Category: Health

Exercise

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

may 29 walk

I have really been neglecting my exercise throughout this entire diet that I’ve been on using the Noom app on my Android phone.  I have no excuse, but I really do lol.  With my degenerative disc disease in my spine, it’s difficult to walk long distances and I don’t have a bicycle anymore since my last accident which caused me to break my arm.  So the only thing I can really do is walk, which again is hard on my back.

Yesterday I took a vicodin and went out and just walked as far as I could with my Noom swag on.  I was in pain from the minute I left the house until I came home, except the pain was excruciating by the time I came home.  But, what other options do I have?  As you can see from the picture above, I walked 2.21 miles at an average speed of 3.4 miles per hour for 39 minutes and 30 seconds and I burned a total of 263 calories.  It’s not much, but it’s the best I could do.

I hope to get a new bicycle some day, but money is always tight so it’s really difficult to save anything.  I am selling the keychains on Etsy and whatever I get from that will be saved so I can buy a bike.  Of course, I probably won’t sell very many.  I’ve only sold 1 and the profit from that was like $1.87 or something.  So yeah, I don’t expect that to help me buy a new bike.

Until I can buy a new bicycle, all I can do is walk.  It’s free, although I don’t know how free because it does come with a huge cost, and that’s back pain.

I plan on going out again today because I know I should get SOME exercise lol.

2 more pounds to go!

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

61 of 63lbs

You can probably guess that I am a bit excited right now.  According to the Noom app, which is available for both Android and iPhone, my original end date was supposed to be August 10, 2013.  I have lost so much weight over the last 20 weeks that I have actually sped up that estimation so that my end date is now June 1st.  It’s because I was supposed to only lose 2lbs per week, but in the beginning I was losing 3 to 4 pounds per week instead of just 2.

Although, over the last month, I haven’t been losing as fast as I was in the beginning.  I have only been losing 1.5, 2 and 2.5lbs per week.  It’s been slow, but steady and I am thankful that I have been losing instead of yo-yoing up and down.  Even though I am quite disappointed that this week I only lost 1.4lbs, at least I didn’t gain, so that’s something to be proud of I guess lol.  I have to see a silver lining there.

I have also been stressing myself out because I really want to be 200.0 or 199.9 by my birthday June 2nd, so I think that has also been why it’s been slow this month.  Perhaps if I had the “it will happen if it happens” attitude, I’d probably be there by now.  Coulda, shoulda, woulda… Whatever.  At least I only have 2 more pounds to go.

Of course, when I get down to 200.0lbs, I am going to extend my goal to lose 30 more pounds.  It’s great that I am getting down to 200lbs, but I want to keep going.  Now that I know the right formula for losing weight, I can keep going until all the fat is gone and keep with that routine so I can keep the fat off.

So, one more week to go.  See you then…

Those cookies were how many calories?

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

cookies

We all know that cookies aren’t the best things in the world to eat and that we should eat them as a treat and only in moderation, right?  My mother used to give us 2 cookies at night before we went to bed.  We always wanted more, but she insisted that 2 were enough.  Now I know why.

One of the reasons I got so fat was because I didn’t care how many calories were in my cookies.  We would buy 2 bags of Albertson’s cookies when they were on sale for 2 for $5 because that’s a pretty good deal right?  We each had our own bag and we would both finish our respective bags by the end of the day.

In the words of Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman “Big mistake, big, HUGE!”

One single cookie is 130 calories and even though 130 doesn’t sound like a lot, can you imagine eating a whole bag in a single day?  Those calories add up.  I can see eating 2 cookies for 260 calories and that should be the limit, right?  Oh no, we ate THE WHOLE BAG!  That whole bag of 18 cookies at 130 calories per cookie adds up to 2340 calories.  In ONE day!

Using the Noom app, I have learned that to lose weight you must eat a limit of 1400 calories, that is depending on if you are exercising, those days the Noom app lets me eat 1700 – 1800 calories.  But if I’m not exercising because A.) I’m too lazy or B.) my back and my still broken, but healing arm are in pain, then I should really stick to 1400 calories.  That is how I have been so successful that I have lost 50lbs in less than 4 months.

