Tag: money

Fitbit Charge HR

On By Michel McDonaldIn Exercise, Food, Gadgets, Health2 Comments

Fitbit Charge HRIt finally happened. I was finally able to buy a Fitbit Charge HR. I bought the extra large because I didn’t trust that the large one would fit my fat wrist lol. I also didn’t trust that the band on the large would keep it on. I prefer a regular watch band.

I wanted to buy something like this a couple of years ago, but these are so expensive, and I just didn’t have the money. I bought The Spark from SparkPeople, which is a great product, but it’s glitchy. When I am riding my bike, it logs it as “General exercise” which means if I really burn like say 300 calories, it logs it as 94 or something. I don’t like that. I also didn’t like that it didn’t work with the bluetooth to connect to my phone, and this does.

When I lost 70lbs a couple of years ago, I used the Noom app, and to tell the truth I’ve been using it ever since, I just haven’t lost any weight because once my motivation goes away, I don’t lose weight, so whatever I am using doesn’t do any good. I have a new gadget, and I have some motivation to lose weight again, so I really hope I get my moneys worth with this new watch lol.

Of course I won’t be able to put it to good use for another month. My gym membership is frozen until April 15th, so on that date I will ride my new Schwinn Meridian 3-wheel tricycle to Planet Fitness. The physical therapist said I can use the exercise bike and the elliptical machine and to do some of the exercises I did at Physical Therapy. Until then, I will use the Fitbit watch and the Fitbit app to track my sleep and my steps and log my food. I’ve already walked 3,070 steps since I got it this morning. It wants me to walk 10,000 steps per day, and I’ve already walked a quarter of that so far. The day isn’t over.

I was going to wait until next month to buy it, but I was just dying to have it now. I’m impatient lol.

2 Months

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Leg scar
leg scar

It has been 2 months since I broke my leg and had surgery. The picture on the left was taken last month  on 1/20/2016 and the one on the right was just taken on 2/18/2016. I wanted to show how it’s healing.

My leg still hurts from time to time if I twist my leg at the knee, but that’s about it. My partner was giving them to me every 4 hours like clockwork for the first month because he didn’t want me to be in any pain, which I appreciate. After so much time had passed, I guess he just forgot to give me the pills unless I asked for one. But that’s a good thing because I should only be taking them when I actually need them. They are so expensive that I’d rather only take them when I actually need them.

I go to Physical Therapy 3 days a week and that has helped a lot. I went to Physical Therapy at a place only a block away on the same street a couple of years ago for my back when I found out that I had scoliosis, and I didn’t like going there. I’m HIV+ and they didn’t want me to be in the open room with the rest of their clients, so they put me in a room by myself, which was very awkward because I had to ring a bell when I was done with my exercises and wait for the guy to come give me the tool for the next exercise. I didn’t tell this place that I am HIV+ because it’s not relevant. I’m not going to bleed or ejaculate on anything, so there’s no reason for them to fear me. That other place told me that they want to put me in a room by myself because they don’t want me to catch a cold from one of the other clients, but I’ve been going to PT at this new place for at least a month and I haven’t gotten since yet, and yes, there have been clients who were sick and I never caught their cold.

My doctor told me that I can put pressure on it in between the middle of March until the beginning of April. I wonder if I will replace the crutches with a cane by then. I sure do hope so. I am so sick of crutches. I will blog about that when that time comes.

Black Friday at home

On By Michel McDonaldIn HolidaysLeave a comment

black-friday-shopping-deals-walmart-target-costco.jpg

Everyone loves a good deal, but who wants to camp out in front of their favorite store just to save a few bucks? Who wants to miss their Thanksgiving dinner aka family reunion only to get into fist fights over the last Star Wars Battlefront PS4 and possibly get killed? Not me! No way!

