Losing a part of me

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  • Keep On Keeping On

    I knew that I was being a bad boy the second I told Ryan I would have one hamburger with a bun. Knowing my love of onions, he bought a couple of onion rolls (to go with the all-beef burgers that he was buying for me). I heard him mention to our other friend that he did not eat them, am I did not want to seem ungracious. I was carbing up… and I am supposed to be on a very low-carb diet.

    The burgers were wonderful, no doubt. I do wish he had not bought special burgers for me though. Had the only option been the patties with cheese and bacon in them, I could have begged off and not cheated… but my word, they were tasty! Yes, they… I ate one with the bun, and another without.

    On my drive home I knew I had to go for a long walk. I could not just eat like that and not exercise today… it would be a slap in the face to the milestones that I hit and wrote about this morning. I got home and changed into my workout clothes. I took Princess Sophie for her walk (the same path that we have gotten accustomed to taking most mornings, which it turns out is 1.2km), and then set out for mine… planning a route in my head that I knew would be long.

    What I did not account for was the (for Canada) grueling heat. I usually am nearly finished my water bottle (one litre) by the time I walk into the apartment. Today I realized that it was empty before kilometre number seven… and I was over two kilomtres from home. If I learned anything during my time in the Army it is that hydration is not a little important; it is huge. In truth, it is everything, because if you fall out from dehydration the consequences during training are not pleasant; in the field they can be disastrous. At the corner of Dundas and Walker’s Line, just after finishing kilometre seven, I paused my trackers and walked into the Circle K to grab a bottle of Gatorade Zero. While the bottle was gone before I had walked another 500m, the hydration and electrolytes were sufficient to get me home.

    • Distance: 9.5km (8.07km)
    • Duration: 1:37:15 (1:19:59)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:14 (9:54)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m43s (9m32s)
    • Steps: 12.1k (9.9k)
    • Calories burned: 1,187 (1003)
    • Elevation gain: 32.6 (30.3)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 122 (124)

    While my first two kilometres had me on a track to match or even beat yesterday’s walk, the heat slowed me down; while two of my first four kilometres were under ten minutes (and my average per kilometre was still under that threshold), I did slow down somewhat after kilometre four, and am not surprised that my pace fell off somewhat. Still and all, I was under 10m40 on every kilometre, so I am not at all disappointed.

    I do not know if I completely worked off the cheat-lunch that I had, but at least I did not throw up my hands in surrender. It would have been easy to just say ‘Oh well, today is a wash, I will start again tomorrow.’ That is not what I am doing… especially knowing that I am getting weighed at the doctor’s office in 3.5 days… and that night I will be seeing my wife! While I doubt if I will get down to 315-pounds by then, I am certainly not going to be happy getting onto the plane over the 320-pound mark. I dropped below that today for the first time, and I hope to be solidly and permanently below that by Wednesday.

    As I have done several times on days when I have cheated, I will not be having three meal replacements. I did not feel that I needed one before my walk, and while I am still not sure if I need one afterwards, I think it prudent to have it, lest I realize at 11:30pm that I am hungry.

    When you tangle up, tango on. Lunch today was a mistake, but I did not miss a beat in getting back on track. That is the best way to avoid failure.

  • Day 213

    I love hitting milestones on my weight loss journey. They are one of the ways I measure progress, and to remind myself that the last eight months of depriving myself of so much has paid dividends and has not been a waste.

    As I mentioned the other day, the bathroom scale can be mean, so when my weight jumped 2.4 pounds Wednesday morning I was quite upset. Fortunately, Thursday morning it dropped .8-pound, then Friday another 2-pounds. This morning it dropped another 1.2 pounds, which incredibly dropped me below the 320 pounds mark for the first time since March 26, 2021. It felt absolutely amazing, and the only thing that could have made it better would be if Leslie was here to celebrate with me. As it stands, I have not told her yet (I hope she has been able to sleep in this morning), and I will not publish this entry to my blog until she knows.

