Losing a part of me

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  • Day 354

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Day 353

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Day 352

    Once again, I did not veer from the program yesterday. Two meal replacements, one meal. Lots of water. I also drank more coffee than usual, but that has never really been a factor…. especially since I finished my last cup before 2:00pm.

    Once again, despite all of that, the bathroom scale reading this morning was up… by more than a pound.

    I am not happy with this damned plateau. If the rest of my life was going smoothly then maybe I would be less concerned, but it is not. I am having a hard time of it, and I wish at least when I stick to the program that I could see some damned progress.

    I am not sleeping well, which is mostly due to the emotional turmoil that is my life right now. I really wish things could be simpler, but that is not in the cards.

    I have a few errands to run today, and on my way home I will go to the supermarket to pick up some vegetables and challah for this evening’s Sabbath blessings. Unless there is a drastic shift in the way something is going, I do not expect that the peace and joy that I pray for will be come. I hope at least it will come for the others that I pray for.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 351

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Day 350

    I lied. Okay, no I did not lie, but I did change my mind after writing and publishing yesterday. I had originally said that I was not going to the gym. After lunch I thought to myself that I could stay home, be lazy, watch some television, maybe even enjoy a cigar on the balcony… and then at 5:30pm I could come sit at my computer to be ready to start teaching at 6:00pm. I realized that I could continue the patterns of behaviour that while not completely lazy (I would, after all, be working that evening), were certainly lazy-adjacent. These were hours that I could use to maintain the status quo (one that I have been unhappy with these last few months), or I could do something else. I have complained in these pages too many times about eating exactly what I am supposed to eat, yet not losing weight. If you want a reference, look at yesterday’s entry. Not this time.

    Before heading out to the gym, I folded and put away my clean laundry from the previous night. This itself is a change – so often the clean laundry has remained in the dryer until I needed it, or until the housekeeper came (every 2-3 weeks). This is the second time in as many weeks that my clean laundry has been folded and put away in a timely fashion. I made sure that I had the right clothes for the gym, plus water and a pair of earbuds, and off I went. I worked on the machines for 30-40 minutes; I got on the treadmill for 20 minutes (including three bursts of actual running and not just walking). I spent ten minutes on the hydro-massage bed before hopping into the shower quickly to rinse off before sitting in the sauna for fifteen minutes. I showered again and was home by 5:00pm.

    I did stop off for a handful of peanuts on my way home. This is still a bad habit, but considering the intensity of my workout, I suspect my body will have metabolized them pretty quickly.

    Okay, it is time to head to the doctor’s office for my consultation and weigh-in. I was telling Leslie last night that I hope that I have lost 1.8kg from my last weigh-in, because if I did, I would have lost 40kg in total since starting my journey (according to the doctor’s scale. The nearly 2 lbs. difference between that and the 90 lbs. that I claim to have lost on my bathroom scale is based on the difference between weighing myself dressed versus naked. Wish me luck!

    —

    Missed it by that much! I lost 1.6kg, which leaves me just shy of the 40kg mark. I have great faith that will be in two weeks. My blood pressure is 97/67, which is not much different than it was when I was in the Army. There are a lot of health concerns that I have to worry about. High blood pressure is not one of them. If it were something I sought, I could have all the sodium that I wanted! No, I do not plan to change that – the fact that I do not add salt to foods is because of taste preferences, and dates back to childhood. Don’t get me wrong – I will add salt to my food if it is bland and there are no other options, but it is a rare occasion. In November when I made my homemade chicken soup, I looked for a saltshaker, only to realize that I do not have one in this apartment. I had been living here fourteen months when that realization came to me. For the record, I do have a pepper grinder, but it is the one that you buy in the supermarket that you throw out when it is empty and buy another one.

    My doctor and I discussed how I have been feeling after two weeks on my ADHD medications. I told him that I am seeing a slight improvement, but I feel that I could benefit from an increased dosage. He told me that he expected that the lower dosage would not be sufficient, but he wanted to start slow. He doubled my daily dosage, so from today forward I will take two pills in the morning until my supply runs out, and I have a new prescription for the higher dosage in a single pill. I am glad that we are taking these steps. The more I see and read of others experiences with ADHD, the more I realize that so many of my faults are caused by this, and there is hope… as long as I am willing to ask for help. That does not mean that I am not going to continue with therapy – my regular appointments begin next Thursday, and I am eager for them – but I have been in therapy before, and I feel that a combination of that and the medications is a better course of action for the best possible results.

