Losing a part of me

Category: Work

  • Day 387

    It is seldom that I am so tired at the end of a Thursday that I am really just waiting for the weekend to get here. I love my work and I love teaching, but this week I was scheduled to teach four twelve-hour days (and one blessedly short 8-hour day). “…and He rested on the seventh day from all His work.” No, I am not comparing myself to Him, and I know there are much harder jobs that I could be doing… but it is from Genesis 2:2 of Torah that we derive the origin of the commandment to rest on the Sabbath. We all rest in our own way, but I will definitely be enjoying my weekend.

    After a frustrating week of very minor drops (and a few days without even that), I was relieved to step onto the bathroom scale this morning to realize a .8 lb. drop from yesterday. While that brings my week-over-week drop to an almost anemic 1.6 lbs. from last Friday, I also have to accept that leading up to that day, I had lost nearly 8 lbs. over the previous week. I know this slowdown was my body adjusting to that shock, and I am grateful that there was no day that I actually gained weight!

    Last night was amazing. It was my only evening this week that I was not teaching, and I got to spend it with my wife. Leslie and I had a lovely video cigar date that was so peaceful that I did not want it to end. We both enjoyed two cigars, which is not as common as you might think for the middle of winter. It helped that while rainy, the temperatures in Burlington were hovering around 3°, and until the wind picked up toward the very end of our second cigar, it was really quite pleasant outside. I did bundle up in my winter jacket, but I did not even think to wear my scarf. Leslie and I discussed myriad topics from the day – some more difficult than others – and I think we both realized that our harder days are made easier because we have each other.

    Looking back on this week, I am torn between being proud that I stuck to my full-fast program religiously – allowing myself only an extra cup of tea and a few lozenges – and disappointed that I could not be more active. I am looking forward to next week, which will be a much less busy week (only three evening classes) and seeing if I can get more exercise. At the same time, I am concerned that without the 12-hour structured day requiring tremendous focus I might find it more difficult to stay true to the program. I know that I was able to do it over last weekend, so I am probably concerned for nothing. I also hope that aside from the few social and personal obligations that I have I will still be able to focus on studying and getting ready for that next exam that I want to take. I know that over the last two weeks I have not made any progress with that; I am comforted by the fact that this was not because I was lazy or distracted, rather I was traveling and then working. Perhaps I am not losing focus, and the ADHD meds are still working!

    I took my shirts and sports jacket to the dry cleaners last night and will not have them back until Tuesday. Today I am wearing a shirt that is button-down but more casual, still with a necktie, under my blue sports jacket (which has now been altered twice and does not fit nearly as well). I still think I look okay but am looking forward to having my full wardrobe back. Last night I was musing with Leslie about what I might order when I visit the tailor on March 1. They always have package specials which they do not post on their website, so unless they send an email blast, I will have to wait until the day to make my final decisions. As much as I want to look good, I would not be spending their full retail prices for custom-tailored clothes. I am hoping to get a few shirts, a couple pair of pants, a couple vests, and a sports jacket. I will not allow myself to spend more than $2000 Canadian dollars for my order though… taxes, duties, and delivery included. We’ll see what they are offering. I am still excited that I can really start investing in looking good!

    Looking good may begin with the clothes, but proper grooming is critical. To that end, I am relieved to be going for a haircut on Tuesday. There is an undefined but clear delineation with my hair between short, longer but still looks good, and ‘can comb it as much as I want but by 11am it still looks unkempt.’ I transitioned from Stage 2 to Stage 3 somewhere between Friday and Tuesday.

    My plan for the day is, once again, to stay on track. I walked into Fortino’s yesterday evening after I dropped off my dry cleaning, and I was tempted to buy a challah roll for this evening’s Shabbat prayers. Almost as soon as I thought of it, I dismissed the idea. There are so many ways for me to fall off the wagon, but I am not going to blame my relationship with G-d for any of my failures. I marked down three short-term goals yesterday, and the best way to ensure that I do not hit any of them is to start doing stupid things like eating bread and blaming G-d for it.

    Aside from my actual weight, there are a few other numbers on my weight tracking spreadsheet that I like looking at… My Body Mass Index (BMI) has dropped from 49.5 to 36.4, my body fat has dropped from 39.9 to 32.3, and my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) has dropped from 2,884 to 2,201. These are huge improvements! I am still not in the healthy range, but I am on my way. With patience, dedication, and the support of my small circle, I will get there eventually. It would be nice if I could do that in this calendar year.

