When I quit smoking in 1996, I made a big move to live healthy, but I traded one bad habit with another. Most people are afraid to quit smoking because they think they will gain weight. Well, that is a fair concern because it does happen. Cigarettes are an appetite suppressant, so most people who smoke don’t tend to overeat.

Smoking also inhibits your taste buds, so I’ve heard, and I do know this to be true because when I smoked, food didn’t taste as awesome to me until after I quit smoking, which in itself is the very reason I gained 50lbs in the first 2 or 3 months after I quit smoking. I discovered all these tastes that I had tasted before, but never could appreciate because my taste buds weren’t as sensitive as they were after I quit.

That was a very long time ago, almost 20 years in fact. So what have I been doing over those 19 years? Eating… a lot! I was 150lbs when I quit smoking, and when I reached 200lbs, I vowed I would not go over that because I didn’t want to be fat. Well, it wasn’t easy, and I kept slipping over the line and tried to go on a diet to get back under 200lbs. Occasionally I would go way over and would end up 210+ and would vow not to go over that, but then I found myself 220, then 230, then 240 and so on.

In January 2013 I was 262lbs and very unhappy with how fat my body was and especially how fat my face was and the fact that I was missing a neck. I was not only just overweight, but I had type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and sleep apnea. I was fortunate to lose 70lbs with Noom with diet alone, but by mid 2013, the weight stopped coming off. I eventually got frustrated with my plateau and started eating bad foods again and gradually from around August or September 2013 to today, I have gained 50lbs. Yikes! That’s almost all of the weight that I had worked so hard to lose.

I went to the nutritionist this week and was told that my triglycerides are high and that the reason the doctor gave me Lisinopril is because I have high blood pressure because of the fat. She told me I have to go on a diet again because I need to drop some weight. I have wanted to go back on my diet, in fact I’ve been trying to go back on my diet, but a certain someone won’t let me because he keeps buying me burgers and fries, but with this news, he has agreed to stop doing that to help me rather than enable my food addiction. I am not trying to place the blame on anyone other than myself, because I alone control my eating habits. I can say no to the bad foods, it just so happens that I have an addiction to said bad foods and find it hard to say no.

So here I am 2 years later going on another diet. I have promised the nutritionist a printout of my data from SparkPeople from using The Spark and I will bring my Nook HD+ tablet to the appointment next month so she can see that I’ve been eating healthy and she can see my exercise and steps and the graphs from losing weight.

My diet is already working because I’ve already lost 3lbs since Wednesday when I started. It’s only Saturday, so that is a very small amount of time to have lost 3lbs. I don’t want to lose too much weight too fast, but at the same time I hope it burns off me very fast.

When I bought my bicycle trainer last year, it was to help me lose weight, but I stopped using it because I became lazy, well, I started using it again because I want to succeed in my weight loss. Diets tend to work better when you exercise and eat healthy at the same time. You can’t expect to lose weight if you don’t exercise, or if you exercise and eat crap. Although, I did lose 70lbs in 2013 with diet alone, but I would just prefer to lose weight from both diet and exercise.

The journey begins again, so I will have to take new before and after shots. I already have a great before picture that was taken of me this month with Shane Bitney Crone, so I’ll just take an after picture when I reach my goal weight.

Here are my before and after pictures from 2013. Isn’t it funny how all this works? I was 262lbs in the picture of me with the suspenders, and I was 192lbs in the picture of me at the beach. I can’t believe what a difference that was.

 

Here is a picture that was taken of me earlier this month with Shane Bitney Crone at the Bakersfield PFLAG meeting along with a friend. I don’t think my face looks the same as it did in January 2013, I think it is still around the same as the beach picture, or somewhere near there.

My diet has just begun again, and I’ve only set the Noom app program to help me get back down to 190lbs, but I would hope to drop more than that. In fact, I am hoping to at least go down to 170lbs. The problem for me is that I need to eat healthy, and continue to eat healthy all the time, not just when I’m trying to lose weight. I need to BE healthy all the time because I can’t keep doing this yo-yo diet crap. I need to lose weight and keep the weight off. And this isn’t for vanity, it’s for my health. So wish me luck!

One of my Minecraft Essential Handbooks came today. It’s the one with the pickaxe icon on the front. I read it cover to cover in less than 20 minutes. It was only 79 pages, but it was mostly pictures with words, so it’s far from a novel. But it’s fully color and hardcover and was only $5, so I think it was well worth the price considering it’s normally $8.

Near the end it has a tip for finding your way back to your home when you get lost, and that is to build some beacons. They said to just build up 2 columns of dirt blocks, then place your torch on one column, then dig your way down with the 2nd column of dirt blocks. That makes sense, but you know, I didn’t think 1 torch was going to help me find my way at night, or even during the day. I wanted to build up a huge tower of blocks with 4 torches and 4 pumpkins, since pumpkins are supposed to give off better light than a torch. I spaced them far enough that I could still see other beacons, but just in case I couldn’t see the other beacons, at the bottom of the beacon I created an arrow with cobblestone so I would know which direction I had to go in to find the next beacon or the home beacon.

