Losing a part of me

Blog

  • Day 428

    I was prepared from the moment I opened my eyes to open today’s journal entry with words like: ‘The scale giveth, the scale taketh away.’ After a huge drop yesterday, I was certain that I would be giving some of it back this morning. I did have a good bowel movement, and I was hoping that the increase would not be too bad. I knew that if I was back above the 260 lbs. mark I would be upset. In fact, my weight dropped again! It was not a significant drop – only .2 lb. – but down is better than up.

    After coming in with Her Floofness I made my coffee and morning shake, and then was prepared to sit down at my desk and to enter my morning weight into the comparative chart from 2020… and then I realized that I do not need to do that anymore! I have surpassed that goal, and that spreadsheet is no longer relevant. I might maintain it for the next few weeks just to see how much better I do… I might even expand it to using it for the long term to see how while in 2020 I lost ground, this time I am going all the way to the top. It is probably because it is another numbers thing that I can use – I am comforted by numbers – but the truth is that whether I continue with that spreadsheet or not, I have beaten it.

    My next short-term goal is absolutely unbelievable… as so many of them have been. My previous two milestones were comparing my weight loss to that of three and six years ago… both reasonably recent, since my second divorce. I had kids, a career, all of that. My next milestone is a lot harder to conceive. I am now less than four pounds from achieving my best ever weight. When I drop below 255 lbs., I will weigh less than I did at any point in the millennium. When I last achieved that weight, I was married to my first wife, although it was the last week of our marriage. Facebook existed, but it was still only available to high school and university students. While I had passed two Microsoft certification exams, I would not earn my first senior certification until later in the year (the end of May), and it would be another year and a half before I would achieve the Microsoft Certified Trainer credential that has been the lifeblood of so much of my success. Paul Martin was Prime Minister of Canada, and George W. Bush had been sworn in for his second term the previous month. If it is not this month (today is March 23rd) then it will be very early in April when I will surpass this weight goal.

    …and then what? I am going to have to figure out another way to mark my accomplishments. I have written so often of the importance of short-term goals for weight loss success, but until now I have always had these comparisons to myself to beat. Will I simply revert to striving for decades? The 250 and 240 marks and so on are great. I am going to have to give this all some thought.

    My first next goal should be my Size-36 pants. I have seven pair of them that still do not fit, and I would like to be able to wear them comfortably. I am not going to even entertain the notion of Size-34 yet, as that is not a realistic short-term goal. I do not own a pair of them. However, it’s look at what I can realistically achieve in the next thirty days:

    • Best-Weight-Ever (255 lbs.)
    • 250 lbs. Milestone
    • Size-36 pants (all of them)
    • Jog 15km
    • 240 lbs. Milestone

    I have shortened the definition of short-term goals for this list only. Usually I have it at 45-days. On February 27 (Day 404) I set out six goals, three of which I have accomplished. Of the remaining three, two are on this list… but the third one – drop out of the Obese Class I classification into the Overweight category is still most likely outside the 30-day boundary. I will get there, and I will likely do it before the end of May (I am approximately 28 lbs. away), but to expect that kind of weight loss in thirty days is simply unrealistic.

    I did go to the gym yesterday, and I found a treadmill that seems to be more cooperative than the other ones. That is to say, it did not arbitrarily end my workout because I refuse to hold on to the sensors. My Garmin Connect app is telling me that I set a new personal record with the fasted 5k I have run yet. I strongly suspect that if I were to take the time to properly calibrate the watch to the treadmill that a lot of my paces would be wrong, this one included. I will try to remember to do that today… or at least, I will do it the next time I go to the gym, which will be today or tomorrow.

    Jogging (Treadmill)

    • Distance: 6.02 km (10.1 km)
    • Duration: 33:05 (1:22:34)
    • pb Average Pace (Min/km): 5m29s (8m11s)
    • Steps: 5,065 (12,795)
    • Calories burned: 720 (1,243)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 153 (155)

    I did wake up this morning with some achiness in my knee, but that is completely gone now. I rubbed some Voltaren into it, but I suspect the pain was just my normal ‘I’ve been lying down too long and my knee hurts because of it’ issues. I will make a mental note to remember if it continues throughout the next few days. For the moment, I will continue to try to jog… and if it starts to hurt, I will listen to my body and slow down or take breaks or stop… whatever I have to do.

    I am off to the dentist now, and I have a meeting as soon as I am back. Hopefully I will be able to get some studying in, as well as a jog. It would be nice to run outside, so if the rain is not too bad then I will. Otherwise, I will go to the gym, with the ever-luxuriant post-run sauna. We’ll see.

    Once again, my plan is to stay on track. Last night some of my students were discussing McDonald’s and I was tempted to go out and have a meal… or to just defrost the steak that I have in my freezer to enjoy today. I am not going to give in to these urges and temptations just yet… but once I am below the 250 lbs. point, I might consider introducing the occasional meal. We’ll see… but not today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 427

    After an extremely productive bowel movement, I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning and was shocked. I cannot remember the last time I saw a one-day weight drop of more than four pounds, but there it was. In a single day, completely unexpectedly, I not only dropped below the 260-pounds mark… but I blew right past my best weight from 2020 (by over 1.5 lbs.), beating the pace I had set on my comparative chart by a full three weeks. You see, on February 3 I looked at what I weighed, and realizing that I was 24.8 lbs. from my best weight of 2020, I decided to create a chart of my daily weigh-ins from that attempt. It took be sixty-nine days to lose those 24.8 lbs. back then, with a lot of hiccoughs along the way. In 2023 it took me forty-eight days. I am now solidly in best-weight-yet territory, and I am less than four pounds from achieving my best adult weight that I have any reliable record of. I am blown away, and more motivated than ever to keep going!

    According to the app that is connected to my bathroom scale, my Body Mass Index (BMI) this morning is 33.2, a tremendous one-day drop. It was a scant nineteen days ago that it dropped (for the final time) below 35. Mornings like this, when I see a huge and unexpected drop on the bathroom scale, make me look at things more finely than I usually do. Frankly, of late I know that I have spent a lot of time obsessing over my numbers and charts. I know that I have to start tempering this obsession with my weight loss, but on days like today that can be tough. After seeing the doctor, I will drive into Toronto to pick up my meal replacements, then I will come right back home, finish this entry (and publish it on my blog), and I will go about the rest of my day. For now, as I sit here at 7:45am, I am happy to take a few moments to kvell.

    There is a challenge on one of the apps I use to track my progress called You Vs. The Year 2023. The goal is to walk or run 1,023 kilometres in the calendar year. There are some pretty sweet prizes that those who complete the challenge can win (there will be a raffle). I only discovered the challenge a couple of days ago, but all of my walking and running from the beginning of the year are counted. Checking out the leaderboard I have actually run/walked nearly 200km… although that number is likely slightly higher, since only two workouts per day can be counted. I know there was a day a few weeks ago when I ran then walked then ran then walked, and that was four workouts… two of those would be discarded. So be it. I also see that of the 130,301 people currently enrolled in the challenge, I am ranked 32,700… nowhere near the top, but in the top twenty-five percent. I am quite happy with that!

