Losing a part of me

Category: Weight Management

  • Day 3

    It is interesting that my notes from Day 3 of my previous journal focus on three themes: scheduling (and how to make sure I have my meal replacements at the right time and intervals throughout the day), temptations, and my mood (which was quite cranky).

    This time around I do not feel like I am in a bad mood or cranky in any way… although from my notes, it seems that most of my crankiness resulted from interactions with other people, and I am not really spending a lot of time with others to notice. While I am still a bit sluggish, I would say that my mood is not a factor this time. The only people I did spend any amount of time with yesterday were the friends I collected from the airport, and there was no sort of clash or conflict there. I did have a bit of a row with a friend while I was waiting for them, and I was certainly cranky with her; if any part of that crankiness was due to a bad mood caused by a caloric deficiency, then it is only a small part.

    Scheduling is as much a factor this time around as it was last time, but I am certainly much more relaxed about it than I was. As I do not see it as an issue, I am not going to focus on it. Yes, it is important that I consume five meal replacements throughout the day… but if they are not timed exactly right, I will survive.

    Temptation is a slight issue, but only when I am out and about. Three years ago, when I started the program, I was spending a lot of my time with (and eventually living with) a girlfriend and her daughter. While most of their food did not really tempt me, the daughter was baking a chocolate cake on Day 3, and the smells around the house were incredible.

    One reason why living along is a better option for me when on the program is that not only was I tempted by the smells, but my girlfriend was also encouraging me to cheat. I know myself, and one cheat will lead to another which will eventually lead to failure. Each time I have started the program (or any diet, for that matter) I have either succeeded by being regimented or failed by being lackadaisical about it. Living alone, and for that matter being mostly separated from much of the world, it is just easier to succeed. To wit, the only time I was tempted yesterday was when I went out to pick my friends up from the airport. I got there on time (as did their flight), but there was a three-hour delay due to whatever, and because I had to leave the cellphone waiting area to find a toilet, I was tempted oh so briefly) to get a snack or something either at Tim Hortons or A&W. While I did get a cup of coffee (I feel guilt using the restroom and not ordering something), that was as far as the temptations went.

    My water consumption yesterday was a complete success. I probably went through six of my large steins before I left the house for the airport, and I took another portable cup with me. I did not finish it, as I did not know how long I would be waiting… as it is, I made two trips to the Tim Hortons restroom.

    The delay there did cause a slight aberrance to my meal replacement plan. I had my fourth meal replacement around 7:00pm, assuming I would be home around 10:15pm. Because of the three-hour delay, I was not actually home until after 1am, and so I grabbed the protein bar and went to bed.

    I did have a little trouble sleeping last night because of my knee (and my back seems to be a bit tight as well from the fall), but it was not terrible. Yes, I am still in pain and yes, I am still favouring it. However, I did get six hours of sleep, and only had to visit the loo twice.

    As I was writing this, my package from Amazon arrived, and I now have my 64-ounce water jug. Before I sit down to work, I will clean it out and fill it up. While I have not needed encouragement to drink more the last couple of days, I hope this will encourage me on days when I am not so in the mood…

    I have work to do today, so let’s get to it!

  • Water Water Everywhere…

    Yes, drinking water (and a lot of it) is a crucial part of my new weight loss program. Yesterday morning I went to the kitchen and pulled out a very solid glass beer stein that holds 4 cups (33⅓ oz) of water. It would be perfect for me! Yesterday I filled (and drained) it five times. Today (at 4:30pm) I have already finished four steins and expect to go through a few more before bedtime.

    While the stein is great, it is extremely heavy. It is not surprising, as a vessel engineered and built with the sole purpose of being wielded and clanked together by intoxicated Germans would need to have some heft to it.

