Tag: chocolate

New Year, Noom Me… Again

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

Noom Logo

What do we always do on January 1st?  We make a new years resolution.  What is the number one resolution?  Say it with me.  To lose weight.  I did just that in 2013 with Noom and I plan on doing it again starting today.

We have already been to Food Maxx to buy our Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinners which is what helped me to lose 70lbs in 2013.  We also have our frozen veggies and fruit in the fruit bowl.  I start physical therapy on January 3rd and I will most likely ride my bike to get there and use the Noom cardio trainer app to log my bike ride and my PT.  I took the Noom app off my phone and put it on my Nook HD+ because I like the bigger screen and because I need the space on my phone.

Like i said, last year I was lucky enough to lose 70lbs and every week I had weight loss, and no gain.  I would love to do the same exact thing this year, but even I know that is nearly impossible.  If you try hard to do something you did before, you won’t do it and you will become frustrated and you will end up doing the opposite, so I’m just going to relax and hope for the best.  If it happens, it happens, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.  But I hope it does lol.

So from right this moment, every breakfast I will measure the exact amount of cereal and pour the exact amount of soy milk and slice exactly 1 banana into it for breakfast.  For my snacks I will stick with fruits and lunch and dinner I will try to stick with veggies and the weight watchers meals.  That is how I did it in 2013.

It’s not difficult to do something if you set your mind to it.  I said that I will NOT eat chocolate or cookies or ice cream, and I kept my word.  Instead of eating those bad things, I substituted them for fruits.  Instead of eating chocolate ice cream, I chopped and froze a banana or cantaloupe and blended them in the food processor and made my own healthier ice cream.  Instead of eating store-bought cookies, I made my own from a recipe that I found.  In fact, here are all of my healthy recipes that I found and altered to make them healthy.

I don’t drink soda or any alcoholic beverages, so that’s a blessing, but I do drink coffee with creamer and no calorie sweetener.  I did okay on the diet last year with the coffee, so that’s not a problem.  I tried to drink water, but I just can’t stand plain old water.  I drink Crystal Light, or well the Food Maxx generic version of it anyway.  It’s 5 calories per 8oz which is not too bad.  Although people are always telling me to cut out the sweeteners and blah blah blah, but again, 70lbs last year speaks for itself.

Anyway, so that’s my plan and I am hoping to drop down to 160lbs this time.  I would like to get down to 150lbs, but I’m just going to try for 160 and see how that goes.  If I find myself wanting to drop another 10lbs then I will.  Once I get to my main goal then I will continue using the Noom app to maintain my weight.  And of course I will start blogging every weigh in day again.  My weigh in days in 2013 were Fridays, so how does Friday sound?  Sounds good to me.  So it’s settled.  This coming Friday will be my first official weigh in and blog post.

Parotidectomy Surgery Complications

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, Pain1 Comment

glands

It has been 3 weeks since I had my surgery and everything seems to be healing well.  My scar isn’t red and it isn’t too noticeable, except for the scar from the hole from where the tube was draining the fluid for 2 weeks which is quite visible, but disappears with a Band-Aid.

My face and ear are still numb, although the feeling is coming back slowly, but it is coming back.  But it still feels very strange.

The only thing that seems to have gone wrong is that I still have a saliva gland that seems to still be producing saliva with nowhere to go.  According to the image, there are three glands.  Parotid, which was removed, Submandibular and Sublingual.  The Sublingual gland is under the tongue, no problem.  The gland that is still producing saliva is my Submandibular gland which is below where the Parotid gland used to be.  It is still producing saliva, but it is not releasing into my mouth.  Instead of releasing into my mouth, it stores the saliva.

This is a really big issue because that is what my Parotid gland was doing.  It wasn’t releasing the saliva, so I was having to push (or milk) it out of the gland and into my mouth.  I have been trying to do that with this gland, but it is not releasing into my mouth, instead, I can feel it releasing under my skin.  I can tell because it tingles.  I don’t want it to release saliva inside of my body, but if it doesn’t get milked, it just gets bigger and bigger and next thing you know I will be rushed to the emergency room because of how painful it is.

The surgeon told me when I came back last week to have the tube removed that it was just some saliva that will be absorbed by my body, but I had no idea it was still producing more saliva.  I only know it is producing more saliva because I could feel it getting bigger and under more pressure when I ate some chocolate the other day.  Sweet and tangy are what seem to generate a lot of saliva for me, which over the years has been a major issue for me because when I start generating a lot of saliva after drinking orange juice, my saliva gland would get backed up and it wouldn’t release the saliva into my mouth.  That’s what I was trying to get surgery for, forget the stone, I want my saliva to be able to release into my mouth as it normally would without me having to milk it.

