Losing a part of me

Tag: Weight Loss

  • Dat 1301

    Wow did I sleep! Yesterday after class I slept at least five hours. It was very nice. I got up and did whatever I needed to do, and then sat on the balcony with a cigar. When I realized how tired I was I decided to go in and try to sleep again. I slept another four and a half hours. In fact, I slept so deep that I overslept. When I opened my eyes and saw that it was 1:40am I jumped out of bed and scrambled to be online with three minutes to spare… not for the ‘I’ll be online thirty minutes early in case you have any questions’ but three minutes until class started. I will not make a habit of that.

    My weight was up significantly this morning. It is partly because in my rush I did not position the scale properly, but also because my system has been out of whack. I am not going to beat myself up over it.

    I have to wait one or two days more before I can reorder my meal replacements, but it is nearly that time. I am about to open my last box of 14 shakes… that is 3.5 day. If I cannot order them in time to get them by the weekend then I am going to be short. In anticipation of that I am going to cut down to three per day, plus one meal. That will start this afternoon, but will end when I receive my new shipment.

    With that said, I have a weight in mind at which I am going to make that transition to three plus one – three shakes and one meal. The meal will be much smaller than it was the last time I tried this, but I have to start eating responsibly. I expect that by mid-September I will be there.

    Because I was so late getting up, I did not have my meal replacement until my morning break – three hours later than normal. I was not feeling hunger pangs, but I do expect that had I waited much longer, I would not have been operating on all cylinders. That was not intentional, and will not be repeated.

    It is time for me to get back to class. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1299

    As I lay in bed unable to sleep from 5:30pm until I did something about it around 8:00pm, I believe I learned an important lesson. While it is not good for my weight loss progress to overeat, it is also bad for me to undereat. Yesterday I was thinking about other things, and by the time I got into bed I had only eaten two meal replacements. For all of the people who have told me that my usual 900 calories per day is unhealthy (despite what the medical professionals have told me), I know that 450 calories is a bad idea. I tell my student all the time that good and bad are subjective. Objectively, without judgement, undereating prevents me from falling asleep. Last night was the second night in the last week that I consumed significantly fewer than my normal 900 calories, and it was the second time that I could not fall asleep. Eventually I got out of bed and had another meal replacement, bringing my daily total to 675 calories. I still had difficulties falling asleep, but I got back into bed and rested until I did. I might have gotten two hours of sleep… but I doubt it. I will take a nap this afternoon.

    I am back to teaching ridiculous hours, which means that my weigh-ins are going to be at crazy hours. Well, that is not fair… I will be working from 1:30am until noon, which means that I will be weighing myself around 1:00am every weekday for the next two weeks. That began this morning, and my weight was exactly what it was yesterday morning at my regular time. Considering the lack of sleep and no bowel movements, I am not displeased with that. For the next ten weekdays I will weigh myself at the same time, and will hopefully continue to see my weight drop.

    I have written about this before, but I was reminded of it today. I hate food commercials. When I am trying to lose weight and to maintain my discipline it is just evil to show me wonderful tasty and extremely unhealthy foods which I love, crave, and absolutely cannot eat. It is not only TV commercials, it is also billboards, TV shows and movies, TikTok and Facebook reels… you get the picture. I want it all! I am also aware just how guilty I felt yesterday morning when I realized that the ground I had lost was because of those stupid onion rings. However tempting it is, it is a temporary satisfaction followed by days of guilt and self-loathing. That does not mean that I like the temptation. Seeing those ads is not easier for knowing that I would hate myself if I succumbed to temptation. I am not saying that anyone is guilty – freedom of expression extends to ads – I am just saying that when I am trying to lose weight I hate it.

    So far I have stuck to the plan for the day… at 1:00am I had my first meal replacement, and while I am starting to feel hungry (itis currently 5:15am) I will be able to make it through to my lunchtime – after I walk Princess Sophie. By my calculations that should have me enjoying that second shake in 90 minutes. I am drooling with anticipation!