What brought this up is that we bought a bag of cookies yesterday because it was on the reduced (stale) rack for $1.99 and we figured that we haven’t had cookies in a long time so why not, right?  Well, last night I had 2 cookies and even though it was very good, I knew that 2 were my absolute limit.  I looked in the bag today and there are only 3 cookies left.  My partner is also trying to lose weight, but apparently he isn’t counting as many calories as I am lol.  I think that is okay for him because he isn’t really taking it too seriously, but I am very strict with myself, so if he wants those last 3 cookies, he can help himself because I don’t want them.

I have to practice complete self control at all times otherwise I am going to fail.  Without self control, who knows where I would be today.  I might still be 263lbs or who knows, I might be 270 by now.

Cookies are a great treat once in awhile, but I try to stay as far away from them as I can because as far as I’m concerned, they are a diet killer.

Tomorrow is my weigh in day so I am hoping for some good results.  Until then…

My Noom weight chart from the beginning

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Health, Noom, Weight4 Comments

weight chart

I have been blogging about my weight loss over the last few months, and I have been updating my Noom page every week to show my current progress, but I thought I would share the full weight chart.  I have wanted to create this chart, but it took me a long time to figure out how I was going to do it because I had to take multiple screenshots on my phone and then blend them together layer by layer.  The thought bubbles were overlapping each other, so I had to erase them and put them back in, some upside down, and then manually type in the weight with the date (minus the day of the week for space issues).  I finally did it and here it is.

As you can see, I have not gone up throughout my entire process, it’s all down.  There were some weigh-in’s where I had only gone down maybe 1lb or 1.8lbs, but I didn’t mind that because at least I didn’t go up.

I started out at 263lbs on January 5th 2013 and my last weigh-in shows 212.6lbs in less than 4 months.  That’s 50.4lbs.  My first weigh in was on a Saturday, but the first week the app asked me to weigh in on a Wednesday, then again and for some reason I got confused and started weighing in on Wednesdays.  I decided after a few weeks that I wanted to go back to weighing in on Saturdays at the end of the week instead of the middle, so that’s why there are some oddities in the chart.

They say that bragging about something is going to make it stop, and normally I would agree, but I just can’t help it because I am so proud of myself.  I know it won’t stop because I am going to continue to work as hard as I have been to get this weight off of me.

I just have 12.6lbs to go to meet my goal of 200lbs, and then I will extend this goal so that I go down to 170lbs.  Once I reach that goal, I will continue this hard work to maintain my weight.  I would hate to work this hard to lose all that weight just to end up  back where I was by going back to my old eating habits.

This is a lifestyle change which I will continue because I don’t want to end up as fat as I was, or fatter.  For me it’s a health issue because I had sleep apnea and type-2 diabetes.  I say had because I am no longer at risk for diabetes and I am hoping that the weight loss will reverse or end my sleep apnea.  I’ll admit that I haven’t been wearing my bipap mask the whole night every night like I should, but the reason is because some nights I have trouble falling asleep with it on, so I will take it off after an hour.  I can usually go 2 days without it before I start waking up with acid reflux and then a few more days before I gasp for air, but I haven’t been going through that.  I think that I might be in the safe zone where I probably don’t have sleep apnea anymore, or it’s going away, but I’m not a doctor so I can’t say that for sure.  I will probably need to get a new sleep study to find out.

The responsible adult in me should warn that if you have sleep apnea, DO NOT go a single night without your mask, even if you can’t fall asleep.  Sleep apnea could cause death from heart attack or a stroke and is a serious matter, so make sure you wear your mask.

I remain positive because that is the only way to be successful.  I couldn’t be more happy with my progress and I look forward to my next weigh in on Saturday.

My 50lb Weight Loss – Before and After Pictures

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Health, Noom, Pictures, WeightLeave a comment

weight loss before and after 50lbs

So yesterday was what I consider to be a milestone.  I weighed in at 212.6lbs which brings my weight loss total down to 50.4lbs lost since January 5th 2013.  So yeah, I feel like bragging lol.

Last night we went to a local event where a woman named Erin Davies is driving cross-country to show her documentary called FagBug and talk about her experiences with vandalism and homophobia and to raise awareness on the subject with her car called the “fagbug.”  When I heard she was coming, I knew I had to go because I wanted to see the car and have my picture taken with it.  And since it would be the first picture of me with 50lbs weight loss, I thought it would work as a great sort of after picture, even though I’m not finished with my journey.

