Losing a part of me

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  • The Sadness of Misplaced Optimism

    After realizing that I probably had pants that would fit in my locker, I walked down to the basement and went through the bin. I found several pair of Size-36 jeans and pants (most of which still have the tags on them) in the bin. You might have thought that my first reaction was ‘Cool! I have all of these clothes for my next big drop!’ While I eventually came to think that, my initial reaction was sadness. I thought back to where I was when I bought those pants and realized that I was doing so well, certain I was on track and was never going to stop losing weight. I was so certain, in fact, that I proactively bought hundreds of dollars worth of pants. I was at my lowest weight in at least 20 years and saw no reason why I would not keep losing weight, so I was ready for that next drop in pants size. And then it all went to hell. All of the work I did over the course of a year… every inch of progress that I made was lost. It did not disappear overnight, of course… it doesn’t work like that. It started with a cookie and a shot of tequila. After that, it was fried chicken… but only a piece or two. In the meantime, I stopped jogging because I started golfing, and exercise is exercise, right? What difference does it make if I am riding the cart instead of walking?

    It took me fifteen months to gain back what had taken me fourteen months to lose.

    I am not yet where I was on the day that I started my slide of regression in 2020. I have about 30 lbs. left until I am there. It is easy for me to say that ‘It won’t happen again.’ How often have I said, ‘This will be the last time I ever have to lose all of this weight!’? I have said it so many times… it is a mantra that I swear by, reminding myself how important it is for me to stay on track, and then to never lose focus? I am sure every alcoholic said the same thing, right up until that first drink. It is possible that this time will be different, but how can I be sure? Is there any way that I can guarantee it? It will require eternal vigilance and mindfulness… and it will require me to never fall off the wagon.

    I spoke with Leslie about this, and she told me that I have to focus on how well I have been doing. She is astounded by my progress and is truly proud of the progress I have made. She really has been a wonderful support since I started. When I went on this journey in 2017, I was alone and had nobody supporting me… but I also did not have anyone distracting me. In 2019-20, I started the program while in a relationship, and within a few weeks of starting I moved in with her. That was a disaster, but I eventually moved out and was able to be very successful on the program. This is the first time that I have had a supportive partner since the beginning, and hopefully that will never end. In the end, while that may be helpful, there is only one person responsible for my weight management… me.

    Leslie is right. I need to be proud of the progress I have made, encouraged that I am going to succeed in losing all of the weight I want to lose, and optimistic that I have to motivation and willpower to stay slim once I have lost it… long term. It is easy on the way down to think like that. When the numbers on the scale have been down fifteen of the last sixteen days, and I have not deviated from the program in that time, optimism is much easier than three days into a slide, when the program is too hard, or when I succumb to temptation… or even when I have gone a few days without seeing any downward movement on the scale.

    I have learned that in this life there will be positive days and there will be harder ones. I like to think that I am a positive person, but at the same time, it is easy to compare us to goldfish… when we are happy, it is like we have always been happy, but when we are down, well… you understand the analogy. Today I am thrilled by the progress that I have made, and I am energized to continue. I am not at all tempted to go out and eat. Okay, I wouldn’t mind cooking up something that I have in the house, but I am not doing that. I will be rewarded when I get to Dallas, and I can eat a little… under the watchful and supportive eye of my wife. How will I feel three months from now? Will I finally be able to remove the tags from the Size-36 pants? Will I be all excited and optimistic and buy the next size down, and will they sit for years in a bin because I failed again? I cannot think like that… but it is so hard not to.

    Like any addict, I can only live one day at a time, trying to stay on track for that day. Yes, I would like to lose X number of pounds between now and Y date… but beyond following the program, I cannot do much more. I have to stay optimistic, and I cannot let things trigger me and get me down… or worse, pull me off my positive track. I can be sad for a few minutes… I can even spend an hour talking about it and then writing a thousand words on it… and then I have to refocus and stay on track. As Leslie said, there is nothing that I can do that will change the past. I just have to learn from my mistakes and try to succeed for the present… and for the future.

  • Day 369

    Any day that the bathroom scale registers a drop .6 of a pound I will be satisfied. It is not likely to be a daily occurrence, but that is the average of what I have dropped the last four mornings, and I am very content with that! If the trend continues then I will arrive in Dallas at precisely 290.0 lbs., and Leslie will be utterly shocked when she wraps her arms around me. That is not to say that a pound up or down would influence that – I know she loved me when I was at my heaviest too – but she is the second main reason I want to succeed on my weight loss journey. Before anyone tries to read into this, the number one reason is for myself!

    I came to two realizations yesterday. Oddly enough, they both came in public washrooms.

    The first of these was when I walked into the washroom to pee, and there was someone at the first urinal, so I just walked by him to use the second one. It was only after I was past that I realized that a few months ago I would have had to pay special care to pass through the opening between the man and the wall so that I did not bump either. Today I walked by without slowing down and did not touch either. That is a huge non-scale victory. Just the other day a friend asked me at what point I would stop worrying that I would bump into things, on account of my hips being so wide. I told her that I never worried about that because I wasn’t a klutz. I hadn’t thought about it, but she is right… I would so often have slowed down, turned to get through, said ‘excuse me,’ or whatever. Hmm.

    Later in the day, I realized that my shirt was untucked, so I unbuckled my belt and the pants button to tuck them in. As I secured the belt, I realized that the top of my pants were folding over. If you have been morbidly obese then whether you were ever on a weight loss program or not, there is a very good chance that you have worn a pair of pants that did not fit just right. In order to hold them up when they are a little loose, you tightened your belt another notch (or two) so that they would stay up. It might not have mattered to you, or it might not have that as you did that, the top of your pants folded over the belt. However, I did not think, knowing that less than one month ago I ordered these Size 40 pants – and then ordered another pair because they fit – less than a month ago. I know the timing because I looked on my Amazon app as I walked back to the table… I ordered them December 25. I pressed the Return button, and I will take them to the UPS Store to send them back tomorrow. I will also order a couple pair of Size 38 pants… but as I am going to be in Dallas in three days, I will order them to Dallas and not to my Canadian address. While there is a slight savings, the big issue is that I want to wear them when I am in Dallas. I am hedging my bets though… I am only returning one pair of pants and bringing the other. These may be loose on me, but I do not know if I am quite ready for a Size 38. On the other hand, I have actually lost more than fifteen pounds since I ordered these… I am optimistic!

    Now that I am most of the way through my first coffee of the morning, I realized that while I likely will order new pants, there are two things that I should remember. The first is that it is possible that they will not fit me… yet. I was all excited that I will be wearing a smaller size and had visions of whatever going through my head. It is possible that my Size-40 pants are a bit loose, but the Size-38 will still be too tight. I realized this initially this morning as I was buttoning up my second pair of Size-40 pants… the ones I ordered a few days later, so I have a few extra days before deciding if I am going to return them as well. Okay, I will not be returning them; with this pair, I will exchange them for the smaller size. However, I am going to wait and see if the Size-38 actually fit first. The second realization was that I might not have to wait a few more days to find out. Last week when I reorganized my clothes, I was left with one final bin of clothes that did not fit yet. In that bin there are two bags of pants labelled Sizes 36-38. I did not realize that I might be so close to needing them, so that bin went downstairs into my locker. I was going to have to go to the locker today anyways to get my suitcase (so excited!!), but while I am there, I will go into that bin and get those bags out. I do not know what is in them – I have not opened the bag in over a year – but I suppose it is likely that there is at least one pair of Dockers in there that are the right size… and possibly a couple other pair that I will try as well. I know that my Size-40 jeans are still pretty snug, so I do not expect that a Size-38 Levi’s 501s (which I know I have in there) will be going into my regular rotation… but I am going to spend ten minutes trying on pants this morning. For the record, in my life that is not a sentence that I ever thought I would be excited about. I have always hated trying on clothes. If it shows visible progress, then I am happy to make that exception. Last week, when I did the same exercise with all of my shirts, I was equally excited!