    Okay, it is time for me to get back to work. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1298

    I wrote yesterday that when I fell off the wagon on Friday, I bought enough chicken and vegetables for two days, in addition to a challah. What I forgot to mention (and this was a complete blank on my part – that’s what sleep deprivation can do) is that I also bought from the prepared food counter (never a good destination for a dieter) a container of onion rings. It was because I had forgotten about this major transgression that I had a bit of trouble accepting that my weight jumped two pounds day-over-day. Worse, I had gained 3.6 lbs. in four days. As soon as I remembered that, it all made sense.

    I weighed myself twice this morning – once before taking Princess Sophie for her walk, and once after we got home; I had made coffee, I had prepared my meal replacement shake, I had sat down at the computer, and I had even typed in the first couple of sentences of this article before the urge hit. A productive bowel movement was just what the doctor ordered. Not only do I feel better, but instead of the .2 lb. drop from my first encounter with the bathroom scale, the drop from yesterday is now 1.4 lbs.; that is a good start, but I still have 2.2 lbs. from what I weighed five days ago.

    Yesterday was the first day in a month that I did not have a single meal replacement. For breakfast, I had challah with margarine. When I was finished eating, I removed the remaining challah from the bag… and threw it in the garbage. Just having it around would be too tempting. Around 2:30 I prepared the remaining chicken and salad. After running an errand, I picked up a handful of peanuts, and four dried peaches. That was it. I am done.

    This morning is not a new Day 1. Rather, it is Day 32… knowing that I fell off for two of those days.

    In addition to being able to void my system, I can also brag this morning of a wonderful night sleep. According to my fitness watch, my sleep score of 92 is the result of 8h55m of balanced and optimal sleep stages. After the last week, as well as knowing what is ahead of me, I am relieved. It was very much needed!

    It is going to be a beautiful day today… hot and sunny, with a high of 32°. I will spend most of the day at my computer preparing for my class which starts tomorrow… or should I say because of the time zone shift… at 2:00am tonight. That means that for Day 1 (which is tonight) I need to be online at 1:00am. Yes, I have now set my alarm for 12:30am for tomorrow, and 1:00am for the rest of the week… and the next week. Oh what fun we will have! I have friends who work the night shift on a regular basis, so I have nothing to complain about. I actually enjoy it to a degree… but the transition can be less than fun.

    The course that I am teaching is a very advanced cybersecurity class, and I am really looking forward to it. This will be the first time I have taught the course, thus why I will spend the day going over the material and the labs. It will be exhilarating to be sure… but every time I teach a new course – especially one at this level – I get a bit nervous. Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance, right? That’s my plan.

    My plan for the week is to stay on my program… and to try to shift my circadian rhythm for the fortnight. In other words: When I wake up at 12:30am it will be my early morning. After getting dressed I will have my breakfast shake… let’s call that 1:15am. When my class breaks for lunch I will take Princess Sophie for her walk, and on my return I will have my midday meal replacement… we should get back from that walk at around 6:45am. Class ends at 11:00am, and I will spend the next 30 minutes reading and answering emails. I will probably need until noon to deal with everything else that is on my plate. At that point I will have meal replacement number three. I have a few things to deal with in the afternoon, but by 4:30pm I should be able to have my fourth and final meal replacement. I will take Princess Sophie out for our second walk of the day, and when we get home it will be time to go to sleep so that I can hopefully get seven good hours of it.

    That is the goal. Will I be able to stick to it? I do not know. I always underestimate the challenges posed by the transition from a diurnal to a nocturnal lifestyle. All I know is that I will do my best.

    Speaking of doing my best… it’s time to hit the books. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1286

    This morning’s weight was worse than the last couple of days, and it is infuriating… even though I know it does not really mean anything. What I might weigh at 2:30am is always going to be different from what I would weigh at 8am. I also know that it had been three days since I had any sort of bowel movement, and when I was finally able to do that later in the morning I was quite relieved… and expect that will impact my weight tomorrow morning.

    Today is my last day of teaching overnight… until Monday, when I start a two-week class doing the same thing. In short, my sleep schedule is going to be quite horked through to August 22, and there is very little I can do about it. I am not about to turn down huge amounts of work so that I can get a good night sleep. I am excited to begin that class, and once I get into a rhythm I should be able to manage the six hour offset quite well. The hardest part of it will be the following weekend, when I am meant to be back on a normal (Eastern Daylight Time) for two days and then immediately pop back to Central European Standard Time. I’ll survive!

