Losing a part of me

Category: Weight Loss

  • Day 229

    Happy Labour Day to all! It is ironic that on the Canadian civil holiday in August, I was teaching for an American company, so I did not get the day off. Today is an international holiday, but I am not on a contract so my day is no different than any other day, other than that the stores are closed, and I cannot go shopping… which is a good thing, I suppose.

    Yesterday in the late afternoon I had a panic/stress/anxiety episode. I wanted to cheat. I texted my wife that my defenses were failing me, and that I wanted to go out to eat, splurge, and indulge. Within minutes, my phone rang, and she talked me down from it. Actually, she reminded me that I had homemade baba ghanoush in the fridge, as well as a container of cherry tomatoes. I sat talking with her as I dipped my tomatoes into the eggplant, and when the tomatoes were finished, so was my desire to jump off the weight loss wagon.

    Later in the evening, Leslie asked me how my cravings were. I told her that I intentionally smoked a second cigar in the evening to help distract me from them, and my plan must have worked because not only did I not eat as I smoked (which I seldom do), I also did not have another meal replacement. My food intake for the day consisted of my morning meal replacement shake, my regular chicken and salad for lunch, a handful of peanuts, and a small box of cherry tomatoes with baba ghanoush. All in all, a reasonably health day’s food intake for a man on a weight loss regimen.

    I should mention that it really paid off, putting a huge smile on my face when I stepped onto the scale this morning. I mentioned yesterday that I was not surprised to have gained a pound following Saturday’s intake. This morning, I had not only recovered that pound, but was an incredible 2.4-pound drop from yesterday morning, taking me into lowest-weight territory once again. I assure you that this morning I did not try to step off the scale, and then re-weigh myself hoping for a better result!

    I have not been for a fitness walk since I am back from Dallas, owing partly to the weather, but mostly to a turned ankle. I am going to give it a go today, right after lunch. The forecast calls for cloudy and a high of 20° Celsius (68° Fahrenheit), which will be comfortable enough to wear shorts, even though I wore jeans and a long sleeve shirt to take Her Floofness on her walk this morning.

    Speaking of Princess Sophie, this evening I am going to take her to my neighbour’s for a few days. Tomorrow I am going to drive to Montreal for a few days, and while I would normally drop her off in the morning, Sue is leaving for her office early tomorrow, so it is just easier for me to drop her off tonight. I am going to miss her, but I know she will be in good hands… and will get plenty of walks, and treats, and love… and lots of play time with her best friend Charlie!

    I had thought for a bit that I would not be sticking to my meal replacement program while I am in Montreal. I thought that it would be a good opportunity to cheat. I do not know what made me think that, but I will not be indulging in Montreal bagels, smoked meat, and other local delicacies while I am there. I do not even know what made me think about it, but I know that it would be a terrible idea.

    I sometimes feel like I really do have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, like you see in old movies. For a couple of days, the devil was whispering how nice it would be to have those foods that I love so much, and that I will only be in Montreal for a few days, so what’s the harm? Look how well I have been doing! Don’t I deserve it?

    On my other shoulder, the harp-playing angel is saying ‘Yes, exactly! Look how well I have been doing! Why would I want to spoil it by indulging in so many of those foods that made me fat in the first place? Don’t I deserve to feel healthy, to fit into smaller and nicer clothes, to look better? Don’t I deserve to feel better, to be healthier, and to probably live longer? What’s more, doesn’t Leslie deserve all of those things mentioned of me?

    I do not know if this is the first time ever that my better angels are shouting down the devils… and winning. I also do not know how long that will last… but I am going to do my best to always nurture those angels and muting the devils. It will not always work, but I am going to try to continue to succeed, and I can only succeed by listening to those angels.

    I realized just now that I have been all excited to get back to Taekwondo this week, and then remembered that I am going to be in Montreal from tomorrow through Sunday. I completely forgot that I need to extend my trip so that I can take care of a couple of errands. I do not relish the idea of having to visit the courthouse, but I need a document from there, and expect there will be bureaucratic delays in getting it, and so I will leave tomorrow and not Thursday or Friday. Oh well.

