Losing a part of me

Category: Weight Loss

  • Fighting With the Bathroom Scale

    I have a routine for the morning that I follow pretty closely every day. I wake up and go to the washroom. After I sit on the toilet checking my e-mails and doing whatever else I might do, I get up and then weigh myself. While my ‘official’ weigh-in is normally every other Wednesday at the doctor’s office, I still record my weight daily. Why? There are several reasons, not the least of which is that I might be encouraged by the sacrifices I made or need to be scolded to make adjustments to my behaviour. “Oh look, I am down X.Y lbs.… sticking to the program and drinking 1.5 gallons of water really paid off!” Or else, “Yeah… I did not think it would be a big deal if I went out for breakfast yesterday… but even though I was good the rest of the day, I still gained X.Y lbs.” That’s a major reason I do it… but also because I get to see my weight-loss progress in real time.

    There are weight-loss advocates who say that weighing in every day can be a bad idea. I think that is likely true for people who are more sensitive… those who get offended, dejected, demoralized, or let down by every little thing. “I worked so hard yesterday, and I have not lost anything. I might as well eat a doughnut or three.” I am not like that… but I do have my days.

    I want to be clear… I do not need anyone’s or anything’s help to make me want to cheat. Yes, there will be reasons that I do cheat… I love food, I love eating. I got to be 395 lbs. because I am addicted to food. If an alcoholic does not need an excuse to reach for a drink, if a drug addict does not need an excuse to take drugs, why should I require an excuse to eat? There is, in fact, only one reason I eat. It is because I am weak.

    Back to the point.

    Monday’s was a particularly bad weigh-in. Why? I was weak the previous day. That morning I was up about 1.6lbs. I redoubled my efforts, and the next couple of days I was strong. I was not expecting the Monday gain to be erased entirely in two or three days, but I was hoping it would be. I was hoping for more.

    1.2 lbs.

    Just over a one-pound loss, after three days of sticking to the program, would not normally be a disappointment… but after Monday’s disastrous number, I am… less than elated. What the scale has been telling me is that, at this rate, one day’s gain would take at least four days and possibly longer to recover from.

    I sighed… I then did what I do on a lot of mornings when I am not entirely thrilled with my progress… I let it reset, and then I stepped back on the scale. Sure enough, the number was worse! I let it reset again, and then the number was right back to the original one. Okay, if that is the best I am going to get, then I will take it.

    This is something I do quite often… and most of the time when I do it, there is little or no difference. There are days when a .2 lb. drop would be meaningless… there are days when it would be the difference between just another day and hitting a milestone. Then there are the days when it is just the psychological boost I need to not be down about things. ‘Yes, I only lost .2 lb. yesterday… but that is a lot better than staying the same, or gaining .2 lb.’

    With the .2 lb. gain, I did not reach any milestones this morning; had I dropped .2 lb. there was no decade to be reached, and I would not be at a new lowest point ever. All of those are reasons to celebrate, and I have had a lot of them over the last few weeks and months, and certainly over the entire 394 days of this crazy journey. However, after that terrible ‘up’ day, it would be nice to continue to see the numbers dropping… had it dropped.2lbs instead of rising was the difference between my getting back to my best-weight-yet (tied with it anyways) and having to wait another day (or longer) to try to achieve that.

    Some days, small psychological victories can really be the difference between having a good day and not. I will still try to keep my chin up today, but it is several hours later, and I am still not feeling very motivated. Maybe tomorrow I can get back down to that best-weight-yet territory. Maybe tomorrow I can be more motivated throughout the day. What I know for sure is that if I get depressed today and fall off my program, then I have a much better chance of that not happening… and so I stay on track. One day at a time, folks… resisting one temptation at a time.

  • Day 393

    There should be a law for days like today.

    By this law, we hereby state that:

    · When you spend a day surrounded by temptations, when you are at a friend’s house where there are tens of thousands of delicious calories all around you within easy reach, but you hold true to your program;

    · When you stop for petrol on the way home, and the pay-at-the-pump is broken, so you have to go into the station which is replete with delicious decadence, but you resist and walk straight out;

    · When you come home and change into your jacket and tie, and knowing how tired you are and how the extra calories of whatever food you have in the pantry would give you the energy to get through;

    · When you are faced with student issues that make you question your life choices, but rather than pouring a glass of fine whisky, you settle in for the night with your fourth and final meal replacement of the day;

    On days such as this, we decree that when you step onto the bathroom scale the following morning, your body is ordered that you will have lost weight from the previous day.

    This law should be written on parchment in beautiful calligraphy and distributed throughout the land. Until such time, despite my best efforts of the day yesterday, my body was legally permitted to show a very slight weight gain from yesterday. Rather than bringing me back into best-weight-yet territory, it pulled me away ever so slightly. Fuck you body.

    I should mention that during the day, I did indulge in the following luxuries:

    • Ryan invited me to enjoy a non-fat latté from Starbucks. According to MyFitnessPal.com, somehow this is a 250-calorie drink with 23g of sugars… how the hell would I have known that the sugar content in this was so high? I will have to be much more conscious of my coffee orders and remember that fat is not the enemy… carbs and sugars are.
    • A cup of Royal Milk Tea whose caffeine helped me to get through the evening class. 58 calories and 12g of sugar. Damn… but when I need to stay awake for my class it will be a necessary choice.
    • Three lozenges because I realized that my throat was not cooperating, and I needed to get through my lectures. 8 calories, 0g sugar. I can keep these with no guilt.

    Do you see what I mean by the need for constant vigilance and mindfulness? Who would have thought that a non-fat latté could have 23g of sugars? I knew about the Royal Milk Tea, but I never realized how bad the coffee was. I might love my latté but going forward this will also be a very occasional indulgence (like for when Leslie and I sit on the balcony with a Davidoff Signature No. 1 Limited Edition 2023 cigar which we discovered pairs oh so well with it). Even with coffee, which alone has no calories, I will have to be vigilant and mindful.

