Losing a part of me

Blog

  • Day 109

    I ate too much yesterday, but it was only quantity. Esti and I went to Scores for lunch, and I ordered the chicken. The only ‘cheat’ was the salad dressing I put on my salad. In the evening, I went to Cote St. Luc Barbecue, which used to be a favourite of mine. Again, I had the chicken (obviously), and the only cheat was the salad bar.

    In addition to all of that chicken, I had a couple of pieces of cheese throughout the day. All in all, I think I did pretty well… considering. I had plenty of opportunity to cheat, I had the desire to cheat. I did not cheat. I may be a pound or so up when I get back home from the weekend, but it shouldn’t be worse than that.

    It’s a beautiful day out. Today is Mother’s Day, a day that I have always had trouble with, given the complicated and mostly negative relationship I had with my mother. On the other hand, I thank all of the good mothers in my life, starting with my ex-wife, who gave me two wonderful children. Today is also the Yahrzeit… the anniversary of my father’s passing. I will be going back to the cemetery in a few minutes. After that, my buddy Stephane and I will have a cigar, and then I’ll either see a couple of other friends or hit the road. We’ll see how I am feeling.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 108

    Yesterday was a long and tired day. As I mentioned, I drove overnight from Burlington to Ottawa. I finished my presentation at 10:00pm, packed, and got into the car. I actually enjoy driving at night, and split the time between talking with my girlfriend and listening to an audio book… and smoking cigars of course. I pulled over at 2:30am to close my eyes for an hour and a half, and finally arrived at my office at 5:00am, where I slept another couple of hours before my friend showed up. I was under no delusion that at my age and size that sleeping in the car would be overly comfortable, but it was not too bad.

    Yesterday’s breakfast was an omelet with cheese and onions, and lunch was a hamburger – no bun. Dinner was a mixed shawarma plate with salad but no rice or potatoes or bread. I actually did pretty well getting through the day! Really, the only cheating I did was the number of peanuts I snacked on. I will work on that today, but today won’t be a difficult day… I will not be spending a lot of time in the car. Yes, I will be eating a couple of meals, but I can be smart about them.

    It felt really good when my buddy looked at me yesterday and said ‘Wow, you’ve lost weight!’ I look at myself every day and do not see the progress in leaps, only in minor increments. When friends who have not seen my in several weeks see huge improvement, and point it out, it makes me feel wonderful. Yay non-scale victory!

    It’s a beautiful day in Montreal, and I am going to take it easy… after seeing my dad’s widow for lunch, I will just spend the day with friends. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 107

    I drove overnight, and realized when I got to Ottawa that I forgot my shakes. Damn! I will endeavour to eat well. I guess my Cuba trip is starting early.

  • Walk #4

    I do not understand how the GPS app on my phone can tell me within 90 seconds how long it will take me to drive from Burlington to Montreal, yet it was off by nearly six hundred metres with how far it is from here to the bank. If you look at my previous article, as I was writing it I checked, and the distance from here to there was 2.4km. Yeah, try exactly three kilometres from here to there. Okay, no problem. My planned 5km walk was all of a sudden a minimum of 6km… and I decided to have a little fun and extended it to a seven-kilometre jaunt. With the stop at the bank of course, so if we go by the logic I put forth in a previous article, this was either a single 7km walk, or two walks of 3km and 4km respectively. Either way, I am extremely proud of the walk, because not only was the distance a full 2km longer than my previous bests, but my pace was also better than I have done as well… by a long shot!

    • Distance: 7.00 km (5.00 km)
    • Duration: 1:15:57 minutes (55:59 minutes)
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10:51 (11.11)
    • Steps: 8.7k (6.4k)
    • Calories burned: 402 (285)
    • Elevation gain: 22.1m (19m)
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 114 (114)

    By the way, my pace for the first 5km was 10:41, which makes it a full 30 seconds better than my pace for my previous 5km walks! The only kilometre which measured over eleven minutes was the last one, and there are several reasons for that… Aside from the fact that it was the tail, I took a phone call, and spent most of that last kilometre chatting with Leslie. No, that is not a complaint! I am happy she called, but the timing worked out perfect too, as I suspect that talking would have slowed my pace at any point in the walk.

    I started getting hungry around the 5km mark, which had more to do with the time of day than the walking. When I arrived home, I put my lunch into the air fryer and prepared my salad. As soon as the ding signals that the meal is ready, I am chowing down!

    I don’t know about you, but I think I have truly earned my afternoon cigar today!