    I have to be cognizant of the fact that five days in Montreal would give me a lot more opportunity to cheat on my diet, and that doing so would hurt nobody but me. I have to be as good as I can be and stay as strong as possible. I recognize that I will be having a few meals with others and will be as diligent as I can be to eat well… or as well as I can. I will pack extra meal replacements, just to be safe.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 227

    My streak is broken. Yesterday was the first day since January 20th that I did not post an article on my weight loss blog. I began to write the piece, I got distracted by shiny things, and I did not go back to it. I assure you that it was not because I was failing with my weight loss. Princess Sophie probably dragged me out for whatever, and I never came back to post what I had written. That will actually take a lot of the pressure off… yes, there is a lot of pressure involved when you are on a 225-day streak, and when WordPress congratulates me daily for it! My new streak begins today.

    My bathroom scale continues to be kind to me. This morning, I am 2.6-pounds down from what I weighed Wednesday morning. This despite big cheats on Wednesday and Thursday (with the Salt and Vinegar Goldfish) and yesterday, when I had a handful of peanuts, as well as two meals (the first was my normal lunch, the second was a lovely smoked Coho salmon with tabouli at Lyle and Dorothy’s house, where I spent the afternoon and evening. I am at my lowest weight, and it feels good. I only wish I was with my wife so that we could enjoy it together.

    I have been walking on a tricky ankle for the last few days, which is something I did when I stepped on something at the airport the other day. I know it is not a big deal, but I do want to give my ankle another day to recover. I am hoping that the weather tomorrow morning holds up – there is a 10% chance of rain predicted for the morning, with the chances increasing throughout the day. I would like to go out for a walk, and if it not raining too badly then I can do that. I do not want to get sick, but I also do not want to stagnate with my exercise routine. Fortunately, I know that the Taekwondo club will be open Tuesday (the day after Labour Day), and I will be able to resume my martial arts training… even if the weather outside is not conducive to walking.

    My plans for today are to go to see my friend Eduardo. He wants me to fix his computer, and we will smoke a cigar together as well. The way my allergies are currently kicking my butt, I am wondering if I will be able to enjoy a cigar on his balcony, what with all of his wife’s plants and flowers. We will try though. He also wants to take me out for lunch (assuming I do fix his computer!) and I will have to be careful. I will nix any restaurant suggestions where I cannot stick to my weight loss program. I am really happy with my weight loss progress these last few days, and I do not want to tumble back, just for the sake of a free meal.

    It is a lovely day outside, so if later this afternoon my ankle is not doing too bad, I might try for a walk. We’ll see… I do not want to make that transition from hurt to injured.

    Everyone is asking me what my plans are for the long weekend, and I keep telling them that I do not really have any. I will mostly stay close to home, and possibly see my kids for a couple of hours… assuming they want to see me.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 217

    As I approached the bathroom scale this morning, I was scared of what I would see. Just four days ago, I achieved the milestones of 320-pounds, and then all of a sudden, I gained nearly four pounds. All of my plans to fly to Dallas near 315-pounds vanished; my only hope was that I might get back near the 320-pound mark… which should have been a lock, and now was another goal.

    While the number on the scale was down significantly from yesterday (nearly 2.5 lbs), I was still above 320. Okay, that’s life. The more important number today is actually what I see on the doctor’s scale in an hour. I am hoping to have lost a full six kilos (A little over thirteen pounds), but anything over 5 kg will be considered a win. Of course, the next metric milestone that I have not confirmed on the metric scale is absolutely shattered – I will be well under 150kg this morning, and likely closer to 145kg.

    My suitcase is packed, and I am ready to go, but I still have to get through the morning. In a few minutes I will leave to go to the doctor’s office. I just finished writing instructions for the next 90 minutes to my TA, so I can go and not be on my phone trying to multi-task. That’s a relief.

    I just got off the phone with Leslie, who just dropped her son off at school. I really wish I could see him on this trip, but that is not in the cards. I’ll see him in September though, when I will be at least 25 lbs lighter than when he last saw me! It is weird that I use that as such an important measuring stick. ‘Yeah, he met me twenty-five pounds ago… it feels like longer.’ When so much of my focus is on weight loss, I suppose that is not quite so strange.