    My plans for today are to stay on track. I might go to the gym later in the day, but that will depend on my mood and my progress studying. I want to spend a lot of the day studying and trying to catch up on a couple of certifications that I am working toward. I also know that I have my study group this Sunday, and I let that preparation go these last few weeks. Today I will get back on track. I would like to get to the gym because it is really not pleasant enough to go for a jog outside. The forecast high for today is a cloudy 3°, and it goes down to -5° overnight, only reaching a high of -3° with a chance of snow tomorrow. Fortunately, I see that Saturday and Sunday will be nice, but if I am going to get any movement in today (aside from walking with Her Floofness) then it will be at Goodlife.

    My comparison chart to 2020, which had me ahead by 1.8 lbs. yesterday, has me up by 1 lb. today. That is obviously not because of the .2 lb. that I gained this morning, rather because of the 2.6 lb. drop day-over-day from my previous attempt. Looking forward to the next few days on that chart (and then reading my journal from that time) I can catch up pretty quick… I spent four nights in Las Vegas, and while I miraculously came back home only one pound heavier (actually .8 lb.), I am still looking at the chart and knowing that over the next five days I will make progress… as long as I stay on track. In 2020, I would fluctuate around the 280-pound mark until Day 360, and while I would gain and lose ground on it, I did not drop below the 270-pound mark until Day 399. I was going to say that I did not permanently drop below 270 because I realize that from the day that I dropped below 270 lbs. (on my push to my best weight ever) until I creeped above it for the last time (on the slide to completely fall off the weight loss train) was sixteen days. That’s right, it took me nine days to drop from 270 to 260.4 pounds, and then seven days to jump to 272.2 pounds. From there, it took me seventy-one days to get back up to over 300-pounds, and while I did not stay above that permanently until February, my weight loss success was over; on September 28 I began that terrible fall back into obesity and slovenliness. To compare that to this attempt, it would be fifty-six days from today.

    I am not going to let that happen. Firstly, I am not going to let myself plateau and fluctuate like I did in 2020. I just spent thirty minutes re-reading three weeks of that journal, which included my trip to Vegas, starting a new job that I was excited about… and then losing it less than two weeks later, going for long walks and even jogging, and a lot of other weight loss challenges that I encountered during that time. I discussed all of the foods I was eating, and how the fact that I only had a single large quarter chicken piece (rather than the full half-chicken) was a success. It seems that it was during this time period that I originally switched from eating my meal in the evening to midday was better for digestion, especially if I ate it after coming in from my walk or jog. I can hear the pain in my words over the loss of my job, knowing that it would not only affect me financially, but it would also put my residency in the United States at peril (which would be proven within the year). I read the words that I wrote, and I started to relive the events in my head, and I felt the sadness and sorrow begin to return. I have to remember these failures, and how difficult they were, and not let myself get down and eventually fail again. In 2020 I had friends, but at the end of the day I was alone – it was just me and Princess Sophie… and she loved when I ate chicken because she always got the cartilage. This time around, I have her, but I also have Leslie. Three weeks from today I will be landing in Dallas, and we have discussed some of my cheat meals that will be included on my modified program… and how I am going to stay mostly on track. She has been so encouraging and helpful, even from 1,400 miles away. She just might be the factor that helps me tip the scales from eventual failure to long-term success.

    One thing that I remembered from rereading those weeks from that old journal was that I was on a quest to beat my previous (2017) weight loss record. On Day 368 I hit that mark, which I would do eighteen days from now on the comparative chart. I wrote a number of times in the weeks leading up to that milestone that it was the last comparative milestone from the previous attempt and going forward there would be no looking back. I suppose that is how I feel now, knowing that I am 21.6 lbs. from matching my best-weight-ever. In 2020, I achieved that record, and it was all downhill from there. The day that I reach that next major milestone (260.4 lbs) I can celebrate for a minute… and then delete the comparative spreadsheet and never look back. I might read what I was thinking and feeling as I tried desperately yet unsuccessfully to cling to that weight loss, but I cannot imagine there will be much in there to encourage me. I think that once I best that previous number (which would also make for my best weight in twenty-four years) I should put all of my previous journals into a folder marked ‘Do not read: Studies in short-term successes and long-term failures.’

    In any event, I am going to now go back on my word from 2020. I am 9.6 lbs. from my best weight from 2017, and I am going to make that a milestone, and have added a column to my spreadsheet to track that. It would require slightly better than a half-pound loss per day to beat my pace from 2020, but that is not completely impossible. Let’s see how we do.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Weight Loss Platitudes

    In one of my support groups on Facebook, someone was sharing her fears about being around all of the temptations that will be in her house for the Super Bowl. Several of us gave her practical advice, and she will either follow it or not, but I am sure we all hope she will succeed.

    One person posted: Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

    I want to be clear that I feel that this statement is absolutely true, and that looking back on the 390 days of my depriving myself of all of the foods that I love, when I look at myself in pictures (not yet in the mirror) I really feel good about myself, and the only thing I would change is that I would have cheated less so that I could be further along my journey than I am. Skinny feels great! (At least, skinnier does… I have not felt skinny since I was in the Army.)

    With that said, the original poster was sharing her fears and feelings about a real challenge, and not about a generalization. I wonder how helpful this very clever platitude will be when she comes face to face with pizza, wings, chips, beer, and sodas all over her house, and there for the taking.

    There are so many of these platitudes out there and they are all true. I just wonder how helpful any of them actually are. Yes, we all know that weight loss is a marathon and not a sprint; we know that losing weight is hard and being fat is hard, so choose your hard. We have been told a thousand times to not eat our emotions, and that fat loss is a mental challenge rather than a physical one. Of course, we know that our desire to change must be greater than our desire to stay the same, and that we have to change our habits in order to change our bodies… and that if we have discipline, drive, and determination, then nothing is impossible. We are aware that we did not gain all of the weight in a day, so we should not expect to lose it in a day.