    I made a huge mistake yesterday. I forgot to bring my meal replacement with me. Couple that with my outing being much longer than expected (culminating with a couple of friends telling me they had something to talk about, and let’s talk at the restaurant). I sat in the restaurant as they ate, watching them eat. I used the usual excuse that my stomach has been funny lately… they did not need to know that ‘funny’ really means ‘much smaller than it was, and still shrinking.’ It turns out they wanted to discuss a business opportunity with me, and I was completely not interested. I also sat through the rest of their meal wishing there was a polite way to tell them that I was leaving so that I could go home to a meal replacement shake, but without telling them about my diet… well, not an option. I also wish there was a polite way to tell them that talk is cheap and if they want to propose a business to someone then they have to show up with a business plan, but again, not really an option. All of this to say that I did not enjoy my third meal replacement until 8:30pm… which meant that unless I wanted to stay awake until 2:00am, I would not be drinking my final one. My total daily caloric intake for yesterday was under 700 (including my coffee dressings), which is definitely not advisable… but once in a while is not the worst thing to happen. I was a bit hungry from 6:30pm, but not so much that I needed to cheat.

    On my way into Toronto, I spent nearly 45 minutes talking to one of the women from the Facebook group who has been doing the program with no real support. She read my blog and asked to talk. Wow, I heard what ‘support’ she was getting (or not getting) from the clinic where she gets her shakes, and I was silently thinking that I wish I could have them shut down for malpractice. They gave her very little guidance, which was counterbalanced by a lot of really bad advice. I told her that I would be happy to support her as she starts (in addition to her reading my blog) back on the program, but that she might want to find a woman who is going through it (or who has gone through it before) because there are a lot of issues that will be the same for men and women, but there are also going to be things that I cannot advise or guide her through. I know how my sex drive has changed, but I do not know how it would affect a woman. I also know very little about the program’s effects on menstruation… and so many other things. I think for now she will rely on me and will look for a woman for when she needs… female advice. I realize that I enjoy supporting people who are going through the same challenges as I am. She told me that she liked me because I was not pulling punches. When she told me about one of the pieces of advice her ‘support person’ from the clinic gave her, I told her that it was complete bullshit… in those words. That would offend a lot of people; I do not think that I would have the patience to counsel or support someone through the journey who needed me to blow sunshine and roses up their rear ends while they were faltering or being given bad advice. When I was a Company Sergeant in the Army, I was a hard ass… just like I was when I was coaching high school basketball. In business, I know I have to be more professional, and I know very well how to do that. On this particular weight loss program, where there are a thousand ways to fail but only one way to succeed, I do not think I can be that person. I probably could be… but I don’t think that I want to be. I want the people I spend time and effort with to succeed, and none of us (myself included) got to be fat because people were being mean to us when we ordered that 2-pound plate of wings.

    It is Monday morning, and I am eager to start the day. I have a meeting with an organization called CompTIA at 11:00am which is essentially to tell me what free or discounted materials are available to me as a trainer. It is nice to know that like Microsoft and CompTIA appreciate that trainers are not only teaching their materials, but they are in many ways their evangelists. When I teach a Network+ Class, I have the opportunity to remind students that CompTIA also offers great exam prep material that they can buy; I might also encourage them to consider the next logical course for many, Security+. While I get paid by the training organization to teach the class (who in turn buys the courseware from CompTIA), it is nice that CompTIA recognizes that building a relationship with me will encourage me to encourage my students. I did this for Microsoft for so many years (and will continue to do so for them for years to come I am sure), it was only recently (the last 2-3 years) that I have expanded my course offerings to CompTIA; I am happy that they are now reaching out to help me with it… especially knowing that the retail price for my next CompTIA exam retails for $392, and that every dollar of discount helps!

    After that, I am going to do some studying… as well as some playing around with my Linux environment because there is so much to explore in it. Yesterday morning, I was using it a lot for my study group and I as seeing a lot of things that I want to play with. As eager as I am, I know that for some of them it will be better for me to go through the courseware and then do it along with the demo videos… and then go from there. Most people do not realize that the difference between a hacker and a cybersecurity specialist is which side of right and wrong you are on. While hackers are criminals, a lot of what they do (which are things that we are exploring in this course, so that we can defend against them) is actually a lot of fun! Maybe I will go to the gym too… I really should.

    Something else that I should spend some time on today is preparing my laptop for the trip to Dallas. While that might sound like a dichotomy – aren’t laptops designed for portability, so that you just take them and go? – I am not taking my teaching laptop with me; I will be delivering two classes from Dallas, and I will be taking my much lighter (and much more powerful) laptop with me. I know that I have never taught from it, so I want to make sure it has everything set up properly. That means that I need to have the courseware on it, and make sure that the remote training software is installed and working properly. I will probably spend a few minutes teaching from it tomorrow evening to make sure that everything works before flying on Wednesday. I am not worried about the slides – I know that even if I did forget my slides and my notes on the other computer, they are all synchronized to the cloud and easily accessible. I want to see if the built-in camera and microphone are good enough. They should be (it’s a really good machine!) but I do not want to get there and realize that I missed something.

    I am astounded that it is only 8:45am, and I am almost ready to publish… even though I am not teaching this morning. My eyes popped open early, and while I tried to get back to sleep there was a combination of a pain in my knee (that pain that only shows up when I am lying down for longer periods, but then goes away when I have been upright for a few minutes. It did not help that I kinda had to pee… had my knee not been a factor I would have gone back to sleep for another hour. That was not in the cards, so I kicked out of bed at 6:45am. The ground outside is a combination of icy and salty (for my southern friends, we use a rock salt to melt snow and ice so that people can walk without slipping and falling), so Princess Sophie walked over to the nearest grass, peed, and said Let’s go back inside, Daddy! I was happy to oblige her… we will go out a little later one, when it is not quite so cold and windy (I hope).

    I am going to go down to my locker now to get my suitcase and the pants that didn’t then but might now fit. I’ll be back as soon as I have tried them on. Don’t worry, I’ll only be a minute (or so it will seem for you!)

    I told you I wouldn’t be long, right? I am now sitting at my desk comfortably wearing a pair of Size-38 Dockers pants. I could hardly believe how well they fit! I was expecting them to be tight, that I would have to suck in my belly to button them up. No, they fit… and I have two pair of them, which means that I will not be ordering another pair to Dallas; rather, I will be bringing two pair down with me… along with several pair of shorts that did not fit me the last time I tried to put them on.

    The collection of clothes that are too small on me is shrinking. A year ago, there were four full bins… pants, shorts, button-down shirts, golf shirts, suits, and t-shirts galore. suits Was it only a week ago that I consolidated what was left into a single bin that was not quite full, but certainly close to it. Now… I left several pair of Size-36 jeans and pants (most of which still have the tags on them) in the bin, along with three button-down shirts, a few golf shirts, and some t-shirts. While this morning was another best-weight-yet day on my current journey, I am now thirty (and a half) pounds from my best-weight-ever… or at least in the last twenty years. I have vague memories of weighing close to that when I was on Weight Watchers in February 2005 when my first marriage ended, and I remember walking out of the last meeting feeling dejected because I had gained a pound, and how sad I was. I stopped losing weight that day and began the long ascent into morbid obesity.

    I have so much more to say, but I am going to save something for tomorrow. It is now 10:15am. I am wearing Size-38 pants, and I called my wife so that we could kvell about that for a few minutes. Princess Sophie heard her best friend Charlie somehow, and begged me to go spend time with him, so the apartment is quiet. I have my next call at 11:00am, and after that I will study for a few hours.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 368

    There are changes that are happening to my body gradually as I lose the weight that are neither immediately obvious to me nor impossible to ignore. A few days ago, Leslie and I were on video chat, and she told me that for the first time ever she could visibly see my collarbone. As the padding peels off, the body that is supposed to be underneath all of that fat somewhere will gradually show itself. I did not think much of it at the time, but a day or two later I realized the implications. What will my body look like when it is not insulated by two hundred pounds of fat? I do not know… but I know that I am looking forward to finding out. I look at myself today and then look at a picture from a month ago – not even a year ago, but a month ago! – and I see huge changes. I then look at people on the street, at the gym, at the store, and wherever else I see normal people, and wonder how I will compare to them when I am at their BMI. It is exciting, but it is daunting.

