Losing a part of me

Blog

  • 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 384

    For the first time in a few days, I had a productive (if small) bowel movement. For the first time in a few days, I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning and weighed less than I have these last few days. It was not a huge loss, but something is better than nothing… and that something took me below the 285 lbs. mark! It was also the first day since I started my spreadsheet comparing my weight loss now with my weight loss from three years ago that this morning’s comparison to 2020 is lower than it was yesterday. While that may falter these next few days, that is more a commentary on how well I did in 2020 over that first ten days. I then lost momentum, so while the total weight loss from Day 1 of that sheet is nearly 9 lbs. on Day 11, that number drops to under 4 lbs. on Day 19. In 2020 it took me 69 days to drop from 285.2 lbs to 260.4 lbs. I still believe that in 2023 I can do it in less.

    Of course, there might be a bit of a delay in that. Yesterday, after much fighting with American Airlines, I booked my next trip to Dallas. On March 9 I will fly down for ten days, and I will once again go back on my modified program. With all of the worries I had, it worked really well the last time. I am going to expect, once again, that I will gain as much as two pounds on that trip to consider it a victory. If I do anything like my last trip, I will do much better than that!

    Yesterday went exactly as planned. Both my daytime and my evening classes are good groups, although I did not hear a lot from the daytime class (except when I asked them midday if they wanted me to change anything, and three of them told me I was ‘crushing it.’ I felt really good about that and will do my best to keep going. My evening class was a lot larger, and because of the different format I was able to force each one to turn their mics on to introduce themselves. That was a pretty good ice breaker, and while very few mics went on the rest of the night, I had them using the feature where they raised their hands… a lot. I stuck to the program, with the only aberrations being a cup of tea in the evening and a couple of lozenges. I essentially spoke straight from 9:45am to 10:30pm (with the last 90 minutes being on the phone with American Airlines), and I doubt anyone would begrudge me my throat soothers.

    Today I will do essentially the same… but I do have to step out. I was worried yesterday that I might not have enough oat milk for my coffee today. It seems that I do, but I will definitely not have enough for tomorrow if I do not go to the supermarket. There is nothing else that I need, so I will get in and out as quickly as possible. I wish the oat milk was not all the way at the back of the store, but I know that I can get through without succumbing to any temptations. I will also take the opportunity to drop a couple of my shirts and a pair of pants at the dry cleaners. I may be saving a ton of money on that bill by wearing undershirts, but that does not change the fact that they do need to be cleaned from time to time. Of the four shirts that went me to Dallas, three of them are in need… as are a pair of pants.

    Last night I was worried about sleeping, as I have had trouble the last couple of nights. I woke up twice to pee, and the second time I felt like I might not get back to sleep… it was 3:15am. Before I even went to the washroom, I proactively ate a melatonin gummy, so when I got back into bed I might have an easier time. Indeed I did, and was asleep within 15 minutes or so. I did not sleep through to my alarm clock, and again was out of bed 10-15 minutes early… but that is not the end of the world. At least it was not another mostly sleepless night.

    Stay on track today. Stay focus, stay mindful. Do not veer, and you will succeed. Right, Taz? Yes Staff Sergeant!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 383

    Today is the first day of a very long and grueling week, all of which I am very excited about. I love teaching, and I especially love that as a contractor who ‘eats what he kills,’ my dance card is filling up nicely for the next little while. Knowing that my daytime class today starts shortly, and that my evening class follows immediately after the culmination of the early class and continues to 9:30pm, I was in bed at a reasonable hour last night, my alarm set for 7:00am, ready to face the very long day well-rested. What happens then when you cannot sleep? I fell asleep just fine, but my eyes popped open around 3:45am, and for love or money I could not fall back into slumber. When I finally gave up on sleep (for the short term), I decided to go through my phone’s picture library from the past three years. I am very good at taking lots of pictures, and because I was notified recently by Apple that my cloud storage was full, I even went through them a few weeks ago and deleted hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures that were just not needed. In the middle of the night, my mission was to add a few mew pictures to my Favourites folder. It turns out that meant nearly two hundred pictures of Leslie, several of HRF Princess Sophie, and maybe 5-10 of friends and others. By the time I finally got back off to sleep (around 5:15am) that folder had ballooned from 18 pictures to 230. I broke my general rule and took another melatonin gummy, and finally closed my eyes again… and even though I did not sleep through to my alarm, that extra 90 minutes of sleep was important. I feel that I can now face the day.