    It is a foggy day, and Princess Sophie (who did have a good walk this morning before it started to rain) is on a play date with her friend Charlie (who begged to see her so much that I received a text message as I was coming home). I have a meeting at noon, after which I will make my lunch and then go to the gym. The forecast shows rain all day until about 10:00pm, but as long as the wind is not bad then I can sit outside with my cigar after my workout. We will see – I am binge-watching a show that friends have recommended to me for years, and I finally got around to it. I know that Leslie will be with her son this evening, so I will likely be alone. We’ll see… maybe I will go out to visit a friend.

    I took a leap yesterday that most will consider unusual. I have been a milk fiend my entire life, and although I have not drunk it straight in years, I have always taken it in my coffee. To be clear, it has always been milk. It can be 1%, 2%, or non-fat… but milk is not cream. Also, it comes out of cows. While there are other animals that we can milk, the only fruit, nut, or legume that actually has milk is the coconut. Over the past two years I have changed my eating to kosher-style. If you do not understand the difference between kosher and kosher-style, do not worry about it. Suffice it to say, I do not mix milk with meat. In the Army, a completely kosher environment, we were not allowed to be served meat until an hour after we were last served dairy; going from meat to dairy was a six-hour wait. Those have been the guidelines that I have tried to follow these past two years. The only exception that I have made has been for milk in my coffee. I am not sure why I made this exception, but I did. It was a spur of the moment decision at the supermarket yesterday afternoon to buy almond milk instead of my usual cow-juice. I decided to give it a try and see if I can make the adjustment. As I sit here with my second non-dairy-milked coffee of the morning, I have to admit that I do not love the taste… but I do not hate it. I will spend a few weeks trying to adjust to it.

    (It is ironic that this morning on my Facebook Memories page there was a post from three years ago that I wrote saying: ‘Until you show me the nipple on a soybean, almond, oat, or coconut can we please agree that milk comes from mammals?’ At the time I was living with Liza, and between her and her daughter (two California shprintzeleiahs like you’ve never seen), they had ‘milk’ in the fridge from all of these and more… but if I wanted actual milk for my coffee, I had to buy it myself.)

    I mentioned last week that I added a calendar reminder to my Outlook to remind me to go to the gym, and I will keep it there. I know that I am a firm believer in tough love, but I am thinking that I might have worded it too harshly. ‘Go to the gym you fat, out of shape SOB!’ is more of an old-me, guilty, threatening, insulting toned message, reminiscent of the negative influences I got from my mother and an old friend named Andy. As of right now, I changed the wording going forward to: ‘Gym Time! Let’s get into shape!’ This is a more positive and encouraging message than it was. If I am trying to be a kinder and gentler me with other people, maybe it is time that I try to make the same change when speaking with myself.

    Occasionally I will look at myself in the mirror and say something nice about myself. For example, yesterday when I came home from the gym, I put on a button-down shirt in preparation for my class and said to myself ‘Wow, you look pretty good!’ Occasionally complimenting my physical appearance is a sign that my feelings toward myself have improved greatly in the past year. I still look in the mirror and see a fat slob, but I also know that I have taken huge steps to improve myself, both physically and otherwise. My emotional state today is much better than it was a year ago. I mention this because if I am feeling better about myself, then maybe I am right and yes, it is time for me to be kinder and gentler with myself. When I was at my heaviest, I needed the tough love to get on track. It was not easy, but it worked. Now that I am on track and am for the most part out of the danger zone, then as long as I am not in danger of falling back into my old bad habits then maybe I can be less harsh on myself. I will keep an eye out though… if I start regressing then maybe I will have to revert to my old Drill Sergeant tough-love tone. For now, positive self-encouragement is my plan.

    I mentioned to Leslie last night that I do feel good being back in the gym. Yesterday was my first trip to the gym without a personal trainer session. I might have gone once or twice at the beginning between sessions, but that was knowing that I was going back to the trainer in a few days. I am done with the trainer, and it is time for me to show that I have the discipline to do it on my own… and the dedication to stick with it. Yesterday I was in the changing room when someone came in, looked around, and said something like ‘Oh, we each have our own locker and the showers are separate. Good!’ he stepped out. I muttered that the ‘New Years Resolution Babies’ are going to be here for at least a week, and someone laughed. No, my joining the gym and starting to get into shape is not a New Years Resolution, but it is still something that I need to figure out how to stick with for the long term. If I do not, then I might as well be just another one of those quitters… and I do not want to be a quitter.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 349