    I picked Kerry up from the train station (as is the custom), so it was not until we got to my building that I stood up and she saw me. ‘How are you so thin? What happened to you? Did you leave part of yourself in Dallas?’ It felt amazing to hear her notice my weight loss. When we got upstairs, I showed her the most recent before/after photos and she was astonished. To put things in perspective, I am now fifteen pounds from having lost her body weight. That is a real trip!

    My outdoor jog yesterday was tougher than I thought it would be, but with a few short breaks to breathe I was able to complete a 10km outdoor run for the first time. There is an obvious difference between the mapping software I used to calculate the route in advance and the actual route, because what I had mapped at just short of 11km prior to setting out would have been short of 10km, and I only reached that number because there was a very long freight train that impeded my forward progress, so I circled back twice (nearly a full kilometre in total) waiting for it to pass. Most likely, the difference can be chalked up to running on the close sidewalk, rather than driving in the far lane of traffic. No matter, I did my first outdoor 10km run, and I feel great for it!

    Jogging

    • Distance: 10.1 km (8 km)
    • Duration: 1:22:34 (45:43)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 8m11s (5m42s)
    • pb Steps: 12,795 (6,390)
    • Calories burned: 1,243 (636)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 155 (153)

    I am feeling like I can do anything… knowing that I am down so significantly since I left for Dallas just thirteen days ago (and remembering all of the cheating eating I did in that time) I have to wonder how long it might take me to get down to my ideal weight, whatever that might be. I cannot imagine that it will take me the rest of this calendar year but am going to remain cautiously optimistic. If my rate of loss were to drop to 2.8 lbs. per week then on my birthday, I would weigh less than 220 lbs. … a 115-lbs. drop from my last birthday. Before the middle of August, I would drop below 200 lbs., which I have not weighed since I was a teenager. I only have to stay focused and on track… but at a certain point, I am going to have to start listening to my body for signs that it is enough. As I have said, I do not know what I should weigh as a healthy fifty-year-old male. According to the BMI Calculator, I will not be ‘healthy’ until I drop to 194 pounds, which means I am less than sixty-five pounds away. I am 26 pounds from dropping from Obese Class I to Overweight, which will be a great accomplishment, but I still feel I am a couple of months away from hitting that goal… not quite a short-term goal yet.

    I am off to my doctor’s appointment and will find out what I weigh on his scale this morning. Last night I told Leslie how wonderful it would be to drop another 2kg from my last weigh-in. As it stands, if my bathroom scale is any indicator, that loss might be closer to an unheard of 5kg. The now very real possibility that in just over 90 minutes I will know if I have not only dropped below 120 kg, but also surpassed the 60kg lost mark simply blows my mind! If I do not make that, then I will still be down, and will have another milestone to look forward to two weeks from now.

    Shock and disbelief are words that continue to describe my reactions this morning. It is currently 11:45am. Just four hours ago I wrote that I was hoping my official weigh-in would have me down better than 2kg, although my bathroom scale was measuring me down nearly 5kg. The reality was much closer to that latter number than the former. I was floored to see I have dropped 4.7kg in two weeks. I have officially lost 60.8kg (134 lbs.) since my journey began. How can that be?

    Driving into Toronto I spoke with my wife about everything I discussed with the doctor, including my response to his question ‘what is your final goal.’ As I have written herein several times, I told him that I do not know. I did decide, however, that on June 1 I will be transitioned back onto regular food. I discussed this with Leslie, and she told me that she supports me as long as I no longer see myself as a fat man. I responded that might take a lot longer and we discussed the psychological effects of long-term obesity.

    I mentioned June 1 as my end date for a few reasons, but I do not think I had discussed it with anyone (nor written it down) before. The only reason it came to mind today was because the nurse at the clinic where I buy my meal replacements informed me that on that date the price of the products will be going up. While that is the reason I thought of it today, the price increase is not the reason I made that decision. I should mention that I will very likely buy another case of the meal replacements right before the price increase; Doing the math, and taking into consideration my next trip to Dallas, I would finish my current allotment plus one more case of the meal replacements on June 4. If I purchase one more case, that will allow me four more weeks of the full-fast program… but I am planning to use the final case to transition off of the full-fast at a measured and reasonable pace. While I have a couple of months ahead of me to think about it, my transition off of the program is something I will have to give consideration to. I will start discussing that plan with my doctor at our next appointment.

    It is a cloudy day outside, and while the temperatures are forecast to reach 7° by 6:00pm, I still think I am going to opt for a trip to the gym today. The treadmill is not as liberating as is jogging outside, but it does force me to push myself harder; I do not know why my pace on the treadmill is so much quicker than it is outside, but it is. Of course, the gym also allows me the added bonus of the post-workout sauna, which feeling my muscles today will be welcome relief. I am teaching this evening, which means I will be spending a great deal of time sitting down; a quick Google search confirms that some of the muscles I should be feeling with my increased jogging are also the ones I find myself sitting on!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 426

    I have mentioned before that one of my fitness tracking apps (Garmin Connect) awards badges for many different accomplishments, including your first activity of any distance. I was scrolling through my collection of badges yesterday and came across the 10K Run badge, which I assumed would have been earned last week. Not so… it seems that I earned it in August of 2012. I had almost forgotten that for a few weeks in that month I had a Garmin watch, and that I used it a few times before losing it (I believe it was left behind in a hotel room in Miami, although the hotel denied it at the time). Looking back at that activity I cannot help but assume that this was not a jog at all, rather a walk… but that I had not properly configured the watch. Knowing what my average pace is today for both walking and jogging, it is impossible to imagine that I was jogging at a pace of 10m54s per kilometre… even at whatever my weight would have been around then (looking at my records I see that it was between 300-310 lbs.). My average walking pace now is under 10m per kilometre, and for jogging that drops to between 7m30s and 8m15s, depending on whether I am on the streets or on a treadmill. I see that the device was a Garmin Forerunner 410 (an early predecessor to my new Forerunner 255). Looking at the image of it, I do not recognize it. Of course, that was a different life; I was a month past my fortieth birthday and had no idea how many failures I would encounter before finally finding success with my weight loss journey. Is this the ultimate success, where I will actually be slim forever? I hope so. I do find it amusing that according to the same app, I only earned the 5K Run badge last month.

    Jogging (Treadmill)

    • Distance: 8 km (5 km)
    • Duration: 45:43 (41:43)
    • pb Average Pace (Min/km): 5m42s (7m29s)
    • Steps: 6,390 (6,350)
    • Calories burned: 636 (551)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 153 (157)

    Yesterday I did end up at the gym and got extremely frustrated with the treadmills. If you do not keep your hands on the sensors, they stop after a few minutes. That is extremely frustrating as I enjoy moving my arms as I would exactly if I were running on the streets or on a trail. Hopefully today and the rest of this week I will be able to jog outside, although the forecast from Wednesday through Saturday is for rain and snow. Hopefully during the day, I will be able to get it done.

    While it was a little chilly and windy for my liking, I still decided to sit on the balcony with a cigar in the afternoon. After my jog I did take my hydro massage, followed by a quick shower, then fifteen minutes in the sauna, and then another more thorough shower. I stepped onto the scale at the gym (which I do not consider authoritative) and was thrilled to see that I weigh much less than the last time I stepped onto the same scale – by about forty pounds. I have not been taking full advantage of my gym membership, but that does not mean that I have not been exercising and working out. I have certainly lost a good amount of weight since my last visit there, and I only wish that my personal trainer had been there to see the difference from the last time she saw me!