    Since I will be doing it for two straight weeks, I am going to establish my 1:00am weight as my normal through the fortnight. At that point I will not be worried about the hour because it will be consistent. Hopefully I will still be losing weight; hopefully I will be able to follow a reasonable routine.

    I wrote the previous paragraphs earlier. It is now my lunch hour (that is, 7:15-8:15am). I just came in from walking Her Floofness, and I prepared my first meal replacement shake. I have a few more minutes to enjoy it before my lecture starts up again, so I will do that and wish you all well.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1283

    I did not expect to see another huge drop this morning, so imagine my surprise when the numbers on the bathroom scale were another 1.4 lbs. down from yesterday!? That puts my loss-to-date at 31.8 lbs. on Day 27 of my latest attempt. I am thrilled with that! As well, after dropping only 3.2 lbs. last week, So far this week I have dropped 5 lbs.! What I am not thrilled with is that I am still well above the terrible mark. I hate that I let myself get so out of hand this calendar year.

    Analyzing the past data, while my weight first crept above the terrible mark at the end of September, in October it was higher than that for fifteen days, and then November it was fourteen days. In December I was doing better for a while… only seven days above that terrible mark. And then there was January… where I dropped below the terrible mark only once – and not since that day have I been there.

    If all goes well then by the middle to end of August I should drop below it once more. I will breathe a sigh of relief when I do.

    As it stands, the clothes that I ordered in June are a bit loose on me. I am wearing them comfortably, but you can tell I have lost a pound or two… or rather 18.4 lbs. to be precise! I am still disgusted that I cannot even button up the biggest of my sports jackets (although I am more comfortably able to wear my suits), and have reluctantly made a decision. Each time I have lost all of the weight, I have said ‘I will never gain it back again!’ and I have given away all of my fat clothes… which is why I had to get a new sports jacket and three new shirts made for me in June. When I can finally wear my slimmer clothes again I am going to take these new shirts and jacket and put them in a garment bag marked ‘If I am ever Fat and Ashamed again.’ I will not throw them out… but I will put them away in my storage locker.

    (I should mention that while I gave away the largest of my sports jackets, I am currently wearing a shirt that I had made in 2022, when I was first losing the weight. I have several shirts that do not fit yet, but I now have several from the down swing that do. They did not fit a month ago.)

    I mentioned yesterday that I had not moved my bowels in the morning… well in the afternoon I had what was probably the best movement since I stopped eating solid foods. I would not be surprised if that was a big contributing factor to this morning’s significant weight loss. What a relief! This morning I have thus far been unsuccessful, but there is still hope for the afternoon.

    My sleep score was up to an 87! I was surprised because of a number of factors:

    1. Even though I was in bed at a reasonable hour, I had a lot of trouble falling asleep.
    2. There was an Amazon delivery driver who decided to phone me at 6:30am to let me know he was leaving a package at my door. That is really my fault for disabling Sleep Mode on my phone… but I did not think I was going to get back to sleep after that. I did (phew!)

    I cannot think of the last time I had three nights in a row with a sleep score in excess of 80… Saturday night through Tuesday morning I registered 86-84-87. Woohoo! This, in addition to the nap I took yesterday afternoon.

    Yes, I took a nap. I spent most of the day trying to record a video for the course I am writing, and there was not one minute when I was not holding back a yawn. I could not figure it out, and finally I decided to walk away from the computer. I took Her Floofness out for a walk (she did not really feel like being out, so we only walked the perimeter of the building before coming back inside). She ran to Sue’s (the neighbour) for a visit, and I sat on the balcony with a cigar and a book. I thought that just maybe a break from not only sitting at my computer but also from studying computers would be beneficial. After my cigar was done I was feeling no more awake, and gave in to the temptation. I slept for an hour.

    While the nap certainly did my body good, I was still yawning all evening. On something like take 87 I was finally able to submit my video. (There was one take, maybe twenty or so takes earlier, that was definitely good enough… only for me to realize that while the screen and the mic were working, my camera was not. ARGH!) Video work is a lot more frustrating than teaching a live class… when I stumble over my words in class I can make light of it. That would not work for a recorded class.

