Losing a part of me

Blog

  • Day 245

    It was 1:30pm yesterday when I sent my wife a text reading: Player 1 Achievement Unlocked: Airport Pickup. Yes, I did my walk. While I did not extend the walk down to Mainway, I did make it my longest walk (but only by 50 metres). I am also happy that not only am I able to keep my average pace under 10m00s, but aside from my first kilometre and the final half kilometre, every kilometre was below that time. I am happy that I am able to turn on my jets… and keep them lit.

    · Distance: 10.5km (9.35km)

    · Duration: 1:42:06 (1:31:03)

    · Average Pace (Min/km): 9:43 (9:44)

    · Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9.26s (9m17)

    · Steps: 13k (11.2k)

    · Calories burned: 1,261 (1,147)

    · Elevation gain: 31.7 (46.2)

    · Average cadence (steps per minute): 126 (124)

    I continue to be disappointed by my weight loss. Yes, down is better than up… but I wanted to get back below the 315 mark before I flew to Dallas (tomorrow), and that is looking extremely unlikely. It is so easy to gain the weight, and exponentially harder to lose it.

    Yesterday, I was pretty good on the food. Instead of three meal replacements in the afternoon/evening, I had another single piece of chicken with a salad. I was really hoping that, coupled with the excellent fitness walk that I did, would have shown better than a .4-lbs loss this morning. No, that’s it. Thank you for playing!

    The weather today is pretty nice, and I thought I might go for a walk this afternoon. Then I ran into my neighbour this morning, and she asked if I could look after Charlie for a few hours in the afternoon. It is my absolute pleasure to take care of him, firstly because he is really easy to take care of, but also because he and Princess Sophie are such good friends and companions, and they play so well together. When he is here, I do not have to do anything, other than to take them for a walk if it’s been too long. I might take them for a walk, but a fitness walk is unlikely. This is not only because of the puppies, but also because my legs are definitely feeling the residual effects of yesterday’s walk.

    I miscalculated with my shopping and have no more chicken for today’s lunch. Rather than going to the store to pick more up, I decided to defrost a steak for lunch. I have plenty of veggies for my salad, which I am going to start preparing shortly after publishing this entry.

    Tomorrow is the big day. I am so looking forward to seeing my wife, it is almost painful. Barring unforeseen events at the airport, I will be seeing her tomorrow afternoon. I am jumping out of my skin with excitement! I know it has only been three weeks since I was there last, but we are married and are supposed to be together… always. Fortunately, I received the certified divorce certificate from the Quebec Ministère de la justice yesterday, which means that the only thing left to do is for us to get passport pictures taken (which we will do Friday), and for me to review the application… which at this point is just about dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. At that point, we submit the application, and wait… too long, but at least it will finally be in motion.

    At this point, I am going to go about my day. I have laundry to fold, a suitcase to pack, and a puppy to snuggle with. I don’t have a lot more planned for the day – I cannot think of anything I need to buy or anywhere I need to go during the day. There is a chance that in the evening I will be meeting up with Eduardo and Sam for a cigar, but that is not yet confirmed. We’ll see. In the meantime…

    …have a great day folks!

  • Day 244

    I thought I did pretty well yesterday, although I did have some goldfish crackers – the last of them. Unless I go shopping for treats, I have no more temptations in the pantry that I can think of. I have no further need to shop – I went to the supermarket last night to pick up an onion and to collect my dry cleaning. I want to be able to wear those suits in a month; unless I stay on track, that is unlikely to happen. So, I will stay on track.

    Yesterday, I bought my ticket for Disneyland. There are not a lot of options for getting discounts, and rather than spending excessing time on this, I decided to just pay full boat. I am disappointed that my friend will be out of town – his wife works for the company, and they could have signed me in for free. I am really looking forward to it though – Leslie and her son are worth it!

    There is no rain in the forecast for today, and that means I will head out for a good walk. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which are the consequences I mentioned a day or two ago. In truth, I am still trying to make fitness walking habitual. I am long past the stage when I worried if I was able to walk well, and most of the time when I embark on a fitness walk, I am going to try for a certain distance (almost always in excess of 8km). However, I have still not become addicted to it. I still have to say to myself on any given day, ‘Okay, I should go for a walk. This is what time I am going, and this is the route that I will take.’