    I do not think my mood was so bad yesterday. Today might be a better indicator, although I am also hoping that my increased exercising will give me endorphins that will help to counterbalance the crabbiness that might come with the first days of the full fast. I will try to get out again today, but if things hold up then I will be running outside rather than at the gym. The forecast is for a mostly sunny day with high temperatures around 8°, which would be perfect weather for a jog as long as I remember to suit up in warm layers. The shorts and t-shirt that I was able to get away with in Dallas would be less than ideal. Fortunately, Leslie and I picked out a couple of pair of sweatpants and long sleeve t-shirts at the outlet mall; combined with a jacket (and gloves should they be necessary) and I will be perfectly prepared for the great outdoors.

    I got a message from the clinic in Toronto last night that their shipment of my meal replacements is only arriving today, so my drive into town will be delayed by twenty-four hours. As I have plenty of product left, that will not be an inconvenience at all… especially since my cleaning lady is coming today, so if I was going to drive into Toronto, I would have to be back in time for that, which would greatly impact the window I have open to jog outside in the good weather. Tomorrow the weather will be slightly cooler and cloudy, but that does not mean that I will not be able to jog outside… only that I will have to plan my jog smarter. The forecast for Thursday is warmer but wet… I do not really mind jogging when it is warm and drizzling, but unless the temperature prediction is off by fifteen degrees, Thursday I will be back on the treadmill.

    It felt amazing last week when I put on one of my casual dress shirts that had not fit just a few months ago, only to realize that it was too big to wear. That shirt, along with another from the same era, went into the ‘donate to charity’ bag at Leslie’s. What I was not thinking about at the time was that I am now down to only two long-sleeve shirts in that category. I am not planning on buying more… we are only a few short weeks away from my being able to switch to golf shirts for the season, and for the days that I teach I will be wearing dress shirts anyways. When I got back to Canada, I optimistically tried on some of my Size-36 pants, but they are still a few pounds away from fitting. That is frustrating not so much because I am overeager, but because my Size-38 pants (especially the jeans) are now quite loose on me. There is no in-between!

    When I spoke with my wife last night, I told her that I was thrilled with my weight drop from the previous day, but I knew that it was a travel day, and that I expected I was going to give back a bit of it this morning. Far from it! According to the bathroom scale, this morning I dropped another two pounds. That puts me a full 6.4 lbs. ahead of my 2020 pace. Looking at the chart from 2020, I see that I drop nearly two pounds over the next two days before gaining back nearly three pounds. I also see that on that chart I vacillate over the next 2.5 weeks between a low of 266.6 and a high of 271.6, which I would hit for the last time seventeen days from now. In 2023 I am hoping that in six or seven days I am down three more pounds, which will push me below my best weight from 2020… which would have me beating my 2020 pace by a full seventeen days. Unlike in 2020, I do not plan to stop there. I plan to keep losing weight until my Army uniform fits perfectly… and probably beyond that.

    As I have mentioned before, I do not know how much weight I want to lose because it has been so long since I was slim… and when I was, I was a lot more muscular than I expect I will be now. Until I modified it a couple of days ago, I had one app on my phone configured to a goal of 210 lbs. I changed that to 195 lbs., for no good reason that I can think of. I do not know at what point I will have the body that I want. I do know that I do not want to be forever obsessed with my body and weight loss. Just yesterday, Leslie pointed out to me how front-of-mind it is for me, and she is right. It is not enough that I write about it daily (and at great length), but I also talk about it a lot. I have to stop doing that. While it is fine that I still want to lose the rest of the excess weight, but I have to stop being obsessed with it. Focus is good, mindful is great; obsession to the point of mania is probably not a good thing. I will start to pay closer attention to that and remember that the fact that I am doing so well does not mean that I should be so single-minded about it. One of my better qualities (I have always thought) was my eclectic nature, and ability to discuss myriad topics. I would not be surprised if someone listening in on any conversation I had when I was in Dallas would have heard ‘bla bla Cigars bla bla Jogging bla bla Weight Loss.’ It is time to go back to being ME. I will continue taking time out of my morning to write in my journal, and I will continue to jog and exercise, and I will continue to stick to my program… but I will try to get back to being a more well-rounded and less boring and repetitive me.

    While it is still cold (2°) now, it looks to be warming up by several degrees over the next hour, so I will plan to head out around 10:30am. I just mapped out a route that looks to be just under 11 kms which suits me fine, although I would like to try to complete a fifteen-kilometre jog by the end of this month. I know that my pace will not come close to what I am able to achieve on the treadmill and that is okay by me. If I can average under 8.5 minutes per kilometre then I will be a very happy man. I only wish the provincial parks did not charge such high fees, or I would drive out to either Bronte Creek or Rattlesnake Point for a more nature-inspired jog. Perhaps once the weather is a bit warmer, I will start doing that, but for now I think I will stick to the roads.

    I stuck to the program yesterday; I plan to stick to the program today. I am loving my progress, and I do not want to falter. Focus and mindfulness will get me through to my ultimate success.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 425

    As she drove me to the airport yesterday morning, Leslie expressed her regret that we had gone out for a splurge dinner the previous evening, thus erasing all progress that I made on my weight loss journey while in Dallas. I told her the following:

    a) There was no reason to regret it; we had a wonderful evening (despite whatever effects the meal would take on our stomachs before the night’s end).

    b) It is my experience that the weight-gain effects of a single cheat meal that causes such an overnight weight gain will usually be very temporary, and it was possible or even likely that most or all of the gain would be lost again over the next day or two.

    c) Even with that cheat, I was still down a full pound from the day that I flew into Dallas.

    I had a very good bowel movement after I unpacked my suitcase, which was a relief for two reasons. I had worried since the previous evening that the unrest in my stomach would eventually lead to a more unpleasant experience on the porcelain throne. That was followed this morning by another one, which gave me hope that I was right, and that the weight gained Saturday night into Sunday would start to drop off this morning… despite the fact that I had a can of Pringles and a bag of almonds on the airplane. No, it was not the large can… it was the individual size, which is a huge improvement over what I likely would have done just a few short months ago. When I got back to the apartment, I thought briefly about resuming my full-fast program this morning, but then thought better of it; the only calories I consumed last night were two meal replacement shakes, which was exactly the right thing to do… especially if I was hoping to resume losing weight as of this morning.

    I had a bit of a technical issue with my bathroom scale and the app this morning. Before getting dressed I weighed myself (as is my habit). I was thrilled to see that not only was my weight down, but it was significantly down. I mean, it was slightly lower than my previous best from Saturday morning! Woohoo! I got dressed, I took Her Floofness for a walk (the first one we took since I got home). After feeding her, I made coffee and prepared my shake. Sitting down at my computer, I realized I had not worked on this system since before Patch Tuesday, and so it was going to reboot for me. I decided to fiddle around with the app on my phone; after nearly three years of using it, I noticed a couple of features on it this weekend that I wanted to try. The unfortunate result was that I accidentally wiped out this morning’s weigh-in. Damn. Well, I had only had one sip of my coffee, so it was not too late to weigh myself again. I got undressed and did just that, nervously hoping that I had not imagined it, or that I had somehow gained two pounds in thirty minutes.