    All of those statements are inspirational, and I think there is a place for each and every one of them. Weight loss is a mental challenge, and it is an emotional one. We cannot expect to help people with strictly practical advice, especially when they are feeling down or despondent or weak. We have to inspire their emotions and their mentality so that they can either stay on track, or too often get back on it.

    We all respond differently to different situations. When I started the program the second time, my doctor was an Army veteran, so when I told him that I did not want him to blow smoke up my six, he understood that I needed the regimented discipline from him that he would have given his soldiers. He understood that I would not respond to the inspirational platitudes that so many of his patients needed to get ahead. Today I may feel a little different than I did then, but more often than not, I prefer concrete advice than inspirational quotes.

    My wife has the unenviable task of trying to read my emotions and seeing if it is one of those rare times when I need the platitudes… or if she needs to be firm with me. Last night we were talking about ice cream (she loves a particular flavour that is only available in Canada) and I told her that I would have some in the house for her next visit… and that I might even have some in the freezer now. She told me that if I had gone out and bought ice cream that she would kick my butt… ice cream is one of my kryptonites, and she knows that having it in the house is a bad idea for me. If there was a pint in the freezer today, it would not be there by the time she comes next. More likely than not it would not still be there by Tuesday.

    At the same time, there have been several days when I have been down about my lack of progress this last week. She has been supportive in reminding me how well I have been doing, how far I have come, and how weight loss is about the downward trend, and not the individual plots on the graph.

    Leslie has learned (though a lot of difficult times) that there are times when I need her to be harsh with me, and there are times when I need her soft reassurances that I am doing well. I doubt that any dieter is all that different. So, when one of them comes out and says, ‘Oh my, I am disappointed that I have not lost weight this week!’ it is important to tell them that they are doing great, and to keep doing what they are doing, and the weight will come off. On the other hand, when someone says something like ‘This is what I have facing me today, and I am worried about how I am going to deal with it…’ then it is probably time for practical advice.

    I have often said that weight loss is simple, but it is not easy. Putting aside for a moment that this too is a platitude, I am not really sure how true it really is. Yes, if you consume less foods (and even less of the wrong ones), and if you exercise, you will lose weight. However, that only addresses the physical… and if you are in prison or the military, it might be true because you are given the food that should help you to lose weight. It does not take into account all of the mental and emotional stress and anguish that we go through when we make the choices that face us every day. Here is what you need to eat in order to lose two pounds per week. Great. That does not cover the anguish and anxiety, and it does not necessarily stay at the front of mind when we are on the go during our busy week.

    There is a place and time for platitudes… they truly can be inspirational. There is also a place and a time for practical advice. Knowing which is which is also not always easy.

  • Day 389

    I did not expect that.

    As I was driving home from Toronto yesterday afternoon, I was amazed by how beautiful the weather was, and I decided to try to actually go for a jog. Yes, in the morning I decided on the spur of the moment to jog lightly with my dog… but that was an ad hoc thing. I came home and called my wife, and while I drank my midday meal replacement, I told her of my plans. She told me to make sure I did not hurt myself, which is certainly a possibility when an obese man of my age decides to go for a jog. I dressed warmly in layers, I took a bottle of water, I laced up my shoes, put in my ears, and off I went.

    Because of my fitness walking, I know the approximate distances of the routes I usually take, and I opted for the shorter of them. I was not sure how far I would be able to jog on my first outing, and I decided not to try to push myself. I also decided to not jog through the park; while the sidewalks are dry, there are a lot of icy patches on the paths that I had to be careful on this morning, and I did not want to get hurt – I promised Leslie!

    I am not sure if I am proud that I got as far as I did, or disappointed that I did not go farther. I do know that I jogged for twenty minutes at an average pace of 8m11s/km and came close to 2.5km overall, before stopping the jog (and my counters). I re-started the counters to walk the rest of the way home, which was just over 3.75km (with an average pace of 10m14s/km). I will say that while I was certainly dressed warm enough for the jog, the walk was chilly. I do not know if that was because I was not generating the heat, or because the wind picked up. It could absolutely be one or the other of those. The next time I go out for a jog in similar conditions, I will pack a scarf that I can wrap around my face if necessary.

    After I showered, I had a lovely cigar date with Leslie. We really enjoy spending time together, which I suppose is the whole point of getting married, right? The distance is frustrating, and while we are counting down the months until the State Department approves my visa, we are also counting down the days until my next visit. We now have just under twenty-five days until then, and they will be twenty-five very difficult days of separation. Why does flying have to be so damned expensive?? Why can’t the government just look at us and say ‘Yep, you are married to an American Mr. Garvis… come on in!’?? Such are the things that test a relationship.

    I am happy that I was able to stick to the program again yesterday. A friend wanted me to drive down to Niagara to join him for dinner and drinks. While I usually would, I decided I did not want to sound like I was making excused, and I told him that I was on a strict diet and was neither eating nor drinking but would gladly sit with him while he did. He told me that he would rather put off getting together until I was able to indulge. Frankly, I am glad that he said that. I did not want to drive to Niagara, but I really did not want to be tempted to break my program. A lot of people might say that ‘hey, after two jogs and a walk today, you deserve it!’ I say that I would rather see the benefits of the exercise on my weight loss, either this morning or tomorrow, and not eat to counterbalance my activity.

