Losing a part of me

Blog

  • Day 200

    I have long since gotten out of the habit of reading where I was on my weight loss journeys from my previous two diaries. As today is a milestone (Day 200) I decided to take a gander, if only to encourage me a bit.

    In my 2017 diary, I had originally dropped to 275lbs, and by Day 220 (I took a long break from journaling) I was back up to 313lbs. If memory serves, I would spend a couple of months paying lip service to trying to stick with (or get back onto) the program, but I never again dropped below 300lbs, and eventually ended up where I eventually ended up… back where I had started.

    In my 2019-20 journal I was still living in my now ex-girlfriend’s house. It was the month before the world would shut down from the pandemic, but I was still unhappy with my situation. It is not difficult to read that in my writing – on Day 202 I wrote that her daughter had flown into town and the two of them were going away together for a few days, and how nice it would be to have the house to myself. It was extremely difficult living in a house with a woman who paid lip-service to eating well and being healthy, but for all of that was extremely overweight. I understand how that is, because I spent a lot of years thinking I knew how to eat healthy when in fact I had no idea.

    Anyhow, I had originally dropped to 304lbs, but was currently hovering around the 320lbs mark… only a few pounds off where I am at now. The difference is that back then I was rebounding from a better weight, whereas now I am on the ‘original downward trend.’ I would eventually, in the months that followed, drop to a tremendous 260lbs… but that was after I got out of her house, away from her negative influences and passive-aggressive behaviours.

    It is interesting to read from that time frame (Day 201) that I was going to make the long drive to Westlake Village, where I would eventually move and thrive. At this point, in February 2020, it was just another suburb of Los Angeles that I knew how to type into my GPS unit.

    Sometimes it is these milestones that make me look back to where I was the last time around and try to remember what caused me to eventually fail. In 2017 it was the terribly planned and executed move to Ottawa, coupled with the illness and then demise of my mother. While I do not remember at the time feeling so constantly torn about it, the truth is that I must have been. To have an abusive mother whose poisonous orbit I had finally been able to escape fall ill, to be encouraged and cajoled to let her back into my life, only to watch this unrepentant shrew of a woman deteriorate and die… the four-month process (not to mention the grieving and coming to terms with that relationship following her death) was hard on me. It can be no coincidence that in that time frame I regained fifty pounds from my best weight… and after trying to hold on, eventually abandoned all pretext of the weight management program.

    I failed in 2020 because I got comfortable. I remember the day that I lost my job in August I drove home and went for a very long walk. It is hard to remember when I started my fitness walking, but I do know that I was doing it through the first weeks of September 2020. At that point I started golfing on a regular basis, and somehow fooled myself into thinking that golfing (with a golf cart) was exercise, and that if my fitness tracker read 12,000 steps then I was really exercising. I stopped walking and jogging in lieu of golfing several times per week.

    It is coincidental timing that I had been eating well until around that time, and then decided after the Yom Kippur fast to indulge… I never recovered, and by February 2021 I was flirting with the 300-pound mark again. By December I was closer to 400-pounds than I ever had been… and hopefully I will never be back there. All because I stopped truly exercising, and because after religious services one night I decided to indulge in a meal of fried chicken from Von’s. Slippery slopes are easy to fall on… especially when you do not have a good support system.

    I mention that last part because I have a wonderful support system now. Leslie is wonderful, encouraging me along the way, and when I falter, she does not berate me, but helps me to understand what I did wrong, and what were the reasons behind it. She is my rock, and while I cannot lean entirely on her for my weight loss (I am, after all, the only one responsible for that), it is a huge help to have her by my side. How different might things have worked out if the day after Yom Kippur in 2020 I had someone to remind me ‘Yes, you cheated yesterday… you fell right off the wagon. That does not mean you cannot get right back onto it today. Look at how far you have come! I am so proud of you!’ I suspect if I had not been left to my own devices without a fallback, I would never have regained all of the weight.

    On such a milestone as today, Day 200, it is almost anti-climactic for my weight loss to be only .2 pounds. As I have said so often, down is better than up… but on Day 200 you would think there would be more. No, weight loss does not work that way. You can try your hardest and do your best (not only did I stick to the program yesterday, I also walked 9km), and the results are a trickle and not a flow. Sure, there will be other days when the floodgates open, and I will lose 1.5lbs from day to day… but I do not get to choose those days. The only thing that I can do is to stay on course with my program, which means that I will over time continue to lose weight.

    While there is another heat warning from Environment Canada for today, and the weather when I too Princess Sophie for her walk this morning was hot and humid, I am nevertheless going to venture out now rather than later for my fitness walk. I am seeing my sons this afternoon, and the forecast is calling for thunderstorms starting at 5:00pm and going through the night. If I want to get my (at least) six kilometres in to hit my seven-day target of fifty-five kilometres, now is the time to do it. I should be back in time to have lunch at 12:00pm, and then welcome my kids at 1:00pm as planned. I would normally want to give my legs a few more hours to recover, but I would rather walk in the sun than in the rain any day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Forty-Niner in Six!