    I do not know what was so different yesterday, but I felt like I went to the washroom a lot more often than I usually do during the day (and with power and force each time), and then only woke up once in the night to pee. I did not eat or drink anything different that I can think of, other than that at the cigar event I went to I drank a few bottles of Dasani water (which is not my favourite but was all that was available). I will say that I did walk more yesterday than I have in a long time – it was a relatively nice day (for the middle of January in Canada) and I ended up with just short of 12,000 steps… walking HRF accounted for 1.6km, and when I could not sleep in the afternoon I walked just short of 5km. It was not a power walk, and I did not turn on my app, but my fitness watch tracked it, nonetheless. I suppose the exercise does help somewhat. I remember thinking yesterday evening that I seemed to be peeing more than I was drinking (quite the feat!) and I was sure to see a drop on the bathroom scale this morning. I came in from that event late (I had driven into Toronto without my phone, let alone my meal replacement) so I had it when I came home much later than usual, so I was worried that would counterbalance the good of the day. Nope! The bathroom scale registered nearly a full pound drop from yesterday!

    On that subject, I have written extensively about milestones and short-term goals. Since the very beginning of this journey when I started keeping a journal, I have said that every ten-pound loss – into the 320s when I was at 329.8 lbs., down from 330.2 lbs. – was a huge milestone. Since I started back on the strict program ten days ago, I have also realized that every change to the last whole-number-digit of my weight feels huge. Yesterday morning my weight finally dropped to 292.6, down from three days of 293.6 and then 293.2. This morning it dropped to 291.8 lbs. It is unlikely that tomorrow that last integer will change again, but every change to that ‘ones’ column feels like an accomplishment. Whether it is or it is not, it is a sign of actual progress… especially after the two-month plateau that showed such little progress, and when it was made on one day, it was so often eliminated on the next.

    I have another busy day today. Starting in a few minutes I have a study session with a couple of friends for a couple of hours; after that I am driving into Toronto once again to spend some time with another friend who is going through some stuff. If I cannot give wise advice, then I can at least be a friendly ear to let him talk out his own issues. I will bring cigars because that is what we do… it is not the solution for everyone, but for a cigar smoker, a good cigar is more than just a comfort and an enjoyment; it is a conversation starter and can be the lubricant to letting one more freely share difficult emotions… something that many (if not most) men of an age were never really comfortable doing. Unlike yesterday, I will bring my meal replacement with me. My study session is scheduled to go until 12:30pm, so before I leave the house, I will have my second of the day, and will bring my third with me in case (as I expect) I am there longer than a couple of hours. I will endeavour to take my phone as well, but I think I am going to start a new habit of turning it off when I am in serious conversations with people. I notice that since starting my medications I am less likely to pick it up to look at it every time it beeps or buzzes. I can go one step further and change it from being an appendage to something I pick up when I need to… and not a constant (and disrespectful) interruption.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 367

    Yesterday’s realization regarding my falling out of that extreme classification (Morbidly/Severely Obese, or Obesity Class III) felt so good. I could not stop kvelling about it! I called my wife and told her that I was obese! She could not figure out what I meant… until I explained it, at which point it was definitely something to celebrate. She has been my number one supporter throughout the process… even if sometimes (more often than either of us wish) she has had to show it to me through tough love.

    I have said often that when I look in the mirror, I still see a fat man. I have said often that this might be a psychological thing that will never go away. However, I looked in the mirror this morning; a day after spending a lot of time reading my thoughts and feelings and perceptions from the beginning of my journey – as well as where I was after I fell off and started gaining weight and losing ground – and tried to evaluate myself realistically. I still have a belly… but it is nowhere near as immense as it was a year ago. I still have man-boobs that hang down, but they do not hang down as far nor feel as heavy as they were. I still have ‘love handles…’ but they are not sticking out from my centre nearly as much as they did. When I stand with my hands to my side, if my arms are completely rigid then my hands do stick out… but only a little, and not nearly what it was. I can look at myself objectively and see real progress. That could be because of the exercise I did with the tape measure the other day, or maybe it is because as my body shrinks, the mental anguish of being morbidly/severely/Class III obese is shrinking as well. It may not shrink as quickly… but I think that my mind is starting to accept that I was not always fat, and I do not have to always be fat.

    Yesterday was weird. I had a lot of disruptions – some of which were professional and important, others… less so. However, in the afternoon I sat at my desk, and for the first time in I don’t know how long… I studied. I probably spent five or six hours working on my new certification, which is really exciting. It is not really the certification that is exciting, it is the knowledge and skills that I am learning from the studies. Additionally, I realized something that I have told my students countless times… the class materials are a great starting point, but they are not enough. I spent a couple of extra hours building a virtual lab environment for myself so that I can play with the tools we are being taught… and not just press the buttons that the labs tell us to press. This is taking me outside of my comfort zone – I have always been able to do absolutely anything related to Microsoft Windows, but my experience with Linux is much less complete. Building the machine was a challenge (that took me hours to overcome), and then realizing that the differences between this particular version of the Linux distro that I downloaded – in name, the same as the one that CompTIA integrates in all of its labs, but in practice the differences between that and this look like jumping from Windows 7 to Windows 11. In short, things that I thought I knew I would have to relearn… or more accurately, learn better. This journey is also helping me to see that if I keep it up, I might be able to change my descriptor from ‘IT Professional with a strong understanding of security’ to ‘IT Security Specialist.’ We’ll see.

    I said at the beginning of the last paragraph that it was weird, but I want to elaborate on that. It has been years since I have been able to sit at a desk and focus on studying. I am not saying that I did not get distracted, which would be a lie. I am saying that every time I was distracted, I did what was called for, and then went back to studying. It was truly amazing that over the course of six or seven hours, I probably did a legitimate five hours of studying. With my inability to focus and concentrate for so many years I have not been able to do that, and I see this as a direct result of my ADHD meds actually working. I am thrilled that I am seeing huge improvements, and so far, no noticeable side affects. I do not know if that will change, but I have discussed some other improvements with Leslie, and will be reporting back to my doctor once again that I (we) are seeing noticeable results.

    I have so often vented my frustration at the numbers on my bathroom scale, often because of the unstable flooring in my apartment which so often gives inaccurate readings, often varying as much as a couple of pounds from one reading to the next just seconds later. This morning was no different. My three readings ranged between a 1.2 lbs. gain and a 3 lbs. loss. In the end, I opted to keep the measurement that seemed the most reasonable. I kept to the program religiously (again), so the 1.2 lbs. gain did not seem realistic. At the same time, it is unlikely that I dropped three pounds overnight. In the end, I kept the reading that has me down .6 lbs. from yesterday, which means I am four pounds down in a week. I am happy with that. I would be happier if the floors here were consistent though. While that is not even in the top-twenty ‘Reasons I am excited to be going to see Leslie this week.’ I know that when I step onto her scale, I will know exactly what I weigh on any given day.

    I have had a headache since last night. I know it is not because of dehydration; I am drinking enough water daily to float a canoe in. That does not make it any less real. I noticed it after smoking with a couple of guys last night, but let’s be honest… I have enough experience with cigars to know that they do not cause me headaches. I will stay aware of it and see if it continues longer than a day or two. It is not bad enough for me to want to take a pill for it, but If I am still feeling it tomorrow then I will reconsider.

    I did not sleep well last night. I probably fell asleep around 3am. I was not watching TV, I was just… not sleepy, no matter what I tried. I also woke up to pee (wow did I have to pee) three times between getting into bed and waking up this morning. I was relieved to see that at least I was able to sleep until 8:30am. When I have trouble getting to sleep, I am always worried that my eyes will pop open at 7:05am, despite not having anything pressing to do that day. If Princess Sophie really needed to go out, then she would tell me… but otherwise it was good to be able to sleep a little bit later than usual.