    265.0 lbs.

    Wow. Not only had I not imagined it, but somehow along the way, in fewer than 1000 steps with Princess Sophie, my weight had dropped another .4 lb., putting me at the threshold, and achieving a new milestone. I have now lost one hundred and thirty pounds. My Body Mass Index (BMI) dropped to an even 34.0. According to the scale and app (which granted might not be the most accurate to measure these), my body fat percentage is now 30.3% (down from a high of over 40%) and my Basal Metabolic Rate is 2,076 (down from a high of nearly 3,000). As a much shorter-term win, that puts me 3.8 lbs. lower than I was the morning I flew to Dallas, besting my previously stated (albeit pessimistic) goal of gaining 2 lbs. by nearly six pounds! I am thrilled, and I know Leslie will be too.

    While the forecast high today gets up to 5°, it is also predicted to be quite windy. As such, I think it will be a perfect opportunity for me to go to the gym. An hour on the treadmill followed by fifteen minutes in the sauna sounds like a good way to spend a couple of hours. I am teaching this evening so I might spend a few minutes reviewing my material. Tomorrow I am hoping to drive into Toronto to pick up meal replacements… I got a notification that the clinic where I buy them is closed for the next month, but the nurse told me that she would meet me before she actually goes on vacation to make sure I have the proper supplies. Otherwise, I would not need to go into town for another week and a half. Oh well, whether I go tomorrow or next week is not really a big difference. I just hope that I can get either the gym or an outdoor jog in tomorrow – my cleaning lady (who has not been since mid-February) is coming in the afternoon, so I have to plan things properly.

    I am happy that I am getting back into that mindset of trying to make sure I can get my run or walk or whatever exercise into my schedule on a mostly regular basis. Previously it was one of those things that I would do, but it was not something I necessarily planned and was eager for. Now, especially since I am back into the mode of competing with myself, I feel the excitement of getting back at it as often as I can. When I head to the gym today, I will be doing my inaugural workout with my new fitness watch, a present from my lovely and doting wife. It arrived Friday afternoon after I was back from my workout, and I did not get out over the weekend. I am looking forward to seeing how it fares. My initial disappointment in realizing that it is not a touch screen has been turned around, remembering the issues I so often had with the touch screen on my previous fitness watch, especially in wet weather or when my hands were sweaty. It will take some getting used to with the buttons, but as I mentioned to Leslie yesterday (or Saturday?) I was still not entirely used to the functions on the previous watch. I will pay closer attention on this one, and hopefully I will not be saying the same thing in 3.5 years.

    Princess Sophie decided to go to the neighbour’s today to spend the day playing with her pal Charlie, so it is relatively quiet here for now. I suppose it is as good a time as any to get ready and go to the gym. I have a few emails I need to respond to first, but hopefully by 11:00am I can head out.

    My plan for the day is to stay mindful and to stay on track. Today is my first day back on the full-fast program, and as Leslie reminded me yesterday, there is the possibility that might put me into a bit of a mood. If I am, I will do my best to make sure that I do not show it or take it out on anyone. I do not know if the endorphins from working out might counterbalance that, but I will try to pay attention and see if I notice a difference. Leslie told me yesterday that she did not notice a huge difference the last time I came back to Canada and resumed the full fast, but that I had told her I felt it. Wouldn’t it be great if I do not feel it at all this time? If I can get through the day on meal replacements (and coffee) only, and not feel any negative effects… that would be great! Of course, I am teaching this evening, so if I need the extra caffeine to get through that, I will not hesitate. I do not want anyone to feel the negative effects of my mood, but if it affects my work then that is especially bad.

    Today is the 14-month anniversary of my weight loss journey, so how perfect that I can celebrate it by hitting a new best-weight-yet, a couple of new milestone (at the 265 threshold, plus the 130-pounds-lost mark), and a new fitness watch to inaugurate with a great workout… possibly even a new record for distance? Time? Pace? Who knows? As always, I will follow the advice of my doctor… I will listen to my body and let pain guide me. If I feel the need to stop, I will. Otherwise, who knows how far I might jog? Smile

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 424

    When I press ‘publish’ on this journal entry, I will immediately receive a notification from WordPress that I am on a 198-day streak on my weight loss blog. How crazy is it that I have written 400,000 words about weight loss over the last fourteen months?

    Yesterday was not the relaxed and fun day I had hoped it would be but Leslie and I did what we needed to do, followed by a delicious Mediterranean meal that was not even close to adjacent to my program. I told her that I knew I was going to go back to Canada weighing less than when I arrived in Dallas, no matter what… this is one of her favourite restaurants, and I wanted to take her out to enjoy it. It does not hurt that I am a huge lover of Mediterranean food. While the meal was delicious, something that we ate upset both of our stomachs. At first I thought it was simply that I had overeaten – I should never go back to another all-you-can-eat buffet – but it turns out that we both had cramps all night. We will be more careful next time.

    We finished the evening as we so often do – we had a lovely cigar on the balcony, which would have been much more enjoyable if we were both not feeling under the weather. It was also sad that before we did that, I packed my luggage. It sucks knowing that we had to wake up this morning and drive to the airport. I hate leaving her, and I know she hates it too. Fortunately I have my next trip down here booked already, and we know exactly how long it will be. While counting down those larger numbers may be sad, there was a time when we did not know when the next trip would be, and that was much harder on both of us.

    There was no doubt that the numbers on the bathroom scale were going to be significantly higher today than they were yesterday. In the end I am still down 1.2 lbs. from the morning I flew down here, and that is a huge success. Yes, I might have done better had we not indulged last night, but I did not go into the meal blind. I made the decision in advance that I did not mind giving back some of my progress for a night of Lebanese food. The only thing I would do differently next time is I will order off the menu rather than the buffet… not only would it control my portions, but it would also ensure that the food was fresh. As I mentioned, something that we both ate did not agree with us.

    It is a cold and dreary morning in Dallas, a perfect metaphor for how I feel having to leave. I will be mindful at the airport and on the airplane, and hopefully when I get onto the bathroom scale tomorrow morning I will have lost some if not most of the weight that I put on this morning. If the weather is agreeable then I might even go for a jog this afternoon… we’ll see what the weather is like by the time I get home.

    I might write more from the airport, but for now I’ll wish you all well. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 423

    I broke another record on the treadmill yesterday. Knowing that my plan was to only run 5km, I set the pace at 4.5mph and was able to keep that pace for the entire workout. In fact, I did 5.5km because I wanted to make sure I did the 3mi as well, whether or not I was breaking records or personal bests. I also earned that 5km weekend running badge that I thought was for last weekend.