    —

    While I did not lose six kilos as I was hoping for, I said that anything over 5kg would be a victory, so 5.1kg is just that. I am relieved that it was not worse, and that I did not have to get weighed yesterday. I would not have met that threshold yesterday morning.

    As expected, my doctor was quite happy with my progress, and we had a good discussion, mostly about staying on course and being on the right track. He did check a couple of other issues that I was concerned about, even though I strongly suspected that they were in my head (which he confirmed). He is absolutely thrilled with my heartrate and blood pressure, which are both lower than I ever remember them being.

    I just brought Princess Sophie to the neighbour, who will take care of her for the next week. Leaving her behind is the only sad part of my going away, knowing that I will be with my wife for the next week. I thought about bringing her, but that will wait for a future trip. I suspect that the next time I take her to Dallas will be the only time I do, as it will be a one-way flight.

    Have a great day folks, and I will see you all in Dallas!

  • Day 213

    I love hitting milestones on my weight loss journey. They are one of the ways I measure progress, and to remind myself that the last eight months of depriving myself of so much has paid dividends and has not been a waste.

    As I mentioned the other day, the bathroom scale can be mean, so when my weight jumped 2.4 pounds Wednesday morning I was quite upset. Fortunately, Thursday morning it dropped .8-pound, then Friday another 2-pounds. This morning it dropped another 1.2 pounds, which incredibly dropped me below the 320 pounds mark for the first time since March 26, 2021. It felt absolutely amazing, and the only thing that could have made it better would be if Leslie was here to celebrate with me. As it stands, I have not told her yet (I hope she has been able to sleep in this morning), and I will not publish this entry to my blog until she knows.

    I have lost 22 pounds since I flew to Dallas in June, and just over 75-pounds overall since January. Both of those are huge accomplishments, and the fact that I have so much more to lose will not discourage me. For the first time in a year and a half, I am 100-pounds away from what I weighed in basic training… twenty-eight years ago. I put on a shirt this morning that had been in the bin for over a year, and it felt great that it fit. Hopefully, one day in the next year or so, I will be able to wear my Army uniform again… if only for a moment.

    It is not surprising that when I went dark a couple of months ago a lot of my friends started to worry. I let them all know that I was going through some things, and I did not want to talk about it. I did that to let them know that I was okay, I was just down. As I came out of my funk, I started to see friends again (albeit very slowly). Today I am going to see one of the friends which I have not seen since he threw my birthday party for me. While I had planned to not eat meat until I was back from Dallas, Ryan told me he is going to smoke some burgers for us, and I did not have the heart to tell him not to. Also, the timing of the visit will completely interfere with my meal planning here, so I really should eat. I will not be having bread with them, but I will have a hamburger and some salad. I am now especially relieved that I decided to not have a steak yesterday.

    Princess Sophie will not be coming to Ryan’s house. She is having a play date with her very good friend Charlie, and she would not have it any other way. In fact, when she heard Charlie in the hallway, she begged me to take her to Susan’s to play with him… and when he got to the door, she actually knocked on it! Well, she scratched at it loudly, which is essentially the same things, what with dogs not having knuckles. I love that she has friends and that she is so expressive, yet so well behaved!

    On days when timing permits, we have expanded our morning walk. We now do a 2,000-step tour through the park, past the playground, and out to Forest Run, then back down Tobyn to my street. It likely does not change my daily step count by that much, but it is definitely noteworthy insofar as when we first moved here, walking that much would have me winded and sweaty. Today it is no more effort than going to the washroom. It also serves to ‘get the kinks out’ first thing in the morning. When a fat fifty-year-old man exercises as much as I have been, there are aches in the morning; if I did not have to go out for a walk, I might easily say ‘let the aches heal for a day or two.’ By the time Her Floofness and I are back from that turn, I will usually be feeling ready to go for a proper walk… which I usually cannot do, owing to the obligations of work and such. The proper walk will wait until the end of the day.