So here’s what I do, I just sit at home and wait for the Black Friday deals to come to my inbox. and then buy stuff online and have them shipped to me, or enjoy them instantly online. I mean sure, it’ll take awhile to get to me, but you don’t really need those things until Christmas day anyway, right?

This is what I saved on. It’s only a few items, but it’s what I wanted to buy.

I got an email from Choxi about 2 weeks ago telling me they miss me. I bought an iPad for my partner last year and I also bought a phone for myself. So the email they sent me was a $10 coupon. I looked at what they had on sale and what was featured, and I found this cool bed or couch table for my partner for $49. Thanks to the coupon, I only paid $39 and with $2 shipping it came to $41. I bought it for him because he spends most if not all of his time on the couch holding his iPad, and I figured he could just put it on this table at an angle and he can just swipe without holding it. He can also push it to the side when he starts to get sleepy. A couple of months ago he fell asleep and woke up to the sound of his iPad crashing to the ground on the hard wood floor. I can’t remember how much it was to replace the screen. This will prevent that from happening again, I hope.

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Yesterday I got a Black Friday email from Groupon advertising this pet carrier and more. I was telling my partner the last time we went out of town that if I had a pet carrier that was like a suitcase and backpack, we could bring her with us. I went online looking for something, but they were just too expensive. I couldn’t pass up $20, so I had to buy this.

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Finally, I went on my PlayStation 4 yesterday and saw that they had a Co-Op sale with some games I was considering, but I really didn’t want them just because they were on sale. Their sale is up to 90% with a PlayStation Plus membership, but I waited. Today I opened the PlayStation store and saw their Black Friday sale, and the game I’ve wanted forever was there, and it was a very reasonable price. It’s normally $99, but it was on sale for $40. I just so happened to have $41 and change in my account, so I bought it and I now have $1.74 in my wallet lol.

The game is The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited. It’s the most expensive one they had. They had the one without all the extras for a lot less, but what’s the point when I’m going to have to buy all those extras later down the road anyway? I might as well buy the more expensive one while I have the funds in my wallet. And you can’t beat a $60 savings.

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This after I received an email from Microsoft telling me they are having a sale in the Microsoft store for apps, games, movies and music. It was a .10 cent sale. So I bought Imagine Dragons Night Visions album that is regularly $13 for only .10 cents. That’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

imagine dragons night visions

I got to have a Thanksgiving meal with my partner and I didn’t have to camp out for days in the cold with a bunch of strangers who would probably beat the crap out of me over $5., and I saved $172. You honestly can’t beat that.

PlayStation Vita

On By Michel McDonaldIn GamesLeave a comment


I have a Nintendo Game Boy that my partner bought for me in 1994 or 1995, I honestly can’t recall when. I was so bored because we didn’t have much in the way of entertainment, other than the TV with 7 channels of course. He used a Sears credit card to buy the Game Boy and he would buy me games every now and then. It took me months to play one game, and if I knew we couldn’t afford a new game, I would just play the game multiple times. Occasionally we needed the money for food, so we had to sell the games to game stores. We only got a fraction of what the games were worth, but desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s sad too because I still have my Game Boy, but I only have 1 game; Tetris.

In 2007 I bought myself a PlayStation Portable Slim aka PSP -2000. I bought many games, and didn’t have to sell any for the money. I played the heck out of that game system, and now it’s tricky just to turn it on. The power button is glitchy, so it’s difficult to turn it on or off. It still works, but it doesn’t connect to our WiFi because the security is different from when I first bought it, so I can’t buy and download games. If I want to buy a new game, it has to be on the UMD format which I can only buy on Amazon and eBay.

Last Christmas my partner bought me a PlayStation 4. My PSP-2000 talks with a PS3, but not a PS4. If I want to play my PS4 games in the living room, I need a PlayStation Vita. I can also download tons of PS Vita games that I have gotten for free over the last year with my PlayStation Plus account.

