This was actually on Sunday, October 8, 2023. I was actually 198.8lbs, and my life partner told me to take a picture of the scale. I was going to do that, but I thought I’d do that on weigh in day, and he reminded me that I may not be 198.8 again on weigh in day, which was a good possibility, so I took a picture and by then I had gone up to 199.0.
Weigh-in day came and I was actually 198.8 again, but I thought this picture was good enough.
So here’s my routine and what has helped me to lose more than 65lbs on Ozempic.
Breakfast: Banana, and if I have them, Yoplait light.
Lunch: Salad. The ingredients are romaine lettuce, 1/4 cup of cucumbers, same amount of diced celery and shredded carrot, hard boiled egg chopped up, a slice of turkey breast lunch meat chopped up, a few olives, bacon bits and the dressing I’m using is actually Miracle Whip light because it’s only 20 calories per serving. The ranch and thousand Island I was using previously are 180 calories per serving. I’m not into Italian dressing.
Afternoon snack: Baby carrots and celery sticks with 1 serving of peanut butter in a little bowl to dip the celery into to make them taste better.
Dinner: Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinner with added frozen vegetables – California mix with cauliflower, broccoli and carrot chips. Or peas and corn or just broccoli or baby Brussels sprouts.
Exercise: We go to Planet Fitness every other day and walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes. I walk 3.0mph with 0 incline. I also use the Total Body Enhancement for 12 minutes. When we are finished, we use the lounge water massage.
That’s it. That’s my day every day. I am not eating extra carbs like breads or pasta with the exception of the pasta in the weight watchers meals.
Ozempic. Where has this been for the last 25 years that I’ve been heavy?
So I started taking Ozempic on May 8, 2023. My doctor prescribed it in late April, but she prescribed Mounjaro, which the insurance wouldn’t cover, so finally she changed it to Ozempic in May and I started taking it the same day I got it.
So far I’ve lost 55lbs. I think this is such a small amount of time to lose 55lbs considering I only have 100lbs to lose. If I were heavier, like 300 or 400lbs, this might have been expected to go this quickly. The doctor said the more fat you have, the faster it will come off with Ozempic.
I did not have some of the horrible side effects like nausea and vomiting. Thank goodness. I do have dizziness and constipation, which aren’t that horrible. Trust me, I’d rather be dizzy every time I get up and only be able to poop every 3 days lol. I hate vomiting with every fiber of my being.
I joined a Facebook group for people who are just seeking support while on any of these many drugs meant for weight loss. I see a lot of people who have horrible side effects and they aren’t giving up, but some have given up because it’s too much for them. I don’t blame them one bit.
I’ve seen a lot of people talk about muscle loss. I believe I am suffering from this because I’m not able to carry heavy groceries from the car to the house like I used to. I don’t know if it’s a visible loss, but I can feel it. I also have been in a lot of pain in my back. I searched Google for this issue and back pain isn’t a side effect, but a lot of people are complaining about it.
My clothes are getting too big for me. I used to wear a XXL and I’m down to XL. I’m not going clothes shopping until I’m a large because I don’t want to waste money on XL clothes only to have to replace them in another couple or few months with large. I did however have to get a new pair of shorts for the summer because mine were constantly falling down. They have a drawstring, but I don’t want to have to use that all the time.
So the doctor doesn’t want me to drop down to 150lbs. She said 170 or 180 would be good for me. I told her I was actually 150lbs before I gained all this weight and she said well, as long long as you are healthy, that’s all that matters. My goal is to get down to 165 at least. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get down to 150, so I’m not reaching for that.
I think I’ll write another post when I’m down to about 190 which would be my 75lb weight loss point.
I quit smoking in 1996 because I was trying to be healthy, and I was just getting tired of smoking. I discovered food tasted so much better and I traded one bad habit for another and literally gained 50lbs in the first 2 months, which is the reason so many people won’t quit smoking. Gradually over time the weight went up, and now I am more than 100lbs overweight.
I have tried losing weight in the past and I have logged it here in my blog. I did the Noom app and ate Weight Watchers Smart Ones and one year I lost 70 lb in 6 months. That didn’t last and the weight went up eventually and I gained it all back and then some. I think the problem then was I had lost my motivation because I stopped losing weight and it didn’t seem to want to drop anymore. I just went back to regular eating and eventually overeating again.