    I was feeling light-headed by mid-evening, but I am not sure if that is because of the low-calorie program, or because I woke up so early. I do know that it is the second or third evening this past week that I have felt that. Fortunately, last night I did not have to teach. I was feeling fine on the balcony until it was too cold to enjoy it, and it was only a little while after I came into the apartment (around 7:45pm) that I started to feel weak and light-headed. I am going to have to find a way to get more sleep. For the next two weeks I do not have the same crazy schedule as I did, so I will be able to take a nap during the day. After that, I have another week of 12-hour days. Hopefully by then I will either be more used to the program again, or at least I will be sleeping better.

    I will be breaking the program today for one meal. My son the younger wants to go to Lone Star Grill for lunch, and I took a few minutes to look at menu online. The Grilled Chicken Fajita Bowl is 810 calories with 35g of carbs, and I can eat half of it and then pretend to forget my doggie bag to take home. Of course, I will tell them to withhold the cheese because of my religious dietary preferences, and probably the rice as well… but even if I ate it all, half of that would be 405 calories, and that is not the worst thing in the world. If that is the only cheat meal I eat between now and my trip (okay, there might be two of these) then I’ll be okay.

    I cannot help but think that yesterday’s jogging contributed directly to the tremendous numbers on the scale this morning. In the previous eight days (Friday to Saturday) I had lost 1.4 lbs. This morning’s day-over-day loss was 1.8 lbs. I was so excited to see that extreme drop that I nearly whooped out loud! I know it is unlikely that I will see consistent drops like that, but when I do it feels good. I am a lot more confident this morning that I will reach my first goal (under 280 lbs. before my appointment with the haberdasher on March 2) than I was just a couple of days ago. Of course, if I can do that, then I must also be more confident that I can achieve that second goal of getting to Dallas on March 9 under 275 lbs.

    If you were to scour through the 350,000 words of this journal you would not find the name of the weight management meal replacement program that I have been following (often more loosely than I currently am). I said at the outset that I did not want to discuss that program by name because one day it would be replaced by something else, and I did not want this journal to be seen as obsolete as irrelevant when that happened. Well, it happened… at least in some places. I received a message from a member of one of the Facebook support groups for the program that claimed that the clinic in Hamilton where I first went on the program has officially changed to another product. She says that the product is similar to the old one, but I am not able to find any information about it yet. I have asked her to share details when she can. Whatever it is, I feel more justified now in my original plan to withhold the name of the product. What works for you should work for you, and nobody should tell you otherwise unless there is confirmation that one program or another has severe negative health consequences.

    It is a beautiful day out, and while it was cold this morning (it is still below zero), the forecast high is 6°, and by Wednesday that will be 15°… after which it drops down to zero by Friday and will once again start rising over the next few days. As I have said so often, if you are unhappy with the weather in Canada… wait a few minutes. I do not think I will be going for another jog this afternoon, but you never know. It is Super Bowl Sunday, and I have been invited to several friends’ houses to watch the game. I have politely declined each invitation, knowing that the food temptations will be too great. That is one of the topics of discussion in the Facebook support groups. My plan is to avoid the temptations completely by not subjecting myself to them. Other feel they have more willpower… or possibly they might be able to get away with just a little bit of cheating. Whatever it is, I am going to be home alone, probably on a video date with Leslie. As I have said so many times before… Lead me not to temptation! I know exactly where to find it.

    My diet buddy is coming over this morning for a cup of coffee. It will be great to touch base with her, knowing that there are so many temptations out there on this the most commercial sports day of the year. She and I started on a similar journey, but I was worried that we would lose that commonality after she had her surgery. I am glad that did not happen, and that we can both continue to support each other. We joked last week that when we are both slim, we should go to a bar together dressed to the nines and see which women check us out… yes, she would be trying to attract women as well. Both of us are married so it would just be an exercise in vanity, but it is still amusing to think about it.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 388

    The week is over, and I can relax! I was really surprised by how light-headed I was during the last 90 minutes of my class last night. I did not want to consume my final meal replacement so early in the evening, so I prepared a cup of Royal Milk Tea. As I told Leslie, I was not skimping on the caffeine. I think my body was rebelling from my deciding that G-d would not be the reason I cheated on the program… or maybe it was G-d telling me that I should have bought and eaten the damned bread. Either way, I was extremely glad that after the break I was able to assign a 45-minute lab to my students. After the break, all I needed to get through was the last half hour, and then the weekend would be mine. I also knew that Leslie was waiting for me to finish, so I had something to look forward to!

    This morning brought two very conflicting (and completely unrelated) firsts. For the first time in eleven days, my weight was up; it was the smallest amount possible that would register on my bathroom scale, but for the first time since January 30 it was neither up nor stable. It took me but a second (after stepping off the scale and checking its consistency) to remember that there will be slight ups on the journey down, and it means neither that I failed nor that I cheated… it just means that weight loss is about the downward trend, rather than about the individual plots on the graph. I made the immediate decision that this was nothing that I should worry about, and I went about my day. It should be pointed out as well that at 6:04am this morning, a Saturday on which I should have been happy to sleep in, my eyes popped open, and were not at all interested in closing again. I finally decided to get out of bed and start my day at 6:30am, which is unusual for a Saturday… more so for a Saturday following a week like the one I just finished.

    I think my readers will agree that the second of these firsts is much more significant. In fact, some might call it monumental. On Day 2 of my journey, I set out goals for myself. One of them was: “When I have lost 80lbs I will be jogging again, at least 5 miles per day, at least 4 times per week.” That did not happen. I did start fitness-walking, which I felt was equally beneficial. That does not change the fact that I enjoy jogging, but I am so often reminded how hard it can be on the body – especially the knees. I did not set out with the intention of doing so, but this morning, as HRF Princess Sophie and I set out for her walk, I decided to start jogging. I did not decide that ‘you know what. Later today I will jog.’ In the very minute that I made the decision I started jogging. I was not going to shatter any records, but I was going to get the aerobic exercise along with my usual steps. Despite yesterday’s mild snowfall, the sidewalks were dry, but I knew that I would likely come across parts that were still icy, and I would stop my jogging for those stretches. I also stopped when we came across other doggies and their owners… and of course I had to pick up after her, so that was obvious. According to my fitness watch tracking, it might be the slowest mile ever run… the pace was over 18 minutes per kilometre. That does not matter… It was my first jog, and it was with my dog. By the end of this week, weather permitting I will be out there for at least a 5km jog in proper gear!

