Losing a part of me

Category: Weight Management

  • Day 56

    I was very good on the diet yesterday, and yet the bathroom scale took back a full pound of weight loss. What I wouldn’t do for a solid floor on which I could reliably weigh myself? Of course, after a ten-pound drop in just over a week, I feel it’s a little like the Canada Revenue Agency. “Sorry, Mr. Garvis. We gave you a very generous tax refund last year… but it was too generous, and we are taking some of it back.” I know I am being silly, but it is frustrating when I cannot reliably track my progress day by day.

    My foot is not hurting as bad today as it was yesterday. Also, it is a relief to know that whatever damage I might have done to my knee over the winter, it is feeling better as well. It is possible that my knee will get better and worse with the weather, as I predicted a few weeks ago. I suppose only time will tell. I suspect that both knee and foot will be happier when I weigh less.

    The original forecast for today showed 10°c, but that seems to have been revised to a high of 6°c. I can live with that, especially since there is no wind to speak of. I will sit on the balcony this afternoon enjoying a cigar or two. I have a student who has asked me to be available for help throughout the day – I told him to reset his labs for this class, as something went wrong and if he does not fix it (possibly by starting from scratch) then the problems will compound throughout the class, and I do not want that to happen. If he does reach out to me, I might take a laptop onto the balcony to work with him. I do not know how warm it will be, especially if the stubborn beast does not want to turn the balcony heater on.

    I am seriously considering going to Montreal this weekend. I have a few things to take care of, and it should be a nice weekend for it. We’ll see.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 55

    A demonstration of willpower: Last week, I went to Costco. I picked up several items for myself, and knowing how much she loves them, I bought a bag of dried mangos for Leslie. That was Friday. Today is Tuesday, and I have still not opened the bag. Three months ago, the bag would not only be open, but it would also be nearly finished.

    I was able to get through Monday mostly according to plan. Breakfast shake, canned salmon on a salad for lunch, chicken and salad for dinner, and an evening meal replacement bar. I am trying to think if I had another shake in there somewhere, but I do not think so. It was, overall, a good diet day. Despite all this, the bathroom scale still registered my weight higher than the previous day.

    I am not going to get discouraged by the numbers on the scale – not when I am nearly eleven pounds down in the last ten days. Weight loss success must be judged based on trends, not individual registers on a chart. I will stay the course today, changing nothing from yesterday.

    My foot is still in pain, but it is a different pain. I am not sure if it is independent of the gout, or if it was never gout to begin with. I doubt that, as the colchicine really did make a difference. I will keep track of it now through my next doctor’s appointment and will make a point to discuss it with him.

    I have a few errands to run today, including a dental appointment to get a chipped filling fixed. He (the dentist) told me it shouldn’t be too long, which gives me hope that it will not be too painful either. I hope to have time for a cigar in the afternoon, but I am not sure. We’ll see how the day goes. While it is not as warm as it was yesterday, and it is supposed to snow throughout the day, it might still be an agreeable day for it. As I said… we’ll see.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 51

    Despite whatever fears I might have had last night, the bathroom scale was friendly this morning. If I had just weighed myself the once, I had lost four pounds from yesterday. However, knowing that I do not trust my bathroom, I got onto the scale three more times before getting a steady reading of just about half a pound down, which is certainly more reasonable.

    I always feel better after a haircut, but the next morning, after I have washed and shampooed, I feel even better. I know she prefers my hair slightly longer, but Leslie was quite taken by this haircut. Perhaps it was because the barber trimmed and tidied my beard as well… I do it on my own when needed, but I know I am not very good at it. When he does it, I know that the beard looks nice and even.

    I am going to work toward a reasonably easy and relaxing day today. I have a client meeting this morning and will likely have 2-3 hours of work from that. By midday the temperature will be around 0°c, which is about where it is now. The snow is expected to last all day, but that has never stopped me from sitting on my covered balcony with a cigar… or two. I might try to get together with friends over the weekend, but for today I want to just stay home and stay put. I know that Princess Sophie will be delighted if I take a nap with her at some point. It is just going to be one of those days.

    With regard to food, I am defrosting chicken for dinner. I have had a lot of fish over the last few days (including a lovely salmon steak last night, prepared with a dash of salt, a bit too much pepper, and fresh dill), and for the Sabbath meal I will switch back to my old favourite.