    Today was another day that I just did not feel like walking. Not only did I not have the get-up-and-go; not only was it hot outside; I woke up with pains in my shin, and figured that if I was overdoing it, I should take a rest before I actually get hurt.

    I also knew that when I woke up with my legs feeling the pain, it was a scant twelve hours since I had finished yesterday’s walk, and if I stayed on schedule – that is, walked toward the end of the afternoon/early evening – then my muscles would have another ten hours to recover. In the end, I decided to go for it. Yes, I was tired… but that did not stop me. Indeed, when I hit the road, I decided to walk further out than I had heretofore ventured. I walked up Walker’s Line to Dundas – a 2.5km jaunt – and then Dundas to Guelph Line, which is about 2km. Looking at a map of my walk, it looks like it is nearly a perfect square (Walkers Line – Dundas – Guelph Line – Upper Middle). I expect there is a group of urban planners out there somewhere who are quite proud of that.

    I was ready to stop for a rest several times, and when I got an urgent call just short of the 7km mark, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to sit for a few minutes. The positioning of my stop had the added benefit of being right near a convenience store, which was good because my water bottle was now empty. Forget the hydration, I needed electrolytes! Seeing the large fridge with every flavour Gatorade could have brought a lesser man to tears. A bottle of Cool Blue G-Zero was exactly what the doctor called for to fuel the last two-kilometres of my excursion.

    • Distance: 9.03 km (8.5 km)
    • Duration: 1:36:44 (1:33:00)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:42 (10:56)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m19s
    • Steps: 11.7k (10.8k)
    • Calories burned: 1,073 (991)
    • Elevation gain: 40.0 (34.1)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 120 (116)

    My outing today did not break any records, but I am not competing with anyone but myself, and my goal is not to win races, it is to lose weight and to get into shape. As such, this workout was a resounding success, and I am quite proud of it. I am also proud that today was the sixth consecutive day that I went for a fitness walk, ranging in distance from seven to nine kilometres.

    I have been on the fence all day about something. Yesterday I journaled that I was going to try to reach fifty-five kilometres in seven days. Earlier today, I wavered, thinking that if I did go out today, then I might take a break tomorrow… but if I was able to walk ten kilometres today, then that would give me fifty kilometres in six days. While I fell short of that by one kilometre, that does not mean that I have to be done for the week. I can still go out tomorrow, and even if I stop short at 6 kilometres, I will still achieve my original stated goal of fifty-five kilometres on the week. We will see.

    One thing is certain: while I am proud and thrilled that I have walked six days in a row, I do know that at some point I am going to have to take a day off to let my legs recover. Be that tomorrow or Monday, or even later, it is going to happen in the next few days. I love pushing myself, but I learned in the Army (the hard way) the difference between a pain and an injury. I can obviously endure a little pain, but I am nearly thirty years older than I was in unit training, and at my age when you ignore pains they will lead to injuries. I do not want that.

    My left heel did not bother me at all today. I did feel that my right shoe was a little tight, and that the (much less severe) blister on that foot might be a little bothersome – it is not causing pain, but there is definitely some swelling in my foot, which is causing the heel of my right foot to push against the shoe. If I do go out tomorrow, I will wear one of my more forgiving pair of shoes. I will not get the same performance, but I also want to give any swelling the opportunity to go down.

    It is time to hit the showers folks, and then I have a date with an angel! See you tomorrow!

  • The Hairs on My Chinny Chin Chin!

    A few days ago, Leslie and I were chatting about my progress. She had looked at my before picture, and told me that I hardly look like the same person. She then pulled up a picture that we took on our first date, and told me how much slimmer my face is today than it was just ten months ago. I was thrilled that Leslie sees such a difference, and take it as an honest measure of my progress.

    She and I joke a lot that my beard is especially good for stroking as I think, and this morning I was thinking about something, stroking my beard as I do. I realized that something was missing… the rolls of fat under my beard that once made me look like I had several chins. It is not all gone, of course… I have over a hundred pounds to go before I reach my goal of being just overweight and not obese. There is no way that I could expect any body part to not have some fat, and I accept that.

    In order to stay motivated, we look for non-scale victories, and this is a big one for me. I am really happy with it, and will continue to look for them… and work toward them, because there is no way that any of them will happen on their own. I have to continue to eat right. I have to continue to exercise. I have to stay on track and keep my eyes on the prize. Only by doing that will these non-scale victories come… and eventually not only transition from morbidly obese to obese, but then to overweight, and eventually – one day – to healthy body type!

    I posted earlier that I was thrilled last night to see muscle definition in my legs, and that is a real non-scale victory that comes from the combination of weight-loss and exercise. Unless there has been a discovery that I am not aware of, there are no exercises one can do to lose weight in your face and neck, which means that progress is based solely on the weight loss.

    When I first tried to lose weight nearly twenty years ago, I went to Weight Watchers. One of the tools they liked to use was to show what certain weight loss milestones meant. A pound was demonstrated by showing a pound of butter. Ten pounds was a large bag of flour… and so on. It is not as easy to visualize what seventy pounds looks like. I did a quick image search on-line, and did not really find anything suitable. Then I searched ’70-pound dog images’ and came up with Labrador Retrievers, Boxers, and Bulldogs. Imagine that I have lost the equivalent of one of those.

