Losing a part of me

Blog

  • Day 497

    It was going to happen eventually if I kept playing fast and loose with what I eat. Yesterday I realized I only had half of my usual portion of chicken, which I ate for lunch. I then went shopping and picked up chicken, as well as a few other items. I decided to supplement my smaller-than-normal meal with… another meal. I also had decided to splurge when I saw a fruit and yogurt treat at the supermarket, which was yet another stupid decision. The result is I lost four days worth of progress in a gluttonous afternoon. That will not happen today. My plans for today are simple: I had an omelette for breakfast, and I will have my regular meal for a late lunch… and that is it. If I do get hungry then I will supplement that with meal replacement shake in the evening, but I hope I do not have to do even that.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 496

    I stuck to the plan yesterday, except that I accidentally made too much rice with my chicken. I have to remember to measure it out, and for some reason I was not paying attention and I just free poured. It could have been worse… I was probably a quarter of a cup too heavy on my pour.

    I was once again worried as I got into bed last night. Before I lay down, I stepped onto the bathroom scale. Of course the evening reading is discarded, but it usually gives me a good indication of what my weight will be in the morning. I can usually expect a drop of two pounds from 11pm to 7am. When I saw that my weight last night was a full 3.6 lbs. heavier than it had been in the morning, I got concerned that I would be gaining weight today. I might have to rethink my plans if that was the case… even if I did eat too much rice. It turns out that I worried needlessly. This morning I actually dropped .2 lb. from yesterday morning. I suspect the reintroduction of starch into my diet is having an effect on things, and the fluctuations over the course of the day are going to be less predictable. As long as I continue to lose weight from morning to morning then I am less concerned with that than I might have been.

    I am trying to remember if today is the second or third straight day that I have not had a successful bowel movement. While not yet worrying, this is certainly surprising as I have reintroduced a proper meal (and some days two) into my diet. I will have to pay attention to this over the next few days to see when I finally do, and if that becomes regular. I suspect that my next attempt might be painful, and in anticipation of that I decided to take a teaspoon of fibre powder this morning. I do not want to get so backed up that it gets uncomfortable and scary.

    My plans for the day are to do exactly what I have been doing these last few days. I will have lunch after my class, and that will be my only meal of the day. I will probably go shopping in the afternoon because I will be out of chicken, and also need some vegetables. I will not be tempted to cheat, and the best way to make sure I stay on track is to ensure that I have the proper stocks to prepare my meals in a timely fashion. I will not be straying from my path. I also need to return a couple of packages to Amazon, which I will try to do this afternoon as well.

    Today is Her Royal Floofness, Princess Sophie’s birthday! I took her for a very nice walk this morning, and she got to see some of her friends. We have treats that are usually reserved for the Sabbath, but she got one of those (and an extra cookie) this morning. She deserves to celebrate. Over the next few weeks there will be a few occasions that she and I will mark, including the day we met, the day I picked her up from her foster family, and the day I finalized her adoption. She has been my faithful friend these last four years, and I do not begrudge her the extra treats to celebrate. She will be getting a few of those this month.

    I am still reeling over a negative evaluation I got from a student from a course a couple of weeks ago. I finally read the full review this morning. It is clear to me that this student felt I was the worst instructor she has ever experienced… and was saying that the rest of the students felt the same way. On the one hand, I know that I am pretty good at what I do. On the other hand, a single really negative evaluation can cause a company to not hire me again. I am hoping that is not the case here, but I am going to make sure as I go forward that I do what I can to improve on some of the criticism she gave. On the other hand, she said that I said something that I know that I would never say to a class. I have no idea what she heard that makes her think that I said it, or if she heard it from another instructor and projected it onto me. Either way, it might be damaging, and I am hoping that it is a one-off and that the organization does not hold it against me. I am still certain they will keep an eye on me though… sort of like probation. It is a stress that I wish I did not have to worry about.

