Mr. Baggy Pants

Last night Sandra and I went through our closet — or rather Sandra went through the closet — and picked out stuff that I haven't worn in ages because it was either worn out or too big, or both. There were old jeans, hoodies, and track pants.

A couple of the pairs of jeans were really old. Size 42" waist old. I haven't been that size in 6 or 7 years. I kept them because I would wear track pants underneath them to go snow shoeing.

I decided to try them on for fun and I got Kyle to take a couple of photos.

It's hard to believe that I was once this size. Of course, having my arms in the waist make them appear much larger than they are.

When I started my recent weight loss, my jeans were a size 38" waist. They still are, but my new jeans fit me differently than the old 38s. Having said that, I may be able to wear a 36" soon.

It's strange how some things work

My recent plateau was frustrating and I had pretty much accepted that I may not get past it. I'm was actually pretty happy with the progress I made and my weight doesn't really bother me now.

This morning I weighed myself and saw that I had pushed past it, despite not being too careful about what I ate this week.

The scale read 221.6 lbs.

This means that I have now lost 45.4 lbs in total, again making it the lowest weight that I can recall in over 30 years.

I'm pretty sure my dental issue that forced me to eat less for a couple of days played a part in it. I've read that sometimes your body needs a bit of a "shock" to get past a plateau. Rather than limiting yourself to a set amount of calories per day, vary it once in a while. Exceed your calorie limit for a day or two, and then eat less than the limit for a day or two so that the average works out to what your limit is. That could very well be what happened.

Either way, I'm pleased with it.

I feel lazy

I went for my longest cycle ride this year on Saturday; a ~78 km ride from home to Meech Lake and back. It wasn't exactly what I expected. I expected mostly uphill to Meech Lake, and downhill back. It was probably more uphill to Pink Lake, then mostly downhill to Meech Lake. Then the reverse coming back. I ran out of water just as I left Meech Lake, which wasn't good. I got to one of the Visitor's Centres near the entrance to Gatineau Park and they had a water fountain, with a tap on the side to fill water bottles. The water was nice and cold too. I must have drank 3 bottles before filling the two that I brought with me for the ride home.

Now that I've ridden to Meech Lake, I'm kinda left with a "what now?" feeling.

There was no riding on Sunday, which I didn't mind too much. Instead, we went to the Rideau Provincial Park to hang out at the beach and fish with friends for the afternoon. Sandra said she missed not going for a bike ride.

I had broken a tooth on Friday afternoon and on Sunday it decided to get worse, so I wasn't able to ride my bike to work on Monday or Tuesday because I needed the truck on Monday in case I could get a dental appointment (which I wasn't able to) and then again on Tuesday because that's when I got the appointment.

Not riding for 3 days really makes me feel lazy.

I'm planning on riding to work again starting tomorrow. It's going to be a hot one for the rest of this week too.

As a side note, I've been keeping track of my cycling since May 1st. I may have missed one or two rides, but by my calculations, I've ridden 1175.05 kms in total.

WTF? No progress?

It would appear that I slipped, again, and didn't post an update on my fitness progress last weekend.

It's not intentional. I think I'm just too distracted with other stuff, like cycling mostly.

Maybe there's no point in posting a weekly progress anymore?  My weight loss has more or less come to a halt, despite my continued attempts and workouts. I still monitor my calorie intake, and it's mostly well under what it should be after deducting my workouts. I still weigh myself often and log my weight weekly.

I am extremely happy with my weight right now and plan to at least keep it where I'm at, which is somewhere between 225 and 229 lbs right now.

I'm going to continue to try and reach my goal of 200 lbs, but these final 25-30 lbs don't seem to want to come off without a fight. I have a feeling it's going to be a very slow process.

So, no more weekly updates. If I do happen to make some progress one week, I'll no doubt post something.

As mentioned, cycling is taking up a lot of my time. I cycle to work often. I cycle on the weekends often. I've even managed to get my wife to cycle with me on the weekend. We've been down to the By Ward Market to buy veggies and fruits on two Sundays in a row so far. The pace is slower than I usually ride, but it's still a lot of fun.

I challenged myself on Saturday. After my wife and I rode out to Petrie Island, I still wanted to continue to ride. So, I decided to see if I could make it to Pink Lake in Gatineau Park.

I made it, but not without some difficulty. The difficulty was following the marked trail, which ended up taking me deep into the woods around Pink Lake on unpaved and extremely rough, and weather-worn, paths. I ended up walking about 3 kms because the path was un-ridable on my bike.

Riding down from the lake was a blast. I managed to exceed 55 kph just coasting. Too much fun. :) The total ride was just over 50 kms. If I include the morning ride to Petrie Island, I rode over 80 kms in total on Saturday.

My next goal is to make it Meech Lake. That's about 36 kms, one way.

A nice surprise

When I got home today I had received a letter from the University of Guelph. At first I thought it was some kind of junk mail letter.

