Losing a part of me

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  • Day 207

    I did not walk yesterday. I went to Lyle’s in the afternoon (after taking some clothes to a tailor to be altered), stopping at Bulk Barn for a handful of peanuts. To offset those, I did not have my final meal replacement shake in the evening, so the calories will more or less balance properly. It is not a habit I will be falling back into, but an occasional necessity when the timing of my day works badly. Normally I would be eating my meal around 12:30pm, so when I am out until 3:00pm (and need another half hour to cook) I need something to tide myself over, lest my hunger grow too great and tempt me to cheat worse.

    The numbers on the bathroom scale were once again good ones this morning, down nearly half a pound. I am almost back to hoping that I might way as little as 315lbs when I fly to Dallas in ten days. Something else that happens on that day is my weigh-in at the doctor’s office, and I am excited for that too. As of this morning, I am 5.5kg down from my last weigh-in, which will be my best showing between appointments… even averaged out (knowing there will have been five weeks between weigh-ins) I will be happy with that drop… and that is not accounting for the fact that I still have ten more days to try to drop even more weight.

    I am not going to lie… it feels good when the nurse looks at me in awe of my success, but it feels even better when the doctor (who I have known more than fifteen years) looks at my chart and says ‘Is this right? According to the nurse, you lost this much weight since your last visit.’ After my wife, it is their response that I am always eager for. Yes, I should not be looking for external validation. According to psychologists you need to be happy with yourself, and you should not be trying to impress anyone but you. Thanks Doctor Whoever, the reality is that external validation is important for all of us, but maybe that much more so for those of us who had parents who never gave it to them. Good enough was never good enough, it was only perfect that was rewarded. While it did not happen often, if I would bring home an exam with a 95% grade, I would be asked ‘what happened to the other 5%?’ Thanks Mother… and frankly, thanks Dad too. Forty years later I am looking for validation from my family physician.

    These epiphanies are among the reasons I write this journal. I likely would never have put into words – if I even thought about it at all – why I get so much satisfaction from my doctor’s feedback if I was not writing. I do not know how many people read everything that I write (I know of only one person who does, even though the stats on my blog tell me there are more), but these insights are not only for you, they are for me. Being able to understand the root cause of an issue is a very good way to start learning to deal with that issue.

    Let’s be honest… we all seek external validation for something. ‘Do I look fat in this dress’ is never asking for negativity, rather the asker is seeking a compliment, knowing the response better be positive. As a teacher, I love giving my students validation… and plenty of opportunity to get it. I ask review questions about what we are learning to make sure the students understand what I just taught, but it also gives them an opportunity for me to give them positive reinforcement. Things that I never got as a child. When I would do something right, more often than not the feedback would be akin to, ‘Why can’t you do it like that every time?’ Thanks Mother… and again, thanks Dad.

    I am not losing weight for anyone but myself. There are simply no benefits to being morbidly obese that I am aware of, and myriad benefits to being slim and in shape. Yes, I want to lose weight for my wife, not only for our longevity and so that I do not fall ill with any of countless obesity-related illnesses that would require her to care for me (which she would do I know, but I would rather not have to burden her thusly), but also for our immediate happiness, including our intimate life (which improves with every pound I lose). If Leslie and I were not together, would I still be on this journey? I think so. I hope so. Like most people, I like to look good, and it is simply easier to do that when you are slimmer than fatter. I feel better in the clothes I wear, and I feel better out of them. So yes, I want to lose weight for my wife… but I want to lose weight for me as well.

    With all of that said, who does not like getting compliments? As I have written before, not all compliments are welcome… but the sincere ones from people who care about you feel good. I was walking with Princess Sophie a few days ago and a neighbour who moved away but was in the neighbourhood saw me and was shocked by my progress. That feels good.

    I am changing my schedule for today. Usually, I would walk later in the afternoon, but because I did not walk yesterday, and because the weather is conducive to it – at present, it is 66° and cloudy. The high temperature is only forecast at 74°F, and the sun will be peaking from behind clouds from 1pm onwards. The weather will be decent all day, but if I go now, then I will have the whole afternoon to do what I want to do. Maybe I will go to a movie after lunch. Who knows?

    Have a great day folks!