    Okay, it is time to start teaching. It will be another long day, but at least today I have a lunch break, and my class will be doing some of their labs.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 385

    I cheated yesterday, but not on the program! At lunch I went out as planned to buy a not-really-milk product for my coffee. As I was driving to the store, I realized that my gas tank was nearly empty. I was about to pass a petrol station when I realized this, so I pulled in and filled the tank. The station is in the same plaza as a supermarket (but not the one I would usually go to), and I did not expect that store to have what I wanted… but I decided to chance it. Sure enough, they had the oat milk I wanted! The advantage of FreshCo over Fortino’s is that they do not have the huge prepared-foods and fresh bakery sections between the door and where I needed to be. I cheated temptation, and also put fewer miles on my car. It was a win-win situation. Stay tuned for more life hacks! The only downside is that I did not get to the dry cleaner which is adjacent to Fortino’s… but I had left my shirts at home, so it did not matter.

    Staying on track is not easy, but I am doing everything that I can. I am flying down to Dallas in under a month, and I know that I will not be down to my best weight ever by then, but I will certainly weigh less than I do today. Even if it is 10-15 pounds less, that will be so much better than I am now, and certainly less than when I was there last week. All I have to do to achieve that is to stay on the program, and not cheat. I might not lose fifteen pounds… but if I stay on track, at least I will not gain weight. All I can ask for day over day is to do better than the previous day… whether that means my weight is lower, or I have a better attitude, or whatever better might mean on any given day. I know that I was thrilled last week when I was losing so much weight and it felt like it was just melting off, but most weeks will not be like that. These last few days that I have hardly lost any weight are not failures, I simply have to look for other wins. For example, yesterday I went to the supermarket and did not cheat! Also, I have gotten through the first two of my 12-hour teaching days without falling… or yelling, cursing, or anything bad. Today is day three, and once I am through it then tomorrow is a shorter day… I only teach during the day (and it will be the only day this week). Now that I think of it, I am really looking forward to the weekend when I can relax a little.

    I really enjoyed putting on my suit for class yesterday. I knew that my evening class was ending after three months, and I wanted to celebrate it. I was not entirely impressed when I saw the grades on their end of class quizzes though… I truly hope that all of them will study hard for the exam before they take it. As for my daytime class, the two really boring and grueling days are done, and tomorrow we can start with some labs and hands-on stuff, instead of just eight straight hours of lecture (which for the last couple of days was then followed by 3.5 more straight hours of lecture).

    This morning I was going to put on my blue sports jacket, but instead decided to wear my vest. I decided that I really like the look, and while this vest is at the very limit of my being able to wear it (it was tailored to me 80 lbs. ago!) I can get a couple more uses out of it… and when I go to the tailor for new shirts in a few weeks, I will order at least one and probably two more!

    It is funny that I woke up this morning, did my morning rituals, got dressed, and took HRF Princess Sophie for her walk, and it was only as we were coming in from that walk that I realized that I was scheduled to go to the doctor’s office to get weighed. I panicked for the three seconds it took me to realize that I was nowhere near late, and then I took Princess Sophie upstairs (she insisted on going to see Sue) and then I got into my car and drove to the doctor’s. I told the nurse as I was preparing to step onto the scale that if the number read at or below 129 kg then I would be celebrating because I would have hit the fifty kilos lost milestone. I missed it by 200g – I weighed 129.2 kg. I was hugely disappointed… until I realized that meant that in the past three weeks since my last official weigh-in I have lost 4.6kg, and that includes a trip to Dallas where I cheated a lot. I changed my tune and called it a huge success! While that ‘official’ milestone will need to wait another couple of weeks, I look forward to smashing it, rather than just eking by.

    Yesterday afternoon I was feeling weak and hungry, and my body told me that I needed my meal replacement now. I do not remember that happening too often these last few weeks. This morning (it is now 11:55am) I am again feeling a bit hungry and a bit weak, but I am going to wait until my class breaks for lunch… unless I really feel that I need it. I am planning this because I know that it will be a very long day, and that while I have been teaching now for 2.5 hours, I have another nine hours of teaching to go. I cannot cheat because if I do, I will likely find myself with an empty tank way too early in the evening. My plan for the day is, once again, to stay on the course and not cheat. If I can get through the day, I know that tomorrow is a shorter day (which is to say that I am teaching from 9:30am until 6:00pm, rather than to 9:30pm), and I will be able to get through it with greater ease… and if the weather cooperates, I might even be able to enjoy a cigar on the balcony with my wife (over video chat). I am, however, looking forward to the weekend in a way that I have not in a very long time.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 357

    Yesterday was a very long and busy day. I have no problem teaching a twelve-hour day, but usually when I teach, the lectures are broken up with labs that the students do. The class I have been teaching during the day these last two days were lab-free, which meant my only breaks from lecturing were for the morning and afternoon breaks (fifteen minutes each), and lunch (an hour). The evening class started the minute the daytime class was finished, but thankfully there were a couple of labs for the students to work on while I finally rested my voice… and of course finished yesterday’s journal entry.