    I have lost 22 pounds since I flew to Dallas in June, and just over 75-pounds overall since January. Both of those are huge accomplishments, and the fact that I have so much more to lose will not discourage me. For the first time in a year and a half, I am 100-pounds away from what I weighed in basic training… twenty-eight years ago. I put on a shirt this morning that had been in the bin for over a year, and it felt great that it fit. Hopefully, one day in the next year or so, I will be able to wear my Army uniform again… if only for a moment.

    It is not surprising that when I went dark a couple of months ago a lot of my friends started to worry. I let them all know that I was going through some things, and I did not want to talk about it. I did that to let them know that I was okay, I was just down. As I came out of my funk, I started to see friends again (albeit very slowly). Today I am going to see one of the friends which I have not seen since he threw my birthday party for me. While I had planned to not eat meat until I was back from Dallas, Ryan told me he is going to smoke some burgers for us, and I did not have the heart to tell him not to. Also, the timing of the visit will completely interfere with my meal planning here, so I really should eat. I will not be having bread with them, but I will have a hamburger and some salad. I am now especially relieved that I decided to not have a steak yesterday.

    Princess Sophie will not be coming to Ryan’s house. She is having a play date with her very good friend Charlie, and she would not have it any other way. In fact, when she heard Charlie in the hallway, she begged me to take her to Susan’s to play with him… and when he got to the door, she actually knocked on it! Well, she scratched at it loudly, which is essentially the same things, what with dogs not having knuckles. I love that she has friends and that she is so expressive, yet so well behaved!

    On days when timing permits, we have expanded our morning walk. We now do a 2,000-step tour through the park, past the playground, and out to Forest Run, then back down Tobyn to my street. It likely does not change my daily step count by that much, but it is definitely noteworthy insofar as when we first moved here, walking that much would have me winded and sweaty. Today it is no more effort than going to the washroom. It also serves to ‘get the kinks out’ first thing in the morning. When a fat fifty-year-old man exercises as much as I have been, there are aches in the morning; if I did not have to go out for a walk, I might easily say ‘let the aches heal for a day or two.’ By the time Her Floofness and I are back from that turn, I will usually be feeling ready to go for a proper walk… which I usually cannot do, owing to the obligations of work and such. The proper walk will wait until the end of the day.

    The forecast for today is dry, but tomorrow will be rainy, as will every day through Wednesday when I leave for Dallas. I will go for a good walk when I come back from Ryan’s, knowing that while I might be able to walk tomorrow, it will likely be a wet one.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Wow

    Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration. However, if my last walk was an OW, I should at least show the turnaround to today.

    This was only my second outing in which my average pace (minutes per kilometre) was under 10m00. I did not think I would come close to my record pace from Sunday, so it was a pleasant surprise to see in the AAR that I was only two seconds per kilometre off.

    I may not have broken any records today, but I wiped out the terrible stats that were Monday’s. Looking at those two outings side by side (as you can below) you will see that it is truly night and day.

    • Distance: 8.07km (8.0 km)
    • Duration: 1:19:59 (1:29:42)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:54 (11:12)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m32s (10m55s)
    • Steps: 9.9k (10.2k)
    • Calories burned: 1003 (933)
    • Elevation gain: 30.3 (27.7)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 124 (112)

    I am hoping that I will be able to get out and have another good outing tomorrow. Once again, I am not setting out to set any records, only break a sweat and post respectable numbers. As I lose weight, the numbers will naturally improve – the less weight that I am carrying, the more powerful my legs, the results will come – but the numbers are not my goal. At least, not the walking statistics. The numbers that I am really excited about are the weight on the scale and the size of my waist. Watching those drop is my goal, and I will not stop until I have reached the top… or, I suppose, the bottom!

  • Day 212

    It is good to be back on track.

    Yesterday evening I was tired… but that did not stop me from going to Taekwondo. I made a mistake with the schedule, thinking that Thursday evening there were two classes that were appropriate for me – the senior belts class, and the adult class. After putting on my dobok, I walked into the gym only to realize that I was looking at a children’s class.