    I have walked or jogged either on the treadmill, in the streets, or at the mall every day this week except for one, and I am shocked by what I have been able to accomplish. It was only five weeks ago that I set out on my first jog, which did not amount to a full 2.5km. It was only two weeks ago that I did a combined 11km jogging and walking, but the jogging was in two ‘sets’ of 3km, each followed by walking. I never thought that just a couple of weeks later I would be jogging more than I am walking. Tuesday’s 8.2km jog was a real shock for me, and Thursday’s 11km run blew my mind. I knew that if I was going to jog Friday, I would have to set limits for myself… not because I do not want to push myself, but because I have obligations and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Leslie.

    These last fourteen months (it will be fourteen months on Monday!) have been a challenge, but I think I have finally hit my tipping point. Whatever weightlifting or other exercise I have done, and even walking (and I did a lot of walking throughout last spring and summer), I know it has always been jogging that has caused me to shed the pounds best. When combined with proper eating habits, I know that when I run I am going to have an easier time, with a steadier weight loss pace. If I can keep it up throughout the spring and summer, whether outdoors or at the gym, then I know that I will be able to achieve those short-term goals that I have been trying for. If I average a weekly loss of 3.5 lbs. then I will beat my 2020 best by March 30 (less than two weeks away), and my best adult weight on April 10. Those are milestones worth celebrating! For now, I am just happy that this visit to Dallas has been a successful one in almost every way, but with regard to my weight loss, going home weighing less than I did when I arrived is a huge victory for me.

    I should mention that I am very close to being able to claim a 130-pound weight loss. That blows my mind! This morning the bathroom scale reads 265.8 lbs., which is absolutely blowing my mind. I am 5.4 lbs. from my best weight in 2020, and I am 10.8 lbs. from my best adult weight. More important for the very short-term is that I am 3 lbs. down from my best weight before my trip, and 3.6 lbs. down from the morning I flew down to Dallas. That drop in one week would be acceptable in any circumstances, but knowing how much I have eaten this past week… I am just amazed, once again, that I can lose weight while eating. That gives me hope that when it is time to wean myself off the program I will be able to maintain my weight, as long as I am mindful about it.

    Last night after class Leslie prepared the leftover Chinese food along with some wonderful chicken and lamb skewers that we both enjoy. Because it was the Sabbath, we also shared a bottle of sparkling wine. Normally I can take it or leave it, but the bottle she chose for yesterday was very tasty, and I enjoyed my fair share of it. I had been worried the previous evening because I had some of the rice with my dinner, but I did the same last night without worrying about the consequences. As it turns out, there were none! I will say that yesterday I ate more than I usually do throughout the day – we had a salad for lunch, but I also had two handfuls of almonds and another meal replacement shake throughout the day. I am learning that I have to listen to my body when it tells me that I need calories, especially on the days that I exercise. It is great to have a caloric deficit resulting in weight loss; it is not wonderful when you are lightheaded and almost collapse midday from that caloric deficit.

    Today is, sadly, my last full day in Dallas. It is the last day that I will both wake up with and go to sleep next to my wife until the end of April, which always makes us both sad. Fortunately I have booked my next trip down, but there is only so much that we can do. Will the State Department get off their heinies and let me live with my wife please? We will make the most of the day though… we have things to do, but we will start with our now traditional weekend latté and cigar on the balcony, and we will end it with a lovely dinner out for which we will get dressed to the nines. We are hoping that her new dress arrives today, but if it does not then I still know that she will look fabulous in whatever she wears. As for me, the uniform of the evening will be my blue suit, which is the only one I brought with me.

    I went to the optometrist yesterday and picked out a new pair of sunglasses. I was really hoping they would be able to switch the lenses from my current pair (which are falling apart) with the previous pair (which are in perfect shape, just the wrong prescription). The lenses are almost identical in shape, but only different enough to prevent them from doing that. I will wear the decrepit pair for the next five weeks, and then will switch to the new pair… which is radically different (but not at all radical). They are also a fancy brand name (which I confess I had never heard of), which will be a change from my previous several pair. Leslie likes me in them, and I confess I like the new look too.

    The weather today is not great, but there is no precipitation forecast the next few days. We will probably need sweaters to sit on the balcony, but we are both fine with that. After that, we will head out to run our errands and enjoy the day… and we will try to forget that I have to leave tomorrow. That is a sword hanging over our heads that always makes both of us sad. I will stay mindful today and will be good and true to my modified program, especially knowing that Monday morning I am back on the full-fast for the next five months.

    I have given some thought to how long I plan to stay on the full-fast program, as well as the modified program. If I lose an average of .4 lb. per day (2.8 lbs. per week) consistently for the next four months, then on my birthday I will weigh about 222 lbs., which is absolutely incredible to me. If I lose an average of 3.5 lbs. per week (.5 lb. per day) then I will be at 210 lbs. Either way, as long as I do not have a terrible period of stagnation, I will be off the program by then – probably by July 1, a few days before that. As amazing that it is to me that I lost 100 lbs. in the first year of the program, it is absolutely inconceivable to me that from my birthday last year – by which point I had already lost sixty pounds – to my birthday this year, if I stay on this track then I will lose between 110-120 lbs. in the 365 days. If that is not something to strive for then I don’t know what is. To put that in perspective of the lulls and plateaus in my journey, one year ago today I weighed exactly ninety pounds less than I did this morning. All sorts of wow.

    I have picked up the latté and I am going to sit on the balcony relaxing. Today will be a day devoid of any stresses or obligations. The only thing that I (quite unfortunately) have to do today is pack… which makes me terribly sad. In an hour or so I am going to get a notice that it is time to check in for my flight, and I will do so sadly. I do not want to go… despite all of the obligations back in Canada.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Short Term Goals

    The day I decided to start losing weight a friend of mine asked me how much weight I planned to lose. I told him that I was hoping to lose between 180-200 pounds. The look on his face might have been amazement or incredulity, but he was encouraging and positive.

    A couple of weeks later he invited me out for dinner to the sort of restaurant that does not have diet friendly options. ‘It’s just one meal… you are doing so well, you deserve it!’ He was right… I was doing really well. He was absolutely wrong… I did not deserve it.

    It is great to have a long-term goal. This is where I plan to arrive. The farther out you go, the easier it is to take those breaks… it is easy to justify that one cheat meal or cheat day, or cheat week will not make a difference in the long run, as long as you get back on track the next day or week or when you are back from vacation.

    Long-term goals are important because you need to know when to actually declare victory. However, as I have proven to myself so many times, absent short-term interim goals, they can be detrimental to progress, and even to your ultimate success.

    During my weight loss journey, I have had periods with no clearly defined short-term goals. If I was serious about losing weight, then there is no good reason why on October 2 I weighed 311 lbs. … and on November 30 I weighed 311 lbs.

    And yet, from January 11th through March 17th I lost 35 lbs.

    What was the difference between then and now? The simple answer is that I set short-term goals.

    Ever since the beginning of my journey I have been looking forward to getting slim, losing all the weight, being trim and in shape. They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

    I started setting those single steps again, and it has been working wonders. When I was tempted two weeks ago by a restaurant, I saw I remembered the goal that I wanted to achieve by March 2nd, my appointment with my tailor. Driving home from that appointment I was tempted again, but I realized that I had a short-term goal for March 9th, when I flew to Dallas to see my wife. The short-term goals keep me honest and on track. I will have been in Dallas for ten days and I know that I have been off my regimented program for that time, but I have set goals for that too.