In late April we went to the clinic and met our new doctor. She saw from my medical history that my blood sugar has been high and I showed her the “True Manager Air” log for my True Metrix blood sugar gadget and the highs were pretty much 180 to 200 daily. I take a medication called Trijardy for blood sugar because at one point it was in the 500’s. The Trijardy has helped bring it down, but it was still too high. She suggested trying something new.
She told me about a medicine that I can inject into my stomach that will trick my brain into thinking I’m not hungry which will make me eat less and some foods might make me physically sick or give me nausea. I said sure, sounds great. It took a while getting it because the insurance wouldn’t pay for Monjaro, so she changed it to Ozempic.
We went back to the doctor for my follow up appointment which was supposed to be after taking it for a month, but because it was difficult to get the medicine, the follow up was after 3 weeks instead.
Y’all! I cannot even begin to tell you how happy and excited this doctor was for me that I had lost 14lbs after just 3 weeks. She was more excited for me than I was. I really love her. I hope she will be my doctor for a long time. I hate that this clinic goes through doctors like TicTacs.
So she had me on .25 mg to start me out and after she saw I had lost weight, she changed the dose to .5mg. I am wondering if I have not gotten a lot of the side effects on the .25 mg that I might get the side effects from the .5 mg, maybe even more so. Not looking forward to that.
She told me the side effects could be nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation and I forget what else. I can handle constipation and diarrhea because I’ve been dealing with that for a long time anyway. I hate vomiting, but I won’t vomit if I don’t overeat. I don’t mind the nausea because the nausea will tell me hey, maybe don’t eat that. We were actually walking through the grocery store in the bakery department, and something, I don’t know what it was, made me feel so sick to my stomach and I almost retched right there in the store. I couldn’t get away fast enough from that smell. I hope it wasn’t something that I loved.
So, in the past 3 weeks that I’ve been on this Ozempic, I have actually not been very hungry. I’m only eating lunch and dinner because I know I have to eat. So it really does trick my brain into thinking that I’m not hungry. Today we decided to go to Taco Bell and one taco literally filled my stomach. I couldn’t eat another bite after that. Which is great because it was only 170 calories.
I’m eating the Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinners again and I’m snacking on low-fat string cheese and I told the doctor that and she said that’s great. Keep doing that if that’s what works for you. We also buy bags of frozen vegetables from Aldi. They don’t have a lot of calories and they will fill me up and the fiber from the vegetables is probably going to help me with the constipation issues lol. At least I think that’s how vegetables work. I’m not sure.
So the doctor told me that some people have lost over 100lbs taking this medicine and that’s great because I am 100 lb overweight. I was 115 lbs overweight, but now I’m only 100 lb overweight. I don’t expect to get back down to 150 which is what I used to weigh because I have built muscle over the years since I used to weigh 150 lb, but I would like to get back down to at least 160lbs if that’s even possible.
I just can’t stand this weight anymore. It’s like carrying around a child and I don’t even have children. Not being hungry all the time will definitely help me lose weight. The method for which getting this medicine into my body is injecting it into my stomach once a week. The needle is so tiny it doesn’t even hurt, I don’t even feel it. I have to press it into my stomach while pinching my skin (and fat lol) and press the button on the pen to make the medicine go into my stomach, and then I have to wait I think she told me 10 seconds, but I can’t remember so I hold it in for 30 seconds just in case. They said to hold it in for a little bit longer just to make sure that all of the medicine gets inside my body.
Suddenly I finally have motivation to lose weight and continue trying to lose weight until it’s all gone because I have something that will make me not feel hungry all the time. And that’s my problem. I’m hungry literally all the time. We will go to a restaurant and I will come home stuffed and literally an hour later I’m hungry again. I don’t like being hungry all the time. My stomach must have expanded so much that it needs more and more food. By not eating so much food all the time, my stomach will shrink down and I will get full faster by eating normal portions. Once that happens and I’ve lost enough weight, then I will be able to continue living my life and eating like a normal person and be full a lot faster than I do now.
So, I was 265 lbs in April when she first weighed me and as of this writing I weigh 248 lbs. I would like to get down to 160 lbs at least. My blood sugar like I said before was between 180 and 200 and today it was 105. Normal is between 80 and 120.
So my weight loss story will continue and I will update my progress.
Update 7/27/2023: I’ve lost 50lbs total. I’m working on a video and have updated the video.