  • Habits

    I have been saying for weeks that I am pushing myself to walk until it eventually becomes a habit, and that I do not have to push myself to do it. I have been saying for years that I need to break my unhealthy relationship with food, and establish good eating habits. I have gotten into the habit of writing in my weight loss journal on a daily basis, even on days when I have nothing new (or good) to report.

    So much of our lives are dictated by habits. Someone who does not plan their time well might be habitually late. You might be in the habit of showering on a certain schedule; people who do not eat well might make it a habit of picking unhealthy restaurants or food choices at the supermarket.

    A habit is not necessarily good or bad. It is defined (by Oxford Languages, per Bing Dictionary) as a regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. It is not the same as a schedule or routine. I do not take my dog for a walk twice or thrice daily out of habit, I do so out of necessity. To wit: When Princess Sophie is not with me, I do not go for a walk in the morning. I do not log on to Zoom to start teaching on days when I am not contracted to do so.

    There are good habits (I am in the habit of brushing my teeth in the morning when I wake up and in the evening before bed). There are bad habits (of which I have too many to pick just one as an example). There are habits that are neither good nor bad, they are just how we do things. I am in the habit of shaking a sweetener pack before tearing it open. Why? It is something that I do. Frankly, I remember watching my father doing it when I was a kid, and I picked it up from him. Would bad things happen if I opened a packet of sweetener without shaking it? Unlikely… but it is a habit, and I do it every single time.

    Habits around food are extremely common, and again, can be good or bad. Why do many people eat their salads before, or after, or alongside their main course? It is a habit, based on cultural norms of the country in which they were raised. Some people say a prayer before eating, which might be out of habit, or from a deep-rooted belief that their food is a gift from G-d, and that they should be grateful.

    Some people always take a second helping of… whatever. If you were to ask them, they might answer that they are still hungry, or that it was so good that they wanted more. Oftentimes it is simply because they are used to taking seconds. It is a habit. In some cases that might be a good thing, but more often it is not.

    I do not know a fat person, and likely neither do you, who was taught healthy food choices as a child. I do not mean that they did not learn about the five basic food groups – we all learned at least some form of nutrition in school – I mean ingrained education, their day-to-day meals. If you are taught about smart choices for ten minutes in a class one day, but are given huge meals of deep-fried this and creamed that and everything is drowning in gravy every night, then that is the habit you will learn. It is not an easy one to break.

    I have said for months that I want my good eating to be habitual, and my fitness walking to be a habit. So far, I know that neither has happened. Have I ever exercised on a daily basis? Of course I have… for years on end. Have I ever eaten well? Sure, and I have lost a lot of weight a couple of times to prove it. Yet it is so hard to make those habitual. Falling into my old routines is easy… like smoking cigarettes, it is easy to start, but hard to quit.

    Do you see the difference between those? Exercise is a hard habit to get into, and an easy one to fall out of. Eating well is a hard habit to get into, and an easy one to fall out of. Overeating is an easy habit to fall into, and a hard one to fall out of. Smoking cigarettes is an easy habit to get into, and a hard one to fall out of.

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    This seems to me to be an unfair reality, but it is a reality nonetheless. I wish it were the opposite, where good habits were easy to establish and hard to break, but it is not the case. That is why we must be extra vigilant, once we are in a good habit, to stick to it. I do not have the answer to that… and so far, I have not heard of a good one. I know people who put entries into their daily diary to go for a walk, and I hope that works for them… but it has never worked for me, at least not for the long term. A daily reminder to do something makes it a scheduled task or routine… but not a habit.

    Good habits are hard to get into and bad habits are hard to break. We may not like it, but it is a fact of life, and one that, if we wish to control our own habits, we will need to find a way to work at every day of our lives… until our good habits are so truly ingrained into us that we do them without thinking… and until we have so truly broken our bad habits that it would never occur to us to repeat them.

    With regard to food, I have gotten into the habit of buying only the foods that I know are allowed on my weight management program. Some people would point out that I seem to eat rather monotonously, but that is what I need to do to lose weight, and so I do not veer too far from my chicken or fish with a salad for lunch. I do not keep pasta and creamy sauces or fattening salad dressings in the house because it would be too easy to say ‘You know what? I do not feel like eating chicken today.’ It took some time, but when I go to the supermarket, I buy what I need, and I do not go looking for things that would be tasty but harmful to my weight loss plan. It is now a habit more than a routine, and I am grateful for it.