    In any event, it is time for me to get back to my day. I will stay focused and will not let any of this drag me off course. I need to succeed, and I will succeed.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 495

    After returning home from the doctor’s office yesterday I had a relaxing day. I made an omelette (with onion and shredded cheese) for breakfast, chicken for lunch (with a side salad and sweet potato fries), and that was all I ate. I was certain that the potatoes would do me in – especially when I stepped onto the scale before bed and saw how much I weighed then – but in fact this morning my weight was down. I told Leslie that I had a late lunch, so I was going to try the strategy that others have told me about – I do not consider what I did to be intermittent fasting, but it is along the same lines. I will try to continue that this week… although I will not be having the sweet potato fries every day!

    It was nice to have a day to relax and not really do anything yesterday. It was originally my intention to be productive most of the day, and in fact I did achieve a few of the items on my to-do list (I spent a few hours in the afternoon trying to fight with the Cisco switch that my buddy gave me, but I will have to return to that at some point when I have more time). I also made a point of printing out the course syllabus and recommended timings for the class that I am teaching this morning, which I found to be quite helpful with the class I taught for the same organization a few weeks ago.

    This four-day week will not be quite as busy as last week was, but it will still be long days. I am teaching from 8:30am until 2:00pm, and then again from 5:30pm until 9:00pm. The three-hour break will give me plenty of time to take Her Floofness for a walk (and today we will be joined by Charlie), make and eat a nice lunch, and relax for a little bit. I will also likely have to spend a lot of that time answering emails and doing paperwork, but that does not bother me. I know that after the long day I can look forward to a lovely evening video date with my wife, which I will be able to take on the balcony with a cigar. While we will continue to chat in the evenings, tonight’s will be our last cigar date for a week, as her son will be with her, and she does not smoke when he is around.

    My goal for the day is to accomplish exactly what I did yesterday: Eat in moderation and stop eating by about 3:00pm. It was originally my intention to prepare an omelette for breakfast, but then thought better of it because the timing might have been tight. I opted for a meal replacement shake instead, and there is no danger of cheating with that. If all goes well it would be nice to see another slight drop on the bathroom scale tomorrow morning. I am three pounds heavier than my best weight ever (from Saturday), but I am not at all upset about it. I am making the transition from meal replacements to eating mostly solid foods, and I had a few slip-ups on the first couple of days of that attempted transition. I think I have found my footing and will be able to proceed without stumbling for the next few weeks. That does not mean that I will lose weight at the same pace that I was able to when on the full-fast, but as I am not drastically overweight, I no longer need the drastic weight loss progress. This is a turtle race… slow and steady, and never stop. I will maintain my focus and my mindfulness, and I will not give in to temptation.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 494

    I had my last appointment with my family physician today. He is retiring, and I am glad that I had the opportunity to see him one last time. He congratulated me on my amazing progress and wished me the best, agreeing that I was no longer in any medical danger from obesity and that it is time to start back on real food. He also told me that the pain I’ve had in my wing is tennis elbow, and that I have to just be patient and it will get better.

    While my weight on the bathroom scale was up tremendously from yesterday, I am happy that my last official weigh-in under Dr. Yates saw me down 4.2kg from my last weigh-in, making it my best official weigh-in weight. I am happy with that… even though I am no longer in best weight ever territory.

    Today’s entry is going to be short because I have a lot I want to do on this day off, and I decided that one of those things was to spend a few hours chatting with my lovely wife. I now have a couple of hours before my cigar class, and I plan to use that time being somewhat productive.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 493

    I was bad yesterday, and I paid the price for it this morning. My weight jumped by .6 lb., which made me think about something that I don’t think I had considered for a long time. I have always said that one of the main goals of my extreme weight loss program is to change my unhealthy relationship with food. This morning I had the opportunity to think about some real changes that have happened. I had some snacks yesterday, and I should not have… but I stopped at a single portion of each of those snacks, even though the entire bag or container was available to me. I did not stop because I was ashamed that others would see my gluttonous appetite, I stopped because I knew that I was eating something that is fattening and I wanted to enjoy the taste, but I did not need to overdo it. The second change is that I gained .6 lb. from my cheat, where in the past (when my body was much larger and so were my cheats) I would often gain 3-4 lbs. overnight. I think going forward I will be able to live a life of moderation. That will mean the occasional moderate gain, to be followed on by a moderate loss.