I know that I don’t deserve to buy a PlayStation Vita because I haven’t worked for it. I know that I would prefer to play the games I own on my HDTV instead of a smaller screen in my hands, but I feel like there are times when I can’t play games on my PS4 because I’m watching tv in the living room with my partner. He stares at his iPad the entire time, that is if he’s awake, and I sit and stare at either my Nook HD+ or my phone. Sometimes I’d prefer playing Minecraft or whatever game I have instead of staring at Facebook. I have Minecraft PE on my phone, but it’s harder to play on a touchscreen because the screen gets too hot, that’s why I prefer to just stare at Facebook on my phone.

I know I’m coming off as the most spoiled brat in the world, and it’s true, I am. That’s why I haven’t bought the PlayStation Vitayet, because I know I don’t need, nor deserve it. I just want it, and that’s not a reason to spend the money I don’t have to buy it. I could put it on a credit card and pay it off over time, but it’s just not right for me to do that. I have this stupid need before greed thing, and I honestly don’t need it, but I would really love to have it lol.

When my hands heal from the recent order of 200 mini DNA keychains that I recently finished, I will start making different kinds of earrings and keychains to put on Amazon Handmade, that is if they approve me. I recently applied, and they don’t have a category for “Accessories” which is what I classified my craft as. I can’t really call keychains jewelry. My earrings and chokers are considered jewelry, but since they don’t actually have jewels in them, are they really jewelry? The earrings are plastic stems with plastic lanyard. The chokers are hemp with wood beads. Not exactly jewelry. I also make the friendship bracelets, which I really need to make more of. They sent me an email telling me I can change my category to jewelry, so I did. I can’t sell keychains as jewelry, but I can sell earrings, chokers and bracelets.

I’m sure I will need a huge inventory for Amazon Homemade, so when I can start working again, I will make a bunch of things and put them in a drawer to have them ready to ship if anyone orders them. If I make any money, I will keep the money in Amazon so I can buy a PS Vita. I could also start buying Amazon gift cards every month and put them in my account. I’m also playing around with Swag Bucks, so I’ll do surveys and watch videos and install useless apps for SB’s so I can get a Amazon gift card. If I do all those things, then I can say I deserve a PlayStation Vita.

By the way, all these links for PlayStation Vita will earn me money if YOU, the reader click them and buy one for yourself.

Xanapus on WordPress

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

wordpress

It’s official! If you type my domain http://www.xanapus.com, my WordPress.com blog will load. I had my website hosted with the same company, although they went through many name changes, for 13 years. I have been blogging with WordPress for 8 years on my hosted website. Thanks to the help from the awesome people at WordPress, all of my blog posts over the last 8 years are on my WordPress.com blog and you can now come here using my domain name.

My blog will have more of an audience since people who blog using WordPress.com can see other blogs as they are published. My blog on my self hosted website barely had any visitors unless they came from Google or Bing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s also not a good thing.

My worst fear was that if my self hosted blog disappeared, all those search engine results, Facebook and Twitter links and links on other blogs would result in a dead link, but, I am so happy to say that is not the case. If you click any old link, it will automatically load those articles here. So that sure is a relief.

The best thing about this move is that I can blog directly from my cell phone when I’m not home. If I have to get something off my chest and 140 characters just won’t do, I can get on the WordPress Android app and just vent to my hearts content. I can even take a picture and add it to the blog post.

I’ve been working on the design of my blog and I’m not quite sure I have it, but I will look at some other themes and maybe something will catch my eye. Let me know what you think in the comments and perhaps if you have some advice, I’m open to anything.

Anyway, I don’t want to talk your ear (or eye?) off. I’m just excited that I am finally saving some money lol.

Make Holiday Money Online

On By Michel McDonaldIn Blog, Make MoneyLeave a comment

christmas cash

Want to know how to earn money on your smart phone or computer for the holidays?  It’s not very difficult, although it does take a lot of time and patience.  Here is how I make extra money.  Blogging, surveys and watching videos online.