I have always had a huge appetite since I was at least a teenager. At dinner, my mom would always make enough so everyone could have seconds, and I was typically the only one who would actually take seconds. I was so skinny and my mom never understood where that food went because I never gained any weight no matter how much food I ate. I kind of hate my younger self right now lol. I was also active, and when I say active, I mean like gym class, running from the school to escape bullies, then walking home from school. You know, typical teenage angst lol.
So the time of my life I’m referring to was when I was around 13 years old and I was 150lbs. Fast forward to when I was 26 and I was still 150lbs, then I quit smoking and that all changed. Suddenly I was gaining weight because I was discovering how wonderful food was. Before then I was eating to survive on what we could afford. After, I was eating for pleasure, and I wasn’t holding back. I was getting a lot more food than normal and within 2 months of quitting smoking, I had gained 50lbs. So there I was 200lbs with a fat belly all of a sudden and my appetite was out of control, but I was trying not to go over 200lbs.
Over the years I’ve gained weight because of my enormous appetite until I was at my highest last year at 267lbs. I bought a Fitbit Charge 4 watch and a Fitbit Aria scale and I tried working on my weight. When I got the scale I was 265lbs and by January this year I was 254lbs, then the surgeon told me to lose 15-20lbs for my surgery and then I went down to 230lbs. Now after surgery I have gone down to 225lbs.
And now to the subject of this post. I had my surgery where they reduced the size of my colon, which is a nicer way of saying they removed a section of my colon to remove the possibility of colon cancer. But ever since I had my surgery, I haven’t been very hungry. They fed me 6oz of soup and some other things like pudding or jello and some juices and milk. Well, that tiny amount of food and drinks made me feel so full. When I came home from the hospital I was still getting full from such a tiny amount of food. I left the hospital on Thursday and today is Sunday and I’m still getting full from 6oz of soup. I made myself tomato soup, a 3oz glass of sugar free Jell-O and a chocolate pudding cup and I couldn’t even eat the Jell-O or the pudding. It was literally too much food.
This will be to my advantage to help me reduce the size of my stomach. If I eat and I get full fast, then I won’t have the chance to make my stomach too big again, and that will help me lose weight, especially when I go back to eating my Keto food. This will also prevent me from even wanting to go to a buffet because if I’m not hungry for such a huge amount of food, then I won’t be tempted to go, thus I won’t overeat and gain weight again. So I see this as a huge win for me.
How long do you think it will take me to get down to 200lbs if I am 225lbs now? I pretty much lost 22lbs from mid-January to the end of March. So do you think I will be down to 200lbs by June or July maybe? And if I get down to 200lbs by then, I will just keep going and lose all the weight I can possibly lose. I really would like to get back to 150lbs, but I will be happy if I can get down to 160 or 170. When I finally get down to the weight I want to be, I’m going to continue to maintain my weight by eating Keto foods, and if I still lose weight, well then good for me.
I bought a Fitbit Charge 4 watch in June 2020. I wanted to buy a scale, but I had to wait until I had more money. I finally bought the scale when I got my check in August 2020 because I wanted to be able to weigh myself and have it automatically enter my weight into the Fitbit app along with my BMI and body fat percentage. But apparently it only logs weight. Well, I could have done that manually lol. I bought this because the listing on Amazon (as you can see) says BMI.
While I was waiting for my scale to arrive, I went back to the listing and started reading the reviews. Most reviews mentioned it did not show BMI at all, and that it doesn’t pop up in the Fitbit app like it is supposed to when you step on the scale. I started getting mad, because I paid $58 for this scale (with the insurance and taxes, shipping was free with Prime). Then I thought, well maybe I should cancel this and get the Aria 2, but that’s $150 lol. So, I didn’t cancel this.
So here is what I have found out about this scale once it was in my possession. When I first opened the box and set the scale up in the Fitbit app, I weighed myself and it popped up in the app in a few seconds. But, several times later in the same day I tried and it didn’t pop up in the app. I didn’t understand, because it is supposed to work every time you weigh yourself.
Yesterday morning I went to weigh myself and it didn’t show up in the app, so I figured that I would probably have to start over, so I removed it from the Fitbit app and tried to reinstall it, but apparently you can’t do that, you have to reset the Fitbit Aria Air scale by pressing the button before you are even able to use it again in the app. So I went through all that only to find out it isn’t going to install again because something was happening with my phone and I needed to reboot it. I finally got it rebooted and it installed just fine like the first time, and it took 15 seconds to even pop up in the app.
This morning I wondered if this thing was going to work and it didn’t pop up in the app at all. I figured the problem isn’t the scale or the app, the problem is my phone. So I rebooted my phone and tried again and the weight immediately popped up in the app when I weighed myself.