    One of my diet buddies said to me recently where they want to get, and how she looked at it as an impossible goal. ‘How can I ever lose seventy-five pounds?’ I told her to take off the seven. With a confused look on her face, she asked me what I was talking about.

    ‘Repeat your original sentence but remove the word seventy. Do you think you can lose five pounds?’ She replied that of course she can.

    Okay, good… that is going to be your first goal. Now let’s consider, for the sake of weight loss, that the short-term is a forty-five-day period. What else do you think you can do in the next forty-five days? I sent her home with that homework, but also with the ideas that each five- or ten-pounds lost is a goal, that every piece of clothing that is too tight or does not yet fit is a goal. I gave her two days to write up a list of between five and ten goals that she might be able to achieve in that 45-day period.

    This friend called me this morning upset that she had gained weight; she told me that she had only had some crackers and cheese, and a handful of chips. It is so easy to look at these mini cheats and not realize the consequences to them. The difference between gaining weight staying the same would be the cheese; the difference between staying the same and losing weight would be the handful of crackers. Of course, she had no short-term goals that she was aiming for, so did it really make a difference in the long run?

    Of course, it did… her distraught call that she was not losing weight. During that same call, she told me what her first short-term goals were, and she told me that she wanted to be accountable to me… she wants to make me proud. I am happy to be her support because she wants it… and is willing to do what it takes. It is not easy… but now that she has set out her short-term goals, she will more than likely start succeeding. I will be proud of her for trying.

    Will she achieve every goal on that list in the time frame? I do not know… but if she does not try, then she will not succeed. I have been disappointed that I did not meet quite a few of my time-based goals. For example, until the beginning of my trip I was hoping to lose twenty-five pounds from the last time I flew to Dallas to this time. That is, from January 24 to March 9, I wanted to lose that much. There have been several other goals in the meantime that I have achieved, but I fell short on that one. I missed the mark by 2 lbs. On the one hand, that is a missed goal. On the other hand, that means I lost 23 lbs. in forty-two days. A missed goal, maybe… but definitely not a failure by any means.

    There is an old saying that has many versions to it, all of which are horribly inaccurate, but still make my point. “Shoot for the stars, and if you miss, you’ll land on the moon.” The lesson of this astronomical fallacy is that we aim as high as we can so that if we do not reach the goal, we still did pretty well. This is so true with weight loss! I tried to lose twenty-five pounds, but I only lost twenty-three. That is not a failure! Had I tried to lose five pounds, but gained three pounds, that would have been a failure. It is so important for us to remember not to be discouraged when we miss our goals by a little bit… that does not make our short-term goals less important.

    When I set out short-term goals, I am less likely to try to justify whatever cheat I might be faced with. ‘You know what, I could eat that… but then I might not achieve my goal of losing two pounds this week.’ It is easier to justify taking a day off when the day of reckoning is months off. To put it in a way that every Christian parent will be able to relate to: You might tell your kids to behave, lest Santa put them on the naughty list. If you tell them that in November or December, it will have a much greater impact on them than it would in February or March. The consequences are much more imminent. Telling your kids that early in the year gives them the easy justification that they can misbehave now because they have plenty of time to make it up later in the year.

    The thing is, do they? Are kids better behaved in the Autumn if they are allowed to misbehave in the Spring? Maybe, but more often than not the answer is no. The same is going to be true for weight loss. If you only look down the road to the end, it is easy to justify those little (and not-so-little) cheats because you can make up for it later. Do you? Maybe, maybe not… but too often it is not.

    Try this with your kids: Tell them that if they misbehave, they will not be allowed to do something fun over the weekend… and if they do behave, then they can. Short-term goals involve short-term consequences, and they are more likely to be good. It is no different for adults trying to lose weight… if you promise yourself you are trying to lose five pounds this month, you know that every cheat makes it less likely you will achieve that goal. You know there are no excuses, either you are strict with yourself, or you are not.

    We tell ourselves lies like ‘just a little piece won’t matter.’ Let me tell you in no uncertain terms: YES IT WILL. It might not be the one little piece that matters, but the cumulative pieces for which you use that same excuse will add up and when you look back and wonder why you didn’t lose weight, you might realize why, but if you were lying to yourself that ‘this won’t hurt’ then it is not unusual to look back and wonder.

    Short-term goals have been instrumental throughout my weight loss journey. When I have succeeded it has been largely due to these incremental milestones that I was able to stay on course. When I have failed it has usually been because I did not have those short-term goals encouraging me to stay on track. I have set many of these throughout my journey and I am proud to look back and see how far I have come.

    Try it… it just might work for you too!

  • Day 422

    I absolutely killed it yesterday! Knowing the weather was going to be less than agreeable, I took advantage of the opportunity to try the treadmill in the gym in the apartment complex. They may not have every piece of equipment that a commercial gym has, but what they have is extremely high quality. I have always disliked running on treadmills because at my heavier weight, the belt tends to slip under my feet, causing me to lose my footing… or at least to feel like I am losing my footing. Here’s the thing… I am no longer 300+ pounds, am I? It is still hard for me to register that I am actually at the high end of a reasonable weight range, and that better equipment such as the treadmills in this gym are more than capable of supporting my weight.

    I did not slip, I did not slide, I did not fall. I set the pace of the machine at what I thought might be a reasonable pace, I pressed play on my audiobook, and I started my trackers. While I did take a couple of 3-minute intermissions (I needed to hydrate, plus I needed to stretch out my hip) it was nearly ninety minutes before I called it a day. I jogged eleven kilometres, although the exact distance might not be quite accurate. I am going to have to calibrate my stride length properly on the treadmill, but there is no doubt that I jogged well over 10km, which is only one of several personal bests that I achieved today. I know that I had the pace set faster than I usually jog in the streets; as a result of that, according to the Garmin Connect portal I set my personal records for fastest 5km and fastest 10km, as well as my longest run. I will not be trying to repeat that today.

    After coming in from the gym I hit the shower quickly. Due to the faster pace of my running, combined with the fact that there is no cool breeze when jogging indoors, I really needed it. I have not been that sweaty from working out in a long time! I was then finally able to move my bowels. Even so, I decided to buy a large jar of fibre that I started taking yesterday afternoon, and continued this morning, adding it to my meal replacement shake. I was hoping that by switching to eating regular foods – including plenty of leafy vegetables – I would not need the fibre while I was here, and for a couple of days I did not… but then I realized that it is a small price to pay for regularity.

    I stepped onto the scale after my jog and loved seeing that the numbers drop below 265 lbs., but of course I know that my post-workout numbers are a fantasy, and the next morning is what really matters. I did lose weight from yesterday, but only .4 lb., putting me at 266.6 lbs. on the bathroom scale. That means I am 6.2 lbs. from matching my best weight from 2020, and 11.6 lbs. from matching my best adult weight ever. If ever there was incentive to keep doing what I am doing, there you have it.