    How nice it would have been to step onto the bathroom scale this morning and, for the second day in a row, find myself in best-weight-yet territory. Knowing that I did not cheat at all on my program yesterday, and knowing that I drank a lot of water, and that I had a healthy bowel movement this morning, it was really what I would have expected. Not the case. In fact, I was a full two pounds heavier than I was yesterday morning. I have no idea what that is about, other than to try to remember that weight loss – even when we follow the program perfectly – will never be a straight downward line. Yes, I hate days like this… but they are a good reminder that if I stay on track today (and tomorrow, and a few more tomorrows after that) then I will lose the weight that I have been working to lose, and it will all be worth it.

    Yes, I stayed true yesterday. Perhaps it could be considered a cheat that I had my third meal replacement at 9:30pm, but I was hungry… and while it was later than I usually like, it was still well within what I am allowed to eat on my program. I also drank a litre of water at the same time, which had me peeing more throughout the night than I would like. I do not know if I got out of be two or three times, but it was more than usual.

    I have gotten through a lot of work this morning, which is why I find myself writing this journal entry at 11:00am. Once I press PUBLISH, I am going to go to the supermarket to do some shopping. While I have chicken for today, I am out of vegetables. Also, if I do not pick up more today, I will need to go to the store tomorrow anyways, because I will be out of chicken. I might as well make a single trip. My goal is to stay on track and not buy anything that I do not need, or that might tempt me to cheat. I need vegetables, I need chicken. It is Tuesday, so I will not need bread until Friday. If I decide that I want hamburgers this week, I will have to eat them without the buns. Oh, speaking of which, I have to pick up mustard. There will be no cookies, no chips, no popcorn. I don’t care what the post-holiday sales are like, I am going to stay on track.

    I am teaching this evening, and I am excited to get back to it. I think I have everything I need ready to jump back into it – I know exactly which slide I finished with three weeks ago, and I know exactly what I will be covering today. Nonetheless, I might go through some demos this afternoon to make sure I can jump back into the groove.

    I was thinking about going to the gym this afternoon. My back and shoulder are very achy, and I know that I have to be sitting at my computer all evening to deliver my class. I am going to hold off until tomorrow afternoon, just to be safe. I have my doctor’s appointment in the morning, followed by an onboarding session with a training company at noon. After that, I will prepare my lunch, and head to the gym. I might be in pain tomorrow evening, but I do not have to teach tomorrow, so whether I just lie in a more comfortable position, or if I need to take pain meds (which I really hope not to need), I will be able to.

    Once again, my friend and Master told me that he might come over today. Yesterday he was supposed to come between 2:00-2:30, and at 2:45 he called to tell me that he was not coming but might come today. He is my Master and I owe him so much, but I am trying to figure out how to make him understand that when he says he is coming, I cannot make plans for the day beyond a 20–30-minute drive from the house. I have not seen him in a year, and that is often the frequency with which I see him… but that does not change the fact that in the last six weeks he has told either Eduardo or me that he would be coming over and has not.

    The plan for the day is to stay on track, and hopefully I will be able to stick to the meal plan. I just called my Master who told me he will not come over today, maybe tomorrow. I told him that he cannot come over tomorrow because I have plans. I am trying to make him understand that every time he tells me he might come over, I cannot plan anything else for that day… and I am done with that. I have too many things I need to do, too many people I would like to see, and I am not going to reserve a day again for this. It grinds me and it makes me sad because I do love him… but I cannot live my life around unreliability. Whether I go to the gym tomorrow afternoon or not, I will not let him block off part of my day that I could otherwise spend doing my own thing.

    Okay, I have put it off long enough. I will head to the supermarket now. Princess Sophie is on a play date next door, so I do not have to worry about her for a few hours. I assume she will be back in time to keep me company during class, but I will be able to eat my lunch in peace.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 348

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 347–January 1, 2023

    Happy New Years to one and all! It is usually at the end of the year, rather than at the beginning, when we reflect on the past year. After sitting and chatting with Eduardo last night, I have been thinking back on it. 2023 was a great year and a troubling one. I married Leslie, I lost over ninety pounds. During my weight loss journey (which is ongoing, and at the current pace will take another year) I wrote in this journal every single day (although I missed a day on the blog because I forgot to press Publish). I have had some professional ups and downs, but I am still standing. Fortunately, my career as an IT Trainer is still going strong… despite some bad bumps on the road.