Blogging

Blogsvertise

Click Advertise on My Blog

Blogsvertise isn’t as good as it used to be, although I am not counting them out of the game because it is possible that some day I might get new opps, although it has been a long time so I’m not holding my breath either.  They usually send you an email telling you to write a 200 word, 3 paragraph blog post and you get paid a certain amount of money depending on your blogs rating.  The higher your PR is, the more money you will make.  Although from what I understand, Google doesn’t use PR anymore, advertisers still request PR1 or PR3.  They do have pay-per-click opportunities, but I have never made a dime from those, so they don’t work very well.

It takes 30 days to receive your payment through PayPal and there is no limit to the amount of money they will deposit.  If your payment is $10, then they deposit $10.

PayPerPost
PayPerPost is a company owned by IZEA.  They send you emails with leads and you can either accept or decline them.  You just write your blog post about the website and enter the link to the post and you get paid 30 days after it is approved.  There isn’t a limit to how much money you can withdraw, but know that if it is under $50, they will take $2 from you.  It’s a good thing to wait for that to build up to $50 though.  I still have $23.50 in my account, although it has been quite some time since I have gotten an opp.

SocialSpark

Set Your Price. Choose your Advertisers. Sign up for SocialSpark!

SocialSpark is also owned by IZEA and for some reason I get more opportunities here than PayPerPost, although it has been quite some time since I have.  I also have a pay-per-click (PPC) ad on my blog which does generate revenue each month, so whether I write a post or not, I will receive money in my account, although it is a tiny amount.

Much like the other blogging websites above, they send you an email telling you that you have a lead or an opportunity and you either accept the lead, or take the opportunity, whichever the case may be.  Unlike the other 2, when you are ready to write your blog post, you have to write it within the website, not your own.  They will post it to your blog on a specific day and time, usually the next day or so.

It also takes a month to receive your payment, and like PayPerPost, you can withdraw any amount you want, but they will take $2 out if the amount is under $50.

Surveys

Swag Bucks

Search & Win

Swag Bucks is a great way to earn money by doing surveys, watching videos, playing games, downloading apps and getting paid to shop or search the web.  I haven’t received a payout yet, but that’s because it is not the easiest way to earn money because I get disqualified from I would say 8 out of 10 surveys because I didn’t meet the criteria for whatever reason.  You earn very little for watching videos and I haven’t even figured out how to earn money from playing games yet.  When you do earn swag bucks from surveys, it is a good amount.

When you have 450 swag bucks you are eligible to redeem a $5 gift card for Amazon.  Some rewards are 500 for a $5 value, but Amazon seems to require less.  They do have good rewards though, like Amazon, Target, PayPal and Starbucks, just to name a few.

SuperPay.Me

SuperPay.Me is a new website (new to me) that I just started using.  In just a short amount of time I have earned $1.43 and 104 points from doing surveys, installing apps and watching videos.  One of the very odd ways of earning money is by clicking a banner ad which opens a new tab in your browser, and you have 5 to 60 seconds to look at a website before you earn your credit.  The credit isn’t a lot, but it’s free money, so why wouldn’t you do it?

The reason I am suggesting this website is because you can withdraw any amount of money you want at any given time.  Like say you have made $1.00 and you want that dollar, like right now, you can withdraw it to your PayPal account.  How you make money from points is you can either get a $5 Amazon gift card for 500 points, or you can convert your points to cash, or you can convert your cash to points.  It is up to you how you want to be paid.  I would personally keep earning as much money as I can until I need it, then withdraw it and get a lump sum.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk is not the same thing as everything else I listed above this one.  You choose tasks called “HIT” and do whatever it is they want you to do.  Like for example, my first task was to write down everything in a store receipt along with their price, including coupons and voids.  You know how a receipt shows initials instead of long names because there really isn’t much room for a long name?  Well, you have to type in the long name I guess.  Anyway, that one particular task gave me 2 hours to do the task, well, that’s perhaps a 10 minute task if you ask me, but they kept saying I didn’t do something right and to keep checking.  I forgot to add 1 yogurt and 1 dozen eggs, but everything else was right.  I checked it, double checked it, triple checked it, quadruple checked it… I basically checked it about 20 times and it was correct.  I finally just submitted it whether it was right or not because it was right in my mind.  If I don’t get paid then that’s okay, it was only .06 cents anyway.