    The forecast for today is dry, but tomorrow will be rainy, as will every day through Wednesday when I leave for Dallas. I will go for a good walk when I come back from Ryan’s, knowing that while I might be able to walk tomorrow, it will likely be a wet one.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 210

    It is days like today when I want to yell obscenities at my bathroom scale. While I was hoping for a slight drop from yesterday, I was horrified to see a 2.2 lbs increase. I cannot imagine that the five slices of dried mango and the handful of pumpkin seeds accounted for that; no, it is the universe getting back at me for not exercising yesterday. Just like that, my hopes of possibly getting down to 315 lbs in time for my trip to Dallas have been replaced with just hoping that I can get back down to 320 lbs. As has been said by many a cartoon character, &%^$@!!

    I felt guilty yesterday for being too tired to exercise. I neither went to Taekwondo as planned nor went for a walk. Over the course of a number of walks with Princess Sophie, plus a trip to the supermarket (and liquor store), I managed to surpass 5,000 steps… but that is not my goal. I would like to at least try for 10,000 steps per day, which will not always be possible, but is worth aiming for. I know, I had blisters on my feet from the previous day’s painful walk, but that is not an excuse. Maybe it is… but I still feel guilty, and that guilt is compounded by the number on the scale.

    The nature of my job is a sedentary one, and so it is incumbent on me to get out after work. Even if I am not going to suit up for a fitness walk, I should be going out beyond the fifteen minutes of walking Her Floofness twice per day. When weather is a factor there is room for compromise, but on a warm and dry day I should be walking… fitness walking or not.

    The problem is that I have been exhausted these last few days. I have not gotten a good night sleep in over a week, and I do not know why that is. I have been able to empty my mind of the stresses and anxieties of the day (and while there are some real ones, none of them have been keeping me up… at least, not this week), I just cannot keep my eyes closed. If this continues, I am going to try to pick up some sort of natural sleep aid… melatonin or something. I am not ready to go for narcotics just yet… but if there is a natural remedy that I can try, I am going to try it.

    My day is going well so far, even though I got out of bed late. Coffee is helping me through, and my classes are fun today – I love when there is a lot of hands-on labs that we can go through… not only because it is less lecturing, but because I feel the students learn more.

    Leslie gave me some really good news this morning, so I am happy. Seeing her happy makes me happy. Also, one week from today I will be waking up in Burlington, Ontario… and then going to sleep with her in my arms in Dallas. Yay!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 208

    This morning the I gave back .4-lbs on the scale, likely due to the popcorn I ate at the movies yesterday. It was not even worth it… but I will be back on track today. I have chicken and salad for lunch, and I will go for a walk this afternoon. While there is no way I will match my record-setting pace from yesterday, I do not need to… all I need to do is work hard and get a good sweat going. It is a misconception that I have to beat yesterday’s stats every time I go out… I just have to keep going out, and that is what will help me to lose the weight and get back into shape.

    It is Monday morning, the start of a new week. I weigh 3.2 pounds less than I did last Monday, and by any measure that is a successful week of weight loss. If I can do that again this week, then when I get to Dallas, I will not weigh 315 lbs… but I will be under 320 lbs, which will not be a failure. It will also mean that since I was last with my wife, I will have lost about 20 lbs. I know that she will feel the difference when she puts her arms around me! As I have said many times before: I am not losing the weight primarily for her… but she is certainly a consideration, and the only other beneficiary (aside from myself) of the positive changes resulting from the weight loss!

    I did not sleep very well last night. For reasons I could not put together, Princess Sophie decided to not sleep in my bed, which is mostly good. I did have a lot on my mind though, and it kept me up longer than I would have liked. Hopefully tonight I will sleep better.

    One of my student’s father owns a cigar company in Dallas, and a couple of weeks ago he sent me a care package. The plan is that I will smoke them before getting to Dallas, and then he and I will sit down and discuss them for an article I will write for one of my other blogs. According to the tracking, the package arrived in Canada a week ago, and has been sitting with Canada Customs since. Late last night the tracking changed, and they are now back en route to me. While this is a positive, I am always worried that when someone ships cigars to me they will come with a large bill from Canada Customs. If that happens, I have to decide whether to accept them (and pay the bill) or refuse them. As I am hoping he only sent a couple of cigars, I cannot image the bill for these will be too large, but the uncertainty has been the cause of some stress, in addition to everything else going on in my life.

