Losing a part of me

Category: Weight Loss

  • You Are Kidding Me, Right?

    There are many days on the weight loss program when I look at the numbers on the bathroom scale and say that. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ More often than not, those are bad days… the days when I have followed the program religiously, but either lost no weight or worse… actually gained weight. There are also days (like yesterday morning) when I look at the scale in shock, seeing a number so low as to astound me. Yes, I had been good on the program… but to see a drop of two pounds day-over day, after the previous day’s drop of 2.6 lbs., is pretty surprising. Don’t get me wrong, I did not complain; I was simply expecting this morning’s numbers to correct that somewhat.

    After a sleepless night in a hotel in Queens, followed by a relatively uneventful flight, I was in my apartment in Burlington, Ontario (about a 40-minute drive from the airport) by about 12:20pm. I unpacked and then walked down the hallway to my neighbour’s apartment to pick up HRF Princess Sophie, and to chat for a few minutes. It was thirty minutes from walking in the front door until I got undressed and stepped onto the scale. I knew before I did that I should not have much faith in whatever number the bathroom scale showed me because of all of the travel and disorientation, not to mention that it was nearly five hours later in the day than I usually weigh myself. Whatever the number would be, I would take it at face value.

    It is difficult to accept that after two straight days of huge day-over-day drops that for a third straight day the scale registered a drop of over two pounds. You really have to be kidding me. I know I was mostly good for the week in Dallas, and considering everything that happened over the past thirty-six hours (mostly resulting from an ice storm in Dallas that threw my well-planned travel plans into a cross-shredder) I know I was really good yesterday and this morning… but I cannot believe for a minute that I not only weigh less than I did the last couple of days, but I am also a full five pounds lighter than I was the morning I left for Dallas. It simply makes no sense, especially knowing that Friday morning – two days after that last Canadian weigh-in – I had gained 2.2 lbs. Certainly not with the knowledge that Friday evening Leslie and I went out to a Chinese restaurant, or that Sunday I ate meatless burgers with bread and sweet potato fries. Absolutely not possible, knowing that Monday morning (four days ago) I weighed a full seven pounds more than I do right now. It is simply not believable.

    I stepped off the scale and made a beeline for the kitchen, where I prepared my first Canadian meal replacement shake since last Wednesday; when it was ready, I brought it over to my workstation, fired it up, and started trying to make sense of that which just does not make sense. I know that tomorrow morning, after a good night sleep, at the right time of the morning, and with eighteen hours separating me from my last airplane ride, the number will be real and true.

    I have to assume that tomorrow morning I will weigh at least slightly more than I did at 12:45pm today, but in truth I do not know what it will be. All I know is that right now, at 1:15pm on Thursday, February 2, 2023, I weigh less than I have since January 27, 2021 – almost two years to the day – when I was on that slippery slope. At the time, I was only 25 lbs. heavier than my best weight ever… but it would only keep getting worse until just about one year later when I was 135 lbs. heavier than my best weight. Just like it took me nearly a full year to gain the rest of that weight back, it has taken me slightly more than a year to get back down to it.

    This time I am not getting off the ride. It will be hard work to stay on it, but my goal is to keep losing weight until I am slim, and then work my tail off every single day to stay there.

  • Day 378

    (This was written Tuesday afternoon)

    My partial program might be extended by a couple of days. I received notification from American Airlines that my flight tomorrow has been canceled. They currently have me booked to fly out an hour later (with 2.5-hour layover in LaGuardia, instead of my direct flight), but that might change. Right now I am hoping to get home… if not on time, then at least on the right day. Staying one extra day means staying two extra days because I have teaching commitments on Thursday that I cannot change and I cannot miss. Sometime in the next hour or two I will receive a callback from American Airlines to discuss my options. Leslie is worried that if they book me for Wednesday, will I even be able to get to the airport. She knows the roads and city much better than I do, and if she says that the roads might not be drivable then I have to trust her. That will be part of my conversation with the ticketing agent. In the meantime, I do not have meal replacements for another day (let alone two), so if I do not get out Wednesday, then Thursday (and Friday) I will be switching them out for protein bars… and trying to eat healthy despite the situation (Leslie’s son comes home Wednesday, and the meal planning has been with him in mind). While it would be nice to have a couple of extra days with Leslie, I just have too many things that are working against that being a good idea… if at all possible.

    It is now Wednesday morning, and I am packed and waiting for my Uber to arrive. It should be here in 90 minutes, and aside from my laptop, I have packed everything. As it was on my trip down, I have a single suitcase with a single carry-on. My flight status is showing on time, and it begins boarding in 4h19m. As it is not an international flight, I do not need to arrive three hours early… but I want to get there with plenty of time to spare. The airport will likely be a madhouse because of all of the cancellations. I am as nervous as I have been for any flight in recent memory… with the exception of when I was not sure about coming back into the United States. Weather does not usually get me nervous… but I am used to being familiar with all of the parameters. It is snowing in Texas, and all bets are off.

    After yesterday’s tremendous weight drop, I was not expecting a good number this morning. I expected to see a correction, either staying where I was, or possibly even taking a half-pound back. I was mostly good yesterday, and I say mostly because I was not able to have my usual salad for lunch because the Salad and Go outlet was closed due to weather. Instead, lunch consisted of two Boca ‘chicken-but-really-vegan’ patties with Buffalo sauce and mozzarella cheese and a small salad. The chicken patties were actually very tasty, and I was very happy to see that the total calories for the two was 450, with 24g of carbohydrates. Yes, that includes the sauce and the cheese! The salad was lettuce, tomato, onion, with craisins and a couple of pickled veggies on it, with a little bit of Ranch dressing. I think, all in all, I did pretty well on that meal. I will try to remember it when I am off the full-fast program.

    I made the right decision in not having either patty as a sandwich, so there were no extra carbs. I was also pleasantly shocked when Leslie pointed out the sauce had no sugar added. Aside from the lunch, I also drank two sweet teas and a glass of iced tea, all of which was sweetened. Other than that, I had two protein bars – one in the late afternoon, the other in the early evening). Still, I was not sure what to expect from the bathroom scale this morning. Knowing that I was on the cusp of hitting a decade milestone, I asked Leslie last night if she would join me when I stepped onto the bathroom scale… just in case. I thought it unlikely that I would drop below 290 lbs., but I wanted her there to share it with me if I did. We walked to the bathroom with no expectations. I put my phone (with the scale-connected app open) on the counter behind me, and I stepped onto the scale. Her reaction was one of shock, and I thought I was going to turn around and see I had gained back the 2.6 lbs. that I lost yesterday. Far from it – I looked at the phone and saw the numbers 288.2 lbs. I wiped it clean and waited for the scale to reset and stepped onto it again. Sure enough, with the absolutely stable and reliable floors of her bathroom, the numbers showed a two-pound drop from yesterday. Holy crap!!

