Week 33 – Weigh In Day with @Noom

week 33

I haven’t been doing too well with my diet lately.  I had hit a plateau that I couldn’t get out of, then last week I weighed in at 194, 2lbs more than I was the previous week.  This week after my last weigh in I had actually gone up to 199 and that was my aha moment.  I was gaining too much weight and realized that I wasn’t doing very well and in order to get back on track, I was going to have to go back to my healthy diet.

We went to Food Maxx and I bought 14 Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinners and I also bought some Malt-O Meal Original for my breakfast.  I had been eating Cheerio’s since January with a banana, but I needed a change.  I actually wasn’t sure if Malt-O Meal was going to be good for me, but it shows up as green in the Noom app so I guess it is.

Today was weigh in day and I am happy to say that I am back down to 192.8 which is what I was 2 weeks ago.  I think that I just needed to go off track for a couple of weeks so that I could gain a new perspective and a new momentum and refocus all of my energy again into losing more weight to hopefully get me back on track so I can get down to my ultimate goal weight of 170lbs.

The doctor told me that I didn’t need to lose any more weight, but I still have a fat stomach and I don’t want to have that anymore.  I really want to lose as much fat as I possibly can.  I know I can lose the rest of this weight in only a couple of months if I keep going the same way I did to get to this point.  I just need to have the same determination to get the job done and I will accomplish my goals with complete success.

I haven’t been riding my bicycle because of my back pain, also because of how hot it is.  I am also having issues with not just my back tire going flat, but now my front tire too.  I honestly don’t know what is wrong with my tires, why they keep going flat.  It’s mind boggling to me.  Neither tire have a hole in the tube and there isn’t a thorn or sticker in the tire.  I don’t understand how they can both go from being fully inflated at 60PSI one day, to being around 20PSI the next.  It’s supposed to hold it’s pressure for a long time, especially since my bike hasn’t moved an inch in a month.

When it cools down I will start riding it again.  I would much rather ride my bike before the sun comes out to not only avoid the heat, but also avoid the sun because I burn easily.  Because I broke my arm at night, my partner doesn’t want me to ride when the sun isn’t out because he thinks I will break my arm again.  It was an isolated incident and it had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with me not paying attention.  I’m sure it would have happened no matter what time of day it was.

At any rate, I am hoping to be at my goal by at least Halloween if not sooner.  That would be awesome.  Not that I have a reason to be at my goal by Halloween, I just want to be that’s all lol.

Anyway, until next weigh in…

Vaping and Dieting

zeus ejuice

Last year I decided after doing a bit of research that vaping sweet flavors would help me lose weight.  Of course, I realize that only diet and exercise will help me lose weight, but my reasoning was that if I had sweet flavors in my mouth, then I wouldn’t be tempted to eat the empty calories, because I just wanted the flavor.  So if I had the flavors, then I wouldn’t be consuming the calories.  Well, that theory was flawed because without a proper diet, I was still consuming empty calories from my regular day-to-day food.

Now that I am on track and eating healthy food and have already lost more than 20lbs (1/5/2013 – 2/19/2013), I started vaping again.  I placed a new order with Zeus eJuice for a 10ml bottle of Banana Nut Bread, and they comped me a 3ml bottle of Grape Jolly Rancher flavored e-liquid.  Of course, the e-liquid I buy doesn’t have any nicotine at all so I don’t have to worry about an addiction.

Since I am on my healthy diet, I don’t have a craving for sweet foods anymore.  Although I do have the occasional craving, I will eat fruit instead of cookies or ice cream.  I do have a recipe for a fruit cookie that uses banana, apple, oatmeal, vanilla and a tiny amount of brown sugar.  It’s not the same as eating a cookie, but I psych myself out, so to me it is.  It’s all mental.  The vaping is all mental too.  If I vape sweet flavors then I’m getting the sweet taste that I wanted without the calories, right?  Well, it only works if I say it works, and so far it does because I haven’t even craved the fruit cookies.

For anyone wanting to lose weight and think that vaping will help, let me just dispel that, it doesn’t.  I mean, it will give you the flavors, but you won’t actually lose weight.  This is my advice for losing weight and it is what helped me to lose more than 20lbs.  Eat healthy!  I started using this app on my phone called Noom Weight Loss Coach.  It’s only available for the Android (sorry iPhone users).  It’s free, or you could pay the monthly fee or pay for the full product.  It’s your choice.  Try it out for free and see if you like it.  Noom is just a tool to help me log my food and exercise and it gives me great articles, but the food I am eating is what helped me to lose weight.  I’ve been eating the Weight Watchers Smart Ones meals for lunch and dinner and also eating steamed fresh or frozen vegetables.

The vaping gives me the sweet flavors that I am not eating so I don’t eat empty calories.  Vaping is pretty much a tool the same way the Noom app is a tool, they just do different jobs.  I’d say it’s still worth the time and money, and if you are a smoker you could benefit from vaping because it will help you save money and possibly quit smoking too.

So if you want to start vaping, do this.  Go to Smoktek.com and buy a SmokTek Express eGo CE4 650 E-Cigarette Kit for only $20.  It’s a good idea to also buy a changeable coil clearomizer (round tip) with replacement coils too.  Then go to ZeuseJuice.com and buy a 10ML bottle of whatever flavor you want.

These are the flavors that I like because they taste sweet.  Banana Nut Bread, Pumpkin Pie, Grape Jolly Rancher, Strawberry, Raspberry (and let’s just assume all the fruits), Demeter’s Harvest, Candy Corn and Vanilla Ice Cream.  It’s good to experiment with different flavors, but don’t mix too many with the same wick because the flavor stays with that wick, so if you use candy corn then dump it back into the bottle and put pumpkin pie in there, it’s not going to taste like pumpkin pie anymore, it’s going to taste like pumpkin pie and candy corn and the two don’t mix.  It will probably end up tasting more like vomit lol.  Trust me.  I haven’t done that with those flavors, but I have done it.

You could try another website for your e-liquids, or go to a smoke shop to get it like that same day, but you will end up paying double.  Zeus e-Juice charges $6 for a 10ML bottle which is equivalent to a carton of cigarettes.

So that’s my advice for anyone who wants to lose weight with vaping.  You don’t have to take my advice because what might work for me might not work for you, but you have to ask yourself, do you really want it to work for you?  If you want it to work, then it will work.  Everything is psychological.  Anyway, give it a go and tell me if it worked for you.