    Where has the morning gone? I am amazed to see it is after noon already. I helped someone by editing (read: ripped to shreds) their CV, but I cannot imagine that took me as long as that. I have written a bit, I have answered some emails, and I wasted a little time on Facebook. With that said, I realized this morning that I have not watched TV at all this week. That is really new for me. I knew that when I was teaching during the day last week that I would not have time for it, but this week I had plenty of free time, and did not do it. I thought about it for a few minutes yesterday, then decided to try to work out a few of my Linux issues. Whether or not it is because of the medications I do not know, but I do know that I have been a lot more productive this week than I usually am on weeks when I am not teaching.

    While I am not actually hungry, I should probably prepare my second meal replacement of the day. I am trying to keep a regular schedule which should help me to stay on track and waiting several hours until I am really hungry is probably a bad idea. I think there are a few drops of coffee left in the pot so I might make that last half-cup… we’ll see. I will do some studying today, but then I expect I am getting together with friends.

    Have a great day folks!

  • STOP THE PRESSES! I’M OBESE!

    That must sound like a ridiculous statement. This is a weight loss journal, and people who are not fat do not write weight loss journals. They certainly do not maintain them daily for a year, right? It is blatantly obvious then to my readers that I am fat… not to mention, anyone who sees me. Read it again… I did not say that I was fat. I said that I was obese. The first is not only judgmental and harsh, but it is also subjective. If I am standing in a room full of supermodels, I look fat. If I am standing in a group of people larger than I am, I might not be perceived the same way. Obese, on the other hand, is a medical term. It has a clear definition based on one’s height and weight. It is not a perfect system, but it is a pretty decent guideline.

    So then why am I so happy to be obese? Because the last time I checked, I was classified as morbidly (or severely) obese, or what the American CDC refers to as Obesity Class 3. It has been a while since I checked, but this morning I saw someone mention their BMI, and I decided to check mine. Depending on the source, my classification was upgraded either when I dropped below 315 lbs. or 300 lbs.… but either way, I am safely in the new category, and working toward being upgraded to Obesity Class I (or simply overweight), but I am about sixty pounds away from that. Hopefully I can achieve that by August.

    I am not going to focus on that. My goal is to be healthy, and to lose weight at a healthy pace. I want to focus on the size of my body and the fit of my clothes, and not a label made up by doctors whom I will never meet. John Lennon once said, ‘I don’t believe in Beetles, I just believe in me.’ I need to focus on my unique needs and body rather than numbers on a chart.

    Okay, my day continues. In a few hours I will light the Sabbath candles. This will be my second Sabbath without challah or wine, and I am fine with that… no matter how weird it might feel.

    Shabbat Shalom!

  • Day 366–Year 2, Day 1

    Happy anniversary to me! It has been one year to the day since I woke up to my first meal replacement shake, and with a dedication and commitment to actively get slim. It would be my third such attempt in five years, so I do not know what my confidence level was that I would succeed in the long term, but when you walk into your first AA meeting they congratulate you, because that first step is hard. Then, as now, I was going through a lot of emotional turmoil that had nothing to do with my weight loss; the fact that I started and succeeded still astounds me.

    My morning started much earlier than normal, for no particular reason. I had set an alarm for 7:00am to make sure that I was all squared away in time for my 9:00am conference call, but an hour before that Her Floofness decided that lying next to me on the bed was over, and she crawled up onto my pillow to nestle herself into the back of my head and shoulder. Maybe lying on my head and shoulder would be more accurate. It felt warm and wonderful and cozy and loving… but it was also an impossible position in which to get back to sleep. I had slept seven hours (which is more than average for me), so I decided to start the morning early. It was 6:45am when she and I stepped out for our morning walk.

    As I was at my desk with my meal replacement and my first cup of coffee much earlier than usual, and because today is so special an occasion, I decided to go back to my previous two weight loss journals (neither of which is online, before you go looking for them), and read what I wrote for the beginning and first couple of days of the program. There were some amazing similarities, as well as some stark contrasts. Each time I was always out of breath, I found it difficult to stand up from a seated position, and it was hard to put on my socks. There were other issues that I discussed, most of which have to do with embarrassment –things that are embarrassing to admit, but also the general feeling of embarrassment at being so morbidly obese. Each time I express at some point on Day 1 that I am proud of myself that I had not yet broken my diet… maybe astounded is a better word. I did, however, read something that I shared with Julie on Day 1 that I wish I had remembered… and that I am going to remember every day going forward because it applies as much now as it did then. Look at the numbers on the bathroom scale and make yourself a promise that you will never be this heavy again. The day that I said (and wrote) that I weighed 395 pounds, and I vowed that day that I will never be that heavy again. This morning I weighed 293.2 pounds… and I am making myself that same promise: I will never be this heavy again. Of course, that might be an easier vow to keep in the long term, because as I have mentioned so many times before, the short-term is more difficult to predict day-over-day. It is possible that I will be completely faithful to the program, yet tomorrow morning I will weigh the same or even more than I do today. Week over week is more realistic; overall even more so. I vow that once I have lost a few more pounds, I will never weigh what I weighed this morning again.

    I know that both times I started the program I did extremely well in the short term. Reading Day 1 is encouraging, but I also need to remember that it was not all successes. I decided to read ahead to Day 365 in both journals… or as close to it as I could. The first time around, I was going through a lot of emotional trauma. I do not remember what that was, but thinking back, I was going through a divorce, and my finances were a disaster (partly due to the divorce). I was more than 47 lbs. up from my best weight. I was trying again… but the next year was a constant regression into morbid obesity.

    Day 365 of my second go-around (August 2020) was much more encouraging. The time and path it took me to get there was not a straight drop down like it was in 2017; I took my time, which is to say that I faltered several times over the course of the year, but by Day 365 I was doing great… I was down 116 lbs. from my peak the year before and would eventually lose another 17 lbs. before the slow (and then not so slow) slip and fall from grace would begin. I was happy, I had just started a great new job, and I was truly optimistic. Two days later I would lose that job, and while my diet would continue to succeed for another month and change, the series of events that would eventually lead to my gaining back all of that weight and having to relocate to Canada began.

    I look back at the past to remember where I was, what went right but also what went wrong, and what I need to do (and what I need to be mindful of) in order to succeed this time. I once asked the CEO of Microsoft about a trend that I saw which made me worry that they were making a lot of the same mistakes that IBM had in the 1970s and 1980s. His response to me was that he hoped that if they were going to make mistakes, they would be new ones. I am not sure how soon thereafter he stepped down, but many see Steve Ballmer’s tenure as CEO as one fraught with mistakes. I thought of this because I know the mistakes that I made previously that caused me to fail at long-term weight loss. It will be easy to avoid those. It is also important to remember that there are so many other mistakes that I can make, and that while the paths to success are few, there are a great many roads that lead to failure. I will have to remember every day for the rest of my life to be mindful so that I do not fall back into bad habits… or into new bad habits either.

    I went into a lot of detail yesterday about the differences between last January 20 and this one. I am keeping track of my weight loss daily and tracking my progress on the scale. I decided last night to spend a couple of minutes looking at the three measurements that a year ago I felt important enough to measure in addition to my weight. I pulled out my measuring tape and stripped down in the bathroom. Here are the results:

    January 20, 2022

    January 20, 2023

    Difference

    Weight

    395 lbs.

    293.2 lbs.

    101.8 lbs.

    Under belly fat

    53.5”

    46”

    7.5”

    Belly (Navel)

    63” (bigger than my 60” tape!)

    54.5

    8.5”

    Chest

    58.25”

    50”

    8.25”

    Yes, I am kvelling. I seem to be doing that a lot of late, and I hope that nobody feels that bragging about these feats is too obnoxious.

    I was on a cruise ship many years ago and there was a spa treatment offered that promised you to shed at least 2” from your body during the cruise. What they neglected to mention was that they were measuring twenty-five different locations on your body, and the combined loss on all those locations would be 2”. A year ago, and again last night, I measured only three locations on my body, and the combined loss on all those locations equals 24.25”. To put things in perspective, that is slightly more than two feet. Not only have I lost 25% of my body weight, but it can also be argued that I have also lost 33% of my height!