    With that said, if you want to know what it feels like on my body to be that much slimmer, try this: Pick up a seventy-pound Labrador Retriever. If he or she is amenable, put him or her into a backpack. Go for a walk. Then put the doggie down gently, give them plenty of treats for cooperating, and walk back to where you started from. You feel it? That’s what it is like to lose that kind of weight.

    My children have a German Sheppard named Thor who weighs 95-pounds. I still have to lose a little more than Thor’s body weight before I am slim, but I have made progress, and recognizing that is one of the best ways to continue on the right path. Having a loving and supportive wife who stands by me and encourages me is another, and likely more important than everything else.

    Of course, my doggie, Her Royal Floofness, Princess Sophie, weighs in at a whopping sixteen pounds. Since July 11 (a little under four weeks ago), I have lost her body weight. As such she maybe a wonderful companion and a terrific friend, but when it comes to substantial weight loss, her body weight is not really an indicator of significant progress. I would be remiss, however, to discuss dogs without mentioning the best dog.

    I have a long way to go, but I am on the right track. The only way to measure success is with scales and measuring tapes, along with the size of my clothes. With that said, the best way to continue achieving success in those measurables is for me to see progress in my non-scale victories.

  • Day 199

    Tomorrow will mark the two hundredth day since I made the decision to lose a lot of weight. It was and is a daunting challenge that cannot be taken lightly. When someone is twenty-pounds overweight, they can cut out alcohol and bread for a few weeks, or cut out desserts, or whatever it is that someone who has a relatively minor amount to lose will do.

    My intention – what I needed to do in order to be healthy again – was to lose roughly half my body weight. To put that in terms that will show how unrealistic that felt at the time, I needed to lose the equivalent of a UFC Light-Heavyweight. Look up the current champion, Glover Teixeira, and then think about what it means to lose his entire body weight.

    While I am nowhere near that goal, this morning I hit a milestone; I have given myself more short-term milestones by measuring at home in pounds but at the doctor’s office in kilograms. This morning’s milestones are both in imperial weights – I am both seventy pounds down, and at the quarter milestone of 325.0-lbs. It was an exciting number to see on the bathroom scale readout this morning.

    My friend Eduardo is coming over for a cigar today, and I am going to ask him to take a picture of me in the exact same spot and pose I took my before pictures. I look forward to seeing myself side by side with what I looked like in mid-January. He is coming around 2pm, which means that despite it being a weekend, if I am able to go for a walk, my schedule will not be too different from my working weekdays, in that he will be here until around 5pm, and then I will have a meal replacement shake, and then I should be able to go out around 5:30pm.

    I say in the previous paragraph ‘…if I am able to go for a walk.’ The if is because this morning I am feeling my legs. I have pains in my shins, and no they are not shin splints. They are simply my legs telling me that I am exercising much harder than I have in a couple of years, and that I am doing so while carrying 110-pounds of excess weight (according to the body fat scale app I use, my lean body mass is actually 116-pounds less than my current weight). They are not telling me that I am overdoing it… but that I am approaching that threshold and I should be aware of it.

    While I had set my goal yesterday for a fifty-five-kilometre week, I gave it a bit of thought last night, and again this morning. Fitness walking every day without respite might be overdoing it. I might try to walk 10-kilometres today (making for fifty-kilometres in the past six days), and then taking a day off tomorrow. I am not making any decisions… it will depend on how I feel if I am able to go out for my walk this afternoon, and then how I feel afterwards.

    I will say that over the last couple of evenings, I have noticed muscular definition in my legs that I have not noticed in a long time. It is great to see and feel the progress which results from the combination of eating less and exercising hard. Even on a day with great scale-related victories, those non-scale victories are huge for me.

    Numbers are great; I know numbers, I trust numbers. My emotions need to see progress though… what do those numbers mean where the rubber meets the road. It is nice to know that I have lost the equivalent of a tweenager, but actually seeing the muscular definition was a great boost for me. If I was tempted to succumb to temptations this weekend, that put an end to it. If I am on the fence this afternoon about going out for my fitness walk or not, that will help me to make my final decision.

    I am looking forward to the day because my friend is coming over. Leslie was worried about me when I was shutting myself in and not seeing or speaking with any of my friends. While my state of mind is greatly improved, I am coming out of my self-imposed isolation at a more comfortable pace than could have been. I saw Lyle and Dorothy last weekend; I will see Eduardo today. I am not looking to have a seemingly endless string of get-togethers, and I have not initiated any phone calls or message threads (although I have started accepting calls).

    Tomorrow my son or sons and I are going to Costco, which should be fun. I asked my son the elder last weekend if he wanted to, and when he agreed, my son the younger asked if he could come. That does not mean that he will, but I hope he does. I love seeing them, and watching them grow. Of course, it will usually be an expensive outing for me. I am happy to pay for their groceries on top of my child support, but it can be pricey. No matter, they are worth it. I will also take the opportunity to pick up vegetables, and anything else I might need for the house. Nothing comes immediately to mind, but if I see something, I’ll pick it up.