    Before I left Canada I decided that I would be back on my modified program and would have a couple of cheat meals with my wife. I had not seen her in a couple of months, and I wanted to be able to take her out on a couple of date nights, and to cook for her… and to eat with her. I made the decision then that a successful trip (with regard to my weight management) would be to gain no more than two pounds, and when I returned to Canada, I would resume the full-fast program and take them off. It never occurred to me that I would be returning to Canada 2.5 lbs. lighter than I left! Of course, that is not wholly accurate. As Leslie rightly pointed out, I tend to gain weight on travel days. Despite the fact that I have prepared by packing three protein bars in my carry-on bag, it is often just the travel that does it. Also, I know I am cutting it close with that – any delays or cancellations will mean having to make smart choices about what to buy to keep myself on track. I might gain weight from the travel day, but if I can step onto the bathroom scale tomorrow morning and weigh less than (or the same as) I weighed the day that I left then it will be a huge success. Of course, it is still a big if regarding getting home today. The flight from LaGuardia to Toronto should be routine with regard to the weather… there may be the usual delays out of New York City, but there is no weather predicted. As soon as my flight out of DFW takes off, I will breathe a sigh of relief. Until then, I know there is a chance I am staying here until Friday… without meal replacement shakes to keep me safe.

    I wrote yesterday about a post on a Facebook support group for my program, and my response to it. Later in the day, the following response was sent by someone else:

    The secret and science to losing weight and maintaining it after <the program> is your very first meal of the day must be protein only. Even after you eat this first protein meal of the day, your body will continue to dip into the “stored fat” for energy and lose weight. The 2nd meal must be either be protein or protein and veggies. Again your body will continue to dip into the “stored fat” for energy and you will not gain but lose weight. Your 3rd meal you can introduce some carbs but be smart about it. The very moment you swallow those carbs is the very moment your body stops using your “stored fat” for energy and uses the carbs for energy and the very moment your body will stop losing weight.

    So if you are off <the program> and your very first and second meal has carbs in it……you are doomed right there for losing weight and will gain. It is simple but extremely difficult I know. It sucks but it is how our bodies works.

    While this might or might not be good advice, I am always weary about anyone who gives advice with ‘the secret and science.’ If the secret to losing weight and staying slim could be summarized so neatly into four paragraphs, we would all do it and stay slim forever. I have written in this journal many times that what I have to do, what I must do, how I must be… but that is what I feel I must do. What is right for me might not be right for someone else. With that said, the idea looks interesting, and it is something I might look at further. I am reticent to believe that having vegetables with your protein in the morning would be detrimental to the ketosis, but I am neither a doctor nor a scientist. I will see if I can speak with one and ask about it. I can imagine that my breakfasts will consist mostly of eggs, and that the breakfast cereals we grew up knowing are healthy and good for you are really not… but not being able to add vegetables into an omelet sounds a bit extreme. Who knows? Maybe that is true, and what I need to do for the rest of my life actually is that extreme. We’ll see.

    The Uber is one hour away, and I am ready to brace myself and face the cold. No, it is not the sort of cold that I am used to, but I made the (now clearly incorrect) decision to leave my winter jacket and boots at home. It never occurred to me that I would be dealing with temperatures of -4° with falling snow. Couple that with the fact that we live in a gated community, so I will have to walk the 200m to meet the Uber outside the gate, and I’ll be a bit chilly. I will also have to contend with similar weather in Toronto, but it is what it is. I made the decision and now I will live with it. No good Canadian has ever died because of a few minutes of cold temperatures! Well, they have… but there are usually underlying conditions involved, or the temperatures are much colder, or they are exposed for much longer periods. No matter, our hero will not be thwarted! I will run from the shelter of Pearson International Airport to my Uber, and then from the Uber into the warmth of my apartment!

    All this to say that I remain optimistic that tomorrow I will be writing my daily article from the comfort of my workstation in Canada, with HRF Princess Sophie curled up until it is time for her to go play with Charlie. If I do not get home today, then I will see you back here (from Dallas) tomorrow… and Friday morning as well.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 377

    Responding to a Facebook post

    I find it amazing that I am finding myself the voice of reason and good advice for people trying to lose weight. How can someone who has failed so many times be that? It is because we learn from our failures, and experience is what you get right after you needed it… while wisdom is what comes after spending hours, days, or weeks analyzing those experiences.

    This morning before I even opened my Weight Loss Journal I checked Facebook, and I saw the following post from someone in one of my support groups.

    So last year I did <program> and Saxenda diet/lifestyle change. Then the opportunity came up to do a round of IVF. I had to stop the Saxenda which in turn fell off the shakes and back to all carb diet. (Sadly it didn’t work) From September 1st to yesterday (January 30) I gained 53 pounds. Back on everything 1 day and 7 pounds of water gone. And my foot is still swollen. The part that gets me and all doctors just ignore it, but from Dec 12 to Yesterday was 30 pounds. That works out to 10 pounds every 2 weeks. Is this normal for others? Am I the only one? And no I don’t eat a lot of food just the wrong kinds. I should add not the first time that has happened to me either. I just don’t get it.

    I gave it a little thought, realizing immediately her huge mistake… I then took my time to draft the following response. (Note that in both the original post and in my response I have redacted the name of the program, but I have left the name of her medication in)

    Hi Jessica. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but I have learned from experience that the minute I reintroduce carbs into my diet, I will gain weight in a big hurry if it goes unchecked. I do not know how old you are, but if you are trying to get pregnant then you are younger that I am. When I was growing up, we were always taught that FAT IS BAD. Well guess what? The experts have changed their tune completely over the past few decades. The real enemies to weight loss are carbohydrates, starches, and sugars. That is why we <on this program> see such tremendous success on the program… initially. When you drop from 100-200g of carbs per meal to 75.2g per day, your body reacts by looking for other sources of energy… namely, our body fat. Our bodies LOVE carbs and starches… and that is a really easy source of energy for them when it is available. When you write that you switched back to an all-carb diet, your body was having a field day! I am visiting with my wife this week and have taken a break from the program. I am cooking most nights, but we also planned for a couple of meals out. The first night we had sushi, and I went nuts… and I paid for it the following morning by gaining 2lbs in one day. For our Friday evening out, we were going for Chinese food. What I would have liked to eat (I checked) had 2100 calories and 220g of carbs. What I DID eat was 950 calories and 47g of carbs. Had I eaten what I wanted to, I would have gained another 2-3lbs the next morning. Instead, I was down .6lbs. IN SHORT: Yes, it is perfectly normal and dare I say REALLY EASY to gain 5lbs per week on an all-carb diet. I HATE it… I hate the fact that I have lost over 100lbs 3 times and gained it all back twice (and each time in less than 15 months). If you read my blog, you will see what I go through… I write about my triumphs and failures every day, as well as all of the emotions that go with them.

    These are lessons that have taken a long time to learn, and I can only hope that I will not only remember them when times are good, but when I need to. I have to remember that my number one goal once I have lost the weight is mindfulness. If I can remember these (and the myriad other lessons that I have learned about losing weight and keeping it off) then I can live a happy and slim life… once I get there. No, I am not there yet.