    Yesterday evening I told Leslie that after two days at the same weight, I was really looking forward to seeing the numbers on the bathroom scale drop this morning. She told me that if my weight stayed the same, I am still winning. While we had a minor misunderstanding over the homonym lose, I agreed with her that staying where I was would not be a loss. I am glad we had that conversation, because guess what I weighed when I stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning? If you guessed exactly what I weighed yesterday and the day before, then you win the prize! I did not drop below 285 (see my psychology rant from yesterday… I originally wrote 385), but I did not gain. I will stay on track again today, and hopefully tomorrow I will break the plateau. If not, Leslie is right… as frustrating as it might be, it is nowhere near as bad as that plateau just above the 300-pounds mark. I will also mention that today was the third straight morning that I was unsuccessful moving my bowels… that is not uncommon while on my full-fast program, but I do hope to end that streak tomorrow.

    My plans for today are to stay on track, and with my schedule I doubt I will have any opportunity not to. While I have three 15-minute breaks throughout the day, I am supposed to have a 1-hour lunch break, but I have an important appointment that will take up most of that time. As such, the order of the day is coffee with meal replacements… and nothing more.

    My diet buddy came over for a cuppa yesterday, and we had a great talk. It really is great that both of us have stayed (mostly) on track. I had my modified program, and she had her surgery, but a year later and we are both doing great. I really hope our friendship continues to grow even after we have both achieved our goals. We discussed yesterday how difficult it is to know that we will always have to be mindful of what we eat and will never be able to eat like we once did again. It is sad, but an alcoholic cannot have just one drink… for us it will be more difficult because we will still have to eat, just differently. I told her all about the Chinese meal that I planned out beforehand and enjoyed in Dallas, and that gave us both a little hope that while we cannot eat like we once did, at least we can eat and enjoy it. I think one of the big tricks will be for us to switch from eating to enjoy the experience to eating in order to fuel our much healthier bodies. That will not be an easy change for either of us to make… we both love food so much! She was telling me about a brunch she enjoyed that included eggs benedict on avocado toast, and while it sounded delicious, it also sounded dangerous. She enjoyed it but got right back on track. Maybe she is further ahead with the psychology than I am.

    One more thing that we discussed was getting rid of our bigger clothes, which led to a much more important discussion. She told me that she had a colleague who was larger, and she was going to give all of her larger clothes to. I asked her how close she was to that colleague, and she told me not at all. I then advised her not to do it. I reminded her how personal our weight loss is, and that giving her the clothes can be seen in several ways, but almost all of those ways would include having to share her journey with yet one more person… and each extra person you share with takes a toll. That is before we even hear from them their experiences and struggles, and why what we are doing is wrong, but their way is better. She agreed with me and will be donating all of those clothes to charity. The colleague’s loss will be the charity’s gain.

    I want to clarify one thing about my occasional sleep issues. A year ago, I had trouble sleeping because I could not get comfortable with the massive bulk of my body. That is not the case now… but sometimes I simply cannot sleep. I know that the meds I take for ADHD can affect that, which is why I take that pill first thing in the morning, which my doctor assured me is the best way to make sure that it does not affect it too much. There have been several nights over the past few months when I had trouble sleeping, but that was usually due to stress and anxiety caused by factors that were (at the time) beyond my control, but which were still very real. Last night? There is no reason, other than sometimes people have trouble sleeping!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 382

    It is because of my lovely wife Leslie that I did not add a grocery shopping trip to my plans for today. Yesterday was a very difficult day for me. I was hungry for most of the afternoon and evening, despite faithfully following the program. We were chatting last night, and I told her that the keto anger is real, and that my body is fighting back against my returning to the full fast program with no real food. I told her that I have to teach tomorrow (and all week) from 9:30am to 10:00pm, and that I did not know if I would be able to get through it without breaking the full-fast, meal replacements only diet. Maybe if I added just one smaller meal back into my routine then I would be able to get through without falling. Leslie reminded me how strong I have been, and how much I have relished in my success. She reminded me that I am not weak! She did not tell me that I was strong, which some people might have thought the right positive word to use; whether it was conscious or not, reminding me of what I do not want to be gave me something to think about… and another reason to stay strong – because I do not want to be weak! It worked… I am not going shopping today. I am sticking to the program. I am strong!

    This morning I approached the bathroom scale with the words ‘Please do not be higher than yesterday!’ on my breath. I was not only thinking it, I said it out loud. After five days of weight drops, I did not want to see the trend reverse. It did not… but it was not lower either. My weight this morning is exactly what it was yesterday morning. I know that is to be expected, but as I stepped off the bathroom scale I started thinking, ‘Okay, I did not lose any weight… and that is probably because I was not able to have a bowel movement for the second morning in a row.’ Of course, that is to be expected as I am not eating solid foods… the frequency of proper bowel movements can drop to 2-3 times per week. What can you do? In the meantime, I did not lose weight this morning… but I will tomorrow morning… and if I don’t, then there is always Tuesday!