    If I can get a definitive answer from my friend T, I will also be booking our trip today. I am crossing my fingers that he takes his fingers out and makes up his mind!

    Have a great day everyone!

  • Day 34

    I am going to the doctor’s office to get weighed today. I do not think that it will be a successful attempt, as I still think my weight is over the upper limit of the scale. However, knowing that my bathroom floor will not allow me to take an accurate reading (and that it might be up or down fifteen pounds!) I decided to go anyways and see.

    My evening class is going well, and with the exception of IPv6 I am extremely comfortable with the material I am teaching now. DHCP and DNS are two topics that I have been lecturing on for over fifteen years, and frankly the changes to them over the years have been minor.

    I was mostly good on the program yesterday… I had a salad with canned salmon for lunch, but for the evening meal I bought and prepared salmon tails for Leslie and I (as well as making a large salad). I put them into the air fryer with lemon juice, a little salt, pepper, oregano, and dill. I air-fried them at 400°F for 11 minutes and plated them alone (opting to serve the salad in separate bowls. I brought the lemon juice to the table to allow for extra flavours, and the result was fabulous. I daresay, I seldom choose to prepare fish for dinner, but it really is an easy dish to prepare. The only cheat that I had yesterday was a slice of all-beef salami.

    For this evening Leslie is marinating chicken, and I know that if she is making it then I will love it. She is a really good cook. She asked me last night over dinner where I had learned to cook, and I gave her a bit of a rundown… yes, the genesis was in my mother’s house, but I cooked for myself ever since the Army, and on several occasions have even cooked for others. My repertoire is not too extensive, but I have a base that I can go to pretty easily. She told me that she asked because her ex was none too handy in the kitchen, and she does not want her son to get to the age of thirty without knowing how to make a sandwich. I told her about my grandfather, who after my grandmother went into the home would eat cans of anchovies for dinner because he did not know how to make anything else. I told her about my father, who I was certain would never leave my mother because he did not know how to make toast. I told her that I do not want to be that guy, and that I want to be able to eat well without having to eat out or order in every meal. I may not be able to make a lot of things, and what I do make is not complicated… but everything tastes good, and there is enough that I could make a different meal for every day of the week if I had to.

    —

    I am back from the doctor, and I am still several pounds above what their primary scale can measure… but they have a secondary scale that measured me at about what my bathroom scale has me at, if we take into account the weight of my clothes. I am unhappy to be this heavy, and I am certainly unhappy with the slower rate of progress (over my two previous attempts at this program); with that said, it is firstly possible that because of the floor/scale issues at the apartment I started out heavier that I recorded, and secondly, I need to remember that I have not been as religious with the program as I was the first two times. I might have already lost 40 lbs, who knows?

    I have a few hours to kill before I teach this evening, and I am going to spend most of that time on the balcony smoking cigars. Have a great day folks!

  • Tempting or Not

    My son (the younger) came over this evening, as he does once a fortnight. Tonight’s choice was Little Caesar (pizza and wings). Tempting? Yes. Did I? No. The pizza had pepperoni, and while I used to love pepperoni on my pizza, my religious evolution would preclude me from eating that today. The wings were barbecue, which may be good, but are not the flavour I would drool over. Frankly, as we watched his movie (a Thomas the Tank Engine movie) his popcorn was more of a temptation than the other bits. I did grab a handful of almonds. I will be glad to have them out of the house (when the last handful has been consumed). I will not be replenishing that stock.

  • Day 17

    My unreliably measured weight loss continues at a steady pace, and I am happy for that. I really do wish that I could be certain of the exact numbers on the scale, but I am not willing to move out of my apartment just to be able to weigh myself properly. Maybe when they re-open I will join a health club that has a reliable scale. Of course, the scale would not be the biggest benefit to joining a gym.

    Knowing that I cannot rely on my weigh-ins, I am forced to focus on something that is probably more important… if more difficult to chart. Non-scale victories (NSVs) are those things you notice have improved, or that you are able to do now that you could not do before. For example, wearing certain shirts without my belly showing will be a non-scale victory. Being able to comfortably wear the pants that I set aside to ‘try on again in a few weeks’ will be a non-scale victory. No longer being able to wear my larger pants because they fall right off will be a non-scale victory.

