Losing a part of me

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  • Day 46

    While today has not been a perfect start to the day, I am going to make it better than yesterday. That is my only goal. It is windy out, but unseasonably warm. I am going to drive over to Lyle and Dorothy’s house for a cigar or two, and probably dinner. It will be good to see my friends. Yes, I was with friends yesterday, but you can never have enough time with friends.

    I only wish my girlfriend could be here too. I am counting down the days!

    As expected, my bathroom scale was up a terrible number this morning. I could not have imagined it would be otherwise; honestly, before I stepped onto it, I predicted the number. I was off by .2 of a pound. It is time to reset. Today, better… tomorrow, better than today. That is the only way to move forward.

    Have a great day!

  • Explaining Today… or Yesterday.

    It was just past 1:00am when HRF Princess Sophie and I walked back into our apartment in Burlington. With gasoline at the highest price I have ever seen in any country ($1.849/litre as I was arriving home) I was not really thinking about that; I knew that we would be driving about 375km on Saturday, but I did not particularly care. We were going to celebrate my goddaughter’s birthday (a week late thanks to Covid), and the price of gas was not going to stop that. Thirteen hours ago, when things were completely unraveling and my rage was through the roof, I was not angry about the price of gasoline, nor about the war that is the cause of it. I was just having a terrible day. Everything was falling – out of my hands, out of my pockets, and when I put my prepared shake down as we got into the car, that fell too. Nothing was going right, and I could not keep a handle on my emotions. I started screaming and swearing and screaming and swearing some more.

    I Remembered that five years ago I spilled some of a shake in my car, and I paid the price for not cleaning it up right away. Until the day I sold the car, the stained leather was a daily reminder that I had not cleaned it up. I had nothing in the car to wipe up the mess. Despite the anger and rage that was coursing through my veins, I decided to leave Princess Sophie in the car for a few minutes, and I went up to the apartment to get a roll of paper towels. I came back down and cleaned as best I could. I think I did a pretty good job of it. It didn’t matter, my emotions were morphing from rage to distraught sadness.

    I called Leslie, but I knew that she was busy with her son and was not surprised that she did not answer the phone. I doubt it would have mattered. The message I left for her was that I was going to Wendy’s, I was ordering a hamburger and a large non-diet soda. I was not dieting today. I do not think there is anything she or anyone could have said to talk me down from that. I pulled into the drive-through lane and ordered the single hamburger with no cheese, French fries, and I decided to stick to the sugar-free soda. Even knowing that the soda would not be my worst transgression of the day, I still opted for the diet.

    As I pulled out of their parking lot I reached into the bag, only to discover they had given me a cheeseburger without any of the other toppings. I might not be respecting my diet today, but I am sticking to my religion. I turned around and went back.

    I do not think the brainless idiot at Wendy’s realizes his good fortune. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he might have a brain, and might have just been too stoned to understand what I was saying. I am not talking about the original mistake – mistakes will happen, and I get that. The three-minute conversation I had to endure with this 18-24 kid was maddening, and the fact that I did not rip his head off is a testament to my something. I am not sure how difficult it is to understand ‘I ordered a burger with no cheese but all the regular toppings, you gave me a burger with cheese and no other toppings. This entire three-minute conversation took place as he held the hamburger I had handed to him in his hand. It was only after that conversation, and after he went to clarify something with his manager, that he came back and tried to hand the burger back to me. ‘I’m not allowed to take this back.’ Then throw it out. I am not sure what I would have said had he told me that he could not even do that. The old me, in the already highly agitated state I was in, would have been a lot louder, less calm, and most likely insulting. A small miracle indeed… and seven minutes after this conversation started again, I drove away with the right sandwich.

    The fast food was not the only nor was it likely the worst cheat of the day. I will not enumerate what the others were, but I was bad. There were a lot of chips, there was spaghetti, there was birthday cake. Saturday was a complete and utter failure.

    I did not harm anyone. I did not even lash out at anyone. I am not sure how I managed it, but while I told a couple of people that I was having a crappy day, nobody suffered from it. Nobody, of course, but me. I am sure Leslie suffered as well – she is very empathetic, and when I am not doing well, she feels my pain.

