Losing a part of me

Category: Weight Loss

  • Day 791

    I was on my way down the rabbit hole last night when I got another message… this time I responded. I have no idea where this is going to go, but for now there was a positive conversation in which we discussed the root cause of a lot of our issues… and in which we clarified that I did not have sex when I was in Cuba. Where do we go from here? Another conversation I suppose… and then another. We will see where it leads. 

    My weight jumped a pound this morning, and is back above 280 lbs. again. This is the last time I will write that. I am done gaining weight. I am redoubling my weight loss efforts effective today. I am not buying any more bread or yogurt or breakfast cereals or anything else that might be hampering my progress. Yes, I have gained forty pounds back since the beginning of November. Whatever might happen with anyone else… that ends now. It is time for me to pick myself up by my bootstraps and reclaim the ground that I have lost. 

    Have a great day folks. 

  • Day 776

    After four straight days of gains (totaling 6.6 lbs.) it was a relief to see a serious drop on the bathroom scale this morning. I lost 2.8 lbs. from yesterday, which brings me back down below that dreaded 270 lbs. mark. Phew!

    With that said, I was not very good yesterday. I had a chicken shawarma pita for lunch (which is not the worst thing in the world), and two protein bars in the late afternoon. There is a saying about idle hands being the devil’s whatever… I arrived at the area where I was meeting my buddy in the evening 45 minutes early, and I parked in front of a supermarket. I went in to pick up some nuts but came out with dried mangos and a bag of party mix, and indulged both while I waited, and then on the 45-minute drive home. I was kicking myself for this, and because of it was not expecting a good result from the bathroom scale this morning. While luck really has nothing to do with it, I am nonetheless using the phrase ‘I got lucky.’ While I do have to get into my car (where the two bags are waiting for me) today, I will not be opening them.

    I thought I slept pretty well last night, with my fitness watch clocking 8h4m of sleep. With that said, it only gave me a sleep score of 50, citing ‘poor recovery.’ I wonder if I don’t get better sleep when I take a melatonin gummy shortly before bed. I will try that this evening and see what happens. I was back from Toronto yesterday by 10:00pm but did not really get to sleep until midnight. This evening, I only have to drive to Mississauga to pick something up and will most likely head right home. The only plans I should have after 7:30pm are to walk my puppy and to smoke my cigars. Hopefully, with a nice and relaxing day planned, I will be able to get a very good night sleep tonight.

    Once again, I want to thank my readers who reached out to me over the last few days for their caring and support. It meant the world to me when my spirits were low, and I have not forgotten now that my spirits are higher.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 775

    I so appreciated the friends and readers who reached out to me after yesterday’s glum post. Yes, I am in a bad spot with my weight, and yes, I have to do something about it. What? That’s a good question. I know I have to cut out starches and minimize carbohydrates. I am going to do that starting today. I have no more bread or breakfast cereal in the house which is a good start. What will not help is that I am heading into Toronto for the day and am having lunch with a friend and then likely dinner as well (with another friend). I am actually hoping that the second friend does not want to eat, and in anticipation of that I have packed a couple of protein bars into the bag I am taking with me. I have to try to do well here, and I think I can… and I want to do it for myself. My weight crept up to and over 270 lbs. yesterday and today, and I want to get back down. Hopefully I will figure this out. If not, then I am seriously considering taking two weeks to do the extreme program I was on… I have the product in my pantry, so if I need to, I can just do it. I hope it does not need to come to that.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 769

    After yesterday’s horrible 2.4 lbs. gain, it was a relief to drop most of a pound this morning. I understand that I am not as active this week as I would like – what with the class that I am teaching, but also with my recovering from a terrible head cold (in addition to nearly a week of diarrhea), I have not been in the right headspace (or I suppose body space) to work out. I am still not feeling great, and do not expect to be back on the treadmill before the weekend.

    I made a pretty spontaneous decision yesterday… I booked another trip to Havana for the last week of March. Yes, that is scarcely a month after I got back from my last trip… but it might also be my last opportunity to go away for a few months, as I am starting a teaching contract April 1 that will have me teaching three evenings per week until the end of July. That is good news for my ability to earn a living and pay my bills but does not bode quite so well for my ability to go away… at least not to destinations where reliable Internet is a myth.