    I did have a handful of peanuts yesterday…and I will again today. I am, as I said a few days ago, eating them in lieu of my fourth meal replacement. Three shakes and a handful of peanuts is not a bad compromise. I also suspect (with no scientific basis for it) that the peanut oil is helping the fibre in easing that last part of the digestive process. Maybe yes, maybe no… but I had the peanuts yesterday and recorded a huge weight drop, so maybe in moderation even if it doesn’t help… it doesn’t hurt.

    I do have some more video work to do today, but I also have an exam to prepare for this afternoon. As such, my plan is:

    • Head out after publishing this journal entry to visit with my son, stopping for a handful of peanuts along the way.
    • Come home, study for my exam for a few hours.
    • Clean off my kitchen table so that it will be completely clear for my exam.
    • Set up the exam computer.
    • At 4:45 I will either drop Her Floofness at Sue’s, or if she is not home I will put her in my bedroom so that I can take my exam.
    • After the exam, I will try to record the next video in the series.
    • After the sun goes down I will sit on the balcony with a cigar… if I pass my exam it will be a celebratory cigar (yes, it is a pretty advanced certification); if I do not pass then it will be an everyday pedestrian cigar. Let’s hope!

    Okay, it’s time to get moving. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1285

    I hate these days when my weight creeps up a few ounces. I know that I should not, and that it is about the trend and not lines on the graph, but please…

    For the second time in a week I started my article in frustration, and then before finishing a paragraph I felt the urge, and was able to void my bowels and then re-weigh myself. Rather than being up by .6 lbs., my weight is now .2 lbs. down from yesterday. Phew! Rather than falling back to less than that 25 lbs., I crept a couple of ounces down.

    My sleep score dropped to a 72 last night. It is not because I was up too late (I was in bed by 11:30pm). I remember lying in bed worrying about all sorts of things that I am dealing with. It is not always about my weight loss… or even always about personal problems!

    It is interesting that when I am not on the program, my bowels are almost scarily predictable… nine days out of ten I have a successful bowel movement as part of my morning routine before I walk Princess Sophie. Since I have been on the program (and each of the previous times as well) it has been much less predictable – sometimes it is in the same morning routine, sometimes later in the day, and of course, sometimes it just does not happen in a day. That is not surprising since I am simply not eating any solid food. Days like today, however, throw things off a bit because normally I would be weighing myself once in a day, and that is usually before 8:00am, but certainly within thirty minutes of waking up. This morning I stepped onto the scale at 7:49am… and then again at 9:04am, definitely not within that half hour.

    My son the elder came over yesterday afternoon. It is likely the last time that I will see him before he drives down to the USA to begin his Master program. It was wonderful to see him, and while I do not see him nearly as often as I would like, at least he has been a quick twenty-minute drive from me. Now he will be 1,200km from here… with an international border to contend with along the way. When he called me a few days ago, he thought we might go for dinner. Once I told him that I was on my diet, he was satisfied coming over for a drink. The only violation of my program was a dram of whisky, which was quite tasty. I know that alcohol is not good for any diet – both because of nutritional values, but also because they lower your inhibitions, and you are more likely to eat. I did none of that.

    I have a lot to do but my mind is all over the place. I am going to take a breath and hopefully get some work done before I have to leave around 2:30pm.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1282

    I was not at all impressed this morning to see that my weight was up more than a pound from yesterday. I have to assume that was mostly related to the extremely salted peanuts I had eaten the previous day, but also the (unsalted) peanuts I ate yesterday. Other factors would include not moving my bowels (which I did quite successfully some time after weighing myself)… and the fact that weight loss is about the downward trend and not individual plots on a graph. Yes, I ate a handful of peanuts yesterday… a conservative estimate of my total intake yesterday would be 1050 calories which is by no measure excessive, and there was no significant sodium or carbohydrates or starch added to my usual four-per-day meal replacements. There is only one measure by which yesterday was a dietary failure, which is only the strict interpretation of the strict rules of the medically supervised program that I am on. I am not going to feel guilty about that.

    By the by… a clear indicator that my weight issues are likely related to the previous day’s salted peanuts is that my ring, of which I wrote just three days ago, is much tighter than it was. Fingers swell from water retention which is caused by sodium. I expect it to once again fit much better tomorrow or the next day than it does this morning.

