Tag weight loss

The Wry Eye Christmas Diet Poem

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy

Christmas Day is done & gone
And now I feel so yuck.
I’m fat & stuffed & way past full,
I hope my scale is stuck.

It wasn’t Christmas dinner,
Not turkey, ham, nor duck.
But all that cake & chocolate
That makes me want to chuck.

I didn’t mean to do it,
And I feel like such a schmuck.
For eating with such fervour,
That I weigh more than a truck.

It’s now all done & in the past,
I must regain my pluck.
I need to eat a whole lot less,
To skip that nip & tuck.

It’s time to knuckle down again,
And wade out of this muck.
I just can’t wait for new year’s day,
That trend I need to buck.

Instead, I’m on the wagon now,
With courage & with pluck.
I’ll screw it to the sticking place,
I’ll slapshot with that puck.

It’s here, it’s now, it starts today,
I’m done with all that guck.
If I don’t get it right this time,
My life will surely suck.

You’ll wonder how I got this far,
Without me saying … Luck!
I’ll need that too but saved one more,
Should things still run amuck.

I’m sure that you can guess this word,
And no, it isn’t cluck, nor struck!
And should I need it, I’ll still be…
One very fat Canuck!

©Paul Walsh 2019

Sales, Marketing, Diet, & Civility

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy

This is a different kind of post for me, so please stick with it if you come across an unusual comment along the way. It’ll come clear by the end, I hope.

Montréal Fast Food

Montréal Fast Food

I’m heading home from Montréal last Friday & it’s Montréal in December, so I’m at the airport early in case there are any weather challenges in getting there. My phone needed to be charged & , once at the gate, I sat at one side of those little tables with the power outlets & charging ports at the back. At the other side of the table was another traveller, doing the same thing. While my sales regalia is often chinos & a company-logoed polo shirt, this guy was dressed in a really sharp suit, with a nice tight Windsor-knotted tie. In my defense, I have to climb inside working machinery sometimes. And yes, I can do a nice Windsor knot too! His shoes, unlike mine, were polished to a high shine. How’d he do that with Montréal’s salted & slushy streets? While I love to chat, other than a nod & a quick smile, I tend not to bother other travellers, as many want to be left alone. Having the earphones in is the clue to that!

After a few minutes, he unplugged, & started to chat. OMG, was this a gay guy hitting on me? I was used to a lifetime of women swooning at my feet, wouldn’t it be natural for a gay guy to feel the same way? Turned out he was, shocker this, in sales & marketing. With a focus on social media & the digital universe.

I was immediately engaged & the conversation took off, with both of us fighting for airtime. This guy had a very different outlook to mine. Over the course of my career, I’ve greatly enjoyed the company of the people I have had the pleasure of working with. Sure, I’ve met a few doorknobs along the way but, for the most part, I have enjoyed the company of colleagues, suppliers & customers alike. And I’ve made some really good friends along the way. His response to this was pretty blunt …

“Are you in business to make friends? Or to make money?”

Can’t you do both?

Not according to my fellow flier! His approach is to isolate & attack, hard, his target audience. In part, by denigrating the “others”, other suppliers & other customers. His philosophy is like some maniacal abuse of the Pareto principle … Forget the 80%, they don’t matter. Instead, focus on the 20% with the highest potential return. And milk them dry. Any way you can. For as much as you can.

But what about longer term relationships? And repeat business?

All garbage, according to this philosophy. The immediate kill is where it’s at. There is no long term view. Other than just doing more of the same with new prospects.

This went against everything I believe. I was gobsmacked, time & again, listening to his gospel. But he was relentless. He took a look at my blog on his phone & ridiculed that. Brutally. And, given the weight-loss bias of the blog, he laughed out loud as he rolled his eyes, while nodding towards my waistline, and passing a very sarcastic comment. One I’m too embarrassed to repeat here. Then he told me, guaranteed me, that I’ll do better with my diet after hearing his message. I’ll come back to that point below.

Montréal is a great town to eat in. I often think that spending my early years in Canada, in Montréal, contributed to my circumferential challenges. I had just enjoyed a week of dietary debauchery in this great city. I had had lunches & dinners with suppliers & customers. Though he ripped me apart for my choices of dining companions too. The bottom line was that I knew the scale would echo his condemnation when I got home.

Despite the scars, I held my calm demeanour, even if only on the outside at times. I wondered how it might have gone in my younger, more volatile, years. That gave me pause for an occasional smile, & that seemed to throw him off stride every now & again!

Before leaving, this wasn’t his gate, he gave me some blogging advice. Most of which was far too callous than I think I could ever use. But he did relent & give me a couple of milquetoast (his description!) things to try. They’re in this post, did you spot them? Send me a message & let me know. I’m curious to see if he’s as good as he thinks he is.

Despite it being a great conversation, I still think there is more to be said for just being a little more caring & civil towards each other. Sales is all about taking away a customer’s pain, not inflicting more. I want my customers to come back to me. Again & again.

Oh yes! The rat was right about one thing, my diet is going better since I returned. In fact he was right about two things, he also told me that I wouldn’t have the balls to do the post without explaining it, or putting a warning label on it. I guess my warning label was the opening paragraph. Go figure!

Results … Month #17

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Results Month #17

Down 4.2 lbs for November! Woohoo!

Now this isn’t so much the result of me dedicating myself to a highly focused dietary plan, it just kinda, sorta, maybe happened because I occasionally paid attention to what was passing my lips! I still ate cookies, cakes & candy during the past month, just not with the same degree of carelessness that I had been doing. Believe me, this past month was a big improvement on the three months prior!