Anyway, so let me give you a rundown of the images you see above.  Top left was from Christmas 2004.  I am actually not positive what my weight was back then, but I’m pretty sure it was 230 give or take.

The second picture on the top is a picture that was taken at Hearst Castle in Colorado in 2005.  It is also the picture that I used as my author picture since it was the best picture I have ever taken.  I hate taking my picture as a fat guy, but love pictures when I’m skinny so perhaps I will be taking a lot more photos when I am finally down in weight.

The bottom left picture was taken last year in May at a PFLAG meeting with Robin Tyler.  I had no idea until after the picture was taken that my stomach was actually that big.  I was beyond mortified, but kept it because I didn’t want to delete the only picture of me with Robin Tyler.  I mean, she’s Robin Tyler!

The bottom right picture is my before picture.  That is the one I took at the IHOP that we went to on New Years Day just before I made the decision to go on this weight loss journey.

Finally, the picture on the right is how I look today.  You can certainly see the difference in my neck and my face.  You probably can’t tell with the black shirt, but believe me, it’s thinner than all those before pictures.  My stomach (waist) was 50” and now it is down to 43”.  So yeah, it’s thinner.  Also my thighs are really skinny now too.  I didn’t think to measure my thighs at the beginning or every week because the Noom app didn’t ask me to, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have still kept a record.  It doesn’t matter because they are thinner now.  Oh and thank you photographer (my partner) for taking the picture with me talking instead of smiling lol.  That was sarcasm of course.

My total weight loss since January 5th is 50.4lbs.  My goal is to lose 63lbs, so I only have 12.6lbs to go.  Although, once I meet my goal I will adjust the Noom app so that I will go down to 170 because 63lbs was just a small goal to get me started, my true goal is much higher than a measly 63lbs.  I was afraid that if I set too high of a goal, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.  I think that I have proven to myself that not only can I meet this goal, but I can keep going until all the fat is gone.

Look out world, here I come!  My next picture will be when I have lost 63lbs when I weigh 200lbs or less (if it’s like 199.8 or something).  See you then…

My Eating Disorder

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

overeating disorder

When I was a kid, I had a huge appetite, but I never gained any weight because, well, I was a kid and kids back in the 70’s and 80’s were more active than they are now.  As a kid, I was always riding my bicycle, roller skating or doing who knows what.  As a pre-teen and a teenager I was busy working with my step-father in the apartment building painting vacant apartments or doing whatever it was that he made me do, so I was constantly burning calories.

I was actually very fit throughout my entire childhood and through my teen years and even through most of my twenties.  I was also a smoker from age 15 to 26, and that’s when it all went downhill for me.  As soon as I quit smoking it was like my taste buds were brand new and everything tasted awesome.  My partner hates it when I say this, but everything new was like having an orgasm in my mouth lol.  I kid you not.

When I quit smoking in 1996, it only took maybe 2 months before I went from 150lbs to 200lbs, it was that quick. The reason was that I was eating sunflower seeds from the minute I woke up until the minute I went to bed.  I was told to keep that hand to mouth going to keep me from wanting a cigarette, but nobody told me how fattening and salty sunflower seeds were.  It wasn’t just that, I also discovered something I rarely ate throughout my life except for those certain special occasions.  Twinkies, ice cream, cake and doughnuts.

You know when you are so proud of yourself for accomplishing something that you want to reward yourself?  Yeah, don’t do that.  I was so proud of myself for quitting that I was literally eating Twinkies and ice cream everyday.  EVERY DAY!  We had a Winchell’s down the street from us and we were constantly going there and buying a dozen and splitting the box and we both would just sit there eating doughnut after doughnut until the box was empty.  Not good!

We would go to McDonald’s and buy one of their birthday cakes and we would literally eat the whole cake by ourselves.  Holy crap!  It was good though.  We didn’t really have a grocery store near us, and the little markets didn’t sell cakes so that was the only place for us to buy cake.  Plus it was really cheap so that’s why we bought it there.