    I had told myself that I wanted to spend a lot of time stretching during class, I took the opportunity to carve out a small corner in the back of the room and did just that for nearly the entire class. When it was time for the actual senior belts class to start, I was not exactly limber… but I was ready to go.

    I need to do that more often. Just spend the full class stretching, regaining the mobility that I once had. It was never great – I have never been as flexible or as graceful as so many other martial artists, many of whom I have trained with and trained. My kicks are powerful and effective, but I would never win a competition based on beauty and style. However, I will do what I can to improve my flexibility, at least to the point where I was ten years ago. That will involve a great deal more stretching… and not only on occasional Tuesdays and Thursdays.

    Remember how angry I was at my bathroom scale the last two days? This morning it effectively apologized to me, with a massive 2-pound drop from yesterday. That brought me back into the ‘best weight yet’ territory, as I am now a full .6 pound less than my previous best. Unfortunately, my week-over-week loss is only one pound down from last Friday. While I do not consider a single pound drop in a week to be a good week, but I have to remember what I wrote: One pound lost is three pounds of progress. There are days when I just find it so hard to be patient with tiny steps, when I want to take giant leaps… especially when I am doing almost everything right. Just the other night, Leslie reminded me that patience is not one of her virtues. I guess in a lot of ways it is not always one of mine either.

    As I said yesterday, I will almost certainly drop below the 320-pound mark before I fly to Dallas on Wednesday, but it is extremely unlikely that I will drop as far as 315-pounds. I would need to lose another six pounds from today until Wednesday, which is only five days away. No, that will not happen… but as I have said, I aimed for the stars and while I missed, I still hit the moon. I have already lost better than twenty pounds since I returned from Dallas less than two months ago, and ten pounds per month is nothing to sneeze at… especially when some of that time has been as emotionally charged and difficult as it has been.

    I was considering buying a steak for lunch today, but decided against it. My indulgence from last week had no deleterious effects on me, and to celebrate the Sabbath is it proper to have a celebratory meal. I decided against it for a number of reasons, including cost. With that said, I have decided that while I will not be cutting red meat out (as have so many people), I am happy making it an occasional treat and not a regular part of my diet. I had a steak last week and it was wonderful. Maybe when I am back from Dallas, I will have another one. Once per month seems a reasonable cadence… and I have always loved chicken so it is not a hardship for me!

    Speaking of which, I just prepared my lunch. I am hungry, but it is still 90 minutes from meal time. I can survive that, no problem! I just wish I could pop a snack in my mouth to satisfy my hunger, but I know that either my hunger is really in my mind, or if it is in my stomach then I have to learn to control it. There were times in my life when other people controlled my food – when I was a kid and when I was in the Army – and if I got hungry between meals I could either complain about it or live with the hunger, knowing that it was temporary. I have to re-learn how to live with hunger.

    The weather forecast for the next few hours calls for rain, but that is supposed to clear up by 6:00pm, which means that I will be able to walk after class. I am happy about that, knowing that I have not gone for a good walk since Monday evening. That is not to discount the Taekwondo that I did last night, but it is a different kind of workout, and I look forward to pushing myself this evening.

    I am looking forward to the weekend, and will try to use some of my free time to do some more exercise – whether that be walking, stretching, or actually re-learning my Taekwondo patterns. Actually, that is a good idea. I will spend some time at the park with my new book on Poomsae and try to re-learn so much of what I have forgotten over the years. Fortunately, I know that my muscles will remember a lot of what my brain has forgotten.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 211

    My weight loss program is extremely important to me, and my routine is fairly important to my progress. With that said, sleep is even more important; without sleep, I do not have the energy to get through the day. I have not been getting nearly enough sleep this past week, and I needed to figure out a way to end that streak. I decided, for one day only, to have a second meal. Yesterday evening I prepared a second meal identical to my first – chicken and salad – and enjoyed it around 6:30pm. I did this in place of the two evening meal replacements, so while I certainly consumed more calories than I would normally, it was not obscenely so. I then spent the evening on the balcony with a cigar, watching television and then talking with my wife.