    The weather forecast for today is sunny and hot. It will not be nearly Texas-hot, but that does not prevent Environment Canada from issuing a heat advisory. As such, if and when I do go out, I will make sure to stay well hydrated along the way.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Dragging My Ass

    I was exhausted by the last hour of my class today, and I just wanted it to be over. I did not want it to end so that I could embark on a trailblazing walk, I just wanted to crawl into bed. No Mitch, you set a goal for yourself, and if you do not go for a good walk today, you will never be able to make up those crucial kilometres by Sunday. I had to go.

    I was just a little out of sorts, which is to say that things were not falling into place. I have a usual routine that I follow in the afternoons, and despite my intent to punish myself with a long walk, I just could not get into my after-class pattern. I cannot point to any reason for that, but that does not make it less true. I did get into my exercise kit, and prepared my satchel with a bottle of water and a face towel. I left it by the door so that I could take Princess Sophie for a walk, and then grab it when I dropped her off… and that is exactly what happened. Still and all, something was missing. Something just wasn’t right.

    It was warm, but that did not account for the slower than usual pace of my walking. Kilometre after kilometre I was disappointed by my times, especially after how well I have been doing this week. Even wearing my swiftest shoes (the Adidas that Leslie bought me), my best split-pace time was 10m38s. That, my friends, is not nearly at the standard I have been setting for myself these last few weeks.

    I did have a little trouble with my ankle in my second kilometre, but that sorted itself out. I did not feel any aching in it once I got past that second km. It was not the issue.

    After 6.5 kilometres I needed to stop for a break. I could not figure out what was wrong, I just did not have the energy I usually do. I was two kilometres from home, and I would be able to resume after a five-minute siesta, which is exactly what happened. It was as I sat on that bench that I figured it out. Eureka!

    I missed two activities as part of my pre-walk routine. The first was speaking with my wife; while I enjoy it, that was not what was wrong. The second… I make a meal replacement protein shake, which I usually drink while speaking with her. Protein is fuel. By skipping that step, I doomed today’s walk to mediocrity.

    • Distance: 8.5 km (8.5 km)
    • Duration: 1:33:00 (1:27:43)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:56 (10:19)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m38s
    • Steps: 10.8k (10.6k)
    • Calories burned: 991 (1,156)
    • Elevation gain: 34.1 (34.6m)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 116 (122)

    While today’s walk is not going to impress me in any way, it did accomplish one important mission. I said this morning that I was setting a goal to walk 55km this week, from Monday to Sunday. Today’s 8.5km brings my total to 40km, which means that I do not to break any speed records this weekend, I just need to go out for my usual walk, making sure that I do not fall short. If my body cooperates, tomorrow I am going to try to push my distance, knowing that there are thunderstorms in the forecast for Sunday. The more I get in tomorrow, the less that is needed for Sunday.

    I had my protein shake as I wrote this entry; it is nice to know that I still have one more shake that I can have this evening without cheating. I will probably have it after my cigar… we’ll see. For now, I am hitting the shower, and then I am calling my wife.

  • Day 198

    I do not know if I could have gotten this far into my weight loss journey without the love and support of a good woman. The fact that she understands my struggles is a huge relief, and has gotten me through many hard days.

    Yesterday evening I wrote an entry that began with four paragraphs of how I was going to pick up a whole lot of really unhealthy foods for dinner. It was a dream sequence, and when that sequence was completed, I decided to space it so that the next line (‘WAKE UP, MITCH! You were dreaming! ‘) would be off the bottom of the page for most readers. I wanted the reader to feel that this was real… as real as the temptation was in me.

    When we sat down for our date, Leslie told me that I had her going, and that while she was reading it… let’s just say that she was not impressed. I told her that I did not write it as a ruse or a joke, but rather as a demonstration that while my goal is to change my unhealthy relationship with food… I am nowhere near achieving that goal. It would have been as easy for me to pick up the Chinese food and Buffalo wings as it was for me to go for my walk. Easier, in fact, because it would have required no pain, endurance, or dedication… only my credit card.

    My walking and weight management routines are still in their nascent stage, and nowhere near habitual. While I do not wake up every morning salivating over the thought of French toast drowning in Quebec maple syrup, I also am not at the point where I am addicted to my exercising. I also know that it would not take much to push me back into my old habits. Even if I were able to curtail the overeating, I would still be indulging in unhealthy foods (mostly take-out) on a daily basis. Otherwise, I might be eating only my own cooking… but eating three large meals per day. The more likely scenario is that I would be overeating a combination of my own foods and the unhealthy take-out… and that only because restaurants do get expensive, and I am not made of money.

