Losing a part of me

Blog

  • Day 73

    Despite my reasonably faithful adherence to the program yesterday, my weight stayed exactly where it was this morning. I suspect that is because the scale was playing April Fools games with me yesterday. I don’t mind that I do not lose weight every day… it is the days that I gain weight that bother me.

    I finished the last of the milk in my first cup of coffee this morning, so when I finish writing I will probably head to the store. I will also have to check my vegetable stocks – I think I have enough chicken and fish for a few more days, but I might as well check everything. One never knows what fish might be on sale this weekend!

    I had a non-scale victory yesterday. In 2016 my friend Eduardo bought me a bracelet for either Christmas or my birthday or for something. It did not fit until I lost a lot of weight in 2017. I know that when I can put it on, it means that I am on track losing weight. It is by no means loose on me, but it closes and is comfortable to wear. That is a good start.

    I am taking my son (the younger) for breakfast tomorrow, and I am looking forward to that. I have been chatting with my ex-wife, who tells me that she is finally having surgery on her knee in May. That has to be a relief for her, as she has been in pain for a long time. I remember seeing how hard it was for her to walk on my first visit to their house back in July, and I felt terrible for her. Hopefully this will bring her some relief.

    I have plans on the calendar for every day between now and Wednesday, which is when Leslie finally arrives. This afternoon, Eduardo is coming for a cigar. Tomorrow morning, I will see Gilad. In the afternoon I will go to Cambridge for a cigar with my friends out there. Monday I am having my summer wheels put onto the car (and I am relieved that I decided to wait until after my Montreal trip). Tuesday the cleaning lady is coming during the day, and Wednesday I get to pick up my girlfriend at the airport. I have been waiting for that last one for far too long, and I cannot wait to have her back in my arms again!

    I am halfway through my second cup of coffee… this time without any milk. I thought I might consider cutting the dairy out of my diet, but I think I will wait a few more weeks before I really consider that. I do enjoy my coffee, but since I took my first sip of it at 5 years old, I have always taken it with coffee and some sort of sweetener (at the time my father was a Sweet-n-Low guy, so that’s what I started with. I am now mostly on Sugar in the Raw). Changing it now… well, we’ll see.

    I spent some time earlier this week installing some of the apps that have always only been on my US cell phone onto my Canadian one. One thing that I did not think to transfer at the time was the app for my Garmin fitness watch. I did that this morning and went through the entire configuration process. I have not yet started to be active, but with the confluence of my weight loss thus far, and the weather starting to get nicer, I thought it a good idea to start getting ready for it. In fact, I think I am going to go for a walk right now… I can go to the supermarket to pick up milk. That will not be a very long walk, but it will be a first walk. Every journey starts with a single step and walking to the store is as good a place to start as any.

    I will mention that I am not going to go to the supermarket I would usually go to. I know that I need to buy vegetables and milk. If I needed other things then I would need to go to the Fortino’s which is a little over 2km away, and I would have to walk back of course. No, the grocery store nearest is about 400m from here, and that will be fine. I might, now that I think of it, also walk to the pharmacy, which is probably another 500m from the grocery, so that would be a really good start! I make no promises… we will see how I am feeling after I get out there.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 72

    One of the most infuriating parts of my life is the bathroom scale, and the unreliable floor underneath it. There are mornings when I want to drop to my knees and hug them. There are mornings when I want to set off huge explosives at ground zero and let them both leave this world to the hell that they so often make my life.

    Over the last couple of days, I was upset that I was not losing weight at the rate that I would like to, and yesterday I chalked that up to a lack of bowel movement. This morning, after a very respectable make-up for yesterday’s unproductive bathroom attempt, and after a pretty decent diet day (I did have a handful of peanuts, but that shouldn’t destroy me) I got onto the scale to see that I was actually up a pound. You can never find an M-18 Claymore when you need one. I figured it was time to give up on my diet, because obviously nothing that I was doing was working.

