Month: July 2013

One pain replaced with another

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, HealthLeave a comment

I usually joke about how I must be paying for my bad karma from a previous life because I always find myself having the worst pain. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

I’ve been sick for a few days. We went to Dollar General and there was a woman coughing up a storm. I didn’t notice at first when I got in line behind her and then my mind said to get away from her because I’ll end up sick just like her. I backed off but it didn’t do me any good because I was sick the next day. I woke up with a sore throat and gradually throughout the day more symptoms were added to the list. Coughing, stuffed up nose and chest congestion. Then to top it off, my tooth started hurting. It’s a bad tooth that needs a root canal, but I can’t afford $1000 for the procedure since my insurance no longer covers anything but emergency extractions. I can’t afford to lose any more teeth.

We called Walgreens to find out what I can put on the tooth besides anbesol and they said it sounds like I have an infection and need an antibiotic. We have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow so I will get a prescription for an antibiotic.

Fortunately the tooth pain has subsided, but it’s still there. I now have a swollen lymph node which is where the tooth hurts, and that hurts now. So the pain seems to be gone from the tooth just to give me pain in my lymph node. I’ve been taking Vicodin that I still have from when I broke my arm, but that hasn’t done me any good. I took some today and my pain went away, but it seems to be coming back so I wonder if the pain medicine finally decided to work and that’s why I haven’t had pain all day. Since the pain seems to be coming back, I decided to take another one, but I only have a couple of pills left so I hope the antibiotic helps tomorrow, otherwise I’ll have to make a dentist appointment for an emergency extraction. I hate to lose more teeth.

I’ve been resting for the sore throat, coughing, chest congestion and stuffed up nose issues and taking NyQuil and sucking on cough drops and that has helped.

I haven’t been riding my bike because, well, I’m sick lol. So I do look forward to getting back on the bike again.

So we will go to the doctor’s office tomorrow, get medicine and hopefully not be in anymore pain. Hopefully…

A Good Plateau

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, Exercise, Health, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

Noom Logo I’ve complained before about a plateau that I was stuck in when I was 197lbs, but now I’m stuck again, but this time for good reason.  Here are my Noom weigh-in’s for July.

  • July 1 – 195.0
  • July 6 – 193.6
  • July 13 – 193.8
  • July 20 – 193.6
  • July 27 – 193.2

From the July 6 weigh-in to the July 20th weigh-in, I believe the reason for the halt in weight loss is because I’ve been eating the Michelina’s frozen dinners and not the Weight Watchers Smart Ones.  See, I thought that because they had the same amount of calories, fat and sodium that they would basically be the same thing, but I guess not.  We recently bought 40 of those too, so when we are able to burn through those, I will start buying the Weight Watchers again.

The reason we bought all those Michelina’s was because they were on sale for .50 cents each.  You can’t beat those prices, especially when we were broke this month.  I had no idea this was going to cause a plateau or even weight gain.

I think I might have an explanation for my current week’s plateau.  On July 20th, I finally started riding my bicycle again, so it has only been 1 week and I have only been out on the bike maybe 4 times, but I’m assuming that this week the reason I haven’t lost any weight is because I am gaining muscle.  At least that’s what I think is going on.

We have a scale which has a Weight Watchers logo on it and it can tell me my body fat, water, bone and BMI, and this week my body fat percentage went down from I believe it was 30.9 down to 29.6, so even though I am still basically the same weight, my body fat percentage has gone down and I believe it is because of the bike.  So, perhaps I think that I am losing fat, but gaining muscle and we all know that muscle weighs more than fat, so therefore, the scale isn’t very helpful to me in determining my weight, but it is helpful in telling me my body fat percentage and BMI.

However, my waist has gone up by 1/2 an inch.  Last week it was 39.5 inches and this week it is 40 inches.  I mean who really knows for sure what is going on.  All I know is that I am going to continue riding the bicycle and I am going to continue to eat a proper healthy diet despite what the scale says because I know that I am going to lose fat even if I gain muscle.