    When I decided to lose weight seriously, one of the hardest habits to break was eating at restaurants. That was one of the main reasons it took until January 20th to really start, and not January 1st as I had originally intended. Eating out is a bad habit, and therefore a difficult one to break. Sticking to my meal-replacements program was a very good habit to get into… and it did not come easy.

    Some religious leaders will tell you that the devil is always there to tempt you, and it is only your strong belief in G-d that keeps you from sinning. I do not believe in those concepts in the Christian sense, but I do believe that we all have good voices and bad voices in our heads. The good voices encourage us to do the right thing – and we usually know that is, whether it be helping a neighbour or eating healthy. The bad voices are shouting at us to succumb to temptation, to be selfish and to eat whatever we want. While the bad voices might be shouting, it is our responsibility to ourselves to tune them out and to listen to the good voices and to do the right thing, whether that be by others or by ourselves.

    Doing the right thing is not always the easy thing… but it is always the right thing. Our diet habits can be good or they can be bad, and it is the decisions that we make that will determine our paths… and eventually our waist size.

  • Day 206

    I was expecting the numbers on the scale to be higher this morning, owing to two factors. First, yesterday’s 2.6-pound drop was one of those great ones that is usually too good to be true, and dials itself back the following day. Additionally, I treated myself with a gorgeous (if too large) steak yesterday for lunch, and I expected the consequences to be a slight weight gain. In fact, while there was no drop, there was also no weight gain. This could be because I pushed myself on a 10-kilometre walk, which compensated for (and burned calories from) the steak. Whatever the reason, I am happy with it.

    I have two bags of clothes waiting to go today. The first is clothes I am going to take to drop in a donation bin. The second is clothes I am taking to the tailor to have her alter because of the weight loss. I have worn the vest and the sports jacket a few times, but of the three shirts I had custom made, one of them has never even been unfolded. I suspect that there will be little she can do about the shirts, but the jacket and pants should be adjustable. I hope to have them back in time to take to Dallas with me, so that if I take my wife out for a nice evening, I can dress up for her.

    There are several side effects to being fat and fifty years old. There are even more to being an active fat and fifty. One of these is that the morning after I walk, my ankle causes me problems. Once I am walking (even just walking the doggo) it is fine, but as I am puttering around the house to get ready, and then walking to the elevator, my ankle is bothering me, and feels like it is going to give out. It never does, and once I get moving it seems fine. The joys of age and weight… my body does things that remind me constantly that I am neither young nor slim, and that it has been many years since I have been consistently active.

    I could have slept more last night, but sometimes our bodies or minds do not cooperate with that. I seem to have no problem getting back to sleep after getting up to pee at 6:15am, but if I get up to pee after 6:30am, I am done for the night. I do not think it is substantially lighter in my room, but there is something about that 6:30am threshold that seems to be a barrier to my returning to sleep… unless I am zonked, at which point it is possible. This morning was not such a morning, and so I was up and hitting my bathroom routine at 6:40, and by 7:30 I was out with Princess Sophie. Of course, that gives me the entire day to be productive. I remember the old saying ‘Early to bed, early to rise…’ The early bird might get the worm, but I am not a big fan of worms and would just as soon have gotten another hour of sleep.

    Plans for today: I will be going to the tailor of course. I hope she is able to help. After that, I am driving to Hamilton to spend a couple of hours with Lyle, whose wife is visiting with her father today. It is always good to sit with friends and enjoy a cigar. Because of that, I will adjust my eating schedule somewhat, and will have my meal in the later afternoon, rather than at noon. Afterwards, I hope to go for another fitness walk. It will likely not be as long as yesterday’s, but getting out is what is important, and not beating my previous score.

    I had a realization about habits yesterday which I am going to write about in a separate entry, but suffice it to say that I have not yet gotten into the habit of walking on a regular basis… at least, not to the point where it is automatic. I really need to get there. Until I do, I will continue to remind myself how important it is that I keep walking for my continued improvement, both in weight loss and overall health.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Saddle Up!