    I do not want any of that to happen. I know that I still have a few things I will need to cut out when my current weight loss plateaus. My one meal is larger than it needs to be, and I could cut it down. I will eventually have to cut out milk in my coffee, and sugar or sweetener as well. With regard to food intake, those are currently the only things that are I might cut out if I wanted to speed things up. Yes, I could stop adding pumpkin seeds to my salad, and fewer tomatoes and onions (which are both high in sugar), but that is it.

    As I discussed with Leslie yesterday, there will be days when my weight is up (as it was yesterday), but the science is clear that if I stick with my current regimen of food and exercise, there is no way for me to not lose weight. Before I was ever introduced to my current (rather extreme) program, everyone told me that a 1,500-calorie diet would be an extreme but effective way for me to lose weight. Well guess what? I am not consuming that many calories in a day. No, I am not on the 900-calorie regimen that the full-on program calls for (four meal replacements, nothing else), but I have done that twice, and both times I succeeded until I failed. Thank you, I will do my modified program that is less extreme, but hopefully will show longer-lasting results.

    It is quite the relief that Princess Sophie is feeling better. Last night was the second in a row that she slept through the night; this morning she had her second solid and healthy bowel movement. I am relieved that whatever she was afflicted with is behind her. She had a half-day play date with Charlie yesterday, and I suspect she will be with him all day today at our neighbour Sue’s house. Every loving dog parent wants their fur-babies to be happy and healthy; the five days when she was not were not fun, not because I had to clean up several poop accidents in the kitchen (although there was nothing fun about that), and not because she got me out of bed in the middle of the night (when she did let me sleep at all), but mostly because I hated seeing her unhappy. She is a very proud pup, and I know that she was embarrassed by her needs and by her weakness. I can see it in her eyes that she is relieved to be feeling better.

    My plan for the day is no different from yesterday. My fitness watch has a sliding scale for daily step goals, which I believe is based on your average steps for the last week. Today’s goal is 11,540, and judging by my performance this week I should not have any trouble achieving that. I am going to set a goal though… I have since Monday walked 31.75km, averaging just under 8km per day. I am going to aim for a fifty-five-kilometre goal from Monday through Sunday. To achieve that, all I have to do is average 8 km per day, which is really my baseline now anyways. The challenge is getting out there to do it… and that despite whatever the weather may be. Today will likely be my easiest day – the forecast high is 26° (79°F), and the only rain forecast is before noon. Tomorrow the forecast is mostly sunny with a high of 31°C (88°F), with Sunday being slightly higher, and with a 50% chance or rain. So as long as I am willing to brave the elements, I can achieve that goal.

    I tried to find a reasonably flight to Dallas over the next few days, but last-minute inexpensive flights are very hard to come by. I miss Leslie terribly, and really wish I could be with her.

    Have a great day folks!

  • And So It Goes

    What the heck? I was getting ready to finish up my class for the day. I was going to be able to call Leslie and speak with her for a few minutes, and then I was going to hit the road. What is that noise? I looked up, and out of my window I saw a deluge that made me look for Noah and his ark.

    I did speak with Leslie for a bit, and then I got ready to go out. As I walked to the front door, I thought to myself how nice it would be to have a really good meal right about now. I don’t mean something that I prepared at home… I was thinking about the kind of comfort food that I learned to luxuriate in as a child. What a great idea!

    The only problem was that I could not decide if I wanted Chinese food or a large plate of breaded, battered, and deep-fried Buffalo wings. Both are wonderful, both would really hit the spot. Both were within a five-kilometre radius. Decisions, decisions. Wait a minute… why not just do both?! I could combine the two!

    It is settled then… I called the Chinese restaurant on Upper Middle near Brant Street and I ordered a large bowl of hot and sour soup, two large egg rolls, and an order of wok-fried chicken dumplings. They would be ready in fifteen minutes for pick-up. I then rang Montana’s on Guelph Line south of Mainway and ordered the large plate of Buffalo wings with the medium sauce. They would take twenty minutes, but that was perfect because by the time I picked up my Chinese food and drove there, I would pull in just in time for my wings to come out. I would be gone and back in less than thirty minutes, and I would be able to sit at my table and pig out like I used to.

    .

    .

    .

    WAKE UP, MITCH! You were dreaming! Come on, shake the cobwebs and tell us about your walk!?

    Okay, okay. I put on my exercise kit, down to the shoes that I least worry about in the rain. I made sure I had my hat in my satchel, and I added a face cloth, because when it rains it helps to be able to clear off my glasses, as well as wipe the rain from my face.

    I was pushing pretty hard. I did not expect to break any records, which is good because I did not. What I did manage to do was my first split-pace kilometre under 10m00s since last Monday, making this only the second outing that I have been able to accomplish that feat… and while wearing the shoes I consider my slowest and bulkiest pair. I did take a five-minute break after three kilometres, but then I got right back to it, attacking the course with gusto.