    Is the extra meal the reason I slept well last night? I do not know. I could have happily stayed in bed another couple of hours, which was obviously not an option. That’s okay… and I am hoping that this evening I will be able to catch up on even more sleep… hopefully after a Taekwondo class.

    My weight was down nearly a full pound this morning, but is still a full 1.5-pounds higher than my low from Tuesday. These corrections are annoying and often disheartening, and I have to remember that it is the downward trend that is important, and frankly the weigh-ins at the doctor’s office. The bathroom scale, which I have known to be notoriously inaccurate, is a bellwether, not expected to be scientifically accurate.

    The forecast calls for a 30% chance of rain at some point today, but if I am going to Taekwondo and not for a walk, that will not be an issue for me. It will affect Princess Sophie, who has never been a big fan of precipitation… she might just step out for a few minutes to pee, rather than taking her full walk.

    I am wearing a golf shirt from the Size-XL bin today, on top of a pair of pants from the Size-40 bin. It feels good to be able to feel my progress with such victories!

    I realized last night that I would be running out of milk, but I did nothing about it. This morning’s first cup of coffee had dairy, but that will be it. I have to remember to pick up a litre this afternoon… and to not get the larger container, as I am going out of town Wednesday for a week.

    I have reached out to my diet buddy to confirm that we are still meeting this afternoon. We are supposed to meet every Thursday, but life often gets in the way. I love having Leslie’s full support, but I hope that Julie and I can touch base today to see how we are both doing.

    With regard to my meal replacements, I realized this week that I was running low, which is to say that I have 36 shakes left. To put that in perspective, at the peak I had twelve boxes, or 168 shakes. I thought briefly about going onto Facebook to buy more, and then decided against it… for now. I have a large case of shakes (84 servings) and a small case of apple cinnamon bars (42 servings) waiting for me in Dallas, and while they are the American formula (which means I have to adjust my schedule to compensate for the caloric differences), there is no reason I cannot bring some of them back to Canada with me… and I will only be back in Canada for three weeks before my next trip, so I only need bring enough to get me through that. Assuming with the American formula I plan for four meal replacements per day, that is 84 meal replacements that I need to bring back. No problem, and unlike here (where I have to buy them on the grey market), I can always order more in the US off eBay.

    Okay, so my diet buddy and I touched base during my break. She is not having a very easy time of it, and I gave her some tips… including the importance of telling people ‘I CANNOT EAT THAT (or THERE)’ instead of just going along, either to please them or because you are embarrassed to say that you are on a diet. It is embarrassing too, because it is vocalizing that you are fat. Also, if you tell someone you are on a diet, you always have to be on a diet with them, lest you slip and they think you are weak. All of those issues are psychological and deeply embedded into us, and we have to let go of them. Yes, it may hurt… but eating a poutine will hurt more.

    It is nearly time for me to get back into class, so have a great day folks!

  • Day 210

    It is days like today when I want to yell obscenities at my bathroom scale. While I was hoping for a slight drop from yesterday, I was horrified to see a 2.2 lbs increase. I cannot imagine that the five slices of dried mango and the handful of pumpkin seeds accounted for that; no, it is the universe getting back at me for not exercising yesterday. Just like that, my hopes of possibly getting down to 315 lbs in time for my trip to Dallas have been replaced with just hoping that I can get back down to 320 lbs. As has been said by many a cartoon character, &%^$@!!

    I felt guilty yesterday for being too tired to exercise. I neither went to Taekwondo as planned nor went for a walk. Over the course of a number of walks with Princess Sophie, plus a trip to the supermarket (and liquor store), I managed to surpass 5,000 steps… but that is not my goal. I would like to at least try for 10,000 steps per day, which will not always be possible, but is worth aiming for. I know, I had blisters on my feet from the previous day’s painful walk, but that is not an excuse. Maybe it is… but I still feel guilty, and that guilt is compounded by the number on the scale.