Gaining muscle is actually a very good thing because men who have a lot of muscle will burn more fat when they sleep, so I need to get plenty of rest, exercise and eat a proper diet and I will be on my way to losing more weight.

I’m not expecting that my weight will go down next week, but I hope it will.  We shall see I guess.  Here are my profile, weight graph and exercise summary for the week.

week_30-1 week_30-2 week_30-4

Eating burned calories

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, Exercise, Food, Health, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

july 21 calories

With Noom, my daily calorie allowance is typically 1400 calories if I don’t do any exercise, but if I do exercise, the amount of calories I’m allowed to eat goes up.  Today I had a very unhealthy breakfast at the hospital.  It was 1 cup of cold and semi petrified scrambled eggs, 1 sausage link, 1  strip of bacon, a very dry, very hard biscuit and a banana muffin.  That was 632 calories.  I didn’t think the breakfast would be that many calories, which is why I decided to eat the muffin.  Of course, those are all estimated calories.

I try to eat right, but I can’t always predict when I’m going to have to go to the hospital and visit the cafeteria.  You would think they would have healthy choices, but they didn’t have them in plain sight.  As soon as you walk in there you see donuts and muffins.  They didn’t have any egg whites which is what I would have normally gotten.  They had hard-boiled eggs, but seriously?  Who eats a hard-boiled egg for breakfast?  I might eat one of those once in a while, but not for breakfast, it’s typically around Easter or the holidays when I’m having it deviled lol.  They did have a salad bar, but I’m not going to have salad for breakfast.

I went on a bike ride yesterday and burned 807 calories, so my allotted calories went up to 1800 and I ended up eating 1715 calories.  I was so hungry that I couldn’t help myself.  I was going to rest today, but I went on a 2 hour, 18 mile bike ride because of that high calorie breakfast.  I haven’t eaten all 1910 calories, but it’s very close and very tempting.

The more energy I use to burn calories, the hungrier I get.  Yesterday was my weigh-in day and I was basically the same weight as I was last week, and today I seem to be the same yet again.  I know I can’t predict what’s going to happen day-to-day, but when I don’t lose weight, I become very discouraged.

Tomorrow I’m not going to go bike riding because I have severe sunburn on both my knees and my forearms and my neck, not to mention that I haven’t ridden my bike in a very long time and I need to rest a day in between until my legs are used to it.  I normally don’t go bike riding as late as I did today, but again, who can predict when they have to go to the hospital.  I wasn’t going there for myself, I was going with my partner to visit a friend of his.

Next time, I am going to get up at 6am and go bike riding before the sun can do any serious damage to my skin and I’m also going to wear some sunscreen because my skin is very sensitive.  I am also going to try to stick to eating my 1400 calories even if I am allowed to have 1910 or so calories, that is if the hunger doesn’t consume me.  Speaking of hunger… I would very much like to eat something right now.  I think I will have a banana.

Cycling again… FINALLY!

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, Cycling, Diet, Exercise, Health, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

noom cycling 2013-07-20_09-51-23

Today was the first time in a very long time that I have been able to ride a bicycle for exercise.  Of course I used the Noom app on my Android cell phone.

This is the map, but the statistics are wrong.  The app froze at a few points and I was not given credit for 3.5 miles.  I mapped it out on Google Maps and the roundtrip ride was 11.8 miles, but I was able to add what I missed manually so I got credit for it.

The reason it froze is not the apps fault, I believe it’s that the music was causing it to freeze.  I wasn’t using the built-in music player, so I think that with the Noom app running and other apps running caused my phone to freeze up.  I also kept getting phone calls from home and I got a notification from Facebook and from eBay and from my emails, so I feel that everything was causing my phone to become slow.  So I don’t blame anyone but my phone itself for that happening.  Whatever the app doesn’t record, I can add in manually so I’m not worried.