    I was extremely tired at the end of my work day, owing to the often-interrupted sleep I had last night. I felt a pain in my lower left shin, which could have been anything… or it could be nothing. I was unsure if the discomfort I had in my groin earlier in the week was completely gone, mostly gone, or was still there, and I had just gotten used to it. All this to say that I had every excuse in the world to stay in.

    I kitted up and headed out, hoping I could just do a few kilometres. Even as I approached Mainway Rd (less than a kilometre from home) I thought how nice it would be to return home. My first kilometre was 11m00s exactly, which did not bode well for a strong showing. By the time I turned up Guelph Line (3km into the walk) I was tired and hot… but did not feel the need to stop. Approaching Upper Middle (4km in) I had hit my stride, and decided to take a new route. By the time I was 7-kilometres into my walk I knew I could go longer, and kept up my pace. Despite that slow first kilometre, I had five kilometres that were between 10m16s and 10m20s, which is not only an impressive pace, but also speaks well to my form and consistency.

    • Distance: 10.01 km (9.03 km)
    • Duration: 1:44:36 (1:36:44)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:26 (10:42)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m16
    • Steps: 12.3k (11.7k)
    • Calories burned: 1,121 (1,073)
    • Elevation gain: 44.0 (40.0)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 116 (120)

    I realized as I walked that my nice new Adidas shorts which I bought in Dallas are borderline too big for me, and they are going into the donation bag… along with several pair of pants that I pulled off my shelf this afternoon, having discovered to my delight that all of my Size-40 pants (except for the Levis jeans) fit perfectly.

    I have a long way to go. Even with my next two goals (first to 300lbs, and then to 260lbs, which will be my best weight in twenty years), I am over 20- and 60-pounds from achieving each respectively. I am over 100-pounds from my ultimate goal… whatever that final number will be. If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then I am now eight months, 73-pounds, and hundreds of thousands of steps into my journey. I may not be there yet, but I can look back on where I have come from, then look forward to see where I am going, and know that I have made significant progress.

    As of today, I have dropped from a starting pants size of a 46” waist to a 40” waist… the shirts that I was embarrassed to wear because my belly was exposed are now too loose on me, and while my XL golf shirts are still a little tight, they are certainly wearable. I know that Leslie is proud of me, and I know it is weird to say, but it is equally (if not more) important that I am proud of me. Okay, both are really important!

    I am going to hit the shower, then I will call my wife to light the Sabbath candles. After that, a protein shake and a cigar are the order of the evening.

    See you tomorrow folks!

  • Day 205

    After five days of stagnation, the numbers on my bathroom scale were tremendous this morning. I saw a monster 2.6-pound drop from yesterday, taking me to my lowest weight! On the one hand, it is probably an aberration, and tomorrow it will correct itself up a bit. On the other hand, woohoo! I love seeing those numbers… and being able to demonstrate that what I am doing on my weight management program is working is huge for me.

    After four days of not walking, I will be back on the trails todayI I think I mentioned the other day that I plan to substitute my regular chicken (or fish) for a nice juicy steak for lunch today, as an occasional (very occasional) treat to relieve the monotony. While that is great, I still know that I will be paying for that transgression tomorrow (and subsequent days) if I do not work it off, starting immediately. So the steak will be my lunch, and then after teaching this afternoon I will hit the road, hoping to work up a good sweat. It would be nice if I can get 8km in, but I am not promising myself anything beyond suiting up and getting out there. I still feel a slight sensitivity, which I suspect is all in my head. If I detect it returning and getting worse, not only will I cut my workout short, I will also take a trip to the walk-in clinic to have it looked at. I am assuming that it is nothing… but if it is truly something, then there is only one thing that I can think of, and I do not want to think about that.

    My buddy Etienne, a fellow cigar sommelier from the North Shore of Montreal, came in yesterday afternoon. We shared a couple of very nice cigars on my balcony, but at the back of my mind I was thinking to myself that if he was going to spend the night on my couch, I was going to have to speak with him about food. I was concerned that if he wanted to go out for dinner (or order in) that I would be tempted.