    Speaking of pain, let’s add a bad left knee to the list. I have no idea how, but it feels like there is a bruise. I have no recollection of smashing it, but there it is. However painful the gout in my foot might be, today it was muted by my knee’s phantom injury. When I say the gout pain is muted, I should really refer to it as immensely overshadowed by a different pain. I am seeing my doctor on Wednesday and am definitely going to speak with him about the gout. I expect my knee will be fine by then. However, I have been complaining about the gout since Wednesday, and taking Naproxen and pain killers since then. While it might eventually clear it up, it is certainly taking its time. Time to bring in the big guns.

    I am going to sleep. Tomorrow (later today) better be a better day.

  • Day who cares

    I want to kill people today. Taking the day off.

  • Day 44

    I am rather looking forward to seeing my doctor on Tuesday and asking him – at gunpoint if need be – to prescribe me Colchicine. In the meantime, I continue taking Naproxen, Aspirin, and Tylenol thrice daily. I have to wonder if over the years I have developed a resistance to Naproxen, having taken it for so many things. I know that my left foot is swollen terribly and is in a lot of pain, despite the anti-inflamatories and other pain relievers I am taking. I have (and am still refusing to use) the narcotic pain killers I have left over from my root canal last autumn. I do not think it will get quite so bad as to have me taking that. The good news is that when I am not moving, I am not in a lot of pain. In other words, unlike my knee (which was much more painful, but is no longer bothering me), it is not impeding my sleep.

    I have a couple of meetings today: one for a customer, and one with my American accountant to do my taxes. I put that meeting off a few weeks ago, not because I am afraid to speak with her, but rather because the appointment conflicted with a dentist appointment. When things fall out of your mouth, it is best to have them fixed at the dentist’s convenience… tax season or not.

    I have been working over the last few days (nearly a week by this point) on booking a trip to Cuba with Leslie, and a couple who are friends from California. I am hoping that today I will be able to get that done; I am looking forward to spending a few days on the beach, and if possible, a few days in Havana as well.

    I indulged yesterday. I do not care a whit about the second salad that I made myself after lunch because I was still hungry. Once that was done, I sat eating pumpkin seeds for a few minutes. I probably had 250 calories worth of them. Again, not the worst thing in the world… but I have to be able to rein myself in! Today will be better.

    The bathroom scale situation is frustrating. I have always been able to hold myself better accountable when I weigh myself and see that the weight is not coming off. I have always rejoiced in being able to track definite downward trends on a daily basis. Not being able to do that because of the inaccuracy of the scale is maddening. I know, I will go to the doctor’s office every two weeks and get weighed there… but being able to see daily progress has always been helpful. No, I am not going to move to an apartment with a more solid floor in the bathroom… but I might start exploring the floor in the bedroom to see if I can get a consistently accurate reading there.

    Tomorrow I am going to see my god kids, and I am looking forward to seeing them… but not to seeing the foods their mother will be putting out for me! Willpower is the word of the weekend!

  • Day 43

    The beginning of Week 7, and I am not sure that I am on the right track. I know, I should not be expecting the meteoric weight loss that I experienced when I did the program religiously, but I wonder if I have taken too many liberties with it. I will spend another week or so trying to follow my hybrid program fully, and if I do not resume my weight loss, then it is time to re-think things.

    Don’t get me wrong… I am still about 30 lbs down from where I started. However, as I have been doing the program without much direct supervision, I have to wonder if the slow (or sometimes stalled) weight loss progress is because I am trying to follow the program half-assed, or if it is just normal to not be seeing the weight completely melt away the way it does when I am on the full program.

    If my foot was terrible yesterday, it is better (but not healed) today. I am going to stick with the Naproxen and hope that the pain abates completely over the next couple of days. Either way, I am going to speak with my doctor next week (I am seeing him anyways) about getting a prescription for Colchicine, which unlike the Naproxen is specifically made for this. Of course, it also means that I am going to have to take it for the rest of my life, just like my father did.