As you can see in the image above, it’s very difficult to see. All you can really see are the arrows, which is why I zoomed them in for you. This particular beacon is the home beacon which stands just behind my cobblestone house. I made the beacon with cobblestone so that it would match my house, but all the other beacons are made with oak wood planks because I have an abundance of wood thanks to fact that every time I chop down a tree, it drops several oak tree saplings which I plant for more trees so I don’t have to keep chopping down all the trees in the land. I just plant around 50 to 100 near my house, then spend whatever amount of time I need chopping them down whenever I need more wood.

Another tip is to create a road using cobblestone, which basically means I have to mine the dirt as I’m travelling and fill in that space with cobblestone, which as you know can take a long time, especially if you just want to go explore. You can’t really explore if all you are doing is laying road, so the other alternative is just dropping torches every minute so you can find your way back using the torches. Later, once you’ve found the new mine or whatever it is you found, you can just create your new road along the torches, then add the cobblestone.

A cobblestone road, torches to light the patch, beacons and signs are a few of the ways I have gotten myself back to my house when I start getting lost, or think I am getting lost. Today for example I had built the first beacon, but then I found a horse and tamed it and put a saddle on it, then brought it back to my house, but I forgot to make the lead, so when I went into the house to make the lead, the horse was gone. Is it a lead? It’s basically a rope that you can put on your horse to tie it to a fence so they don’t wander off. It works with a dog as a leash. Anyway, I went searching for the horse, and next thing I knew I was lost and couldn’t find my beacon. I eventually did, but one beacon isn’t going to help me, which is why I build 3 more in many different directions from my house. I will have to keep adding more later just in case I get lost again and can’t find my roads or my beacons. I still never found that stupid horse, but I have 2 more saddles and I plan on taming another horse. Maybe some day my tame horse with the saddle will return to me.

The first book that I received today was full of useful information, I can’t wait to get the other 3 tomorrow.

I just love riding my bicycle on the Bakersfield bike trail. I usually start riding in March or April depending on the weather. I don’t like to ride when it is too cold because I get sick easily. When it’s still cool outside I will go out in the mornings when the sun is up because it’s just warm enough and I might get a little tanned in the spring. In the summer, I go out before the sun comes up because it gets too hot and I get a heat stroke out in the middle of nowhere, so I try to avoid that.

A few years ago I bought a few things to help me out on the bike trail. I have 2 skull caps that are supposed to keep my face dry. They soak up all the sweat so it doesn’t drip down my face and onto my glasses. It sucks to have to keep pulling over to wipe my glasses dry. I will wear 1 during the first half of my trip and switch to the dry one when I’m turning around to head back home.

A Camelbak which is like a backpack, but it holds 3 liters of water that I can drink from through a hose that is attached to the shoulder strap. When I need water, I simply grab it and put it in my mouth which only takes my hand off the handlebar for a second. When I’m done, I simply let go with my mouth and the hose drops. When I have to use a bottle, I have to reach down to grab it which can make me lose balance and ride into the sidewalk or a moving car. That hasn’t happened, but I worry it will someday.

I have your typical biking gear like fingerless gloves meant for people with carpal tunnel syndrome. Bib shorts and sports shirts that both wick away the moisture from my sweat. I have my regular walking shoes because they work just fine for me. I recently bought a new pump because I can’t afford to keep buying Co2 cartridges because they are really expensive and they only work once. Finally the most essential accessory, a helmet with a rear view mirror attached.

My bike has been out of commission because the tubes kept deflating every day and I didn’t know why. I pulled the tubes out and checked for holes, but never found any to patch up. I was getting very frustrated that every morning I would get ready to go only to have to put air in the completely deflated tubes. I used a box of 30 Co2 cartridges in a month. I would fill the tires before I left the house, but then I had to fill them again while I was on the bike trail. It really ruins the fun of it when you spend your entire session worrying about the tubes deflating.

I went to Target this week and bought 2 new tubes and a new pump with a gauge on it. I didn’t need the tubes because both tubes filled with air and are still inflated after several days. Now that is frustrating to me.

Well, I am taking care of my partner who just had spinal surgery and he requires 24 hour attention, so exercise will have to wait until he is able to walk to the bathroom on his own. But as soon as he is healed up, I will be ready to go out and get exercise. In the meantime, it is up to me to ride my bike to the store for groceries, so I’m trying to use that as an excuse to ride the bike as much as possible. It will also get my legs used to the exercise so when I do go out on the bike trail, my legs will be able to handle 2 hours of constant riding. So the store runs are good practice. Which reminds me, I need to run to Food Maxx now 😉 .