    My original thinking was that I was going to buy a plastic water bottle to take with me. I then remembered that I have a few of those, and do not really need another one. However, for sitting around the house (whether I am working or not), I would really like to have something large but more practical. After all, getting up from my desk fifteen times per day to refill a 16oz cup would be distracting… especially knowing that, drinking as much as 160oz in a day, I will already be up to the toilet many more times than usual.

    clip_image002As I have done each time I started the program in the past, I decided to buy something that would be large (64oz) and durable, but also comfortable and practical. I opted for the Under Armour Playmaker 64oz Water Bottle Jug (in Breeze Blue). I like the look of it, and it looks like it will work nicely.

    I did not want something that I needed to unscrew to drink from. As well, I have had a few water bottles that had smaller drink holes, which made it hard to get a good chug (which is how I prefer to drink water, especially when it is mandated that I have to drink as much of it as I do.

    It may sound silly but when you have to focus on drinking a lot of water throughout every day, having an appropriate and comfortable vessel for it is important. I do not want to have to be doing dishes twice a day, I don’t want to be uncomfortable or unhappy with it, and I do not want to be inconvenienced by it. For the next few months, this will be the container that I consume from the most, and while I did not want to spend so much that it would be a luxury item, I also did not just want to buy something that I would be uncomfortable with… or have to settle for.

  • Day 2

    I made it through Day 1! …I think.

    If that sounds hesitant, I’ll explain. I lost track of how many meal replacements I had eaten, and at 10:30pm I had to grab another one. Yes, hard as it might be to believe, I made it through to 10:30pm on 640 calories (plus maybe 75 calories for my coffee with milk and sugar). Had I not been teaching until 11:30pm I likely would have just gone to sleep.

    This morning I do not feel a whole lot different than I did yesterday. I know that it will take a few days for that. In the meantime, I am proud that I was able to make it through Day 1 without cheating. I also drank a lot of water, which is extremely important on the program that I am doing.

    In our chat yesterday, Julie acknowledged that she nearly faltered as well… not because she was hungry, rather because she was cold. She thought about making herself a bowl of soup. As I had, she said to herself that if she is going to cheat, it will not be on Day 1. The discussion that sprang from this was about alternatives to the product that we have chosen to use. In Canada, the company provides two options – chocolate or vanilla shakes. In the US they have those, plus strawberry shakes… and soups (chicken, vegetable, and tomato, although the tomato soup is vile), and protein bars (I am partial to the apple cinnamon bars, although I rather like the chocolate, and do not mind the occasional peanut butter bar).

    I brought up the American product because I thought that it might be worth doing some research to find out if there are equivalent products to the soup in Canada. It does not have to be from the same manufacturer, it only has to have equivalent nutritional value. If so, then she would not have to worry about cheating if she wanted a warm bowl of soup. As the current temperature in Burlington is -18°C (with a wind chill of -26°C) that soup (or anything that might warm us up) would not be a bad idea.

    I am lucky… Among my possessions that were shipped from Canada there were several boxes of the soup, as well as of the bars. It will be some time before I run out and need to buy more. In the meantime, I have reached out to the company I used to buy from to see if they would ship to Canada. In case they do not (or in the event the price would be too high), Julie has found a number of sources where we can buy the products in Canada… just not the soups or the bars.

    It is cold outside, so I do not plan to go out until it is time to collect my friends from the airport (a commitment I made last week and am happy to do). Their plane is scheduled to land at 9:30pm, by which point the mercury will have risen to an almost balmy (sic) -12°. If it were 5-8 degrees warmer, I would sit in the airport’s cell phone waiting lot and smoke a cigar until they cleared customs. As it is, I doubt I will leave that early to get there. The only thing I have to remember to do is to pick up a carton of milk, lest I have to drink my coffee black in the morning.

    Who’s That Mucking About in the Kitchen?

    As I read through the intro pages to my journal from my last attempt at this program, I was reminded of a few differences between the two previous attempts that made a difference.

    One of the major differences was that in 2017 I was living alone, and in 2019 (at the outset of the program) I was not. It made a huge difference. When I started in 2017, I emptied my kitchen of everything. All of the food, even the spices were removed from my apartment. There were no temptations… and there was nobody eating around me (and causing temptation). I was also not in a relationship, so there was no temptation (or reason) to sit with anyone who was eating.