    I should mention, as an asterisk to my weight gain, that I did not move my bowels this morning, and that had I done so my weight likely would have not gone up… although it is unlikely that it would have dropped either.

    I have come to a decision about my meal program. Yesterday morning I weighed in at 250. I have been plugging away at the program for almost a year and a half. I have realized tremendous weight loss and a body transformation that is nothing short of spectacular. I have thought about ‘what’s next’ often and have written about those thoughts in these pages. These next few paragraphs are my current thinking.

    If I were to walk into a bariatric clinic today without any underlying medical conditions, they would not accept me as a patient. They would tell me to eat less (and healthier), they would tell me to exercise more. They might run a battery of tests to make sure that I was not pre-diabetic or that I did not have a thyroid condition, but they would send me home and tell me to lose twenty pounds and then see my family doctor on a regular basis. Even six months ago when I was hovering around the 300 lbs. mark I could not have said that, but that is my new reality. I am absolutely overweight… but I am not in any extreme medical danger from it.

    In addition to that, I know that when I tried to jog last week (while I was on the full-fast program) I was not able to jog as much as I had, and I found myself completely drained the rest of the day – to the point of being unable to function and stay awake. Both of the clinics where I have gone through the program before told me that the full-fast program was not compatible with heavy exercise, and that I would get to a point where I would have to pace myself. I suspect that ketosis is good when your fat stores are plentiful, and your body can burn that for energy. When your body fat is not so high your body can find itself starving for energy, thus the exhaustion. If I had a job where I could take a nap for an hour to recuperate it might be different, but as a teacher I need to be on (and on camera) for the duration of my class. Knowing I have days when I start teaching at 8:30am and end at 9:30pm, I cannot take the chance of falling asleep (or even displaying listlessness).

    With all of that said, knowing that the full-fast program is not a lifetime solution, only an extreme weight loss program, and knowing that such a transition would have to happen at some point anyways, I have decided that now is the time for me to start the transition back onto eating food. This will be a gradual process that I will ease into over the next couple of months. I will start with a single healthy midday meal, while still having the meal replacement shakes for breakfast and for my evening nutrition. I will, over time, ween myself off the meal replacements, until I am eating three healthy meals per day.

    I was going to begin this paragraph with ‘the most important…’ but in reality, there is no single most important factor, rather there are many that I will have to remember. I will have to stay mindful; I will have to watch my weight, and if I see the numbers go up over a day or two then I will have to take the next few days to reverse that trend. I will indeed start ‘counting calories’ which will include weighing my foods and using an app to keep track of what I eat. I will have to make sure I am exercising on a regular basis, whether that is jogging or walking or Taekwondo or whatever else it might be. There are so many things that I am going to have to make sure I never stop doing so that I can continue to lose weight and stay healthy.

    —

    It is a beautiful day out today. My diet buddy came over for coffee this morning. After she left, I had a lovely date with my wife over video chat. Both of these were on the balcony because it is too lovely to stay inside today. My son asked if I would take him for dinner this evening, and I am thrilled to… even though he wants to go for pizza. I checked with his mother, and the place we are going does serve salads, so I do not have to be too bad. Nonetheless, I made sure to eat my midday meal so that I will not be hungry, and therefore tempted to veer from my newly-modified program. I am just thrilled that he reached out to me – that has not happened in a very long time.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 492

    There were three reasons I doubted today my mostly consistent weight loss would continue this morning. 1) I cheated yesterday. 2) I have been having trouble moving my bowels these last couple of days. 3) I decided last night very late (11:30pm) to have my last meal replacement, even though the plan had been to skip it because of my cheating. I made this decision because the meal replacement shakes are my best conduit for added fibre, which I decided (after a painful and failed attempt in the bathroom) was necessary. I am going to address each of these issues individually, but first:

    I did it. This morning, despite my expectations that I would not drop, the bathroom scale reported my weight at 250.0 lbs. It is a huge milestone, a threshold on which I have never, in all of my attempts to lose weight these last twenty years, stood. If I am able to stick to the program today, then tomorrow morning’s weigh-in might actually be in the 240s. I do not remember ever being there before. I am almost breathless with anticipation!