    I really want fitness to be part of my nature that I just go. I want it to be an addiction. Of course, it will never be that simple… as it will never be as simple for me to lose and keep off all of my excess weight. I think, really I know that I will always have to work at these things. I have to admit that I was never a fitness junkie, which probably would have made a lot of things in my life much easier. If I had been, I likely never would have gotten to where I am. It is a sad realization maybe, but it is an honest one. Guys in my unit would wake up, roll out of their bunks, and be doing pushups before they even peed. I would always grumble something about coffee, even though I was in just as good shape as they were. I have never loved it… I just always knew it was good for me, and important to do. For far too many years, I ignored it. Wisdom comes with age, and at fifty years old I know that I can never ignore fitness, just like I will never be able to eat without thinking. That is a very certain recipe for failure, and I do not want that.

    Aside from my walking, I will likely stay pretty close to home today. If he were around, I might invite my son the elder for a drink; he is on the west coast with friends, so that’s a non-starter. I might reach out to a friend to see if they want to sit and chat, but I suspect that Lyle is busy preparing for his aunt’s visit. We’ll see.

    Speaking of my son (and his absence), I am going to have to get an Uber to take me to the airport on Thursday. That’s usually an opportunity to see my boy, but with his not being in town, I am deprived of that option.

    As it turns out, Lyle is free for a cigar. After my walk I’ll have lunch around 1:00pm, and then drive over there for a couple of hours. I do not plan to make it a late night – or even evening – because I am going to do laundry this evening, so that tomorrow afternoon everything that I want to take to Dallas (and of course to California) will be clean. I won’t pack tonight, but I will try to fold and organize everything.

    I was speaking with Leslie this week, and I told her that I am going to bring a lot of my summer clothes and just leave them there. After all, by the time I am back (October 16) it is a safe bet that the short-pants weather will be behind us for the season. When she asked if I won’t need them in the spring, my initial response was that I could bring them home in time for that. When I gave it some thought, I was happy to tell her that if all goes according to plan, all of the shorts that I am wearing now will be too big for me by the spring, and I will need new ones anyways. Despite the bumps along the road (like this past couple of weeks), my goal is to be down another fifty pounds by next spring… if not more. Leslie agrees that if I am able to accomplish that, it will be a pleasure to have to buy new shorts!

    I have procrastinated enough. It is time for me to hit the trails. I am not sure now steady my knees feel, so I am going to plan for an 8km walk, with the option to extend it if I am feeling up to it. I will walk through the park to Appleby Line, up to Dundas Street, then back down. If I am feeling ambitious at that point, I can continue down to Mainway for the extra couple of kilometres. We’ll see. For now, I am going to start by suiting up and heading out.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 243

    My plan for this morning was to go to the courthouse in Milton to get a copy of the divorce certificate from my marriage to Theresa. Last night I started to worry that I might have a problem… today is the funeral for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and it is a federal day of mourning, with all federal and many provincial offices closed. I did not know whether the courthouse, a joint provincial and county building, would be affected. I decided to call ahead in the morning.

    Before I wrote my article I did just that, and it’s a good thing that I did. Yes, the courthouse would be open… but counter services were only offered until 11am, which meant that if I dawdled at my computer, I might miss the window. I went, I got it, I am home. The day goes on.

    I rather expected to be at the courthouse for hours. In fact, I was out within fifteen minutes. While I was in Milton, I went to visit a couple of friends for a few minutes each, but I am now home. In a couple of minutes, I will start preparing lunch. This afternoon, I am getting my haircut, as well as hopefully selling an end table that I have been trying to offload for months. If the person does come to pick it up, I will be quite pleased.

    I don’t have much else planned for the day. I originally thought the day was going to be really busy, but the short time at the courthouse essentially ended that notion. I will probably do some reading, but if the weather cooperates, I might go for a nice walk. We’ll see how it goes. It rained for a bit this morning, but as of right now, the forecast is quite nice.