    • Distance: 8.5 km (7.03 km)
    • Duration: 1:27:43 (1:12:07)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:19 (10:15)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 9m57s
    • Steps: 10.6k (9k)
    • Calories burned: 1,156 (725)
    • Elevation gain: 34.6m (29m)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 122 (126)

    I should point out that a few days ago I changed my source for the Calories Burned stat. While the MapMyWalk app and the Garmin Connect app report most of the stats nearly identically, the Garmin is detecting calories burned based on my pulse and heart rate, and not just a chart in someone’s book. To show the discrepancy, the MapMyWalk app reported that I burned 494 calories today, while Garmin reported 1,156 calories burned. I tend to trust the one checking my pulse and heart rate, thank you.

    I did have one potentially hazardous encounter along the route. There was a group of teenagers from a Krav Maga school out for a run with what looked like body-shaped weights on their backs. One of the runners miscalculated his cool factor, and instead of missing me by a hair (ha ha! I buzzed the old guy!) he actually bumped into me… and went flying because I saw it happening, anticipated it, and at the moment of impact I threw a defensive arm out, throwing him off balance. He had the good sense to apologize sincerely, and that was the end of the encounter. I am glad I threw him onto the soft grass and not to the concrete, which would have necessarily resulted in my having to stop and explain myself to a supervising adult.

    Okay, it is time for me to hit the shower. I am zonked, I am hungry, and I am dreaming of all of the naughty food that I cannot have, and will have to settle for my evening meal replacement shake after my shower, followed by a cigar on the patio and a video date with my wife. Woohoo!

  • Day 197

    It could not last forever. After a seven-day streak of my weight dropping (by nearly six pounds), this morning it was up… and rather significantly, if not disastrously. Yesterday morning the numbers were flirting with crossing a major milestone, which this morning is a full two-pounds away. I know I will get there in the next few days, but my hopes of crossing below 325-pounds this morning were dashed, and I am now a full two pounds from that goal. Tomorrow is another day, right?

    There is a tendency that I remember from my first ever true attempt at weight loss, maybe eighteen years ago. It was not uncommon for me to cheat on a particular day, see no ill-effects the following day, and then see weight gain on the second day. Likewise, if I had a really good day, I might not see weight loss the next day, but the day after I would drop.

    All this to say, I am wondering if the numbers on the scale this morning might be reflecting the bag of popcorn I ate on Tuesday. It probably is not, but it will be interesting to watch for going forward. I know that I has very good yesterday, and my only cheat was a Japanese biscuit after lunch. That was followed by a seven-kilometre walk that saw my fastest cadence (steps per minute) recorded yet.

    I am thrilled that Princess Sophie had, for the first time since Saturday, a solid bowel movement this morning… after sleeping through the night for the first time in that time. Her Mommy and I have been very worried about her, and I was planning to take her to the vet on Saturday if she was not better by then. I am still going to keep a close eye on her for the next few days, but I am hoping she is better. I will say that she had a helluva romp this morning, first with her friend Charlie, and a few minutes later with Lewis and Louis. While she has not lost her playfulness in these last few days, I still see it as a good sign.

    I had another wonderful video date with my wife last night. She is such a wonderful woman, and I am really not liking this long-distance thing. When I am down there in a few weeks, we are going to have a serious discussion about how to remedy that as quickly as possible. Because of the immigration issue, it will not be overnight… but however quickly it can be, we both really want to be together. I love that I can see her every night, but I hate that I cannot hold her in my arms. It is time to figure out the ultimate solution so that we can be together forever.

    My plans for the day are to stay the course. With the exception of the popcorn the other day, I have been good, and the results have been obvious. I am currently three kilograms slimmer than I was on my last official weigh-in day, which is far and away the best two-week loss I have had since I started getting weighed at the doctor’s office. Of course, owing to my teaching schedule I will not be back for another weigh-in until August 24, which is nearly three-weeks from today. I am hoping that in that time I can lose another three kilos, and hear the doctor say to me ‘Is this right?’ He has known me for fifteen years and knows that I can achieve anything I set my mind to; he has also seen me stagnate, and he has certainly seen me falter a number of times. He is a nice guy, but I am not trying to make him happy; I want him to be impressed because of my success, I do not want to succeed to impress him.

    While my heel is reminding me that I might want to change out my footwork, I am not feeling any other ill effects of my working out. That includes my ankle, which did not seem to bother me when I took Her Floofness for her walk this morning. I note that for two reasons. The first of which is the obvious and immediate… yes, I am feeling better, and I can plan for a good walk this afternoon and not have to worry about taking time off for injury.

    The other reason is because I remember back to my first few walks, and then to the first few where I pushed myself. After all of those, I would come home and nearly collapse in place, avoiding falling into bed only because I was disgustingly sweaty. The following day, I would feel my muscles aching with the reminder that they were not used to being used, and needed time to heal. While I certainly can feel in my leg muscles that they are recovering from the walk, I am raring to go for another one this afternoon after class. That is a sure sign of real progress, and a real non-scale victory.

    Adding to that NSV is the fact that I am walking better. I do not mean when I am pushing myself to exercise, rather when I am walking down the street, taking Princess Sophie for a walk, or whatever. Even walking through the supermarket, I feel lighter. It is, frankly, exhilarating. The phrase ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’ comes to mind, knowing that as I continue to lose weight, my stride will continue to improve.