    Okay, so now that I have that out of the way, let me address the three points from my first paragraph:

    1. I love teaching. Technical training has been a passion of mine for years, and I truly enjoy it. When training went online and I had to accept that my students were not in front of me, I adjusted and found ways to make the best of it. My daytime class this week (I taught an evening class as well) was a group of military members who try as I might I could not engage. It felt like I spent the entire week speaking to an empty room. Add to that I did not plan my timing as well as I usually do, so the last day (yesterday) was a mad rush to finish. I got through it, but it was extremely stressful. As I drove to Hamilton for my evening plans (cigars with friends) I was hungry, even though I had my third meal replacement of the day less than an hour before. I know now as I knew then that my hunger was emotional, but it did not matter. I broke down and stopped at Bulk Barn to buy peanuts to eat in the car. I feel guilty and ashamed of it, but I doubt I would have made it through the evening had I not done so.
    2. As I have written about previously, one of the effects of a full-fast program with liquid meal replacements is that there will be days when I do not move my bowels. I do not think I had a good poop since Wednesday, and that can affect weight loss in the short term for sure. Unfortunately, read the next point.
    3. Last night I felt the urge to poop, and I tried… hard. It was painful, and I was unable to succeed. I realized that my solid waste was too solid and would need some help. It was past my bedtime, and I never like to eat (or whatever the term for ingesting a meal replacement is) that late, but the shakes are my usual conduit for fibre. I had originally skipped my fourth meal replacement of the day in lieu of the cheat-peanuts, but I needed the fibre… badly.

    I still managed to get to where I wanted to be this morning on the bathroom scale, even though I suppose when I had said I want to hit 250 I probably meant I wanted to be below 250… but I am at the mark, and I am happy with it. I will do well these next couple of days and I will drop below it soon enough.

    The reason I waited so long to take the fibre is because when I was taking it before I started having bowel issues that scared me… two weeks of diarrhea led me to get off the program until I was able to see my doctor and make sure I was safe to resume. My solution then was to do a partial program, where I would have shakes but I would also have enough regular solid food to regulate my system. I am probably 5-10 pounds away from making that decision anyways, so it is something I am going to start thinking about more.

    I am driving out to Strathroy today to see my buddy who has been sick. I also get to see my godchildren while I am there, and I am really excited. I wish I had thought to pick up presents for them, but honestly this week has been a shitshow. I will do my best to stay on track with my program and will make sure I have my meal replacements and my shaker bottle with me. On my way home I will drop in to have a cigar with Ryan in Cambridge. All in all, I will be doing a lot of driving today… but I will also get to see some friends I don’t see as often as I wish I could.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 491

    Every day that I get through without veering from the program feels like another huge success… even on days when I do not see progress on the bathroom scale. There have not been too many of those fortunately, and I am thrilled with my progress. This morning I did not smash through any milestones, but my weight was down again… if only by .2 lb.. I know that down is better than up, and I am happy to be making progress… however frustrated I am by the occasional snail’s pace of it.

    Yesterday I wrote about two milestones that are fast approaching. They are coming at me so fast that I forgot that in February I set out a list of short-term goals, which I defined as goals achievable within 45-days. As of this morning (almost 95 days after I wrote those) I have two goals on that list that I have not achieved, which are:

    · Drop below 250 lbs., that major milestone that I have no recollection of honestly weighing, the half-century.

    · Drop to 230 lbs., at which point I will be classified as overweight, but no longer Obese.

    Knowing of the setbacks I had in the weeks leading up to and then following the wedding I am glad that I did not take longer to get back to positive territory, and that this is where I am at. With that said, maybe I should think of some new short-term goals that will take me into the summer. I am not rushing into that, but it will be something I give some thought to over the next week or so.