    All has not been sunshine and roses though. I experienced a lot of downs. Knowing now what I do, many of them were caused by outside interference, and many more by my only recently diagnosed ADHD. These were all very difficult, but I am hoping that with therapy (which resumes next week) and medications (which started last week, but which I hope to be able to increase my dosage of this week) I will be able to navigate my future in a much more positive way.

    Yesterday I spent a few hours with Lyle and Dorothy. As promised, they served a homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch which was quite tasty. We exchanged holiday gifts, which was quite sweet. They really are very thoughtful people. I am sitting at my desk with my new Montreal Canadiens mug, which was only one of the eight Chanukah presents they bought me! We sat outside and talked for a couple of hours before I went home to take care of a few things that needed to be done. I arrived home and realized that Princess Sophie had been dognapped! No, not really… her friend Charlie asked his Mommy to pick her up, and they spent the afternoon together. By the time she came home, she was wiped out!

    I enjoyed the soup, but it was not as satisfying a meal as I hoped for. By 4:00pm I was hungry, and I made my usual chicken and salad. I made an Israeli salad with tomato and onions. It was quite tasty! I am not sure why I held the lettuce; it probably has something to do with a photo I saw on my Facebook Memories. Either way, I will likely be back to my regular scheduled salad with my lunch today.

    I did some work on the computer that I have been meaning to do, and then at 6:30pm I was ready to head out to see Eduardo. Her Floofness wanted to go out first, so we went for a quick walk (which included taking care of all of her business). I was not going to deprive her, especially since it was raining in the morning, and she held it in much of the day without an accident. I spent a few hours with Eduardo, and then was home (as predicted) shortly before 10:00pm… in time to take the Princess out for one more walk. I then spent a couple of hours on the computer until a minute before midnight, when I texted Leslie that I loved her, and then shut down my systems.

    While I did have the soup and then a full meal, as well as some nuts at Eduardo’s, I do not think I went overboard. I think that for my first ‘back on track’ day, I did pretty well. My goal is to keep doing better, and that this year – 2023 – will be the last year that I will ever have to do a crazy intense diet. I know I will have to work on getting slim this year, and then work on staying slim every day for the rest of my life. I do not have the genes that some people have that lets them eat without gaining weight, so if I want to be thin and in good shape, it will have to be a constant in my life. I am not saying that I will never be able to have a cheat meal… only that I will not be able to fall back into the bad habits which plagued me for the past twenty-seven years. Also, I will have to work hard to stay in shape, which means not only from a dietary standpoint, but also from a physical activity one. I do not know if that will forever mean going to the gym, or fitness walking, or Taekwondo, or a combination of these and other activities. I just know that my obesity is only partly caused by my love for fattening foods, and it could have been held in check had I always remained active.

    I have a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, but for today my bathroom scale is reading all over the place. The numbers ranged from two pounds up from yesterday to two pounds down. I was able to get two consistent readings at that lower number, so I accepted it. I am, once again, half a pound from my best-weight-yet territory. Considering I did not really veer from the program yesterday, I think it is best to start the new year on a positive note. Again, I will be weighed on the doctor’s scale on Wednesday, and that will be my next official weight. For now, I can be as angry as I want with my bathroom scale… or rather, with the floor of my apartment which is absolutely terrible.

    Assuming that the bathroom scale is reasonably accurate this morning, it means I have two major milestones coming. First, I am only 3.5 lbs. from breaking under the 300-pound mark; after that, I have only another five pounds to go before I can honestly say that I have lost one hundred pounds. I confess that if it were not for life getting in my way (and myself getting in my own way) I had expected to hit both of those milestones in early December. Okay, I dealt with all of the crap I had going on, and now it is time to buckle down and lose more weight. If I am truly a creature of habit, then I can look at the past year and realize that after four months of weight loss I had lost forty-five pounds, and then plateaued for about two months. I then lost another forty-five pounds and plateaued again for a little under two months. If that is to be a pattern, then I do not mind getting down another 45-pounds between now and late April. Unfortunately, it is not so easy for me to sit on the plateau and know I will indeed follow the pattern. I also have to be careful to not aim for it, because while it would be nice to be down to that weight, I am trying to get into a healthy lifestyle, and by forgetting the pattern I could skip the next plateau altogether. We’ll see. In the meantime, I just want to press that elevator button to start going down.