    I made a minor change when I came back to Canada the other day. I do not know how long it will last, and I do not know how much of a difference it is likely to make. I have not been adding sugar to my coffee. I definitely prefer the taste with a little sweetness, but I promised myself that when I could completely cut sugar out, I would try. I was only drinking one cup of coffee per day in Dallas (albeit a huge one) and was putting a smaller amount of sugar into it than usual. I have been missing the sweetness, but I think I can make do… as long as I continue to drink premium coffee. If I find myself at Starbucks or Tim Hortons, I suspect I’ll be back on the sweet.

    Princess Sophie impressed her vet as always. She has gained a bit of weight, and the doctor said she does not have to lose any… but also should not gain anymore. She said that as she filled her with treats to cooperate. I should mention that she has gained three pounds in the nearly four years since I rescued her, and she is a very happy little girl. I will continue to feed her the same amount of food but might cut back on the treats a little.

    I planned to take a nice nap yesterday afternoon and be refreshed to face the evening. About seven minutes after I fell asleep my phone rang, so that idea went down the drain. I had not heard from this friend in a couple of months, and it was good to catch up… even at the expense of my rest. I spent a lazy afternoon at home though… I had nothing to do, and I know what a bear this coming week is going to be, so I decided I deserve it. I am pretty sure that (after my study group) my diet buddy will come over for a cup of coffee today. After that, either Eduardo will come here for a cigar, or he and I will go to hang out with another friend. We’ll see. Originally the forecast was for 6°, but that has been revised slightly downward… and it will be windy, so I am not so excited about sitting outside. I will see what the day holds. In the meantime, the Princess and I went for a walk this morning, and it was nowhere near as uncomfortably cold as it was yesterday.

    After my aborted nap yesterday, I was hungry. I am not sure if I was really hungry, or if I was bored. I do know that I wanted to eat, and even after my evening shake, I was still hungry. I decided that it was not a good idea to go through to bedtime that hungry. I took a very small portion of pumpkin seeds that I keep to put on salads… and then I took some sugar free mints that I have. I did not devour the package, but they did help me get through the evening. I suppose with the seeds and the Ice Breakers I did technically cheat, but not terribly. I know I would rather have a small, controlled cheat than fall off the program… and I know what I have in my freezer (not to mention the pantry), so that would have been a real possibility.

    It has been weeks since I dropped below the 300-pound mark, and yet every time I think about my weight, I am thinking it will be above that. When I prepared to step onto the scale this morning, I was not looking for a drop below 285 lbs… I was looking for a drop below 315 lbs. I have mentioned so many times over the course of my journey that the psychology of weight loss can be as difficult and sometimes more so than the physical losing of the weight. It was only ten days ago when Leslie took my picture and I posted the side-by-side comparison to the first day of my program, and the difference is so obvious as to be laughable. When I am not looking at the pictures, it is still easy to think of myself as that over-350 lbs. morbidly obese man whose clothes do not fit. I write that as I sit here comfortably wearing a casual button-down shirt from Polo that has not fit in so long… and with a t-shirt underneath it to boot. The proofs are in my face, and they are obvious, but that does not always mean that my psyche has caught up. I suppose that is one of the myriad reasons that when my therapist asked last session if I really need her, I did not hesitate for a moment to reply that I did… and I do… and I will. I told her that I have lived with ADHD for my entire life, and I have only been on the medications to rein the symptoms in for six weeks. I do not yet know how to deal with not having those symptoms constantly affecting me. Likewise, I have been obese my entire post-Army life, and I do not yet know how to not be so… I know that I stopped seeing her sometime around the time I moved from Burlington to Ottawa in 2017, and it was about that time when my weight loss abated, and I started on that slippery slope to gaining weight back. There were, of course, many factors involved with that… but I cannot help but wonder if I had stayed in Burlington and in therapy, would I have regained all of the weight? Until someone invents a time machine we will never know. I am here… and I am staying in therapy because I need it. Many years ago, my uncle moved to California. Shortly thereafter he told me that he had learned there are two types of people in the world: those who need therapy, and those who do not yet know that they need therapy. I do not know if that is true, but I do know that right now I fall squarely into that first group.

    Okay, I have things to do. My study partner is running late so I can either procrastinate and write more, or I can accomplish a few more things before my delayed group starts.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 381

    I have been waiting for the shoe to fall, but it has not. I fully expected that after four straight days of weight loss that had me 7.6 lbs. down, the bathroom scale (and my body) would finally correct themselves to show at least a minor gain. Not today! While the downward trend slowed, I still lost .2 lb., which puts me on the cusp of a minor milestone. At 285.0, my next drop – however minor – will take me below that number.