    There are two dogs playing behind me. Charlie (Princess Sophie’s very good friend) is over for a visit, and they are play-fighting on the couch. It is so nice to have them playing. Happy dogs are such a joy!

    I will also print a return label for Amazon, which I nearly forgot about. I bought a hard drive for my friend’s computer, but now that he is buying a new computer, I can return it. So often in the US, Amazon returns do not require a box or a return label. I forget that in Canada it is never so simple. I’ll print it and drive down to Purolator on my way back from the barber. It is only a $50 hard drive… but it is my $50!

    As I hoped, the bathroom scale was going the right direction this morning. I am now only 2.5 lbs from my best weight, which means that if I keep up the routine, I might hit that again by Thursday. Eating well, walking a lot… not tough, right? Sure…

    Have a great day folks!

  • Support of Friends and Family

    There are differences between nagging and encouraging. Having been exposed to both, I am familiar with many of them.

    Encouraging someone comes from a place of love, caring, and concern. It is done when someone is open to your input, and when you try to convey it in a way that will be accepted and is meant to help.

    Nagging might also come from caring, but it is usually done in a way that will discourage the person. It is done with a tone that can be hurtful or belittling, it might even be accusatory. While it might be intended to help, it can beat the person down and discourage them, having the exact opposite effect.

    A couple of months ago, Leslie and I were speaking about my weight loss regimen, and she told me that she was sorry for several things that she had said. I did not understand why and told her so. She reminded me that within the last few days she had:

    · Called me when I told her I might be too tired to walk and told me ‘Get dressed and go for a walk, Mister!’

    · Encouraged me to not have an extra salad one evening, calling it a ‘gateway salad,’ essentially that if I thought that having the salad with just vegetables was okay, I would not only make it a habit, but would then start adding canned salmon and seeds to it.

    · Reminded me on a number of occasions that I was doing well, and to stay strong so that I could accomplish what I wanted to with this diet.

    Over the years, I have told several people – not only individually, but I went so far as to write articles on it – that I did not want their input on my weight loss. That was not only about unsolicited advice, but even comments about my progress. When it comes to weight loss, everyone seems to have opinions and advice. It is all meant to be encouraging, but so often has the opposite effect.

    I cannot tell you how many times people have said to me something like: ‘You are doing great on your diet! You should try…’ and then shared their advice with me. Folks, if I am doing well, then let me continue doing what I am doing. For that matter, if I falter then the best way for me to get back on track is with the familiar, not with something new.

    I have a friend who weighs more than I do and has also over the last few months lost a lot of weight. He is doing incremental fasting, and the results are incredible. We have discussed his methods several times… and he knows mine. What he has not done was told me that I have to try this.

    When you are losing weight, it could feel good to hear people tell you how great you look. That is not always the case though, and because of that, sometimes I just do not want to hear it. I like to think that I have a pretty thick skin, but when someone tells me that I am doing good on my diet it is a judgement, and oftentimes I do not want to be judged.

    The last few days, as I have written, I have faltered quite a bit. While I walked quite a bit while I was in Montreal, I ate badly. On my second day back from Montreal, I went on an amazing, longest-walk-ever. That was Monday. Since then, I have not exercised, nor have I stuck to my weight loss regimen.

    Yesterday evening, my wife asked me if she needed to show me tough love… knowing that I have not been doing well. I told her that I did, and so she told me that if I did not get out for at least two really good walks before coming to Dallas, she would not pick me up from the airport. It’s rather a longer walk than I am comfortable committing to, so I figured that I had better set out today for my first of at least two good walks before Thursday.

    • Distance: 9.35km (10.45km)
    • Duration: 1:31:03 (1:44:12)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:44 (9:58)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m17 (9m36)
    • Steps: 11.2k (12.8k)
    • Calories burned: 1,147 (1,242)
    • Elevation gain: 46.2 (37)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 124 (122)

    Do I think that my wife would have left me stranded at the airport? Of course she would not. She knows me though, and she asked if I wanted her to be tough on me. She knows that she has leave to use the carrot and the stick. I actively seek her encouragement, support, and when warranted, her berating. While most of the people who try to give me advice and encouragement are equally well-meaning, their input is not welcome. Leslie’s is welcomed and actively sought. I do not expect her to lock me out of the house if I don’t walk X number of kilometres this week… but I also do not want her blowing sunshine and roses up my rear what I am having a bad time of it.