We went to Sizzler in Hollywood and we discovered that they had an all-you-can-eat salad bar.  We took advantage of that because it wasn’t too expensive and we would keep going back until we were full, which you know you shouldn’t do, but you do it because you feel you want to get your moneys worth.  Then one time we went and decided not to get the salad bar, but to get some actual food, so I got Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken.  That was the very first time I had ever had that.  My mother never made it when I was growing up and I never even heard of it before that day.  OH MY GOD!

As the years went on I was getting fatter and fatter.  We discovered Hometown Buffet and Golden Corral.  We couldn’t leave the place unless we were both so full that we literally couldn’t swallow another drop or eat another bite of whatever.

My hunger went off the charts at home.  I would eat a big breakfast and within an hour I was hungry again, so I would eat something.  I would have lunch and the same thing would happen again, I would get hungry, but this wasn’t just a hunger, this was a demand from my stomach.  My stomach would literally hurt, that’s how hungry I would get.  My stomach would grumble and I would feel pain and my hands would start trembling like I was a drug addict and I needed a fix.

I couldn’t just eat a sandwich for lunch, If I did have one, I would still be hungry so I’d make another and I’d probably still be hungry so to have something different I would put 4 hot dogs, yes, you read right, 4 “four” hot dogs in the microwave.  Guess what?  I’d be hungry again an hour later.  My stomach would hurt again and I’d get the shakes.

Whenever we would buy pizza, we always got 2 large pizzas with 2 toppings each, but they had different toppings so we had two choices.  I would usually (to be polite) put one of each on my plate and eat them, but then I’d go to the kitchen and as I was “putting the boxes away” I would eat two more slices, one of each.  In an hour I’d come back to the kitchen and grab one more, then another and another.  We always had enough pizza for lunch the next day, but only because I felt guilty about eating so much so I was saving those last slices lol.

I was going to the grocery store every day to buy our dinner, but I would always leave with an extra goodie that I would eat on the walk home.  Then I started getting greedy and would buy a couple or a few goodies.  I was snarfing a package of Twinkies and a candy bar or two.  I can just imagine what people were thinking as they were passing me while I was holding the grocery bag(s) with one hand, and stuffing my face with the other.

Suddenly I was no longer just 50lbs overweight, I was more than 100lbs overweight and I couldn’t stop my hunger from controlling my life.  I had type-2 diabetes because I was eating so much food and sugar.  I was trying to control my diet by cutting out the sugar, but I was still eating bread and pasta which we all know turns to sugar, so I wasn’t really controlling it like I thought I was.  The hunger, the stomach pains and the shakes were still there, still controlling me.

I want to say it wasn’t my fault because I take medication that has that side effect, but I also had an addiction to food, so I can’t just blame the medication.  When most people think of an eating disorder, they typically think of people who either don’t eat or they eat and then puke it all up, but they are unusually thin.  I have the opposite.  Sorry, I had…  I have to correct myself because that was the old me and I am not that person anymore.

I will be 43 in less than 2 months and I am just now learning how to eat properly.  I mean, I’ve always known, but I ignored it because I wanted to eat poorly because I was selfish and stubborn and stupid.  I didn’t care until I noticed how bad it was getting and how horrible the pain was.  I now know what I have to do to live a healthy lifestyle and I am never going back to that unhealthy place again.

Thanks to the Noom app on my cell phone for helping me to learn what is right to eat and what is wrong, I now can eat healthy food so I can avoid the mistakes I made before.

Since January 5th, 2013 I have lost 50.4lbs officially as of today, April 20th, 2013.  I couldn’t be more happy with my progress.  I feel so much better about myself and I am no longer starving all the time.  I can’t tell you how good it feels to be able to eat a normal portion of food and be satisfied with it.  I don’t live to eat anymore, now I eat to live.

I have set the Noom app to lose 63lbs and according to the estimated end date, I will be finished by June 3rd 2013, but that date changes weekly.  It is so close I can feel it.  I know I will reach this goal and then I can continue to lose more weight.  I don’t want to be fat and unhealthy anymore.  I quit smoking and I don’t drink or do drugs so I don’t have any actual addictions, and now I have kicked my eating addiction so I am officially addiction free.  Well, I am still addicted to Facebook, but I mean come on, who isn’t?  Right?