  • Day 106

    Isn’t that the way that it always goes? Yesterday morning, I weighed myself on my bathroom scale before going into the doctor to get weighed for my ‘official weigh-in.’ Based on that number, I was not at all surprised to find that I was less than one kilogram down from my previous official weigh-in. It was lower, and that is great… it just was not a significant loss. This morning when I stepped onto the scale, I was a full two pounds down from yesterday! Had my doctor’s visit been today instead of yesterday I could have been a full 2.5kg down. Okay, I take these things in stride. Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint. The interim check-ins matter less than the final result. On the other hand, those interim check-ins are the encouragements that push you forward on those difficult days; it feels great to be able to punch your fist into the air proclaiming ‘Look what I did this time!’ I will have to save the air-punching for my next weigh-in.

    Speaking of my next weigh-in, it is three weeks from yesterday. While we will be back from two weeks from yesterday, we are landing late the night before (and really, early that morning), and I do not see me getting into Toronto at 2:00am (which means I cannot possibly be home in bed before 3:30am), then waking up to be at the doctor’s office just a few hours later. Let’s put aside the fact that I will have been off my diet. Thus, I opted to defer my office visit by a week, choosing to maintain the regular Wednesday cadence… just pushing it out by one week.

    I just got the call from my bank that the Euros that I ordered are ready to collect. I do not think I need anything from the store, so I might decide to walk to the bank, which is a little further than the supermarket… but not by much. Actually, according to Waze, it is 2.4km from here, which means the round trip would be around the same 5km that I have walked very well a couple of times. The weather seems to be agreeable, so I just might do that.

    I made a different dinner than usual last night. I defrosted a couple of salmon filets and rubbed them with sesame oil before putting them in the air fryer. When they were ready, I put them on a plate, and put a line of Tabasco sauce down the middle. I then spooned salsa onto it. Served with a side salad, I think it came out very well! It is definitely a dish that I will be trying again. I got the idea after my breakfast out last weekend, where I really enjoyed the pico de gallo on my omelette. When I mentioned this with my beloved, she told me that she had suggested I cook with salsa, and she is right… and she was right! I will be doing more of this for sure.

    Okay, it is time to do a few things, then I will change into my track pants and head to the bank. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 105

    Okay, my weight is down from my last doctor’s visit… but not a lot. I have to focus. Maybe I have to eat fewer peanuts.

    Today will not be overly an overly taxing day. I will spend a couple of hours putting together my slide deck for tomorrow evening’s presentation, but that is about all I need to work on. I am tired, so I might take a nap. I am really looking forward to the weekend in Montreal and seeing my friends there.

    I did speak with my doctor about my allergies, and he prescribed a new medication that he said might work better than the over-the-counter stuff I have been using. I took the first pill today. We’ll see.

    I don’t really feel very talkative today, so rather than blathering on, I will keep today’s short and to the point. Have a great day!

  • Day 104

    Microsoft technology is annoying me again today. I am not spending the same time trying to figure it out as I did a couple of weeks ago, I just shifted to another computer. Argh. You would think that a set of technologies that I know so well would not be quite so frustrating.

    I went to bed yesterday evening knowing that I had eaten more peanuts than I should have and knowing that I had an extra meal replacement bar in the evening. I had to assume that my morning reading would not be a pleasant one. Quite the opposite, I was down significantly… back into the ‘lowest weight since starting the diet’ territory. I am not giving up on my diet, but I might just give up on trying to understand how this damned weight loss thing works.

    I have been thinking a lot these past few days about what my long-term diet strategy should be. I am now mostly used to living without breads and starches. I am not eating out, and I am losing weight. Unlike my previous attempts at this diet program, I am only partly relying on the meal replacements. Yes, they are helpful… but as the world loves to point out, they are not a good long-term strategy.

    I counted this morning, and I have about 12.5 boxes of shakes left. With my current plan, that means I could go another twelve and a half weeks before having to either buy more or end the program. I think what I might do is continue as I am until I run out of product, with three exceptions:

    1. I will be off the program for my week in Cuba, which starts one week today.
    2. I will be partly off the program for my week in Dallas, which is in in 32 days.
    3. Leslie will be in town in July, and immediately after that I am going to a buddy’s wedding in Long Island.

    The key to everything – the long-term strategy – is knowing that I can take those breaks from the program and not go nuts and keep my weight stable (or even continue to lose weight) without the meal replacements. I have to believe that if I am able to keep my food intake to under 1800 calories, and more importantly stay away from carbohydrates and starches, I should be able to continue on the right track. I suppose that should be my ultimate goal.