    Those are all quantifiable non-scale victories… and I while have not yet achieved any of them, I know that I am close. The shirt that I put on this morning still reveals my belly… but not nearly as much. I also feel that the pair of jeans I put on are a bit loose on me, and I needed to notch-up my belt in order to hold them up. I am likely a week or two away from wearing a pair of pants that did not fit me last week during ‘The Great Sorting,’ but any improvement is improvement.

    What are unquantifiable non-scale victories is that I am having an easier time of walking Princess Sophie… and it is no longer so painful to bend down and clean up after her (you know what I mean… don’t make me say it!). I spent about thirty minutes reorganizing my humidor this morning, which while I enjoy it, does take a toll on my knees and on my back. Today, it was much less an effort than it had been.

    Until I am able to reliably weigh myself, I am going to be satisfied with the non-scale victories. After all, those are really more important. How I feel, how well I am able to breathe and walk and bend down are what matter. Yes, I want to fit into my smaller clothes, so that is also important… but I am turning 50 years old in July, and I have to start paying closer attention to my health.

    Last night, I enjoyed my first meal in a little over two weeks. I prepared a piece of chicken and a salad. I might have over-seasoned the chicken, and it was amazing. It spent twenty-five minutes cooking in the air fryer, and then another ten minutes sitting patiently (in the same place) while I finished my phone call. I also prepared a salad – romaine lettuce base, with a slice of Vidalia onion, half of a vine-ripened tomato, one third of a cucumber, and a tablespoon of pumpkin seeds, then a teaspoon of sesame oil, and a few shakes of balsamic vinegar. It all comes out to about 400 calories, which is quite reasonable, especially since I only had three meal replacements and a handful of almonds yesterday. My daily intake was less than 1000 calories.

    Going forward, I will be having a similar meal every day. I do not want to fall off the program, but I am going to try the hybrid approach. Julie (my diet buddy) and I spoke last night, and she agrees that it is not a bad idea. With her hoping to visit Florida for Spring Break (she is a teacher), she told me she is going to stay the course with the program as best she can… although she has been having difficulties. I have already mentioned how much more difficult it is to do the program when you have teenagers in the house. It must be so much harder still when you are the one responsible for putting food on their plate. I do not envy her.

    I did not sleep well last night. Princess Sophie woke me up twice in the night – both times less than an hour after I had finally fallen asleep. The first time I took her out for a walk, the second time I coaxed her back into bed. I know my girl, and while she would have peed had we gone outside, it would have been minimal… and the effort of getting dressed and going, then settling back in (when it might take me another three hours to fall asleep again) was not worth the entertainment value to my girl who was just bored.

    I am working today but will make the time to take my meal replacements… one of which is due right now. Have a great day!

  • Golf Can Be Exercise… or not.

    About eighteen months ago I started golfing again. In fact, I became a very frequent golfer, often playing 5-6 times per week. I would either play with friends, or I would go to the course and let them pair me with someone new. It was quite relaxing, and very enjoyable. With very few exceptions, I would take a cart, and I would smoke a cigar (or two… or three) throughout the course of the eighteen holes.

    I have heard people argue as to the legitimacy of golf as a sport, and I think that is a silly argument. Of course golf is a sport. Whether or not it is exercise though… that is a different question.

    This is what I looked in in October 2020!Leading up to my return to golf in October 2020 I was either walking or jogging up to ten miles per day. When I started golfing (which was usually a 5-6 hour commitment) that ended, and it should not have but it did. I figured that if my fitness watch was registering over 10,000 steps per day when golfing, then I was fine. When I realized that driving the cart registered a lot of those steps, I should have immediately gone back to proper exercising… I did not, and over the next couple of months my weight crept… and then slid… and then completely fell off a cliff, and I was back to my heaviest weight ever.

    I want to be clear (I say that a lot) that eating has more to do with my terrible weight gain than did the exercise… but when I am in an exercise routine, I am focusing on my health and improving it. I know that if I am walking or jogging, for example, if I have a heavy meal then I will feel sluggish walking or jogging the next day. I watch my speed and distance when walking and jogging (using a combination of apps and other technologies), and I like to compete with myself to best my previous records – either weekly or monthly records, and sometimes my best-ever records. When I cheat, the results are immediate. I might jog a mile a minute or more slower than I had the previous day… and that is no way to best a record.