You aren’t going to make very much money with this which is why I don’t completely recommend it.  It is Amazon, so when you get paid, they will pay you money, or you can choose Amazon credit.  I personally would rather have Amazon credit because I’m always buying things on Amazon anyway, so I might as well just have some money in my account.  But I can’t say that I will be doing this enough to make much of a difference.  It takes way too long for only 6 cents for that one task.

Watching TV

Viggle

Viggle isn’t a website, it’s an app for your Android or iPhone.  You earn points for watching tv and doing trivia while watching your show.  They have some good rewards, although they come and go so if you want a specific reward, you may have to wait for it to come back.

In 2013 I earned $50 in rewards for Barnes & Noble.  It cost me 50,000 points for $25 which I redeemed twice (months apart).  I don’t see it on their website now, but I will continue earning more points to redeem more for the same reward.

RewardTV

RewardTV is a website I used many, many years ago.  I didn’t even know they were still around, but you can make a lot of points just buy doing trivia on shows that you watch.  Like say you watched Once Upon A Time last night, today you can do trivia on what you saw.  I completed the trivia and got 2 questions wrong, but they weren’t questions for the show, they were for the commercials during the show.  Look, I’m not paying attention to the commercials LOL.  Those are pee breaks people!  At any rate, for this specific show, I earned 10,500 points.

I can’t tell you how to spend your points.  They don’t have a rewards page for redeeming your points like the other websites I suggested.  They do have sweepstakes, pay for my stuff which I assume is basically sweepstakes, auctions, and shopping spree, which I have no clue how that works.

So even though I have no clue how you can make money from this, I am still suggesting it because points are very easy to make if you remember what happened in the show that you watched the day before.  I am sure you will figure out how to spend your points.

Those are all I can think of for right now.  I wrote a post about making money from your cell phone, but I didn’t keep those apps because I didn’t use them as often as I would have liked, but I stand by them because they are a good way to earn money if you are willing to do what they ask.

Collapsible Box For My Bike

On By Michel McDonaldIn BikeLeave a comment

My bike with a collapsible box

I keep saying that my new $5 back wheel is just a temporary fix and that I’m not going to put any more money into my old bike, but then something happens and I need to put more money into it.  It’s just something that I needed to do to be able to continue using my bicycle.

I think that when I had my accident, the rack got bent somehow because when I put the $5 thrift store wheel on, the rack was pressed up against the wheel.  In order to continue using the rack, I had to unscrew it from the bottom and screw it back on crooked.  It still works, but now my problem is that when I am riding with the townie basket full of groceries, it pulls the rack closer to the wheel, which makes it very difficult to ride.  I tried putting the townie basket on the other side, but then I wouldn’t be able to lock my bike up correctly the way I have been.  The townie basket is in the way and the only way I could lock it up is to bring the basket with me.  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

My partner bought a $5 collapsible box from Dollar General and I wondered if one of those would work.  He bought me a box and I didn’t put it on right away because I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that.  I had 2 options, put it on the way that I did, widthwise, or lengthwise.  I suppose it would work either way, but I just figured that if it were lengthwise, the back wouldn’t be sitting on the rack and it would probably eventually break.  I needed some time to think of how I was going to do this, and today I did it.