    After my shower, I decided to step back onto the scale. Not only was I down from before the shower, but I was also two pounds down from yesterday. I intentionally do not move the bathroom scale – not even an inch – to make sure that any inconsistencies are consistent. I do not know if the scale somehow knows that today is April Fool’s Day and decided to have a little fun with me, but I decided (against habit) to leave both weights in my register. I would usually delete the first and leave the second, so I only have one weight registered on any one day. For today, I decided to make an exception. We will see tomorrow what it says, and hopefully I will be back on track.

    Yes, I know. Either this coming Wednesday, or in the worst-case scenario on my following doctor’s appointment two weeks later, I will start to be able to register my weight on the proper medical scale. I was hoping to be able to start this coming week, but unless I lose five more pounds between now and then, it is unlikely that I will be under the limit. We shall see. In the meantime, the experts say that I should not be weighing myself every day. That has to be exponentially true for people with unreliable floors. If it wouldn’t disrupt my dog’s schedule, I would seriously consider moving the scale into the bedroom.

    I have taken a nice piece of fish out of the freezer for dinner, so my food plans for the day are to have a nice salad (with canned salmon) for lunch and a piece of fresh salmon with a side salad for dinner. I suspect though that I am going to have to start cutting down on my portions of canned salmon, so rather than having the full tin, I will use half of it, and finish it tomorrow. I might also lessen the number of pumpkin seeds I put on both my afternoon and evening salads. We’ will see. I have to find a way to lose more weight – I have been depriving myself for 72 days, and while I made good progress, it is definitely not great progress.

    Happy April Fool’s Day folks… and have a great day!

  • Day 71

    Today is the last day of March. I took HRF Princess Sophie for a very wet walk this morning. If April showers bring May flowers, we should also be ever vigilant that April rains can bring emotional pains. I do not think that I am depressed, but I am going to keep an eye out for signs, because that monster can come out of the shadows at any point. I know that Leslie will be here in six days, which makes me extremely happy, and should ward off any signs of depression for the time being.

    One of the side effects of my weight management program is that I am not always as regular as I used to be. I usually move my bowels every morning, but there are some days that I miss. Today, for example. No matter how long I sat there, I was just not able to produce anything. I suspect that is a contributing factor to why my weight is just about the same as yesterday (actually up .2). The peanuts might not have helped. I do know that the new formula for the shakes I am using have fibre, but the old formula does not… and I accidentally bought some of the older ones. I have been trying to drink those first, but maybe I should be mixing the newer ones in. I assumed that the salads I eat would contain enough fibre to keep me regular, but I looked it up (just now) and discovered that the lettuce I am eating contains less than 5% of the recommended fibre for the day. Either I can start eating fifteen heads of lettuce, or I can mix the newer shakes in. I only have one box left of the older shakes, and then will be fine.

    I was hoping to be into my next size of clothes by now, but I can see it is going to take longer than that. If we are going to start today’s article with one saying (April flowers…), we might as well end it with another. Slow and steady wins the race. It is never the most satisfying way to get there though, is it? We want that surge! We want both scale- and non-scale victories on a daily basis! At what cost? If I get to where I want to be, stay there for a few weeks, and then turn around and end up right back where I started from… that’s not winning, is it? I have to find a way to achieve my goals, and then maintain the weight loss. Who knows? Maybe by the time Leslie gets here next week, I will be able to try on some of my smaller pants? I know she will appreciate being here for every NSV… and to support me when I try but don’t succeed.

    Have a great day!

  • One Pound Lost is Three Pounds of Progress

    A pound is a pound, right? By any definition of weights and measures, one-pound equals sixteen ounces. It is very simple.

    In a recent conversation with a friend who is on the same weight loss program as I am, she told me that she had been disappointed that she was only losing one pound per week… but she was finally at peace with that, knowing that she was sticking to the program religiously. She would have to settle for what she was doing.

    I disagreed with her, much to her surprise. I told her that she had not lost a single pound, she had actually lost three. She – along with the others who were involved in the conversation – looked at me confused.

    Let’s look at the math: Take the number 150. If you weigh 150lbs and you lose one pound, you now weigh 149lbs, right? 150-1=149. That is one pound actually lost.

    Weight loss is extremely difficult. It would have been just as easy for her to have not lost that pound. She would not be 149lbs, but still 150lbs. 149+1=150. That is one pound potentially not lost.

