The Real Joe Bobsicle

I have lost a significant amount of weight on two occasions in my life. The first time, I was heading into my 30s and I succeeded in keeping the weight off for almost five years. I pretty much followed the principles I had learned from failed attempts at Weight Watchers and I exercised a lot. The second time, I was heading into my 40s, I did it on Keto and it has been six years. I am known to say that the greatest non scale victory of this endeavour has been the knowledge that I'll never gain the weight back. I have a five pound threshold. I don't allow myself to go five pounds below goal weight or five pounds above. To be honest, I could still find another 20 pounds on my frame that I wouldn't miss if it were gone. In my late 40s, I don't like the look of my face without a little flesh on it. I'm 5'4.75" and I wear a size 8 or 10. I could be smaller. I'm happy here. Both times I lost weight, something snapped inside me to instigate it. I plain old go...

And now for something a little different... I've been so excited to write about our life in Lebanon ( https://therealjoebobsicle.home.blog ) that I've almost forgotten to write about my weight loss journey which, by now could rightly be called my "weight maintenance" journey by means of the Keto diet. This is a topic as dear to my heart as my experience as a Canadian expat living in Lebanon. I don't want to neglect writing about it because I think that my story and experiences with Keto living could actually help others. Maybe in a big way.  I'm interested in Keto stories. I've read a lot about people that have lost upwards of 100 pounds or more on Keto. These are impressive accounts. They are not like my story. I lost 27 pounds on Keto. I have kept those pounds off since September 2013. I am a very average person. I'm an average height of 5'4.75" tall. In my adult life, have always been an average size of about 8-14. I have weighed b...

One eye straight ahead, the other on the ground at all times.

These days, if you live in a major city almost anywhere in the world, it may be very hard to honestly say you are homesick. Even in Beirut, I’ve been able to watch the same movies that I would have watched if I were still living at home. I could have kept up my (thrice) daily Starbucks habit in Beirut (I did not. I find Starbucks too expensive here but if I really needed it, I could). Three years in, I can find whatever I need at the supermarket, even erythritol   My favourite sugar alcohol was the last holdout but it's here! I found it at a corner store. I’ve even been able to find stevia collagen drinks at the gas station for $1! The weather is grand, the food is tasty, the Mediterranean Sea is distractingly beautiful. What is there to miss about home? Some who know Lebanon and all its challenges well might be screaming at their screens right now: "24 hour electricity, water and gas! Infrastructure! Garbage pickup! WiFi!" Yes, yes. I hear you and you're all right ...

Hi there! I’m moving from Wordpress over to Blogger because I don’t really know what I’m doing so I’m trying something out ... I’m an expat living in Beirut, Lebanon. So far, I have written about how I fell in love with this city at first sight. Later, my dream came true and we decided to move here. It has been over three years now. Some days the dream feels like a bit of a nightmare but, overall, we have no regrets and we are happy to be here. I have written about the challenge of purchasing a car here. I have confessed feeling a bit tired of Lebanese food. Is it safe to live in Lebanon? You can read about all of this in the link below. Coming up, I’m going to write about how some things about the culture here drive me crazy but that other things make me wish I had been born and raised here by Lebanese parents. I’ll write about what scares me the most about living here and my thoughts on learning the language. It’s Arabic, not "Lebanese", by the way. Is there anything...