    I did not eat properly yesterday, but it was one of those weird days when it went the other way. I had my meal replacement in the morning, a Thai salad with tofu from Salad and Go for lunch, and I made a scrumptious dinner of salmon (essentially the same recipe as Saturday, except I marinated the salmon all afternoon) and an air-fried cauliflower that I cut up, drizzled with oil, and seasoned with Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning. That’s all I ate. On a normal day, I would have had a protein bar in the afternoon, and possibly another one in the evening. When I say I did not eat properly, I mean I did not eat enough. Whether I am following the Canadian or the American program, I am supposed to be eating either four or five times per day. The theory is that when we eat smaller meals more frequently, our body continues to burn the calories throughout the day. I am not disappointed, but I will try to not do it again.

    Yesterday morning I dropped off a couple of packages at the post office, then I spent a couple of hours at my cigar lounge with a cigar and a cup of coffee. I wrote (or started to write) a technical article for my professional blog which I have been meaning to do for a few days. I left the lounge precisely on schedule. As per the plan, I picked up salads for Leslie and I for lunch. She asked me to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store, but when I went to check out, there was a 45-minute wait. I left my order on the side and walked right out. When I got home, Leslie told me that it would be crazy all day for a couple of days because of the weather. I told her that whatever chaos there might be, I would go back after we ate. I did just that and was relieved to find out that the reason the store was such a madhouse before was only partly due to the weather, but also due to a computer issue that had shut down most of the self-checkout kiosks. By the time I went back, the issue had been resolved. The store was still a madhouse, but the lines were more reasonable. I was out the door in under twenty minutes.

    I worked on my article in the afternoon as Leslie worked, and then I made our dinner. It was too cold to sit outside with a cigar, but we were still surprised that the schools, city services, and essentially all of Dallas was closing today! I was laughing then, but not now… the precipitation started around 8:30am, and while the weather report says it is snowing, from my perch across the room from the window it looks more like freezing rain. In Canada we would not think twice about it… but we are not only used to it, we are also prepared for it. There would be trucks salting the roads, and everyone has winter tyres. I had originally thought I might spend a couple of hours at the lounge today, but I think the farthest I will venture out is to pick up salads for our lunch.

    I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning to a real shock. I was disappointed yesterday morning when I gained 1.4 lbs. from the previous day. Today I was completely floored to see a 2.6 lbs. drop from yesterday. That not only puts me below my pre-trip weight, but it also puts me squarely into best-weight-yet territory. This was a complete and total shocker that had both Leslie and me slack-jawed but happy about it. To solidify that, I am teaching this evening so my plans for solid foods are to have a salad for lunch, but meal replacements for the rest of the day.

    Okay, my plans just got waylaid. Salad and Go is closed today (along with most of the city) due to the weather. Leslie and I will have chicken burgers for lunch, and I will make a salad to eat with it. That change is not going to affect my plans greatly – even if I put my burger between two slices of bread, that will be my only significant carbs for the day, and I can still lose weight tomorrow morning. It is very exciting to know that if I lose just .4 lb. more, I will have crossed into the next decade… this morning’s reading was 290.2 lbs.! I would be thrilled if I could celebrate that milestone with Leslie. Of course, I know that today’s massive drop means that there is a very good chance that no matter how good I am on the program today, I will be in for a rude correction tomorrow. My hopes then are that eating right today will balance out that correction, and I can stay the same. We will see what tomorrow brings… I just know that I have to be good every day, so that the downward trend continues. I have to remind myself every day and with every meal that being mindful is the key to my success. Being cognizant of what I choose to eat – and how much of it – is how I will continue to lose weight.

    The snow continues to fall, and all of Dallas is closed down. There will be no cigars today (although that was never really a certainty anyways) and it is unlikely that either of us will leave the house. In the evening I will teach, but before that I will sadly pack my suitcase. Unless the weather dictates otherwise, tomorrow morning Leslie will drive me to the airport and I will fly back to Canada. I hate leaving her. I hope we can at least have a nice evening together once my class is over.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 365

    What a number. Today is the last day of the diet year one. Looking at myself now versus then is… well, the transformation is amazing. While I am still a work in progress in so many ways, I am absolutely a different person. I have shed in one year just over twenty-five percent (25%) of my bodyweight! In pants, I am down from a Size-46 to a Size-40. My shirts are down from a very tight XXL to a comfortable fit XL. While I still have a few pounds to go before I am at my best weight from 2017, the custom-tailored suits and shirts that I had made back then fit, and only the jackets are slightly tight. While it is not really measurable, my face is noticeably slimmer. These are just the physical changes.

    A year ago, I hated myself. I hated what I looked like, I hated what I had let myself become. I absolutely hated myself knowing that not only had I lost over one hundred pounds and then gained it all back… but I had done it twice in under five years. I honestly did not know if I had it in me to do again, and if I might not be destined to spend the rest of my life as a fat man. I hated knowing that one day I would be a burden on the medical system and on my family because I did not have the discipline to control my appetites. I hated that I had the choice of wearing XXXL shirts that exposed my belly or spending money on XXXXL shirts that would cover it… but would also make losing weight a less pressing issue. I absolutely despised myself for having to buy a 4XL winter jacket, because in Canada having a winter jacket that fits is non-negotiable. On the eve of my weight loss program’s 1st anniversary, I have not worn that jacket… I am wearing the much smaller one that I have had since 2006. I know that next winter I will have to buy a new winter jacket… this one will be too big on me. All of my XXXL shirts have been donated to charity or given away to friends. My blood pressure is extremely low (yesterday it was 107/62), and my pulse is on the verge of imperceptible (58 beats per minute). The two medications I am on have nothing to do with my weight issues (or any health issued caused by them). With that said, they are both directly contributing to my quality of life, and that directly affects my happiness. The difference between today and a year ago is that when I look at myself in the mirror naked today, I still see a fat man… but when I put on a nice shirt and pair of pants, I look in the mirror and realize how good I look… and how far I have come.

    I will be dealing with food addiction for the rest of my life, which means that obesity will be hanging over my head, like the sword of Damocles. It would take only one slip – forgetting to be vigilant with how I eat – for me to fall back into it. That is a difficult reality to contend with, but to underline the importance of it, let’s review the lesson of the previous paragraph: the more weight I lose, the less I hate myself. Corollary: The slimmer I am, the more I love myself. If the size of my body is directly related to the feelings I have for myself, then every time I start gaining weight, I have to remember that as much as I might dislike myself for gaining five pounds, how much worse will I hate myself for gaining twenty… or fifty. Mindfulness, vigilance, and dedication to maintaining a me that I will love. Of course, I am sure that aside from my wife, every psychologist in the world would tell me that I have to learn to love myself no matter how large or small I am. That is a great theory, but if I can stay slim, then I can continue to work with my therapist on all of the other issues that I have that contribute to negative feelings about myself.

