Month: July 2018

It’s Been One Of Those Days

On By Michel McDonaldIn Exercise, gymLeave a comment
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Have you ever just had one of those days where nothing goes right? It’s been like that for me today lol. I laugh because what else am I going to do? You can’t help but laugh.

So this is how things happened one after the other.

Planet Fitness membership card: As we were getting ready to leave, I went to look at my keys to make sure I had my Planet Fitness membership card and it wasn’t there. YIKES! How was I supposed to check in? I had to install the app. No big deal, but I would like to know where those cards went.

Planet Fitness gym bag: As you can see from the images at the top, I had a little mishap with my gym bag. I bought this gym bag when I first started going to Planet Fitness I believe in 2015. It has been used a lot, but this shouldn’t have happened at all. I went to reach into the pocket to see if that Planet Fitness membership card was in there, and that’s when it ripped all the way across. I had no idea that the material they use is like paper. It’s like those cheap reusable bags they sell at the grocery store. So now I need a new gym bag.

Master combination lock: My life partner drove me to Planet Fitness today. I checked in and headed straight to the locker room and just then I realized that I hadn’t used my combination lock since last October. It’s been about 10 months since I’ve used this combination lock, and I’ve been using another combination lock for my bicycle in the back yard. I forgot the combination for my locker lock. I closed the lock so I could try to remember how to unlock it, and I actually unlocked it, but then I thought I better try this again just to make absolutely sure it was the right combination, and I couldn’t open it again. I’m lucky I didn’t lock all my stuff in the locker without knowing the combination.

So I called my life partner and he didn’t answer his phone, I called the house, but there was no answer there either because he went to Barnes & Noble and he left his cell phone in the car. UGH! I sat there for about 15 minutes trying to open my lock. I called him again and he eventually answered and I told him that I took an extra combination lock out of my gym bag because I never needed it and so I took it out, and now I actually need it lol. So he was kind enough to go home, get it and bring it to me.

There’s only 1 more thing lol.

Screenshot_2018-07-31-14-02-03-1Logging my exercise: I have a Fitbit, and that usually recognizes what exercise you are doing based on your movement or if you are actually moving. It can usually tell if you are walking a long distance, or if you are walking on a treadmill. It can tell if you are using an elliptical or if you are riding a outdoor bicycle. It logged my treadmill as walking for 13 minutes and riding a outdoor bicycle for 14 minutes. I was walking on the treadmill for 35 minutes, but 14+13=27 so I’m a bit confused at how Fitbit logs exercise. I also used the Noom app to track my progress in real time, but it thought I was walking at 12mph when I was actually walking at only 3.5mph and it thought I had burned 1200 calories when actually the treadmill said it was something like 220 calories.

After all this stuff I was just done lol. I’m sure all this stuff seems trivial to most people, but it was just one thing after the next.

So from now on I will continue to wear my Fitbit, but I’m going to push the button when I start walking and instead relying on Noom for my exercise, I’m going to use Planet Fitness’ app to log the exercise by taking a picture of the display. You can do that and it automatically adds all the information to your account. The Planet Fitness app gets the data from the Fitbit app, but I don’t know if I want to trust the Fitbit app lol.

I’m done complaining lol.

New Diet

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, NoomLeave a comment

2018-07-29I have had major issues with my diet. I live with my life partner of 24 years. We are both overweight, although me more than him, but it’s been a struggle for me ever since I quit smoking in 1996. When I try to go on a diet, suddenly my life partner wants sweets or fast food, and he won’t accept anything else and he insists I eat the same thing as him. When he’s on a diet, I just want to eat whatever the heck I want because I’ve usually been working hard to eat healthy and I just want to be bad and eat food that actually tastes good. We are never on the same page at the same time.

My life partner (by the way, I have to keep saying “my life partner” because he does not want his name in my blog) called NutriSystem recently because he’s been very concerned with my weight. He wants me to lose weight, but he doesn’t realize that HE is the one who sabotages my diet every time he sees me making actual progress. So we had a little chat about my diet.

I told him look, I want to lose weight. I NEED to lose weight, but I can’t because every time I go on a diet, he decides now is the time that he wants to go to the buffet, or fast food or he has to have ice cream because it’s hot. He can’t expect me to lose weight if he keeps putting junk in my face. So I said the only way this is going to work is if he backs off and let’s me do my own thing. I told him if YOU want to go to Taco Bell, or McDonald’s, go for it, but don’t ask me if I want any junk. If I’m trying to lose weight, I will eat weight watchers and I will go to the gym and I will work my ass off to lose weight, but all it takes is one sabotage to turn it all around and all that hard work is out the window. I don’t want to waste any of my time or energy, if he’s just going to sabotage me every day. He agreed that he would leave me alone.

So… today we were at Albertson’s and I noticed they had the Weight Watchers Smart Ones on sale for $1.77 each if you buy 5, so we bought 10 meals. I get my check on Friday, so I have just enough food to last me from Tuesday until Friday. I bought 4 breakfast meals, 3 lunches and 3 dinners. I figure I will start on Tuesday, then Friday I’ll have a breakfast, then we can go to Target to buy more. I can only fit 40 of these meals in the freezer.

So on Tuesday morning I will install the Noom app on my phone and I will take all my measurements and weigh myself and I may even take a picture of myself just so I have a before picture, not shirtless lol. Then I will start going to Planet Fitness every day.

I lost 70lbs with Weight Watchers and the Noom app in 2013, so I really hope this works again because I hate being fat.

Christmas in July

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

Trim the Tree Stocking Counted Cross Stitch Kit
In 2010 I made some Christmas stockings for my life partner’s grand nephew’s Andrew, Jordan and Noah. Andrew and Jordan got the embroidered stockings and Noah got the felt stocking because he was a baby at the time and it was a baby stocking in my opinion.

These were all stocking kits that were given to me when a friend passed away. She was a hoarder who had TONS of craft supplies that she never used and held onto for decades. Those stocking kits (link above) were from the 1970’s and I’ve seen them recently on eBay for as high as $250 each. Not the felt one, but the embroidery stockings. I wanted to make Noah a more adult stocking in the same style, but I can’t seem to find any that I can afford, so I bought a counted cross stitch pattern instead.

I would much prefer to make the embroidered stocking like the one Andrew and Jordan have, because they are easy to make, but I will have to work with what I can afford in this case. So I sent my life partner an email with a link to a website called The Stitchery with the stockings in the search box, and he picked the one in the image at the top of this post. I think it’s a nice stocking for a child, but it doesn’t quite match the other 2 stockings, not that it has to match, but they are a family, and they should have stockings that sort of are in the same family of stockings. But, the stocking Noah has now isn’t in the same family as the embroidered stockings for Jordan and Andrew, so I guess it doesn’t matter anyway.

This stocking project will keep my brain busy and I won’t have any time to obsess over every little thing happening in the news that I see on Facebook, which is good because I’m close to having a nervous breakdown. Crafting calms my brain, and my heart, and I have high blood pressure so this will do the trick to keep me alive to see another day lol. Crafting has always been something that I’ve used to calm myself down. Everyone has their own coping mechanisms, this is mine lol.