    I have written a great deal about major and minor milestones, both with regards to absolute numbers (e.g.: when I dropped below 300 lbs.), progress numbers (e.g.: when I had lost 100 lbs.), and most recently comparative numbers (comparing to my last weight loss attempt). Because North America thinks in the imperial system for weights, I almost neglected to see a huge milestone coming in the next few days… although I will not celebrate it officially until my weigh-in at the doctor’s office on Wednesday morning. While my bathroom scale is set to pounds, the nurse weighs me in kilograms. Doing a quick conversion, I realized just now that my current weight has me down 49.9 kilos – a mere 100g from tipping over the 50kg lost mark. Of course, when the nurse weighs me, I am fully dressed, so there is a chance that as of this morning it might be closer to 49kg. I have four more days before she weighs me, but if I stick to the program (as I fully intend to do) then I should be there. I might not let out a loud whoop there, but I will smile… and when I come back to write in this space, I will recognize it.

    I mentioned in yesterday’s journal/blog entry that the last time I lost weight, in 2020, I got from where I was yesterday to my best weight in sixty-eight days… after which I started losing ground. I decided that I was going to create a spreadsheet that I will use for as long as I need it… I copied and pasted the information for every day between July 21 and September 27 – the date, and how much I weighed. I edited it down so that there would be only one entry per day – I see that I would often step onto the scale several times per day, so I deleted all but one entry for each day – as often as possible, one that corresponded to my usual morning weigh-ins. I do not know why I would get onto the scale at 1:00am, or four times at 8:30pm. The spreadsheet has five columns: today’s date, today’s weight, my weight on the corresponding day from 2020 and the date of that weight; the fifth column is the difference between this time and last time. As yesterday’s weight is exactly what I weighed on July 21, 2020, that row looks like this:

    Date

    Weight Today

    Compare to 2020

    Weight 2020

    Date

    2/3/2023

    285.2

    0

    285.2

    7/21/2020

    2/4/2023

    285

    1.8

    283.2

    7/22/2020

    I know that the next day in 2020 I had lost two pounds, so it was not unexpected that this morning’s middle column is a positive number. I am hoping that by early next week that number is squarely and consistently in the negatives.

    I see that there are four days without a measurement (August 4-7), and I came back on August 8 nearly one pound heavier. I do not know what that is about, but I will note the same weight as the day before the absence for the comparison. If I am able to stay on the program, then it should not take me sixty-eight days to get there. While I was above and below 280 a few times between July 28 and August 12, it is clear that I was stuck on a plateau for a few weeks. I know I was eating at least one meal every day at the time, which I do not plan to do now. At least, I do not plan to eat daily meals until I drop below that best-weight-ever mark… not just the best-weight-yet territory that I keep celebrating. That is exactly twenty-five pounds lower than yesterday’s weight. I will mark my weight in the spreadsheet every day until I am below that Best Weight, and then I can delete the file.

    My plan for today is to stay on course. HRF Princess Sophie has an appointment at the vet to get her shots, which she is not at all excited about. I will bring her straight home and give her treats to make up for the ordeal. I will spend most of the afternoon at home, and I might go out this evening to see some friends and light a cigar. Tomorrow morning, I have a study group meeting in the morning, and I am reasonably sure I have a couple of tentative engagements in the afternoon, but I cannot remember what they are right now. As long as none of then revolve around food, I should be okay. The coming week is going to be a bear – I am teaching every day from 10am, and with the exception of Thursday, I teach until 9:30pm every night. I will be keeping my head down and will have very little opportunity to cheat on my diet. When the doctor’s office phoned me a couple of days ago to let me know that the doctor cannot see me Wednesday morning, but I can still come in to get weighed, I breathed a sigh of relief. I did not want to be sitting with the doctor looking at my watch. I will go early, be in first, and get out of there so that I can be back at my desk by 9:30am.

    Stay mindful; stay on course. That is my motto for the week. Tomorrow’s forecast is forecasting a high temperature of 6°, which means it will be a good day to be outside if I need to be. I am hoping to connect with a couple of other friends tomorrow afternoon for a cigar, but if that cannot happen then I just might sit on my own balcony with a cigar and my book.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 380

    Holy crap kids, it was real. In fact, not only was the extreme weight drop over the past three days real, but despite dropping seven pounds in the previous four days, I actually dropped another .6 lb. this morning. I am in absolute shock and amazement. When I stepped off the scale, moved it to another section of the floor, and got the same reading. Three weeks ago, I finally snapped a two-month plateau and dropped below the 300 lbs. mark; today I am 285.2 lbs. and dropping. I love being in best-weight-yet territory, and I am excited that I am within sight of my next huge milestones. More on that in a few minutes.