    I do not remember the last time I felt so self-conscious with a class, but I am really looking forward to saying goodbye to this group of students. I am sure they are all wonderful people, but no matter what I have done this week I have not been able to get any of them to engage. One of the reasons I always preferred teaching to live audiences in person is because I could always see the class and would know if I needed to adjust my style to keep their focus and interest. When teaching online you might have some students who engage, either in the chat window or by turning on their microphones (and even occasionally their cameras) and others who do not. The class I have been teaching this week has almost zero engagement of any sort, after our Monday morning introductions. I have no idea if they are doing the work or listening, and all I know is that when I ask if anyone is still working on labs, they occasionally say that they are. I have no way of gauging if they are enjoying the class, and I am fully expecting less-than-stellar evaluations, which is rare for me. Granted, I have been pleasantly surprised before when I have expected bad evals and discovered that they really did like me, but it is always so hard to tell. The next nine hours or so will be a mad rush to get through a lot of material, and then it will be over. Hopefully the students did appreciate the class though. I will find out tonight.

    Speaking of tonight, this evening I have a friend in from out of town. She and her beau are coming over for cigars and drinks, and weather permitting it should be a lovely time. I have not seen her in a couple of years, and it will be nice to catch up.

    Over the weekend I am going to pay a sick call to my buddy who has not been in good health the last month. He lives a couple of hours away from here, but I know that he needs a friend, and I also know that his wife is probably at her wits end taking care of him while also caring for my godchildren. It’s a long drive, but I have always said that I will go to the ends of the earth for my friends. It will also give me a good excuse to see the kids!

    My plan for today is to do my best to stay on track. I suspect that my friend will try to get me to drink with them, but I will feign… something. I will gladly enjoy cigars and conversation, but I do not want to fall off my program because of alcohol… especially knowing that I am so close to these next two milestones.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 490

    Down again! I got through my day yesterday exactly as planned. In fact, it is possible that I did somewhat better than I planned, insofar as I only had the one cup of milk tea. When I stepped onto the scale this morning I was rewarded with another significant drop of 1.4 lbs., which means that since last Sunday (the worst day of my slide, and the day I decided to get back on track) I have dropped an astonishing 16.8 lbs. in in a scant eleven days. I am extremely happy with that, and while that rate of weight loss will not continue, I will be quite happy to settle into losing 2-4 lbs. per week.

    I am within 5.5 lbs. of two major milestones. 1) I am less than one pound away from dropping below 250 lbs., which is a number I have no post-Army recollection of ever being at; 2) I am less than six pounds away from being able to say that I have lost 150 lbs., a number so staggering as to defy belief. To put that in perspective, I know adults who weigh less than that. I can honestly say that I have lost a person! Looking back at my entry from Day 2 (My Weight Loss Goals) I did not list anything for either of these feats, but that does not mean that they are not to be celebrated. On that list there are a number of things that did not happen – I am not teaching Taekwondo, and while I am jogging I am not really preparing for a marathon – there is only one weight loss goal from that day that I have not yet achieved. I wrote that when I have lost 170 lbs. I would take a picture in my Army uniform. With the changes to my body over the years I might need to lose a little more than that, but we will see. I know at least one person who is looking forward to seeing that!

    For the third day in a row I woke up at 5:45am. Unlike the previous days, I got up to pee, and was then able to get back to sleep for another hour. All in all I think I slept better last night than the previous two, and my fitness watch seems to agree, with a higher sleep score than I’ve seen in several days. While my Body Battery was also higher this morning than it has been in weeks, I see that it has since dropped (from 86 to 68/100) … and it is not yet 10:00am. No matter, I am feeling fine and I am staying the course. What I have been doing seems to be working, and I see no reason to change it for the next couple of weeks. Of course, when Leslie comes I will discuss with her what modifications I will make to my program, but that has been on the calendar for quite some time.

    There is another huge milestone that is now within sight. I am about 17 lbs. from dropping out of the Obesity Class I into the Overweight classification. That will be a huge one for me, and I am extremely excited that I might one day in the next couple of months be overweight. That might sound silly… but I have been classified as obese to morbidly obese for the last twenty-five years, and when that label no longer applies then I will be absolutely over the moon.