It’s been a very long time since I was able to ride my bike.  In January I was 264lbs and I was worried about riding my bike because it says in the manual for the bike that it has a weight limit of 250lbs and at that heavy weight, I was afraid I would break something, so I just didn’t ride it.  I waited until I was 245 to ride it again and every time I tried to ride it, the back tire would go flat.  I lost more weight and bought a Bell No Mor Flats tire from Wal-Mart (it was the only place I could buy it) which was a huge mistake because installing it ruined not just the rim which was practically brand spanking new, but it also ruined the tire.  I tried using a tube and I don’t know if it was the scratches in the rim or the wires sticking out of the tire that popped it, but the tube wouldn’t stay inflated.  I was saving money for a new bike because I couldn’t see myself spending $30 – $35 for a new rim and $20 – $25 for a new tire.  My bike was originally only worth $60.

Fortunately we found a thrift store nearby that had a used rim and a used tire and they sold it to me for… wait for it… give me a drum roll please…  $5.  That’s it.  I saved $50 or $60 and saved myself from having to buy a new bike.  Check it out.

bike 1 july 20 2013 bike 2 july 20 2013

I wore my Black Nashbar Bib Shorts with my black Noom shirt and I put my wallet, my phone and my keys in my Noom backpack and set off with only my Noom water bottle to quench my thirst.  I actually didn’t think I would be riding more than I did, so I didn’t bring my Camelbak.  Next time I go out, I will load my Camelbak in my Noom backpack and put my keys, wallet and phone in the front pocket.  Although, I may put my keys in with the camelbak so they don’t scratch up my phone.

When I came home from my walk I was pleased to see that my Nintendo 64 had sold on eBay for $28 plus $21 shipping, so I took a walk to the post office to pick up a Priority box (if it fits it ships), so naturally I did a walking workout, so my total calories burned today was 736 with that extra 3.5 miles added that the Noom app missed on my bike ride.  I normally get a 1400 calorie allowance for my meals, but with the amount of calories that I burned today, I can eat 1770 calories.  Not that I will eat that many, but I know that if I feel hungry for an extra snack, I won’t feel guilty about it.

Today was also weigh-in day and naturally I didn’t lose any weight this week, which is disappointing, but now that I’m exercising again, perhaps this will kick my weight loss back in gear.  I hope so.

noom cycling bike store 2013-07-20_11-34-43 Oh and one more thing.  The spot that I stopped and rested at on the bike trail just so happened to be near a bicycle shop.  That’s the place where I bought my beach cruiser handlebars many years ago.  The store is called Finish Line.  You can’t see their sign or logo in the map, but that’s what they are called.  There is a seat right there on the bike trail which is where I took a break and that’s where I turned around to come back home.  There is a bridge right there too, so if I ever need to, I can cross the bridge and park my bicycle somewhere and go in and buy whatever it is that I need.  Not that I will need to mind you, because I usually buy all of my cycling supplies from Nashbar or Amazon.  I probably won’t need to go in there, but it’s nice to know they are there in case I do need to.

You have no idea how happy I am to be able to ride my bike again.  I really want to finish losing the rest of this weight, of which there is really only 23lbs.  I feel that if I could lose 70lbs with diet alone, I can certainly lose 23 more pounds easily with diet and exercise.  I’m so psyched!

Why does Target want my social security number to help me save 5%?

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

target logo

So I finally got a new rim and tire for my bicycle so I can start riding my bike again, but I didn’t get a tube, so we went to Target.  The new tubes were only $4.99 each and I bought 2.  At the check stand, the checker asked me if I was saving 5% with them and I said no and she asked me if I wanted to apply, it’s free, so I said eh, why not.  Naturally she had to void everything and start all over.  She asked for my ID and she asked me to tap something on the screen that you pay with a credit card on, then she asked me to type my social security number.  RED FLAG!  No, nope, nuh uh, no way, forget it, not gonna happen Baby Jane Hudson.