    My friend stayed the course of the weight loss program… but what if she had cheated just a little during the week? Say, rather than having two poached eggs and a salad for breakfast on Saturday, she had instead had the bacon cheese omelet with a side of buttered toast? All of a sudden, instead of losing a pound she would actually have been up a pound. 150+1=151. That is one pound possibly gained.

    Every pound lost – nay, every ounce lost, is not only one ounce closer to your goal, it is one ounce you might not have lost, and in fact you might have instead gained. So in fact, every pound lost is not one pound, rather it is those three pounds – the one actually lost, the one potentially not lost, and the one possibly gained.

    In 1990 Paula Abdul had a hit song called Opposites Attract… ‘I take two steps forward; you take two steps back. We come together ‘cos opposites attract.’ While we may support each other, but dieting is an individual event. There are no opposites; the forward steps are successes; the backward steps are setbacks. Staying in place is the eternal glass-half-full question… did I fail for not losing, or did I succeed for not gaining? It all depends on the individual perspective, but the optimist looks at it as a success and the pessimist sees it as a failure.

    Who is right? Neither is… and both are. We all have different personality types. Some people will see the stagnation as a reason to redouble their efforts. “I stayed where I was, but I am optimistic that if I keep at it, I will get past this plateau.” Some will see it as a reason to quit. “I worked so hard on my diet and stayed the same… I might as well quit.” It is important for the pessimist’s support system to remind them how far he or she has come, and how a plateau is a temporary body adjustment. The optimist, on the other hand, might need to be reminded that too many plateaus might mean they need to make a change – in my case, they might suggest I stop adding milk and sugar to my coffee. The point is that both the optimist and the pessimist are right… and at the same time, both might need encouragement and adjustment.

    Progress is what you make of it, whether it is forward progress or the occasional backward progress. The difference between seeing the one-pound weight loss as ‘I only lost one pound’ and ‘Wow! I lost a pound!’ Can be the difference in the future between long-term success and the alternative. Keeping a positive attitude is so important and can propel a stagnating dieter to ultimate success.

  • Day 70

    I noticed that while I am teaching, I am going through lozenges like they are candy. I have to wonder if it is because I feel the need (I do speak quite a bit while I am teaching, but not so much that I would need this many of them), or if it is just a habit. I am glad I had the foresight to purchase sugar-free lozenges.

    My weight is down nearly 1.5 lbs. this morning… and I am still nearly two pounds up from what I weighed on Friday. As I said yesterday, the system is just not fair. I know that if I was following the original program to the letter – that is, drinking four shakes per day, no meals, no coffee with milk and sugar – then the weight would be melting off. I would likely be down 75 lbs. by now. I am hoping that by doing the modified program it will allow me to maintain the weight loss long-term, rather than losing a lot of weight quickly, and then gaining it all back.

    I have noticed a couple of non-scale victories in the last few days.

    1. It is easier to stand from a sitting position than it was at my heaviest weight. Whether from my office chair or from the porcelain throne, I am no longer struggling to stand as I did for a few months. If this is not a quantifiable improvement, it is certainly a noticeable one!
    2. While I am definitely not where I want to be, I am thrilled that I can walk and maintain a slightly brisk pace. It makes a world of difference when I walk with Princess Sophie, and when I am able to start walking for exercise, it will mean even more. To be clear, I could start walking for exercise anytime I want; I am waiting for the weather to cooperate. This morning the temperatures are hovering around 0°c and with the rain the sidewalks are quite slippery.
    3. In December/January, my fitness watch band secured to my right wrist on the last hole. It was only this morning that I realized it is now on the fifth hole. That is nearly an inch of improvement… in my wrist! I am looking forward to when my gold watch fits around my left wrist. It has a solid gold band and cannot be resized. The phases to it will be: Cannot close, closes tightly, closes comfortably, closes loosely. Knowing that it was my father’s, and my father was a significantly smaller man than I was, I do not expect it will be too loose. It is the sort of watch one would only wear for fancy occasions. I was thrilled in 2020 when I was able to wear it under my suit for the High Holiday services.