So… until next week. 🙂

Vaping and Weight Loss

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, E-Cigarette, Food, Health, Noom, Products I Like, Recipes, Vaping8 Comments

ecigarettes and eliquid

I am constantly getting messages from people who have read my posts about vaping and weight loss asking me if it works, and not all stick around in the chat for me to respond properly.  Let me just say that it is not going to help you lose weight.  I have said many times in my posts that vaping is not a replacement for diet and exercise.  If you want to replace the sweet tooth with vaping that’s one thing, but unless you are eating a balanced diet, eating fruits and vegetables and watching your portions and exercising, you are not going to lose weight.

When I started vaping, it was with the understanding that it might help me lose weight, but I discovered that it didn’t do a damn thing.  The only thing it did was get me to stop snacking on candy and junk food, but I was still going to the buffets and still eating bad carbs and all that other bad stuff that you know you shouldn’t eat.  Vaping only replaced one thing for me, but it didn’t help me lose 1 ounce of fat.

From January 5th to today April 15th 2013, I have lost nearly 50lbs.  Want to know how?  Sure you do, that’s why you are here.  I downloaded the Noom app from the Google Play store for my Android phone.  I have been scanning food which are mostly all green items.  Here is a typical day for me.

  • Breakfast at 8 a.m.: Exactly 1 cup of Cheerios with Silk Soy Milk (not measured, I pour it until the cereal rises then I stop).
  • Morning Snack at 10 a.m.: Fruit, like a banana or an apple.
  • Lunch at 12 p.m.: A Weight Watchers Smart Ones meal or Lean Cuisine.
  • Afternoon Snack at 3 p.m.: Either fruit, steamed vegetables or Wheat Thins.
  • Dinner at 6 p.m.: A Weight Watcher  Smart Ones Meal or Lean Cuisine.
  • Evening Snack (Optional): Either Fruit, steamed vegetables, Wheat Thins or Jello.

I’d like to note that I buy the Weight Watchers Smart Ones at Food Maxx for $1.88 and I also get coupons for $3 off when you buy 10, so that is a very good deal for me since it is way more expensive at Albertson’s.  I only buy the Lean Cuisine when they are on sale for the same price which isn’t too often, but I like to have the variety when they are on sale.  Some people may have an issue with them, but they are good and they are real food despite some people saying they aren’t.  They are made with healthy ingredients.  You should give them a try, they might surprise you.

That’s basically my day and that is 1400 calories or less depending on what I decide to eat for my snacks.  I drink coffee in the morning until the pot is empty and then I drink Crystal Light the rest of the day.  I should say you should drink water, but we all know that water sucks.  I should be telling you to cut up a lemon or an orange and soak it in your water pitcher, but come on, Crystal Light tastes so much better lol.  Plus it’s like 50 cents a pitcher, or if you buy the generic version, half that per pitcher.

So that is how I lost nearly 50lbs in 3 1/2 months.  Not everyone agrees with my method, but it works for me.  I haven’t had 1 week where I didn’t lose weight.  Most every week I lose 3 to 4 pounds, but this week it was 1.8lbs.  Why?  I honestly don’t know, but I know that my next weigh in will make up for it.  I probably shouldn’t jinx myself by saying I have lost weight every week, but it’s true.  I normally plateau after the first month, but I’ve kept up the routine and it’s working so I’m going to continue to do that until I am at my goal weight.

I am still vaping from time to time to get the sweet taste in my mouth, but I really don’t need it as much as I did when I was still eating junk food.  I feel as though I have kicked the sweet tooth.  I have all the sweet flavors I need with the fruits and the crystal light.  I don’t even bake fruit cookies anymore to satisfy my sweet tooth because it’s practically gone.

To anyone who doesn’t smoke who thinks that vaping might help them lose weight I will just save you the time and money now by saying it does not.  If you want to lose weight, download the Noom app on your Android phone if you have one, iPhone coming soon.  If you don’t have an Android or iPhone, well what are you waiting for?  Get with the times, sheesh!

