Exercise

On May 30, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Exercise, Health, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

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 May 25, 2013 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…

My Weight Loss Journey Collage

On May 14, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

Pictures are a great motivational tool when losing weight. You want to take a before picture for obvious reasons, but you also want to take many pictures throughout your journey so you can compare your current picture with your before picture. If you have something to compare how you look now versus how you looked before, then you have your motivation to keep losing weight so you can see how thin you will be in the future compared to how you are now.

These are the pictures that I have taken on my journey.

The top left is obviously my before picture. I say it was taken on January 1st 2013, but I think it was the day before. It doesn’t really matter though. I weighed 264lbs in that picture. We were at a Denny’s restaurant having breakfast.
The bottom right is the picture that I took halfway through when I had lost 28lbs. I had gotten a white Noom t-shirt and I wanted to show it off.
The top right I took because I wanted to get a picture of how my dog Flower was laying on me. I was pleasantly surprised at how skinny my face was getting.
The top middle is the picture I took when I realized that I had lost so much weight that I was finally able to wear that dress shirt buttoned all the way to the top.
Then finally the bottom left picture is my most recent picture with my Noom swag. I weighed 206lbs in that picture.

It’s important to me that I see my before and after pictures to remind me how skinny I am actually getting because sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and can’t see anything different and I get discouraged. When I look at the pictures and see how skinny I am actually getting, it gives me hope and helps me to keep going. It’s funny how the mirror really effects how we see ourselves compared to how a picture shows us how we really look. I know that a reflection is the same exact thing as a picture, but it’s different, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s the same thing, only different LOL.

Anyway, I am very pleased with my progress of losing 57lbs and I will keep eating healthy so I can continue losing this fat until it is finally all gone.

Bell No-Mor Flats

On May 13, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Bike1 Comment

I am starting this blog post over from scratch…

Okay, so I have wanted to buy this for such a long time and I finally bought it at Wal-Mart, my favorite store (that was sarcasm). They were the only ones who sold them for $20. I was going to get it on Amazon because of how much I hate going in Wal-Mart, but Amazon wanted $30 plus shipping. Screw that! So I bit the bullet and we went to Wal-Mart.

I didn’t try to install it right away because I was still nursing a broken arm. My arm was all healed up, but it still hurt. I think I waited a week or week and a half before finally attempting it and it was not easy at all. I tried soapy water, but that didn’t work because I didn’t drench it with soapy water. I tried 2 other methods which one didn’t work and the other did, but the tube wasn’t in all the way like it should, and it popped the tire out on both sides. I had a hell of a time getting the tire back in and scratched the hell out of the rim and even punctured the tire bead where it is supposed to fit into the rim. Big mistake. Now if I want to switch to a regular tube I won’t be able to because the tire has metal wires in it that are sticking out, so that will definitely put holes in the tube. I was thinking about returning the No-Mor flats, but naturally I crumbled up and tossed the receipt that same day and that was weeks ago, so it’s long gone.

I did what I should have done the first time and that was Googling for videos on how to install it. I didn’t find any videos, but I did find an “Instructable” where the guy was saying how easy it is and gave detailed instructions on how to do it. My arms were (and still are) too sore to attempt it again, so I put the tube back in it’s box and put the tire and rim in the patio for a few days. I just attempted it again by soaking the heck out of both the tire and the tube and I am still having trouble getting it in. It’s just not working for me. If this was as easy as that guy claims, then perhaps he needs to come install it for me lol.

Well, I have had this bike since 2004 and I think I am ready for a new one. I’ve sunk so much money into this bicycle and it’s just a real pain in my ass. It’s… get ready for this… a Wal-Mart bicycle. Yes, I bought it at Wal-Mart way back when I didn’t know how homophobic they were. So, I think what I will do is keep the tube and perhaps sell it on ebay or my Etsy page for $15 and call it slightly used, since I basically didn’t really use it, I just tried installing it and it didn’t work, but it’s REALLY clean with all the soapy water I put on it lol.

My birthday is coming up, so I think I want to get a cruiser at Target. I know, you get what you pay for, yada yada yada… But Target is a good store and the bicycles are Huffy, and that is a brand I have been familiar with since I was a kid. I have more faith in Huffy than I do with the bike I have now. The cruisers are $104 to $139 which isn’t too bad. Of course I don’t have that much money to spend on well, anything actually, so I will have to set aside half of the money in June and pay for the rest in July. It will be a late birthday present.

Whoever heard of someone buying their own present? Screw that, I’m gonna ask for it and see who gets it for me LOL.

If anyone ever asked me if it’s worth it to buy the Bell No-Mor Flats tube, I would simply say NO! But if you must have one, buy mine LOL.