    I probably have the lowest resting hear rate of anyone I know. I do not know how accurate the data on my iPhone Health app is, but it is telling me that over the last month, my average resting heart rate is 58bpm. It has been measured at the doctor’s office around that as well. I am wondering if that is why, over the last week when I was hardly active at all, I did not lose any significant amount of weight. Is it possible that it is only when I am able to get my heart rate up that my metabolism kicks in to start dropping? That is something that I will pay attention to. For the next two weeks, unless something falls into my lap, I am only teaching in the evenings, which means that I will have the time to go to the gym – and possibly even go for a couple of outdoor jogs if the weather cooperates – and I will see how my weight loss is affected. How cool would it be if I do lose a lot of weight due to activity? My first step will be on every dry morning, rather than putting on my winter boots I will put on trainers, and Her Floofness and I will jog together… with her frequent stops during which I will usually jog in place.

    The weather today is dry and chilly but warming up a bit in the afternoon. I have to help a friend (really a friend of a friend) with their computer this morning, but I will be back mid-afternoon, and my wife and I have a cigar date planned. It will be wonderful to sit on the patio (possibly wearing sunglasses) and chatting with my baby. Even if I have to turn the heater on, I am optimistic that this weather is a sign of things to come. Many Canadians have been bitten by these hopes, so don’t expect me to change out my winter tyres just yet!

    I will stay on track today, and tomorrow morning the bathroom scale will remind me that I was right to not get discouraged by the very minor blip that was today. Even now, as my hear rate is still elevated slightly an hour after my first jog in years, I can feel the weight coming off!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 385

    I cheated yesterday, but not on the program! At lunch I went out as planned to buy a not-really-milk product for my coffee. As I was driving to the store, I realized that my gas tank was nearly empty. I was about to pass a petrol station when I realized this, so I pulled in and filled the tank. The station is in the same plaza as a supermarket (but not the one I would usually go to), and I did not expect that store to have what I wanted… but I decided to chance it. Sure enough, they had the oat milk I wanted! The advantage of FreshCo over Fortino’s is that they do not have the huge prepared-foods and fresh bakery sections between the door and where I needed to be. I cheated temptation, and also put fewer miles on my car. It was a win-win situation. Stay tuned for more life hacks! The only downside is that I did not get to the dry cleaner which is adjacent to Fortino’s… but I had left my shirts at home, so it did not matter.

    Staying on track is not easy, but I am doing everything that I can. I am flying down to Dallas in under a month, and I know that I will not be down to my best weight ever by then, but I will certainly weigh less than I do today. Even if it is 10-15 pounds less, that will be so much better than I am now, and certainly less than when I was there last week. All I have to do to achieve that is to stay on the program, and not cheat. I might not lose fifteen pounds… but if I stay on track, at least I will not gain weight. All I can ask for day over day is to do better than the previous day… whether that means my weight is lower, or I have a better attitude, or whatever better might mean on any given day. I know that I was thrilled last week when I was losing so much weight and it felt like it was just melting off, but most weeks will not be like that. These last few days that I have hardly lost any weight are not failures, I simply have to look for other wins. For example, yesterday I went to the supermarket and did not cheat! Also, I have gotten through the first two of my 12-hour teaching days without falling… or yelling, cursing, or anything bad. Today is day three, and once I am through it then tomorrow is a shorter day… I only teach during the day (and it will be the only day this week). Now that I think of it, I am really looking forward to the weekend when I can relax a little.

    I really enjoyed putting on my suit for class yesterday. I knew that my evening class was ending after three months, and I wanted to celebrate it. I was not entirely impressed when I saw the grades on their end of class quizzes though… I truly hope that all of them will study hard for the exam before they take it. As for my daytime class, the two really boring and grueling days are done, and tomorrow we can start with some labs and hands-on stuff, instead of just eight straight hours of lecture (which for the last couple of days was then followed by 3.5 more straight hours of lecture).

    This morning I was going to put on my blue sports jacket, but instead decided to wear my vest. I decided that I really like the look, and while this vest is at the very limit of my being able to wear it (it was tailored to me 80 lbs. ago!) I can get a couple more uses out of it… and when I go to the tailor for new shirts in a few weeks, I will order at least one and probably two more!

    It is funny that I woke up this morning, did my morning rituals, got dressed, and took HRF Princess Sophie for her walk, and it was only as we were coming in from that walk that I realized that I was scheduled to go to the doctor’s office to get weighed. I panicked for the three seconds it took me to realize that I was nowhere near late, and then I took Princess Sophie upstairs (she insisted on going to see Sue) and then I got into my car and drove to the doctor’s. I told the nurse as I was preparing to step onto the scale that if the number read at or below 129 kg then I would be celebrating because I would have hit the fifty kilos lost milestone. I missed it by 200g – I weighed 129.2 kg. I was hugely disappointed… until I realized that meant that in the past three weeks since my last official weigh-in I have lost 4.6kg, and that includes a trip to Dallas where I cheated a lot. I changed my tune and called it a huge success! While that ‘official’ milestone will need to wait another couple of weeks, I look forward to smashing it, rather than just eking by.

