ That is not what I am doing… especially knowing that I am getting weighed at the doctor’s office in 3.5 days… and that night I will be seeing my wife! While I doubt if I will get down to 315-pounds by then, I am certainly not going to be happy getting onto the plane over the 320-pound mark. I dropped below that today for the first time, and I hope to be solidly and permanently below that by Wednesday.

    As I have done several times on days when I have cheated, I will not be having three meal replacements. I did not feel that I needed one before my walk, and while I am still not sure if I need one afterwards, I think it prudent to have it, lest I realize at 11:30pm that I am hungry.

    When you tangle up, tango on. Lunch today was a mistake, but I did not miss a beat in getting back on track. That is the best way to avoid failure.