    I know I should not be worried, but today is the first day of my transition onto the full meal-replacement program. It is the first day that I will not be eating a meal. I had my first meal replacement this morning, and while it was no different from how I started my day yesterday or the day before, I somehow feel less sated by the shake. It is as if my body knows that there’s nothing more substantial coming later in the day. I have to steel my resolve and get through it. I remember from the last two times that I started on the full program that the first few days are not very pleasant. It is only when the ketosis kicks in (the process by which your body burns its own fat for energy, rather than carbohydrates) that I will be back to full energy. Until then, I can expect my mood to be unpleasant (to be polite). Fortunately for all (other than myself), I can be pretty good at masking that to the outside world. It would not do for me to snap at my students!

    I wrote yesterday that I was worried about how I would adjust to the smaller meal (one piece of chicken instead of two). I am pleased to say that I got through it just fine; my food intake consisted of my morning meal replacement (around 8:30am), my daily meal at 1:00pm, and a meal replacement bar around 7:00pm. I do not know if I actually forgot to eat anything else, but I know that I was extremely busy and distracted, and I did not really feel hunger until I had the bar. When my evening class was over, I essentially poured myself into bed; I watched TV for an hour or so before trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep. I was a bit hungry as I watched, but I knew that eating late at night often had consequences on the bathroom scale the following morning. If the hunger grew into a real discomfort, then I would have eaten something. All of this to say that the reduced-size meal was a success, and when I do transition back from the strict program, I will be implementing that as the new normal.

    I started on a modified program in January last year, and I wrote back then that I knew I was still eating a lot, but that with my size I would still lose weight. I also said that I would make adjustments to the program when it was necessary. When I get back to the modified program, this will be the third adjustment that I am making. The initial modified program included a meal at lunch, and then a salad (with protein, such as a can of tuna or salmon) at dinner. I eventually cut that down to the one meal, which I would eat in the evenings. The next adjustment was to change that meal from the evening to midday. The fact that the daily meal was usually two large pieces of chicken never bothered me because they are mostly healthy protein. I was still losing weight, so it was working. Now, knowing that I have been on this plateau for two months, I have to admit that it is time to make the next change. With that said, there has been so much cheating in that time; I am not only talking about the occasional handful of peanuts; I mean eating out with friends (and with Leslie when she was in town), and snacking, and a few other things that I will not rehash (that were mostly all discussed in these pages). Whatever the cause (which includes stress, anxiety, injury, and mental health issues in addition to the cheating), it is time for me to break that barrier and get past the plateau. You cannot make changes by doing the same thing… so there it is, my next big change; I will be reducing the size of my one daily meal (when I go back to having one daily meal).

    Around New Years Day I posted on one of the Facebook groups that I have lost ninety pounds in the past year, and that I hope that a year from now I will be able to post the same thing. If I can, that would mean a total of one hundred and eighty pounds lost… and down below my weight in the months before I enlisted in the Army. Of course, there is no way that I will ever have that physique again… but how nice would it be to get there? I mention this because only a few days ago I was thinking to myself that if I cannot lose any more weight, and the best that I can do is getting to the 300-pound mark, then it would still be an accomplishment. I know that I can do better though, so I cannot think like that. I cannot be satisfied by half-ass results that I get from doing a half-ass job on the program. I know from personal experience that if I dedicate myself to it, I can do so much better. It was only two and a half years ago that I weighed forty pounds less than I do today; I know that had I not fallen off the wagon, I could have done better then. I know I can do it now… I just have to remember that every day, and so when what I am doing is not working anymore, I have to re-evaluate what that is, and make changes.

    Princess Sophie is on a play date today with Charlie; his mom saw me dressed in my jacket and tie and commented on how spiffy I look. It is the first unsolicited compliment I have gotten on my new look, and I am happy with that. I am rethinking my shirt-jacket-tie combination, but I am glad that someone noticed.

    It is almost 10:00am, and it is time to get ready for class. I will end here, but as it is the first day of my new changes, do not be surprised if I end up writing another article today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 356

    Today’s article is almost complete, but it has been a VERY busy day! I will post the real article this evening, but in case I do not, I do not want to lose my streak!