Noom Swag

On May 11, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

I got a very cool package in the mail today filled with Noom swag. It had 2 black shirts with the Noom logo on the back, a water bottle, a backpack that’s most likely a gym bag that you could wear as a backpack, a note pad, a pair of sunglasses, some lip balm and a cute cauliflower lol.

They wrote me a very cool letter and everyone signed it. That was the first thing that I saw when I opened the box and I was very touched that everyone signed it, someone even drew out my full weight chart lol. I thought that was cute.

It’s inspiring things like this that really keep me going. I really love the shirts, I had a white one and now I have 2 black ones, so that’s pretty awesome. Plus I really love the sunglasses. I had a pair of sunglasses for the bike, but they broke because of the way I took them off, it was a pair of sports sunglasses that had a strange attachment that was glued on the arm and it snapped off.

The water bottle is awesome. I’ve always wanted to buy one of those because they have them everywhere, but they are so expensive, so now I have one with the Noom logo on it.

Oh and by the way, today was weigh in day and I am down to 206lbs. I am 90.48% finished with my goal to lose 63lbs. I began my weight loss journey with Noom on January 5th and it is now May 11th and I can’t believe that I have lost 57lbs already. This is just the most amazing journey I have ever been on. I still look at my before picture and think “how did I ever get that fat, and how can I be so different now?” It truly is amazing, and all I did was eat better and eat less food. According to the estimated end date, I have until June 1st to get down to 200. That is the day before my birthday so that will definitely be a birthday I will never forget.

So thank you Noom for giving me such a wonderful present and for being so inspiring to me throughout this journey. I really appreciate all of your support. And a special thank you to Stacy and Marit who have both talked to me through my own website. Marit sent me the first shirt and Stacy sent me the swag bag. Thank you both. And thank you to the entire staff of Noom for signing the letter. OMG you guys are so awesome. You are making me cry. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys rock!

If you are considering losing weight, please download the Noom app from the Google Play App Store. You will not regret it! I owe all my weight loss success to Noom.

I can finally fit into my old clothes!

On May 2, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, WeightLeave a comment

I have lost quite a few pounds since January 5th when I started using the Noom app on my Android phone. The difference is absolutely amazing to me.

I haven’t been able to wear this outfit in such a long time. Actually, I forgot I even had it. It’s a blue shirt that I got 2 years ago, I forgot what I needed it for, but I needed a dress shirt. The neck was tight, so I wasn’t able to wear a tie, but I didn’t need to. I also wore it last year to the grand opening of the Bakersfield Gay & Lesbian Center, but it didn’t really fit me as well as I had hoped. The neck definitely didn’t button, but it was so tight that the button below the neck button was making it too tight, so I had to loosen that one too.

I’ve had the pants since 2004 when we went to my partners mother’s funeral. They are adjustable with elastic so that if I gained or lost weight, I’d still be able to wear them, but I haven’t been able to wear them for a very long time because I was too big. Today they expanded all the way out so they just fit me. I can’t wait for the day when they don’t need to expand to adjust itself.

The tie is a clip on tie because, well, that’s how I roll bitches LOL. I actually don’t mind tying a tie, but why when you can clip it on? I’m not a real estate agent or the CEO of a company, so why the hell should I tie a tie?

Of course I don’t have any dress shoes so if I were to wear this outfit I’d be stuck with my black tennis shoes, which are really old and need to be burned lol. I will focus on new shoes when I am at a point where I’m needing to go on a shopping spree for a new wardrobe. When I do get some new clothes, it’s going to be all dress clothes with collars. I am so tired of always wearing t-shirts and jeans or shorts. I’d like to start dressing with some style. I’m an adult, not a child, so I’d like to start dressing like an adult.

Take a look at these before pictures of me on my Noom page and see the huge difference from then and now. I’m not done with my weight loss, I still have a long way to go.

I’m not a one trick pony after all

On May 2, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

I have been playing around with my lanyard (or gimp) material a lot over the last week. I thought there were only 2 styles, the square and the round. Well, a friend told me on Facebook to try the triangle pattern which uses 3 colors. I never even knew it was possible to use not just 3 colors, but only 3 strands. She sent me to “Laneyards” on YouTube and I’ve been watching a lot of his videos and have discovered so many different patterns that I never even knew existed until now.

So I put all of the images on my crafts page in the Lanyard Keychains section. I made some keychains with the Mega Lace, I made a pretzel, I made a long wall stitch with the Mega Lace, there are some imperfections in it because I had to add more of the clear gimp because I didn’t have enough, but it doesn’t matter because it was just for practice. Then today I just added the ones you see in this post. The one on the bottom is the brick stitch in a circular pattern and the one above that is the wall stitch in a circular pattern. Of course they were just practice. They are small because I used scrap gimp to make them. I’m out of all of my gimp now so if I want to make more, I’ll have to take a trip to Michael’s, which I will do tomorrow.