    What I do feel guilty about is that I gave serious thought yesterday to switching to a partial program – two or three meal replacements plus an actual meal. I did not do anything about it, but I gave it thought. Why should I feel guilty? Maybe guilt is the wrong word, but I know it is, for the moment, a bad idea. I set out on this renewed journey only two weeks ago (today is essentially Day 16) and I have done very well so far… I have lost 22.4 lbs. so far, which is great… until we factor in that from my best weight ever (October, 2023) until my worst day ever (Day 1 of this new effort) I had regained 106 lbs., at which point we have to recognize that I have only scratched the surface of what I want to – what I need to do. I am still 83.6 lbs. heavier than I was when I was at my best, and that will not just melt away in a heartbeat. It will take much longer if I start compromising now on what is working. Yes, I see images of food and I am tempted. I should by no means give in to that temptation, and there is currently no justification for my doing so. All of the times since the beginning of the year that I have tried to start on a modified program were failures. Why? Because I negotiated with myself. ‘This works… but if I just put in some of the effort instead of all of the effort, then it should still work.’ No. I am not saying never, but for the time being I have no intention of compromising.

    My sleep score this morning was the best that it has been since January 2 of this year. I suspect that it has been over 90 only a handful of times in all of the years that my fitness watch has been tracking it. When I saw the tremendous score of 93 this morning I was relieved, knowing that a good night sleep is crucial for health in general, but it also helps weight loss in particular. My body battery was an unprecedented 97. Hoorah!

    I just did something that I should have done on Day 1. I went onto Facebook looking for the support group that I was a member of previously. In fact, I am still a member, but because I had not participated in quite some time it was not prioritized in my feed. I posted my first message there in a very long time. The group does not seem to be very active – beyond being a buy and sell group – but hopefully I will get some response, and some support.

    Today is a rainy Friday, and in a sense that is a good thing. I have been delinquent on a project that I need to work on, and I will put in a lot of work on it today. I am also going to try to get help with that other issue that I have been dealing with, which will involve a support session with Microsoft. I am not looking forward to that, but I am hoping that it can get resolved satisfactorily.

    I just got off the phone with my son the elder who is off to university next weekend. He wants to see me this weekend (which is great). He also respects the fact that I am back on my diet, and that because of that I would rather he come over for a drink than go out for a meal. I look forward to seeing him and having a nice chat.

    With that, I am going to try to get some work done. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1271

    I do not remember at what point I stopped updating my offline journal – that is, the one large document that included all of the posts from my online blog – but it occurs to me that I should seriously think about going back and updating it. I do not really want to see a lot of the worst of my entries from the deepest times of despair, but I suppose I can just copy-and-paste without reading them. We will see. That will not happen before Thursday – today is my last complete day to study for my exam which is at 1:00pm tomorrow afternoon, so my main focus until after the exam will be that. Wednesday I will be at a provincial Grand Lodge event, which takes us to Thursday.

    I should mention that I did resume updating my weight tracking spreadsheet from my bathroom scale. That is much easier to do, and does not involve going to each individual day to cop-paste. All I needed to do was to expert all data from the scale since the beginning of April and then copy-paste that into my spreadsheet.

    The new shirts and jacket that I ordered are out for delivery according to FedEx, and I will have them in time for my event on Wednesday. That is a relief. While I do have a suit that I can wear, it is tight and I will feel more comfortable wearing something that is tailored to my size. The disturbing truth is that from the day the tailor measured me for these new clothes I gained over ten pounds… that is just over a month ago. Fortunately I have these last five days lost all of that. Phew! As terrible as I feel that I needed to have bigger clothes made, that would have been amplified had they now been tight.

    Yes, today is Day 5, and according to the bathroom scale I have dropped a little over ten pounds. I am pleased but far from satisfied. I have a long way to go, as I said yesterday, until I am anywhere near satisfied. Maybe ‘satisfied with my progress so far’ is a better way to write that.

    I need to start exercising in order to make sure I continue to not only lose weight, but also to ensure I get back into shape. My doctor will tell you that I am in great shape for a man a fucking overweight as I am (she would not use those exact words), but that is not good enough for me. I would like to run a marathon next year. Before I do that, I need to start walking again before I can start jogging again. I am going to wait a couple of weeks before jogging for a number of reasons, but as for walking I might start as early as Thursday, depending on the weather. Yes, I have a treadmill… but if the weather is nice I would much rather begin my journey again in the fresh air.