    In addition to my thoughts, I think I have to start tracking everything that I eat. I do not want to get to the point where I am ingesting too many calories to lose weight, but do not realize it because I am not paying attention. I’ll use the MyFitnessPal app for that and see what it looks like at the end. I also need to be drinking more water… I am not going through nearly enough, and that is probably another reason for both the stagnating weight loss and the gout.

    The weather today is colder than the last couple of days. In fact, it is the only day on the 10-day forecast that the high temperature will not reach above the freezing point. Nonetheless, if the wind dies down, I will try to enjoy a cigar on the balcony in the afternoon. If not, I guess I am home bound. With HRF Princess Sophie to keep me company, there are worse fates

    My plans for the day: Stay the course. Salad for lunch, chicken for dinner. Meal replacement bars in the mid-afternoon and mid-evening. Drink a lot of water. Lose weight.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 42

    Whatever discomfort I felt in my foot yesterday was multiplied exponentially this morning. As I can think of no injury or event that might have caused this agony, I must assume it to be a flareup of gout. I have been having issues with gout in my right (and recently injured) foot of late, but this is the first time that the pain is so strong in the left foot. I will survive – it’s painful, but not the worst thing in the world. I’ll take Naproxen twice daily for the next few days and it will clear up.

    Yesterday was another ‘I ate too much’ day. I have to remember that eating too many meal replacements is not much better than eating too much anything else. At least I know that I am not going to the starches and carbs. Today will be a better day!

    My weight-loss advice post from Day 40 got a lot of traction. Until now, my best day on the blog had 42 hits, and it was not uncommon for there to be days with fewer than 5 hits. Yesterday, after I shared the article about unsolicited weight loss advice, those hits shot up… 116 hits yesterday, and 54 hits today (so far). This will be a blip and not a trend I am sure, unless my vitriol encouraged scores of new people to follow my otherwise pretty boring blog daily… and to tell their friends to do that same. Not a worry, I do not plan to try to monetize the blog; I use it to try to stay accountable for my actions and choices.

    I looked up the causes of gout, and came up with the following list, some of which I knew about, others I did not:

    The risk factors which cause excess uric acid include:

    • Excess consumption of meat and seafood
    • Obesity
    • Certain conditions like heart disease, kidney disease
    • Family history
    • Certain medications
    • Age – It usually affects between the ages of 30 and 50
    • Sex – Men are more likely to develop gout

    Let’s review: I am not excessively consuming anything these days, but I am obese. I have no heart or kidney issues (that I know of, although I will have a full physical from my doctor in a couple of months). I do have the family history (my father suffered from gout, and I think my grandfather as well). I am about to hit 50, although I remember gout flareups going back 25 years. I am not on any medications, but I am definitely a man.

    All in all, I have 4/7 of these risk factors. I’ll suck it up, and hopefully as I lose the weight, I will be able to shed one of them. No, I do not plan to cut meat out of my diet, but I will cut my intake of it going forward. Growing old sucks.**

    My game plan for today is to try to limit my intake. I had my breakfast shake, I will have my lunch (chicken and salad) and then my dinner (fish and salad), and then an evening meal replacement bar. If you are wondering why I have two meals planned, I was not paying attention and I defrosted both.

    Have a great day folks!

    **The last time I posted that something sucks, it was dieting. This resulted in the comments that led me to write my ‘screw you and your unsolicited advice’ post. Please do not tell me to not grow old, as the alternative is not a pleasant one.

  • Day 41

    Sunday was bad for several reasons; my only transgressions on Monday were quantity – I had two pieces of chicken for lunch and a piece of fish for dinner. I still avoided carbs and starches, and do not think it is the end of the world. Yes, I would like to reduce my intake. No, this level of intake will not ruin my weight loss plans.

    It is hard to believe that today is March 1. I always see this day as a bit of a turning point between ‘it’s still freaking cold’ and ‘it’s starting to get warmer.’ I hope I am right. I know there will still be cold days to come, but the 10-day forecast only has the daily high temperature below 0°c once… although the daily lows will only be above 0°c during the same time frame. All in all, I look forward to using less propane to heat my cigar sessions, but it’s still a month or more away… and two months before I’ll be golfing yet.