    I told him that I did not have anything in the house, but that we could order in or go out. In the end, we opted to go to Fortino’s (supermarket) which has great prepared food options. He picked up a couple of slices of pizza; I picked up coffee beans (I had run out), my steak for today, and four (yes, only four) slices of dried mango. It is a shame that the dried mango you buy in the large bags (at Costco and elsewhere) is so much better than what you can buy at the bulk foods section of the supermarket, but I was not going to risk having that ambrosia in the house as a constant temptation. I ate them as Etienne enjoyed his pizza. Princess Sophie looked at him, then at me, and then decided to sit at his feet, having decided that the dried mango was nowhere near as delicious as the pizza.

    Speaking of Her Floofness, we did not sleep very well last night. We got to bed early enough, after a third walk of the evening. Because Etienne was sleeping on the couch, I closed the bedroom door when we went into the room. Sophie almost always gets onto the bed, and stays there the whole night. However, it would seem, she is comforted by the open bedroom door, and the potential for her to roam the entire apartment. It took her a very long time to get settled, twice going down from the bed and barking (very softly) at the door. Despite being in bed earlier than I had been in weeks (or months), I do not think I was asleep before 1:30am… and her unease woke me at least three times throughout the night. Needless to say, I hope to sleep much better tonight.

    —

    THIS JUST IN! STOP THE PRESSES!

    I was wearing a pair of pants yesterday and I realized that when I tightened the belt to hold them up, the top of the waist folded over the belt. This, for those of you who have never been really fat and then lost a lot of weight, is an indicator that the pants might be too big, and are being held up by a too-tight belt. At the same time, I knew that it was less than two months ago that I dropped comfortably and completely from Size-44 to Size-42 pants, and so I doubted I was ready to drop another size that fast.

    Nonetheless, this morning I decided (halfway through this entry) to pull out the bin of Size-40 pants. On the top of the pile was a pair of Dockers (which are, in theory, the same pants I wore yesterday). I held them up by the waist, and they looked… small. I tried them on anyways… not only did they go on, they fastened comfortably!

    I did not have time this morning to try on any other pair, and it is entirely possible that this is a larger Size-40. This evening, I will try on the rest of them (while on video call with Leslie), and I will see what I can start wearing. If there are more than two pair, then all of my Size-42 pants are being donated.

    Dropping pounds is great, but even a huge drop like I experienced today may show on the scale, but you still do not look smaller from one day (or even one week) to the next. The biggest indicator of success in weight loss is how your clothes fit, and dropping from a higher size to a lower size is big, huge, flashing neon sign non-scale victory, and a true bellwether that what I have been doing is working.

    Of all of the bins of clothes that I separated out early this year, the heaviest was the smaller sizes. Why? When I weigh less, I want to look better, so I buy better clothes… and more of them. During the summer of 2020 I bought several pair of pants, as well as lots of shirts. I am excited that this evening I will be trying those on, and while some of them will stay in the bin (I am sure that a lot of my XL shirts will not fit yet), I am hopeful that several pair of pants will be moved onto my shelves, and the bin will get a whole lot lighter.

    Today is going to be a good day. Despite my fatigue (thanks Princess), I am now invigorated and excited to get on with the day. I frankly wish my class was canceled so that I could spend the day walking and jogging. Of course, I cannot do that, but as long as I stay the course – my meal at lunch, my long fitness walk in the evening, my meal replacements, and no cheating – then I can continue to see results.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 204

    I was at the park with Princess Sophie by the time I realized that I did not feel any discomfort from my previous aches. I suppose I will keep an eye on things for another day, but I hope that I am out of the woods with that.

    Yesterday’s cheat was a handful of pumpkin seeds that I usually reserve for my salads, but which was a very fine nosh for my mid-afternoon pangs. My plans for today are to not do that… although knowing that I have a friend coming over for a cigar, I suspect that he will try to entice me to join him in a glass of whisky. I am probably going to tell him I am on antibiotics, and am unable to drink. We will see. He is a fellow cigar sommelier, and it is not often I get to sit and share a pairing with another trained smoker.

    My weight dropped by another .2 pound today; at this rate, it would take me seven weeks to lose five pounds, so I will continue to try to improve on that. Yes, down is still better than up, and yes, I remember that it is the downward trend, and not individual points on the graph that are important. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to resume my exercise regimen, and that will give my weight loss progress the kick in the pants it needs.