What happened this past month is that I started trying to figure things out, again. How did I abandon something that was working reasonably well, while allowing me to eat really well at the same time? I’ve come up with a couple of suspects that might be contributing to the derailment. One is the lack of a gallbladder. I seem to be avoiding the fatty cuts of meat that were once a staple of my weigh loss efforts. I’m just not as in love with bacon & pork belly as I once was. I even trimmed the band of fat from a rib steak one night … what is wrong with me!?! Funny enough, while I’m avoiding all the fatty meat, the lack of a gallbladder is not stopping me heaping heavy cream over some decadent brownie dessert!

OMG … Am I turning vegetarian or something!?!

The other suspect is my routine, or rather the lack of one. I am a creature of habit & I like a good solid routine to help me get things done. I’ve made a few changes to what was a well-developed routine & I’ve had some other changes imposed on my schedule. I haven’t quite adapted to the new arrangement yet & I need to take a look at how to get that new routine bedded in properly. On top of that, I quit smoking about three or four dozen times over recent months. I’m not kidding, I’d quit for a day or two here & there, and then go back to smoking again. Another major routine disruptor. It’s important to disrupt bad patterns in order to lose weight, but I need to replace them with good, repetitive, habituated patterns to make the alternatives stick. Despite how I like to think of myself as this free-spirited & adventurous being, I still need to get stuff done, and routine, habits, & consistency are important for getting things done. Including weight loss!

I’m sorry, I went on a bit there. But that’s all really more a pep talk for myself, as I head into December … drooling about Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, that turkey & ham dinner, bubble & squeak afterwards, turkey sandwiches, chocolates, whipped cream with an infusion of Irish cream liqueur, & on it goes!

I know the January 1st weigh-in is going to be fun! Wish me luck!

And just in case my new routine doesn’t embrace another post between now & January, I’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, may whatever light that lights your way, shine more brightly for you as we close out the old year & look forward to a new one. Peace, love, happiness & all that nice mushy stuff to you & all those you hold dear!

Hit Reset?

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We like to play with our thoughts, don’t we? By way of advice, to ourselves & others, we toss out trite little soundbites like … Hit Reset … Start fresh … Today is the Day! And so on. As though a few words might be the anchoring point for a whole new life. Some gurus tell us to dive headlong into huge endeavours, to explode our way through to a new existence. Perhaps we need to grab the bull by the horns, meet the challenge head-on, or jump in at the deep end. Less audacious leaders might suggest that we tackle things in a more serene fashion. They might recommend moving the mountain one pebble at a time, or beginning that thousand mile journey with a single step.

It’s all a crock! Isn’t it?

But then what do we do? Wallow in our own ineptitude? Feel sorry for ourselves? Learn from the past? Look forward to the future? Sometimes, we are told that we just need to kick our own ass. Or grab ourselves by the scruff of the neck. I’ve been down all those roads before. And here I am … celebrating another period of failure. Maybe I should see that as a “learning phase”? Hah!

I really enjoyed my pre-dawn coffee this morning. It was hot, thickened with heavy cream, & I can still taste the frothy crema on my lip. It was 18°C, with the gusty warm wind giving me a good excuse for sporting bedhead hair on the front porch! Of course I had three cigarettes with my coffee. Each puff a poke at my inability to stay the course on quitting smoking. Another reminder of my ability to excel at failure.

It’s fair to say that, from dietary & health perspectives anyway, I failed miserably over the past three months or so. Does that really matter? Does it really matter if it matters? Or not? So here I sit today, wondering what my next month’s result might be.

Mmmmm!?! I really do wonder what next month’s result will be? I think I’ll grab another coffee & hit the porch to mull that one over some more! Maybe, this time, I’ll come up with a strategy that works.

Fingers crossed! 🙂

By the way … this month’s result is up 16 lbs from when I last “officially” registered a weigh-in, on July 1st. Let me rephrase that … I am up 16 lbs from when I last “officially” registered a weigh-in, on July 1st.

Oops!

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The Things I Sometimes Shouldn’t Do!

Oh boy, where do I begin!

Probably with an apology for being absent for the past couple or so months. I just lost my way & really, I have no idea why. I was working hard, doing what I normally do every day, & behaving normally for the most part. I made half a dozen attempts to quit smoking (all unsuccessful) during those months, something which generally hurts my dietary efforts, but that’s no excuse. Whatever the reasons, I just couldn’t hang in there this past little while.

I lost all interest in losing weight, I didn’t want to see a scale, I wanted to eat bread & cookies, I didn’t want to eat meat & fat, I certainly didn’t want to eat salad & veggies, & on it goes. I didn’t feel good about this state of mind. I was occasionally guilty, dejected, downtrodden & depressed but I couldn’t bring myself to do the right things when it came to eating well. Was it a mental thing? A physical thing? No clue!

I was at sea, without a motor, & couldn’t figure out where the paddles were. I abandoned all pretense of trying to lose weight, I gave up looking at the latest posts on forums, avoided chatting with my weight-loss friends, I stopped hunting down that latest bit of research. I just didn’t want to know.

And, of course, I gave up blogging!

But I’m back. The first post in a while. I hope this is an anchoring point for me to push forward from. And as I do, I’ll share some of the insanity of the past few months. I hope there’s something there I can learn from, as I do my rear-view mirror analysis of what might have happened along the way.

Now I’ve just got that leftover Chinese food to eat today. And that one last slice of cake. And there are those last few soft & chewy double chocolate chip cookies that nobody else likes. And was there an ice-cream sandwich in the freezer!?!

Then I’ll be back! 🙂

PS … I’d like to find the fortitude to jump on the scale come November 1st. I’m not going to like the result but … sometimes … I need a little stick along with all the carrots!