    I noticed this morning that I had a weird pain in my foot when I took HRF Princess Sophie for her walk. Maybe pain is too strong a word, but definitely a sensation. I will pay attention to it throughout the day. I am sure it is nothing – I probable slept in a weird position, or while I was teaching yesterday evening, I did not move my feet for a long time. I am not worried about it, but I did notice it.

    I decided today to share yesterday’s article about unsolicited weight-loss advice with my public Facebook group. I did a tiny bit of cleaning up – I do not want the person involved to feel targeted, which she is not. Hers was just the unsolicited advice that reminded me to write it out. I get that sort of advice from all sorts of people all the time and have thought these words many times before. She just happened to be the one who reminded me.

    Today’s plan: I had my meal replacement shake in the morning, and it is almost time for lunch – maybe another thirty minutes. I am going to make myself a salad with some canned salmon. After that, I plan to enjoy a cigar or two on the patio – I have invited a friend over, and hope he is able to come. What I would like to happen next, which is different from what I’ve been doing: At 5:30 I’ll take HRF Princess Sophie for a walk. I will come back in and make my dinner salad and will put my dinner (fish again) in the air fryer and douse it with lemon juice, but I will not start cooking it. I will set an alarm for 10 minutes before my class dinner break so that I can start the air fryer going. My dinner will be at 7:45pm, and that should be it for the day.

    Is that what is going to happen? I do not know. I will do my best to not veer too badly from this plan.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 40

    Today is the fortieth day of my diet. I am feeling better, my clothes are fitting better. I do not feel like a new person, but I do seem to have more energy than I did at my heaviest. I have a long way to go.

    Yesterday was not a good day for my diet. While I passed the greatest challenge (not eating any of my son’s pizza or cheesy bread), I did have a lot of chicken for dinner, and a bag of popcorn. I do not know if it was simply because I miss Leslie (who I drove to the airport yesterday afternoon), or if I just slipped. It is likely the former. Today I have to do better.

    Someone responded to a post of mine on Facebook telling me not to diet, that moderation is the key. She wrote:

    “Don’t diet. I always eat pizza fries ice cream chocolate etc. It’s the portion that matters not the food. A diet isn’t sustainable and why people gain everything back and some. Eat enjoy move on. Now that’s self-love and life.”

    I wanted to say something much harsher, but opted for the following response:

    “The preceding message works fine for people who are 10-15lbs overweight. If (as I am) you are morbidly obese, please consult medical professionals (as I have), and not people who do not understand what REAL weight issues are.”

    Believe me, the first three responses that I typed were much ruder.

    I cannot stand people trying to give me weight loss advice. Everyone seems to think they know the secret. Let me let you in on a little secret: If there was one magic bullet to lose a lot of weight and keep it off, the entire world would be slim. Hey friend, I know your heart is in the right place, but kindly keep your extremely unwelcome unsolicited advice to yourself.

    That, incidentally, is good advice for anyone who is tempted to give weight-loss advice to anyone who is overweight, and who did not ask for it. If we wanted your advice, we would have asked for it. Yes, there is the extremely small percentage of people who do not know how to ask for help, and there might even be people who will be grateful for it… although I doubt it. To help you understand, this is the conversation:

    You: “Oh, I see you are having trouble losing weight. What you should do is this. I promise it will just melt off!”

    Fat Guy/Girl: “Thank you. I will consider that.”

    But here’s the thing: What Fat Guy/Girl is thinking is: “You know what, you sanctimonious prick? I did not ask for your advice, I do not want your advice, and any implication that there is a simple way to lose this much weight implies you think that I am weak and a failure, and without your help I cannot succeed. Do you think I like being morbidly obese? Do you think I do it because it is fun, or because of how attractive it makes me to the opposite sex? You asshole, I am fat because of either psychological or physiological reasons that are none of your damned business… and if they were, I would have shared them with you long since. Also, Ass: Do you think you are the first person to tell me the secret to weight loss? You are not in the top 20. Guess what? Most of you are giving me different advice. You know what the only thing all of you have in common? I did not ask for your advice, I do not want your advice, and it is a shame that it is illegal for me to punch you in the face for giving me your advice.