Why does Target need my social security number to help me save 5%?  It makes absolutely no sense.  I can see if I were applying for a credit card or if I were applying for a job, but she said it’s a rewards card, not a credit card.

She had to cancel it all out again and start over.  I paid for the 2 tubes and a bottle of soda and we left, grumbling about it all the way to the door and out to the car lol.

I just don’t understand why Target needs my social security number for that.  I had a rewards card with Albertson’s and all they asked me for was my home address, phone number and email address.  No problem.  I don’t mind giving out that information, but when it comes to my social security number I become suspicious.  Where is my tin foil hat?

I love Target, I really do.  I was upset when I couldn’t shop there because they had donated money to an anti-gay politician and was thrilled beyond belief when I could shop there again.  I was thrilled when they started carrying LGBT t-shirts and had a gay wedding registry.  I have always loved Target since I was 16, but this is just going too far.

So no Target, you can’t have my social security number to help me save a measly 5% on my future purchases.  Perhaps someone can explain to me why they need that.  I would love an explanation.

Xanapus.com is NOT for sale

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog5 Comments

xanapus is not for sale

Yesterday morning, July 17th at 7:43 a.m., I got an email from someone in China with the subject “Notice of Internet Intellectual Property” and at first I didn’t know what to make of it.  I thought it was spam that Gmail missed, and I was going to delete it without opening it, but then I thought, I want to know what this says for shits and giggles, so I opened it.  This was the email.

Dear Manager,

(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)

This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from kenpo Ltd on July 15th, 2013. They want to register “xanapus” as their internet keyword and China/Asia (CN/ASIA) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflicts with your company. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not?.

Best Regards,

Abby Wang

I responded with “Yes, I have owned Xanapus.com since 2002.  It is my personal website.  I am not in China, I am in California USA.”  I gave it no other thought, but I didn’t delete the email.

Later, at 6:37 p.m. I got another email from someone else saying this:

Dear Sirs,

We are Kenpo Ltd based in Chinese office, our company has submitted the “xanapus” as CN domain name and Internet Trademark, we are waiting for Ms. abby’s approval. We hope your company will not object our application, because this name is very important for our products in Chinese market. We don’t want your company to use this name in China, we believe our company will become the legal owner of this name in China. Even though Ms. abby advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name and permanent registration of this name.

Best regards

Ye Yun

Kenpo Ltd

It then occurred to me that perhaps I need to find out the value of my website, you know, for shits and giggles.  I found out that I bought xanapus.com in 2004, not 2002, but still.  I found several websites all giving my website a different value.  One said it was only worth $1 while another website said it was worth $16,500 give or take.

Well, the way I see it is that my website domain name is more important to me than it is to them.  They want to use the name for business purposes, but I have the name for personal purposes.  Xanapus is the name of my Gnome Wizard in EverQuest (image above).  I played that character from 2002 until I believe 2009 when I stopped playing EverQuest, but I still play him from time to time and I never stopped using the name Xanapus.  I created a hobbit named Xanapus in Lord of the Rings Online and I have also created a Xanapus in World of Warcraft and in EverQuest 2, 2 Xanapus’ in EQ2 in fact.  The name Xanapus is like my child and I’m not going to give it up or sell out my child for a mere dollar, or even $16,000.  It’s just not happening.

I am Xanapus everywhere on the internet.  Ebay, Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Multiply, MySpace, Hulu… you name it, that’s my handle.  Google Xanapus and see how many results you get, it’s all me.  I am so emotionally attached to the name that if I could, I would change my own name to Xanapus.  No last name, just Xanapus.  Not Mike Xanapus, just Xanapus.  I am that dedicated.

I know I shouldn’t have, but I responded to Ye Yun with “Choose another name.”  I would hate to give up my name for a company who will probably go out of business in a year or less and not be able to get that name back.  It’s just not happening.