    It is a slippery slope that starts and ends with what you eat (and drink). There are, however, factors that can make you forget the dangers of ‘just this once’ or ‘I’ll just have a little.’ Coming off the golf course, I knew that when I got home, I would immediately have to take Princess Sophie to the park. I remember the first time I decided to stop at the supermarket on my way home to pick up a sandwich to eat in the car. I felt guilty as I sat there and ate it, however good it was. In fact, I likely took one of the slices of bread off and threw it away, so I was eating the sandwich open-faced, meaning less starchy bread. I probably did it again a few days later, and then again, and at some point, I stopped eating them open-faced. By that point, why not just have their delicious fried chicken? After all, the sandwich cost $5.99 and the eight pieces of fried chicken was only a couple of dollars more… and I would get two meals out of it. That’s how diets collapse.

    I was doing so well. In September 2020 I was at the lowest weight I had been in twenty years… and then it fell apart. By January 2022 I was at the heaviest weight I had been in my life. I did not get fat again because of golf. There were myriad life stresses going on through that fifteen-month period that all contributed to it, and there were two virtual launch spots for my falling off – one was the sudden passing of my father, and the other was my sudden relocation back to Canada. Had I still been exercising when my dad died, I might have taken the week off for the shiva but resumed right afterwards. Had I still been exercising when I came to Canada, I would have continued to do so here… and likely would not have made the myriad poor food choices that I did when eating out.

    If you have ever lived through a Canadian winter, then you know that starting a workout routine in the dead of winter is not the easiest thing to do. If you have lived through a Canadian winter during a pandemic where gyms and fitness centres are all closed, then you’ll know it is that much harder. I am not going easy on myself; I will continue my diet and I will lose enough weight so that by the time the snow is melted (and there is no risk of ice on the sidewalk) I will be able to start going on serious walks, and eventually starting to jog. As I have always done, I do not want to start jogging until I am below a certain weight, for fear of doing real damage to my knees.

    Yes, when the weather gets nicer, I will start golfing again. I do miss the Southern California climes in which I was able to golf year-round… but here I am, and I will settle for a May-October golf schedule. By the time I do get my first round of the season in, I would like to be fitting into some of the nicer (smaller) golf shirts that I sorted by size last week, and not the XXXL shirts that I know fit now.

    FORE!

  • Day 16

    I certainly ate more almonds yesterday than I should have. I am to the point where I am thinking the smart move would be to throw them out, so they are not in the house.

    There are some things that are not temptations. When Leslie was here in December, I bought a bag of white chocolate chips to make hot chocolate. I have not once said to myself ‘You know what? I can just take a measured amount of chocolate chips, and all will be fine.’ I know that chocolate is bad for the diet, and that is the end of it. Almonds, on the other hand, are specifically called out as acceptable cheats. “If you find yourself between meal replacements and you are hungry and you do not think you are going to make it, take a small handful of almonds.” This was advice from the staff when I went through the bariatric medical program a few years ago. Knowing that they are in the pantry, I am tempted by them… and while the occasional handful (one in any day) might be fine, yesterday I had two… larger than usual hands full.

    My girlfriend loves to spoil me. I certainly appreciate everything that she does, but sometimes she goes a step above, and I have to find some way to spoil her back. It is much easier to do when she is here, and trust me that when she comes to visit, I do my best to treat her right. Yesterday she sent me a picture of my Valentines Day gift, and my jaw dropped. I know there is not much that I can do to really compete (she knows of my passion for cigars and feeds that passion… let’s leave it at that), but what I can do is to show her thoughtful gestures. I went to the supermarket. I needed three things for myself at the supermarket (milk, coffee, and distilled water). Before I collected those items, I went to the sweets section and picked out a number of items that I know she will love. I will have to ship them today or tomorrow (we had another impressive snowfall last night, and I might not leave the house today), hoping they will arrive on her doorstep in time for that day.

    I did not mention this because I want to toot my horn. I bring it up because I now have chips, cookies, and other treats (all things she cannot get in the USA, before you ask) in a box on my counter. As with the chocolate chips, none of these are tempting me. Why? Because they will be bad for my diet… and I am happy with the progress I have made, and hope that I can continue to make progress without those back-slips that so often result in the complete implosion of one’s weight loss program.