    Let me make this clear. While there may be others, these are the most obvious categories of overweight people:

    1. People who are happy being overweight. While this is probably the rarest of them, it is a thing.

    2. People who are unhappy being overweight but have not started trying to lose weight.

    3. People who are unhappy being overweight and who have tried and failed to lose weight.

    4. People who are unhappy being overweight and who have lost the weight then regained the weight, often several times.

    There are others, I am sure. Unless someone from any of these categories says to you “Hey, friend… I know you are slim, and I am not, and I would like your advice on how I can become more like you” then they do not want your advice.

    As a bonus, talking about their weight issues is always counterproductive. Guess what? They will know… and it will discourage them more. Your gossiping about their weight problems is just mean and makes you sound like you are still in high school.

    You might know what the psychological trauma they faced is, you may not. Yes, everyone knows I was in the Army, and some people know (or have an idea of) what I went through. Fewer people know about my childhood. You might know it all, you might know none of it. It doesn’t matter. Unless I ask you for your advice, mind your own damned business.

    For the record: Every time you tell an overweight person that the key to life is moderation and portion control, most of them want to reach for a large all-dressed pizza, a double-cheeseburger with a side of fries, or a large plate of deep-fried breaded wings dripping with sauce. If we don’t do that, it is not because of you… any more than if we do that it is because of you. Our weight gain may have many causes, but as adults, we are responsible for it; nobody forced me to make a huge plate of extra-creamy pasta with meats and cheeses and a large plate of garlic bread. I am fat because of me.

    Now please understand the corollary of that: If we eat healthy, successfully practice the self-control that we all need, and we do lose weight, we get the credit… not you.

    Have a great day. I’m going to have my lunch, and then I need a cigar before class starts.

  • Day 39

    I had another great day with Leslie yesterday, despite her taking a pretty nasty fall. She keeps telling me she is super clumsy, but I don’t know if I believed it… until now. Fortunately, she is okay, and was saved from grievous and possibly catastrophic harm by a teddy bear. There are some things that you just cannot make up.

    While I am only taking very small bites of her omelets in the mornings, I will tell you that both yesterdays and todays came out better than usual. I am not sure what I am doing to make them so much fluffier than they were before, but man they are good. The dill (I have discovered that adding dill to things makes most things better) is an improvement, and she really loves the broccoli that I have started adding, but I added those on Thursday too, and they were nowhere near as fluffy as they were yesterday and today. Since today is the last day that I will be preparing an omelet until she returns in a little over three weeks, we can only hope that whatever it is that I have been doing does not get lost.

    I took Leslie to Costco yesterday. I was a little surprised that she reached her current age (no, I am not going to disclose it… suffice it to say she is much younger than I am) without ever having set foot into a Costco. You would have thought from the lineups that World War Three was starting… and judging from what is going on in Ukraine, it might be. I did not take her there to stock up on toilet paper or bottled water or gumballs. A few months ago, I bought her a pair of garnet and diamond earrings from Costco, and she absolutely loved them. She did not know this when we walked into the store, but I was hoping that they would have a matching pendant and chain. They did, and I bought it for her. She was emotional on a level that I am not sure I expected. It seems her ex-husband felt she was so difficult to shop for that he simply didn’t buy her presents. I find her singularly easy to shop for, and her new pendant matches her favourite earrings perfectly.

    After and before Costco, I took her to get her Covid test. I do not like that she is going home today but knowing that she has a return date in a few weeks makes it a bit better. I love having her here, and even when we have minor disagreements, we are always able to resolve them. She and I sit on the balcony enjoying a cigar and talking about… everything. I love my time with her.