    The forecast for today (and through Thursday) is partly cloudy but dry, with high temperatures in the mid-20s, which will not only make my wife jealous, it will also make for excellent weather to walk in. I am hoping that tomorrow and Thursday evening I will go to Taekwondo, but tonight, Wednesday, and Friday I will be walking. While it might not yet be a habit, I want to keep my walking routine going. Also, while I have been doing pretty well these last few weeks (I have lost 19.6 pounds in the last five weeks), it is only normal for me to want to make one final push to lose even more weight leading up to my trip to Dallas. Walking (and Taekwondo), in addition to sticking to my healthy eating, will be a good way to make that final push.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 206

    I was expecting the numbers on the scale to be higher this morning, owing to two factors. First, yesterday’s 2.6-pound drop was one of those great ones that is usually too good to be true, and dials itself back the following day. Additionally, I treated myself with a gorgeous (if too large) steak yesterday for lunch, and I expected the consequences to be a slight weight gain. In fact, while there was no drop, there was also no weight gain. This could be because I pushed myself on a 10-kilometre walk, which compensated for (and burned calories from) the steak. Whatever the reason, I am happy with it.

    I have two bags of clothes waiting to go today. The first is clothes I am going to take to drop in a donation bin. The second is clothes I am taking to the tailor to have her alter because of the weight loss. I have worn the vest and the sports jacket a few times, but of the three shirts I had custom made, one of them has never even been unfolded. I suspect that there will be little she can do about the shirts, but the jacket and pants should be adjustable. I hope to have them back in time to take to Dallas with me, so that if I take my wife out for a nice evening, I can dress up for her.

    There are several side effects to being fat and fifty years old. There are even more to being an active fat and fifty. One of these is that the morning after I walk, my ankle causes me problems. Once I am walking (even just walking the doggo) it is fine, but as I am puttering around the house to get ready, and then walking to the elevator, my ankle is bothering me, and feels like it is going to give out. It never does, and once I get moving it seems fine. The joys of age and weight… my body does things that remind me constantly that I am neither young nor slim, and that it has been many years since I have been consistently active.

    I could have slept more last night, but sometimes our bodies or minds do not cooperate with that. I seem to have no problem getting back to sleep after getting up to pee at 6:15am, but if I get up to pee after 6:30am, I am done for the night. I do not think it is substantially lighter in my room, but there is something about that 6:30am threshold that seems to be a barrier to my returning to sleep… unless I am zonked, at which point it is possible. This morning was not such a morning, and so I was up and hitting my bathroom routine at 6:40, and by 7:30 I was out with Princess Sophie. Of course, that gives me the entire day to be productive. I remember the old saying ‘Early to bed, early to rise…’ The early bird might get the worm, but I am not a big fan of worms and would just as soon have gotten another hour of sleep.

    Plans for today: I will be going to the tailor of course. I hope she is able to help. After that, I am driving to Hamilton to spend a couple of hours with Lyle, whose wife is visiting with her father today. It is always good to sit with friends and enjoy a cigar. Because of that, I will adjust my eating schedule somewhat, and will have my meal in the later afternoon, rather than at noon. Afterwards, I hope to go for another fitness walk. It will likely not be as long as yesterday’s, but getting out is what is important, and not beating my previous score.

    I had a realization about habits yesterday which I am going to write about in a separate entry, but suffice it to say that I have not yet gotten into the habit of walking on a regular basis… at least, not to the point where it is automatic. I really need to get there. Until I do, I will continue to remind myself how important it is that I keep walking for my continued improvement, both in weight loss and overall health.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 205

    After five days of stagnation, the numbers on my bathroom scale were tremendous this morning. I saw a monster 2.6-pound drop from yesterday, taking me to my lowest weight! On the one hand, it is probably an aberration, and tomorrow it will correct itself up a bit. On the other hand, woohoo! I love seeing those numbers… and being able to demonstrate that what I am doing on my weight management program is working is huge for me.