    It is good for me, on days when I am disappointed by the numbers on my scale, to remember how far I have come, and how sluggish I was just seven months ago. Forget that, just a couple of months ago I was still strides behind where I am today. For reasons I cannot recall, the other night I reached down between my legs from behind with one arm, and was able to clasp my hands through my legs… without my enormous belly getting in the way, and without the pains of ‘fat bodies do not move like that!’

    Don’t get me wrong… according to the numbers, I am still morbidly obese. Hell, according to what I see in the mirror, forgetting the numbers. According to the charts I look at online, I am still a good twenty-five pounds away from a promotion from morbidly obese to simply obese. According to those same charts, I am roughly one hundred pounds from simply being overweight. Those numbers are daunting, but they are also the goals that I am setting for myself.

    If it sounds like I am getting down on myself, let me assure you that I am not. I am being realistic and using that to encourage myself to keep going. I will not lose one hundred pounds in this calendar year – that is simply not realistic, and if it is, there is no healthy way to do so… at least, without surgery (either stomach surgery or limb amputation). However, rather than saying ‘It has to be done this year’ I say ‘I want to do it, I am committed to doing it, and I am willing to be patient with my progress knowing that I am doing the best that I can.’

    So, what is realistic for this calendar year? We are in the eighth month, and I am 7.5 months into my weight loss journey. I have lost nearly seventy pounds in that time. Another seventy pounds is not realistic… but would it be doable to lose another forty pounds in the remaining months of the year? That would take my weight loss to about 110-pounds, and would bring my weight down well below the 300-pound mark. That is possible. Now, if I stick with my regimen, it is possible that I could lose even more… but I am not going to get myself excited and set myself up for failure. Yes, it would be nice to get down to 260lbs, but doing that by the end of this year – or even by Day 365 (January 19, 2023) is a lofty goal. I will get there… but I will get there when I get there.

    Leslie and I had a conversation last night about my weight loss that resonated with me. She has been encouraging me to lose the weight, but at the same time, I know that she was attracted to me when I was at my heaviest. She made it clear last night (although not for the first time) that she wants me to lose the weight because she wants me to be healthy, because she wants to spend as many years as possible with me. I want that too. I want to be able to live a long and healthy life with her, and losing weight (and getting back into shape) is a huge part of that. I do not want to find myself ten years from today with a pacemaker and a bland diet that is medically prescribed lest I drop dead of another heart attack. I want to live a long life with her… and I want to be able to eat whatever I want!

    Over the weekend my friend Eduardo is coming over for a cigar, and I am going to ask him to take a picture of me exactly where and how I was standing when we took the ‘before’ picture on the day I started this journey. I look in the mirror today and I still see a fat man, but with all of the progress I know I have made, I am looking forward to seeing those two pictures side-by-side. Yes, I will post the two on my blog for the world to see… but I am not doing it for them. Leslie sees my progress, and it is easy to see so many ways that I have improved these last seven months. It is important for me to stop seeing myself as a fat man, and start recognizing the huge improvements I have made… even on days when I cannot see positive changes from day to day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Beating Mother Nature

    I barely beat the rain that was not predicted to come just a few hours earlier. Our story:

    I finished teaching my class around the usual time. As has been the case for the last few days, I made my meal replacement shake, and then called Leslie to chat for a bit while I changed into my exercise kit. I sat down at the computer to continue chatting with her, mostly so that I could make sure that none of my stragglers – by which I mean the students who were assiduously and faithfully staying late to complete the last lab of the day – had any questions. Sure enough, the clock struck, and I was able to end the session completely.

    While that has not always been the case, this time the only reason I was looking at my computer screen while talking with my wife is because I wanted to close the class, which she understood. While looking at the screen, I noticed in the bottom right corner an advisory that rain was coming. My recollection from when I checked this forecast this morning was that there was no precipitation expected today. As we like to say, if you don’t like the weather in Canada… wait a minute.

    I clicked on the advisory and saw that the rain was predicted for just after 7:00pm. Leslie understood that I was going to get going immediately, which I did. I took to the trails, setting out to do a simple and familiar walk around the block… which is actually a seven-kilometre walk that I’ve done several times. Most of the time I supplement the basic rectangle with some added detours, paths, and trails; today my goal was to get home sweating but otherwise dry.

    • Distance: 7.03 km (9 km)
    • Duration: 1:12:07 (1:37:36 minutes)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:15 (10:42)
    • Best Split-Pace Kilometre: 10m02s
    • Steps: 9k (11.6k)
    • Calories burned: 725 (500)
    • Elevation gain: 29m (36m)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 126 (118)

    There are some numbers on these stats that do not add up. I have no idea, for example, how I bested my cadence by 8 steps per minute… although looking at the graph it does seem to show that I was walking at a faster pace than usual. Most likely I was taking shorter steps and more of them, which would account for that.

    I am going to hit the showers so I can clean up and then make my evening meal replacement shake, and be ready in time for my date with an angel later this evening. I also want to make a note to call the vet for Princess Sophie, who has been having gastro issues since Saturday. Let’s see if I can get her in to see the doctor over the weekend.