    With all of the writing that I did over the last few days, I neglected to mention something that I felt a couple of days ago. While lying in bed I realized that my arm was lying on something strange… it was my hip. It has spent the last what… two years shielded by layers of fat that I am once again shedding. It felt weird… and is another sign that I am making progress.

    Sitting in the airport terminal yesterday, I wrote my article from the food court, while nursing a large cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts. I also had some emails that I needed to respond to, mostly because my flight delays were going to cause me to miss meetings, so I needed to reschedule them. Other than that, I was using the computer sparingly, knowing that if the battery died, I did not have a charger. Yes, I traveled to Dallas without a charger, but no it was not a mistake. Leslie has the same brand of laptop as I do, and I knew when I packed that I could just use her spare charger. What I did not know when I packed was that it would take me twenty-six hours to get home. I was so focused on what I needed to get done before my battery died that I forgot to eat the protein bar that was sitting next to my coffee cup the whole time. In fact, the airplane was in the air and the flight attendant was serving drinks by the time I realized it was 10:00am, and I had not eaten anything yet. This is something that would not have happened even a few months ago… I have always been able to wake up and do my morning routine, and even take HRF Princess Sophie for her walk before eating, but to wake up at 6:10am and not eat anything until four hours later, and not be hungry? That is new.

    I mentioned earlier that I am back in best-weight-yet territory, and that my next major milestones are in sight. That is not to say that they are within easy reach, but I know where they are, and I can look at my history and predict how long it will take me to get there… if I stay on track. The bathroom scale that I have is a smart one that not only connects to my phone, but it also keeps track of data for me. While it is not the same scale that I bought in June 2020 (which never made the trip from California to Canada), it is the same model, as is the one I bought for Leslie. As such, they all report into my same cloud account, and at the touch of a button, it exports all of my historical weigh-in data dating to June 21, 2020… the day that I stepped onto it for the first time. I downloaded that historical data this morning and see that on July 21, 2020, I weighed exactly what I weigh today. It took me sixty-eight days to drop to the lowest weight I would see: 260.4 lbs. on September 27. It was not a straight downward drop, but in just over two months I lost the 24.8 lbs. that would take me to my best. If I can follow that same trend, then on April 12 I will be back there. Looking at the Hebrew calendar, Monday next week is Tu Bishvat (the New Year for Trees). April 12 is the second to last day of Passover. I could actually be at my lowest weight ever by the end of Passover… if I stay mindful and on track, and do not fall off the program. That is very exciting!

    I had to reset my fitness watch this morning. It was completely crashed, and I had to reset it, break the connection to my phone, and then re-sync everything. I do not think that it is dead, and I hope it can give me a few more months before I have to replace it. It also dawned on me that nearly four years ago, I asked my Facebook community for recommendations on new ones because after using Fitbit for nearly a decade, I was not going to buy another. This Garmin watch has lasted me longer than any two (or possibly even three) Fitbit devices had. I am glad that the reset fixed everything, and unless I notice any other weird behaviour from it, I will continue to wear it as I lose even more weight!

    Today is a good day to stay inside. While it is sunny, the wind chill this morning registered at -30° Celsius, and the high is forecast at -13° (but still windy). Tomorrow’s forecast is much warmer, and by Sunday the forecast high is 6°. I took HRF Princess Sophie out for her walk this morning, which she agreed should be a short one. Even wearing her fancy coat, she was not impressed by the cold. There will be another brief walk later in the day, but she and I both agreed that today is a good day to hibernate. We can go out for a longer walk when it warms up. It does not have to be a lot warmer… tomorrow’s -3° will be fine and Sunday will be better… but today is a good day to stay inside. As I am still exhausted from the last few days, I have no problem with that. My plan is to stay on track with my full-fast meal replacement program, and to drink coffee to keep me somewhat warm… and somewhat awake. When she does need to go out, I will once again dress in layers and bundle up. Every Canadian knows that is the secret to extreme cold. That, and also minimizing the time you spend outside.

    Have a great day folks!

  • You Are Kidding Me, Right?

    There are many days on the weight loss program when I look at the numbers on the bathroom scale and say that. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ More often than not, those are bad days… the days when I have followed the program religiously, but either lost no weight or worse… actually gained weight. There are also days (like yesterday morning) when I look at the scale in shock, seeing a number so low as to astound me. Yes, I had been good on the program… but to see a drop of two pounds day-over day, after the previous day’s drop of 2.6 lbs., is pretty surprising. Don’t get me wrong, I did not complain; I was simply expecting this morning’s numbers to correct that somewhat.