    It has been a year of amazing highs and terrible lows, both with regard to my weight loss journey and with the rest of my life. Once I have lost all the weight I need to lose (however much that will be), I hope the ups and downs of my weight will be much less drastic… like a normal person, I might gain a couple of pounds on vacation, and then go on a diet when I get home to burn them off. I also hope that my life, starting now, I will experience many more highs, with only the occasional muted low… just to remind me of how lucky I am to be where I am.

    Yesterday’s consumption was exactly where it was supposed to be. For nine days straight I have been able to stick to the program religiously. I hope that I will be able to stay true to it until I wake up Wednesday morning and fly to Dallas. Leslie and I were talking yesterday, and I told her that I was hoping to be closer to 285 lbs. than 290 lbs. by the time I arrived, which would mean as much as a twenty-pound loss since she left here in November. I am so excited about that! I want her to throw her arms around me… all the way around me! We will have to see how that goes, but one thing is for sure… I will be smaller than the last time she saw me… and 24.25” smaller than the first time she saw me! Unfortunately, the numbers on the bathroom scale are not cooperating with that plan; after no loss yesterday, this morning I was down .4 lb. which is good – down is always better than up! – but at the same time I realize that if I lose that same amount every day between now and Wednesday, I will only lose two more pounds by the time I fly on Wednesday. I would not even drop below 290 lbs. I know that she will not be disappointed, and really neither will I. It is just harsh to remember that when I started on the program both times the doctors told me to expect a 2-3 lbs. drop per week. It was nice to drop nearly ten pounds in my first week of the strict program, but it is not realistic to expect that pace to continue.

    The lesson in this is that setting unrealistic expectations can lead to disappointment, but it is also important to be happy with all progress. I was so upset about the plateau that I was at for two months, and then thrilled when my weight dropped so quickly when I switched programs. I have told so many people over these last few months that they were looking at it wrong. You cannot look at it as ‘I only lost one pound this week.’ You have to look at it like, ‘I lost a hole pound this week!’ It is not the first time that I find myself giving people really good advice that I have trouble following myself. I have to work on that and remember that a 2-3 lbs. drop in a week is not only good progress, but it is also what the doctors told me that I should expect once that initial water-weight loss is behind me. If I can maintain that overall trend, then by September I will be at or beyond any goal that I have ever hoped for with my weight loss. I cannot be impatient. My body will lose the weight. I know that when I first started the extreme program, I lost a lot more weight that this in the first few months. Back then, I was at my heaviest weight, so it was coming off easier than it is now. Patience is key!

    My plans for today are to do some studying, and to stick to the program. I am going to spend a few hours this evening smoking cigars with friends, and I will take care to make sure I am not tempted by any food or drinks… and I will remember that ever-important lesson that a small handful of snacks – even healthy snacks – are not allowed on my program. I will be true to the program a full fortnight by the time I get onto the airplane to see Leslie.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 365 Facebook Group Post

    clip_image002On July 30, 2020, I posted this picture with the caption: “This IKEA bag is filled with clothes to go to charity tomorrow… none of it fits anymore!”

    I was so proud of myself. I weighed 279.2lbs, down from 394. I would, by two months later, lost another 19lbs… and then that was it. Something happened, and I started slipping. Eventually, by November 2021, I was back at that original starting weight… thinking that it was lucky that I had not donated that IKEA bag filled with clothes, because I would have had to buy an entire new wardrobe.

    365 days ago, I started on my own modified <meal replacements> program. I was not following it completely, but I was losing weight. It has been slow, it has been emotional, and it has had far too many plateaus that lasted far too long. Today I weigh 293lbs, and once again, none of the clothes in this picture fit. This time they have been donated. I did not wait for a giant mass; I have been getting rid of them immediately as they become too loose. I never want to wear them again.

    My weight loss blog has over 450 articles on it from this last year, and the offline document that compiles them all is over 320,000 words long. I have transposed my thoughts into the written word so that I can share my experience with others, but also so that when I do get to my ultimate goal and I do get complacent, I will always remember to put a stop to my backward slide before it can take root. All of those words might make for interesting reading, but it is all captured perfectly in images such as this: This is a bag of my fat clothes, and I never want to wear fat clothes again.

    For those of you who wonder if I am a failure for having lost and gained so much weight before – twice – I will say that I have slipped and I have fallen and I have given up, but I have never quit. I have never resigned myself to being fat forever. I have never said that I cannot do it. Like Thomas Edison who learned 2000 ways how not to make a light bulb, I have now learned two ways how to not achieve my final goal, and to maintain it. As with the Wizard of Menlo Park, I have learned from my failures and am at it again… using similar methods and materials, but a different way of implementing it.

    Friday is the beginning of my second year of weight loss, and with the recent (last week) shift from my modified program to the full and strict <meal replacement> plan for the next few months, I know that I can achieve the goal. With the support of my friends and those of you who have helped to support me and who I hope I have support and encourage as well, and with the grace of G-d, I hope that 2023 will be the last year that I ever have to lose weight again. It is my goal that within the year I will achieve my goal body, and that for the rest of my life – knowing how easy it is to get fat – I will mindfully work to maintain that goal body.

    Weight loss is simple… but it is far from easy. Anyone who reaches out to me for my support will have it. Ask, I am here. You are somebody, and you deserve to have the best body you can!

  • Day 365

    What a number. Today is the last day of the diet year one. Looking at myself now versus then is… well, the transformation is amazing. While I am still a work in progress in so many ways, I am absolutely a different person. I have shed in one year just over twenty-five percent (25%) of my bodyweight! In pants, I am down from a Size-46 to a Size-40. My shirts are down from a very tight XXL to a comfortable fit XL. While I still have a few pounds to go before I am at my best weight from 2017, the custom-tailored suits and shirts that I had made back then fit, and only the jackets are slightly tight. While it is not really measurable, my face is noticeably slimmer. These are just the physical changes.

    A year ago, I hated myself. I hated what I looked like, I hated what I had let myself become. I absolutely hated myself knowing that not only had I lost over one hundred pounds and then gained it all back… but I had done it twice in under five years. I honestly did not know if I had it in me to do again, and if I might not be destined to spend the rest of my life as a fat man. I hated knowing that one day I would be a burden on the medical system and on my family because I did not have the discipline to control my appetites. I hated that I had the choice of wearing XXXL shirts that exposed my belly or spending money on XXXXL shirts that would cover it… but would also make losing weight a less pressing issue. I absolutely despised myself for having to buy a 4XL winter jacket, because in Canada having a winter jacket that fits is non-negotiable. On the eve of my weight loss program’s 1st anniversary, I have not worn that jacket… I am wearing the much smaller one that I have had since 2006. I know that next winter I will have to buy a new winter jacket… this one will be too big on me. All of my XXXL shirts have been donated to charity or given away to friends. My blood pressure is extremely low (yesterday it was 107/62), and my pulse is on the verge of imperceptible (58 beats per minute). The two medications I am on have nothing to do with my weight issues (or any health issued caused by them). With that said, they are both directly contributing to my quality of life, and that directly affects my happiness. The difference between today and a year ago is that when I look at myself in the mirror naked today, I still see a fat man… but when I put on a nice shirt and pair of pants, I look in the mirror and realize how good I look… and how far I have come.

    I will be dealing with food addiction for the rest of my life, which means that obesity will be hanging over my head, like the sword of Damocles. It would take only one slip – forgetting to be vigilant with how I eat – for me to fall back into it. That is a difficult reality to contend with, but to underline the importance of it, let’s review the lesson of the previous paragraph: the more weight I lose, the less I hate myself. Corollary: The slimmer I am, the more I love myself. If the size of my body is directly related to the feelings I have for myself, then every time I start gaining weight, I have to remember that as much as I might dislike myself for gaining five pounds, how much worse will I hate myself for gaining twenty… or fifty. Mindfulness, vigilance, and dedication to maintaining a me that I will love. Of course, I am sure that aside from my wife, every psychologist in the world would tell me that I have to learn to love myself no matter how large or small I am. That is a great theory, but if I can stay slim, then I can continue to work with my therapist on all of the other issues that I have that contribute to negative feelings about myself.