I can live without orange juice, which I have lived without for years because I know that sour causes this issue.  The one thing I don’t think I can live without is sweet, because I have a sweet tooth.  I love sweet flavors, such as sweet tea, or sweet coffee, or sweet oatmeal.  I can live without chocolate and cookies and so on, but I can’t avoid other sweet flavors because there is almost always something sweet.

My next appointment with the surgeon isn’t until March, but my next appointment with my regular doctor is next month and he will advise me on what to do.  I just hope by then it isn’t too painful.

I was hoping that my last post on this issue was my very last post.  I guess I jinxed myself by saying it was my last post.  This seems to be a pattern with me though.  I say I will never have to worry about something again, but then it comes back and I have to worry about it some more.  It’s a “if it can go wrong, it will” type of thing.  Murphy’s Law.  Why does Murphy seem to always be hiding in the shadows cursing me?  Darn you Murphy!

I will certainly update this issue if it becomes too unbearable and I end up in the ER or when I see my doctor in January, whichever comes first.

My Electronic Cigarette Arrived Today

On By Michel McDonaldIn E-Cigarette1 Comment

Well after 15 days, my eGo-T electronic cigarette finally arrived.  I bought it directly from the wholesaler for $32.75 from a website called DHgate which looks very similar to eBay which is where I got the link from.  The e-cig came from China which is why it took so long to get to me.  By the way, the price keeps changing, so you may not find it for the same price that I bought mine for.  The other day it went up to $38 and now (as of this posting) it has gone down to $36.

I have seen a review of this model and found what a piece of crap it is because you don’t get a strong hit from it at all which I find to be so true.  I taste the flavors, which was the main reason for buying it in the first place, but not as well as I had hoped.  I even shook it the way he does in the video and it’s still underwhelming.  For this review, search YouTube for “THE EGO-T FAIL” by user GrimmGreen.

When it arrived, I took it out of the box and looked at the cartridges that came with it.  They all exploded so there was e-liquid inside the plastic of each individually wrapped cartridge.  The smell was beyond nauseating.  They sent me 5 cartridges filled with what they call Marlboro flavored e-liquid  They also sent me 2 empty cartridges, but without caps.  What good were those without the cap?  As I was rinsing the first one out, I dropped the cap and guess where it went?  Go ahead… guess.  Yep, you guessed it, right down the drain.  UGH!

After rinsing out all the cartridges, I smelled them and they still smelled like the e-liquid that they came with.  I took one of the clean and empty cartridges and used one of the caps and you could still taste the gross “Marlboro” flavor instead of the sweet flavor I bought.  I was told that sometimes it takes a few hits to get rid of the gross flavor before you get the taste of the new flavor.  That ended up being true when I switched from the Zeus Juice to chocolate.  When I switched it from chocolate to strawberry, I still tasted chocolate.  I think the best thing to do is to get clean cartridges and dedicate it to that one flavor, which I did.  I bought a pack of 10 empty cartridges from Amazon over the weekend and it shipped out on Monday, so hopefully they will come soon.

Earlier tonight I vaped some of the chocolate and took a sip of my iced tea and the chocolate flavor really came out more.  I think that I will get a lot more out of it if I vape while drinking (before or after, not during).  I know that sounds nuts, but so does a non-smoker buying an e-cigarette lol.  I think that if I switched over to iced water while vaping, I might get more out of it than just vaping it alone.  I’ll be drinking what I should be drinking all this time, water, while still getting the flavor benefit which is what I wanted to begin with.

Even though this turned out to be more disappointing for me as a non-smoker trying to use it for the flavor, I still think it’s an awesome idea for those smokers who want to quit smoking or just to make the switch.

I still recommend Zeus eJuice as opposed to buying the e-liquid at the cigarette store.  My cousin Tabitha told me tonight that she saw a sign that said e-liquid was $8 for 10ML.  Most would think that’s not a bad price, but you could get a 30ML bottle from Zeus eJuice for $10.49.  Now you tell me which is the better price.  They also claim to have more flavor than other places that sell the flavors, so you get the taste and you save a ton of money.  I think it’s worth it.