    This morning was the first day in a while that I did not lose any weight. Actually, that is not entirely true… As with so many mornings, I did not weigh myself once, but thrice. The first time, I was .2lbs. down from yesterday. I decided to not save that and stepped back onto the scale. I was .4lbs. heavier than yesterday. That really would not do! I weighed myself one last time, and the number was exactly what it was yesterday morning. Even a week or two ago I would have kept trying until I got back below that weight… even to the original .2lbs. down number. I decided that the stagnant number would be a punishment for my impatient to lose weight that I am losing… even though I am not losing it as fast I want to lose it. As my wife has pointed out to me several times, my weight loss is not going to be the constant downward trend on a line graph. There will be ups that counter the more frequent downs. I also need to remember that every weight loss expert in the world tries to discourage people from weighing themselves every day. It is exactly because of the discouragement that people experience when the numbers do not do what we want that they give this advice. There are so many reasons we fail on our weight loss journeys, and discouragement is a big one. I will not be discouraged. I will continue on. If I persevered the last two months of plateau and zero progress (despite extreme emotional crises), I can look at a single day of not dropping any weight and laugh it off, continuing on my journey.

    My plans for today are to start studying. I have wanted to continue on my certification journey for a while, but my ADHD has really hindered that. Honestly, I always knew that I had trouble concentrating and setting my mind to studying, but I never realized that there was a medicinal solution for it. While I had heard of people who used drugs to focus, I never thought that I would be one of them. Today will be the first time in a very long time that I am going to sit down and study… I do not know how far I will get today, but I will do what I can. After all, it will be a huge adjustment. I do have incentive though… I will be working together with a couple of friends (well, one friend and her adult son) in a study group to prepare for the exam. Liz has always seen me as some sort of certification prodigy. I don’t know about that, but I have been able to pass a lot of exams… as long as the content is in my comfort zone. The course we will be working on is probably adjacent to my comfort zone, but unlike so many other exams that I have passed, there is no way that I could sit down at the exam computer today and pass it. Maybe in a few weeks… we’ll see.

    Of course, this evening I am teaching again, which is great because not only do I love teaching, I also love the knowledge that sometime in the not-too-distant future someone will be paying me for teaching! While I am looking at job opportunities, right now the only income I have is from my teaching contracts… so woohoo, teaching tonight!

    I plan to stay on track with my four meal replacements today. Aside from taking Her Floofness out for her walks, I have no reason to leave the house today. I thought about going to the gym, but I think studying is more important. The other benefit to that is if I do not leave the house, there are fewer temptations. For example, I know that in the next couple of days I need to go to Bulk Barn. I am running low on doggie treats, so I need to pick some up. In addition to that, there are a couple of other items that I want to get, but if I did not need to get Scooby Snacks, I probably would not walk into that store… there are just too many temptations there. I am going out tomorrow, Saturday, and probably Sunday too… I will gird myself to go into the store and not pick up peanuts or almonds or anything else.

    I also think it is time for me to change the theme of my blog. The more I look at it, the more I see that the theme that I picked is missing a lot of things that it should have. I’ll try to spend no more than twenty minutes on that.

    There is a simplicity to being on the strict program that I had not put together before. Since the Army I have said that best way to make sure that people make the right choice is to only give them the one option. When I was on my modified program, I had so many choices to make. Many times, but not always, I made the right choice. If I had made the right choice every single time, then I would have lost a lot more than one hundred pounds in the year. The strict meal replacement program means that I do not have to choose what protein to cook for my meal… and trust me, I know that I was always making too much. I do not have to decide what vegetables to add to my salad, or how much olive oil I should sprinkle on before dousing it with (how much?) balsamic vinegar. The only choices I have to make are: 1) What time should I have my next meal replacement, and 2) Have I had enough water today? That’s it. There are no other choices to make… which means there is so much less opportunity to make the wrong choice. I have already made the decision that I will have one pot of coffee per day (three cups), with 1/3 teaspoon of raw sugar and a splash of It’s-Really-Easy-To-Believe-It’s-Not-Milk. By eliminating all food, let’s look at how my life is simpler… and how my weight loss program is actually easier:

    • I know what I am eating… every meal, every day.
    • The only time I ever need to go into the supermarket (the den of temptations) is every couple of weeks to buy milk/not-milk for my coffee.
    • Portions are not an issue… every meal is contained in a single pouch.
    • I can work through lunch (if I want to) because it is as easy to drink the meal replacement shake at my desk as it is at the kitchen table.

    There are probably other benefits, but these are four that really stick out to me. Of course, Princess Sophie is a bit miffed because she is no longer getting the cartilage from my chicken… but we have plenty other treats in the house, and she is not going hungry. Just because I need to lose weight does not mean that she needs to go without.

    Okay, it is time for me to get off my butt and get things done. It is time for my second meal replacement of the day, and when that is prepared, I will sit down and answer a few emails before I start studying.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 364

    On days when I am going to the doctor’s office for my regular ‘official’ weigh-in, I do not wake up earlier or later than I would on any other day. If the appointment is for 9:00am I might set an alarm, but even then, I know that I rarely sleep in late enough to need it. This morning’s appointment is at 9:40am, and it was only because I have not been sleeping as well as I need to that I set an alarm for 7:00am. I wake up and follow my morning bathroom routine before taking Princess Sophie for her walk. When we come in, as I would almost any other day, I sit down at my computer and start writing my daily journal entry… or if I started writing the article the previous evening, I will continue writing it.

    The only difference between any other day and the days when I go to the doctor is that on these days, I usually do not make my morning coffee, and I usually will not make my morning meal replacement until I am back from the doctor’s office. I know that I will be stepping onto the scale within an hour or so, and I do not want to add those extra ounces or grams to the result. And so, I will sit here at one of my desks, typing the beginning of my journal entry onto one of my computers, trying to ignore the hunger, and the malaise that comes with not having my regular first cup or two of coffee in the morning.

    It is not unusual for my appointment to be at 9:40am (as it is today), which means that I will be back at my desk shortly before 11:00am. I will get home and immediately press brew on the coffee pot (I might not drink it in the morning, but I prepare the pot to brew as soon as I am home) and I prepare my morning meal replacement… even though the morning is mostly over.

    Most of the time, I know what the doctor’s scale is going to say. I will not know exactly, but I will already have weighed myself at home, and although there are some factors that result in my home reading and the doctor’s office reading not being the same, I know that for every pound I dropped on my bathroom scale since the day of my previous visit, I will have dropped a pound on the doctor’s scale… once I have converted pounds into kilograms.

