Losing a part of me

Blog

  • Day 992

    When I travel for work it is hard to eat well, especially when you must eat where you are taken. Lunch was a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup at LaGuardia. Dinner last night was a Chinese buffet where my options were either deep fried or very unkosher. I opted of course for the former. I do not think I overate, but I am sure I gained weight nonetheless.

    Breakfast this morning was either cake or bagels. While the cake looked delicious, I opted for the smarter choice… a lesser of two evils, but I’ll take the win.

    What will the rest of the day bring? I don’t know… but I will try to be reasonable in my choices… at least as reasonable as I can.

    I will fly home tomorrow knowing that my weight will be up a bit… but not as much as it might have been.

    After a disastrous night Sunday, I slept like a log last night. Phew!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 991

    I tossed and turned almost all night. I turned over and saw the clock strike 3:00am. The next thing I remember was opening my eyes and it was nearly 6:30am… It was not even close; I was going to miss my flight. I got onto the phone with American Airlines and they told me that they could book me a ticket for nearly USD$700… wow. Or, the very nice agent (Hunter) told me, if I showed up at the airport within two hours of my original flight, they could book me on stand-by. I ran.

    G-d was looking down on me. While I was worried that I would arrive at the airport to find hundreds of people in line, I got there at 7:38am (7:00am flight). I found a parking spot right next to the door within seconds. I walked into the terminal and there was no line! The agent was able to get me onto the next flight (10:50am), so I would arrive in Portland at 3:15pm instead of around noon. Remember I said at the outset that He was looking down on me? I received a notification that the 7:00am flight was delayed. As I sat in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection screening area, I received a notification that I would have missed my connection in New York. In the end I would have landed at my destination on the same flight as I will… and I finally got nearly four hours of sleep.

    My usual morning routine this morning was obviously thrown into chaos. While I did not move my bowels, I did step quickly onto the bathroom scale. My weight was up slightly, but within the margin that had I woke up at the usual time and successfully vacated my bowels I would likely be the same as yesterday if not an ounce or two down. I am satisfied with that. I do not know what Portland will bring, but I hope that if I do gain a bit that it is not too much.

    It is 10:40am and I am sitting on the airplane ready to take off… as soon as they close the doors. Let me try to tether m laptop and publish now. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 990

    It was definitely an exhausting week. I am glad that these last couple of nights I have been able to sleep well. After sleep scores of 24 Monday, 69 Tuesday, 50 Wednesday, 21 on Friday, and not getting enough sleep Thursday to even register as sleep… Saturday morning my score was 83 and this morning it was 86. I finally caught up on my rest! My body battery was up as high as 74 this morning, which is certainly the highest it has been (by over 25 points) all week. Of course, knowing that I am waking up at 4:00am tomorrow to fly off to Maine I am sure it will be lousy again, but what can you do?

    From a terrible high Thursday of 302.2 lbs. both Saturday and Thursday, I am relieved that my weight dropped below that dreaded mark yesterday (299.6) and further down this morning to 299.0 lbs. even. I still feel disgustingly fat, but I have to stay below 300!

    I had a decent breakfast and lunch today and am planning on having a reasonable dinner this evening… and will be in bed earlier than usual so that I can get a decent night sleep before driving to the airport in the morning. Yes, I will be away for a short enough period that it will be cheaper for me to park at the airport than it would be to take an Uber. If I shower and shave (and pack) this evening, then if I am in bed by 10pm I will get six hours of sleep. Unfortunately (for the company but fortunate for my tight schedule) HRF Princess Sophie said goodbye when she gladly hopped into my buddy Rob’s car this afternoon, so I will sleep alone, but will not have to walk her this evening. I will miss her but it’s a short trip.

    It is time for dinner so I should get to it so that I won’t eat too close to bed time. Have a great evening folks!

  • Day 989

    I was glad to see my weight drop below 300 this morning. I am also glad to be back on Eastern Daylight Time.

  • Day 988

    Yesterday was one of those days.

    Wednesday afternoon my plan was to get some sleep and then wake up in time to connect to the Erev Rosh Hashana services that my synagogue broadcasts. A bunch of different things happened to keep me from my bed, and when I finally did lie down at 5:00pm, my phone rang… it was a Lodge brother in crisis, and I spent over an hour talking with him and helping him with his issue. I am glad I was able to be there for him, even at the cost of two hours of sleep. I then fell asleep for a couple of hours, but I did not mute my phone. When I get seven text messages in short succession it usually means that there is an urgent matter that needs to be dealt with. It turned out that it was just seven completely unrelated texts that came from different people, and it was a coincidence that they all came within a minute. The alert was enough to wake me up, and I could not get back to sleep. I decided that rather than lying there frustrated, I would get dressed, take Princess Sophie for a walk, and then I would call my wife so that we could light the candles and say our prayers before I joined the services online.