    Yesterday afternoon I was feeling weak and hungry, and my body told me that I needed my meal replacement now. I do not remember that happening too often these last few weeks. This morning (it is now 11:55am) I am again feeling a bit hungry and a bit weak, but I am going to wait until my class breaks for lunch… unless I really feel that I need it. I am planning this because I know that it will be a very long day, and that while I have been teaching now for 2.5 hours, I have another nine hours of teaching to go. I cannot cheat because if I do, I will likely find myself with an empty tank way too early in the evening. My plan for the day is, once again, to stay on the course and not cheat. If I can get through the day, I know that tomorrow is a shorter day (which is to say that I am teaching from 9:30am until 6:00pm, rather than to 9:30pm), and I will be able to get through it with greater ease… and if the weather cooperates, I might even be able to enjoy a cigar on the balcony with my wife (over video chat). I am, however, looking forward to the weekend in a way that I have not in a very long time.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 384

    For the first time in a few days, I had a productive (if small) bowel movement. For the first time in a few days, I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning and weighed less than I have these last few days. It was not a huge loss, but something is better than nothing… and that something took me below the 285 lbs. mark! It was also the first day since I started my spreadsheet comparing my weight loss now with my weight loss from three years ago that this morning’s comparison to 2020 is lower than it was yesterday. While that may falter these next few days, that is more a commentary on how well I did in 2020 over that first ten days. I then lost momentum, so while the total weight loss from Day 1 of that sheet is nearly 9 lbs. on Day 11, that number drops to under 4 lbs. on Day 19. In 2020 it took me 69 days to drop from 285.2 lbs to 260.4 lbs. I still believe that in 2023 I can do it in less.

    Of course, there might be a bit of a delay in that. Yesterday, after much fighting with American Airlines, I booked my next trip to Dallas. On March 9 I will fly down for ten days, and I will once again go back on my modified program. With all of the worries I had, it worked really well the last time. I am going to expect, once again, that I will gain as much as two pounds on that trip to consider it a victory. If I do anything like my last trip, I will do much better than that!

    Yesterday went exactly as planned. Both my daytime and my evening classes are good groups, although I did not hear a lot from the daytime class (except when I asked them midday if they wanted me to change anything, and three of them told me I was ‘crushing it.’ I felt really good about that and will do my best to keep going. My evening class was a lot larger, and because of the different format I was able to force each one to turn their mics on to introduce themselves. That was a pretty good ice breaker, and while very few mics went on the rest of the night, I had them using the feature where they raised their hands… a lot. I stuck to the program, with the only aberrations being a cup of tea in the evening and a couple of lozenges. I essentially spoke straight from 9:45am to 10:30pm (with the last 90 minutes being on the phone with American Airlines), and I doubt anyone would begrudge me my throat soothers.

    Today I will do essentially the same… but I do have to step out. I was worried yesterday that I might not have enough oat milk for my coffee today. It seems that I do, but I will definitely not have enough for tomorrow if I do not go to the supermarket. There is nothing else that I need, so I will get in and out as quickly as possible. I wish the oat milk was not all the way at the back of the store, but I know that I can get through without succumbing to any temptations. I will also take the opportunity to drop a couple of my shirts and a pair of pants at the dry cleaners. I may be saving a ton of money on that bill by wearing undershirts, but that does not change the fact that they do need to be cleaned from time to time. Of the four shirts that went me to Dallas, three of them are in need… as are a pair of pants.

    Last night I was worried about sleeping, as I have had trouble the last couple of nights. I woke up twice to pee, and the second time I felt like I might not get back to sleep… it was 3:15am. Before I even went to the washroom, I proactively ate a melatonin gummy, so when I got back into bed I might have an easier time. Indeed I did, and was asleep within 15 minutes or so. I did not sleep through to my alarm clock, and again was out of bed 10-15 minutes early… but that is not the end of the world. At least it was not another mostly sleepless night.

    Stay on track today. Stay focus, stay mindful. Do not veer, and you will succeed. Right, Taz? Yes Staff Sergeant!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 383

    Today is the first day of a very long and grueling week, all of which I am very excited about. I love teaching, and I especially love that as a contractor who ‘eats what he kills,’ my dance card is filling up nicely for the next little while. Knowing that my daytime class today starts shortly, and that my evening class follows immediately after the culmination of the early class and continues to 9:30pm, I was in bed at a reasonable hour last night, my alarm set for 7:00am, ready to face the very long day well-rested. What happens then when you cannot sleep? I fell asleep just fine, but my eyes popped open around 3:45am, and for love or money I could not fall back into slumber. When I finally gave up on sleep (for the short term), I decided to go through my phone’s picture library from the past three years. I am very good at taking lots of pictures, and because I was notified recently by Apple that my cloud storage was full, I even went through them a few weeks ago and deleted hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures that were just not needed. In the middle of the night, my mission was to add a few mew pictures to my Favourites folder. It turns out that meant nearly two hundred pictures of Leslie, several of HRF Princess Sophie, and maybe 5-10 of friends and others. By the time I finally got back off to sleep (around 5:15am) that folder had ballooned from 18 pictures to 230. I broke my general rule and took another melatonin gummy, and finally closed my eyes again… and even though I did not sleep through to my alarm, that extra 90 minutes of sleep was important. I feel that I can now face the day.

    Yesterday evening I told Leslie that after two days at the same weight, I was really looking forward to seeing the numbers on the bathroom scale drop this morning. She told me that if my weight stayed the same, I am still winning. While we had a minor misunderstanding over the homonym lose, I agreed with her that staying where I was would not be a loss. I am glad we had that conversation, because guess what I weighed when I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning? If you guessed exactly what I weighed yesterday and the day before, then you win the prize! I did not drop below 285 (see my psychology rant from yesterday… I originally wrote 385), but I did not gain. I will stay on track again today, and hopefully tomorrow I will break the plateau. If not, Leslie is right… as frustrating as it might be, it is nowhere near as bad as that plateau just above the 300-pounds mark. I will also mention that today was the third straight morning that I was unsuccessful moving my bowels… that is not uncommon while on my full-fast program, but I do hope to end that streak tomorrow.