    After four days of not walking, I will be back on the trails todayI I think I mentioned the other day that I plan to substitute my regular chicken (or fish) for a nice juicy steak for lunch today, as an occasional (very occasional) treat to relieve the monotony. While that is great, I still know that I will be paying for that transgression tomorrow (and subsequent days) if I do not work it off, starting immediately. So the steak will be my lunch, and then after teaching this afternoon I will hit the road, hoping to work up a good sweat. It would be nice if I can get 8km in, but I am not promising myself anything beyond suiting up and getting out there. I still feel a slight sensitivity, which I suspect is all in my head. If I detect it returning and getting worse, not only will I cut my workout short, I will also take a trip to the walk-in clinic to have it looked at. I am assuming that it is nothing… but if it is truly something, then there is only one thing that I can think of, and I do not want to think about that.

    My buddy Etienne, a fellow cigar sommelier from the North Shore of Montreal, came in yesterday afternoon. We shared a couple of very nice cigars on my balcony, but at the back of my mind I was thinking to myself that if he was going to spend the night on my couch, I was going to have to speak with him about food. I was concerned that if he wanted to go out for dinner (or order in) that I would be tempted.

    I told him that I did not have anything in the house, but that we could order in or go out. In the end, we opted to go to Fortino’s (supermarket) which has great prepared food options. He picked up a couple of slices of pizza; I picked up coffee beans (I had run out), my steak for today, and four (yes, only four) slices of dried mango. It is a shame that the dried mango you buy in the large bags (at Costco and elsewhere) is so much better than what you can buy at the bulk foods section of the supermarket, but I was not going to risk having that ambrosia in the house as a constant temptation. I ate them as Etienne enjoyed his pizza. Princess Sophie looked at him, then at me, and then decided to sit at his feet, having decided that the dried mango was nowhere near as delicious as the pizza.

    Speaking of Her Floofness, we did not sleep very well last night. We got to bed early enough, after a third walk of the evening. Because Etienne was sleeping on the couch, I closed the bedroom door when we went into the room. Sophie almost always gets onto the bed, and stays there the whole night. However, it would seem, she is comforted by the open bedroom door, and the potential for her to roam the entire apartment. It took her a very long time to get settled, twice going down from the bed and barking (very softly) at the door. Despite being in bed earlier than I had been in weeks (or months), I do not think I was asleep before 1:30am… and her unease woke me at least three times throughout the night. Needless to say, I hope to sleep much better tonight.

    —

    THIS JUST IN! STOP THE PRESSES!

    I was wearing a pair of pants yesterday and I realized that when I tightened the belt to hold them up, the top of the waist folded over the belt. This, for those of you who have never been really fat and then lost a lot of weight, is an indicator that the pants might be too big, and are being held up by a too-tight belt. At the same time, I knew that it was less than two months ago that I dropped comfortably and completely from Size-44 to Size-42 pants, and so I doubted I was ready to drop another size that fast.

    Nonetheless, this morning I decided (halfway through this entry) to pull out the bin of Size-40 pants. On the top of the pile was a pair of Dockers (which are, in theory, the same pants I wore yesterday). I held them up by the waist, and they looked… small. I tried them on anyways… not only did they go on, they fastened comfortably!

    I did not have time this morning to try on any other pair, and it is entirely possible that this is a larger Size-40. This evening, I will try on the rest of them (while on video call with Leslie), and I will see what I can start wearing. If there are more than two pair, then all of my Size-42 pants are being donated.

    Dropping pounds is great, but even a huge drop like I experienced today may show on the scale, but you still do not look smaller from one day (or even one week) to the next. The biggest indicator of success in weight loss is how your clothes fit, and dropping from a higher size to a lower size is big, huge, flashing neon sign non-scale victory, and a true bellwether that what I have been doing is working.

    Of all of the bins of clothes that I separated out early this year, the heaviest was the smaller sizes. Why? When I weigh less, I want to look better, so I buy better clothes… and more of them. During the summer of 2020 I bought several pair of pants, as well as lots of shirts. I am excited that this evening I will be trying those on, and while some of them will stay in the bin (I am sure that a lot of my XL shirts will not fit yet), I am hopeful that several pair of pants will be moved onto my shelves, and the bin will get a whole lot lighter.