    Why did I go into all of that detail about Wednesday night? Essentially to say that I was so exhausted yesterday because between Wednesday at 12:15am when I woke up and Thursday evening at 5:30pm when I went to bed I got two hours of sleep. I got through my class just fine, but I am glad that in the afternoon I did not have a lot to do. I could not go to bed because my cleaning lady came… had I known what the previous two days would be like I would have canceled that in a heartbeat, but I was committed. I finally got to sleep at 5:30pm with the hopes that I would be able to sleep through until my alarm went off at 12:30am. In fact I did one better… I slept through the alarm and it was 1:05am by the time I got out of bed and got going. I am glad I did not sleep through my class!

    I am feeling much better today than I did yesterday. I was telling Leslie that with all of the difficulties in my life I am still a very blessed man, and I am grateful for so much. I am grateful this morning for having slept last night, and my class is going well. My weight, which has been up every day for nearly a week, finally dropped slightly this morning. Hopefully by the beginning of next week when I fly to Maine I will be down below 300 lbs. again. I will try!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 987

    The first day of Rosh Hashana, and I neglected to post. I will elaborate in may Friday post! Don’t worry, nothing bad… but egg-zausted!

  • Day 986

    I thought yesterday was going very well. I woke up after nine hours of sleep, I worked all day, and after my class I ate my lunch and was sitting out on the balcony chatting with my wife when I got the call that Iran had launched a massive ballistic missile strike against Israel.

    The rest of my day did not go as planned.

    It was my hope to be in bed and asleep by 3pm, but that did not happen. I was, as were most Israelis around the world, glued to the news on my tablet. When I tried to sleep I got nowhere, so when a buddy called me and asked if he could come over I agreed. He left around 6:15pm, at which point I toasted a roll and ate it before checking the news one last time, and then collapsing into my bed. The fact that I got nearly six hours of sleep is in and of itself a success, all things considered.

    When I woke up this morning (shortly after midnight) I did my usual bit, and then weighed myself. My weight was neither up nor down from twenty-four hours earlier. I will consider that a small victory.

    Knowing that I am not going to get a lot of sleep this evening (I will need to be up early so that I can attend my synagogue’s Zoom Rosh Hashana services) I hope to be in bed by 3:00pm today… despite whatever might happen in Israel. This is going to be a very long few days for me. I am glad that I made the decision yesterday to cancel my trip to Montreal this weekend. It would simply be too too much.

    Have a great day folks… and pray for the Israeli soldiers who will not be spending this Rosh Hashana with their families because they need to be at war.

  • Day 985

    It is 1:30am and I have been awake for over an hour, at my desk since 1:00am. I did not expect to sleep very week considering the time zone in which I am working (Central Europe Standard Time), and that it was light out when I went to bed – and for several hours afterwards. I know I woke up at 7:00pm and thought that I was up for the duration, but then fell back asleep and made it to 12:30am before getting up and at it. Hopefully I will be able to maintain this schedule for the week without too much trouble.

    I should mention that I taught yesterday on less than three hours of sleep, so I definitely needed the rest… I just did not expect I would get it!

    I did step onto the scale before getting dressed. I gained a bit since Sunday morning, but considering the time difference it is likely that I weigh the same as I did then. I ended up making chicken for lunch before going to sleep yesterday, and am satisfied that I did not gorge myself.

    I thought I would be satisfied with a protein bar this morning, but did not feel sated and so I am making some toast. I will make my omelette when class breaks for their lunch.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 984

    It is 11:08am, and my day is done. I have been up since midnight after nearly three hours of sleep. Because of my class schedule this week my schedule is completely off. I did not weigh myself this morning because I essentially woke up yesterday. I had breakfast when my class broke for lunch, but I am thinking that right now I am going to have a cigar and then maybe I’ll eat a protein bar before hitting the sack.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 983

    I stepped onto the bathroom scale yesterday morning and saw that I had lost all of the progress I had made since mid-August. I have to get back on track. Fortunately – and this is not a lot of consolation, but some – my weight was down this morning, and I am just a couple of ounces from dropping below the 300 lbs. mark again. I need to get back on track!