This actually happened once before.  A couple or few years ago I got an email from a company, I don’t recall which country, but I got an email asking about taking the name away from me and it sort of became threatening just like this one seems to have gotten (where he says “We don’t want your company to use this name in China, we believe our company will become the legal owner of this name in China.”) but I simply ignored them and I never heard from them again.

I have invested way too much in the name, this blog and in my website to give up Xanapus.com.  I won’t give up without a fight.

Oh and by the way, at the end of that email they said “Even though Ms. abby advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name and permanent registration of this name.”  Well, that was the last I heard from them after I said “Choose another name.”  So much for being persistent lol.

Update July 18th, 2013 at 9:41 p.m.:  Got another email from “Abby”.  Apparently, they are being persistent.  What they want is xanapus.cn, xanapus.asia and xanapus.com.cn.  Since I have the right to the word xanapus, I have bragging rights so if I want to register those 3 domains with them I can, but if not, then their clients have that right, as well as internet keywords.  I’m not sure if this is just a scam to get me to buy those domains, or if there really is a company in China who wants to legitimately use those domains.   You know what?  I am not biting.  If they want to register those domains, fine, but they can’t have xanapus.com.  They can’t have Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace (even though I don’t use it), AIM, Amazon, Ebay, and all those other websites.  They can’t have them because they are mine and I will not be threatened and I will not be scammed into paying China for those 3 domain names.  Here is the latest email.

Dear Michel:
Thanks for email. 

Based on your company having no relationship with them, we have suggested they should choose another name to avoid this conflict but they insist on this name as CN/Asia domain names (.asia/.cn/.com.cn) and internet keyword on the internet. In our opinion, maybe they do the similar business as your company and register it to promote his company.
You must know Domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. Any companies or individuals have rights to register any domain name and internet keyword which are unregistered. Because your company haven’t registered this name as CN/ASIA domains and internet keyword on the internet, anyone can obtain them by registration. As a domain name registrar, we have no right to dispute their application. However, in order  to avoid this conflict, as the owner of the name or trademark, your company will get the priority to make this registration in our audit period. If you think these domain names are useful for your company and want to prevent anybody from using them, please inform us. We can send an application form and the price list to you and help you register these CN/ASIA domain names (.asia/.cn/.com.cn/) and internet keyword within dispute period.

Kind regards.

Abby Wang

Today I looked into trademarking the name Xanapus, but that’s like $250.  FUCK THAT!  If I trademarked it and any company used the name Xanapus, I could sue them, but I can’t afford $250 on the off chance that that will ever happen.  All I can do is just ignore any future attempts at trying to scam me into buying domain names in China lol.  Look, if you want those specific domains, go for it, but you’re not getting my social networks and you’re not getting .com.  It’s just not going to happen.

After doing a little research, I found out that this is a scam.  http://hosealim.com/2442/domain-name-renewal-scam-from-china/.  I just reported both emails to Gmail as phishing which will most likely block them so I won’t get them again, hopefully.

New Hypoallergenic Hooks from Uncommon Artistry on Amazon

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Daily BlogLeave a comment

michaels hooks vs uncommon artistry hooks

I ordered these “Hypoallergenic” Surgical Steel Ball & Coil Earring Hooks (X100) from Amazon on July 3rd, 2013.  When I bought them, I didn’t realize they were coming from China.  If I had known that, I wouldn’t have bought them.  In fact, I tried to cancel my order right away, but they wouldn’t let me.  I was able to click the link to cancel, but the drop down menu for the reason for returning didn’t have any options, so without a reason to choose from, it was impossible to cancel.  My other reason for wanting to cancel was because of the reviews saying these aren’t actually hypoallergenic which I did not read until after I bought them.

So what I did on July 4th was I went to Michael’s and bought some hooks because I was so excited about making earrings and I wanted to buy the hooks because the sooner I could make them, the sooner I could sell them.  But I found out that they weren’t actually hypoallergenic.  I wore a pair for a couple of days to test them out and my right ear lobe started to get infected.  I decided to just keep making earrings and when I finally got some hypoallergenic hooks from Etsy, I took all the Michael’s hooks out and replaced them with hypoallergenic hooks.