    Okay, here we go:

    Yesterday went pretty much as I expected it would yesterday. I taught all day, and the class went well. There are some technical issues that the training centre will deal with, but my teaching is on point, my presentation is good, and the students (all four of them) are engaged. All in all, I am happy with the week. I made lunch exactly as I had planned to, and it was very tasty! Today will be my last solid food for a few days… I do not know how long that will be, but I want to break out of this damned plateau, and at this point, a complete shift is what I need. I have one piece of chicken left in the fridge. After lunch today, I will cut out all solid foods for a few days… maybe a week, maybe a month. Who knows.

    Knowing that my day today is a going to be a very long day without a break (I am teaching from 10:00am to 9:30pm), I went to the pharmacy and the supermarket last night. I picked up my refilled prescription with the new dosage, and then went to pick up a salad. Yes, for the first time in memory I did not buy vegetables to make my own salad, rather I bought a pre-packaged salad. My logic was that it is hard to buy just enough lettuce and tomato for a single salad… and seeing as this would be my last day of solid foods, buying a pre-packaged Asian salad was not a terrible option. I was surprised by the cost when I got to the register, but I did pick the one with the fewest calories (it was the first one that I picked up, but I checked them all) so I am not upset with it. At the morning break I will prepare the last piece of chicken, and at 12:35pm I will turn the air fryer on. I will have my chicken and salad, and then I will be done with food for a while.

    I checked my stock, and I have enough of the meal replacement shakes (the original ones from the program, not counting the third-party ones that I have) for six days. That is actually four days of the American shakes and then two days of the Canadian ones. Tomorrow I will finish with my food (and have two meal replacements), and then I should be good until I can drive out to Scarborough on Monday to pick up the new stock. I suppose that will give me the time to prove to myself that I can stay true to the program again… even for a week or two.

    Please remember before you read this next thought process that while I have usually been awake over an hour when I do, I have not had my coffee when I take Princess Sophie out for her walk in the morning. As we were walking down the street, I could not remember what day it was today. I mean, I knew it was Tuesday… I just could not remember if today was my first day on the full program (rather than my modified program), or if I had one day left with a meal. I had a moment of panic, wondering if today was the day that I had to prove to myself that I can actually make it through a day without solid foods. It was only after a couple of minutes that I realized that no, today is not Day 1… rather, it is that in-between transition day, with the salad from the supermarket and a single piece of chicken (rather than two). Okay, I can make it through today.

    Honestly, I have given a lot of thought to the idea of simply cutting the size of my meal down – have a single piece of chicken rather than two. After however long I spend on the intensive program, I will probably do that. Even when I am past this plateau, I want to continue to lose as much weight as I can comfortably lose. If I do not feel deprived eating a single piece of chicken and a salad rather than two, then that is what I am going to do. Today will be a test of that… although despite however well I do on it, tomorrow I begin the intensive meal-replacements-only phase of the program. Again, I do not know how long I will stay with that, but I am hoping for at least a week… and at least until I have shed the remaining pounds to hit both fast-approaching milestones… the 300-pound mark and the 100-pounds-lost mark.

    It is almost as if my body is telling me that it does not want to transition off foods completely. This morning the bathroom scale was once again kind to me, with a drop of nearly one pound. That takes me firmly into best-weight-yet territory! I can imagine my body recoiling in fear, saying ‘No! Do not modify the program! See? It really is working! That plateau? It was just caused by your head, not by me the body!’ While I was thrilled to see that number (and to be within 1.5 lbs. of that next huge milestone), I am not aborting or changing my plans for the next week or two. The intense program starts tomorrow, and the only thing that I will do different from the first time I did the program is that I will be drinking coffee. I am not ready to give that up just yet.

    I have decided to make a wardrobe change this week. Seeing as my tailored shirts and jackets now fit, I have started wearing a shirt and tie (and often a sports jacket) to teach. Yesterday was my first time, and it feels good. I truly feel more professional when I am dressed up. Maybe looking good will hide the sadness inside. I don’t know if it will or not, but it will start me down a path to change my image.