    The nature of my job is a sedentary one, and so it is incumbent on me to get out after work. Even if I am not going to suit up for a fitness walk, I should be going out beyond the fifteen minutes of walking Her Floofness twice per day. When weather is a factor there is room for compromise, but on a warm and dry day I should be walking… fitness walking or not.

    The problem is that I have been exhausted these last few days. I have not gotten a good night sleep in over a week, and I do not know why that is. I have been able to empty my mind of the stresses and anxieties of the day (and while there are some real ones, none of them have been keeping me up… at least, not this week), I just cannot keep my eyes closed. If this continues, I am going to try to pick up some sort of natural sleep aid… melatonin or something. I am not ready to go for narcotics just yet… but if there is a natural remedy that I can try, I am going to try it.

    My day is going well so far, even though I got out of bed late. Coffee is helping me through, and my classes are fun today – I love when there is a lot of hands-on labs that we can go through… not only because it is less lecturing, but because I feel the students learn more.

    Leslie gave me some really good news this morning, so I am happy. Seeing her happy makes me happy. Also, one week from today I will be waking up in Burlington, Ontario… and then going to sleep with her in my arms in Dallas. Yay!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 209

    As can be expected following an evening walk like I had last night, I woke up this morning with achy legs. The blisters on my feet had blisters on them. I will not let that stop me though… I am on a mission.

    The bathroom scale gave me back what it took away yesterday, and so I am again at the weight I was Sunday. While it is good to be back on track (and at my best weight), I would have liked to have gotten a pleasant surprise, maybe a new low. I know, that is not how weight loss works. I did expect, after an extremely productive bowel movement, that it might be even better… but no, there it was, the numbers on the scale aping those from a couple of days ago.

    I realized yesterday as I was preparing for my walk that I was a bit ambitious with my clothes, or at least with my workout clothes. I put on a sleeveless t-shirt that I have worn a couple times, but as I was preparing to walk out, I realized that my belly was exposed… and I do not want that. I changed my shirt, and later in the evening I told Leslie that when I am down there, we will need to try to pick up a couple of t-shirts. In truth, I probably have a few t-shirts that will fit just right, and later today (while my students are doing labs) I will go through my bins and see what fits.

    Princess Sophie has a play date today, so I will be teaching uninterrupted. In truth, she is a really good buddy, and seldom disturbs me while I am teaching. Occasionally, she asks to be picked up; usually she does her own thing. The one thing she does go nuts over is when she hears Charlie in the hallway; that they will be together all day will give me one less thing to think about.

    The weather forecast is predicting a beautiful day, but I am hoping that instead of walking this evening, I will go to Taekwondo. It is intimidating getting back into it after long absences. I am less worried that I do not remember my patterns as I am that I have not done my stretches in a long time, and I have never been the most flexible of people even at my best. Nonetheless, I will suit up and do what I can. I might just take the opportunity to spend the entire class stretching on my own. One of the advantages of being the senior man in the gym (both age-wise but if the Master is not in the gym, then I outrank the instructors) is that they will pretty much leave me alone if that is what I want to do.

    On that subject, I wish I had an area at home that would be comfortable to stretch, but the floors are terrible, and knowing that I am hopefully moving in the next few months, I do not want to invest in mats for the floor. I also know (or at least strongly suspect) that Princess Sophie will not really leave me alone if I get onto the floor to stretch. We’ll see… I may give it some more thought. I am also thinking that I might look into joining a gym for a few months. Before I do, I am going to wait to see how long I will likely have to wait for my visa once we file the application (hopefully next week). However, it is probably safe to assume that I am going to have to spend at least one more winter in Canada… and joining a gym will make working out in the cold and snowy and icy winters more doable. That is to say nothing for the strength training that I will be able to add to my walking. Yeah… now that I think of it, I am going to look into it. I do not want to spend more than I have to, but if GoodLife has any promotions going on, I might do that sooner rather than later.