I only just got my eGo-T today, so I’m going to try to use it as much as I can to get as much out of it as I can before I decide whether I want to continue with this or not.  Perhaps I might find that a better model will suit my needs more.  These batteries only last for so long before they stop working, and I have 2 so I have a long time with it before I will need to buy a new one.  Perhaps maybe I need a new atomizer that will work with this.  Who knows, but I will keep trying with what I have and see where it takes me.  Maybe I might get used to it.  Maybe…

Oh and for those interested, the LCD display shows me the battery and it shows a number.  I found out that every time I press the button, the number goes up.  I read the manual and it said that the battery is capable of 800 puffs a day, so I guess that will show you how many hits you took, but there is no way of resetting the number back down to 0 so you can start over the next day.  I can only assume that you just keep going until it resets itself back to 0, then start over lol.  My question is, who is that addicted to smoking that they would take 800 puffs a day?  I mean, you would have to be a chain smoker who is just sitting there with it in your mouth all day long taking puff after puff.  I’m getting dizzy just thinking about it.  I have only taken 28 puffs today so I think I’m doing pretty good lol.

Diabetes Update

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Doctor, Health1 Comment

Last month my doctor gave me a new medication to help lower my triglycerides called Gemfibrozil 600MG that I take twice a day.  I was told to make sure I take them exactly 12 hours apart for it to be effective.  I created a schedule on my cell phone to remind me twice a day, once at 10am, and then once at 10pm to take my pills.  It has worked out so far and today is day 30.  We went to the doctor’s office on Thursday and they drew blood to test it to see if it helped so I will find out on my next appointment which is May 24th.

In the meantime, he gave me a prescription for a blood glucose meter to check my blood twice a day.  He told me to check it in the morning before I eat and before I have dinner at night.  So far it hasn’t been that high.  Thursday night I did a reading and it was 112 then the next morning it was 132, last night it was 100 and this morning it was 112 again.  Why is that so important?  Well, when they did that blood glucose test a few months ago I was near 200, so this just tells me that I have gone way down.  I have been eating a lot of chocolate lately, this just shows me that it hasn’t really affected me as much as I thought it did.  Although now that I have this meter, I have been staying away from the bad foods because I know if the number goes high, it will make me feel guilty.  Perhaps guilt is the kick in the pants that I needed to get me to stop eating so much sugar.

This is my new meter, the One Touch Ultra 2.  I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it because Darrin has a meter, but it’s a different one with different strips.  He couldn’t get the hang of his and he was going to just give me his since he stopped using it, but I didn’t want his, I wanted one of my own because, well I just did :p.

The needles that you use to prick your finger with (in the zippered pouch on the left) aren’t very painful.  The skin on my fingers on my left hand are so thick that even at the highest setting, which is 7, hardly any blood comes out so I have to use my right hand.  I have to really milk the blood out because even at the highest setting it still doesn’t penetrate enough.  So when I say I am thick-skinned, I’m not exaggerating LOL.  My first test was an error because I didn’t milk it enough, but I learned to really get as much blood out as I can so I don’t waste test strips.  The wound heals up so fast that I am only able to get that one little drop, if I try to milk out any more after the test, nothing comes out.  Not that I need to, but I was curious to see if any more would come out for S&G’s.

So this is what it has come to, I have to test my blood every day, as if the constant medication every day for 18 years isn’t enough.  I really hope that the triglyceride medication and the guilt from the meter really helps me lose weight so I am no longer diabetic.  I hope the day finally comes when I no longer have to go through all of this nonsense with health issues, although we both know when that day will occur, and it’s not going to be a good day.  Oh well, life goes on.

Weight Loss

On By Michel McDonaldIn DietLeave a comment

When I quit smoking in 1996 I gained weight. A lot of weight. About 50lbs. And over the years it has grown. I’ve gone on diets and I’ve never really lost that much weight and when I did lose it, I ended up gaining it back.

One time I lost 40lbs and didn’t even realize it until I weighed myself and then I started gaining it back. Well, I’ve gotten so heavy that I went to 243lbs. I was originally 150lbs when I first quit smoking. I was very comfortable at 150lbs and I was happy but 243 is just too much so I went back on a diet.

I’ve so far lost 20lbs and hope to continue this quest of losing weight. I’m using 2 different programs, SparkPeople.com and Slim Fast. I like the slim fast optima because it curbs my appetite for 4 hours. I don’t get up early, I get up at noon, I don’t know why. But I do and so I wake up and have a chocolate shake then 4 hours later I have vanilla shake then at 6pm I eat dinner that is usually a recipe from Spark People.

At 8pm I will have a strawberry shake because I’m usually hungry again by that time so the shake controls my appetite until it’s bed time. Unfortunately I can’t go to sleep until 2am. The last shake would normally wear off by midnight but I try my best to not eat. If I have to I’ll eat a Slim Fast candy bar hehe. Those have the optima too. Well, I’m hoping to be 200lbs by the end of summer at least and then 150lbs by my next birthday.

If you want to see my progress look at the scale on my spark page (look at the menu on the left).