    Knowing how busy today would be, I expected to be able to finish and publish this article before class started. Unfortunately, the training centre needed my help trying to resolve an issue that took nearly forty-five minutes… and the class that I taught today had no labs, so I was lecturing all day. We are now an hour into my evening class, and we finally started our first lab of the day, so I was able to finish it up. Tomorrow morning should be a bit more relaxed… in this regard. In the other, knowing that tomorrow will be the first day of no solid foods for a bit, it will be a bit stressful. Knowing that in the evening I am likely having a conversation that I do not want to have, it will be much more stressful still. There is nothing I can do, my fate awaits… for good or for bad. In the meantime, I am nearing the end of the day of my single-piece-of-chicken day, and while I am hungry, I also know that I am due or overdue for a meal replacement, so I made it. The smaller meal was not so bad. Tomorrow we will see what it is like with no meal.

    Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 355

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 354

    Today is Sunday, and I have no plans other than staying home and relaxing. I will do some prep work for the class I start teaching tomorrow, even though it is a very basic class. Also, I think I am going to create a number of new Azure AD accounts for myself, each corresponding to one of the training centres that I teach for. That way, I can segregate certain things without worrying about overlap.

    This might sound like an irrelevancy, but I am also thinking about moving my laptop from the left side of my ‘teaching’ desk to the right side. The way my desks are set up, I have a shelf that swings out from the side of each desk, and the laptops sit atop that shelf. When my desks are not cluttered (which is something else I will work on today), it gives me more room and a more comfortable workspace. My desks sit at a 90° angle to each other, with a corner table between them on which my printer sits (along with a bunch of other junk, some of which I might declutter today as well). At present, the shelves are both attached to the left of each desk; this means that for my main workstation, the shelf swings out over the printer, and for my main workstation, the shelf swings out over Princess Sophie’s food and drink station… and if I am careless, it would not be difficult to bump it while walking by. I was thinking a couple of weeks ago that I would move the shelf for my teaching desk to the right side of the desk, which would then swing out over the corner table, and might give me a slightly cleaner feeling to the rest of the room. If I do that, I will also be changing the placement of my teaching camera; the laptop is connected to a 34” ultrawide monitor which is my main screen, but when I teach, I only share my laptop screen, which I need to be able to see and talk to. If I leave the camera where it is, I would be showing my students the left side of my head, rather than looking and speaking directly at them. The reason I did not go forward with this change when I first thought about it a couple of weeks ago is that I could not find the proper screwdriver bit. I thought about buying a new one but did not get to a hardware store. I found it yesterday, and the project can proceed. Yes, that is how boring my life can be sometimes.

    As I mentioned yesterday, I went for lunch with my son. I ordered the grilled chicken fajita bowl, which is listed at under 800 calories. How sick is our society that the menu option with the fewest calories is still that high? Of course, I ordered it without cheese, but that is not a huge difference. The really big mistake that I made was with the chips and salsa that they bring you to indulge on while you wait for your food to come. The smart move would have been to refuse them, but then my son would have nothing. The next smart move would have been to push them to the other side of the table, where he could chomp on them out of my reach. The really boneheaded move was to leave them where they were and eat a lot of them. Fortunately, the dish is not too big… and when they were done, I rejected the waiter’s offer to bring a refill. I ate about a quarter of the fajita bowl and then packed it up to take home (as my son, always predictable, was ready to do the same with his wings, queso, and chips). Giving it some real thought, I made my first smart decision of the day (or at least at the restaurant). I did pack it up to go… but I left it on the table as we walked out.

    After dropping my son off, I came home and was still hungry. Yes, I had devoured the chips, but I hardly touched my protein… and empty calories do not really fill you up for long. I decided to compromise, so rather than making my usual meal, I made a single piece of chicken with a salad. Add to that a protein bar later in the day, and I was good. No… I was not good. The chips made me very bad. My appetite for the day was satisfied, which is far from the same as being good.

    The bathroom scale this morning read the same as it did yesterday, which is not at all surprising. Frankly, it is a bit of a relief that with the chips and all that I was not heavier. My goal for today is to eat normally and not veer from my program… and hopefully tomorrow that number will be down.

    Over the last couple of months, I have written many times about the emotional and psychological troubles that I am going through right now. I am not sharing here because while this journal is meant to be my outlet, it is also meant to be dedicated to my weight loss journey, and not about the rest of my life. In good times I tend to share many things that I would not be willing to share in bad times. These last couple of days I have finally opened up to a very close friend about what is going on. I also know that Thursday I will be meeting with my therapist for the first session in our new regular cadence, and I will speak with her about it. I mention this because a couple of friends have reached out to me and said ‘Hey Mitch, I read what’s going on. If you need to talk, I am here for you.’ My response has always been negative, but the sentiment is always appreciated. I want these friends – and anyone thinking of reaching out – to know that I am not bottling things up. I am just not going to share certain aspect of my life with the Internet. This is the third time that I am writing such a journal; the first two times they were completely private, so I could unload without fear of anyone reading it. This time around, every journal entry is also a blog post. My hope is that one day both the blog and the journal can be an inspiration to others who are going through a similar weight loss journey. The positives are helpful, but some of the negatives are too private to share.