    We are now inside two weeks until my trip to Dallas, and I am thrilled that I will be able to see her again. I only wish it was sooner. Good things come to those who wait, sure… but I hate having to wait to see my wife. Hopefully in the next few months we will be able to sort things out so that I can move down there and we can be together permanently. Our Rectangle Zone dates are nice, but we both need more.

    HRF Princess Sophie is so gorgeous following her spa day yesterday! She loves her new coif, and was the belle of the ball (read: park) this morning. All of the doggies wanted to play with her. Can you blame them?

    Today is the final day of my current class, but not of my contract with this group. I am finishing up the networking lessons today, and will start on security tomorrow. I have a good group of students, and I am glad that I will be them through the end of this month. The paid contract does not hurt either… I miss having a steady paycheque, and these contracts keep me going until I can stabilize and start looking for steady work again.

    The forecast calls for a sunny day today and through the weekend, which should bode well for my fitness walking. I did not want to stop, but I have to worry about my immediate health before I concern myself with my future health. Preventing serious injury is a good reason to take a few days off, but I do want to get back to it starting tomorrow… especially knowing that tomorrow I am planning on preparing a steak for lunch, which will be my first red meat since my birthday, over a month ago.

    There is no doubt that my eating habits have changed, and I find myself eating significantly less red meat than I ever did, as well as more fish. I strongly suspect that when my active weight management program is behind me, I will not be going back to my old ways. Yes, I love a good steak… but I do want to eat healthier for life, which means it will be a rare indulgence, and not a regular part of my diet.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 203

    I woke up in the middle of the night to pee (by far not a unique occurrence) to discover that I have a discomfort in my groin area when I walk. It has persisted through the night and into the morning, although it seems to be better after taking Her Floofness for her walk. I do not know if it is something to worry about, but it is something I will be keeping my eye on for the next few days. To be clear, it is not pain. It just feels… weird.

    It was good to see the scale go in the right direction this morning. Three days after achieving it the first time, I am back at my lowest weight, although I am pleased that I never went more than half a pound above it. I was thinking this morning that with my recent pace, it would be optimistic to believe that I could lose another ten pounds before I fly to Dallas in two weeks; with that said, even if I lose five more pounds, I will be more than twenty pounds down from where I was when I was there last.

    I have mentioned how good it is to have Leslie supporting me in my weight loss. Last night I told her that I was, once again, tempted to cheat… although I did not in the end. She asked me to confirm what I eat on a daily basis, and asked if I might not be getting bored or burned out on the monotony. I agreed, and decided that I would change things up a bit this week, and will buy a steak for lunch Friday to take a break from the chicken and fish that is my norm. She asked me about the meal replacement bars I used to have – the chocolate and apple cinnamon bars that are available for the American version of my weight loss program, but which are not available in Canada. She reminded me that those were a good way to break the boredom of three shakes and one meal per day. On her advice, this morning I ordered a case of them to be delivered to her place, and which will be there when I arrive.

    With the American meal replacements that I have ordered (I also ordered a case of shakes last week) I have to remember that the program is different, and that instead of each portion containing 225 calories (as they do in Canada), these will only have 160 calories each. I will adjust my intake accordingly, although that is not something I am going to think about now.

    Princess Sophie has her spa appointment today, so I will have to take a short break from class to drive her over there around noon. As gorgeous as she always is, she will come home even more gorgeous and coiffed. I suspect that for the summer heat she will appreciate the shorter hair.

    If my groin is not really bothering me, I would like to resume my fitness walking today, but I am not going to risk injuring myself if it is still an issue. Stay tuned.

    I went to speak with the owner of the Taekwondo school where I had an issue a few weeks ago, and all is good. I am going to train there, but I am not going to help teach. He told me that until the students know me, they can be intimidated and spooked by me. I told him that I was happy to help when he had asked, but I do not want to spook anyone… as long as I can continue to train there, I will not help the instructors unless asked. While there are certainly advantages to being big and strong and powerful (in both size and presence and voice), there are also disadvantages. Even my wife asked that I keep my powerful voice in check… which is easier to do in conversation than in a Taekwondo class setting.

    Have a great day folks… It is getting cooler here as we get to the middle of August, so whether I fitness walk or not, I will have the patio door open at times during the day, and will enjoy a cigar on the balcony this evening.