    My sleep score last night was equal to the previous night. I suspect that if I was not drinking what amounts to a small swimming pool every day it might be a bit higher… but alas, I am going to continue to drink as much water as I can. Water is great for the body, but it is also a big contributor to weight loss… even if it did not help to fill my occasionally hungry stomach. I only woke up three times to pee in the night last night which is a 25% improvement over the two previous nights.

    I did finally move my bowels yesterday which was a relief (no pun intended). I neglected to add fibre to my morning meal replacement, but will make a point of doing so this afternoon.

    Owing to something I needed to get done for a buddy yesterday, I was not as productive as I would have liked to be. I did get some studying done… but not as much as I hoped to. Today there will be no disturbances, and that is what I am going to do.

    There are so many things I probably should do with regard to tracking my renewed weight loss efforts, but I am not ready to do that yet. I know that my Body Mass Index (BMI) is a disgusting 42.6, up twelve points from my best ever in October 2023. I have to assume that means that I would again be classified as morbidly obese, but looking to see at what point I would drop out of that… I am not ready for that. I know that I need to set short, medium, and long-term goals for myself, but for the time being I just want to follow the program like an automaton. I will drink my meal replacements and do nothing more other than journal about my emotions.

    The friend who came over yesterday is one of two who has gone through the same medically supervised program that I did. He understands a lot of what I am going through. He and his wife went through it and they lost a lot of weight. It is good to have people that I can speak with who have been there.

    My only plans to go out today are to go to the store to pick up milk for my coffee. Other than that, I expect I will migrate between my desk and my balcony, studying either inside or outside. I will continue to try stabilizing the timing of my meal replacements, which might be easier today at home than tomorrow (when I have my exam) and Wednesday (when I will likely be in Toronto for the day). Speaking of which, I had better remember to bring my meal replacements with me if I go to Toronto… I do not want to be caught having to break the program as I am still trying to make it a habit… and while I am doing so well.

    While I have felt hunger at times, I suspect that yesterday was the first day that I did not consider the program (which is by any measure extreme) a hardship. I was able to get through it without a great deal of difficulty. There have been times these last few days when cigars have helped to distract me from my hunger, and I will continue to use them as a tool. I was going to use the word crutch but no, it is not a crutch. I am not leaning on them, rather I am using them to bridge the hunger meal replacements, much as a snack might bridge the hunger between meals.

    I have said before that forcing a happy face when one is down can be a way to actually induce the happiness eventually. I am trying to put on that positive and happy air these days, and I hope that after tomorrow’s exam I might start to feel it. Until then? The exam and its implications are all consuming.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1270

    As I had the previous day, I stuck to my program religiously yesterday… with the (again) pinch of grated cheese that I nibbled as I was giving Princess Sophie hers. In fact, owing to a weird schedule and a possibly failing memory, it is possible that I ingested even less than I am supposed to – I might have only had three meal replacements rather than the four that are medically recommended. I have made a note to try to do better both with remembering and with the consistency of timing so that I make sure I do get all of the vitamins and nutrients that I need to be healthy.

    In addition to those, I had my coffee (as usual) and, as I was sitting on the balcony studying (and because it was 36° and sunny) I decided to pour myself a cold iced tea. I sweetened it with aspartame rather than the raw sugar that I use for my coffee, and I do not think that would be considered a cheat.

    I also drank my water. Folks, it is much easier to remember to drink copious amounts of water when the weather is scorching than it is in the winter. I am easily going through at least four litres of water a day, and probably more than that.

    Remember my plan from yesterday morning? I had gotten up to pee however many times the previous night, and so I was going to try to make a note to stop drinking after 8pm? That did not happen… I studied on the balcony until nearly 9:30pm, and then sat there watching TV on my iPad. It was still hot, so I kept drinking water to stay hydrated. When I went into the house to get ready for bed I counted the empty water bottles next to the sink… between the time I finished my evening meal replacement (around 7:30pm) and the time I went to bed I drank a little over 1.5l (54oz) of water. The result? I peed three times between coming into the house and going to sleep, and I got up from sleep another four times. Will I never learn?