    Lunch was another salad from our favourite drive-thru salad place. Seriously, had you asked me a decade ago if I would ever have a favourite drive-thru salad place I would have asked you if those really existed… and then followed up with something like ‘why do they exist?’ Well, here I am, aged fifty, and not only do I have one… but I discovered it on my own by accident. I decided to change things up a bit these last couple of days. Wednesday I had the autumn salad, and yesterday I opted for the Greek salad (no olives, thank you very much). Later in the afternoon I had a handful of almonds, but that was all I ate before dinner. We ended up going out for Chinese food; aside from a few bites of brown rice, I stuck to exactly the same menu as what I planned out and ordered the last time we went, which means that while it was a treat meal, it was not an extravagant or unthinking one.

    Leslie and I have some work that we want to do together – we have a project we want to work on which will benefit both of us professionally. The forecast is partly cloudy with a predicted high of 56°, so it is not as if either of us would be playing hooky to go sit by the pool. Tomorrow’s high is only slightly higher than today’s, but it is our last complete day together, so unless there is another Tornado Watch, my wife and I will be getting dressed up and going out for a nice dinner. Leslie has one work meeting during the day, which will be my cue to go to the gym. I do not want to break any records today, but if I can do a 5km jog I will be happy with it.

    I am teaching this evening, so while we will light the Shabbat candles during my evening break, we will be sitting down for dinner around 8:15pm. The plan for this evening’s meal is going to be dim sum and skewers, with the leftover rice from last night’s dinner. I think we both hate the fact that we have only two evenings left together on this trip, but we will make the most of them. Tomorrow during the day we have a couple of errands to run, including going to Costco. I do not know what else we will do, but we will be together the entire day… and longing for it to not come to an end. I really do long for the day when we live together, rather than monthly visits that come to an end with a teary goodbye at an airport.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 421

    Yesterday was a day off from exercising. I had a relaxing morning at home, and after Leslie and I had lunch I headed to the cigar lounge where shortly after lighting my cigar, I got a wonderful surprise. My son the elder, with whom I have not spoken in several months, reached out and we had a thirty-minute video call. It was wonderful to see his face and catch up with him about so many things. The odd thing is that while we discussed so many things about our lives (including my recent diagnosis of ADHD, and the progress I have made on the medications), one of the most important, relevant, and front-and-centre topics of my life did not come up. I did not say to him that since he last saw me (probably in October) I have lost fifty pounds, or that my total weight loss is 128 lbs.… and I don’t know why. I was going to send him the before and after picture which I posted just yesterday, but I think I’ll just let him see for himself. He told me that at some point in the near future he will try to make time for us to sit together to share a dram and a cigar. It is amazing to realize that the little boy that I met when he was nine years old and adopted shortly thereafter is turning twenty-five on Sunday. How time flies! The grains of sand in the hourglass flow one way only, and they flow at their steady pace no matter our attempts to retard them.

    The response I received to that before and after picture is amazing. Hundreds of people liked and commented on it on the two Facebook support groups that I am in, and it drove over eighty hits on my weight loss blog. To put that in perspective, the previous week had sixty hits… not per day, rather a total of sixty hits! When my professional blog was in its prime, and I was posting on a regular basis, there was a day when I was sitting in a conference room in Phoenix, Arizona when I got a notification that my blog stats were blowing up. It had been given an award that had been published in a magazine, but the magazine had forgotten to notify me about it. This was the same level of ‘blow-up.’ My professional blog went from 200-250 hits on an average day to over a thousand hits on that day in Phoenix. The difference is that with my weight loss blog, today the stats will go back to normal… which is okay, I don’t mind! I reach certain people daily, some people occasionally, and others once or once in a while. I write for me, to keep myself accountable to myself.

    From the cigar lounge I went to Whole Foods because they were having a special on sockeye salmon marinated in a mango glaze which both Leslie and I thought sounded very tasty. I also picked up a head of cauliflower, which I prepared before my class started. I cut a quarter of it up, drizzled some olive oil on it, then Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (a favourite of Leslie’s and mine), and a little bit of shredded cheese. I put the mixing bowl into the fridge until my class break, at which point I put the fish into one tray of the air fryer, and the cauliflower into the other. With ten minutes left in class (and while my students were all completing their in-class assignments) I turned both sides of the machine on so that as soon as class was over we could eat. This fish was much tastier than my recent attempt at ahi tuna, and the cauliflower was tasty as well… although I suspect most of the cheese melted to the bottom of the pan and ended up not getting to our plates. Still and all, it was very tasty!

    Unlike the previous evening, I opted to stick with my non-alcoholic iced tea to accompany my cigars, and it paired better with the second cigar than the first. I did not make this decision because I had not exercised, I just did not feel I needed the alcohol. Once again, Leslie and I spent a very lovely evening on the balcony enjoying each other’s company. We both know that until I get my visa, these nights together are precious and too few to waste. We both hope that it will not be too much longer to wait.

    I mentioned to Leslie yesterday that I expected, after yesterday’s tremendous drop, the bathroom scale would likely take a couple of ounces back this morning. It did not. In fact, it gave me another drop, and I am again in best-weight-yet territory. I am now under 7 lbs. from beating my best weight from 2020, and if I continue to lose at an average of .4 lb. per day, I will achieve that by April 2… a full ten days ahead of the time it took me nearly three years ago. This morning the comparative pace to that time was 6 lbs. better now. I do not plan to slow down.

    Speaking of weight loss (this is, after all, a journal primarily about losing weight, right?), I am thrilled that after the initial ‘shock’ from travel and from the first-night cheat meal I have recovered all of the weight that I had gained, and I weigh 2.5 lbs. less than I did on the morning I flew to Dallas. While my stated goal was to gain no more than two pounds during my trip, I also knew that on my last trip I had lost over three pounds. I was hoping to repeat that trend, even though I knew I would be eating (comparatively) indulgently during the trip. At this rate, even if my weight stays the same from now until Sunday, I will have bested my stated goal, and actually lost weight again. Leslie told me that she is relieved that being with her does not cause me to gain weight. I am too, especially knowing that I have had partners in the past who were less than encouraging with my weight loss efforts. When I told her yesterday that I was expecting a weight gain this morning she told me that she just hoped that it was not significant, and that I stayed below the 270 lbs. mark, which she knows for me is a psychological trigger. The difference between gaining one pound and going from 268 to 269 does not have nearly the same psychological impact that would gaining .2 lb. and going from 269.8 to 270. At the rate I am going, it is not impossible that I might actually drop to 265 by the time I leave… but that would be a lot to hope for.

    It is a rainy and blustery day in Dallas, not at all conducive to jogging outside. As such I am going to make my first trip to the gym in the apartment complex. I do not know all of the equipment that they have, but Leslie tells me that it is all nice and modern. I will decide when I am there what I will do, but my first attempt at a ten-kilometre jog will likely have to wait another day or two. I can run on a treadmill, but I do not know if I would jog that long on it. We’ll see. In the afternoon we are going to do some work on a system that we both want to learn a bit more about, and which I will probably write a blog article about for my professional blog before we are done. I know we both love that we are in the same profession and can talk shop, but the fact that we can occasionally work together to figure something out that will benefit both of us… that’s really cool to me!