    I have struggled with my weight all of my life. Yes, I was slim for a few years – that’s what being in the military (and eating and working out accordingly) will do. It is easy to blame my mother, but she is dead and I am not. Whatever trauma she inflicted on me, I have to overcome. Whatever bad eating habits she gave me, I have to unlearn. There is nobody but me who can fix my flaws. I was going to say that there is nobody but me who suffers from the results of them, but that is not true. The people who love me suffer. Leslie and my children would suffer if I were to have a heart attack, stroke, or any other obesity-related illness or death. I have to overcome these for me, but also for them.

    The last few days have been difficult for me. You might or might not know that the Hebrew calendar is different from the Gregorian calendar that is in common use in the western world (and most of the eastern one). My father passed away on April 19th last year (although because of time zones, I actually found out on the 18th). The funeral was a couple of days later, on April 21. The first anniversary of his passing was therefore two weeks ago yesterday, and of the funeral, a couple of days later. Unfortunately, on the Hebrew calendar the anniversary (yahrtzeit) is this coming Sunday. It feels therefore that I have a three-week mourning period for the anniversary. It has taken a toll on me, and I have been in pain from it. More pain that usual… I miss my father every day. I miss being able to call him, to know that he is just on the other side of a phone. I have felt that for an entire year, but this three-week period seems harder than most. I will be visiting Montreal to visit his grave on Sunday, and I will say the Mourners Kaddish for the last time in the year. I have recited it twice per day, every day, and I realized this morning how strange it will be to not have to recite it anymore. The prayer is not what makes me miss him though. I miss him every day, and I have to assume I will continue to miss him whether or not I am obligated to recite a prayer. Anyways, I am hoping that after Sunday I will start to break out of my funk. Leslie coming to Canada the following day, and the two of us getting onto an airplane for a romantic getaway the day after should help, I would think!

    My son the elder is coming for a drink this evening. It will be wonderful to spend time with him. While I see my son the younger every couple of weeks pretty regular, my deal with Aaron, so as not to make it feel like pressure, is that I let him approach me. This morning he sent me a text message inquiry about something, and I took that as an opening to invite him for a drink. It is supposed to start raining in the next hour or so, and the hourly forecast shows a 90-100% chance of rain through at least noon tomorrow, so it is unlikely that we will sit out on the balcony. That is fine, I know he is my inverse – he much prefers the drink over the cigar, where I much prefer the cigar over the drink. Frankly, that has been the case for my entire adult life. While there have certainly been days when I said ‘Wow, I need a drink!’ I have always done my best to temper my intake. I enjoy a dram, but it is seldom that I feel the actual need for it. When I was his age, I certainly drank more than I do today… I was in the military. He drinks a lot, and I do my best to not lecture him about it. He is sensitive, and I know that every time I trigger him – usually accidentally – he pulls away from me. That is not what I want. I want him to want to be in my life, and to have me in his.

    Okay, it is nearing lunchtime, and I will prepare my chicken and steamed vegetables. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 103

    Again, the only transgression of yesterday’s intake was the peanuts. I think I am doing okay. I am once again down ever so slightly from yesterday, and I hope to continue on the path… a little bit lower every day. I know it will take a year or more to reach my goal, but I will continue to press on.

    While I am not in need of more pants, I was trying to figure out why it is that I have so many pair of size 44 pants, and then so many size 38 pants, and so few in size 40 and 42. Looking back, I recall that I was playing a game with Amazon, skirting the limits but still within the rules. I would order a few pair of pants in a size, knowing that within a few weeks (when I was on the extreme program) I would return them, and then purchase the pants in the smaller size. Add to that, I also gave several pair to a buddy of mine (who also suffers from the same affliction around the waist). That explains it. Of course, the ridiculous number of shirts that I have is a different story. Pants have to fit right, but a shirt can go from tight to loose to very loose, and still be wearable. For example, the golf shirt that I wore Saturday was very loose, but still perfectly fine to wear. With pants it is different. At a certain point a belt drawn too tight just looks silly.