The earrings in the image above are the Michael’s earrings on the left and the “hypoallergenic” surgical steel ball & coil earrings from Uncommon Artistry on the right.  When you are looking at the 2 bags next to each other, you can tell there is a huge difference in the colors.  The Michael’s is like a silver, while the Uncommon Artistry is more of a gray or like a blue gray color.  They actually look exactly alike in the image above with the exception of the curvature of the 2 earrings.

I am testing a pair out on my own ears just like I tested the Michael’s earrings because before I write a review on Amazon, I want to make absolutely sure they are hypoallergenic.  If they aren’t then I can say that they aren’t, but if they are then I can say they are.  If they are hypoallergenic then I can use them and say without a shadow of a doubt in my description that they are indeed hypoallergenic.  Otherwise, I have to note that they aren’t and indeed mention that if you have allergies, don’t buy these, buy the hypoallergenic ones.

So I’ve only been wearing them for like a minute and my right ear is already starting to pulse lol.  It’s like I can feel my heartbeat in my ear lobe.  I’m not quite sure if my ear is still recovering from the infection from the Michael’s earrings.  I haven’t worn anything in my ears for weeks, or since that first test that I did.  I started wearing plastic earrings in those holes yesterday.  When I put the plastic earrings in yesterday, both ears were a bit sore and they were hard to put in at first because I think the holes started closing up or perhaps they were closing because of the (for the lack of a better word) infection juices were causing the holes to close.  LOL I didn’t know how else to say that.  Anyway, I had to clean my ears yesterday because the earring was a little red from forcing it through the back.  They are still sore, so if something is going to happen, it’s probably going to happen fast.

For reference, I finished typing this out at 2:25 p.m. on July 17, 2013.  Will update on my findings…

bent hooksQuality:  I have been reading the reviews and more than a few said there were some that were bent and the coil and ball were missing or whatever.  Well, I was curious to see if there were any like that and as I was putting the normal ones back in the bag, I was counting them.  I counted 112 hooks and there were only supposed to be 100.  But, I think that makes up for the fact that 4 earrings were bent, well, 1 of those wasn’t too badly bent, but well, you see in the picture.  And 2 of them were hooked together and as you can see 1 is missing the ball and coil.  I think I can deal with the loss of 4 earrings and I can unhook those 2 good ones and replace the ball and coil from one of the bad ones.  I still come out on top with 108 good hooks, well 2 of which I am wearing for testing that I cannot actually sell, so 106 good hooks lol.

Update 8:39 p.m.: I had to take them out.  I’m in agony right now.  My head feels tight and my jaw is in a lot of pain, more pain on the right, but in pain on both sides.  These are worse than the Michael’s earrings lol.  At least with the Michael’s earrings I was able to wear them for 40 hours, I couldn’t wear these for more than 6 1/2 hours.  Heck, I was ready to take them out after the first minute because the pain started immediately.  I will not be using these earrings, not even for people who don’t have allergies.  These are going in the trash.  At least it was only $2.32.  Next time I will make sure I read the reviews first.

Earrings for Men

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Etsy, Hobby, NoomLeave a comment

checkered 1

I’ve been so focused on making the keychains and keychain style earrings for women that I totally forgot that I actually wanted to make earrings for men so I could make some for myself.  I finally figured out how to make the studs out of the plastic lanyard “gimp” by only making a couple of stitches before gluing them and sticking them to plastic studs.

black and white 3

This is the pair that I made for myself, I made another pair to sell.  When I was a kid, my parents bought me a pair of Vans with the black and white checkered pattern and for some reason I’ve been a fan of the checkered pattern ever since.  I made one in every color, except for orange because when I mix the orange with black, the orange is translucent so it turns brown.  It’s not pretty.  So I have red, yellow, green, blue, purple and white with black.  I made them in all those colors to sell, but I will be making myself one in each color.