    Because of all that, I know that when I get onto the scale later this morning, I know my weight should read about four kilograms down from two weeks ago, the metric equivalent of a nine-pound drop. That, my fair reader, is nothing to sneeze at. Losing that kind of weight in two weeks is amazing. Knowing privately that I have actually lost 90% of that weight in one week is even more amazing. Of course, there is the small fact that I stopped eating solid foods, and probably dropped my caloric input by 500 calories… not to mention that I have not cheated at all. I am not going to hide that fact from the doctor or the nurse; in fact, I am going to ask them if they can support me even more with that program. I will also tell them about my plans for the foreseeable future… including my plan to take a week off of the extreme program when I am in Dallas. I am in the middle of writing an article for my professional blog right now based on the premise that there are four people in life that you should not lie to: Your doctor, your lawyer, your bartender, and your banker. I want my doctor’s support on my journey. Lying to him would do nobody any good.

    Last night I was quite tired during my class. I considered making a Royal Milk Tea, as I have during so many of my evening classes over these last few months. That would provide me with the caffeine boost I would need to stay awake. I then remembered that I know the calorie content of the RMT, but I do not know the other values – sugar, carbohydrates, and such. I decided to skip the tea, and I tried to remember to cover my mouth when I yawned. If I am going to practice mindfulness, I am going to have to consider the pros and cons of everything that I ingest. During the intensive phase of my program, I am already cheating by drinking coffee – with non-milk and sugar to boot! – and I also had a couple of lozenges to keep my throat going during class. I decided that I would rather be tired, and not add yet another cheat to the intensive program… especially not the night before my official weigh-in!

    (This morning, I decided to look it up. Each cup of Royal Milk Tea has 7g of carbohydrates, and 6g of sugars. I am glad I opted to not drink it.)

    I have an app on my phone that I should be using religiously when I start eating solid foods again… and that includes next week in Dallas, when I take my week-long break from the program. MyFitnessPal allows me to look up the nutritional value of just about any food you can think of, including many popular restaurants. If your product has a barcode, you can scan it and it will immediately tell you what is in it. It will also track your food throughout the day. It takes a day or two to get used to entering or scanning every food that you eat, but once you get started, it is pretty intuitive. For someone like myself, who often has the same (or similar) meal often, you can save meals and just copy it to the next day. Had I thought to use this app last night, I would have known immediately about the 6g of sugars in a serving of Royal Milk Tea. When I am not restricting my caloric intake to 950 very predictable calories per day (four meal replacements, three cups of coffee with a total of 1tsp of Sugar in the Raw and as much as 2oz of not-milk), I should be using this app religiously to scan, measure, and track everything that I eat. I will try to remember to do that… that will be a big help to my mindfulness!

    According to the bathroom scale, I am down another .4 lb. this morning, but on days when I am seeing the doctor, I am much more interested in what his scale will tell me. Especially since this is my first weigh-in since starting the strict program, I am excited… but I know that if I leave now (8:45am) then I might get weighed earlier… but I am still going to be sitting in his waiting room for however long it will take. Better I sit her for a few more minutes, writing my journal entry, and compiling my thoughts.

    I changed my mind ever so slightly about this morning’s routine. I am going to prepare my coffee right now and will take my first cup to go. I have a really good to-go cup that will keep it hot and fresh so that when I step off the scale (and the blood pressure monitor is complete) then I can start right away. It is not that I am excessively hungry right now; I do not have a lot of energy and feel like that first jolt of caffeine would really hit the spot.

    Okay, it is now about 9:15, and I can safely head out. I’ll see you back here in an hour and a half. Trust me, for you the time will really fly!

    —

    I told you I wouldn’t be long, right? It is 10:50am and I am back at my desk with my cup of coffee and my morning meal replacement. The nurse took one look at me as I walked in and told me she was certain I had lost more weight. I did not say anything to her other than ‘I hope so!’ When the scale stabilized at a 4.4kg drop, she was indeed surprised… and I was kvelling. The doctor and I discussed my current strategy and progress, as long as a brief discussion of the emotional maelstrom I have been going through of late. He was surprised that through it all I have lost weight, as most people would have turned to food and drink. He is glad that I am optimistic about the steps we are taking to fix things, and that I am seeing a therapist. We also discussed the improvements that both Leslie and I have noticed since I started on the medications, and he gave me a new prescription so that I can refill it as necessary.

    Before coming home, I dropped the prescription off at the pharmacy, and hoped that they would have oat milk. They did not, so I decided to make a quick run to the supermarket to get some. At the same time, I picked up coffee beans, and a bottle of windshield wiper fluid. It is not easy to get in and out of the supermarket without succumbing to temptation, but I managed to escape unscathed. I needed to search for the oat milk – it turns out that the things-other-than-cows-that-we-now-milk products are in the organic foods section at this supermarket, and not with the milk and cream as at the other one I was at last week. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was not fond of the almond milk, and that when I was finished with the container, I would either go back to cow-juice, or try a different varietal. Two friends told me that I should try oat milk next, as that was what they found the tastiest. The last of the almond milk is in my current cup of coffee (number 2), which means that the great oat milk experiment of 2023 will be starting within the hour. I will report tomorrow how I like it.

    I had an interesting conversation with the nurse and the receptionist at the office today. She asked me how much I have lost so far, and I told her proudly that it was now slightly over one hundred pounds, but that I also have a long way to go. She said that ‘the first hundred pounds is the hardest!’ I told her that I do not believe that at all. Yes, starting to lose weight is hard… and sticking with it is even harder. That said, if when I weighed 375 lbs. I had cheated, it was possible that I would still lose weight. If we look back on my journey, there were days when I had what I thought was a reasonable serving of peanuts, and I lost weight the next morning. When my weight loss was stalled a few months ago I looked it up, and it turned out that the helping of peanuts I ate was really four servings, and I was regularly eating 700+ calories worth of peanuts. In the first months I would still lose weight, because my body was still used to burning close to 3,000 calories per day. After writing that sentence, I decided to see what it really was; according to my smart scale app, my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) on January 23 last year was 2,884. That means that if I sat in a chair all day and did no exercise, my body would burn that many calories for the energy that I needed to get by. This week that number is 2,280. Absent any activity, the body burns more calories and therefore you lose more weight the fatter you are… which is why a larger person can eat more than a smaller person and still maintain their weight. On the other hand, the slimmer you are, the more active you are able to be. A year ago, there is no way that I could have gone to the gym and worked out the way I do now (although not yet as regularly as I should). Exercise not only burns calories, but it also boosts your metabolism so that your body will continue to burn more calories for hours after your workout is done.

    What is the verdict? If we round up the amount of weight, I needed to lose at the beginning of this journey to two hundred pounds, which hundred would be easier, the first or the second? The answer is neither. There is no such thing as an easier-to-lose hundred pounds. Losing that much weight is extremely difficult, and the factors involved in continuing to lose weight do not only fluctuate by hundred, they actually change drastically for every five or ten pounds lost. Will the next ten pounds that I lose be easier or harder than the last ten pounds that I lost? Until you realize that every pound to lose is a struggle and that every pound lost is a victory, you cannot begin to fathom the difficulties involved in the first pound right to the last one.

