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Another good drop this morning putting me .8 lb away from my short lived weight in 2014 (My trip to Maui & too many mai tais, crabcakes & Denny's birds nest breakfast would add 10lb in 3 weeks in spite of my best efforts. This does remind me of articles, theories & posts about your body finding a settling weight & not wanting to budge. In less than a weak I went from feast at the lake to famine at home and have dropped almost 8lb. yeah yeah some of its water weight but shhh...don't spoil it for me! While I have daily intermittent fasted I have not done like a fast for 3, eat for 1 or 2 type pattern & frankly have felt that either the 20 hr daily fast as a weight loss strategy is not going to get me the results I want. Maybe its my body fighting against it, maybe its needing to break the pattern. It's never easy...for me, anyway. I do like the concept of frequently dipping into fasting even though it sounded difficult. 2 days was easy..3 that much tougher. An article a fellow faster sent me claims that the most benefits of autophagy from fasting peak at 2 days of fasting. Which if true, makes the idea of fasting long term for me anyway, just a painful exercise in will power...and maybe a touch of ego?
In any case, if you read my posts day to day, dear follower, you should be asking yourself...what happened to all your talk yesterday about a 5 day fast? Well, I had a reminder that while I may have beaten back my emotional connection to food, I have not beaten it. Like an alcoholic, I'm but 1 drink away from the bottle. Okay, maybe too dramatic, but I think as you read the following you'll get my point.
I went into the first hour of day 4 with good intentions. I really did. Then my Mom had txted me to look up a friend's name in obits on the hometown newspaper. My first thought was his dad's name was the same & he died in 2011. Hoping my Mom had somehow confused one of my best high school friends with his father, I looked. Sadly my friend had passed away..literally one day after I had left the lake to come home. And one day before his 59th birthday. Details were scant, not unusual but the tie to his birthday seems an unlikely coincidence. Which led me to dig deeper and to my horror, I found out that on March 18, 2019 he had been taken into custody for assault and attempted murder, having stabbed a woman multiple times at the gas station he had worked at for years! This was not the Mike I had known for so long, even though we had not talked for 11 years! The last mention of him I could find before the obit, was a bail hearing the day of the assault. Nothing more. In the end, while the method of his death may not really matter on the surface, it is relevant. Why I will explain in a bit.
I met Mike in 1978 under strange circumstances I only recalled again yesterday. And the situation was so out of the norm for me in our little city where I grew up on the West Hill. (If you grew up on the hills, you were one of better off kids...if you grew up on the flats you were from the poor side of town). I had few friends & aside from a couple, mine were all from the flats, the rougher side of town which intersected with a large aboriginal population in complete distress, going through life with little support & little purpose. That population did not come up to "the hills" and Mike...or Buck as we knew him (a derogatory reference now but a nickname he wore with pride) was not a person I would invite to meet my parents, not that they ever said a racist word or acted as such, but...he was like a guilty pleasure..as were my caucasian friends from the flats really. And I was a good boy from the Hills who could live a bit of a bad boy life of too much booze, pot, girls, cigarettes, parties & loud rock & roll safely in their company & in secret from my very straight parents.