gold and silver I also have a pair in silver and a pair in gold.  The silver is a solid silver ribbon with a mirror finish in clear gimp.  The gold is different though in the sense that it looks gold, but it’s sparkly.  When you look at it and tilt it, you see the little color spots seem to change color with the lighting.  I honestly don’t know how else to explain it.  I would have liked to have bought some solid gold like the solid silver with the mirror finish, but they didn’t have any.  They had the same type of silver as the gold, but I wanted solid silver.

These studs aren’t just for the studs, ladies can wear them too, of course.  I also have the Breast Cancer Awareness pink color in solid pink, pink and white and pink and black.  Anyone can wear those actually.  You don’t have to be a woman to wear them, you can be a man who wears them in solidarity, or whatever reason you have for wanting to wear them.

pink 1

I am quite proud of my ability to make these earrings.  I have listed them on Etsy for a mere $3 a pair.  I didn’t want to ask too much for these earrings because I am not a professional, these are just a hobby and the only reason I am selling them is to help pay for a new bicycle so I can start losing more weight with Noom.  Which reminds me, I’m going to make some solid green earrings for myself for when I start riding my future bike.

So to respond to the men who have asked for earrings, here you go.  If you would like a specific color combination, there is a link in every pair of earrings listed for requesting a custom color.  Just tell me know which two colors you would like and I will make them.

I gained weight this week

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, Diet, Food, Noom, Weight1 Comment

week_28-2

Well this sucks.  I actually gained weight this week.  A few weeks ago I hit a plateau at 197lbs, but throughout this whole journey I haven’t once gone up.  This is the first time I’ve actually gained weight.

I’m not worried though because I am confident that my weight will continue going down again next week.  Just the other night I weighed myself and I was 192.8 so this is just a minor setback.

I’ve been feeling a bit off today and yesterday.  I’ve been having dizzy spells and today I was dizzy and my stomach was feeling crappy, so maybe something is happening with my body that is causing me to not lose weight.  The only thing I can think is that perhaps the Michelina’s isn’t agreeing with me.  Who knows, but I am going to be strapped for cash this month so I can’t exactly afford to buy the weight watchers.

Perhaps it’s stress that I am unnecessarily putting on myself because I haven’t had a lot of views or sales on my Etsy shop.  Since I’ve been browsing other peoples shops and their items, things have been picking up for me.  People have been clicking favorite on my keychains and my shop, so perhaps being social will help me get some sales.  I was going to save the money from the keychains and earrings for a new bike so I can exercise, but if I have to use whatever money I get from Etsy for groceries then so be it.  I just put my Nintendo 64 on ebay, so hopefully I can sell that to help me with groceries, who knows if anyone will buy or even bid on it though.

I’m sure things will work out and next week I will have more weight loss.  Who knows, I might be 191 next Saturday.  I’m not going to expect it though, if it happens, then it happens.  If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.  No big deal.  It’s not like I’m trying to lose weight to fit into a particular outfit by a specific date or anything.  I’ve been fat all these years, what’s a little set back going to do?  Nothing.  I have to be patient and know that the weight WILL come off eventually.  I got this far in such a little amount of time, so I’m happy with the progress I’ve already made.  No worries.

Until next week I guess.

week_28-2 Update July 15: A few hours after I posted this, I… how do I say this without sounding crude?  I found out that the reason I hadn’t lost any weight that day was because I had a couple extra pounds inside of me waiting to get out lol.  As Jessica Simpson put it, I had to drop the kids off at the pool.  I can still say that I gained weight because I was 193.6 last week and this week I weighed in at 193.8.  This morning I weighed myself and I was 193.0 so at least I am progressing.  I’m not losing weight as fast as I was in the beginning of my weight loss journey, but I am still losing weight and that is all that matters.