The most important thing I can tell you that if you want to lose weight you need to stop going to the buffet and the fast food restaurants and start eating healthy for goodness sake.  That’s your problem right there.  Even if you don’t go to the buffets or to the fast food places, if you are overeating the food you cook at home and not eating a balanced portion then that’s why you are overweight.  You have to look at the label on everything you make and eat the exact portion you are supposed to eat.  Like if you buy a box of Macaroni and Cheese, you can’t eat the whole box, that’s too many calories.  That’s like half of your day right there.  You have to be mindful of how many calories you are putting into your body because that’s why you can’t lose weight.

Also, no more ICE CREAM!  You know you don’t stop at half a cup, admit it.  You put 3-4 scoops in your bowl.  That’s too many calories and that was my big issue.  I have discovered that you can eat ice cream as long as it is made with natural healthy ingredients.  Like this Banana Ice Cream recipe.  It’s just a frozen banana pureed in a food processor with a tiny splash of milk, that’s it.  It’s frozen like soft serve so it tricks your brain into thinking you are eating actual ice cream, but it’s just a banana.  You can do that with any fruit you like.  I tried it with a cantaloupe and it was delicious.

I haven’t mentioned exercise yet.  Guess what?  I haven’t been exercising.  I know I should and I don’t mean to make excuses but I have to.  I have a spinal disease called Degenerative Disc Disease which is very extremely painful.  I can walk for maybe 5 minutes before the pain starts and after 20 it’s debilitating.  I can ride my bike, but guess what?  I started to ride my bike a month ago when the weather started to warm up and I broke my arm.  A broken arm means I can’t ride my bike.  So I have no more options until my arm is healed.  I’m not saying you should eat healthy and not exercise and lose nearly 50lbs in 3 1/2 months, but that worked for me.  I do plan on getting back on my bike when this heals in the next couple or few weeks, so I’m not trying to be lazy, I’m just in a lot of pain and you can’t ride a bike with one arm in a sling lol.

So anyway, I hope I’ve made my point about vaping and weight loss not being a good way to lose weight.  I do recommend that if you are a current smoker and you want to quit smoking cigarettes and start vaping that you should because it is way healthier for you than cigarettes are.  You can quit smoking if you switch to vaping because you can step down on your nicotine.  When you order your e-liquids from Zeus E-Juice (which I highly recommend) you can order as much or as little nicotine as you want with your e-juice for your eGo e-cigarette.  You get a lot of sweet flavors (my favorite is Banana Nut Bread) and you aren’t inhaling or exhaling smoke, it’s water vapor, so you aren’t harming yourself, spouse, children, friends, co-workers or pets.  It’s perfectly safe for everyone if you switch to vaping.

Good luck on your weight loss and I hope my suggestion helped you.

My Week 14 Disappointment

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

noom week 15

I know I probably sound a bit too critical of myself with this, but I can’t help but feel that I messed up, big time.

We went to the doctor earlier this week, I believe it was on Wednesday.  I weighed myself at home before we left and I was 213lbs.  That was a huge shocker because my weigh in last Saturday was 217lbs.  We went to the doctor’s office and I was 216 and that is to be expected since I weigh myself at home with just a shirt and my underwear, while at the doctor’s office I’m (obviously) wearing my shorts and a pair of shoes.  My shoes alone seem to add 2lbs.

We were bragging all over the place how I had lost 48lbs (because my starting weight at the doctor’s office was 264, but my starting weight in the Noom app is 263.) and now I can’t say that it’s 48lbs anymore because of how little weight I lost this week.  I was hoping for 213 again or at the very least 214, but there is nothing I can do now but do better this week.

I honestly don’t know what it was.  I haven’t been eating any differently, so I can’t explain it.  Perhaps I had 1 too many servings of wheat thins?  Maybe I haven’t been eating enough vegetables, which I can agree I haven’t.  Perhaps I need to start eating more steamed vegetables for snacks again like I used to because that helped me get to where I am today.

Oh well.  I don’t want to be negative because if I’m negative then I will sabotage myself.  Positive thinking is the only way to go in this situation.  “I will do better next time” (chanting over and over).

Until next week…  I hope to be at least 212 by then to make up for this setback.

Are your goals unrealistic?