    I was thinking last night that I have not golfed since June. I then realized that while I enjoy golfing, I also know that it was a contributing factor to my falling off the workout track back in 2020. Of course, living in Southern California (and only a mile from the golf course), it was easy to substitute walking and jogging for golfing, even after work (I was working in another time zone which had me online at 6am… but then I could run to the course by 2pm and play 18). Living in Canada, and working in the local time zone, I have plenty of time to go for a power walk at the end of the day (or to Taekwondo, or to the gym), but playing 18 holes of golf when I work until 5:00pm? There might be two weeks of the year when I could do that.

    All this to say that I might consider taking my golf clubs to Texas before the winter. I might get in one or two more rounds this season… but the only way that I can safely do that is to remember up front that the way I golf, it is not an exercise, it is a game.

    As is usually my routine when I teach, I prepared my lunch during the morning break, and I have an alarm set to remind me 25 minutes before we break for lunch to turn on the air fryer. The salad is ready and is cooling, and my chicken will be tender and juicy. I look forward to my lunches, despite the fact that they are almost always the same. I do so because lunch is my only meal of the day. I still enjoy eating and am glad that I have modified the rigorous regime of the program to include a single meal. I know that I am not losing weight nearly as fast as I might if I was only on meal replacements (which is a grueling 900-calories per day), but the benefits are tangible. I also hope that by doing it this way, I will be able to keep the weight off long-term.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Ow

    It is likely that if you were to ask Leslie right now, before she reads this entry, she would say that she pushed me to go out to walk today. She did, of course… but it was not solely her encouragement that got me out of the house. It is certainly not her fault that I pushed myself, despite setting out in the wrong shoes to begin with.

    I wanted to turn back before I hit the first kilometre, my feet were in pain before the second, and I knew that my pace was terrible from the outset, with only one (the second) of eight kilometres clocking under 11m10s. Whereas yesterday I broke all sorts of records, today’s walk included some of my worst statistics in months.

    • Distance: 8.0 km (9.2 km)
    • Duration: 1:29:42 (1:30:55)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 11:12 (9:53)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m55s (9m24s)
    • Steps: 10.2k (11.5k)
    • Calories burned: 933 (1,250)
    • Elevation gain: 27.7 (26)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 112 (126)

    Of course, there are two ways to look at this abysmal performance. Yes, it was nowhere near the performance I turned in yesterday. But I turned in a performance. Despite the exhaustion, the fact that I just did not feel like going out for my walk, despite the pain from nearly the very beginning of my walk, I still walked eight kilometres. I simply wanted to crawl into bed… or sit on the balcony with a cigar. I can think of myriad activities I would have rather done than gone for a walk.

    With my wife’s encouragement, with the knowledge that if I did not go, I would not be giving it my all to lose as much weight as possible by next Wednesday, with the understanding that I am trying to form a positive habit, I went. When I realized I had chosen the wrong shoes (I believe last month I walked in these, and decided their limit was 5km), I kept going… knowing that the soles of my feet would be hurting.

    Not for nothing, I took yet another new route today… only this is one that I will not be revisiting. I decided to walk down Walker’s Line to North Service Road, and then east to Appleby Line. Knew when I decided on the route that the service road is adjacent the highway, and there would be noise and all. What I did not realize was that not only is there no sidewalk (on either side of the street), there is also not enough space on the road to walk safely in a lot of parts, and I had to walk on either grass (not a problem) or gravel (more of a problem). Thanks all, but the service road is not going to be a repeat route.

    I need to shower, make my evening meal replacement, and light a cigar. If I thought I would sleep through the night, I might go right to sleep… but I do not want to wake up at 4:30am… especially knowing that with my feet the way they are, I could not simply go for a walk before class. I will have a nice chat with my wife, and I will be in bed at a decent hour.

    If my feet are not in too much pain, tomorrow should be a Taekwondo night. Wish me luck!

  • Day 208

    This morning the I gave back .4-lbs on the scale, likely due to the popcorn I ate at the movies yesterday. It was not even worth it… but I will be back on track today. I have chicken and salad for lunch, and I will go for a walk this afternoon. While there is no way I will match my record-setting pace from yesterday, I do not need to… all I need to do is work hard and get a good sweat going. It is a misconception that I have to beat yesterday’s stats every time I go out… I just have to keep going out, and that is what will help me to lose the weight and get back into shape.