    This morning was the first day in a while that I did not lose any weight. Actually, that is not entirely true… As with so many mornings, I did not weigh myself once, but thrice. The first time, I was .2lbs. down from yesterday. I decided to not save that and stepped back onto the scale. I was .4lbs. heavier than yesterday. That really would not do! I weighed myself one last time, and the number was exactly what it was yesterday morning. Even a week or two ago I would have kept trying until I got back below that weight… even to the original .2lbs. down number. I decided that the stagnant number would be a punishment for my impatient to lose weight that I am losing… even though I am not losing it as fast I want to lose it. As my wife has pointed out to me several times, my weight loss is not going to be the constant downward trend on a line graph. There will be ups that counter the more frequent downs. I also need to remember that every weight loss expert in the world tries to discourage people from weighing themselves every day. It is exactly because of the discouragement that people experience when the numbers do not do what we want that they give this advice. There are so many reasons we fail on our weight loss journeys, and discouragement is a big one. I will not be discouraged. I will continue on. If I persevered the last two months of plateau and zero progress (despite extreme emotional crises), I can look at a single day of not dropping any weight and laugh it off, continuing on my journey.

    My plans for today are to start studying. I have wanted to continue on my certification journey for a while, but my ADHD has really hindered that. Honestly, I always knew that I had trouble concentrating and setting my mind to studying, but I never realized that there was a medicinal solution for it. While I had heard of people who used drugs to focus, I never thought that I would be one of them. Today will be the first time in a very long time that I am going to sit down and study… I do not know how far I will get today, but I will do what I can. After all, it will be a huge adjustment. I do have incentive though… I will be working together with a couple of friends (well, one friend and her adult son) in a study group to prepare for the exam. Liz has always seen me as some sort of certification prodigy. I don’t know about that, but I have been able to pass a lot of exams… as long as the content is in my comfort zone. The course we will be working on is probably adjacent to my comfort zone, but unlike so many other exams that I have passed, there is no way that I could sit down at the exam computer today and pass it. Maybe in a few weeks… we’ll see.

    Of course, this evening I am teaching again, which is great because not only do I love teaching, I also love the knowledge that sometime in the not-too-distant future someone will be paying me for teaching! While I am looking at job opportunities, right now the only income I have is from my teaching contracts… so woohoo, teaching tonight!

    I plan to stay on track with my four meal replacements today. Aside from taking Her Floofness out for her walks, I have no reason to leave the house today. I thought about going to the gym, but I think studying is more important. The other benefit to that is if I do not leave the house, there are fewer temptations. For example, I know that in the next couple of days I need to go to Bulk Barn. I am running low on doggie treats, so I need to pick some up. In addition to that, there are a couple of other items that I want to get, but if I did not need to get Scooby Snacks, I probably would not walk into that store… there are just too many temptations there. I am going out tomorrow, Saturday, and probably Sunday too… I will gird myself to go into the store and not pick up peanuts or almonds or anything else.

    I also think it is time for me to change the theme of my blog. The more I look at it, the more I see that the theme that I picked is missing a lot of things that it should have. I’ll try to spend no more than twenty minutes on that.

    There is a simplicity to being on the strict program that I had not put together before. Since the Army I have said that best way to make sure that people make the right choice is to only give them the one option. When I was on my modified program, I had so many choices to make. Many times, but not always, I made the right choice. If I had made the right choice every single time, then I would have lost a lot more than one hundred pounds in the year. The strict meal replacement program means that I do not have to choose what protein to cook for my meal… and trust me, I know that I was always making too much. I do not have to decide what vegetables to add to my salad, or how much olive oil I should sprinkle on before dousing it with (how much?) balsamic vinegar. The only choices I have to make are: 1) What time should I have my next meal replacement, and 2) Have I had enough water today? That’s it. There are no other choices to make… which means there is so much less opportunity to make the wrong choice. I have already made the decision that I will have one pot of coffee per day (three cups), with 1/3 teaspoon of raw sugar and a splash of It’s-Really-Easy-To-Believe-It’s-Not-Milk. By eliminating all food, let’s look at how my life is simpler… and how my weight loss program is actually easier:

    • I know what I am eating… every meal, every day.
    • The only time I ever need to go into the supermarket (the den of temptations) is every couple of weeks to buy milk/not-milk for my coffee.
    • Portions are not an issue… every meal is contained in a single pouch.
    • I can work through lunch (if I want to) because it is as easy to drink the meal replacement shake at my desk as it is at the kitchen table.

    There are probably other benefits, but these are four that really stick out to me. Of course, Princess Sophie is a bit miffed because she is no longer getting the cartilage from my chicken… but we have plenty other treats in the house, and she is not going hungry. Just because I need to lose weight does not mean that she needs to go without.

    Okay, it is time for me to get off my butt and get things done. It is time for my second meal replacement of the day, and when that is prepared, I will sit down and answer a few emails before I start studying.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 364

    On days when I am going to the doctor’s office for my regular ‘official’ weigh-in, I do not wake up earlier or later than I would on any other day. If the appointment is for 9:00am I might set an alarm, but even then, I know that I rarely sleep in late enough to need it. This morning’s appointment is at 9:40am, and it was only because I have not been sleeping as well as I need to that I set an alarm for 7:00am. I wake up and follow my morning bathroom routine before taking Princess Sophie for her walk. When we come in, as I would almost any other day, I sit down at my computer and start writing my daily journal entry… or if I started writing the article the previous evening, I will continue writing it.

    The only difference between any other day and the days when I go to the doctor is that on these days, I usually do not make my morning coffee, and I usually will not make my morning meal replacement until I am back from the doctor’s office. I know that I will be stepping onto the scale within an hour or so, and I do not want to add those extra ounces or grams to the result. And so, I will sit here at one of my desks, typing the beginning of my journal entry onto one of my computers, trying to ignore the hunger, and the malaise that comes with not having my regular first cup or two of coffee in the morning.

    It is not unusual for my appointment to be at 9:40am (as it is today), which means that I will be back at my desk shortly before 11:00am. I will get home and immediately press brew on the coffee pot (I might not drink it in the morning, but I prepare the pot to brew as soon as I am home) and I prepare my morning meal replacement… even though the morning is mostly over.

    Most of the time, I know what the doctor’s scale is going to say. I will not know exactly, but I will already have weighed myself at home, and although there are some factors that result in my home reading and the doctor’s office reading not being the same, I know that for every pound I dropped on my bathroom scale since the day of my previous visit, I will have dropped a pound on the doctor’s scale… once I have converted pounds into kilograms.

    Because of all that, I know that when I get onto the scale later this morning, I know my weight should read about four kilograms down from two weeks ago, the metric equivalent of a nine-pound drop. That, my fair reader, is nothing to sneeze at. Losing that kind of weight in two weeks is amazing. Knowing privately that I have actually lost 90% of that weight in one week is even more amazing. Of course, there is the small fact that I stopped eating solid foods, and probably dropped my caloric input by 500 calories… not to mention that I have not cheated at all. I am not going to hide that fact from the doctor or the nurse; in fact, I am going to ask them if they can support me even more with that program. I will also tell them about my plans for the foreseeable future… including my plan to take a week off of the extreme program when I am in Dallas. I am in the middle of writing an article for my professional blog right now based on the premise that there are four people in life that you should not lie to: Your doctor, your lawyer, your bartender, and your banker. I want my doctor’s support on my journey. Lying to him would do nobody any good.

