Tag: journey

I gained weight this week

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, Diet, Food, Noom, Weight1 Comment

week_28-2

Well this sucks.  I actually gained weight this week.  A few weeks ago I hit a plateau at 197lbs, but throughout this whole journey I haven’t once gone up.  This is the first time I’ve actually gained weight.

I’m not worried though because I am confident that my weight will continue going down again next week.  Just the other night I weighed myself and I was 192.8 so this is just a minor setback.

I’ve been feeling a bit off today and yesterday.  I’ve been having dizzy spells and today I was dizzy and my stomach was feeling crappy, so maybe something is happening with my body that is causing me to not lose weight.  The only thing I can think is that perhaps the Michelina’s isn’t agreeing with me.  Who knows, but I am going to be strapped for cash this month so I can’t exactly afford to buy the weight watchers.

Perhaps it’s stress that I am unnecessarily putting on myself because I haven’t had a lot of views or sales on my Etsy shop.  Since I’ve been browsing other peoples shops and their items, things have been picking up for me.  People have been clicking favorite on my keychains and my shop, so perhaps being social will help me get some sales.  I was going to save the money from the keychains and earrings for a new bike so I can exercise, but if I have to use whatever money I get from Etsy for groceries then so be it.  I just put my Nintendo 64 on ebay, so hopefully I can sell that to help me with groceries, who knows if anyone will buy or even bid on it though.

I’m sure things will work out and next week I will have more weight loss.  Who knows, I might be 191 next Saturday.  I’m not going to expect it though, if it happens, then it happens.  If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.  No big deal.  It’s not like I’m trying to lose weight to fit into a particular outfit by a specific date or anything.  I’ve been fat all these years, what’s a little set back going to do?  Nothing.  I have to be patient and know that the weight WILL come off eventually.  I got this far in such a little amount of time, so I’m happy with the progress I’ve already made.  No worries.

Until next week I guess.

week_28-2 Update July 15: A few hours after I posted this, I… how do I say this without sounding crude?  I found out that the reason I hadn’t lost any weight that day was because I had a couple extra pounds inside of me waiting to get out lol.  As Jessica Simpson put it, I had to drop the kids off at the pool.  I can still say that I gained weight because I was 193.6 last week and this week I weighed in at 193.8.  This morning I weighed myself and I was 193.0 so at least I am progressing.  I’m not losing weight as fast as I was in the beginning of my weight loss journey, but I am still losing weight and that is all that matters.

My plateau seems to be over

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

sports coats

I’ve been freaking out a bit over the last couple of weeks because last week’s weigh in was the same as 2 weeks ago, 197lbs.  Well, today was weigh in day and I weighed in at 195.2lbs.  I should have been 195lbs last week, but I guess better late than never.

So I have to wonder about a couple of things.  Like, in the beginning when I started this journey with Noom I was losing 3-4lbs per week, but then it started to slow down with 2-3lbs and then 1-2lbs etc.  The last month I have been walking and I have been eating a lot more veggies than I used to, and this last week I haven’t gone on any walks and I’ve been laying off the extra veggies and only eating the weight watchers and I lost 2lbs, well, 1.8lbs, but still.  I wonder, did walking and adding so many veggies to my diet really make a difference in my weight loss that would keep me from losing a certain amount every week?  Maybe it was the butter and margarine that I put on the veggies.

I know that a proper diet and exercise is essential to a good weight loss plan, so I’m not saying I shouldn’t be eating extra veggies and exercising.  I should be doing both, but with my back constantly hurting, it makes it difficult to want to go out for walks.  I know there are lots of exercises that I can do at home on my couch or bed or desk chair, but again, my back is in constant agony, so it makes it really difficult to want to do anything.  I mean, I want to succeed, and I feel that I am, but it’s just taking longer now lol.

I feel that I am succeeding though.  Take the picture above for example.  I just wanted to see if these 2 sports coats would fit, and they actually did.  I haven’t worn mine since 1999 when we bought them for a christening.  Well, I wore the grey one for the christening, my partner wore the tan one.  The grey one looks a little bigger than the tan one, so I’m thinking that I was a bit fatter than he was back then.  Well, they both fit me now.  I do remember that back then I was around 190-200lbs so this is about the right weight to be able to wear them, and it’s a good thing they fit me now with all the weddings I’m probably going to be attending now that same-sex marriage is now legal in California.