  • Day 202

    I had a harder time yesterday than I have in quite a few weeks, and I am not sure where it came from. To start with, I had a bowl of popcorn in the afternoon. Thankfully it is the last of the popcorn that I had in the house, so that will not become a habit. In the early evening, after my second shake, I was still hungry. I knew there were bagels in the freezer, and I was so tempted to pull one out, defrost it, and really ruin my diet. To curb that temptation, I decided instead to make a salad. I did not add tuna or salmon to it, only vegetables, salad dressing, and pumpkin seeds. There was nothing satisfying or even enjoyable about the salad… but it did the job of distracting me from the evil bagel, which was the point of the exercise.

    I will also mention that, once again, I forewent my evening shake because of the ‘cheating,’ which is probably why my weight this morning is exactly what it was yesterday, and not up.

    I took a break from walking yesterday, giving my legs a chance to recover somewhat. When I woke up this morning, my legs were achier than they have been in the last few weeks. Sometime last week I realized how nice it was that I was not having the next-day leg cramps that I had at the beginning. I wonder if it is because I had not been giving myself any chance to recover. Either way, the aches are not a bad thing. They are a reminder that my muscles are being used and strengthened, and that is all part of getting back into shape.

    Speaking of getting into shape, I need to have a conversation with my friend who owns the Taekwondo school this week. I do not know how that conversation will go, but I do want to speak with him. My plan right now is to start practicing and re-teaching myself at the park… but we will see how that goes.

    My goal for today is to get through today. I was weak on food yesterday, and I did not exercise. I will try to be stronger today, and if my legs are okay, I will go for a walk. I have other things I need to take care of though… and I do not want to injure myself by not recovering fully. We’ll see at the end of my class.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 201

    I cheated on my food intake yesterday. My weight is slightly up this morning. It would be easy to say post hoc ergo propter hoc, that the weight gain is the result of the cheating. What is more likely is that while I did cheat, I did not go overboard… and weight loss is never a direct and uninterrupted downward line. I am satisfied that I have been doing well on my program, and even though I had a bag of popcorn and two cookies, I am not discouraged.

    I should also mention that while I did eat those things, I did not have my three meal replacements. I only had two, foregoing the last one to offset the calories from the cheating (more from the cookies than from the popcorn).

    One might think that with all of the tubs of smaller-sized clothes that I have that I would not have to buy new for a long time. While that might be true, I do get excited that I am losing weight, and therefore will look better in cool and fashionable clothes. As such, this morning I ordered three new golf shirts that will be delivered to Leslie’s place in time for my next visit in a couple of weeks. There is a story behind the shirts.

    A year and a half ago my Rabbi and friend gifted me the absolute wildest golf shirt I have ever seen. I loved the psychedelic colours that were reminiscent of how the movies portrayed an LSD trance from the 1960s. It remains to this day one of my favourite shirts, and every time I wear it, someone comments on it… either one of my students, or a cashier, or just someone in the street or store. He told me the story of how he came across the company, but I regret I do not remember the details. Suffice it to say, I loved not only the design, but the quality and feel. I also appreciated that when I was at my fattest, it still fit.

    The company has dozens of funky golf shirts, and when I decided to buy new, I went to their website. I picked out a couple of patterns. After checking with Leslie (I do not need her approval, but I like to wear things that she appreciates) I was ready to order two shirts. I went to check out, and they were charging $10 shipping. Of course, there was also a banner on the front page of the site that said they shipped free on orders over $125. Even before the coupon code that Leslie dug up (thanks babe!) I would have been under that, but with the coupon I was saving enough money that I was prepared to buy a third shirt, and free shipping was now applied to my order.

    I can hardly wait to get them… It is exciting that I am dipping below the threshold from which I refused to buy new clothes into the zone where I know that clothes that I buy will now fit me for a few months. Of course, I did buy the custom-tailored clothes a few months ago, and if I am going to continue to wear those, I will have to find a tailor to adjust the sizes. I will look into that this week, so that I can take some of them to Dallas with me in a couple of weeks.

    I had popcorn again today. I am not going to have the cookies that I had yesterday. I am going to try to be good the rest of the day. I am also relieved that this was the last of my microwave popcorn, and so unless I go shopping and choose to buy more popcorn, I am done with that. I do have most of a box of Bear Paw cookies in the cupboard, but those have seldom been a real temptation for me.