I never knew I had it in me. I really think these are so cool. Of course, I don’t know what I’m going to do with any of them lol. My next trick will be a rainbow wall in a circular pattern. I honestly don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but I’m going to try it anyway.

I am also going to make many awareness ribbons for many causes that I support. There are too many to list, and most likely I will have a keychain of only cause ribbons that I won’t be able to keep on my keychain, because if I did, they’d never fit in my pocket lol. Of course I can put one on my keychain at a time during that awareness month. Either way, I’m going to be very busy making lots of ribbons with the simple circular stitch, bending it to make a circle, then attaching it to the other side to make it into a ribbon, then continuing with a few more stitches to finish it off.

My hands seem to be doing fine with the stretching and pulling of the gimp. I had to stop crocheting after 20+ years because of my carpal tunnel syndrome, so perhaps if I can make these keychains, I might be able to crochet again. Maybe… we’ll see.

Dieting and Dining Out

On April 29, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

Dieting and dining don’t usually mix too well because let’s face it, restaurant food is fattening and high in calories. Chinese food is especially bad because of all the salt that goes into the sauces they pour over the food.

Last night my partner decided that he wanted to go to Rice Bowl because he was hungry for some Chinese food. It caught me off guard because I was just about to put a Weight Watchers Smart Ones meal in the microwave. He isn’t really trying as hard as I am to lose weight, so to him going out to eat isn’t that big of a deal, but I’m really focused on it and don’t want to do anything to sabotage myself. I did agree and we went.

I looked through their huge menu for something that I thought might be low cal and practically everything they had was bad for you. I usually always get something with chicken, but even their chicken is high in calories because of the sauce and because of how it was cooked, so no matter what I got, it was going to be bad. I did get steamed rice and Beef Broccoli.

I had my phone with me with the Noom app loaded so that I would be able to find out how many calories everything had and to see whether it was red or yellow (let’s face it, nothing is going to be green lol). I did find that the steamed rice and the beef broccoli were both yellow so I knew they were okay.

As we were waiting for our food, I saw a waiter bring another table their food. My jaw was nearly on the floor because of how high the food was piled on each plate. I was thinking that it’s no wonder people are so fat. I mean, you don’t need that much food. Your stomach is the size (or should be) of your fist, so you really shouldn’t need any more than that. Peoples stomachs are maybe 4 times the size of their fist from being stretched over time, so they can consume that much food and probably still be hungry.

I was happy that my plate wasn’t as high. I probably only ate a quarter of my food before I started to feel full, and that is how it should be. Thanks to eating smaller portions, my stomach has shrunk so it is indeed now the size of my fist so I can be satisfied with a normal amount of food. I felt uncomfortable just sitting there watching my partner eating, so I nibbled on more of my food just so it didn’t look like I was rushing him. We took the leftovers home and I had half of what was in the box for lunch and I will eat the rest for dinner tonight.

It’s nice to be able to go out once in awhile, but my goodness, that’s a lot of food. I wish they had a diet menu for people who are trying to watch their calories and portions. Not everyone wants to eat 4 times of what they should be eating.

When I was a kid, my mother would guilt me into eating everything that was on my plate, that’s not a good thing to do in this day and age when everyone is so heavy. People need to be responsible for their own health and limit their portions to what their stomach should be able to handle and take the rest home instead of cleaning their plate. You can’t just blame people for being so heavy when the restaurants are serving such big portions. People are responsible for their own actions, but restaurants have to take on some of that responsibility as well.

People are so focused on blaming McDonald’s for obesity when they are forgetting that fast food is just a tiny part of the problem, they should also be focusing on casual dining restaurants as well. A Big Mac and Large Fries are tiny compared to the amount of food that was being consumed in that restaurant last night by each person.

I am just happy to know that I have the sense enough to know my limit now and am taking responsibility for my body instead of doing what other people expect me to do.

Mega Lace Lanyard

On April 29, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Noom2 Comments

I recently blogged about the lanyard keychains that I’ve been making out of boredom, and I also mentioned the thicker lace. I said I didn’t make anything out of the thicker lace because it was too difficult to work with, but yesterday I decided to give it a shot and I actually love working with it more than the regular gimp if you can believe that.

So I have 4 different colors. There are the 3 you see in the image above, the orange with black patterned, the green with spots and the solid black behind it all. The black was already cut up to make a keychain and not wound up. There is a 4th color, but I don’t have a roll of it, instead what you see is what I used in the keychain in the picture above between the 2 rolls.

I couldn’t start with a key ring, but I knew that once I was finished, I could slip a key ring into the bottom. I just started making the keychain the same way I would make it with the regular gimp and it turned out great. I decided to make a green and black one, but I went a bit overboard and made it really long. My partner told me that he didn’t like the orange because he sees it as fluorescent and he hates fluorescent colors, so I gave him the green and black, but it was too long for him.