    When I started the program in 2019, I was living with Liza, and while she understood at (or said she did) that I was not going to sit with her while she ate her meals, that did not last long. I had to sit with her. When she made a Sabbath meal, she expected me to at least say the blessing on the bread (bread is strictly forbidden on this program), and usually eat something. She never accepted that I did not want to veer, and the fact that I did on a particular day was not a sign that I would want to cheat either later that day or the following day. Quite the contrary, actually… if I cheated on a meal, I would want to get right back onto the program… but she did not understand or accept that.

    The fact that Liza was also morbidly obese made things difficult for me… any time I tried to talk to her about trying to join me on the program was met with… well, about exactly the reaction you would expect from a woman when you point out that she might be happy to lose a few pounds.

    Needless to say, between the woman I was living with eating (and pressuring me to eat), and the fact that there was always a kitchen full of food, it was a challenge to succeed. In truth, I was much more successful on the program once I moved out of her house and into my own apartment, where I was once again able to maintain a mostly empty kitchen.

    This time around, I am once again living alone. While I did not completely empty my pantries and refrigerator, I did get rid of anything that was perishable, or fattening. The spices and hot sauces will keep, as will the jars of whatever is in jars. Wednesday evening my friend (a professional chef) was over, and I went through both my shelves and my fridge and gave him a huge bag of groceries that I will not need. Next week my cleaning lady will go through the pantry to clean the shelves (there have been a number of spills in there), and once that is done, I am considering sealing the doors. Maybe that would be a bit extreme, but we will see.

    Over the next few months, I hope to see a tremendous (and positive) transformation of my body. I will do my best to do what I can to make that happen… and if that means throwing all of the food out of my pantry or sealing them shut then I will do that. I don’t think it will come to that. I am highly motivated, and plan to succeed!

  • Day 1, Middle of the Day (4:00pm)

    So far, so good. It may sound like a false brag that less than 9 hours after I woke up, I have not yet broken my diet, but for those of you who have tried to start (and failed) you will know that even getting going is a huge step.

    After walking Princess Sophie this morning, I had my first shake and a couple of cups of coffee. By the time 1pm rolled around it was actually 2.5 cups of coffee, which is how much my coffee machine makes when set to the half pot setting. Around 1pm I had my second meal replacement (this time a bowl of soup). About half an hour ago I had my third meal replacement (a protein bar). I admit, I am still a wee bit peckish now, but I will endure. Knowing me, I will eventually be breaking the diet, or making exceptions for this or that… but it will not be on Day 1.

    Unlike the other times I embarked upon this journey, I am doing it this time without any medical help. I did tell my doctor that I would be doing it, and he encouraged me to do so. He is a general practitioner, and not a bariatric specialist. In fact, when I asked if he could get the meal replacements that are prescribed in the program, he told me he was not even familiar with them.

    I mention this because unlike the other times I have gone through the program, there are a lot of things that I am going to have to try to remember myself. The first one of these is that drinking huge amounts of water throughout the day not only helps to dissipate hunger pangs, it also helps flush your system and increases the rate of weight loss. And so, I will be drinking a lot of water, and in fact I have already started. I have a stein that I measured to hold exactly 4 cups of water. When I woke up, it was about half full. I drained it upon returning from Princess Sophie’s first walk. I then measured it to establish it was indeed 4 cups and have filled it twice so far. It will sit on my desk, and I will go through it at a pretty fair clip. I will make it my goal to drink 16-20 cups of water per day. This, of course, means that I am going to spend a great deal of time running to the toilet. As I am working from home (and not going out very much) this will not be an issue, except that I will have to warn my students that it is to be expected.