    Today is going to be a good day. Despite my fatigue (thanks Princess), I am now invigorated and excited to get on with the day. I frankly wish my class was canceled so that I could spend the day walking and jogging. Of course, I cannot do that, but as long as I stay the course – my meal at lunch, my long fitness walk in the evening, my meal replacements, and no cheating – then I can continue to see results.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 200

    I have long since gotten out of the habit of reading where I was on my weight loss journeys from my previous two diaries. As today is a milestone (Day 200) I decided to take a gander, if only to encourage me a bit.

    In my 2017 diary, I had originally dropped to 275lbs, and by Day 220 (I took a long break from journaling) I was back up to 313lbs. If memory serves, I would spend a couple of months paying lip service to trying to stick with (or get back onto) the program, but I never again dropped below 300lbs, and eventually ended up where I eventually ended up… back where I had started.

    In my 2019-20 journal I was still living in my now ex-girlfriend’s house. It was the month before the world would shut down from the pandemic, but I was still unhappy with my situation. It is not difficult to read that in my writing – on Day 202 I wrote that her daughter had flown into town and the two of them were going away together for a few days, and how nice it would be to have the house to myself. It was extremely difficult living in a house with a woman who paid lip-service to eating well and being healthy, but for all of that was extremely overweight. I understand how that is, because I spent a lot of years thinking I knew how to eat healthy when in fact I had no idea.

    Anyhow, I had originally dropped to 304lbs, but was currently hovering around the 320lbs mark… only a few pounds off where I am at now. The difference is that back then I was rebounding from a better weight, whereas now I am on the ‘original downward trend.’ I would eventually, in the months that followed, drop to a tremendous 260lbs… but that was after I got out of her house, away from her negative influences and passive-aggressive behaviours.

    It is interesting to read from that time frame (Day 201) that I was going to make the long drive to Westlake Village, where I would eventually move and thrive. At this point, in February 2020, it was just another suburb of Los Angeles that I knew how to type into my GPS unit.

    Sometimes it is these milestones that make me look back to where I was the last time around and try to remember what caused me to eventually fail. In 2017 it was the terribly planned and executed move to Ottawa, coupled with the illness and then demise of my mother. While I do not remember at the time feeling so constantly torn about it, the truth is that I must have been. To have an abusive mother whose poisonous orbit I had finally been able to escape fall ill, to be encouraged and cajoled to let her back into my life, only to watch this unrepentant shrew of a woman deteriorate and die… the four-month process (not to mention the grieving and coming to terms with that relationship following her death) was hard on me. It can be no coincidence that in that time frame I regained fifty pounds from my best weight… and after trying to hold on, eventually abandoned all pretext of the weight management program.

    I failed in 2020 because I got comfortable. I remember the day that I lost my job in August I drove home and went for a very long walk. It is hard to remember when I started my fitness walking, but I do know that I was doing it through the first weeks of September 2020. At that point I started golfing on a regular basis, and somehow fooled myself into thinking that golfing (with a golf cart) was exercise, and that if my fitness tracker read 12,000 steps then I was really exercising. I stopped walking and jogging in lieu of golfing several times per week.

    It is coincidental timing that I had been eating well until around that time, and then decided after the Yom Kippur fast to indulge… I never recovered, and by February 2021 I was flirting with the 300-pound mark again. By December I was closer to 400-pounds than I ever had been… and hopefully I will never be back there. All because I stopped truly exercising, and because after religious services one night I decided to indulge in a meal of fried chicken from Von’s. Slippery slopes are easy to fall on… especially when you do not have a good support system.

    I mention that last part because I have a wonderful support system now. Leslie is wonderful, encouraging me along the way, and when I falter, she does not berate me, but helps me to understand what I did wrong, and what were the reasons behind it. She is my rock, and while I cannot lean entirely on her for my weight loss (I am, after all, the only one responsible for that), it is a huge help to have her by my side. How different might things have worked out if the day after Yom Kippur in 2020 I had someone to remind me ‘Yes, you cheated yesterday… you fell right off the wagon. That does not mean you cannot get right back onto it today. Look at how far you have come! I am so proud of you!’ I suspect if I had not been left to my own devices without a fallback, I would never have regained all of the weight.