    It was an emotionally difficult weekend. I do not think I did very much on Saturday, but Sunday I spent the afternoon with Lyle and Dorothy. Our friend Cameron’s brother came over to take an initial look at what has to be dealt with, and I wanted to be there to offer moral support. I had some other things going on as well, but that is all part of life. I did some shopping as well – I picked up a few things from Walmart (including sunscreen, which upon my return home I realized I have a lot of, and something that Leslie asked me to pick up), and I went to Bulk Barn (where I bought a handful of peanuts for myself, and a bagful of chocolate covered marshmallows for Leslie and her son). I also finally exchanged an empty propane tank which has been sitting empty since March or the beginning of April. It is amazing how much less of that I use when it is not the dead of winter, and I do not need the heater blasting in order to smoke a cigar.

    I have some errands to run this morning, which I should have finished in time to pick the cleaning lady up from the train station at 11:00am. Once that is all done, I will spend some time working on my presentation for later this week. While it has been a long time, the subject matter is one that I have spoken on countless times and am not worried or stressed over it. I do, however, need to put the slide deck together, or else I will be unprepared, which does not appeal to me.

    Food plans: stay the course! I should mention that I thought briefly about going for breakfast yesterday. The healthy omelette breakfast meal that I had last week was actually very good, and I considered treating myself. In the end I decided against it. It was an unnecessary indulgence. It is nice to have as a treat when I take my kids out, but indulgences that are indulged in too often become habits. Next week, starting Tuesday, I will be off my diet for a week. Leslie comes in late Monday evening, and I will let myself have a little bit of freedom. No, I will not gorge or indulge, but I will put the program aside for a week. Until then, I think my peanuts are enough of an indulgence, and I do not need to go for breakfasts as well.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 102

    I was able to stick to the plan yesterday. I admit thinking at one point that a meal replacement bad – in addition to what I had eaten already – would have been nice. I did not indulge – to whatever extent a meal replacement bar would be considered an indulgence – and I went to bed having eaten precisely what I had set out to eat throughout the day. In addition, I enjoyed a single cigar on the balcony, as well as a pot of coffee (enjoyed throughout the morning and early afternoon). It was, in short, a day that went according to plan.

    I am still unsure what my plans for today are. I will either be seeing Lyle and Dorothy, or Ryan and the gang. In the next hour I will make some calls and decide. It is a rainy day out though, so my thinking is that Ryan’s is the more comfortable option; Lyle’s would be to support him through a difficult situation, and if he asks, I will be there.

    Either way, I have to try to stick to the plan. My weight was down this morning, but only very slightly. I know I am seeing the doctor this Wednesday for my official weigh-in and would like to be a couple of kilograms down from last time. In other words, falling off the program (even for a day) would not bode well for that. Also, in ten days I will be on a beach in Cuba with Leslie, and I want to look as good as I can for her in my swim trunks! Okay, I am mostly kidding… but I did buy six shirts for the trip (along with my two bathing suits), and I want them to fit me as well as possible, and not too tight.

    I mentioned earlier that it is rainy out today. Leslie is thinking that might be the reason my knee has been hurting – that it has, as will happen with older people – turned into a barometer. She might be right, although I hope not. I am hoping that the only reasons my knee has been bothering me is because, thanks to HRF Princess Sophie, I am often required to sleep in less-than-completely-comfortable positions. I will have to pay attention to it over the next few weeks though… if it is true, then I will at least know when to expect it. Yes, my younger lady derives quite a bit of humour out of reminding me that I am getting old!

    It is a lovely and typical spring day, and my allergies are in full force. I have been taking allergy meds every day for the last week or two and will make sure I continue to do so. I have suffered from bad allergies since I was a child, and I am at peace with the fact that I might not be able to completely alleviate them, but at least by taking the proper precautions I can keep the worst of them at bay.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 101

    I fell off again yesterday, if only slightly. I was not thinking, so when I left the house around 5:30pm without so much as a meal replacement bar, I knew I had better pick something up. My trusty handful of peanuts from Bulk Barn… although it was a pretty large handful.

    I was exhausted by the time I got home and made a salad with salmon. While I like to have my salad for my third and not fourth meal (5:30pm instead of 9:00pm), it did not work out, so I ate it late. The problem was that I was still hungry afterward… and decided to have a meal replacement bar as a desert. I have to remember that meal-replacements are meant to replace a meal… otherwise they would be called in addition to. I will try to do better today. In the meantime, I weighed myself, and the numbers on the scale have not changed since yesterday.

    It is a lovely day out, and for the first time in a couple of weeks I have nothing that I have to do. I am going to relax; I might go for a walk, but my knee is bothering me, so I might just sit and relax. I will take HRF Princess Sophie for a couple of bonus walks though… just to try to make my daily steps goal.