    Despite that, my sleep was much better than the previous night. My sleep score was 79, up from 58. I’ll take it.

    Yesterday afternoon I was asked by a couple of friends to go out to a bar for the evening. I politely declined, telling them that I need to study… and in fact that is what I did. What I did not tell them is that I was on Day 3 of my program and I was not ready to spend a night at a bar surrounded by all of the temptations of food and drink. It is much easier for me to keep my resolve if I stay home alone.

    Today is Day 4, and I am remembering some of what I was going through on Day 4 on my previous attempts. It has now been two days since my last bowel movement, and so I added fibre to my meal replacement this morning. I was very sluggish on Day 1 & 2, but I think that is behind me. I remember that I was very cold from within, owing to the sheer volume of water I was drinking. Wouldn’t it be nice for that to happen while it is this hot? It hasn’t kicked in yet if it is going to… I’ll keep waiting.

    My weight has dropped drastically these last three days but that is not unusual for the first few days of the program. Wouldn’t it be nice to see that trend continue? It is unlikely. Yes, if I stick to the program, then my weight will continue to drop… but not at the tremendous rate it has fallen these three days. As it is, I have already dropped all of the weight that I gained this last month.

    This year has been a dumpster fire for so many reasons. My weight dipped below ‘that horrible mark’ only one day this year – back in January. Since then it has skyrocketed and I do not even want to say how bad it got. Suffice it to say, I want to get back below that horrible mark, and if I can do so by the end of September then I will be a happy man. No, that is not entirely true… I will be a relieved man. I will only be truly happy when I have lost every single pound that I gained back since falling off the wagon two years ago.

    Is it a coincidence that I fell off the wagon when my heart was shattered in November of 2023, and then again when it was shattered in April of 2025? I doubt it. I am the only one to blame, but it does not take a genius to recognize that the actions of others is the root cause of these falls.

    A good friend of mine has been asking for help with his computer for a couple of months, but every time we have scheduled to meet he has been called away for work at the last minute. As of this minute he is supposed to come after work today, and unless there is an incident that necessitates his working overtime then I will see him then. He is one of my friends who has gone through the medically supervised program that I did, so he will understand that no, I will not let him take me out to dinner as a thank-you, but we will be able to sit on the balcony with a cigar to chat and catch up. It will be great to talk with him because he knows what I am going through and if he cannot advise me then he can at least listen with a sympathetic ear.

    Other than the visit from my buddy, my plan is to once again study until I cannot read the words on the page for one more minute. My exam is scheduled for precisely 49.75 hours from this minute as I type, and I am nowhere near confident that I will pass. I will do everything in my power to do so, and if nothing else I will walk into the exam room confident that I have done all that I can to prepare.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1231

    I know I keep saying this but I need to get back on track. What do I need:

    • My work life needs to be on track
    • My eating and weight loss (somewhat of a joke these last few months) needs to get back on track
    • My exercise – nearly nonexistent this last year – needs to get back on track

    I am not even going to address my emotional issues… more on that later.

    My work life, which had been a disaster for months until February, seems to be back on track. January was still not a great month but things picked up a little at the end, and I got through the first two months of the year by the skin of my teeth. March, April, and May were all banner months, and so far I have courses booked for June, July, and August – traditionally very slow months in my industry, so I am relieved that I will have continuous income throughout the summer – and if it is slightly lower than the last few months then that is still far better than nothing.

    My eating and my exercise are probably quite closely tied together, and finding my way back on track with those is also tied to (although not at all related to the cause of) my emotional issues. I know I have to get back on track but I am not sure whether I have the strength right now. There are some days that it is all I can do to get out of bed. At the same time I am extremely upset about my body so I know that I need to get back on track. I have lost so much of the incredible work that I did which took me so long to do. I am hoping that with the warmer weather finally upon us that maybe I will be able to drag myself out of the house for a walk if not a jog quite yet.

    My life is the total shite right now and I have to either get out of my funk or I don’t know what is going to happen. For those of you wondering, yes I know how terrible the grammar of that last sentence is… I just do not have the energy to try to fix it.

    I slept a lot last night, but I did not feel refreshed in the morning. My fitness watch backed that up. Sigh.