    I will add to this that people who go on a diet to lose ten pounds or twenty will look at someone like me in awe. In truth, I understand that their comparatively miniscule weight loss goals are dwarfed in comparison with the successes I have already achieved, as well as with my future goals. I suspect that for them, the 10-20 pounds might be as difficult to lose as my 180-200 pounds. Not only do we have to consider the percentage of body weight differences, but also the fact that I had to get into a mindset and commit myself to a multi-year journey. Most people do not realize that even on the most extreme programs, most diet professionals tell their patients to expect no more than a 1–2-pound drop per week. When I embarked on my journey, I knew that I would be working at it for at the most optimistic a year, and more realistically for 2-3 years. In fact, had my body trusted those professionals, that 200-pound drop would take nearly four years. Yes, the heavier you are, the quicker the weight will come off… but that tapers off. If someone who weighs 150lbs. wants to drop to 135lbs. they might think that it would take a week or two. In fact, it can be a 2–3-month journey. I mention all of this to say that huge weight loss and minor weight loss are absolutely different… but that does not mean that one is easier than the other.

    I could continue to go on with this topic, but it is approaching noon, and I have another article (for my professional blog) that I have been meaning to write. I am sure I will have plenty of thoughts to bloviate about tomorrow.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 355

    Today is the first day of a very busy teaching week. I am excited about it, and raring to go! Last night I set an alarm for 7:00am, even though the class is not meant to start until 10:00am. I also made the decision to wear a shirt and tie for the day; so that I did not forget in my morning haze, I pulled a shirt out of the closet and hung it on the door of my armoire. I was asleep by 11:15, which meant that I would be close to the prescribed eight hours of sleep we should get to function well.

    At 4:15am I woke up to pee. This is nothing new. Unfortunately, the reality of the emotional stress that I am going through hit me, and I could not clear my head. I probably spent an hour trying to fall back asleep. When my alarm went off this morning I should have been chipper and well-rested. The things in my life that are haunting me took care of that. I am awake, but not nearly as well-rested as I had hoped. Maybe tomorrow, right?

    I followed my usual morning rituals, but as I went through them all, I was stressing about what the numbers on the scale would say. I have been good this past week, and yet I have not made any progress. I also started to wonder idly how much my thick beard weighs… but of course I know that is poppycock, and irrelevant. After I showered and dried off, I stepped onto the scale and… yes! I am down significantly from yesterday. I am only a couple of ounces above my best-weight-yet from Thursday. If I follow the plan today, I should be down further tomorrow, right? Unfortunately, that is where I usually get into trouble. Expecting that eating properly and not veering from my routine will always show results. I wonder how much the stress and anxiety is affecting my weight loss as well… that goes back to the beginning of December, and my weight has not dropped significantly in that time. Actually, it has… it has dropped and then bounced back up several times. Stress, anxiety, holidays. Plateau.

    The good news is that I was in fact able to secure a legitimate and consistent source for my meal replacement. They are the Canadian ones, which means I have the choice between chocolate and vanilla shakes. It also means that they have higher caloric value, and that I am supposed to take them less frequently (900 calories per day in four meal replacements, as opposed to the American system of 800 calories per day in five). Of course, with my modified program (which includes a single meal per day), I will usually have three meal replacements instead of four… but sometimes I might hold it to two.

    Speaking of modifications, I am really not enjoying the almond milk that I have been taking in my coffee. It is not undrinkable, and I am not throwing out the better parts of two litres of it and running to the supermarket to buy dairy milk. When I get to the end of this container, I will not buy more almond milk. I might consider trying other milk-substitutes, but I might also go back to cow juice. We’ll see when the time comes.

    It feels good to be wearing a shirt and tie for my class this morning. It is also nice to be at my desk (which I did indeed change around yesterday, as planned) a full ninety minutes before class starts. In part that is thanks to the time zone shift – the class I am delivering is on Central Daylight Time, so the 9:00am -5:00pm is actually 10-6 for me. That works well most days, except for Tuesday and Thursday; on those days, I am starting a class on the EDT time zone immediately after the daytime class ends, which means I will be going from 10:00am – 9:30pm without much of a break. Fortunately, there is coffee… and I have a healthy supply of lozenges to get my voice through it.

    As expected, I have enough chicken to make lunch today and tomorrow… although tomorrow’s will be a single piece only. My plan is to prepare my meal to cook during the morning break, and then run to turn on the air fryer 25 minutes before lunchtime. That will be today and tomorrow. For Wednesday, as I mentioned yesterday, I am thinking of starting the full un-modified program, which means five meal replacements and no meals. I do not plan to do it for long, but it will be good to kick my progress back on track. The only concession I will make to that is I am not cutting out my coffee… certainly not during a week that I am teaching.

    There are only nine days to go before the one-year mark of my program, and I am still about seven pounds away from my goal of losing one hundred pounds in that time. I am confident that if I stick to the full program for the next ten days, I will meet that goal. For now, my next milestone – dropping below the 300-pounds mark – has been so tantalizingly close for so long, and yet just out of my grasp. My intent is to hit it this week. Wish me luck.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 352

    Once again, I did not veer from the program yesterday. Two meal replacements, one meal. Lots of water. I also drank more coffee than usual, but that has never really been a factor…. especially since I finished my last cup before 2:00pm.

    Once again, despite all of that, the bathroom scale reading this morning was up… by more than a pound.

    I am not happy with this damned plateau. If the rest of my life was going smoothly then maybe I would be less concerned, but it is not. I am having a hard time of it, and I wish at least when I stick to the program that I could see some damned progress.

    I am not sleeping well, which is mostly due to the emotional turmoil that is my life right now. I really wish things could be simpler, but that is not in the cards.

    I have a few errands to run today, and on my way home I will go to the supermarket to pick up some vegetables and challah for this evening’s Sabbath blessings. Unless there is a drastic shift in the way something is going, I do not expect that the peace and joy that I pray for will be come. I hope at least it will come for the others that I pray for.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 351

    For the second time in four days, my bathroom scale registered me below the 303 lbs. mark – my previous best weight yet. Monday it took three or four tries, including moving the scale twice for that to happen. This morning it just happened. I stepped onto the scale, and it read 302 lbs. While I am satisfied with the downward movement either way, I am really happy to see that after a few days of sticking to my meal plan and going to the gym that I am finally through that barrier which I first hit November 11.

    Yes, I went to the gym again yesterday. I am trying to get into the habit of going at least four times per week. I know, it is the first week of the year and everyone is making that resolution. As I wrote over the last few days, this is not a New Years resolution, rather something I started a few weeks ago but am trying to make a habit. Not only do I want to get back into shape, I also want to prove to myself that gym memberships are not a waste of money. In 2019, my then-girlfriend and I joined a gym, and I went a few times… but not too often. They were closed for nearly a year due to COVID-19, but it took until September of 2021 for me to cancel the membership (although not for lack of trying… they did not make it easy). I like going to the gym; I enjoy that feeling of accomplishment. I enjoy the pain of lifting weights, although I am not going to compete with either myself or with others. I enjoy that I am getting to the gym and doing my stretches for twenty minutes before hitting the machines… although I am not doing the complicated stretches that Kezi tried to get me to do, rather things I would do for Taekwondo. Following forty-five minutes on the weight machines, I enjoy getting on the treadmill for twenty minutes. And yes, I enjoy the aches that I feel the next day (and the day after that) which tell me that I am working my overweight and out-of-shape body back into what I want it to be. Will I go today? That depends on a number of factors, not the least of which is that I am meeting a friend north of Toronto for coffee and possibly lunch, and I do not know what time I will be back on this side of the megalopolis. I am, however, taking clean socks and underwear (and a t-shirt) down to the car with me… my gym still has a clean pair of shorts in it, as well as my runners, shower-shoes, and sundries bag.