    As planned, we collaborated on dinner last night. I prepared the fish: salmon tails marinated in lemon juice, air-fried at 375° for 10 minutes, then liberally coated with black sesame seeds. Leslie prepared the rice, which was also liberally seasoned with black sesame seeds. They were both served on a plate with a helping of gari (Japanese pickled ginger), and it was absolutely scrumptious. That meal is definitely going into the ‘make it again’ file.

    For this evening, I defrosted chicken. I will be eating alone, but because I was not paying attention, I froze the entire pack of chicken together, which means that it had to be defrosted as one. I will prepare them all this evening, but I will eat them over the next few evenings.

    In a few minutes I have to take Leslie to the airport, and I am not happy about that. She will be back in three weeks is what I have to keep telling myself.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 38

    Last night was an incredible night, but yesterday was a very emotionally difficult day.

    The story:

    When I was in Montreal a couple of weeks ago, Esti (my father’s widow) gave me a DVD to borrow of a presentation that my father did. Dad grew up in a poor, very Jewish immigrant neighbourhood of Montreal (that has since been gentrified and populated by Yuppies). Eighty-some years later, there is a group “from the old hood” that is called The Boys/Girls of Esplanade, and they get together every so often to reminisce about the past. At a certain point, they started a tradition that at every meeting one member would get up and give a speech about his or her memories of the old neighbourhood, and how their lives evolved after leaving it. In October of 2017 it was Arthur’s turn, and it was recorded and put onto a DVD. I think he might have told me about it then, but I forgot. Esti was sure he had gotten copies to give to my sister and me, but I know I never got one.

    For the first time since my father died, I heard his voice. I heard him speaking, telling so many stories that I had heard before… and a few that I had never heard. For over an hour, my father told stories about his life, and I was in tears from nearly the first minute. Leslie held me throughout, and when there was something that she couldn’t understand (as Montreal Jews, we often throw in French, Hebrew, and Yiddish words into everyday conversation). At the end of the speech, I called Esti to tell her I had watched it, and then Leslie and I went to sit outside, and I smoked a very high-end cigar in my father’s memory. My father never smoked cigars – he smoked one in law school and got so sick that he never tried another – but he did not mind if I smoked them around him, as we sat on his back patio.

    In the evening, Leslie and I had a date night. I had a very high-end cigar, and I also had a glass of scotch whisky. It was the second dram that I enjoyed this week, and I know that it is completely not on the weight-loss program. The first one that I had was to calm me down during a very unpleasant disagreement between Leslie and me. It was a good dram, but I did not enjoy it because it was just to calm my nerves. The one I had last night was different. Leslie (at my request) brought me a bottle of Glenrothes 18-year-old Speyside whisky, and it was just heavenly. In fact, our entire date night was perfect. I prepared dinner as I usually do, and then I sat outside listening to music while Leslie got ready… and wow, did she doll herself up! My girlfriend is always pretty and sexy, but when she stepped out onto the balcony my jaw dropped. We had a fabulous time, and throughout the evening I think, if it is at all possible, we grew even closer together.

    I think the only cheat from yesterday was the whisky, but it was worth it! We went shopping yesterday afternoon, and I purchased two gorgeous salmon tails that I will prepare for dinner this evening. I also purchased sesame seeds, soy sauce, and ginger. Because of my diet, I cannot take Leslie out for Japanese food… but I can do my best to recreate at least some of that culinary experience for her (and for myself). She is a master of preparing rice, and she will be in charge of that… and yes, despite rice not being part of my plan, I will have a little bit… not a lot though.

    We got up a little later than usual this morning, but we stayed in bed and talked for a long time, so her omelet was a brunch omelet, and she will likely not need to eat before dinner. I had my breakfast shake and will have a salad mid-afternoon. Around 4:00pm she is scheduled for her Covid-19 test (she is flying home tomorrow afternoon) so we have to drive out to the area around the airport to do that, but we will then come home and have dinner.

    It is a nice day outside, and we took HRF Princess Sophie for a nice walk this morning. We will repeat that process this evening. It is our last evening together for this trip, which is sad, but knowing that she will be back in less than a month makes it a little easier.

    Have a great day folks, and enjoy the weekend, wherever you are!