    I did not break records today, but I had a really good walk, and a really good sweat. I am going to take my shower, and then start preparing my lunch. After that, I will go shopping, and will try to pick up enough provisions to take me through my flight on Thursday. I am usually pretty good, but every single trip to the supermarket is another opportunity for me to falter. I will not! I will, however, buy milk for my coffee, a couple more packages of chicken, and lettuce. I will check, I might also need an onion. I do not think there is anything else that I need, and today’s can be my last trip to the supermarket until I am home from Texas in a month.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 242

    Today is the day that I get back on track. Sunday, September 18th. It is precisely two years to the day since I lost my footing after Yom Kippur services, and my life went from one of disciplined eating to one of unabashed gluttony. Rather than getting dressed as I usually do this morning, I donned my walking kit, even knowing that it would be two hours before my fitness walk.

    My slide into sloven ended today. My weight loss slide ends today. Today is the day I hit the road and dig my heels in and say, ‘I am not sliding down this slippery slope any further!’ I have had my meal replacement, I am nearly through my second cup of coffee, and I am not going to cheat on my weight management program today. Tomorrow morning, I am going to wake up, step on the scale, and I will be pleased with the numbers.

    I have a lot more to write, but the truth is that I have a short window of opportunity. According to the weather forecast, it might start raining by noon. If I go out now, I will be back by 11:30… sweaty but dry. Maybe I’ll take my hat, just in case. After all, meteorologists were put on this earth to make psychics look respectable.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 241

    I know that I have hit a plateau on my weight loss journey. It is not a physiological plateau, rather a mental one. I am not sticking to the program as well as I need to in order to continue to lose weight. I need to stop cheating, and I need to start exercising daily… or at least near daily.

    I feel like I have turned self-destructive since my trip to Montreal began. That my weight is not up more than two pounds since I left for Montreal is astounding. I need to figure out what is wrong with my head, and why it is that I cannot stay on track. Only then will I be able to get back onto the track and keep losing weight.

    The psychology of weight loss is not a simple one. I love food. I love losing weight. I love eating. I love being slim. I hate dieting and starving myself and being fat and gaining weight and wearing big clothes and above all I hate that I am not completely in control of my own self, that I cannot just will myself to succeed with my weight loss program. If only there were a recovery program, like there is for drug addicts. I remember the scene from The Sopranos where Chris goes into the treatment centre. They take away even his candy bars because the caffeine in the chocolate is equally a drug to the cocaine or whatever he was doing. They encourage his smoking though, which is one of those dichotomies that Hollywood does not properly explain. If I could be committed to a facility where veering from the program was not an option, where I was given 1,000 calories per day, where I was forced to exercise… but I do not have that option.

    The option that is available to me is that in five days I will be getting onto a plane to see my wife, and when I am with her, I have the support and encouragement that I need to make the right choices… and that’s really what I need. I need to make the right choices every day, and if there is a day when I make bad choices, then I have to come back the following day to make better ones.

    To be clear, these last two weeks I have made a lot of bad choices… but none of them have been massive. I had some crackers and popcorn a couple of days. I had an extra salad and popcorn another. I bought bread for the prayers, but not the huge loaf. I suspect that the first sentence of this entry used the right word… I am on a plateau. It may take a few days, but I will resume my downward descent. It is not a valley, where I have hit my lowest (best) weight and am now on my way up. No way. I will get back on this weight loss horse and keep losing the weight.

    What is it that I have to do then? Leslie has been encouraging me to schedule cheat days. Whether they are weekly or monthly, there can be one scheduled day that I can look forward to when I can go a little crazy. I don’t mean ‘a big plate of wings and a large pizza’ crazy… maybe a reasonable meal on top of my one reasonable meal. Maybe I have to break up the monotony of the chicken and salad (which I really and truly do enjoy) with more fish, or even beef. Maybe it is a bag of chips. I don’t know what a cheat day should look like, I only know that I am going to give a lot more thought to how it should look, and how often I should take them.

