Tag: good reason

A Good Plateau

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

Noom Logo I’ve complained before about a plateau that I was stuck in when I was 197lbs, but now I’m stuck again, but this time for good reason.  Here are my Noom weigh-in’s for July.

  • July 1 – 195.0
  • July 6 – 193.6
  • July 13 – 193.8
  • July 20 – 193.6
  • July 27 – 193.2

From the July 6 weigh-in to the July 20th weigh-in, I believe the reason for the halt in weight loss is because I’ve been eating the Michelina’s frozen dinners and not the Weight Watchers Smart Ones.  See, I thought that because they had the same amount of calories, fat and sodium that they would basically be the same thing, but I guess not.  We recently bought 40 of those too, so when we are able to burn through those, I will start buying the Weight Watchers again.

The reason we bought all those Michelina’s was because they were on sale for .50 cents each.  You can’t beat those prices, especially when we were broke this month.  I had no idea this was going to cause a plateau or even weight gain.

I think I might have an explanation for my current week’s plateau.  On July 20th, I finally started riding my bicycle again, so it has only been 1 week and I have only been out on the bike maybe 4 times, but I’m assuming that this week the reason I haven’t lost any weight is because I am gaining muscle.  At least that’s what I think is going on.

We have a scale which has a Weight Watchers logo on it and it can tell me my body fat, water, bone and BMI, and this week my body fat percentage went down from I believe it was 30.9 down to 29.6, so even though I am still basically the same weight, my body fat percentage has gone down and I believe it is because of the bike.  So, perhaps I think that I am losing fat, but gaining muscle and we all know that muscle weighs more than fat, so therefore, the scale isn’t very helpful to me in determining my weight, but it is helpful in telling me my body fat percentage and BMI.

However, my waist has gone up by 1/2 an inch.  Last week it was 39.5 inches and this week it is 40 inches.  I mean who really knows for sure what is going on.  All I know is that I am going to continue riding the bicycle and I am going to continue to eat a proper healthy diet despite what the scale says because I know that I am going to lose fat even if I gain muscle.

Gaining muscle is actually a very good thing because men who have a lot of muscle will burn more fat when they sleep, so I need to get plenty of rest, exercise and eat a proper diet and I will be on my way to losing more weight.

I’m not expecting that my weight will go down next week, but I hope it will.  We shall see I guess.  Here are my profile, weight graph and exercise summary for the week.

week_30-1 week_30-2 week_30-4

Disposable Hearing Aids

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I LikeLeave a comment

I saw a commercial for this new product called Songbird Disposable Hearing Aides.  It lasts for 400 hours of active use and lasts up to 6 months.  I guess when you can’t hear anymore because the batteries have died then you just buy a new pair.

Ok, first of all, why not just change the batteries?  Why do you have to buy a new pair?  These hearing aides cost $80 for a pair.  That’s $160 per year.

I’m trying to think of the pros and the cons of this.  On one hand I guess it is good to get a new pair every so often, maybe once every couple or few years but not every 6 months.  Why can’t they last a whole year?

If you had to buy a regular pair of hearing aides from your doctor that can cost $5000 which is a good reason to buy the Songbird because paying $160 a year is saving you a lot of money.  Especially if you… god forbid… pass away in a few years.  But I mean, if you are born hard of hearing or you develop hearing problems from your iPod in your teens, 20’s or 30’s then you are going to need it for the rest of your life.  Yeah, $5000 is a lot to spend every few years or whenever you have to buy new ones so $160 a year every year is probably a better use of your money.

My aunt bought hearing aides a few years ago and she had nothing but problems with them and they were the $5000 ones.  She said that sometimes when she was at work and they would talk on the loud speaker it was too loud and she couldn’t hear the customers that great.  And she took them back to the doctor to be adjusted a couple or few times and he was a total douche and would get impatient with her.  Uh, she just dropped 5 G’s on something that she doesn’t even wear out of frustration.  Give the lady a break and adjust them you douche bag.

Oh sorry, did I say all that?  LOL I guess it had to be said.

I think I will suggest the Songbird to my aunt, perhaps she will get better use out of this at the lower cost of $80 every 6 months.  Maybe she won’t need to wear them all the time so she can stretch it out a lot longer since she is retired now and doesn’t need to listen to people bitching about their problems.

Great job Songbird disposable Hearing Aides.  You got my vote.

Old Glasses

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

The right arm on my current glasses broke and so I’ve been going without them because they have a prism in both lenses so if I try to wear them with 1 arm like Darrin does then it really hurts my eyes so I’ve just chosen not to wear them at all.  I’m waiting until my check comes so I can buy my new frame for $35 so in the meantime I have to squint a lot to read, or close 1 eye.

I knew there was a good reason why I kept all my old glasses.  The black frames that I got in 2002 (I think) are a little scratched up but they are still in good condition.  I used a scratch remover to clean the scratches up a bit so I can wear them while I wait for my new frames.  I was actually sorta shocked that the prescription in these old ones weren’t very different from what I have now.  My eyes change so often that every 2 years I have to get a new eye exam when I get my new glasses and so I thought that this prescription wouldn’t be any good anymore but it works.

The previous pair that I had after these black frames but before my correct pair were too scratched up that I can’t wear them at all.  But that’s ok with me.  The arms on the black frames I’m wearing right now are a bit stretched though so I’m not going to just revert back to these glasses.  They are a bit worn out and so they are just temporary.  I’m starting to wish that I had gotten plastic frames again instead of the metal frames that I got last year because the plastic ones have lasted a lot longer than the metal ones so my next frame will be plastic again.