I was sitting in my room and suddenly it just clicked.  I thought to myself, I wonder if we have some wood in the back yard that I could cut and put under the box to support it.  I went back there and found a long piece of wood, so I measured 2 pieces the length of the box and cut them. I drilled holes in the bottom of the box and the wood and screwed them together, but the flat head is on the bottom so nobody can unscrew them from the top. The top is just smooth caps so they look riveted. I had leftover wood so I put that in the middle so you can’t really see it. When I was done putting the wood under the collapsible box, I drilled holes in the bottom of the box through the wood and into the rack, but only enough to mark where I was going to drill through the metal in the rack. 3 holes. Of course I had to remove the rack, wouldn’t want drill holes in my wheel. Also it would be very difficult to screw the screws tight into the caps if I have the wheel in my way.

So that was all that it took.  I don’t have any assurance that the box won’t eventually break, after all it is very thin cheap plastic, but it was only $5 so it wasn’t a huge investment at all.  It was a fun little project.

My old townie basket was fabric, so it wasn’t as sturdy as a plastic box.  It only held 1 bag of groceries, of course when I say 1 bag I don’t mean plastic, I mean those reusable fabric bags that they sell at the grocery stores.  This new collapsible box will most likely hold 2 bags which will make it so much easier for me to buy a bunch of groceries on my own.  Whenever I go to the store, I usually have to make sure I only buy a few items, or whatever will fit in 1 bag.  I also had to be careful with weight.  Now neither weight nor quantity is an issue.  I can make the trek to Food Maxx or Dollar General and easily buy 2 bags full of groceries and not have to worry that the groceries might fall out.  Although, I better be careful with pot holes.

The only issue is that when the box is open, it’s close enough to the seat that I’m kind of sitting on it.  It doesn’t make a huge difference to me, but I’m just afraid that I might put too much pressure on it.  I’m sure it would be fine though so I’m not going to worry about that.

The other issue is that I won’t be able to use it at night because it blocks my back light.  I don’t normally go to the store on my bike at night anymore since I had my accident.  I had the accident because it was dark and I didn’t see the thing that I ran over which flipped me off my bike.  Since that happened, if I have to go to the grocery store at night, I walk.  Not having my back light while the box is in use won’t be a real issue because I don’t ride it at night, however, there might be a day that raining and I would normally have the light during the day, but I think that if it is a rainy day, I will just stay at home and wait until it’s not raining, or we can take the car.

I like it and I can’t wait to be able to use it the next time I go grocery shopping on my bike.

Ring Sizer

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Etsy1 Comment

ring sizer

I have been having fun making keychains and earrings with plastic lacing aka gimp, but I also have fun making bracelets, chokers and rings using hemp.  Before making too many rings, I needed to buy a ring sizer so I knew exactly what size the rings were after I made them.

When making a ring using hemp, you have to measure the gimp on something round, like say your finger or a ring sizer, but I have found that the size you start out with, isn’t always the size you end up with.  Like take the 2 rings in the image above for example.  I started making both of these on the size 12 mark, the thicker hemp ended up being a size 9 and the smaller hemp ended up being a size 9.5.  That’s why I wanted a ring sizer.

These rings are specifically made without anything added, they are plain hemp rings.  I would like to make the rings with beads, but the problem that I am facing is that the seed beads that I bought are too tiny for the hemp to go through.  They are the perfect size on the outside, but their holes are way too small for the hemp.  My purpose for wanting to use beads was so I could make rainbow hemp rings with beads.

I am not sure anyone will want to buy plain hemp rings, but I will list them in every size (after I have made them in every size with both thicknesses of course) and see what happens.  If they sell then they sell, if they don’t then they don’t.  I will keep searching for the right size beads so I can keep trying what I wanted to try in the first place.

The ring sizer mandrel only cost $3 with free shipping from Etsy from DarcusTori.  It was a ridiculously low price with free shipping, but I figure I should take advantage while I still can.  Supplies end up costing me a lot more money than I am getting in profit, so the less expensive everything is, the better it is for me to be able to continue making things that probably won’t sell lol.