So this is my solve for anyone else who has trouble with this scale. Just reboot your phone if it isn’t working immediately. Or, reboot your phone before you attempt to weigh yourself.
I had an issue with the listing saying BMI smart scale, when in fact it does not show your BMI, but upon further inspection, and a little Googling, I discovered the app actually does show you BMI. Not the scale. So how to find that is when you are in the app, look for the weight block, tap that, then you see the graph on the screen that says Weight Trends (30 days (lbs), swipe that to the left and it shows Lean vs Fat, swipe it again and it shows BMI past 30 days, swipe again it shows Body fat %. The Aria Air doesn’t include body fat %, you have to enter that manually, but if you don’t even know what your body fat % is, that graph will be empty. I don’t know how to find out body fat %.
Edit: I discovered there are apps that calculate body fat percentage based on measurements you have to take manually with cloth measuring tape. So yeah… there’s that.
So buy this if all you have to spend is $50 plus taxes plus insurance, and trust me, you want the insurance because it’s only $3 extra. You just never know. It is a good scale, even though it has limitations.
Oh, before I go I also wanted to mention that this scale has the option to see your weight in pounds, stones or kilograms. So if you prefer to see your weight in any other format, you have the option by pressing the button on the bottom of the scale. It shows it on the screen when you press it. You can also choose to change it in the Fitbit app.
It has been a rough week for me, but I finally lost some weight. I decided to only do cardio and not do any muscle stuff this week because I haven’t seen any results in a couple of weeks. It gets frustrating when you are working your butt off at the gym and your weight either stays the same, or it goes up.
I only go to the gym every other day, and this week I walk on the treadmill for 1 hour with a 5 minute cool down, then take a few minute break, then get back on the treadmill for another 1 hour with a 5 minute cool down, then I use the massage bed because after 2 hours of walking, my back is killing me. But, my feet are also killing me. I have blisters on my right heel and I also have a blister on my left foot below my toes. I had those gel insoles, and they basically shredded from either my weight or from walking so much, so I had to buy new insoles and I bought the memory foam ones, and of course they flatten out and they don’t really do any good at all.
Well, more work, more exercise, more trying to resist temptation because I have a LOT more weight to lose. See you in a week with my next report lol.
We had to stop going to the gym last month because both of us got really sick. When I say we or us, I am referring to myself and my partner. I was diagnosed with HIV in 1991 and then upgraded to AIDS in 1994, so when I get sick, I’m not just sick with a 24 to 48 hour bug, when I get sick, I’m down for a month or longer. I literally have no immune system. My viral load has been undetectable for years and my t-cells have been pretty high in the 900’s for awhile now, but I still suffer when I get sick.
The virus from my cold is long gone, but I’m still coughing. I was coughing up and blowing mucus out of my nose even though I had no nasal or chest congestion at all. That first couple of days when we first got sick last month we just so happened to have a doctor’s appointment and the doctor checked my lungs by listening to my back while making me breathe in and out, in and out, in and out… He didn’t hear anything, so he told me I would be fine. I asked him for antibiotics or at least cough syrup, and he refused to give me anything. He didn’t want to give me medicine for something I don’t have. Well, that’s fine and dandy if I was only going to be sick for a couple days, but I was literally sick for a month.
So we could have gone back to the gym a couple of weeks ago, but we wanted to wait until it was fully out of my system. I would hate to give anyone else my germs and then get them sick.
Going back to the gym after being absent for a month is basically like starting over from scratch. Whatever exercises we did today will probably hurt in the morning and for the next couple of days. I mean, I don’t feel anything now, but then again we just came home from the gym about an hour ago, so who knows what may happen later tonight or when I wake up tomorrow. We’ll see.
The surgeon who operated on my broken leg in December told me to do leg exercises at the gym, and of course take my time and not try to force myself to bend my leg on the leg machines and then hurt myself. My leg is in agony, so I will have to be very careful when I do the leg exercises. I haven’t spoken to a trainer, but I already know which machines I want to start using… all of them! LOL No, but seriously, I will have to make an appointment so she can write down our day 3 exercises for leg day. She gave us 2 days for our upper body, and my partner only wants to go 3 days a week, so legs will all have to be done on the last day of the week.