    As I prepare to redouble my efforts on the program, I am renewing my hunt for the meal replacements that are actually on the program that I want to follow, rather than looking for things that might be similar on Amazon. The ones that I like are part of a medically prescribed program, and they include all of the nutrients that our bodies need. It is not simply about calories, proteins, and the regular macronutrients that we are all focused on. As I have stated before, while I will not name the program (for a number of reasons), it is slightly different between Canada and the USA. In the USA I can buy the products on eBay, but not in Canada. As I do not know when I will be back in the USA, I am going to see if I can source them here. I think I have a lead, and hope that this week I can confirm the source. Unlike previous attempts, I am not looking exclusively at buying from people who dropped off the program. I have a lead on a source that is a doctor’s office. I might have to give them my health card info so they can charge the government for a doctor’s visit… but that does not bother me. I will keep you in the loop as to how it pans out.

    This morning was the first time in a couple of weeks that Princess Sophie and I went out for our walk and the temperatures were below freezing. Yesterday during the day, it dropped below 0° as well, but it was only when I came home in the early evening (from smoking cigars with Eduardo) that they dropped. The high for the day should be at the freezing mark, which is still unseasonably warm for January in Canada. Yes, it is a big country, and some parts of it are warmer; for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, 0° is above average for the first week of January. A month ago, there was a report from Environment Canada that predicted that after a couple of extremely cold weeks, the rest of the winter would be quite mild. That is exactly how it has panned out so far. With that said, I am not rushing to sit outside today. I just do not know if I am in the mood for a cigar. Before anyone gets worried that I am signaling that I have been kidnapped, there are times when I am not in the mood for a cigar. I am not saying that I couldn’t be convinced, but I am not yearning for it. Also, even with the heater, I do not feel like sitting outside in the cold today. Knowing what my schedule looks like for the week, I likely will not have an opportunity to smoke before next weekend… but that is not the end of the world.

    Have a great day folks! It is time to prepare lunch.

  • Day 353

    I am well into the second month of this plateau, and I am frustrated. I suppose that had I not eaten two challah rolls yesterday evening (instead of a meal replacement bar), I would have greater moral authority to be indignant with myself and my (lack of) progress. Yesterday I had a meal replacement for breakfast, my usual lunch, and the challah rolls in the evening. There is no way if that is all that I ate in the day that my weight should be up again this morning… and yet it was. It is time to shake things up a bit. I have to spend some time thinking about what that will be, but I am leaning toward cutting the size of my daily meal in half and seeing what that does… both to my appetite but also to my progress. I said a few months ago that I would have to make this adjustment at some point. I just did not think it would be now. I am also thinking that I might spend a week doing the full program… which is five meal replacements per day, and nothing else. Sure, I will still drink my coffee… but if I can do the full program for a week and kick my body off this plateau, then maybe it is worth the sacrifice. I just checked, and there are six pieces of chicken in the fridge, and I know I cannot put them back into the freezer. If I do not cut my meal size down, that is three days worth of food, which means that (depending on something I will discuss later in this journal entry) I have food until either Monday or Tuesday. After that, I will put myself onto the full program for a few days and see what comes of it.

    In my last ‘great weight-loss journey’ which spanned 2019-2020, I remember hitting a frustrating plateau for the weeks leading up to my birthday. It was in the same place as well – right around the 300-pounds mark. Before today, it had been a long time since I referenced that file, and it is interesting to read back and see where I was at what point. I started the program in August 2019 weighing one pound less than when I started this attempt in January 2022. By Day 308 I reached the plateau of which I spoke (it took only a little poking around to find it), and I see how frustrated I was. I also see that, despite the plateau and frustrations, I was celebrating non-scale victories, including being able to wear my suits again. One of the things I discussed was the possible inaccuracy of my bathroom scale; I did not remember the details, but this all makes sense, now that I did some simple checking. In August 2019 I ordered a bathroom scale from Amazon. It moved with me from Hollywood to Glendale and then to Westlake Village, California. In the time around this plateau, I started to mistrust it, and decided to buy a new one – which I did on June 19 (a simple check of my Amazon account). While that new scale did not move to Canada with me, I did buy the same model when I got settled here. I wondered a few times these last few days if the scale might not be the issue… but then I realized another difference between then and now: I am seeing my doctor every two weeks, and I am being weighed on the scale in his office. No matter if my bathroom scale is accurate or not, or whether the unstable floor in my apartment is a contributing factor, it is the bi-monthly weigh-ins that really matter, and by which I should really be gauging my success.