    Before I hit the highway, I will drop my new prescription off at the pharmacy. I know the last time I did I was completely disappointed by the lack of professionalism shown there, but I also know that it was the week before Christmas, and I assume the entirety of Burlington was trying to fill their prescriptions before leaving on vacation. I also have to fill my gas tank; there is an industry analyst who predicts with incredible accuracy the price trends at the pumps, and earlier this week I heard him on the radio predicting that the prices would drop Thursday. My tank is not on empty yet, but I doubt I would get to Aurora and back without filling up. I am not sure if it is the ADHD medications (or possibly the increased dosage) that is giving me the foresight to plan these things, but I know they have to get done one way or another.

    Whether I get to the gym or not, I have to be back at my computer at 5:30pm to start my class at 6:00pm. While based on the last few sessions I can surmise that I will sit alone in the virtual classroom until 5:55pm, I like to be ready thirty minutes early every time, for every session of every class. In some of my contracts it is actually written in as a requirement, but even for the ones that it is not, it is a good practice as an instructor to let students know that you are consistent, available, and professional. I also should test my system for the class that I will be delivering starting Monday, for a different training centre, using a completely different delivery mechanism. I will make sure my system has their proper software installed. Additionally, I will change from my casual shirt that I will wear during the day into a button-down shirt, and possibly a tie, for this evening’s class. I like to look professional… and now that I have lost as much weight as I have, I fit into my nicer button-down shirts so I can look a little better. This is not about conceit, rather about projecting an air of professionalism.

    It occurs to me that today is Thursday, and I am supposed to have my check-in with my diet buddy. It is scheduled for 5:30, but I will ask her if we can push it up to 5:00pm, which means we will finish in time for me to join my class. I know she was having a hard time last week, and I want to be there for her as I promised I would be. It is also nice to be able to kvell that after two months, I am back in best-weight-yet territory!

    I am going through some things right now that I am not discussing in my journal. Emotionally, I have been on a roller coaster these last six weeks. The fact that I am still writing, still trying to maintain my weight loss progress, and actually below my previous best weight… these are all testimony that I can be strong in the face of hard times. Yesterday, that roller coaster hit another terrible bump, and I am not sure how long I will be able to endure. I am hoping that if I hold on, if I hold myself together, if I continue to show that I am stronger than even I thought I was, then maybe at some point in the unseen distance, the tracks will smooth out, and the ride will return to being enjoyable. I only wish… well, I suppose if I was to write about it then I would have to write about it. All I can say is that despite whatever crap may come my way, I need to succeed with my weight management and losing weight and getting back into shape. A week from today I will meet with my therapist; I hope that by then I am able to put into words what I am feeling… and where I sadly think this ride will end.

    It is time for me to hit the road. The GTA is a very large city, and it will take me an hour to get to Aurora. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 348

    I feel significantly lighter today than I have in a very long time I say this for two reasons. The first is that one of the times I stepped onto my bathroom scale this morning I was at my lowest weight yet… more than two pounds lower than yesterday (when the scale was equally unreliable, but the weigh-ins were on the same spot on the floor)! That is a good indicator that my completely successful day yesterday (with regard to food intake) works. In other words, when I stick to that program religiously (three meal replacements and one meal) I can continue to lose weight. I know at some point in the future I am going to have to reduce the size of my meal, but for now I am happy that I can get back to this routine.

    I said I felt lighter for two reasons. I had nearly a thousand ‘friends’ on Facebook. Yesterday afternoon I culled that list. It is now down to 245 friends. I have also left two community pages that I created (one for a friend who dumped me as a friend, one for a business I stopped owning seven years ago) and left almost seventy-five groups (many of which were either cigar groups or fan pages). I am still a member of twenty-five groups, and I own two others, but this culling should really cut down on my Facebook noise. Already this morning I noticed as I scrolled through my feed that the content was much more relevant to what I want to see, and a lot less cluttered with crap. There are a few people who I thought about culling but did not – specifically, a couple of people who tend to be extremely right-wing and like to share their vitriol and conspiracy crap a lot… one of them is a cigar buddy, another is a work colleague. I decided to leave them both on my list… for now

    My back is aching again today. I suspect the muscular recovery from my workout the other day is still going on, which is fine… Muscle aches like these are the penance I must pay for having let myself go for so long, and now wanting to be in shape. It is a fair price to pay. My knee is still painful in the night when I am lying down; I will try to remember to discuss that with my doctor on Wednesday.

    Speaking of Wednesday. Normally I would sit down at my keyboard after coming in from my walk with Princess Sophie and start writing my daily entry immediately. As I started this morning, I was interrupted by a slew of emails from one of the companies for which I did a demo teach in December. The entire Account Creation process is more cumbersome than you might think, especially when they are a company that assigns each instructor an email account. I suppose that means this is one of the organizations for whom I will not be sharing my personal contact information with my students, which is fine. Going through all of their material, I was concerned because it looked like they assigned several classes to me, one of which begins tomorrow, another begins (and ends) last month. We got that cleared up when she told me that they only assign me to the classes so that I can have access to the requisite training material. Phew! This was the org for whom I did a great delivery but screwed up one technical item which their technical guy called me on. I wasn’t sure if they were going to fail me for that, but it seems that they are happy with my delivery ability. Yay! This all has to do with Wednesday how, you ask? They originally scheduled me to sit their Welcome Session next week, but the time conflicts with another delivery that I am doing for someone else. They rescheduled it for this Wednesday, which works for me.

    As Princess Sophie and I walked this morning I realized that my pants – the new Size-40 pants that I just bought – might be a little loose. Initially I thought how great it would be if I would fit into a Size-38 so quickly… but realized that as I lose weight, some things will fit and feel different. The larger I was, the tighter I would have to wear my pants… my belt would often feel like a tourniquet around my waist. I am now wearing a Size 40 pants with a Size 40 belt (on the last hole); as I lose more weight, before I start buying new pants, first I will move to the second and then third hole on the belt. Once I realize that my pants really would fall off without the belt, that is when I will buy new pants. No matter, it is nice to feel less constricted.