    This morning, on top of my meal replacement shake, I finished the challah roll. It was very good, and I do not think it was the worst cheat in the world. As long as I do not snack the rest of the day, I do not think I will be punished for it. Starches and carbohydrates are fuel, so what I need to do is to burn them off throughout the day. I’ll do that.

    This afternoon I am taking Her Floofness to Ryan’s for a few hours. I am looking forward to seeing my buddy, and only hope that his sister’s classless boyfriend is not there. I hate that I was either seeing my friend or not based on whether or not that guy would be there. I am done avoiding him. I can easily sit in a room and ignore his racist moronic crap… even if it is aimed at me. I will do my best to not be goaded into a fight… either verbal (which I would certainly win) or otherwise. How often have I advised people to never enter into a battle of wits with the unarmed. I have to follow my own advice. It is not always so simple.

    We are not going to leave for Cambridge until after lunch. I will make my meal and will hit the road on a full stomach. Otherwise, I would be tempted to stop along the way to pick up a handful of peanuts, or I would snack at Ryan’s place. Going on a full stomach is the smarter play, and one that I have not played a lot. The last few times I have driven out there, I have planned to eat when I got home. That is just a bad idea, considering how peckish one can get when breaking their meal plan.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 240

    I am relieved to see that the numbers on the scale were slightly down this morning. I had some popcorn yesterday, which I know I should not have. I also had another salad, which I shouldn’t do, but which is not the end of the world. I know that I should be trying to stick to my plan, but I was really out of sorts yesterday. I hope to do better today.

    I have to do some shopping this morning. I do have a steak that I could defrost, but I do not think that I have done well enough on my program recently to deserve that treat. I will pick up some chicken, as well as vegetables. I have onion and tomatoes, but I am out of cucumber and lettuce. I am also going to see if they have any sesame oil, which they did not have the last time I went.

    My friend Eduardo and I are supposed to get together today for me to replace the hard drive in his computer. I honestly hate helping friends keep computers going that are over ten years old, but what can I do? He is a friend on a budget and does not want to spend the money to buy something new. We will of course smoke a cigar together, which will be nice. I like hanging out with my friends. Tomorrow I will be going to see Ryan, which is always a nice way to spend the afternoon. I just hope that his sister’s boyfriend isn’t there… he’s a real tool. I have no interest in breathing the same air as anyone who tells antisemitic jokes. We’ll see… it might turn into a short afternoon.

    I have a couple of things that I want to post for sale on Facebook Marketplace. I only mention that here because I know that it is the first time that I have written or verbalized it, despite having thought of it for weeks. If I write it down, I might actually get cracking on it. Let’s hope.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 239

    Yesterday did not go as planned, but it did not go too badly. After my minor procedure at the doctor’s (which did not hurt a bit) I came home and made lunch. So far, I was on track.

    I then had a bunch of Salt and Vinegar Goldfish. Not so much on track, but still not off the rails.

    My housekeeper came, and I sat on the balcony with my book and a cigar. We are still doing well.

    Around dinner time, I decided to polish off the leftover fajita bowl from the previous evening with my son. I had forgotten that he had given me a single wing in my leftovers container. Both the fajita bowl and the wing were delicious!

    Late in the evening, I had a meal replacement shake. I was quite peckish, and I did not want to go to bed hungry.

    Throughout the day I drank more water than I usually do on non-exercise days. I think that is one of the reasons my weight was down nearly a pound today (from the reading on the bathroom scale from yesterday, and not from the doctor’s office reading). I am happy about that, but I know I have to get out for a walk today, which I will probably do after lunch. Sun and all, the forecast high for the day is 64° Fahrenheit, and I am wondering if I should tough it out in shorts, or if my training pants are the uniform of the day. I suspect that I’ll stick with shorts, but that will be a gametime decision.

    I reached out to my diet buddy about this evening. She has missed more meetings than she has made these last couple of months, and more often than not, I have not gone out of my way to keep her in line. While most of the time it has been because I have had other things going on, the truth is that she has not really been managing her weight loss, and I have felt it a bit discouraging to meet with someone weekly who would tell me about the poutine and whatever else she was eating. Two weeks ago, she told me she was starting the program again. I look forward to chatting with her this evening, and seeing what progress she has made.