I’m not expecting to lose any weight, I just want to exercise to feel healthy. You see, I have a feeling it’s when you stop trying is when you will actually lose weight. I say that because just about every time I try to lose weight, I end up gaining weight. So I’m using reverse psychology… on myself lol. Hey, whatever works right?
I wanted to ride my new Schwinn Meridian 3-wheel tricycle to the store. I bought it a month ago and it’s been sitting in our back yard ever since. I haven’t been allowed to ride it because my partner is afraid I will hurt my leg, or perhaps get into another accident and break something else. I insisted on going to the store on the trike because I wanted to buy him a anniversary gift, and I really wanted to ride it. It’s like giving a child a cookie, but saying you can’t eat it, although in this case, I bought it and I’m being told I can’t ride it. He isn’t wrong for worrying because I’ve broken 2 bones so far on my bike.
The new Schwinn Meridian 3-wheel tricycle is very difficult to ride at first. I was on the right side of the street and I was quickly heading towards the sidewalk. I thought I was going straight, and in fact I held the handlebars like I was going straight, but for some reason I was actually going to the right. I had to quickly hit the brakes before I hit the sidewalk and the back of a car. That thing stops on a dime. I mean, literally, I squeezed the handlebars and it stopped so fast that I nearly fell off. I did actually, but I landed on both feet, thank goodness. I discovered that I have to veer to the left to go straight, which makes me think the handlebars aren’t on right, but they are. I even triple checked, and they are on straight.
I think that it will take time to learn the quirks of that bike so I will be comfortable enough to ride it when I need/want to. I reassured my partner that I won’t be riding that bike as fast as I normally would ride my old bike. I said I wouldn’t be racing, and he said YOU’VE BEEN RACING? I laughed and said no, I mean I won’t be going 10-12mph, instead I’ll go slow like 7 or 8 mph like an old man. When I cross streets I will walk it instead of riding it, which you are supposed to do anyway. I’ll also only ride it in residential neighborhoods instead of busy streets. Even streets with a bike lane have cars parked in them, so I end up with a very tiny amount of road. I prefer neighborhoods anyway.
I won’t be going to the gym until April 15th, so I still have a few weeks to heal, even though the doctor told me I was completely healed. I really look forward to going to the gym, even though I’m terrified to go on any bike now. I guess if I fear breaking another bone in my body, then I will be even more careful than I normally am, and so I shouldn’t worry about it. My commitment to Planet Fitness ends in September, that is if they didn’t add those months that I had my account frozen, if that’s the case then probably December. I really hope I make a big difference and lose a lot of weight by then.
Did you notice the picture above? I took a picture of it after I put all the locks on it when I got to the store. There is the U shaped lock that attaches to the handicapped sign with the steel coil attached to the front wheel. Then of course a coil cable attached from the seat to the frame, that way I don’t have to worry about someone stealing my seat. Trust me, it’s an issue lol. Then 2 more coiled cables attached to each back wheel. You think it’s paranoia, but if you think that, you’ve never come back to your bike minus a wheel or the seat. It happens more than you think. Trust me, it’s happened to me.
Diet and exercise are very important to me. Since I have Scoliosis, I prefer cycling over any other form of cardio exercise that might hurt my back. I have a mountain bike on a bicycle trainer in our patio and I have a bicycle computer connected to the back wheel. I also use the Noom app on my Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ tablet to log my diet and exercise.
The Noom app added a new feature that allows you to connect your Google Fit account so it can copy all of the cardio information from your Google Fit tracker. I didn’t have a Google Fit tracker, so I went looking for one, however they are very expensive. I went looking for an alternative and found The Spark Activity Tracker from Spark People for only $29.95. It attaches to your shoe or your belt or wherever you want to attach it. It logs your steps and all of your cardio from walking, jogging, running, cycling, elliptical and even when you are just working or shopping. It comes with a USB Wireless Sync Point that allows The Spark to sync when you are in range of your computer where it is plugged in. Once it syncs up with your SparkPeople account, you can then see your progress. It shows daily steps, activity minutes, calories burned and distance covered.
Unfortunately The Spark doesn’t connect to the Noom app, but I will be able to use the information from SparkPeople to log my activity to Noom. Perhaps this will be more accurate since it is much newer than my bicycle computer. If The Spark is permanently attached to my shoe, I will never forget it, and the battery will last for a year, so no worries about having to keep it charged. I can also edit the steps in the Noom app so they are the same as in the SparkPeople website.