    I did make a decision though, and it is going to be a serious change to my diet. I defrosted a chicken quarter and will have it for dinner. I am still on the fence about whether to make a salad or not, but I think that I might. It will not be an Israeli salad – there is too much sugar in that – but maybe I’ll buy some romaine lettuce, an onion, and a couple of other vegetables. I would still have tomato in it, but I know that both the onion and the tomato will have sugar in them, so I will keep those to a minimum (unlike the Israeli salad, which consists primarily of these).

    If today goes well, I am going to transition from meal replacements only to a hybrid program that consists of one meal and the rest products. I have to be careful, as it can be a slippery slope if I let myself falter. I do not want that. I do know, however, that I have had to reach for the almonds nearly every day this week, and most days more than once. If I am going to be on a hybrid program anyways, I would rather do it with a proper meal than with a handful of nuts (which I am not enjoying as much as I did).

    It is actually a pretty day outside, and I might go run those errands. If I do, then salad can be an option. Have a great day!

  • Day 15

    I have completed two whole weeks, and aside from some almonds, I have stuck to it. Yay me!

    I have to start by saying that I am in a really bad mood, and it has nothing to do with my weight loss or my body. It is about people from my past, and regrets. I was in one case a bad judge of character and helped someone who later betrayed me. I recently discovered that they are succeeding with something that I helped them with, and possibly with people that I introduced them to. I regret helping him, I regret introducing him to the other person, and despite myself I find myself hoping that he fails. On the other hand, the other person is a great guy, and just announced on Facebook the launch of a new venture in a new country. I truly hope he succeeds… I just hope the other person has nothing to do with it.

    “Resentment is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die.”

    While the source of that quote is unclear, the truth of it is not. That my eyes shot open well before my alarm because the possible connection between these two people came to mind is not healthy. I have to let go of it, and I will. It does not seem that as of this morning I have achieved that, but I will continue to work on it.

    In short: I couldn’t fall asleep; I finally did (around 2:00am), only to be awakened by Princess Sophie asking to go out at 5:00am. I was back asleep by 5:30am and awake again by 6:15am. Today is not starting out on a great note.

    Although I am reasonably happy with this morning’s weigh-in, the measurements are bothering me. It could just be that my fatigue and overall blah is preventing me from getting it right; it is also possible that for the last few weeks I measured wrong. Either way, my belly is about an inch smaller than it was last week… and my chest is two inches bigger. I’m not noting it down… something is just wrong, and I don’t much care right now.

    Yes, I am in a mood. No, I do not plan to throw my diet down the drain to make myself feel better… because it won’t. Yes, the food would comfort me in the immediate, but the diet progress is what makes me feel better every day. I have to keep focusing on that.

    By the way, what a lousy day to find out that the milk that I keep for my coffee turned. Before you ask, the expiry date was February 23 (nearly three weeks from now). Two sips into my first cup of coffee and it (along with a nearly full carton of milk) went down the drain.

    If there was ever a morning when I should say ‘Screw all this, I’m going back to bed!’ then it’s today… and that is exactly what I am going to do… after I get a couple of things taken care of. Who wants to place a wager whether Princess Sophie will want to curl up next to me for a couple of hours?

  • Distractions

    I enjoyed my meal-replacement soup exactly on schedule, and then picked a fine cigar to enjoy on the balcony… and after that, another. I was supposed to have a meeting at 5:30, but he canceled early, so I was able to finish that second cigar without rushing it. I came back into the house, took care of a couple of things, and then I realized that I was a bit hungry… not terribly, but I was ready for my next meal replacement. It was only once I made that decision that I realized that I was an hour late for it.

    While it is important to spread my nutrition out throughout the day, I was pleased to see that while I was enjoying my cigars I was not thinking about food. That is something important to remember – like so many other things, hunger (and eating) is sometimes more about what is in my head than what is in my stomach. How often have I eaten because I was bored, rather than actually hungry?

    There is an old saying that idle hands are the devil’s playground. I will have to remember that an idle mind is a glutton’s nightmare. The idle hands thing might play into it too… after all, throughout the time I was outside, I had a cigar in one hand and my phone in the other. Keeping just might be an important part of my weight management strategy… both while I am losing the weight, and when it comes time to maintaining it.