    I had a very frank discussion with Lyle and Dorothy about weight loss, and especially how important it is for him and me to continue on our parallel missions to get healthy and lose weight. I told him that until his recent stroke, he and I had a very dangerous problem: we were extremely obese, but otherwise we were perfectly healthy. Of course, that is not entirely true, as is demonstrated by my gout and his stroke, but on the surface, it seemed that way. We discussed the importance of regular medical visits and checkups, including heart rate monitoring but also bloodwork and more. I am glad that I have been checking in with my doctor every month (and occasionally more frequently than that), and for my American readers who may believe the Republican propaganda bemoaning the condition of the Canadian healthcare system, I can vouch that it is both extremely efficient, and completely free.

    I suspect that stores are closed today, but that matters little as I have everything I need in the house. I took Princess Sophie out this morning, and of course I will do so again later in the afternoon. Between now and then I will likely have a lazy holiday Sunday. The only actual chore I have to do is to shine my boots, which needs to be done quite regularly during the snowy months. Aside from that, I will relax, watch some TV, maybe read a little bit, and possibly study some Torah. We’ll see what the day brings. I am sure that at some point there will be a cigar or two in the mix.

    Have a great day folks, and happy new year!

  • Day 346–New Year’s Eve

    I was hoping that when I stepped onto the scale this morning that I would be in Best Weight Yet territory, but it was not to be. There are two ways to look at where I am right now. I could say that I failed; I wanted to lose one hundred pounds in the calendar year 2022, and I did not accomplish that. Or I could say that I succeeded; Anyone who can legitimately claim a ninety-pound weight loss in a calendar year cannot be a failure. Don’t get me wrong… I know now that I have three weeks to get to the hundred-pound milestone in my complete year on the program, and I have every intention of making good on that.

    These last two months have been replete with stresses and anxieties that have hampered my success. Aside from all of the emotional issues – an extreme hit to my career, the physical separation from my wife – there was also an injury scare (which turned out to be a gout flareup in my right knee), and a soft diagnosis of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. While both of these are manageable with medications, the realization of just what ADHD does, and how it has impacted me so many times (and never in a good way) over the entire course of my life… that has been hard. I am happy that I am now on track to improve (I am now in my second week of the meds for that), but thinking back to how much it has held me back – the professional setbacks (including this latest one), the friends and loved ones I have hurt or pushed away, the missed opportunities in every aspect of my life – the negative affects of the undiagnosed condition can be attributed to so many things that I have done or not done over the last forty years. All of that has been a real psychological blow, and one that I know has driven me to distraction and despair these last few weeks since the realizations began.

    I have heard many times that when you come to a terrible realization such as this, you can spend a certain amount of time mourning or in despair or whatever, but then it is time to move past it and focus on making things better. I cannot build a time machine and start over. What I can do is figure out how to move ahead now that I am being helped by the medicine. It is only a coincidence that tomorrow is the start of the new year, and a perfect demarcation point to start new things. That includes my diet; tomorrow I will begin to redouble my efforts to lose weight. This plateau will be behind me.

    That is not to say that I plan to cheat today; I am going to Lyle and Dorothy’s house for lunch, and they are making a turkey noodle soup. Knowing Lyle and his recent health scare, it will be very healthy. This evening I will go visit Eduardo for a couple of hours. He was extremely sad that he was going to spend New Year’s Eve all alone, so I will spend a couple of hours smoking cigars with him. Several times he tried to convince me to go for dinner with him, but I stood firm. I am not going out to eat. I will have my turkey soup for lunch, and if I need another meal then I will prepare it for myself. That way I know exactly what it is that I am preparing, and how healthy it is. I should be home by 10:30pm and hope to have a video chat with Leslie… and yes, I will enjoy a cigar on the balcony to ring in 2023.

    Tomorrow is New Year’s Day, and I can only imagine that the gym will be packed with people who made New Year’s resolutions. No matter, I will try to get in for a couple of hours after lunch. I have sufficient stock of chicken and vegetables so that I do not have to go shopping until Monday; I also have my new meal replacement bars which arrived yesterday. They are tasty and satisfying, and even my personal trainer recommends them. In other words, I will not be drawn to cheat because I have everything I need to not cheat. Really, that is what I need to keep reminding myself. I have the tools, so use them!