    After a sleepless night in a hotel in Queens, followed by a relatively uneventful flight, I was in my apartment in Burlington, Ontario (about a 40-minute drive from the airport) by about 12:20pm. I unpacked and then walked down the hallway to my neighbour’s apartment to pick up HRF Princess Sophie, and to chat for a few minutes. It was thirty minutes from walking in the front door until I got undressed and stepped onto the scale. I knew before I did that I should not have much faith in whatever number the bathroom scale showed me because of all of the travel and disorientation, not to mention that it was nearly five hours later in the day than I usually weigh myself. Whatever the number would be, I would take it at face value.

    It is difficult to accept that after two straight days of huge day-over-day drops that for a third straight day the scale registered a drop of over two pounds. You really have to be kidding me. I know I was mostly good for the week in Dallas, and considering everything that happened over the past thirty-six hours (mostly resulting from an ice storm in Dallas that threw my well-planned travel plans into a cross-shredder) I know I was really good yesterday and this morning… but I cannot believe for a minute that I not only weigh less than I did the last couple of days, but I am also a full five pounds lighter than I was the morning I left for Dallas. It simply makes no sense, especially knowing that Friday morning – two days after that last Canadian weigh-in – I had gained 2.2 lbs. Certainly not with the knowledge that Friday evening Leslie and I went out to a Chinese restaurant, or that Sunday I ate meatless burgers with bread and sweet potato fries. Absolutely not possible, knowing that Monday morning (four days ago) I weighed a full seven pounds more than I do right now. It is simply not believable.

    I stepped off the scale and made a beeline for the kitchen, where I prepared my first Canadian meal replacement shake since last Wednesday; when it was ready, I brought it over to my workstation, fired it up, and started trying to make sense of that which just does not make sense. I know that tomorrow morning, after a good night sleep, at the right time of the morning, and with eighteen hours separating me from my last airplane ride, the number will be real and true.

    I have to assume that tomorrow morning I will weigh at least slightly more than I did at 12:45pm today, but in truth I do not know what it will be. All I know is that right now, at 1:15pm on Thursday, February 2, 2023, I weigh less than I have since January 27, 2021 – almost two years to the day – when I was on that slippery slope. At the time, I was only 25 lbs. heavier than my best weight ever… but it would only keep getting worse until just about one year later when I was 135 lbs. heavier than my best weight. Just like it took me nearly a full year to gain the rest of that weight back, it has taken me slightly more than a year to get back down to it.

    This time I am not getting off the ride. It will be hard work to stay on it, but my goal is to keep losing weight until I am slim, and then work my tail off every single day to stay there.

  • Day 379

    Yesterday did not go as planned, but I suppose it went about as well as I expected it to. In the end, my plane from Dallas landed just in time to watch my flight to Toronto take off, and I was rebooked onto the first flight out this morning, which meant a night in a hotel. Despite the mechanical issues with the aircraft (that had to be changed), the airline insisted the delay was weather-related, so I was on the hook for my own hotel. I will fight that, but as of now, the delays cost me USD$275 out of pocket.

    I had a decision to make. I one protein bar left which I could have eaten at hotel last night, but I thought I would be smarter sitting down for dinner and then eating it in the morning. The restaurant at the hotel was quite nice, and I ordered a Cobb Salad… no bacon, no blue cheese (dressing or crumbles), with a balsamic vinaigrette. Of course, the hotel restaurant did not have the nutritional values available, but my app showed me a list of them ranging from 250 to 688 calories, and I assume that. While it is high in fat, the carbs are reasonable, and the protein is great. For obvious reasons I did not have the opportunity to weigh myself this morning, but I am confident that I did not veer too badly from my modified plan.

    I did not sleep well at all. I got into bed at a reasonable hour, and rather than watching television I opened my e-book reader and read my cheap detective novel until my eyes were tired. I tried to sleep but sleep just would not come. Not only had I requested a wake-up call, but I also set both phone alarms, so I knew that I was not going to oversleep and miss my flight. I do not think it was stress, although there is some of that. At 1:30am I was finally out, and when I woke up, I was sure that it would be a few minutes before my wake-up call. I lay in bed waiting for the shrill of my alarms or the phone. After a few minutes I looked to see if I had any flight notifications on the phone, only to discover it was 2:35am. I took the opportunity to void my bladder once more, and then tossed and turned for another 30-40 minutes. When my alarm actually did go off, I am happy to say that I was able to get out of bed on the first ring, no snooze button required.

    I am sitting in the food court of LaGuardia’s Terminal B. My flight is still 85 minutes from departure, which means that I have plenty of time to sit down and write my thoughts. Yesterday’s (modified) Cobb Salad and the bag of almonds I ate on the airplane were not really on the program, but neither should cause any damage to my weight loss program. Two days of airplanes might, but that should not be too bad. I will weigh myself when I get home this afternoon. I know that is not a great idea because I will have been on the road, and the time shift from my usual morning weigh-ins will not be a true comparison to yesterday, but whatever it will be I will accept, and know that tomorrow’s will be better. I will not get upset with the numbers on the bathroom scale today because of that, and the travel factor.