    What else would I be reminded of by the doctors? I don’t remember. However, I do have the old journals that I kept during my previous two attempts at this program. Each one is a few hundred pages long, organized chronologically. I intend to read each day of the diary I kept two years ago, which will tell me on each day what I learned, as well as what I was thinking and feeling at the time.

    Dieting is not fun, but neither is being fat. At least with this program (and with my program buddy) I might stand a chance at being successful.

  • Day 1: Welcome To The Extreme!

    Welcome to my extreme diet program. This is my third kick at the can with this particular diet, and I have twice lost nearly or just over 100lbs. That tells me that it works… it says nothing about the sustainability of the weight loss. That will be another struggle, and I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

    Where to start? In October an online friend and I were chatting. She and I have both done the same weight loss program before, and we decided that we were going to do it again… together. First, we were going to wait for Canadian Thanksgiving to pass… and then I had a friend coming into town for a week… and then and then and then. We never started.

    Earlier this week (the third week of January 2022) she reached out to me and said that she was starting, and did I want to join her. In fact, she beat me to the punch… I was at my heaviest weight ever, and completely disgusted with myself. She and I got onto the phone to discuss the plan. I did a quick calculation of the food I had in the house and said, ‘Let’s start Thursday.’

    Over the course of the next few days, I ate most of the food that I had in the house. Unlike the previous times I had started this extreme program, I did not really have a ‘food funeral.’ I did not go out to eat much (I did have a fast-food lunch the last day before starting, but that was less out of desire and more out of expedience. With the exception of one chicken quarter and one package of extra-lean ground beef, I finished the poultry and meats from my freezer. Most of the snacks were eaten. Wednesday afternoon a friend was over, and as he sat in my kitchen I went through my fridge and my pantry, giving him a huge bag of all manner of foods that I did not want to have in the house (and things that would spoil). I had enough left over for dinner and snacks for that night… and that was about it.

    Julie and I had been discussing this morning in terms of ‘getting onto the scale.’ For her, knowing that she is also at her highest weight, that was her biggest fear. She was worried that she would see the numbers, get depressed, and start eating. I told her to change how she looks at it. When she steps onto the scale, she should write the number down… and vow that she will never be that heavy again. Stick to the program and see how far below that number you can get in a week… in a month. I told her that unfortunately bathroom scales, when you are as close to the upper limit of what the scale maximum is, might not give a proper measurement, and whatever number I marked down might be an approximation.

    Thursday morning, I woke up and did my regular routine… except that before I got into the shower I got onto the scale and registered my highest weight ever. I took out the measuring tape and measured around my belly, chest, and under my belly fat. All of the numbers were way too high. All of those numbers would start going down.

    After I took Princess Sophie for her walk, I made a pot of coffee, and my first meal-replacement shake of the day. Whereas yesterday morning I had a large omelet with salami and onions with a few slices of toast (approximately 1,000 calories), this morning I had a protein shake – exactly 160 calories. If I am able to maintain the program, my daily caloric intake will be less than yesterday’s breakfast.

    (Julie and I agreed that the one violation of the program that we were not going to sacrifice would be our coffee… although instead of her half-and-half cream, she would try skim milk (as I already use), and I would (for now) stick to the half-teaspoon of raw sugar I usually use, although in time I will likely switch that to sweetener. Two cups of coffee per day would add about 50 calories to our total.)

    There are so many things that I want to say, but I am going to save them for a later entry. I will say this: This morning I registered the domain name losingapartof.me and added it to my blog. More accurately, I added it to my weight loss blog, a page that I started in October 2014, and which has laid dormant since March 2015. I am not clearing out the 22 posts that are still there from way back when, but I am going to start posting these entries there daily. My blog posts will be somewhat stripped, compared to what I write in my unabridged weight loss diary. I do not plan to share my weight or measurements with the public… although I will gladly share how much I lose week-over-week, and in total.

    Today is January 22, and it is Day 1 of my new weight loss plan. I have to succeed… there is no way I can continue being morbidly obese and not eventually face terrible consequences to my health. Wish me luck!