    Wow, looking back on that journal – even a brief perusal – reminds me so much of the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. I was doing so well… I made such amazing progress. I dropped from 394 lbs. in August 2019 to nearly 260 lbs. in September 2020. My last official journal entry in that file was on Day 566, which looks like it was March 4, 2021… about a month before that terrible night when I got the call telling me that my father passed away. It reads:

    I imploded yesterday. Okay, maybe not quite that bad… but I did not have a good diet day. Before my evening event, I went to the store and had them make me a large roast beef sandwich. I added a bag of chips and a sushi roll to my dinner. That is not a good way to do things. Today needs to be better.

    If you are a regular reader of this journal, then you know that I do not have a lot of entries that short. Even on my worst days, I usually write something about my mood, my plans, what I have eaten, how I failed, how I plan to do better. A few days before I wrote that (on March 1) I registered my official weigh-in at 308.4 lbs.… and the commentary was: ‘Up from best: 47.6 Total Weight loss: 65.6 lbs.‘ Just a month earlier, on February 2 I weighed 291.2 lbs. (As I was not being monitored by a doctor, I picked a day of the week that would be my ‘official’ weigh-in, and while I would still weigh myself daily, I would only write down that day in my journal). I am sure that if I had continued to write in the journal, I would have continued to make excuses for myself, and how I have to do better tomorrow. We’ll never know though… by December of that year I had regained every single pound that I had lost. In the book, Charlie Gordon is a mentally challenged man – what science used to refer to as an idiot. Doctors perform surgery on his brain, and he becomes a genius. The improvement is not permanent, and through the last part of the book we see the regression from genius to idiocy. Do you see the direct comparison?

    I am not Daniel Keyes, and my life is not science fiction; nor is my destiny pre-ordained by science. Yes, my body is not blessed with a metabolism that will allow me to revert to eating as I used to. I do not know how much better I will do with my weight loss, but unlike Charlie Gordon, I can fight to maintain my progress… and if I fall down one day then I can get up the next day and do better. That is what I have to do if I want all of the work that I have put into getting here to mean something. If I want to stay healthy, stay relatively attractive, wear stylish clothes, and not be a punchline or even the subject of pity, then I have to stay on track. Even during plateaus like this – weeks or even months of not making progress – I cannot give up. Do you know how many times I have wanted to eat unhealthy foods? I’ll give you a hint… it is always. I want to eat all of the crap that contributed to my obesity every single day. I have to resist so that I can be healthy… for myself, for my family.

    This week I am teaching during the day, as well as in the evenings Tuesday and Thursday. The upside of this is that I will have less opportunity to cheat; through Monday, I will have the food that I have in the house available to me, and nothing more. Tuesday through Friday, I will have meal replacements. The downside of this is that I will not have as much opportunity to go to the gym, but I will still make an effort to go a couple of times. I know that if I want to make it a habit then I have to try to fit it in, even when I am slammed with work.

    Don’t get me wrong… I am thrilled to be slammed with work. As a contractor, I am either slammed with work (and earning a living), or relaxed (and not earning a living). If I were independently wealthy, I might prefer the latter… but as I do not have that luxury, I like to live well. To do so requires money, and earning money requires working. I am fortunate in that I have skills that are in demand; I am even more fortunate in that I truly enjoy what I do. Teaching is a passion, and I thank G-d on a regular basis that I do not hate my work… as so many people seem to. There is a mentality these last decades that if you do not love your work, quit and find something you love. If the entire world followed that principle, there would be no garbage collection, our sewers would fall into disrepair, food and other supplies would never get delivered. Do you see where I am going with this? Yes, I could be in a much worse position than I am… and as the expression goes, you make hay when the sun is shining. Right now, there are teaching contracts coming in, and I will not complain about a single one of them!

    I mentioned earlier that I will have enough food until either Monday or Tuesday, depending on something that will happen today. I am taking my son (the younger) for lunch and depending on whether I eat at the restaurant or not, I will either come home and prepare my meal… or not. He wants to go to Lone Star Grill, which has some salad options… but they are not particularly healthy ones. I might just sit and watch him eat, and then come home.