    I was thinking yesterday about the first time I started on the medically supervised meal replacement program in 2017. The day before I started, my housekeeper was working in my apartment, and I told her to remove every stitch of food from my refrigerator, freezer, and pantries. There was no option o cheat without leaving the house and buying something, which I did not do. The twelve-week program was a resounding short-term success. Of course, we know now that it was a long-term failure, because I gained all of the weight back. I have discussed in this journal many times how I feel that my hybrid program which allows for one proper meal per day has a better chance for long-term success. I have to remember that may be true, but that also means that I have to have food in the house, which means that I am bound to be tempted. Yes, I have cheated plenty this year. Not only have I had food at home (and sometimes the wrong foods), I have also gone to plenty of restaurants. I take my son (the younger) for dinner or breakfast or lunch every couple of weeks, but I have also gone out with Leslie and with friends in that time. While these outings may have hampered my short-term success, I think they have actually helped my prospects for long-term success. I have eaten out… but when I go to a restaurant, I consider the foods I choose more carefully. Whenever possible, I look at the nutritional values of the menu items. That is something I never really did before.

    Thinking back, I suspect that this is the year that I have sat alone in restaurants the least. That is something I have a long history of. While some people consider it a stigma, I have always enjoyed sitting in a restaurant alone, either reading a book, watching TV on my tablet, or just watching people. I remember doing that as far back as the Army (where my wife would not be surprised to learn that I had ‘collected’ a waitress at Planet Hollywood in Tel Aviv). In 2022, I have eaten at restaurants alone… but mostly when I was traveling, mostly to Montreal. With that said, I have probably cooked for myself more meals this year than any previous year of my life… including the years when I was dirt poor and should not have been wasting money on restaurants. That is a huge triumph. I have to remember one of the few lessons from my mother that rings true – eating at home is always healthier than eating out… and is almost always cheaper. Long after I have lost all of my weight, when I am finally at my goal body size, I will have to remember this. It is not only healthier but much cheaper to shop and cook than it is to order off a menu. (Of course, I still eat most of my meals alone, and I almost always do so with a book or my tablet. Some things don’t change!)

    This is traditionally the time of year to reflect on things past, and to consider how to make things better going forward. I consider that a terribly unhealthy way of improving. My e-mail signature has the Japanese word Kaizen at the bottom, which means ‘Continuous improvement.’ That means that you can make small improvements and adjustments every day without worrying about having to make huge ones in one giant lump. With that said, by some coincidence of timing I am making a few changes around this time of year. I do not simply mean that I am getting back on track with my diet tomorrow; I joined the gym in November but have not gone steadily. That has to change now, and the fact that three huge excuses are behind me means that I can do it. I added a daily calendar reminder for myself and will follow through. In the second week of 2023 I am starting work for a training company that I think I taught for a couple of times over a decade ago, but they want to have me working more and more this year (and we already have $15,000 worth of contracts signed). There are a couple of other training vendors which I will be working with, but these guys seem to be my best bet. Until I can actually get a job (long story), these contracts are how I earn a living. I love teaching, even though there are some days when I feel like I am done with it. Chances are, that will never really be the case. I started taking my ADHD medications only ten days ago, so that is another huge change around the same time of year… but that coincided with my diagnosis, and its timing relative to the calendar is coincidental.

    One last change that I am glad I was able to get in for 2022… This morning I put on my new Size-40 pants, and they fit comfortably, they do not feel too tight, and I am really pleased by that. I remember too often in the past I would down-shift to a lower pants size too soon, and I would end up with split pants. There is no indication in the fit of these that will be a concern. I have been wearing Size-40 jeans for the last month, so I do not know why I did not think to try this sooner. The fact that Day One of the new size is Day Last of the year is, again, coincidental… but it is one last non-scale victory for the old year.

    Okay, I suppose it is time for me to head on out. Lyle and Dorothy will be waiting for me around 11:30am, and I do not like to be late. I will see if Charlie wants to play with Princess Sophie, because I know that she will not want to come with me because of the weather. I have a bottle of wine to bring for them, which I cannot forget. I’ll press ‘Publish’ on this piece, then I will wrap the bottle and head out. The next time we meet, it will be the new year.

    Have a great day folks… and Happy New Year!!

  • Day 345

    For all of my recent trepidation about my stalled plateau, I had a real non-scale victory yesterday. The pair of Size-40 pants that I ordered arrived, and they fit! I was so happy about it! I was on the phone with Leslie when they came in, and I tried them on with her. We were so happy. I am going to order one (or two) more pair, and I have removed the two pair of Size-42 Dockers that I have been wearing and placed them in my ‘ready to donate’ bag.