I opened it and this is what it said:

 

 

Dear Paterson Family: 

We were truly sorry to learn of the passing of your beloved cat, Samantha. In recognition of your loving relationship with Samantha, Blair Animal Hospital has given a monetary donation to the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) Pet Trust. 

The OVC Pet Trust honours the amazing relationship between pets, their people and veterinary caregivers. This kind gift will support learning and lead to advances in our knowledge to improve the health of our companions. I think you will agree this is a wonderful tribute to your special friend. You can find out more about the OVC Pet Trust at www.pettrust.ca. 

As veterinarians and animal lovers we understand how painful losing a pet can be. We hope that you derive comfort knowing that this gift in memory of Samantha will help us move veterinary medicine forward. Our thoughts are with you at this difficult time. 

Sincerely, 

Dr. Gordon Kirby, DVM, MSc, PhD
Associate Dean, Research and Innovation

The Blair Animal Hospital was Sam's primary vet. When we took Sam to the Alta Vista Animal Hospital, we had to sign forms acknowledging that the Alta Vista Animal Hospital wasn't trying to take us away as clients, etc. and that they had permission to send all of the medical info back to the Blair Animal Hospital.

This really is awesome. Thank-you Blair Animal Hospital.

BMO cares

Last Thurday I discovered that my BMO Mastercard had been compromised.

I was buying gas at Esso using my Esso SpeedPass, which is linked to my Mastercard, and it was refused. I then tried to use my Mastercard and it was refused. I ended up paying cash.

When I arrived home there was a message from BMO Mastercard's Fraud department asking me to call them. I did, and was advised that there was a $1600 and an $1800 charge for The Source and Best Buy that triggered the lock on my card. I was advised to visit a local branch where they would take card of the forms I needed to sign, refuting those charges.

I walked up to a local branch that night, about 30 mins before closing time. Without going into too much detail about that experience, I spent about an hour there because the branches don't normally deal with Mastercard issues. Due to the postal strike it seems that they were put in that position without being notified. The staff at the branch were incredible in helping to resolve the issue with BMO over the phone.

The rep I spoke with on the phone, while at the branch, told me that I would receive my new card via courier in 2 business days. I should have received it on Monday. It is now Wednesday.

I called BMO Mastercard's customer service number. After a brief time on hold I was speaking with a rep who asked for my Mastercard number.

I told her the situation and said I could give my old number if that helped.

She immediately apologized and explained that due to a larger volume of requests for couriered cards, there was a backlog and that it may take an extra time to arrive. She offered to check on the status of mine, so I gave her the old card number.

After confirming some information to ensure that I was who I said I was, she advised me that my card had not yet been shipped. She apologized again and asked if I was travelling and in urgent need for the card. I explained that I have a recurring charge that was upcoming, but I could probably make arrangements to pay it another way if necessary. She thanked me and said if I could do that it would help a lot.

Then without even asking, she told me that my yearly $35 fee would be refunded for the inconvenience and I would also receive AirMiles for the charge I would not be able to apply to the card.

She also noted that I have been a customer for 9 years and thanked me for that.

To be honest, my biggest concern about not yet receiving the card was a fear that it had gotten lost, but I came away from this experience feeling like they actually cared.

Yeh, I could have gone off on a rant about how I shouldn't have been told 2 business days if it wasn't going to be 2 business days, but seriously, why bother? What would that accomplish? They made a decent attempt to compensate me for the inconvenience, and treated me like a person and not a number. I've been on the other end of the phone before, and I know that "shit happens". It was nice to see that the reps at BMO have the power to do little things like this without jumping through hoops.

Kudos to BMO.

Speed bumps (again) — Week 32 progress

I was head out for a weekend of camping on Friday, and obviously that meant being gone for the weekend so I couldn't really post an update.

But I did weight myself on Friday morning... and I was up a few pounds. Not sure why. Well... yeh, I guess I do know why. I tend to indulge a little more when I work out more. In part because I'm not hungry, but I also feel like I somehow deserve a little more because of the extra effort put forth. So basically, I lose out on any of the benefits of the extra work out.

So that's that.

The cycling has definitely increased. If the weather is nice, I ride to work and home again. That's anywhere between 37 and 40 kms per day. Awesome.

I didn't get a chance to ride my new bike until Sunday afternoon, after we returned from a (wet) weekend of camping. It's awesome. I love it. I'm still tweaking the handlebar height and seat height. It feels better all the time. My average speed on the new bike has increase 2-3 kph.

Even though I'm off work this week, I rode it to work to drop something off. Later in the afternoon I took it out again for a ride downtown to the Rideau Canal Locks. I shot this with my GPSr's built-in camera, so the quality kinda sucks.

I also started keeping a log of my cycling. I had to dig back a few weeks on what I entered for fitness @ Livestrong.com. So far, since I started riding in the spring, I've travelled 541.5 kms. :)