    I am feeling a bit out of sorts today. It is not a physical thing; it is just one of those ‘Lost in Space’ days. I usually take a bit of time to write my morning article, getting distracted by the odd email or whatever. Today, I say here for nearly two hours, looking at Facebook and Discord and whatever else, until I finally wrote this last paragraph. If I had not gone overboard yesterday, I might have thought it was a calorie deprivation thing. No, I doubt it… not after the extras that I ate. I must just have my head in the clouds.

    In one week I am flying to Dallas, and I will again be with my lovely wife. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about that. Over the three-week period I will be in the US, I will also spend six days in Southern California, visiting my old stomping grounds. It will be good to catch up with old friends, every one of whom I miss dearly. I chatted with one this morning, and I officially started putting social engagements into my calendar for that week. Yes, the general theme will likely be cigars. The first such event I have put in is at the Grand Havana Room, one of (if not) the most prestigious private cigar lounges in the country. Fortunately, I have several friends who are members, and so getting in has never been an issue for me. With that said, I am more excited to see my wife (who I saw two weeks ago) than I am most of my friends (who I have not seen in a year). She truly is my beloved. 

    Have a great day folks!

  • A Pleasant Surprise A-Weights…

    Boy did I get that one wrong somehow. I lost a lot more than a half kilo in the past three weeks. In fact, I lost 2.6kg, which makes me quite happy. The procedure went well, and I am home. The chicken is in the air fryer, the salad is made, and in a few minutes, I will have my lunch as planned. In fact, it looks like my entire day will go as planned.

    The doctor told me that the nurse was extremely pleased with my overall progress, in addition to my incremental progress. I won’t lie… I’m pretty pleased with it too!

    My next appointment with the doctor is scheduled for a month from now, right on the heels of my three-week trip to Dallas and California. As long as I remember every minute of every day that my weight loss is more satisfying than the often-indulgent foods that will be offered to me, there is hope that in that time I can lose another 3-4kg in that time. I will work hard to make that happen. 4kg in a month should be not just doable, but very doable.

  • Day 238

    I have to start remembering that on days when I have a meal with my son, I am going to be eating at a restaurant. Why then would I have the full lunch, and full supper? It is probably because I do not want to break my routine of eating at lunch time. He and I went to Lone Star Grill, where I ordered a grilled chicken fajita bowl (without the cheese). Unfortunately, they also put out a plate of nachos and salsa, which I indulged in. I consider that a failure. My son ordered an appetizer of queso and chips which I did not touch. I chalked that up as a success. Of course, my avoidance of the dip was not only a weight issue; I do not mix dairy with meat… or chicken.

    At the end of the meal, Gilad asked to take most of his dinner home with him. This is not unusual – he fills up on the dip, and then has one or two chicken wings. He asked if I wanted to share an order of churros for dessert, and I told him I did not. I asked him if he would like to get an order of churros to take home with him, and he was happy with that. Sitting and watching him eat (or mostly neglect) the plate of chicken wings was more than enough for me.

    In a few minutes I will drive to the doctor’s office to get weighed. I am not expecting any great progress from two weeks ago. If I am down even half a kilo then I will consider it a win, after the disastrous week I had in Montreal… and even yesterday with the chips. On the bathroom scale this morning I did not gain weight, but I did not lose any either. After the weigh-in, I am having a minor surgical procedure to remove a couple of skin tags that have been bothering me for years. All told, I should be home by noon.

    For the first time since mid-July, I am having my apartment cleaned today. I do not live like a slob, and so it is not nearly as bad as it could be. I do so like having everything cleaned though. She does not do a great job, but she does well enough. When she is done (at 5:00pm) I will go for a long walk, having skipped yesterday.

    It is a lovely day out, and by the time I am ready for my walk, it should still be 22° Celsius out. That should make for great conditions for a comfortable walk, whether it be for 8km or longer. I will make that decision likely around the halfway point of my outing, based on what my body is saying to me.

    Have a great day folks!