    My goal for today is to stay on course. I am waiting for confirmation from my Master and friend to see if he is coming over this afternoon for computer help (and to catch up); as much as I love him, he is notoriously unreliable with time, and has what I have often referred to as a casual relationship with time. I told him when we were speaking last night point blank that when he tells me he is coming over, a 30-minute window is acceptable, but a 2-hour window is not. Say you are coming at 2:00pm and show up twenty minutes later, great. However, it is unreasonable for him to expect me to cancel any plans for the entire day (or afternoon) waiting for him to maybe show up… eventually. Yes, I understand that he has things to do and that he is running around, and it is not his fault… but I also have things to do, and when he tells me he will come at 2pm it has in the past meant that my entire afternoon is shot because he will show up… eventually. I have known about this casual relationship with time since the first time we invited him for dinner… Theresa and I prepared everything, and I put the salmon on the grill at 6:00pm, to be timed perfectly with his promised 6:15pm expected arrival time (and in compliance with his request that we not serve meat). At 8:45pm it was without a doubt the driest salmon I have ever tasted in my life. In the meantime, I have done enough work setting up accounts on this new training provider, so I think I will get lunch ready.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 347–January 1, 2023

    Happy New Years to one and all! It is usually at the end of the year, rather than at the beginning, when we reflect on the past year. After sitting and chatting with Eduardo last night, I have been thinking back on it. 2023 was a great year and a troubling one. I married Leslie, I lost over ninety pounds. During my weight loss journey (which is ongoing, and at the current pace will take another year) I wrote in this journal every single day (although I missed a day on the blog because I forgot to press Publish). I have had some professional ups and downs, but I am still standing. Fortunately, my career as an IT Trainer is still going strong… despite some bad bumps on the road.

    All has not been sunshine and roses though. I experienced a lot of downs. Knowing now what I do, many of them were caused by outside interference, and many more by my only recently diagnosed ADHD. These were all very difficult, but I am hoping that with therapy (which resumes next week) and medications (which started last week, but which I hope to be able to increase my dosage of this week) I will be able to navigate my future in a much more positive way.

    Yesterday I spent a few hours with Lyle and Dorothy. As promised, they served a homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch which was quite tasty. We exchanged holiday gifts, which was quite sweet. They really are very thoughtful people. I am sitting at my desk with my new Montreal Canadiens mug, which was only one of the eight Chanukah presents they bought me! We sat outside and talked for a couple of hours before I went home to take care of a few things that needed to be done. I arrived home and realized that Princess Sophie had been dognapped! No, not really… her friend Charlie asked his Mommy to pick her up, and they spent the afternoon together. By the time she came home, she was wiped out!

    I enjoyed the soup, but it was not as satisfying a meal as I hoped for. By 4:00pm I was hungry, and I made my usual chicken and salad. I made an Israeli salad with tomato and onions. It was quite tasty! I am not sure why I held the lettuce; it probably has something to do with a photo I saw on my Facebook Memories. Either way, I will likely be back to my regular scheduled salad with my lunch today.

    I did some work on the computer that I have been meaning to do, and then at 6:30pm I was ready to head out to see Eduardo. Her Floofness wanted to go out first, so we went for a quick walk (which included taking care of all of her business). I was not going to deprive her, especially since it was raining in the morning, and she held it in much of the day without an accident. I spent a few hours with Eduardo, and then was home (as predicted) shortly before 10:00pm… in time to take the Princess out for one more walk. I then spent a couple of hours on the computer until a minute before midnight, when I texted Leslie that I loved her, and then shut down my systems.

    While I did have the soup and then a full meal, as well as some nuts at Eduardo’s, I do not think I went overboard. I think that for my first ‘back on track’ day, I did pretty well. My goal is to keep doing better, and that this year – 2023 – will be the last year that I will ever have to do a crazy intense diet. I know I will have to work on getting slim this year, and then work on staying slim every day for the rest of my life. I do not have the genes that some people have that lets them eat without gaining weight, so if I want to be thin and in good shape, it will have to be a constant in my life. I am not saying that I will never be able to have a cheat meal… only that I will not be able to fall back into the bad habits which plagued me for the past twenty-seven years. Also, I will have to work hard to stay in shape, which means not only from a dietary standpoint, but also from a physical activity one. I do not know if that will forever mean going to the gym, or fitness walking, or Taekwondo, or a combination of these and other activities. I just know that my obesity is only partly caused by my love for fattening foods, and it could have been held in check had I always remained active.

    I have a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, but for today my bathroom scale is reading all over the place. The numbers ranged from two pounds up from yesterday to two pounds down. I was able to get two consistent readings at that lower number, so I accepted it. I am, once again, half a pound from my best-weight-yet territory. Considering I did not really veer from the program yesterday, I think it is best to start the new year on a positive note. Again, I will be weighed on the doctor’s scale on Wednesday, and that will be my next official weight. For now, I can be as angry as I want with my bathroom scale… or rather, with the floor of my apartment which is absolutely terrible.

    Assuming that the bathroom scale is reasonably accurate this morning, it means I have two major milestones coming. First, I am only 3.5 lbs. from breaking under the 300-pound mark; after that, I have only another five pounds to go before I can honestly say that I have lost one hundred pounds. I confess that if it were not for life getting in my way (and myself getting in my own way) I had expected to hit both of those milestones in early December. Okay, I dealt with all of the crap I had going on, and now it is time to buckle down and lose more weight. If I am truly a creature of habit, then I can look at the past year and realize that after four months of weight loss I had lost forty-five pounds, and then plateaued for about two months. I then lost another forty-five pounds and plateaued again for a little under two months. If that is to be a pattern, then I do not mind getting down another 45-pounds between now and late April. Unfortunately, it is not so easy for me to sit on the plateau and know I will indeed follow the pattern. I also have to be careful to not aim for it, because while it would be nice to be down to that weight, I am trying to get into a healthy lifestyle, and by forgetting the pattern I could skip the next plateau altogether. We’ll see. In the meantime, I just want to press that elevator button to start going down.

    I had a very frank discussion with Lyle and Dorothy about weight loss, and especially how important it is for him and me to continue on our parallel missions to get healthy and lose weight. I told him that until his recent stroke, he and I had a very dangerous problem: we were extremely obese, but otherwise we were perfectly healthy. Of course, that is not entirely true, as is demonstrated by my gout and his stroke, but on the surface, it seemed that way. We discussed the importance of regular medical visits and checkups, including heart rate monitoring but also bloodwork and more. I am glad that I have been checking in with my doctor every month (and occasionally more frequently than that), and for my American readers who may believe the Republican propaganda bemoaning the condition of the Canadian healthcare system, I can vouch that it is both extremely efficient, and completely free.

    I suspect that stores are closed today, but that matters little as I have everything I need in the house. I took Princess Sophie out this morning, and of course I will do so again later in the afternoon. Between now and then I will likely have a lazy holiday Sunday. The only actual chore I have to do is to shine my boots, which needs to be done quite regularly during the snowy months. Aside from that, I will relax, watch some TV, maybe read a little bit, and possibly study some Torah. We’ll see what the day brings. I am sure that at some point there will be a cigar or two in the mix.

    Have a great day folks, and happy new year!