    Last night I was quite tired during my class. I considered making a Royal Milk Tea, as I have during so many of my evening classes over these last few months. That would provide me with the caffeine boost I would need to stay awake. I then remembered that I know the calorie content of the RMT, but I do not know the other values – sugar, carbohydrates, and such. I decided to skip the tea, and I tried to remember to cover my mouth when I yawned. If I am going to practice mindfulness, I am going to have to consider the pros and cons of everything that I ingest. During the intensive phase of my program, I am already cheating by drinking coffee – with non-milk and sugar to boot! – and I also had a couple of lozenges to keep my throat going during class. I decided that I would rather be tired, and not add yet another cheat to the intensive program… especially not the night before my official weigh-in!

    (This morning, I decided to look it up. Each cup of Royal Milk Tea has 7g of carbohydrates, and 6g of sugars. I am glad I opted to not drink it.)

    I have an app on my phone that I should be using religiously when I start eating solid foods again… and that includes next week in Dallas, when I take my week-long break from the program. MyFitnessPal allows me to look up the nutritional value of just about any food you can think of, including many popular restaurants. If your product has a barcode, you can scan it and it will immediately tell you what is in it. It will also track your food throughout the day. It takes a day or two to get used to entering or scanning every food that you eat, but once you get started, it is pretty intuitive. For someone like myself, who often has the same (or similar) meal often, you can save meals and just copy it to the next day. Had I thought to use this app last night, I would have known immediately about the 6g of sugars in a serving of Royal Milk Tea. When I am not restricting my caloric intake to 950 very predictable calories per day (four meal replacements, three cups of coffee with a total of 1tsp of Sugar in the Raw and as much as 2oz of not-milk), I should be using this app religiously to scan, measure, and track everything that I eat. I will try to remember to do that… that will be a big help to my mindfulness!

    According to the bathroom scale, I am down another .4 lb. this morning, but on days when I am seeing the doctor, I am much more interested in what his scale will tell me. Especially since this is my first weigh-in since starting the strict program, I am excited… but I know that if I leave now (8:45am) then I might get weighed earlier… but I am still going to be sitting in his waiting room for however long it will take. Better I sit her for a few more minutes, writing my journal entry, and compiling my thoughts.

    I changed my mind ever so slightly about this morning’s routine. I am going to prepare my coffee right now and will take my first cup to go. I have a really good to-go cup that will keep it hot and fresh so that when I step off the scale (and the blood pressure monitor is complete) then I can start right away. It is not that I am excessively hungry right now; I do not have a lot of energy and feel like that first jolt of caffeine would really hit the spot.

    Okay, it is now about 9:15, and I can safely head out. I’ll see you back here in an hour and a half. Trust me, for you the time will really fly!

    —

    I told you I wouldn’t be long, right? It is 10:50am and I am back at my desk with my cup of coffee and my morning meal replacement. The nurse took one look at me as I walked in and told me she was certain I had lost more weight. I did not say anything to her other than ‘I hope so!’ When the scale stabilized at a 4.4kg drop, she was indeed surprised… and I was kvelling. The doctor and I discussed my current strategy and progress, as long as a brief discussion of the emotional maelstrom I have been going through of late. He was surprised that through it all I have lost weight, as most people would have turned to food and drink. He is glad that I am optimistic about the steps we are taking to fix things, and that I am seeing a therapist. We also discussed the improvements that both Leslie and I have noticed since I started on the medications, and he gave me a new prescription so that I can refill it as necessary.

    Before coming home, I dropped the prescription off at the pharmacy, and hoped that they would have oat milk. They did not, so I decided to make a quick run to the supermarket to get some. At the same time, I picked up coffee beans, and a bottle of windshield wiper fluid. It is not easy to get in and out of the supermarket without succumbing to temptation, but I managed to escape unscathed. I needed to search for the oat milk – it turns out that the things-other-than-cows-that-we-now-milk products are in the organic foods section at this supermarket, and not with the milk and cream as at the other one I was at last week. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was not fond of the almond milk, and that when I was finished with the container, I would either go back to cow-juice, or try a different varietal. Two friends told me that I should try oat milk next, as that was what they found the tastiest. The last of the almond milk is in my current cup of coffee (number 2), which means that the great oat milk experiment of 2023 will be starting within the hour. I will report tomorrow how I like it.

    I had an interesting conversation with the nurse and the receptionist at the office today. She asked me how much I have lost so far, and I told her proudly that it was now slightly over one hundred pounds, but that I also have a long way to go. She said that ‘the first hundred pounds is the hardest!’ I told her that I do not believe that at all. Yes, starting to lose weight is hard… and sticking with it is even harder. That said, if when I weighed 375 lbs. I had cheated, it was possible that I would still lose weight. If we look back on my journey, there were days when I had what I thought was a reasonable serving of peanuts, and I lost weight the next morning. When my weight loss was stalled a few months ago I looked it up, and it turned out that the helping of peanuts I ate was really four servings, and I was regularly eating 700+ calories worth of peanuts. In the first months I would still lose weight, because my body was still used to burning close to 3,000 calories per day. After writing that sentence, I decided to see what it really was; according to my smart scale app, my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) on January 23 last year was 2,884. That means that if I sat in a chair all day and did no exercise, my body would burn that many calories for the energy that I needed to get by. This week that number is 2,280. Absent any activity, the body burns more calories and therefore you lose more weight the fatter you are… which is why a larger person can eat more than a smaller person and still maintain their weight. On the other hand, the slimmer you are, the more active you are able to be. A year ago, there is no way that I could have gone to the gym and worked out the way I do now (although not yet as regularly as I should). Exercise not only burns calories, but it also boosts your metabolism so that your body will continue to burn more calories for hours after your workout is done.

    What is the verdict? If we round up the amount of weight, I needed to lose at the beginning of this journey to two hundred pounds, which hundred would be easier, the first or the second? The answer is neither. There is no such thing as an easier-to-lose hundred pounds. Losing that much weight is extremely difficult, and the factors involved in continuing to lose weight do not only fluctuate by hundred, they actually change drastically for every five or ten pounds lost. Will the next ten pounds that I lose be easier or harder than the last ten pounds that I lost? Until you realize that every pound to lose is a struggle and that every pound lost is a victory, you cannot begin to fathom the difficulties involved in the first pound right to the last one.

    I will add to this that people who go on a diet to lose ten pounds or twenty will look at someone like me in awe. In truth, I understand that their comparatively miniscule weight loss goals are dwarfed in comparison with the successes I have already achieved, as well as with my future goals. I suspect that for them, the 10-20 pounds might be as difficult to lose as my 180-200 pounds. Not only do we have to consider the percentage of body weight differences, but also the fact that I had to get into a mindset and commit myself to a multi-year journey. Most people do not realize that even on the most extreme programs, most diet professionals tell their patients to expect no more than a 1–2-pound drop per week. When I embarked on my journey, I knew that I would be working at it for at the most optimistic a year, and more realistically for 2-3 years. In fact, had my body trusted those professionals, that 200-pound drop would take nearly four years. Yes, the heavier you are, the quicker the weight will come off… but that tapers off. If someone who weighs 150lbs. wants to drop to 135lbs. they might think that it would take a week or two. In fact, it can be a 2–3-month journey. I mention all of this to say that huge weight loss and minor weight loss are absolutely different… but that does not mean that one is easier than the other.

    I could continue to go on with this topic, but it is approaching noon, and I have another article (for my professional blog) that I have been meaning to write. I am sure I will have plenty of thoughts to bloviate about tomorrow.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 363

    Today is the ninth day in a row that my weight has dropped, and I am in a pretty good mood about that. I am also in a much more optimistic mood this morning with regard to several other issues that have been weighing on me these last few weeks. If you combine those two factors together, I have hopes that today might be a good day.

    I booked a haircut and beard trim over the weekend for this morning. I have been going back and forth over what to do with my beard, and this morning I made a decision. I am not going to say what that decision is because I do not want my most loyal reader (and wife) to know in advance. Sorry Lesi-chan, you are just going to have to wait until Barney is done with me to see!