    I want to say that as stressful as this travel ordeal might have been, it is good to know that I am in the home stretch, and I should be arriving at my own apartment within the next five hours. It is even better to know that with all of the crap I have not fallen off the program. It is trials like this that make for perfect and understandable reasons to fall off the wagon. I read about that all the time from members of my Facebook groups… stress causes us to fail. Well folks, I have been stressed, and I have not failed! If the worst that I can say is that I polished off a small bag of almonds and a Cobb Salad, then I am claiming victory. Despite everything going on – with travel and other stuff – I chose continuing to lose weight over the familiar comforts of bad food choices. If that is not huge then I do not know what is!

    Let me catalog a couple of non-scale victories while I am at it. Not only do I do not need a seatbelt extension on the airplane, but I also no longer feel like my fat is encroaching on my seatmates. I sat in the window seat of a three-seat section on yesterday’s plane and did not feel bad. I always choose the aisle seat for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I want to be able to stand up without disturbing anyone. I would be lying if I said that being squished against the bulkhead and still encroaching on my neighbour is a huge part of that – there is simply no way to escape it. Yesterday I did not feel that guilt at all. Yes, I took the armrest – I will be a big guy even perfectly slim, and the man in the middle section was… petite. That was not a weight issue. Additionally, the shower in the hotel room was very nice, but very streamlined. It was two tile-widths from side to side, and the tiles were probably 10” wide. I did not feel cramped, and I was happy that I was not up against either side as I took a comfortable wake-up shower this morning.

    I should mention that there is something wrong with the way the airlines handle luggage when you miss your connecting flight (and it is their fault). I do not think there is an easy solution to this, but I still need to mention it. While it saves all sorts of hassles that they did not have me collect my suitcase and then recheck it this morning, it would have been considerate to give me that option. One of the first things I like to do at the end of a long travel day is to take off my travel-soiled clothes and put on something fresh. I hate that I am sitting in the airport in yesterday’s clothes… all of them, head to toe. I can assure you that as soon as I get home, I will be stripping them off and getting into the shower. Additionally, my medications are in my luggage… and the cheap plastic razor the hotel graciously gave me would not come close to the shave of my kit that also spent the night at LaGuardia. I looked at it for two minutes before deciding to fly unshaven, and to give myself a real clean-up when I get home. I am teaching this evening, so I will be putting on my jacket and tie anyways. I might as well get properly clean ahead of that.

    Oh, and I had to cancel a meeting because of the travel. I have a very important meeting with a company that I am hoping to do business with, and with the flight mess-ups, my only option to take it today would have been to get off the airplane and find a quiet corner in the terminal… before even clearing Customs or getting my luggage. Fortunately, the gentleman I am meeting with was able to fit me in for next week.

    My plans for today are to get on track the minute I get home. I have my protein bar for now, and when I arrive home, I will immediately shift back to the meal replacement shakes and the full-fast of my program. It will be the first time I will have resumed the program mid-day, rather than waiting for the next day to start over. I do not want to worry about what food options I have in the house… or preparing them. It will not be easy, and I am glad that I am allowing myself coffee on the full-fast. I am teaching until 10:00pm this evening, and I know the first day of full-fast I might get grumpy. Coffee will mitigate that somewhat.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Delays and Temptations

    It took an extra 90 minutes in the terminal, including a gate change (and aircraft change) but I am on the plane waiting for boarding to complete so that we can take off and get out of here. That 90 minute delay was stressful, exacerbated by not knowing when we would take off and if I would make my connection in New York. I really want to get home tonight.

    The extra stress made it extra hard to not cheat. While my plan was to wait until we were in the air before enjoying my protein bar, we were supposed to be in the air 90 minutes ago, and I did not think the stress and the delays and the hunger, mixed with all of the temptations I mentioned in my previous post, made for a good combo for staying faithful to my weight loss program. Modified as the program might be, there are few healthy and smart options available from the convenience stores that litter every airport terminal in North America (and most of the world).

    We should be arriving in New York shortly before 7:00pm, which will give me just enough time to walk the six gates to my connecting flight. If I was worried I might need to eat at LaGuardia, I now know I will not have time. While I am not supposed to restart my full fast program until tomorrow, the protein bars I brought with me, along with the package of raw almonds I have in my bag, will make it close enough to full-fast.

    Tomorrow morning I will be on my full fast program, which will be easier because I have all of the meal replacements I need at home. While I do not know if I will have lost weight tomorrow because of the travel, it is highly unlikely that I will weigh as much as I did a week ago this morning when I last stepped onto my Canadian bathroom scale. I said from the beginning that anything less than a two-pound gain would be a victory. An actual loss will be huge for me!