    I am skipping dinner tonight… sort of. I have a couple of errands I need to run, and then I am going to Hamilton to pick out a couple of new shirts to have tailored for me. Yes, it is that time again… the Hong Kong tailor is here for a couple of days, and while I have been in the dumps lately, I am going to get a couple of new shirts, and maybe a new sports jacket. I don’t know… something new to brighten my wardrobe for the summer. We’ll see. In any event, I know that I will be out of the house from 5:30 until 9:15 or so, and I am not going to eat that late; I will take a protein bar with me in case I get hungry though… and maybe I’ll pick up some peanuts.

    By the way, when I do get home from all of those errands, I will have a meeting with my diet buddy. We have not spoken since before I left for Cuba… it will be great to chat with her again!

    Tomorrow morning, I have to go to get a document notarized. I would give anything to change that… but that’s life. Not all of life is pleasant, and not all of it is in our control. We can only control ourselves, and sometimes the whims, perceptions, and mental issues of others can crash down on us. The best that we can do is survive and try to recover. That is what I will do.

    I’ll see you tomorrow.

  • Day 742

    After my weight did not drop at all yesterday, I thought that I might try to adjust my eating. That did not happen though, and I ate the same as I had the previous day – an omelet with the last of my rolls for breakfast, and then in the late afternoon I had my usual chicken with a couple of spring rolls (all air-fried). I ate nothing after 5:30pm, despite slight hunger pangs in the evening before bed. I was asleep much earlier than normal – for the first time in a few weeks I was asleep before 11:00pm, and despite getting up twice in the night to pee (which I had not been doing lately), I slept a full eight hours. According to my fitness watch, my sleep score has been between 79 and 87 every night this past week (except for Sunday, when I hardly slept – see Day 739). I am still extremely down about what is going on in my life, but at least I am starting to sleep better.

    All of this to say that while I did not lose the entirety of the weight that I gained two days ago, I did drop most of it. Phew! I hope to be able to continue that trend tomorrow.

    I was originally supposed to be teaching yesterday, today, and tomorrow. For reasons that have nothing to do with me each was canceled, giving me three days of paid work that are essentially days off. I still spent much of yesterday preparing for the classes because today and tomorrow were not cancelled until late yesterday afternoon, but today I get to breathe.

    Speaking of room to breathe, I am thinking seriously about taking off for a week or ten days. I might head down to Cuba for an escape from reality. It has been nearly two years since I was last there, and I miss my friends… and I have too many things rattling through my head that I need to figure out how to clear. I am going to ask a couple of buddies if they want to come along. Hopefully it will be fun.

    See you tomorrow.

  • Day 732

    I was pleased to record another significant drop in my weight from yesterday morning, extending my streak to five days in a row. I do not know if I should be celebrating that I am back below the 260 lbs. mark just yet, knowing that I achieved that in August, and then fell off the wagon in October. I am still 21 lbs. heavier than I was on my best day, and that is a lot of lost ground that I need to recover. I will get there… but I know it will take time. Looking at my charts, it took me a little more than two months to drop from 262 lbs. to 238 lbs. the last time. If I can stick with my program, I should be able to get back there by mid-March or so. I can live with that. It is just a shame that I let myself fall off the way I did. While I know that psychological trauma and depression are the reasons, I do not like making excuses for myself. I failed, and now it is time to get back on track.

    Yesterday was a better day than it should have been, owing to the fact that I was not in a convenient place to eat dinner. I did my 5km jaunt on the treadmill before lunch, and then cleaned up, ate, and did some work before heading out to Cambridge to see my friends. The dinner they were serving was not kosher, and having eaten a very late lunch I was not hungry anyways. On my way home I stopped for gas, and I bought a small package of almonds. I could have done worse!

    I am teaching today but will have the evening off. I am preparing fish and rice for dinner, and will then have a relaxing evening on the balcony.

    I’ll see you all tomorrow.

  • Day 731

    I suppose working out yesterday was a big factor for my fourth weight-loss day in a row this morning. I have to keep at it despite all of the emotional garbage that I am going through. I will eat carefully and mindfully, and I will work out as many days as I can. I know there will be times when that will be impossible, but I am going to keep trying to get back to where I was when I was under 240 lbs. (around the middle of October).

    My plans for today include working out, then working for a few hours (Okay, for a few more hours, as I have already spent an hour writing emails and fighting with labs). After that, I am going to head to my buddy’s place in Cambridge. His football team is in the playoffs, and while I don’t care who wins or loses, I still enjoy watching the games. I also enjoy being able to smoke a cigar in the warmth from time to time!

    I’ll see you tomorrow.