    I made it through Monday with very little cheating. The jar of peanuts I bought for the ride from Montreal is half full, and I took a handful as I got into the car yesterday. I suppose that will happen from time to time until the jar is empty. I will not allow myself to buy another jar. Anyhow, I much prefer the red skinned peanuts I can get at Bulk Barn to the Planters Peanuts… and I can buy much smaller quantities when I want a small treat!

    I have a number of errands to run today so I will be out and about a lot. The first of those is a doctor’s appointment for HRF… it is a routine seasonal visit to prepare her to start with the flea and tick medications. She spent most of her life in sunny Southern California, and this winter was the first season that she did not need those meds. With spring in the air, she will get them again. Hopefully they have the same gummy option that we had in the US. I know she liked those much better than the stuff we used to have to apply to the back of her neck. I suppose we will find out in an hour or so!

    After that I will bring her home, and I have to go back out. I have a few things I want to pick up at the hardware store, and I will do a little grocery shopping as well. I will likely do those errands after lunch.

    I noticed Monday that when I picked up my prescriptions from the pharmacy, there was one that was missing. My doctor had refilled my prescription for colchicine, but he had mentioned that he would be taking me off that, and putting me on a pill called allopurinol, which would help to prevent gout inflammations by keeping the levels of uric acid in my system low. There was none of that, so yesterday I called the doctor’s office, and sure enough the nurses had no record of it. The doctor is on vacation this week, but I will be able to see him next week when I go in to get weighed. As long as the colchicine is working, I am in no rush for it… but I would like to start this new regimen, which if my father’s history is any indication I will be on for the rest of my life.

    I dug up an article I wrote a couple of years ago which I decided to republish today. It is one of those encouragement articles that I felt I needed to reread over the last couple of days, knowing that I am only losing so much per week now… It is called One Pound Lose is Three Pounds of Progress. It will go live on my blog at noon today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 69

    After the disaster that was the weekend, I am happy to report that I did not veer from my program at all on Monday. A shake for breakfast and for my evening snack, a salad for lunch, and chicken with a salad for dinner. I went to bed a little peckish, but overall, I am happy with how the day went. I only wish it was not quite so cold, or I might have been able to go out for a walk.

    HRF Princess Sophie came home right about the time I was set to start teaching, and she had eaten and been for her walk. I suspect she was tired from a fun-filled weekend with Natalie… we had a wonderful reunion (as we always do), and then she spent most of the evening in her daybed supervising as I taught, until it was time to move into the real bed for a proper night’s sleep with Daddy. I won’t lie… I have missed having her next to me at night. She gave me a little bit of love, but mostly lay down at the foot of the bed. I think she is a wee bit upset with me that I left her for three days.

    The bathroom scale is heading in the right direction again, but I know it will probably take a week to recover the progress that I lost in just a few days.

    It is not fair. Over the course of three days, I did not eat well but I also did not eat too badly, and yet I still gained something like four pounds. It is now going to take at least a week of assiduous dieting to lose those four pounds. That is simply unfair. The math simply does not work. Let’s be honest: If I had gorged myself on some of my favourite foods – Montreal Smoked Meat, Buffalo Wings, Pizza, and things like that – then I would understand. I just do not see how it is fair that I ate a little bad and have to pay for it for so long. Where’s your manager? I would like to file a complaint!

    Okay, let’s get down to it. I am going to stick to the program again today, and hopefully get back down to where I was… before I can continue to move forward.

    Once again, I am reminded that I just do not understand women. I just don’t get them. I don’t think I ever will. FML.

    I was going to write about some of the non-scale victories I have noticed over the last few days, but all of a sudden, I just don’t feel like writing so screw it.

    Have a great day.

  • Day 68

    How do I fall so far so easily? It is because food is an addiction, and it is a very difficult one to rein in.

    Yesterday I started with a meal replacement before I headed to Stephane’s house. We stopped at the cemetery to pay respects to my father’s grave. We then dropped something off for his daughter and then picked up a friend in Dorval before we drove to St. Jean Sur Richelieu, where we spent the afternoon enjoying cigars with our buddy Sam. Abi decided to bring a bag full of snacks along – nuts, but also chocolates and stuff like that. He offered us some in the car, and while Stephane took a candy bar, I was good.