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

goal-weight-loss

I have been told in the past when discussing my true weight loss goal that I would love to be the same size I was way back when I was still skinny before I gained all of this weight.  Peoples responses have always been the same.  “And people in hell want ice water.” “You are never going to be the way you were.” or my favorite is “That’s just unrealistic.”  Is it unrealistic?  Because I don’t think it is.

Saying something is unrealistic is negative thinking, and we all know that it’s all a state of mind.  Negative thinking will give you negative results and positive thinking will give you positive results.  If you think you can do something, then it is possible.

When I decide to do something, I do it.  Like take my weight loss journey for example.  I have already lost (officially as of last Saturday) 46lbs, how did I do that?  I decided I was going to eat healthy and not snack on junk food.  I have been very faithful to my diet (not diet as in the dieting term, but diet as in the food I eat diet).  I told myself that I was going to eat healthy and so I am eating healthy.

I used to be 150lbs, so me saying that I want to be 150lbs again is unrealistic, and I only say that because I have packed on at least 20-30lbs of muscle in the gym, but 170-180 is not unrealistic.  I will have the thin stomach again and that is my goal.

When I was 12 years old, I wore a size 30/30 jeans, and when I was 26 years old I was still wearing the same size jeans, and then I quit smoking and the size of my jeans changed.  The last pair of jeans I bought were a 40/30.  That is a shocking number from 30 to 40.  But that wasn’t the size of my stomach, that was just the size of my hips.  My stomach was actually 50 inches.  My stomach is now 44 inches and I expect that it will go back down to 30.  I don’t think that is unrealistic.

Positive thinking brings positive results, so don’t let anyone sabotage you with negative thinking by telling you that you can’t do something.  You can do whatever you set your mind to.  We all can be the way we were if we work hard enough to get back there.

If I can lose 46lbs in 14 weeks, then I am positive that I can be a size 30 again, I just have to keep doing what I am doing and I will be back to the way I was.  I ignore negative thinking because I got to where I am by doing it my way, and I will be the one laughing when I am at my goal weight/size.

I have told people what I eat and what I drink and everyone has something negative to say. Like the weight watchers meals aren’t good for you, but in actuality they are.  They are low in calorie, they are made with healthy ingredients and they are filling.  I was told not to use creamer in my coffee because it’s too fattening and someone even told me that I will never lose weight as long as I use creamer in my coffee.  Um… 46lbs in 14 weeks.  I beg to differ.

I’ve been told not to drink Crystal Light or put artificial sweetener in my coffee because the sweetener is bad for you because it can make you eat more.  Well, I have been using sweetener since I was a teenager because I can’t stand sugar filled drinks.  Like I hate Coke and Pepsi, so I will drink Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi instead.  Those have artificial sweeteners which is what makes them have 0 calories.  I think I have built an immunity to whatever bad effects artificial sweeteners have because I am still alive after more than 25 years of using them.  One of the Noom articles said, and people in the Noom forums have said that artificial sweeteners will make you eat more, but I have not experienced that side effect, and I think it’s because I have built up an immunity to that.

I usually ignore negative thinking because I want to stay positive, but that doesn’t mean I have forgotten the negative comments.  I just keep saying “46lbs in 14 weeks…”  The numbers don’t lie.  I have been eating the same way and drinking the same way since January and have lost weight, so I’m just going to keep doing it my way.

Before I tell you the next story, I have to mention that I went to the doctor’s office today and according to their scale I have lost 48lbs…

I got a free lunch bag from Lean Cuisine and it was too feminine for me, so I gave it to our tenants who are a mother and her 2 daughters.  Well, the mother told me that she noticed that I had lost a lot of weight and I said yeah, I’ve lost 48lbs and she had this worried look on her face, like she thought I was dying lol.  I said oh no it was on purpose and I laughed.  I told her what I was doing to lose the weight and then I explained that I had type-2 diabetes and sleep apnea as a result of my weight and that my doctor has been begging me for years to lose the weight.  That was a relief to her.

Isn’t it funny how some people see things?  Don’t judge a book by its cover.  Just because someone looks thinner, doesn’t mean something negative, it could mean they are trying to live a healthier lifestyle, which is what I am doing.