I wasn’t trying to look like Don Johnson from Miami Vice with my t-shirt and necklace, what you don’t see is that I was also wearing shorts lol.  I just wanted to see if they fit and I didn’t even notice how thin my face looked when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see it until I saw the pictures.  So I’m very happy with my progress.

So I hope that next week I am down to 193lbs and I hope I don’t plateau again , but if I do, that’s okay too because I am not trying to lose weight for anything or anyone in particular, I am doing this for me.

Until next week…

My Weight Loss Journey Collage

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

my weight loss journey

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.

Bicycle Trailers

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Daily BlogLeave a comment

Last year I found an article on the Dvice blog about a guy who built his own bicycle trailer for going to “Burning Man”.  In that article was a link to another website which showed the same article but also another article for Roy the PVC Guy who was building his own trailer out of PVC.

I was looking at another article which has some links to other trailers people have made such as this trailer that doesn’t look exactly like a trailer to sleep in as much as it just looks like the kind of trailer you use for hauling your things.  Although if you keep watching as he directs his grandson to help him you will discover that it is indeed a trailer for sleeping in.  I was oohing and ahhing throughout the process which only took 12 minutes.

I can’t add that video in here for some odd reason but you can see it here.  Vic’s Journey to Manitoba.

But, as nice as that is you have to look at this video right here.  This is absolutely amazing.  And I know it’s not for bicycles, it’s for cars but if you are able to build this yourself it would make a very nice bicycle trailer.

It’s just a matter of lifting the top and putting it on the ground and the tent pops up all by itself.  It’s so easy.  If you build this for a bicycle you just use the same concept but with bicycle wheels.

I also like this idea because it allows for 2 people to share a space and tow their own trailer.

I don’t know if anyone has built this one but if they have I would love to see it in action.  In fact, if anyone has any videos please send them to me, I’d love to see them.

My Weight

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, HealthLeave a comment

Wow!  I just weighed myself and it’s not good.  Of course most people would just not talk about it, they would pretend that it doesn’t matter or the problem doesn’t exist but I know the problem exists.  I was doing Spark People a year ago (I started on October 1st 2007) but something happened in my life and I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I gave up dieting altogether even though I had lost over 20lbs.  I was so proud of myself and then I just quit.

I was eating the food but not exercising and I was in a plateau for over a month and just couldn’t take the torture of having to suffer eating such small portions and so many veggies.  Although it wasn’t all that bad, the veggie portions were pretty big but it was still torture to eat good and not lose a single lb.  But I wasn’t exercising either so that’s where I made a huge mistake.  I didn’t step it up and help myself along the long road of losing weight.

My highest weight that I’ve ever been was 245 and I weighed myself just before I started this post and I was 243.  I’m just 2lbs from being right back to where I was.  I need this Dell DJ battery to come soon and the pump and bag.  I need them to come so I have motivation to ride my bike to get exercise.  I need the pump because it has a gauge built-in so I can see if I’m pumping the correct amount or not.  Right now they don’t feel fully pumped but I’m afraid to put too much air in because it will pop if I do.  If it doesn’t have enough it may pop from my weight.  The frame bag is just a bonus to keep all the tools with me so I don’t have to carry them.

The Dell DJ battery is a crucial part of this whole journey.  I refuse to ride the bike in silence.  It will be too boring and I will not want to keep doing it day after day if I’m bored doing it.  Of course I probably won’t have to do it day after day.

As of right now my leg muscles are still not ready for a 2 hour bike ride.  It is ready for a 5 minute bike ride before I can’t walk anymore.  What I will have to do is just ride for as long as I can going towards beach park where the bike trail is and when I get too sore then just stop, rest and head back home.  Just keep doing that every day or every other day or whatever I need.  I can’t push my muscles too far because the more sore my legs are the less likely I will want to do it.  But I heard from a trainer that if your legs are sore, so what, keep doing it.  You don’t want the muscles to heal fully, you want them to be sore because they won’t get used to it unless you keep doing it.  Yeah they will be sore for a few days but once they get used to it they wont be painful.  It will become old hat.

Let’s just hope that these items come to me soon, within a week at least.  I don’t know how much more of this fat I can take.  I can’t look at myself in the mirror anymore.  I have BDD so bad from this that I don’t even want to leave the house because people are staring at me and judging me every day.  I just want to be back to where I was when I was thin.  Nobody even noticed me because I blended in with all the other skinny people.  Fat people don’t blend in too well especially when their t-shirts are stretched out in the stomach area. Which reminds me, if this does work, if I lose a massive amount of weight by riding my bike, I’m gonna need a wardrobe change hehe.