    After seven straight days of pushing myself, I am going to take a break from fitness walking today. It is not because there is an 80% chance of rain between 5-7pm, it is because I pushed myself to go further, harder, and more than I thought that I could, and I want to give my legs (and especially my feet) a day to recover.

    A few years ago, my Master and friend told me that it is good to diet, but every so often I should cheat so that I could stay true to my diet. I thought this was a lousy idea, partially because back then I had not tried to change my habits, I was only tried to stop eating so that I could lose weight. A few days ago, Leslie suggested that from time to time it is okay to reward myself with a cheat meal, as long as you do it in moderation, and using common sense. For example, sushi might be a good cheat meal; deep-fried battered and breaded Buffalo wings is not. By using the same logic, eating the popcorn yesterday (and today) is not the end of the world. If I were to make it a habit that I was going to eat popcorn (and cookies) every day, that would be the end of my weight loss program.

    What I am getting at with that is that I should not – and will not – beat myself up over minor cheats. There are myriad foods that are not on my program that I can eat occasionally and sparingly. I just do not want to get into the habit, or do it too often. Once per week is fine, more is pushing it.

    This evening I will not be going for a walk, but that does not mean I should alter my routine. At 5:30 I will finish teaching, and I will make my meal replacement. When that is finished, I will take Princess Sophie for her walk. I have some calls to make after that, and will then sit on the balcony and talk with my wife until it is time for my last meal replacement… and bed. I am planning it out because if I don’t, it would be so easy to fall from grace, as it were.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Achieving Your Goals

    I have often quoted the old trope that if you shoot for the stars, when you miss you still hit the moon. I stand by that, but it is still important to try to achieve the goals that you set for yourself. That is one of the reasons I set out on my walk this morning. Despite feeling sluggish, and the aches in my body from the last week of pushing myself, and the heat advisory, and every other excuse I could have come up with, I set out this morning so that I could achieve the goal that I had set a few days ago to walk fifty-five kilometres in a week.

    I took a familiar route this morning in a different direction, so while I was seeing all of the same things, I was seeing them from a different perspective. While I did not set out to do it this way, the route of my walk ensured that when I stepped onto the Itabashi Bridge in Burlington, I would reach my goal of fifty-five. It also meant that I still had one kilometre to walk to get home, but that is another story.

    My overall pace was hindered today (really, shredded) because of a freight train at a level crossing. I had to walk in circles leading to my second kilometre on Mainway east of Walker’s Line for nearly five minutes. While I did not stop – I walked in circles, looking pretty stupid to anyone sitting in a car watching – my pace dropped significantly. My overall cadence for the entire walk was 114 steps per minute, but what can you do? I still walked 7 kilometres in the heat, and I reached my goal.

    I think that one of the reasons that reaching my goal today was so important to me is because I look back on the weight loss goals that I have set, and failed each time. I felt that if I was ever going to really succeed… I mean, completely knock it out of the park in this multi-year plan I have to be a slim man, I needed to prove to myself that I could set a goal and not compromise, not make excuses, not say ‘I could have done it, but here’s why I decided I did not need to.’ I said that I wanted to fitness walk 55km in a week. I could have made every justification that ‘I took my dog for at least fourteen walks, and that more than put me over the top,’ or whatever else.

    I was tired yesterday, and I did not want to walk… but if I did not go out then I would have necessarily failed in my goal. I was not feeling it this morning, and I did not want to walk… but if I did not go out then I would again have failed. I pushed myself to go, and I made it.

    Leslie and I were speaking last night, and she suggested that for now, I should set my weight loss goal for 300-pounds. I think that is a good idea, because not only is it achievable, it is a medium-term goal that I can see hitting by October. After that, I will set new goals, and I will keep trying to do better. What will the next goal be after I drop below 300-pounds? Probably to get to 260-pounds, which was my absolute best weight in September 2020, and the lowest weight I remember being in the last twenty years.

    In the meantime, I am certainly not there yet, but just by looking at these photographs taken two hundred days apart you can see there is a vast improvement. I look forward to seeing what my Day 300 picture will look like.

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