  • Day 196

    While the popcorn yesterday was not a great idea, I am happy that it did not seem to hinder my weight loss progress. I am down sixteen pounds from the day I flew from Dallas to Toronto, and ten pounds down since my birthday. On that measure, it is important to know that in the week following my birthday I actually gained five pounds, so the loss is even more meaningful.

    Her Royal Floofness is still not at 100%, but she seems to be getting better. Two other dog parents today said that if she is under the weather, she is hiding it very well. She is playful and active and happy… and has diarrhea. Even after we went out right before bed at 11:30pm, she asked to go out again two hours later, which interrupts my sleep but it also limits the amount of cleaning soft poop off the floor I have to. It also gives my girl the dignity of not having to have accidents in the house. If this persists for another day or two, we will go see the vet to make sure it is nothing serious.

    It is intriguing to me that I was able to walk nine kilometres yesterday without issue, but when I took her out (four times through the evening and night) my ankle was hurting. It is something I will have to pay attention to for the next little while. I do not want to stop walking, but at the same time I do not want to damage my ankle to the point where I have to stop walking.

    My class went well yesterday. I am really enjoying working with this group, and hope that the company is impressed enough to keep me on their roll of trainers to reuse. If I can continue to prove myself useful to these companies, I will be able to continue to earn a decent living doing something that I really enjoy.

    Have I mentioned how much I love my wife, and how badly I miss her? According to my countdown app, in twenty-one days, eleven and a half hours I will be disembarking the airplane in Dallas, and once I collect my luggage we will be together again. Really, the long-distance thing is not working for me. We have to find a way to be together permanently… and we will. In the meantime: in anticipation of my upcoming visit with her, I ordered a case of meal replacements to her place. Yes, I could shlep the shake packets from here to there when I visit, but that is counterproductive for a number of reasons. For one, I will eventually (as I did the last visit) forget to bring them, which will mean I have to break my routine. As well, buying them in Canada requires underground transactions on the grey market, whereas in the US I buy them off eBay… and I never have to worry about them being expired.

    Yes, it is true… despite the fact that I will be ‘on vacation’ while I am there, I plan to stay true to the program. Losing weight is hard, but establishing good habits is harder. What is easy is falling out of those good habits back into an old and unhealthy routine. Do you want to know how demoralizing it is knowing that because of just a couple of tiny mistakes that snowballed, I went from 260-pounds in September, 2020 to 395-pounds in January, 2022? How about knowing that I have fallen like that not once, but twice? Were it not for the love of a wonderful woman, I do not know if I ever would have been brave enough to try again.

    Yes, those are the numbers. That was my highest weight in January of this year… 196-days ago. Since then, I have not done everything I can and stayed true to the program, but I have lost a tremendous amount of weight. I am about seventy pounds down from my worst weight. At the same time, I am about sixty-five pounds up from my lowest (best) weight which was twenty-three months ago. I have a long way to go until I get there, but I am committed to getting back there… and then to losing even more. I want my wife to see what I look like slim, not from pictures of me in my early twenties, but in her arms. Two hundred and sixty pounds is not slim, it is slimmer… and I have to take one step at a time. It would be great to reach my goal of being actually slim by my fifty-first birthday, which gives me eleven months to lose another 115-pounds. I might need longer, but I have to keep trying to keep at it, lest I fall off again and end up where I was again. I cannot think about that… it is too depressing, and just the thought induces anxiety.

    Today will be a chicken day; I went shopping yesterday, so I have enough chicken and vegetables to last me a few days. Yesterday I decided to shake things up a little, using a fat-free salad dressing in place of the usual oil and balsamic vinegar that I usually dress my salads with. It was good, and I lost weight, so I might do that again today. We will see!

    Environment Canada has issued a special weather statement warning that the temperatures will be extremely high for the next couple of days, with daytime high temperatures reaching 33°C, and the humidex reaching 41°. For my American readers, that translates to 91°F with the humidex at 105°F. Yes, it is hot… but it is nowhere near as hot as Dallas, where 105° will be the straight-up high temperature, with humidity of 65% (as the humidex is a Canadian measurement, I could not easily find it for Dallas. Trust me, that is freaking hot!). Ankle permitting, I will go for my walk this afternoon… but I will be paying special attention to drinking every kilometre, and not just ‘when I think of it,’ which is usually the case.

    It is hot and sunny today, and Princess Sophie and I decided we will keep the patio door closed in favour of the air conditioner, which is set at a balmy 74°F. I am wearing a short sleeve shirt so it can get a bit chilly, but for the most part it is very comfortable.

    Speaking of short sleeve shirts, I have a non-scale victory to report! Last night while video-chatting with my wife, she asked me which shirt I was wearing. Of course, she had seen it a hundred times before, but she did not recognize it because it was so loose! Likewise, the pants that I am wearing, which three months ago did not fit at all, are also very loose, and for the first time I eyed the bin of clothes the next size down this morning. I am not quite ready for them… but I can start thinking about it.

    Have a great day folks!