    On that subject, I just got a text from my ex-wife that he is getting restless, so I had better head over there. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 351

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Day 348

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 339

    It is Christmas Eve, and, as usual, I have received a couple of notes from friends asking if I was okay. They know that with Leslie in Texas, I am alone for the holiday. What they do not understand is that it is not my holiday. I respect that with all the hype around it, people naturally think that everyone celebrates Christmas. I do not. I will not sit about the house sulking the next two days. I will go about my business as I normally would on a day off. Why? Because that is what it is. I am not sad or morose being alone… at least, no more so than I usually am when Leslie and I are apart. I wish all of my Christian friends a very merry Christmas, as I look forward to lighting the candles for the seventh night of Chanukah this evening.

    HRF Princess Sophie is not a fan of weather. She does not like extreme cold or wind and is truly opposed to any form of precipitation. She is my true California Girl. I was not surprised, knowing that she was out late in the afternoon yesterday, that she was not setting foot out the front door last night… but I knew that sometimes comes with consequences. No, she did NOT have an accident, but at 4:20am she told me that it was time to go out. The snow was still coming down lightly, the winds were howling, and the thermometer read -17°. We got to the threshold, and she took one look outside and thought better of it. We went back upstairs, but she looked at me with those expressive eyes and said ‘Daddy, I HATE the weather… but I am a princess, and this princess will NOT do her business inside her castle. Let’s go back downstairs… but it’s going to be FAST!’

    All of this to say that between the storm and my dog, I am not getting a lot of steps in these few days. While the storm seems to have passed, I am staying true to my plan to stay home unless I get an unexpected last-minute invitation from someone that I cannot turn down. The snow may be over but that does not mean that all of the roads are properly cleared and salted. Yes, I drive a Subaru, and yes, it is not only equipped with all-wheel drive, but also with four snow tyres. As I reminded a friend yesterday, you can have all of the right equipment to stay safe, and you can drive as cautiously as you will; that will not protect you from the dunderhead coming down the road who is neither equipped for winter driving nor smart enough to drive slowly and cautiously who will crash into you because they cannot control their car on the icy roads. I would rather stay safe than embark out in possibly dangerous driving conditions if I can avoid it. Of course, the fact that it is seventeen degrees below zero with howling winds does not increase my desire to risk it!

    I have not slept well these last couple of nights. I should probably amend that to I have had trouble falling asleep, because really, once I fall asleep, I am fine. I tried to sleep without taking a melatonin gummy last night, but at 1:00am I relented and downed one. The fact that I had to wake up in the middle of the night, get dressed (for very cold and snowy conditions), go outside (twice), and then come back upstairs, get undressed, and try to fall asleep again did not contribute to my good night’s sleep… but it did contribute to my deciding to sleep in again this morning.

    Last night, for reasons I cannot figure, I indulged in a large bowl of Corn Flakes. Added to the challah rolls that I ate for Shabbat, and we have yet another failed day. My weight stayed where it was the previous day, but that is not a success. Today will be better. That seems to be another theme these days. I need to get through today and tomorrow, knowing that Monday I will be driving to Strathroy to see my godchildren, and knowing what their mother is likely to serve (and how powerless I am to decline her oh so yummy kryptonite). My goal is to be two pounds lighter by then, which I can only achieve if I do not cheat on my program the next couple of days.

    They say that when it rains, it pours. In October, I had a major career setback, which I thought might put an end to my career as a technical trainer. These last few weeks I have made some new contacts, and reconnected with a couple of old ones, and have some great prospects (not to mention actual training contracts) coming in the new year. I remember how despondent I was when I realized where I was at just two months ago. Now it seems like I have a bright future in my preferred field… if we put aside that I’d rather spend my life as a cigar-smoking sommelier and raconteur!

    While we only stepped outside for a brief moment this morning, Princess Sophie is happy to have her friend Charlie here for a playdate. While the pair of them combine to be one hell of a distraction to my writing (between begging for treats, jumping on my lap, and whatnot), they are happy, which makes me happy. I admitted to Leslie earlier in the year that Princess Sophie is not really an emotional support animal. With the emotional turmoil I have gone through these last weeks, I am beginning to think that what started as a farce to bring her into my office at Sony Pictures might not be a real benefit to me. I have been terribly down at times in the last month, and she has made life a little more bearable for me. I will speak with my therapist about that when she and I begin meeting mid-January.

    Yes, I have been distracted while writing this journal entry, and not only by dogs. But hey, it is Saturday, it is Christmas Eve, and it is holy-crap-degrees-below-zero outside, so I am in no rush to be done with it. I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday, and the best for a great new year!

    Have a great day folks!