Tale of the scale:
Beginning weight (July 14): 230 lbs.
Weight at start of Week #2: 222
Weight at start of Week #3: 218.4
Weight at start of Week #4: 215.3
Weight at start of Week #5: 215.1
Weight at start of Week #6: 211.2
Weight at start of Week #7: 208.1
Weight at start of Week #8 (current week): 204.3
Total weight loss so far: 25.7 lbs.
Twenty-three weeks to go.
Recently I’ve had a number of difficult days on my diet. Alas, as the pounds have melted away, so has the novelty of ingesting only 960 calories a day from “meal replacements.” I still get a blast from seeing the numbers go down when I step on the scale each week — and oh yeah, I also feel so much better than I did over 25 pounds ago! But on a day-to-day level, I frequently have to fight the feeling that I have become kind of a “Josh replacement”: not quite the real thing, and definitely not as tasty.
So going on biking-and-birding expeditions with Sara has become even more important to me than before, when it was merely a great joy. Now it feels almost existential.
When we set off yesterday for the Berkeley Marina, I had high hopes. Sure, the number of shorebirds has been shockingly down from last year at this time — but maybe, on this beautiful, crisp, nearly autumn day, there would be a welcome influx of avian travelers.
And then the first bird we saw was dead.
Its carcass (not much left besides feathers and claws) was on a bird-poo-spattered dock where, last year, several Green Herons used to hang out. (We love Green Herons!) This summer, we’ve sometimes spotted a single Green Heron there — and we fretted that these were its desiccated remains. (Later, back home, when Sara examined her photos, she determined that it was probably an American Crow.)
This was, to put it mildly, a dispiriting way to begin our birding adventure.
“We need some good karma,” Sara said.
I nodded.
We had a pleasant interlude by the Albany Bulb, encountering a Great Egret that was wiggling its long neck in a cool, weird way.
But then one of the next birds we saw was dying.
I didn’t even notice it at first, as my attention was on a nearby Mallard. But then Sara pointed it out: it was sitting on a rock at the edge of the water — a juvenile Common Murre (the first of that species we’d ever seen). It was moving its head slightly, but that’s it: clearly, it was in dire shape.
Feeling like we were bringing bad karma everywhere we went, we biked further north, hoping for some uplift down the road.
At Meeker Slough in Richmond, we got off our bikes for a bit. Sara had seen a whole bunch of Willets that she wanted to photograph.
Meanwhile, it was time for one of my six daily meal replacements; I’ve learned to keep some with me wherever I go. So I took out a Fudge Graham Bar. (Yes, calling it a “liquid diet” is something of a misnomer: Though you can just drink the shakes, there are also bars and soups available.) Now, when I started this diet — lo, those many weeks ago — one of the first “products” I tried was a Fudge Graham Bar, and it nearly made me gag with its dry awfulness. I said some things at the time about the Fudge Graham Bar that can’t easily be unsaid. But as one of my fellow dieters later told me, the key is to wash it down with plenty of water. In fact, she said, the genius of the Fudge Graham Bar is that it makes you drink lots of fluid, which is important to do on this diet.
Yesterday, I was nearly at the end of this tiny bar (washing it down with plenty of water) when the last bit accidentally dropped from the wrapper onto the path. And dear reader, I hope you won’t think horribly of me when I admit to you that I picked it up off the path and ate it. Because I was hungry! Very, very hungry! I’m hungry all the time!! So in the heat of the moment, missing out on even one molecule of a horrible-tasting protein bar seemed unbearable.
As I munched on that tiny last piece of Fudge Graham Bar (along with some schmutz from the path that had gotten attached to it), I was feeling somewhat icky about myself.
And that’s when a guy walked up to me and said, “Hey, can I borrow your field glasses?”
Right away I had mixed feelings about this fellow. His use of the term “field glasses” for my binoculars struck me as pleasantly archaic (I just looked this up, and they are actually two different things). But he seemed on edge, possibly unstable. There was an eerie wildness to his manner. He had three dogs with him — but they didn’t worry me: they seemed kind of old and sad, not aggressive. In the man himself, though, I sensed the possibility of aggression, and that did worry me. So I said, “I’m sorry, no.”
Instantly, he became very angry. He yelled at me, “What? You’re on a bike! Do you think I’d try running away with them?”
I was keeping my eye on Sara, a few yards farther up the path, who had gotten back on her bike and was monitoring the situation with concern. I got on my own bike and started riding away from the guy.
Now he was screaming his head off at me. There was something about some very expensive … wind sail, maybe? … that he maybe owned and was somehow very far away and he needed my binoculars to see if it was still there? Or something?
I kept riding.
“You fucking asshole!” he shouted after me. “You are what’s wrong with the world!”
Point taken.
When I caught up with Sara, she said, “We really need some good karma now!!”
And just then, in a stream right next to the path, a mama Mallard swam by — followed by a row of her oh-so-fluffy ducklings.
Buoyed by this delightful turn of events, Sara and I continued biking north towards the Richmond Marina. I was hoping we’d see George, a Great Blue Heron who pretty much always hangs out at the same place. And yay, he was there!
Things had truly turned around!
All that was missing was a sighting of some of our beloved Brown Pelicans — and … yep! Soon we spotted a few of those, too.
It was late, and the sun was going down. Sara and I biked back towards home.
I reflected, happily, that throughout this day’s ride my body had presumably been burning some more of the subcutaneous fat that my digital-scale app finds so abhorrent. And soon it would be time for my Strawberry Shake (naturally and artificially flavored).
I’d made it through most of another dieting day! Only umpteen more to go.
25.7 lbs?!! Bravo Josh!!!
Reminds me of the old Jewish joke: The food there is inedible...and the portions so small.