    On such a milestone as today, Day 200, it is almost anti-climactic for my weight loss to be only .2 pounds. As I have said so often, down is better than up… but on Day 200 you would think there would be more. No, weight loss does not work that way. You can try your hardest and do your best (not only did I stick to the program yesterday, I also walked 9km), and the results are a trickle and not a flow. Sure, there will be other days when the floodgates open, and I will lose 1.5lbs from day to day… but I do not get to choose those days. The only thing that I can do is to stay on course with my program, which means that I will over time continue to lose weight.

    While there is another heat warning from Environment Canada for today, and the weather when I too Princess Sophie for her walk this morning was hot and humid, I am nevertheless going to venture out now rather than later for my fitness walk. I am seeing my sons this afternoon, and the forecast is calling for thunderstorms starting at 5:00pm and going through the night. If I want to get my (at least) six kilometres in to hit my seven-day target of fifty-five kilometres, now is the time to do it. I should be back in time to have lunch at 12:00pm, and then welcome my kids at 1:00pm as planned. I would normally want to give my legs a few more hours to recover, but I would rather walk in the sun than in the rain any day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • The Hairs on My Chinny Chin Chin!

    A few days ago, Leslie and I were chatting about my progress. She had looked at my before picture, and told me that I hardly look like the same person. She then pulled up a picture that we took on our first date, and told me how much slimmer my face is today than it was just ten months ago. I was thrilled that Leslie sees such a difference, and take it as an honest measure of my progress.

    She and I joke a lot that my beard is especially good for stroking as I think, and this morning I was thinking about something, stroking my beard as I do. I realized that something was missing… the rolls of fat under my beard that once made me look like I had several chins. It is not all gone, of course… I have over a hundred pounds to go before I reach my goal of being just overweight and not obese. There is no way that I could expect any body part to not have some fat, and I accept that.

    In order to stay motivated, we look for non-scale victories, and this is a big one for me. I am really happy with it, and will continue to look for them… and work toward them, because there is no way that any of them will happen on their own. I have to continue to eat right. I have to continue to exercise. I have to stay on track and keep my eyes on the prize. Only by doing that will these non-scale victories come… and eventually not only transition from morbidly obese to obese, but then to overweight, and eventually – one day – to healthy body type!

    I posted earlier that I was thrilled last night to see muscle definition in my legs, and that is a real non-scale victory that comes from the combination of weight-loss and exercise. Unless there has been a discovery that I am not aware of, there are no exercises one can do to lose weight in your face and neck, which means that progress is based solely on the weight loss.

    When I first tried to lose weight nearly twenty years ago, I went to Weight Watchers. One of the tools they liked to use was to show what certain weight loss milestones meant. A pound was demonstrated by showing a pound of butter. Ten pounds was a large bag of flour… and so on. It is not as easy to visualize what seventy pounds looks like. I did a quick image search on-line, and did not really find anything suitable. Then I searched ’70-pound dog images’ and came up with Labrador Retrievers, Boxers, and Bulldogs. Imagine that I have lost the equivalent of one of those.

    With that said, if you want to know what it feels like on my body to be that much slimmer, try this: Pick up a seventy-pound Labrador Retriever. If he or she is amenable, put him or her into a backpack. Go for a walk. Then put the doggie down gently, give them plenty of treats for cooperating, and walk back to where you started from. You feel it? That’s what it is like to lose that kind of weight.

    My children have a German Sheppard named Thor who weighs 95-pounds. I still have to lose a little more than Thor’s body weight before I am slim, but I have made progress, and recognizing that is one of the best ways to continue on the right path. Having a loving and supportive wife who stands by me and encourages me is another, and likely more important than everything else.

    Of course, my doggie, Her Royal Floofness, Princess Sophie, weighs in at a whopping sixteen pounds. Since July 11 (a little under four weeks ago), I have lost her body weight. As such she maybe a wonderful companion and a terrific friend, but when it comes to substantial weight loss, her body weight is not really an indicator of significant progress. I would be remiss, however, to discuss dogs without mentioning the best dog.

    I have a long way to go, but I am on the right track. The only way to measure success is with scales and measuring tapes, along with the size of my clothes. With that said, the best way to continue achieving success in those measurables is for me to see progress in my non-scale victories.