    My plans for today are to stay on track, and with my schedule I doubt I will have any opportunity not to. While I have three 15-minute breaks throughout the day, I am supposed to have a 1-hour lunch break, but I have an important appointment that will take up most of that time. As such, the order of the day is coffee with meal replacements… and nothing more.

    My diet buddy came over for a cuppa yesterday, and we had a great talk. It really is great that both of us have stayed (mostly) on track. I had my modified program, and she had her surgery, but a year later and we are both doing great. I really hope our friendship continues to grow even after we have both achieved our goals. We discussed yesterday how difficult it is to know that we will always have to be mindful of what we eat and will never be able to eat like we once did again. It is sad, but an alcoholic cannot have just one drink… for us it will be more difficult because we will still have to eat, just differently. I told her all about the Chinese meal that I planned out beforehand and enjoyed in Dallas, and that gave us both a little hope that while we cannot eat like we once did, at least we can eat and enjoy it. I think one of the big tricks will be for us to switch from eating to enjoy the experience to eating in order to fuel our much healthier bodies. That will not be an easy change for either of us to make… we both love food so much! She was telling me about a brunch she enjoyed that included eggs benedict on avocado toast, and while it sounded delicious, it also sounded dangerous. She enjoyed it but got right back on track. Maybe she is further ahead with the psychology than I am.

    One more thing that we discussed was getting rid of our bigger clothes, which led to a much more important discussion. She told me that she had a colleague who was larger, and she was going to give all of her larger clothes to. I asked her how close she was to that colleague, and she told me not at all. I then advised her not to do it. I reminded her how personal our weight loss is, and that giving her the clothes can be seen in several ways, but almost all of those ways would include having to share her journey with yet one more person… and each extra person you share with takes a toll. That is before we even hear from them their experiences and struggles, and why what we are doing is wrong, but their way is better. She agreed with me and will be donating all of those clothes to charity. The colleague’s loss will be the charity’s gain.

    I want to clarify one thing about my occasional sleep issues. A year ago, I had trouble sleeping because I could not get comfortable with the massive bulk of my body. That is not the case now… but sometimes I simply cannot sleep. I know that the meds I take for ADHD can affect that, which is why I take that pill first thing in the morning, which my doctor assured me is the best way to make sure that it does not affect it too much. There have been several nights over the past few months when I had trouble sleeping, but that was usually due to stress and anxiety caused by factors that were (at the time) beyond my control, but which were still very real. Last night? There is no reason, other than sometimes people have trouble sleeping!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 381

    I have been waiting for the shoe to fall, but it has not. I fully expected that after four straight days of weight loss that had me 7.6 lbs. down, the bathroom scale (and my body) would finally correct themselves to show at least a minor gain. Not today! While the downward trend slowed, I still lost .2 lb., which puts me on the cusp of a minor milestone. At 285.0, my next drop – however minor – will take me below that number.

    I have written a great deal about major and minor milestones, both with regards to absolute numbers (e.g.: when I dropped below 300 lbs.), progress numbers (e.g.: when I had lost 100 lbs.), and most recently comparative numbers (comparing to my last weight loss attempt). Because North America thinks in the imperial system for weights, I almost neglected to see a huge milestone coming in the next few days… although I will not celebrate it officially until my weigh-in at the doctor’s office on Wednesday morning. While my bathroom scale is set to pounds, the nurse weighs me in kilograms. Doing a quick conversion, I realized just now that my current weight has me down 49.9 kilos – a mere 100g from tipping over the 50kg lost mark. Of course, when the nurse weighs me, I am fully dressed, so there is a chance that as of this morning it might be closer to 49kg. I have four more days before she weighs me, but if I stick to the program (as I fully intend to do) then I should be there. I might not let out a loud whoop there, but I will smile… and when I come back to write in this space, I will recognize it.

    I mentioned in yesterday’s journal/blog entry that the last time I lost weight, in 2020, I got from where I was yesterday to my best weight in sixty-eight days… after which I started losing ground. I decided that I was going to create a spreadsheet that I will use for as long as I need it… I copied and pasted the information for every day between July 21 and September 27 – the date, and how much I weighed. I edited it down so that there would be only one entry per day – I see that I would often step onto the scale several times per day, so I deleted all but one entry for each day – as often as possible, one that corresponded to my usual morning weigh-ins. I do not know why I would get onto the scale at 1:00am, or four times at 8:30pm. The spreadsheet has five columns: today’s date, today’s weight, my weight on the corresponding day from 2020 and the date of that weight; the fifth column is the difference between this time and last time. As yesterday’s weight is exactly what I weighed on July 21, 2020, that row looks like this:

    Date

    Weight Today

    Compare to 2020

    Weight 2020

    Date

    2/3/2023

    285.2

    0

    285.2

    7/21/2020

    2/4/2023

    285

    1.8

    283.2

    7/22/2020

    I know that the next day in 2020 I had lost two pounds, so it was not unexpected that this morning’s middle column is a positive number. I am hoping that by early next week that number is squarely and consistently in the negatives.

    I see that there are four days without a measurement (August 4-7), and I came back on August 8 nearly one pound heavier. I do not know what that is about, but I will note the same weight as the day before the absence for the comparison. If I am able to stay on the program, then it should not take me sixty-eight days to get there. While I was above and below 280 a few times between July 28 and August 12, it is clear that I was stuck on a plateau for a few weeks. I know I was eating at least one meal every day at the time, which I do not plan to do now. At least, I do not plan to eat daily meals until I drop below that best-weight-ever mark… not just the best-weight-yet territory that I keep celebrating. That is exactly twenty-five pounds lower than yesterday’s weight. I will mark my weight in the spreadsheet every day until I am below that Best Weight, and then I can delete the file.