Until my next ranting…

Two thirds of the way there…

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

noom 219

I am sure people are probably tired of hearing me talk about my weight loss by now, but deal with it lol.  I was excited when I lost 28 pounds when I was only 8 weeks in. I am now on week 13 and have lost 43 pounds. It’s just really exciting for me that I am finally losing weight.

Normally I wouldn’t want to blog or brag about something like this because I’m afraid that if I do, I will sabotage myself. That has happened to me in the past. But I am more confident in myself this time around.

In 2004, I lost 40 pounds and I was so excited that I lost that much weight that I was constantly talking about it and focusing on it. The result of that was that I ended up going into a plateau and I couldn’t lose any more weight. I don’t know what happened or why but it discouraged me and instead of losing more weight or even just maintaining my weight, I ended up giving up and I gained more weight. My weight was 172 then.  I was so close to my goal and now I think why did I do that to myself?  I could have gotten down to my goal weight and been done with it, but I am sure I still would have gone back to my bad eating habits and gained the weight back anyway.

That is not going to happen to me again. I think that if I lost weight and then plateau, even if it lasts for 2 months, I will continue to eat healthy because I think about food differently now and eventually the weight will come off again.  But I don’t want to think about that because I want to think about this as positively as I can. If I start thinking negatively, then negative things are going to happen. It’s like Murphy’s Law, if something can go wrong, it will.

I started in January at 264lbs, but when I started using the Noom app, I was 263lbs. I am now 219lbs and this is April. I only have 19 more pounds to go to reach my goal of 200lbs and I have a feeling that I will reach that goal without any problems before June.

The Noom app says that I will be at 200lbs the first week of June, but I have a feeling that it will be the last week of May when I am at my goal weight. If that is true, then that would be an awesome birthday present for me because my birthday is on June 2nd. The image above says August 10th, but that date never changes because that was the original estimation if I lost 2lbs per week from January 5th.  The weight graph now says June 7th. It keeps changing every week when I weigh in.

For my birthday I would like to have a slice or 2 of cake, or even at least a cupcake. I know that that’s probably not the best idea, but we had cupcakes on Valentines Day and I didn’t gain any weight. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.  You can eat junk food like that if you want to, as long as you eat it in moderation and don’t go overboard and make it a daily habit.

After my birthday, I will continue trying to lose weight until all the fat is gone and I am at my true goal weight. Of course I don’t know what that goal weight is yet because I have built up so many muscles and we all know that muscle weighs more than fat. Before I gained all the weight I was 150lbs so I’m guessing that with all the muscle weight, I should be at 170lbs, but I don’t know that for sure.

Anyway, I have faith in myself that I will get down to my goal weight and I will be a healthy and happy person. Although that is not to say that I’m not healthy and happy now, because I am, but I know that I will be healthier and happier when I am at my goal weight.

So until then…

Just to note what I have noticed about my weight loss.  My shirts were starting to get tight on me somewhere around February of 2012, so we went to Sears and bought some new ones.  The new ones had pockets on the fronts, so I knew which ones would fit me.  Over the year, they started getting tighter and tighter.  By the end of 2012, they were almost skin-tight and we were preparing to buy new ones for me to wear.  My waist was 49 or 50 inches in January and now it is 44 inches in April. Those shirts are now way too big for me, although I still wear them.  I noticed today that the neck on the shirt I am wearing is so stretched out that it almost looks like a V-neck shirt.  They were tight around my neck before.

My neck has gotten so thin that I can actually see a neck lol.  I haven’t had a proper neck in years.  I was starting to think that I never had one at all.

My pants were always loose around my hips, but they fit around my waist if I hiked them up.  Of course even if I did hike them up to my waist, they would fall down, so I always had to wear suspenders.  Now they don’t even fit my waist because they are way too big.  Now if I wear my fat pants, I end up looking like a circus clown.

One month ago I started wearing shorts because the weather started heating up.  I tried on every pair of shorts we had and they were all too tight.  Although some were too loose.  I found one pair that was tight, but it fit, now those shorts are loose on me.  I’m glad they have a drawstring so that I can make them tight so they don’t fall down.  All my underwear still fit because the elastic band is still good, although they no longer curl down in the front because of my fat stomach.

I will be excited to see how I look in another month.

cartoon mike 19lbs to go