    At Sam’s house, he had several bottles out, and asked me to take a dram of a local whisky made with maple. I should have refused, knowing how high the sugar content must be. He also put out a tray of what he referred to as moose sausage that his apprentice made for him. Knowing that moose meat is usually lean, I took a couple of pieces. It was only when he explained that the sausage maker uses a lot of pork products in the ‘moose sausage’ that I realized how big a mistake I made. I cannot un-eat the pork products, and I felt horrible about it the rest of the day.

    How did this horrible feeling manifest? Here’s what else I ended up eating, both while we were at Sam’s, and later on my drive back home (yes, I drove back to Burlington last night):

    · A couple of dried apricots

    · A lot of honey roasted almonds

    · Too many peanuts

    · A chocolate chip cookie

    · A mixed shawarma plate (but as before, I did not have the potatoes or rice)

    · Two meal replacement bars

    It was a victory that I did not go for one of the chocolate bars… but I was feeling bad about it… even though it was not at the forefront of my consciousness. In fact, when Leslie asked me during the drive (a few times) how I was doing, I did not once think to say ‘You know what, I accidentally ate pork product, and I feel terrible about it. Trust me, I felt horrible… but it was not top of mind.

    To add insult to the injury, this morning I read my rabbi’s most recent d’var Torah, which was all about eating kosher, and why we do it.

    To pile it on, the bathroom scale had me three pounds up from Friday… no shock there.

    Today I have to get back on track. I have defrosted chicken for dinner, and I will have my salad for lunch. I am hoping that it works out for me. I have to do better!

    Have a great day!

  • Day 67

    I was doing so well, too.

    I had a bar in the morning and then spent lunchtime with my dad’s widow. She is on a diet too, so she told me she would be having a protein bar. Excellent, that means that I don’t have to pick up lunch. I had a shake.

    I should mention that I had two friends that I wanted to connect with yesterday, but neither worked out. I would have found myself at a Starbucks or similar, which would have been temptation. That was avoided.

    I spent the afternoon and evening at my buddy Stephane’s garage and workshop, which is not unusual when I am in Montreal. He and his wife were having pork chops for dinner, and sensitive to my religious restrictions they suggested I pick up a shawarma plate and join them. That is exactly what I did. Again, no bread, no rice, no potatoes. I got up from the meal feeling like it was a nice treat, but not an extravagant one.

    And then Diane baked cookies…

    I confess, I had two chocolate chip cookies which were wonderful, but sinful… but oh so good! I regret it, but at the time they were delicious.

    I came back to my friends’ house where I am staying, and they were not home. I took that opportunity to do some regular maintenance on one of their laptops, and found I was still hungry. I had a bowl of for flakes. Yes, that is a weird thing to eat at 11:30pm. I had opened their fridge to see a lot of un-kosher foods, and this was the safest.

    I will try to do better today.

  • Day 66

    I was not perfect yesterday, but I was not terrible. I had a couple of beef pepperoni and a handful of peanuts on the drive. My buddy wanted to go for Lebanese food for dinner, so I had chicken with salad (and haricot and hummus). All in all, it could have been a worse day in my diet… but it could also have been better.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 65

    I am off to Montreal this morning. After my shake (which I am drinking as I type) I will pack HRF Princess Sophie into the car – her kit is already packed and ready to go – and I will drive her to the dog sitter’s house. From there, I will drive straight east – I have a couple of stops to make along the way, but all in all it should be a rather quick drive.

    Yesterday had some difficult moments for me. My empathetic side can get the better of me, and when those that I care for are unhappy then I am too. It is maddening when there is nothing I can do to help them. I know that things will get better… but the bad days are bad.

    I kept to the program yesterday, although I was downing the lozenges like candy as I taught last night. I do not know if that was a result of the trauma, or if it is just that they were there and readily available. I also do not know if it is the reason my weight was up this morning. I will endeavour to do better today.

    It will be a long but relaxing drive to Montreal, with only my audio entertainment and my cigars to keep me company. Have a great day folks!