    We will be going out for dinner. I do not know where yet, but we will pick something that will suit both our tastebuds as well as my dietary needs. Tuesday evening we were planning to go for Indian food, until we realized that the restaurant she had in mind likely did not have anything suitable for my dietary needs. Everything that she would have recommended to me would have had meats prepared with dairy, which is a no-no for my religious beliefs. She told me this restaurant did not have a great vegetarian selection, and that the dishes that would have been suitable would likely have been too spicy for me. If that sounds strange for a man who enjoys spicy foods (and who used to win hot-pepper-eating contests in the Army against Moroccan and Yemeni soldiers), I answer that Indian food has always been my nemesis. I was essentially force-fed spicy chicken curry by my mother as a very young boy and hated it from the beginning. As an adult I went to India but came home with dysentery. All this to say that if Leslie is going to re-introduce me to Indian food so that I will enjoy it, we should do it carefully. I love her for understanding me!

    Mindfulness is the order of the day… and exercise. I am heading out now and will do my best to get in a good workout, and then after my shower I will pick up salads for lunch. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 420

    The day I landed in Dallas I told Leslie I wanted to do another before and after picture. It is great to see the numbers on the scale drop; it is amazing to fit into smaller (and more stylish) clothing; it is spectacular to see what I can do when I work out. With all that said, there is nothing so incredible as to see the sheer transformation of my body, side by side, from when I started until now. We took a few moments this morning to recreate that photo. Unlike the last time we did it, I decided to leave out the interim pictures. One next to the other is all I need to see the results of my hard work!

    420 Days_use

    To look at this image is to look at two different people. I do not remember the exact moment, but I am certain that when my friend took my picture on Day 0 he told me to smile. This morning as Leslie snapped my picture I know she did. Just look at the difference in the smile! I suppose it is the difference between someone embarking on a challenge, and someone who is well into the challenge and who has seen tremendous results. I still have a ways to go… but there is no denying that I deserve that smile this morning!

    I absolutely killed it yesterday on my jog! I remember setting out shortly after I wrote my article in which I said that I am hoping to do a combined walk/jog of ten kilometres before I left Dallas, but I did not think it would be yesterday. Even more exciting is the fact that I jogged 8.2km… without stopping! I absolutely smashed my previous bests for distance and duration. I decided on 8.2km because that is slightly over five miles. Of course, I did not set out expecting to come close to that… but at each kilometre I evaluated my legs (especially my right knee) and my lungs. It was not until I hit the fifth kilometre that I thought I might be able to do it, and I still reevaluated every kilometre. In truth I probably could have jogged the full 10km and am really not sure why I pulled up. Tomorrow is another day, and I guess I wanted to leave myself another attainable goal for the rest of the week.

    Jogging

    • pb Distance: 8.22km (5 km)
    • pb Duration: 1:06:03 (39:40)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 8m01s (7m55s)
    • pb Steps: 10,170 (6,200)
    • pb Calories burned: 866
    • Elevation gain: 35.6m
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 154 (157)

    Walking

    • Distance: 2 km
    • Duration: 21:37
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10m48s
    • Steps: 2,460
    • Calories burned: 194
    • Elevation gain: 6.4m
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 114

    The weather was perfect for it too. It was sunny, but not too sunny. It was cool, but not cold. It was a little breezy but not windy. In short, the conditions for a strong showing were all there, as long as my knee and my lungs held up. I finally followed my doctor’s advice and rubbed some Voltaren on my knee before setting out, and I was off to the races.

    According to the stats in the app that I use to track my workouts, this was my fastest five-mile run… which makes sense because I do not think that I have jogged five miles since I started using it. My fastest five-kilometre was Friday, but I will try to pick up the pace over the next few days to see if I can beat it. It does not really matter though… I am not trying to race; I am trying to get out and get into shape. I want to burn calories, not win prizes.

    I was thrilled when I stepped onto the scale when I came in yesterday though… while I won’t count it because it was not first thing in the morning, I still registered my lowest weight yet! I hoped that if I could maintain just some of that weight loss into this morning then I would be happy. I was not expecting what I saw when I stepped onto the scale this morning and saw that I had absolutely killed it! Not only did I lose the couple of pounds I had gained from when I got to Dallas, and not only did I get back under the 270 lbs. mark, but with a full 3.6 lbs. loss from yesterday, I am more than a full pound into best weight yet territory! I ran out of the bathroom to show Leslie the numbers (which register on my phone as well… it would have looked silly had I picked up the bathroom scale to bring it to her). She was as amazed as I was. Wowee!!

    It is not only jogging that contributed to this morning’s loss. I have been eating but doing it smartly. Yes, I had a half-chicken at the restaurant yesterday, but I was working on 450 calories on the day, having burned over 1,000 calories exercising. I took a few pieces of Leslie’s fried casavas (which were really tasty!) but I counted them, and when I reached my limit I told her I am done… and never reached for another one. I even made myself a cocktail last night (gin and bitter) which was lovely, but I did not go overboard… I had one ounce of gin with four ounces of Schweppes Bitter Lemon. All in all, I think I had a great day.

    Leslie and I were speaking last night about the 12-step program that my therapist recommended I look into for overeaters. It has been six weeks since we discussed it, and I had told her I was going to table the idea until this week. At the time, I did not realize that I would be in Dallas this week, so when we met last week, I told her I was delaying until I got home. Over these last few days, Leslie has now seen me shut down on eating things that were available twice… last night with the fried casavas, and Saturday evening with the nacho chips and salsa. She asked me if I still felt that I needed the program. I told her that I do not know. It is easy to be good when she is watching because I want her to see me succeed. The next real test will be how I do the next time I am faced with that sort of temptation and she is not there… likely the next time Gilad and I go to that same restaurant where I faltered in February. I am not sure that I like the idea of a 12-step program for myself, but if I really cannot control myself then it is something I will strongly consider.

    I just told Leslie a few moments ago that I am not going to jog today. My knee is absolutely fine, but I am feeling some aches in my hips. These are not pains, these are the aches of ‘this part of your body has not worked that hard in a long time, and it is reminding you that it needs to recover.’ I have no problem with taking the day off. I will hit the trails again tomorrow, although based on the forecast I might have to plan around rain. As of now, my safest bet will be to wake up and hit the road early; maybe I will set an alarm for 6:30am and see if I can get out and back before the precipitation starts. If not, I could always go to the indoor gym and jog on the treadmill… but that is my fallback, and only if it is unavoidable.

    It is a beautiful day in Dallas, and I am looking forward to having lunch with my wife (between her meetings). After lunch I will head out to my cigar lounge and will try to get some work done. I want to skim the material I will be teaching this evening, just as a quick reminder to myself. I have taught the class many times before, but it never hurts to refresh. I might also do some studying, but I might just open my book and do some reading. Leslie recommended a book on the anthropology of human sexuality that I started the other day, and I am quite enjoying. While the thought of our parents having a sex life might be repugnant to some, learning about how sexuality evolved with our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago is quite fascinating.

    My plans for the day are simple. Stay on track and stay mindful, especially with the knowledge that I will not be jogging today. I might take a brisk walk… but we’ll see. Before I return home from the cigar lounge, I will stop in at the supermarket to pick up a nice piece of fish to make for dinner. The tuna I made the other night was not exactly a resounding success, but I do know how to prepare salmon or trout, and that is likely what I will look for. Also, either a broccoli or cauliflower as a side dish would not be completely out of the question.

    Have a great day folks!