I met Buck in the strangest of ways. 2 of my friends were going to a psych center to pick up a friend of theirs who had tried to commit suicide. Thats all I knew of him. Out walks this tall, swarthy, muscular imposing figure. Long black hair, a moustache I could only dream of having at 16. He looked mean & dangerous. And became one of my very best friends quickly. Buck, when you got to know him, was a gentle, thoughtful, quiet giant of a man. We almost got into a few altercations in our last few high school years, and having Buck simply stare someone down was enough to stop a situation dead in its tracks. I lived with him & another friend in a party house for a few years & when I moved 5 hrs away & started to lose my connection with my small circle of friends, I would always pay him a visit when I came back home. In part because I knew he always would be home as he had worked nights at a gas station right out of high school. Buck was always home, always had pot and a fridge full of beer and a deck of cards and he was generous & welcoming. I could visit him after not a word for 3 months & it would be confortable, like I had just seen him the day before. When I moved to Calgary with my new family, full of ambition in 1996, that change of distance from a 5 hr trip to a 9 hr trip home, killed my old friendships. Like my father to this day, I hate talking on the phone. And when I did go home, I spent my time at the lake & with parents, my partner & our kids. The old friendships seemed so juvenile & in the past. I felt I had outgrown the life I knew they still carried on in our small town. Work all week, party on Friday & maybe Saturday nights..usually at Bucks and nurse a hangover on Sundays. Its important to understand that by this time, the muscular Buck had long gone to seed. Too many beers, too many order in pizzas eaten at the gas station overnights and a sedentary sad life to me. It seemed like he simply sat at home, waiting for his friends to come & the next party to happen. I often would think of him, more so than my other 4 or 5 close high school friends because he really was a good guy who self inflicted in some ways, had been dealt some bad cards in life, to me. His older brother is? was a pen guard which if you grew up in my little hometown was the very best job, pay wise anyway. You could be fresh out of high school, little training & make $35 per hour plus in 1977..if you're nose was clean. I often thought Buck wished he could do that too..but I imagine his psych history would have ruled that opportunity out. But he never complained about his existence. Not to me, anyway. He was the one in our group who called me in the early 90s to let me know one of our best friends had died of suicide, it was thought, at about age 30. There was going to be a wake..could I come home for it? So I did & we reminisced about wild times with our departed friend...sitting around Buck's brothers living room in a circle..remembering but also speculating. Had it been a suicide? He had died in a garage, a screwdriver through his heart & that's enough detail on that. But suspicious for sure & in some way, in fitting with the crazy life that friend always seemed to lead..living on the edge.
And that I believe, was the last I spoke with or heard from my old friends until 2009 when my dad called me to say he saw Buck at the gas station. Buck at given my dad his phone number & said to give him a call & catch up. And so I did. I don't recall if we talked about me visiting again. In a way I hope we didn't..because I never saw or spoke with him again.
So today I wonder about his passing..a day before his bday and how & why he died? My hope is that it was coincidence...and a quick heart attack as he packed a lot of pizza & beer onto his stomach over the years..but part of me wonders...was he in jail? Was he about to go to jail? Had he lost his job in March 2019..was that what led to the assault? It really had been his only job for 40+ years...& I could see that making him snap. After all, I had first hand experience with self destruction in 2014 after losing my 33 year career & a hair away from suicide at that time. 3 out of a group of 5 close friends, become suicidal? What are the odds. too bizarre to be true but if you believed in curses, you might think we were cursed.
Anyway, I hope Buck died quickly & under normal circumstances. I really do. As a friend, he really was the best of us, in spite of what he did March 2019. I will remember him as I knew him..gentle, quiet & of good humour always.
Finally, because I believe I'm somewhat OCD and maybe my own way of mourning, I pored through 500+ pages of obituaries in the hometown paper now online. (Hey I'm not the only one. Its the main reason small town papers can & still exist, sadly). I didn't want any more surprises. Sadly I found out my best friend from another circle, a buddy I played D & D with many a Sunday night had died of a "galloping case of stage 4 stomach cancer" as described in his obit, in 2014. Having first hand experience with my ex's mom dying from it, I'm glad it was a quick end for Tom. One of the worst cancers to have. But it looks like he had a good career, made it to retirement & had a good life all in all, was enjoying a lot of golf, even though it ended early.
Speaking of exes. I met my kids mom at a party at Buck's, wouldn't you know it. We only made it 10 years but we had 2 great kids come out of it...so thank you for that, Buck.
Finally, yes I broke my fast yesterday. Started with raising 1 glass of Sangria to Buck's memory & oh what the hell..I'm hungry & a refeed & breaking the fast in the moment just didn't seem like a big deal. But not an out of control refeed thx to having a freezer full of ready made meals. And life goes on. Goodbye, Buck. And goodbye Tom.
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100.2 kg
Lost so far: 27.8 kg.
Still to go: 9.4 kg.
Diet followed: Reasonably Well.
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1094 kcal
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Fat: 64.55g | Prot: 111.73g | Carbs: 7.59g.
Lunch: Keto Mongolian Beef, Lucerne 33% M.F. Whipping Cream, Coffee. more...
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Losing 3.8 kg a Week
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