    Boarding is almost complete and we are just going to the deicing area before taking off, but then we will be on our way. Getting out of Dallas and the veritable ice storm they are recovering from will be a relief. I already miss Leslie, but that cannot be helped. Hers is the only bed I prefer sleeping in to my own… but until things are approved, our monthly visits are still a godsend. As it stands, at least I might sleep in my own bed tonight…

  • On My Way… I hope.

    After taking a very dangerous slip at the kerb at the bottom of the stairs from the apartment (from which I recovered unharmed and without falling), I walked to the corner where the Uber was going to be waiting for me. Sure enough, he was late, but that is perfectly understandable. It was not only the walkway that is solid ice – the sidewalks and roads were a solid sheet of ice up until we got onto the PGBT highway. That I had to wait in the ‘cold’ for six minutes was much less an inconvenience than would have been his crashing and not being able to pick me up. The drive to the airport was slower than it ever has been, but again, that was perfectly understandable. Leslie was not kidding when she told me that I might not be able to get to the airport at all! The roads were exactly as bad as she predicted they would be. By the grace of G-d, I arrived safe and sound.

    I checked in with the airline and sailed through security. I was not sure if the weather was going to cause the airport to be a mob scene or a ghost town, so I wanted to arrive as early as I could. That everything went smoothly was great, but that left me a lot of time to sit patiently. I was going to find a Starbucks, but there is another restaurant – Chili’s – across from my gate. Their coffee is just as caffeinated as it is at Starbucks, and the Internet is just as unreliable. The only problem is that I had two hours to kill… with a lot of temptations everywhere I looked.

    Kuchisabishii!

    Leslie and I both have a love of Japanese culture and language. Last night she introduced me to a word I was not familiar with (not surprising, since I do not speak the language). Kuchisabishii (口寂しい)  is defined as ‘When you are not hungry, but you eat because your mouth is lonely.’ How many times have I told her I was going to eat something, and she asked if I was hungry or bored? I think this word is less about boredom and more about loneliness and sadness, but those are two emotions that I a feeling right now as I sit at the airport, less than 2.5 hours from when I hugged my wife for the last time until… when? I do not even know when I will see her again. It is common that we see each other every month, but that is still a month until I can hold her again… and that makes me sad and lonely.

    I have walked through airport terminals on every continent, and without exception there is temptation everywhere you look. Whether I am sitting at Chili’s on my laptop (with the tasty and extremely unhealthy foods that the very nice Darryl will bring me just for asking), or walking through the terminal, there are scores of opportunities to cheat. Would it be so bad? The food would help me to feel a little better, if only for a few minutes. Who would know?

    I would know. My weight loss program is not about show, and lying in my journal would not help me if I stepped onto the bathroom scale tomorrow morning to discover I gained weight because I was weak. As it stands, it is likely that I will have to purchase a snack along the way – either on the airplane or at LaGuardia – because the travel day that was supposed to be a direct flight to Toronto (3.5 hours) is longer than I thought (8 hours from taking off at DFW to landing at YYZ, not accounting for travel to the airport, waiting at the airport, collecting my luggage, clearing Customs, and traveling home). I do not know if the three protein bars that I packed will be enough to get me through. I will try to stay true to my program so that when I step onto the bathroom scale tomorrow morning I will weigh less than I did this morning… even though I spent the day on airplanes and in airports.

    My mouth is bored, sad, and lonely. Frankly, so is the rest of me. I am now sitting at the gate, but Chili’s is only fifty feet away… not to mention the myriad other shops and restaurants that will gladly sell me chips and chocolates and candies and and and… but I am not going anywhere until they call my boarding group. The sign reads that boarding will start in nine minutes, and while I know there are other temptations on the airplane, I am going to stay strong… no matter how bored and sad and lonely my mouth is. I have a protein bar to devour the moment the flight attendant brings me a cup of coffee… and I decline the proffered cookies or pretzels. My mouth might be all of those things, but despite it all I am reminding myself to stay mindful and remember the mission I am on… to lose weight and to keep it off. I cannot do that if I do not stay true to my program. I might, depending on availability, sit down and have a salad at LaGuardia… as long as I can find something that is healthy and nutritious, and not detrimental to my program. That would be the extent of my program deviation… and really, it would not actually be a deviation, as I had always planned to restart my full-fast program tomorrow morning.

    Okay, the gate attendant just announced that boarding will be delayed because the crew is not here yet… but they are on their way from their hotel, so as long as we are not waiting for them on an incoming flight, it should not be too long of a delay. I am crossing my fingers because the longer I am here, the better the chips at the convenience store are looking. G-d give me the strength to get on the plane without testing me too badly.