    It is Monday morning, the start of a new week. I weigh 3.2 pounds less than I did last Monday, and by any measure that is a successful week of weight loss. If I can do that again this week, then when I get to Dallas, I will not weigh 315 lbs… but I will be under 320 lbs, which will not be a failure. It will also mean that since I was last with my wife, I will have lost about 20 lbs. I know that she will feel the difference when she puts her arms around me! As I have said many times before: I am not losing the weight primarily for her… but she is certainly a consideration, and the only other beneficiary (aside from myself) of the positive changes resulting from the weight loss!

    I did not sleep very well last night. For reasons I could not put together, Princess Sophie decided to not sleep in my bed, which is mostly good. I did have a lot on my mind though, and it kept me up longer than I would have liked. Hopefully tonight I will sleep better.

    One of my student’s father owns a cigar company in Dallas, and a couple of weeks ago he sent me a care package. The plan is that I will smoke them before getting to Dallas, and then he and I will sit down and discuss them for an article I will write for one of my other blogs. According to the tracking, the package arrived in Canada a week ago, and has been sitting with Canada Customs since. Late last night the tracking changed, and they are now back en route to me. While this is a positive, I am always worried that when someone ships cigars to me they will come with a large bill from Canada Customs. If that happens, I have to decide whether to accept them (and pay the bill) or refuse them. As I am hoping he only sent a couple of cigars, I cannot image the bill for these will be too large, but the uncertainty has been the cause of some stress, in addition to everything else going on in my life.

    The forecast for today (and through Thursday) is partly cloudy but dry, with high temperatures in the mid-20s, which will not only make my wife jealous, it will also make for excellent weather to walk in. I am hoping that tomorrow and Thursday evening I will go to Taekwondo, but tonight, Wednesday, and Friday I will be walking. While it might not yet be a habit, I want to keep my walking routine going. Also, while I have been doing pretty well these last few weeks (I have lost 19.6 pounds in the last five weeks), it is only normal for me to want to make one final push to lose even more weight leading up to my trip to Dallas. Walking (and Taekwondo), in addition to sticking to my healthy eating, will be a good way to make that final push.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Break Em!

    I did not set out this morning expecting to break records. In fact, owing to a false start (caused by a suspected sighting of a lost cat), I rather expected today’s walk to be rather humdrum. I did not walk yesterday, so my legs were a bit better rested; the weather was perfect walking weather (Starting at 20° Celsius, getting up to 23°, and partly cloudy); I had my best walking shoes on. When my fitness tracker read into my ear that my first kilometre pace was 10m12s, I suspected I might be able to ratchet that up. I turned on my Turbo Booster and it was on. I was going to speed-walk until I couldn’t do it anymore.

    Today’s path was another new one, up Walker’s Line to Dundas, then down Appleby Line. I was thrilled when the calm voice in my ear reported my second kilometer pace at 9m39… and I kept going hard. By the end of my walk, I had six kilometres under 10m0s (my seventh kilometre was 9m59s). I was shattering a bunch of my personal bests. Just a few weeks ago I remember writing that I hoped to walk 7km in under 1h15m… and I missed it by three seconds that day. Today I beat that by nearly 7.5 minutes! It was truly a walk to be proud of… and one that I do not expect to beat for a few weeks (if not months).

    • Distance: 9.2 km (10.01 km
    • Duration: 1:30:55 (1:44:36)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 9:53 (10:26)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m24s
    • Steps: 11.5k (12.3k)
    • Calories burned: 1,250 ((1,121)
    • Elevation gain: 26 (44.0)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 126 (116)

    I had originally thought that I would stop at the supermarket along the way to pick up lettuce, but there was no way that I was going to ruin this record-setting walk with a break like that. I will shower, and then I will go back out. In the afternoon I might go to a movie, but we will see how I am feeling.

    For the moment though, I am feeling fabulous. Yay endorphins!