    They say that for therapy to help to fix a problem, it will hurt. This is why every therapist office that I have seen (which includes a couple of military ones, a few civilian ones, and many more on television and in movies) has a box of tissues easily accessible to the patient (or patients). Yesterday’s drive to Scarborough was pretty uneventful until I received a message that led to a difficult conversation, and a lot of emotional pain. The next few hours were hard, and I am glad that when I got to my friend’s place in Cambridge (over an hour’s drive from Scarborough) there was something that we ended up talking about for most of the afternoon to distract me. More on that later. In the evening, my non-therapy session continued, and once we got past the hurt, and understood where all of the miscommunications were and how they led to so much pain, we were able to get past the hurt and begin to discuss how to make things better. That will be an ongoing conversation.

    Scarborough went exactly as I thought it would. I got there, collected the meal replacements, paid, and left… although we did have a conversation for a few minutes, mostly about her family. It was a happy coincidence that the number of boxes that I wanted was exactly the size of a case from the manufacturer, so that box was sitting waiting for me. She (Nurse Laura) insisted that despite it being factory sealed, we open it to make sure that the product matched the description, that the expiration date was as promised, and she even opened two smaller boxes to count the number of packages within. When she asked if I wanted her to open them all to confirm the count I politely declined. The box fit easily into my car trunk, and I was good to go. I was mistaken in just how big this would be, and it does all fit into my cupboards (with plenty of room to spare). It will not be in my face as I said yesterday. That does not change the fact that I will be on the product exclusively, at least for the next eight days. With a trip to Dallas coming up, I will likely spend the week that I am in Dallas back on my modified program and will resume the regimented program upon my return to Canada.

    I arrived at my buddy’s house around 12:30pm, and it was time for a meal replacement. I took my shaker bottle and one pouch into the garage (the smoking lounge) to prepare and enjoy it before lighting my cigar. My buddy noticed the name on it and said ‘Oh, I just got accepted into the medical weight loss program at the local hospital and will be starting on that product when we begin!’ While I refuse to give weight loss advice (every overweight person has already gotten far too much of that), I am also more than happy to share my experience and strategies – including my successes and failures – with friends… and with people on the Internet who ask me for it. We spent several hours talking about how the program works, what the emotional toll is, and so much more. I never realized that there was so much to say, but two cigars later I cut it short to head out. One of the most important factors to his success will be his family. I know them all and discussed briefly with both of his parents (who came into the garage at different points) what they will need to do to support him, and how important that will be for him when he starts. I also told him that during that first week of shakes only he should sleep on my couch, because he will want to kill someone or everyone all the time. Due to the backlog in the Ontario Bariatric Network – or maybe specifically at his local hospital – he did have his orientation call, but he will not be starting on the program for another year. I told him that I am happy to support him through his journey. He has one advantage over me – he is fifteen years younger than I am. Yes people, that does make a huge difference.

    I was listening to CBC radio yesterday morning (as I always do when I take Her Floofness on her morning walk). When the news is over, I will continue to listen to the talk radio station (unless the show Q is on, at which point I immediately switch to Spotify) until we come back home, at which point I usually take my earbuds out. The topic yesterday was obesity, specifically the drug Ozempic. While I will not go into detail about the conversation, I was so happy to hear the guest (a medical doctor) discussing it because she referred to obesity as a chronic disease. I have been dealing with obesity for most of my post-military life, and aside from all of the other programs I have tried (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and many more), I have been to a number of weight management clinics run by doctors since I started really trying in 2013. In all of that time, I have heard obesity referred to as a disease, but never as chronic. That is so important for us to realize, and it is why most of us, after losing weight and showing such success on whatever program we try, usually gain the weight back. While I have heard wonderful things about Ozempic, I did not realize that it was a drug that one would have to take for the rest of their life. I truly hope that I am able to lose the weight both non-surgically and without medication, but I am also really hoping that this time, once I achieve my long-term weight loss goals, I will be able to maintain it through constant awareness and vigilance. Yes, like any addict I know that I will never have the luxury of ‘just letting myself go for a few days.’ Yes, I will have cheat meals… but I will plan for them in advance, and I will keep them as infrequent as I can. As a diabetic must constantly monitor their blood sugar and insulin, eating and medicating accordingly, I, a sufferer of chronic obesity, will have to constantly monitor what I eat, and cut back and increase my exercise accordingly.

    Okay, it is time to head out to the barber. I’ll continue writing when I am back!

    —

    I am back, and my face looks cleaner than it has in a very long time. I do not remember when I started growing my beard out again; I do know that my goatee is smaller than it has been since I started wearing it in 2015. I will not post a picture online (nor this article describing it) until Leslie has seen it, which she will do when she is finished with her call. I am excited to see her reaction. In the last four days I have gone from the long rabbi-beard to trimming the full beard short, and now to the clean and subtle goatee. The before and after pictures will show a real contrast!

    It is almost 12:30pm, and I am enjoying my second meal replacement of the day. When I went into the freezer to grab an ice cube, I noticed a steak just sitting there. With the major milestones that I have achieved in the last few days, I definitely deserve to reward myself, but I am not going to. I booked my airfare to Dallas this morning for next Wednesday, and I will be there for a week. For that week, I am taking a break from the full program; while I will take care to not go crazy, I will eat with my wife – both at home and in restaurants – during the week. We not have seen each other nearly two months by the time I get there, and I want us to enjoy our short time together. As it is, I will be teaching two of the seven nights that I am there, which will leave us only five evening meals together. Yes, we will have breakfasts and lunches… and I will make a point of eating consciously while I am there. I would not be upset if I returned to Canada up a pound. I would be very disappointed in myself if after a week of splurging I was up five pounds or more. I have to remember to pay attention.

    I suppose the lesson of the previous paragraph is the one that I will have to most integrate into everyday life from the moment I am finished on my program – or really, starting now – and for the rest of my life. Constant mindfulness is what I will need in order to achieve and then maintain my goal weight. I will have to remember that. When I am going out to a restaurant, the mindfulness should ideally start well in advance. Once I know what restaurant I will be going to – and by trying to choose only restaurants where it is easy to be good – I should try to look online to see what their food options are, and what the nutritional values of them are. As I discussed with my buddy yesterday, calories are the measurement that so many focus on, but in fact it is neither calories nor fat that are the real problems. It is carbohydrates and starches that cause most of our obesity. So yes, the menu in many restaurants will list the caloric values of each dish, but by looking them up in advance I can choose in advance the truly healthier meals. I use that word in the context of the restaurant, because as I have said many times, with few exceptions there is really no such thing as a truly healthy meal at a restaurant. By being informed and mindful of what I order, and then not letting myself get tempted by my eyes, I hope it is possible to get slim and healthy… and to stay that way.

    To be clear, my breaking from the strict program is only for the week that I am away. As soon as I am back in Canada I am resuming from where I left off: four meal replacements per day, and nothing else. I have given it some thought, and realize that if I am vigilant with it, it would not be unrealistic to get to my next major milestone by the beginning of March. On September 27, 2020, I weighed 260.4 lbs. This morning I weigh thirty-four pounds more than that. If I can stick to the strict program for six weeks (minus my week in Dallas), then that is very possible. We’ll see.

    Okay, my wife has seen my goatee and approves. Now I can not only publish this entry, but I can also post a picture on Facebook! I told her that I would love to post before and after pictures, which got me thinking… My weight loss before picture is from January 20, and I took an interim picture to post side-by-side on my blog on August 7 (Day 200), when I was seventy pounds down. Maybe it is time to take a new picture for that comparison. I will wait until next week when I am in Dallas; if for no other reason, there is nobody on earth who looks at me with such love and admiration as Leslie, so why not have her take the picture? Of course, it would be great if I can drop another 6-7 lbs. in the meantime… but that is not why I am waiting. Frankly, I do not feel comfortable asking friends to take that sort of picture. It was my son the elder who took the last one, and he is taking a bit of a time-out from me.

    I just booked an appointment to have my blue sports jacket altered; I will head over there this afternoon, and I asked if I could pick it up by next Tuesday… before I fly to Dallas. I like dressing up for my wife, and with my best shirts and suits and stuff finally fitting properly, I can finally do it without looking like a schlub.

    Have a great day folks!