    In the movie The Hunt for Red October, Captain Marko Ramius (brilliantly if insensitively portrayed by the late great Sean Connery) says: “When he reached the New World, Cortez burned his ships. As a result, his men were well motivated.” Sometime in 2020 I was at my best weight since I started gaining weight after the Army. I had collected a huge Ikea bag filled with clothes that did not fit me anymore. My plan was always to take them to a donation box and to help clothe the homeless. I never did, and that bag of clothes ended up as my safety net. As I regained all of the weight that I had worked so hard to lose, I did not have to buy new clothes; all I had to do was reach into that bag. I will not do that this time. Eleven months ago (on Day 12 of this journal) I wrote that I had separated all of my clothes that did not fit because they were too small into five bins:

    • XXL Shirts & T-Shirts
    • Pants Sizes 40-42
    • XL Shirts & T-Shirts, Pants Sizes 36-40
    • Suits, etc.…
    • Taekwondo – doboks & non-current belts

    Over the course of these eleven months, I have emptied most of these bins. My XXL shirts fit me and are now mostly too loose on me. My suits and tailored shirts are now hanging in my closet, dry cleaned and pressed; they fit, even if I do not have a lot of opportunity to wear them. I still have a bin filled with XL shirts and t-shirts, many of which do fit or are still a little tight but will fit by the time the warm weather returns. I still have a few pair of Size-36-38 pants that will not fit me for a couple of months.

    I am not going to go through this again. I gained the weight back because of a lot of bad decisions coupled with a lot of hard and traumatic times, but it was easier to do because I had my fat clothes that I could fall back on. I will not make it that easy for myself this time. If I fall off track and find that my ‘slimmer’ clothes do not fit anymore, it will be a financial burden to gain the weight back. Why? I am donating every pair of pants, every shirt that does not fit me. I am not leaving them in a large bag in the corner of my room for that scenario… I am getting rid of them. When Leslie was here in November, we took a few bags to the donation box, and it felt good to be rid of them. Not only am I shedding pounds, but I am also burning my ships. As a result, I will be more motivated to succeed. Just like Cortez did (or at least, as he did according to Captain Marko Ramius). Every time one set of bags is gone, I am ready to start a new one. I did that yesterday… and I ordered another pair of Size-40 pants, which should arrive early next week.

    I had my usual lunch, and then sat on the patio with a cigar, video-chatting with my wife. It is wonderful to be able to talk with her more freely again – when she has her son, it is harder. We have now had two cigars together in as many days, and two long conversations catching up on so many things we have not had the time or freedom to talk about for a fortnight. After that time, I went out to buy groceries, as I at the last of my lettuce for lunch. Supermarkets are always a great place to be tempted and to fall off the wagon, but I think I did pretty well. I did buy challah for tonight, but no other real cheat items.

    The universe tested me at the supermarket! I picked the first grocery cart in line, and in it there were two boxes of chocolate almonds that kids sell to raise money for their cause. I love chocolate almonds! There they were, two sealed boxes. I left them in the cart, thinking about what to do with them. I bought everything that I had planned to buy – chicken, vegetables, challah rolls, and as I mentioned a few days ago, I picked up a box of Corn Flakes breadcrumbs to make my breaded chicken. When I got to the self-checkout, I asked the girl overseeing the area if these boxes might be something they actually do sell in the store. She confirmed that it is not. She was probably in her late teens and was astounded that not only did I find one, but two of them. It was a spur of the moment decision to give her one of the boxes. She was extremely grateful. As I was walking toward the exit, I made the decision. I could lose weight, or I could bring the second box home with me. I found another employee in her late teens and handed them to her, wishing her a happy new year. It was the right thing to do… and it made two kids feel good at the same time.

    I had a good chat with my diet buddy, who is now a month post-surgery, and seems to be on the right track to shed a lot of weight. For the few cheats that she told me about, I reminded her that there are much better reasons to go to Mexico than weight loss surgery; I told her that while her stomach has shrunk, it would not take a lot of effort to stretch it again… and the best way to not let that happen again is to not fall back into the old habits. As one of the ADHD reels I watched yesterday pointed out, I am much better at giving good advice than I am at following it.