    My day is going about as expected. My students are currently working on labs, and I realize that I am hungry. I am not going to eat. My usual routine this week has been to wait until the lunch break (1-2pm) for my second meal replacement of the day, and I do not want to change what has been working for me. I will, however, grab my water bottle and see if I can drink my hunger away.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 489

    I am not sure what is going on these last couple of days, but my eyes popped open again this morning before 6:00am. If I was going to jog that would have been helpful. As I am holding off on that until the weekend (or at least until Friday, when I do not have a thirteen-hour day) that becomes decidedly inconvenient. At least yesterday when I woke up I was able to take advantage of my early rise by going to get my bloodwork done. This morning I did some banking, answered some emails, but that’s it. I took Her Floofness out for her walk, I said my prayers before sitting down to my computer with a meal replacement and a cup of coffee… and I do not have to start teaching for another ninety minutes or so.

    The streak ended today. After nine straight days of watching my weight drop every morning, today it is the same as it was yesterday. That is not really a big deal, especially knowing that this morning was the first since I restarted the full-fast program that I did not have a bowel movement. Had my weight gone up I might not be so calm (although I would try to put on a brave face). Staying the same was not nearly so bad as a gain would have been.

    It is interesting to compare what my mind views as cheating when I am on the full program as compared to when I am not. For example: I know for a fact that there were a couple of days last week (before I started again) when I decided it would not be the end of the world if I bought a bag of mini crisps… or Goldfish crackers. At the end of any day I would likely not have been able to give you a proper accounting of everything that I ate. In contrast, yesterday I had four meal replacements (900 calories total), three cups of coffee (with oat milk, as much as 20 calories total), two cups of Royal Milk Tea (one caffeinated, one decaf – my best research puts this at 120 calories total), and three Bentasil lozenges (eucalyptus flavour – 8 calories). That comes to about 1,050 calories. Add to that about 100g of carbohydrates (75g of which are in the meal replacements) and it comes to a very successful day. Nonetheless, I thought long and hard about that second cup of tea, knowing that it would be a cheat. What only a week ago would have been an irrelevance now gives me pause. I am not sure if that is a good thing (that I am mindful and aware of everything that I am ingesting) or a bad thing (that I am so obsessive about it). A third possibility is possibly more balanced… that I should be more aware (and mindful!) when I am not on the program, but that I can be a little more forgiving of myself when I am being almost completely strict. And here we have yet one more thing I will need to think about this week.

    My goal for today is to stick to the program. I am not going to be stingy with the lozenges – I am doing a lot of talking this week, and my throat is my most important tool – but if I do feel the need for another drink in the evening, I might brew a proper cup of tea, rather than mix a second milk tea. I am not doing this because I am appalled by the sixty calories in each cup, but it is something that I can control better… I can control how much oat milk I use, as well as the sugar. That reminds me that I have to remember to buy coffee the next time I go shopping. I really wish I could remember where I bought it last time, because it was really very nice! Oh well… I will have to do some research and find a good source for the beans that I like.

    Again, I will not be exercising today. I got through yesterday very well, and even sat on the balcony to enjoy a cigar at the end of the evening. With that said, even if I thought I had the time today, I know that I did not sleep nearly enough last night, and I have to be careful to not only make it through today, but the rest of the week as well. I am glad that while I cannot jog this week, I also have very little opportunity (or temptation) to cheat. I know I lose weight faster when I balance exercise and the program, but if I can only do the program these next few days then I will still lose a little bit more weight… or at least I will not gain any.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 488

    It looks like yesterday I was focusing on other things, and so I did not post an article. I wrote it, I completed it… I just never put it on my blog. Oh well. Here’s what I wrote, without a single word change, on Tuesday May 23, 2023. -MDG

    My eyes popped open this morning at 5:45am, which is ten minutes earlier than they would have had I not changed my alarm. Realizing I was not going to get back to sleep, I got out of bed and got my day started early. As I went about my bathroom routine I thought about a 5km walk after bringing Princess Sophie in from her morning outing, and I even dressed for it; had any of my neighbours been out that early they would have likely not thought twice about me wearing track pants. Nevertheless, when we got home I decided to get dressed properly, and then go to the lab early and wait in line. That turned out to be the right decision, because as it turns out, the lab closer to home opens at 7:30am and not 8:00am, as does the one in the same building as my doctor. When I walked into the building there was already a line, and by the time I got near the front of it that line was three times longer than it had been when I showed up. I probably saved an hour with that snap decision and was home from the vampires by 8:30am. I was by then more than ready for my morning coffee and meal replacement, owing to not being allowed to eat or drink before the bloodwork was drawn.