  • Day 725

    I was neither upset nor surprised yesterday morning when I stepped onto the scale to find my weight had jumped three pounds in a day; aside from the fact that Saturday was a travel day, it was also a day replete with flight delays and cancellations which had me sitting in the American Airlines lounge for several hours… before getting onto a flight where the flight attendant was distributing meals and snacks and drinks. I remember writing that I hoped that at least a couple of those pounds would come off before I fly back home Wednesday evening. I was definitely surprised (and not at all upset) this morning to find that I had not only lost all of that weight in a single day, but another pound to boot! We did not eat particularly well yesterday, but we also did not eat particularly much.

    It has been much colder in Dallas than one would expect when thinking of what the weather should be in Texas. We woke up this morning to find it had snowed, and it even continued to snow on and off throughout the morning. I estimate there was nearly a centimetre of snow on the ground. In Canada that would be called Monday. In Dallas, where cars do not have snow tyres and most drivers have little experience and no training in winter driving, it is a day where most people will stay close to home. School and many businesses are not affected as they were last year when I was here for the ice storm because it is a national holiday today, but I suspect many would be closed due to weather. I am going to phone a couple of businesses to see if they are open, but I am not holding my breath. There is enough food in the house for us (I prepared grilled chicken and rice for lunch, and we can find what to eat for dinner), so even if the businesses are open I do not expect we will be leaving the comfort of the apartment… except to walk the dog, which Leslie did alone this morning.

    I suspect many will think me crazy, but I am probably going to sit on the balcony and enjoy a cigar this afternoon. The forecast high is -4°C (25°F), but the sun is out, and the wind seems to have died down. I am not going to do much else aside from that today. Leslie and I have been talking a lot and that is more important. We do not need to be out and about that to talk and spend time together.

    I’ll see you tomorrow.

  • Day 722

    My weight was down another couple of pounds this morning. While it is not what I was hoping to be at for my trip to Dallas (which begins tomorrow morning), it is now four pounds down over the last couple of days. While I was on the brink of hitting the dreaded 270 lbs. mark, I am back to 265… terrible for where I was a couple of months ago, but better than where I was just a few days ago.

    Tomorrow morning I am getting up ridiculously early to head to the airport. I was on the fence about whether I should take an Uber or drive. When I went down to my car this morning to drive to the store before class started, I discovered my battery was dead, which means that unless I get a boost today that decision has been made for me. We’ll see… I might try to get a boost, and still take the Uber. With the luggage it is easier to be dropped at (and then picked up from) the terminal, rather than having to schlep.

    See you tomorrow… either from the airport or from Dallas.

  • Day 713

    I did not lose any weight this morning. I also did not gain any, which is a good thing. I know that I went overboard on food yesterday. Today I did not, and I am hopeful that my weight will be down at least slightly tomorrow morning.

    This is another ‘near the end of the day’ post – in fact, it is already 10:15 as I sat down to write, and my students are working on their labs for an hour. I’ll be lecturing again soon. With that said, I think the eating portion of my day is behind me. I would probably snack if there was something in the house, but there is not. At least, there is nothing that I can think of. It is better that way… snacking is bad for my program, right?

    Today was a reasonably good day. Not only did I mostly stick to my eating regimen, but I also took my new (to me) treadmill out for its inaugural spin. I Walked at a very quick pace and did a strong five miles. I was very pleased with myself. I would have gone longer, but my wife called me with some very exciting news. No, I am not going to share. Live with it

    The treadmill came into the house Sunday afternoon and was assembled thanks to my buddy (we worked on it together and it was NOT as easy as we hoped). It was heavier than I expected… but then, I wanted a heavy-duty treadmill that would not feel like a toy… and that would support my weight. Even at my current weight that is an issue with a lot of models – I saw a few with limits of 250 lbs., and while I will be under that again soon… I expect that if my weight is at or near their recommended limit then I will not enjoy the experience.

    Princess Sophie went to the neighbour’s for a playdate this morning. That gave me the opportunity to rearrange the furniture in my bedroom. I went through seven arrangements before settling on the one I liked best… or at least the one I dislike the least. If the bedroom was one foot bigger each way I would have had a lot more options… but alas, we play the cards we are dealt, right? I did want to make sure that however I laid things out that I would be able to watch my television from the treadmill, and that worked very well. I watched the first half of a movie that I quite enjoyed.

    My buddy Eduardo came over for a cigar in the afternoon. It was good to see him, and chat about this and that. He is a great guy to chat with… although I know that he is going to discuss both Israeli and South American politics with me every time. It doesn’t bother me… Just predictable.

    Okay, it’s time for me to go back to work. See you all tomorrow.