    Following our call, I went out onto the balcony for a cigar. Princess Sophie asked to invite her friend Charlie over, and the two of them romped and played for a couple of hours. When he went home, she jumped up onto the chair where her blanket was already laid out for her, and she hardly moved the rest of the evening. In fact, it was the first time that I can remember that when I got up to go into the house (not to get a drink or a cigar, but for the night) and she did not make any move to come inside. I cleaned out the ashtray, I washed my dishes, and when I was ready for bed, she was still there. I finally picked her up, blanket and all, and carried her to the bed. She is really a sweet princess! I was reminded of a childhood memory when we came home late from somewhere, and my father picked me up out of the car and carried me to bed, and I fell right to sleep. I do not have any memories of doing something similar with my own children… although funny enough, the ex-girlfriend in California had a teenaged daughter, and one day her friend’s father rang the doorbell and told us that Hannah was passed out drunk in his car. I picked her up and carried her up the driveway, into the house, up the stairs, and put her into bed. I can assure you that Princess Sophie showed me more gratitude and love just for carrying her in last night than that twat did the entire time I was with her mother.

    My plans for today are simple. After lunch I will go to the gym for my last session with Kezi, which will not only be fun, but it will also be important because I need to remember to stay on track and go to the gym on a regular basis after she and I are done. When I am home from the gym, I will likely sit on the patio with a cigar. It might be raining, but as long as it is not windy, I will be able to stay dry and enjoy it. At the moment the mercury reads 13°, and by the time I am ready balcony it should drop by two degrees… which still makes it unseasonably warm for the Greater Toronto Area for this time of year. In fact, according to the long-range forecast, the next time the temperature is predicted to drop below the freezing point is Tuesday night. I can live with that! At sunset I will light the candles and say my prayers, and then I will once again retire to the balcony. I see no reason to sit inside, when I can comfortably sit outside.

    On the subject of weather, it has been so nice these last two days to not need my heavy winter jacket. Yes, during the day yesterday it was a bit breezy, and I opted to put on my gloves with my spring/fall jacket… but it is still infinitely more comfortable than having to wear my heavy ski jacket. I will ride this weather as long as it lets me!

    I just added a calendar reminder for myself every day to go to the gym. Knowing that most of my currently scheduled classes are in the evening, I have haphazardly added it in for 1-4pm every day. Of course, there will be a lot of days that I cannot go, and there will be a lot of days when I will not go in that time slot. For the second week of the year (January 9-13) I am teaching during the day, so those reminders have been deleted. I am also teaching two nights that week, but I have created reminders for the other days to go. I know it is so cliché to start this at new years, but in fact that is a coincidence, and I really started a couple of months ago… it has just taken me this long to get my shit in order. Hopefully it is.

    My only real cheat yesterday was a small handful of almonds (which were not covered in chocolate) on the drive home from the supermarket. In the evening I realized I was hungry again, and I am completely out of meal replacement bars, so I prepared for myself a meal replacement shake. The new bars that I ordered a couple of days ago are scheduled to arrive tomorrow, which will make my life a little easier. Yes, I enjoy the shakes… but there are times when I would rather chew my calories than to sip them. That is one huge advantage the American plan (on which my modified plan is based) has over the Canadian plan. In Canada, you spend twelve weeks drinking four shakes per day, for 900 calories. In the US, you have five meal replacements per day (for 800 calories), but rather than having the choice of chocolate or vanilla shakes, you can choose soups and meal replacement bars as well. Sometimes I find the bars more satisfying than the shakes. All of that to say that this morning my weight was down once again, and I am less than a pound and a half from my best-weight-yet. It would be a nice end to the year if I could get there by tomorrow, or by New Year’s Day.

    I just now found out that my plans for New Years Eve fell through. Lyle and Dorothy are going to have a quiet and intimate movie night, which actually works in my diet’s benefit because I will not be tempted to make excuses for another cheat night. The weather for tomorrow evening is cooler than today, but by the evening the rains will have stopped. To make up for it, he and I are going to have lunch tomorrow, which will be leftover turkey at his place. This is likely the longest stretch in over a year that I have not seen Lyle, but that will end tomorrow. We have a lot to catch up on!

    Okay, it is time for me to get cracking with my day. Today is Friday December 30th, which means that everything and everyone is allegedly business as usual. Of course, we all know that is not entirely true, but for my needs it is. I cannot think of anything that I have to do that will require the input of anyone who might be taking a half day for the holiday or blowing off work (sorry… calling in sick) to extend their weekend. I have to focus on me… food, gym, cigars, Shabbat.

    Have a great day folks!