Anyway, I want to see about getting some better beads and I will go from there.  I think rings with rainbow colors would look awesome.  I’m thinking that I may still get some use out of the beads that I have by beading them alone.  Of course I will have to find a good pattern for beading now lol.  Ugh so many crafts, so little time.

Sabotaging My Weight Loss

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, Doctor, Exercise, Food, Health, Noom, Weight1 Comment

junk food

Is it even possible after losing as much as 70lbs for a person to go back to their old eating habits after eating healthy for 7 months?  I guess the answer to that question is yes, if you let it happen.  Well, I don’t want to let it happen to me again, I refuse to even allow the thought to enter my head.

I am putting myself in a bad situation right now.  I was 264lbs when I started this weight loss journey in January and I had lost a whopping 70lbs thanks to the Noom weight loss coach.  It helped me lose weight by giving me articles and letting me scan bar codes of the foods that I ate and told me whether it was healthy or not by coloring coding everything with red, yellow or green.  I knew I was eating healthy when I was eating more greens than yellows and reds.  I had dropped down to 192lbs in 7 months because of it.  Although, the last 2 months have been very slow, but at least I was still losing weight and not gaining.

Lately however I seem to be in a bad plateau that I can’t get out of and I am slipping as a result of it.  I’ve been eating food and not logging it into the Noom app because I know it’s bad for me.  I feel like I’ve been sabotaging myself, and I am well aware that I am doing it too.  The food I’ve been eating has been graham crackers, handfuls of Wheat Thins at a time, before I was pouring the Wheat Thins into a bowl which was sitting on a food scale, but now I just grab handfuls and don’t even log it.  We’ve been eating Michelina’s frozen dinners instead of Weight Watchers because they are cheaper and I haven’t had the money for the Weight Watchers.

Lately my partner has been buying frozen pizzas and asking ME to bake them and then telling me that I need to eat the other half because he can’t possibly eat the whole thing.  Of course, knowing he would do that to me, I could cut half of the frozen pizza and only bake half for him, but instead I go ahead and cook the entire thing.  So I am not blaming him for that or for anything for that matter, because I knew what I was doing.

Last night he wanted to go to McDonald’s to buy himself a double cheeseburger and I  decided that I wanted to go with him because I thought to myself “I haven’t had a McChicken sandwich in such a long time and I miss it” so I made the decision to go along with him and not just get 1, but 2.  I thought I was being a good little boy by eating the chicken without the bun or mayo, but instead of throwing the buns away, I put them in the fridge and ended up eating them anyway within the hour.

One final thing.  I haven’t been riding my bicycle and I really have no excuse.  That is the only exercise I am comfortable doing because of my back problems which seem to be getting worse.  I am however waiting to hear from the physical therapist to find out if cycling is going to damage my back or not since I now know that I have scoliosis.  When I start going to physical therapy, then I am positive that I will start getting the exercise that I need to not only help my back, but to also help me lose weight.  Perhaps the physical therapist will give me home exercises that I can do on my home gym, my Weider Body Works 5000.

So I am done with sabotaging myself and I am done with this plateau.  I am going to get serious about this weight loss again because I really want to get down to my goal weight of 170lbs.  The doctor said to stop losing the weight because he is happy with where I am, but I feel that stopping to maintain is only going to encourage me to eat unhealthy.  So I will go back to my healthy eating habits so I can not only maintain a healthy eating lifestyle, but to also lose more weight and to lose this weight that I have regained.

I know I have enough money that I can go to Food Maxx and buy some more Weight Watchers Smart Ones meals.  I’m going to try to get back into the habit of eating those again to give me the boost that I need.  I am also going to cut out all crackers and replace them with fruits and vegetables.  Finally, I am going to start using the word “NO” again, and I am not going to let myself get back to 264.  Heck, I am not going to let myself get back to 200.  It’s just not going to happen.

I gained weight this week

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

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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.