As we were driving home from the doctor’s office today, it was hanging from his car keys which were in the ignition, and the end of the keychain was tickling his leg lol. I made him a smaller one so it doesn’t do that. I didn’t make it as long as the orange and blue one because I didn’t want to make it too long, but it’s nearly the same length, but short enough that it won’t bother him while he’s driving. I hope…

I really like how they look. They aren’t too thin like the regular lace, or gimp. They actually fit in the palm of my hand and is comfortable enough to hold my keys from the keychain instead of just holding the keys in my hand. Not that it would matter how I hold my keys, but it just feels good holding. I just like how they look in general.

Of course I am using the long green and black, green for Noom. What will I do with the orange and blue one? Well, I guess it will go with the rest of the keychains that I am making for no reason lol.

Making these is really fun and I’m glad that I am finally using something that I bought many years ago instead of letting it collect dust in a drawer. I just wish that I knew how cool the mega lace was when I bought them instead of thinking that they were a waste of money. Better late than never, eh?

Lanyard Keychains

On April 28, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

I got bored so I started making keychains. I honestly don’t know why I started making these again. I think that I just needed to get my mind off of my weight loss and start focusing on something else for a change. I literally have a worry that if I focus too much on my weight loss, I might put too much stress on my mind and my brain will release Cortisol, a chemical which will stop the weight loss and actually make me gain weight. I read about that. I’m edumacated.

I decided that I want to focus my keychains on the color green for the Noom app. Don’t ask me why. I have a lot of the “Gimp” (as I heard it being called today) so I will be busy for quite a while. What do I plan to do with these Noom colored keychains? I’m not sure. I will have to get back to you on that one. This will give me enough practice that I will become a pro at making keychains at least. Look at my supplies…

Can you say hoarder? I bought these in 2004 when I was nostalgic for my childhood when I was in the cub scouts which is where I learned how to make the lanyard keychains. Who knew I would be so nostalgic that I would buy this many?

We went to Michael’s again recently and I went to the aisle that they have these on and they were only .99 cents for the small tubes and the big ones like the black you see here were only $2.99, so they are really cheap and last a long time. I think that when I bought them, they were half the price, but it was so long ago that I really don’t remember.

So as you can see from the ones I’ve already made, I am doing a square and a round one for each color combination. Green and black, green and patriotic (red, white and blue), green and yellow, green and white, green and glow in the dark… etc. I have so many colors that I could literally just keep making green and whatever color until I’ve run out of colors. I’m sure the green won’t last that long, so perhaps if I run out I might just use random colors.

Again, I have no idea what I’m going to do with all of these keychains. I will most likely give them away to anyone who wants them, or I might just ship them off to Noom in New York. I’m sure they would just love that lol. Here you go, have all of the things that I’m hoarding lol.

A long time friend of mine suggested that I learn the triangle pattern and even sent me a YouTube link. I tried it, it didn’t work out. It doesn’t look as fluid as the ones that I know how to make.

Even though I didn’t like the triangle one, learning it did come in handy because one of the patriotic ones (the square one) messed up as I was finishing it off; one of the green strands of gimp broke. Just as I was about to toss it in the trash I thought, “when life brings you lemons, make lemonade,” so I used the triangle method to finish it off. Although it looks horrible, but it’s doable. The green is sticking out so I will have to super glue it.

Some of the gimp that I have are wider than the normal gimp, and I have tried making them into keychains, but they are difficult as heck to make. I have solid black, green with a pattern on it and an orange with a pattern on it. Since the green is almost the same color as the Noom green, I might see if I can make it with the black and the green and orange. I will attempt it, but I can’t promise much. It would be cool to see how it would look though, so I want to try it. I might try it soon.

So that’s my “Gimp” LOL I don’t like calling it that. The box calls it Rexlace. I like to think of it as just lace or plastic lanyard lace. Whatever, gimp is fine. It’s just that when I think of the word Gimp, I think of my photoshopping program lol.

There is a YouTube channel called Laneyards and they have a video for making a hexagon keychain which uses 6 colors. OMG! I thought the triangle was hard, I can’t imagine making one with 6. I actually tried it last night and failed miserably. I would like to learn how to do it though so I can make a rainbow colored keychain. That would be really cool.

You know, I was starting to think that I was doing something that was too juvenile or childish, but seeing that guys videos made me realize that it’s not. I mean, if this guy is making lanyard keychains, and I’m sure many other adults throughout the world are making them, then it’s not so childish after all. Although, the simple ones I make are probably a bit childish since they are the easier ones that children start out learning, but hey, it’s all I know how to do. I will try to get better at it though because I want that rainbow hexagon one now lol.

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