    My plan for today is to stay on course. HRF Princess Sophie has an appointment at the vet to get her shots, which she is not at all excited about. I will bring her straight home and give her treats to make up for the ordeal. I will spend most of the afternoon at home, and I might go out this evening to see some friends and light a cigar. Tomorrow morning, I have a study group meeting in the morning, and I am reasonably sure I have a couple of tentative engagements in the afternoon, but I cannot remember what they are right now. As long as none of then revolve around food, I should be okay. The coming week is going to be a bear – I am teaching every day from 10am, and with the exception of Thursday, I teach until 9:30pm every night. I will be keeping my head down and will have very little opportunity to cheat on my diet. When the doctor’s office phoned me a couple of days ago to let me know that the doctor cannot see me Wednesday morning, but I can still come in to get weighed, I breathed a sigh of relief. I did not want to be sitting with the doctor looking at my watch. I will go early, be in first, and get out of there so that I can be back at my desk by 9:30am.

    Stay mindful; stay on course. That is my motto for the week. Tomorrow’s forecast is forecasting a high temperature of 6°, which means it will be a good day to be outside if I need to be. I am hoping to connect with a couple of other friends tomorrow afternoon for a cigar, but if that cannot happen then I just might sit on my own balcony with a cigar and my book.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 380

    Holy crap kids, it was real. In fact, not only was the extreme weight drop over the past three days real, but despite dropping seven pounds in the previous four days, I actually dropped another .6 lb. this morning. I am in absolute shock and amazement. When I stepped off the scale, moved it to another section of the floor, and got the same reading. Three weeks ago, I finally snapped a two-month plateau and dropped below the 300 lbs. mark; today I am 285.2 lbs. and dropping. I love being in best-weight-yet territory, and I am excited that I am within sight of my next huge milestones. More on that in a few minutes.

    With all of the writing that I did over the last few days, I neglected to mention something that I felt a couple of days ago. While lying in bed I realized that my arm was lying on something strange… it was my hip. It has spent the last what… two years shielded by layers of fat that I am once again shedding. It felt weird… and is another sign that I am making progress.

    Sitting in the airport terminal yesterday, I wrote my article from the food court, while nursing a large cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts. I also had some emails that I needed to respond to, mostly because my flight delays were going to cause me to miss meetings, so I needed to reschedule them. Other than that, I was using the computer sparingly, knowing that if the battery died, I did not have a charger. Yes, I traveled to Dallas without a charger, but no it was not a mistake. Leslie has the same brand of laptop as I do, and I knew when I packed that I could just use her spare charger. What I did not know when I packed was that it would take me twenty-six hours to get home. I was so focused on what I needed to get done before my battery died that I forgot to eat the protein bar that was sitting next to my coffee cup the whole time. In fact, the airplane was in the air and the flight attendant was serving drinks by the time I realized it was 10:00am, and I had not eaten anything yet. This is something that would not have happened even a few months ago… I have always been able to wake up and do my morning routine, and even take HRF Princess Sophie for her walk before eating, but to wake up at 6:10am and not eat anything until four hours later, and not be hungry? That is new.

    I mentioned earlier that I am back in best-weight-yet territory, and that my next major milestones are in sight. That is not to say that they are within easy reach, but I know where they are, and I can look at my history and predict how long it will take me to get there… if I stay on track. The bathroom scale that I have is a smart one that not only connects to my phone, but it also keeps track of data for me. While it is not the same scale that I bought in June 2020 (which never made the trip from California to Canada), it is the same model, as is the one I bought for Leslie. As such, they all report into my same cloud account, and at the touch of a button, it exports all of my historical weigh-in data dating to June 21, 2020… the day that I stepped onto it for the first time. I downloaded that historical data this morning and see that on July 21, 2020, I weighed exactly what I weigh today. It took me sixty-eight days to drop to the lowest weight I would see: 260.4 lbs. on September 27. It was not a straight downward drop, but in just over two months I lost the 24.8 lbs. that would take me to my best. If I can follow that same trend, then on April 12 I will be back there. Looking at the Hebrew calendar, Monday next week is Tu Bishvat (the New Year for Trees). April 12 is the second to last day of Passover. I could actually be at my lowest weight ever by the end of Passover… if I stay mindful and on track, and do not fall off the program. That is very exciting!

    I had to reset my fitness watch this morning. It was completely crashed, and I had to reset it, break the connection to my phone, and then re-sync everything. I do not think that it is dead, and I hope it can give me a few more months before I have to replace it. It also dawned on me that nearly four years ago, I asked my Facebook community for recommendations on new ones because after using Fitbit for nearly a decade, I was not going to buy another. This Garmin watch has lasted me longer than any two (or possibly even three) Fitbit devices had. I am glad that the reset fixed everything, and unless I notice any other weird behaviour from it, I will continue to wear it as I lose even more weight!

    Today is a good day to stay inside. While it is sunny, the wind chill this morning registered at -30° Celsius, and the high is forecast at -13° (but still windy). Tomorrow’s forecast is much warmer, and by Sunday the forecast high is 6°. I took HRF Princess Sophie out for her walk this morning, which she agreed should be a short one. Even wearing her fancy coat, she was not impressed by the cold. There will be another brief walk later in the day, but she and I both agreed that today is a good day to hibernate. We can go out for a longer walk when it warms up. It does not have to be a lot warmer… tomorrow’s -3° will be fine and Sunday will be better… but today is a good day to stay inside. As I am still exhausted from the last few days, I have no problem with that. My plan is to stay on track with my full-fast meal replacement program, and to drink coffee to keep me somewhat warm… and somewhat awake. When she does need to go out, I will once again dress in layers and bundle up. Every Canadian knows that is the secret to extreme cold. That, and also minimizing the time you spend outside.

    Have a great day folks!