    This morning marked the ninth straight day of weight loss. With a day-over day drop of one pound I have now dropped a full 15.4 lbs. since putting the brakes on my slide. I am happy with that, but I also have to give a lot of thought to how to interpret my progress, my feelings, and my plans going forward. As I mentioned in yesterday’s entry, on Sunday I was feeling extremely weak, and I needed to break from the program. I know that I was jogging on the full-fast program before, but on Saturday and especially Sunday I was extremely weak and fatigued the rest of the day. I doubt that had I jogged yesterday morning if I would have been able to make it through my class. In the next few days I am going to discuss my options with Leslie and see which one we feel will be the smartest going forward. In the meantime, I made it through the day yesterday with four meal replacements and two cups of Japanese milk tea… in addition to my regular coffee consumption.

    Every day that my weight drops takes me to a new best weight ever; Saturday morning I was tied with my previous best, but the last three days have each set a new record low. While I have no recollection of it, as I have written in these pages before I was weighed in 2005 at 255 lbs., at the end of my Weight Watchers success (that was abruptly halted by the end of my first marriage). I have been wracking my brain to try to remember another weigh-in lower than that, and the only one that comes to mind is from a year before my enlistment in the Army. I have no recollection of weighing myself between autumn of 1993 and the winter of 2005, although I am sure I did step onto the scale for Army doctors and other check-ups… there is just no record of it. Because of that I feel I am in uncharted territory and find myself at a loss for what to say. I know there are people who have yearned for the day they would see me at a loss for words.

    My plan for the day is to stay the course. Of course, it does not hurt that I start teaching in 30 minutes, and I go straight through until 9:15pm. Would it be possible for me to cheat if I wanted to? Sure. Would it be simple or convenient? It would not be. I am also hoping that I will not be tempted to, because if I had to I know I could pop open a can of salmon or tuna. I do not think I will have to resort to that today, unless I am really struggling. I am hoping that today will be my second straight day of complete success on the program, and that tomorrow morning will mark my tenth straight day of weight drop… and fourth straight day of setting new best-weight-ever records for myself.

    That last note, incidentally, is something that my wife reminds me constantly to be careful of. The scale giveth, the scale taketh away. There will be days when I do everything right, and the scale will either show no loss, or worse a slight gain. I have to remember that these things are going to happen, and that it is not a sign of failure, nor is it a reason to get discouraged. I know that one day in the next few I will see that happen, and I have to remember that weight loss is not going to be a straight and unbroken line down without the occasional blip… even if I do everything right. The most important thing is for me to stay focused and stay on track. As long as the downs are more than the ups then I am still on the right track.

    My plan for today is to stay focused and mindful, and to not veer from the program. As I wrote, it is possible that I will be changing my program over the next few days, but most likely that would not happen until the weekend. Unless I find that I do not have the ability to concentrate and stay awake, I will stay on the full-fast this week, and on the weekend, when I resume my jogging, I will reevaluate that plan. Yes, I have decided that this week I will not be getting up at the crack of dawn to jog before class. Until I know how it will affect my mind and body throughout the extremely long day, I am going to hold off. Next week, when I am teaching in the morning then again at night, I will be happy to jog after my morning class. That way, if I am really drained, I can still take a nap in the afternoon before my evening class. This week, teaching twelve hours straight through Thursday, I will not have that option.

    As long as I do not fall off track, sometime in the next few days I will hit a monster milestone. I am less than two pounds from hitting 250 lbs., which I have no memory of ever weighing after joining the Army. I need to stay on track so that I can celebrate that one soon.

    Have a great day folks!