What I was not expecting was to receive a SparkPeople Exercise DVD that will give me complete weekly workouts for beginners, intermediate and advanced. I am considering buying some weights to go with these workouts. I watched a few of them and they aren’t bad either. I don’t have a lot of space in my bedroom, but I might have just enough to do these workouts.
I was curious to see if The Spark would know the difference between walking and riding my bicycle, and it knew exactly what I was doing because it logged 22 minutes on the bike as “Cycling”. Although, the 2nd day I used it, it logged it as general exercise. I had to reclassify it, and that also affected my steps on the SparkPeople website and app, which gave me more steps. A little strange that I had to do that, but that’s fine.
It’s also interesting how The Spark works. You tap it 5 times and it will show lights to show you how you are doing. If it only has 1 light on the top, you haven’t done anything yet, if it shows half, then you know you’ve still got a ways to go. If all the lights come on, and they blink, then you still have a few minutes of exercise to go. You know you’re finished when all the lights glow and they don’t blink. That’s when you can sigh and say I’m done! And if you meet your goal for the day, the week or the month, you get a trophy. The image at the top of this paragraph is my first trophy which says I met my goal of 6000 steps. I got the same trophy on my 2nd day using it. The trophies are a fun way to encourage you to meet all of your goals. Although, you don’t get an actual trophy, but if you do all of the work and eat right, you get a flat tummy, and isn’t that worth all the trophies in the world?
I was motivated by the Noom and SparkPeople apps, and I was motivated by my bicycle and the bicycle trainer, but even though I had all of those things, I wasn’t 100% motivated. I do feel that this Spark will light a spark under my ass and get me back to work so I can lose this weight. I hope it does.
My Ascent Fluid Trainer from Nashbar arrived via UPS on October 29. Setting it up was a breeze and my bicycle looks really nice on it, but there is a huge downside, and that’s the noise it makes. Holy crap that thing is loud. It’s not really that bad if I have music playing in my ears, but everyone else can hear it. You get used to it after a while.
I installed my bicycle computer on the back wheel and reset my computer so it can start over from scratch. I rode on it for a few minutes and burned a total of 19 calories lol. But let me tell you that this trainer is so good that my thighs were on fire. I had to stop and start again, again and again and OMG.
It was definitely worth the money that I paid. I was hoping this could be something that I could do in 30 to 60 minute intervals throughout the day, like after every meal or something. I was hoping to clear a space in the dining room for it, but that’s totally out of the question because of how loud this thing is. I wanted to put it in my bedroom because I can watch TV in there while I’m on it, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon. If I had a 10 speed then that would be one thing, but I’m not bringing my mountain bike in the bedroom because I still need to use it to go to the grocery store every now and then, and it’s too much of a hassle to walk it through the kitchen and hallway and through 4 doorways. If it’s not a permanent fixture, then it’s not going to work out. If by chance I do find one, then that would be awesome and I will try it.
One thing that I didn’t realize about this thing is that when I switch gears, my back wheel moves and hits the right side of the resistance unit roller. I did that and found it was especially difficult to ride, so I got off and looked and saw a bunch of black dust on the ground. I was grinding the rubber off my wheel. Oops! Well, so much for changing gears. I read that you are supposed to position the wheel on the back of the trainer so it provides you with the resistance you need, then switch gears on the bicycle to make it easy or hard. Well, that’s not going to work with my bicycle lol.
The next time I rode my bike on the trainer, I noticed that as I was riding, the bike would move and the wheel would slide on the roller and it would grind the end of the roller as if I had switched gears, but I hadn’t. I would get off and move it back into position, but it would do it again and I didn’t know why. I then thought that perhaps it was because where it screws onto the axle, it didn’t have anything to hold on to. There is an Axle Support Cup that wasn’t able to grip onto anything. The right side has the nut in the Axle Support Cup, but it wasn’t able to grip the nut on the left side. I was having a difficult time thinking of how I was going to fix this if I didn’t have a 2nd nut to screw on to the left axle. My partner suggested that since my front wheel doesn’t move, why not take one of the nuts from the front, and use it on the back, so that’s what I did and it worked. Maybe I can switch gears now.
I’m glad he suggested that, because I could have continued to ride the bike without that nut on there and with my luck, I could have broken either the axle, or the trainer itself, and perhaps I would end up having an accident and end up breaking a bone. Wouldn’t that be just my luck? That’s all I need lol.
Anyway, I hope to get a lot of use out of this thing because I need a lot of exercise. If anything new happens or I get new information I will blog about it.
It’s also interesting how The Spark works. You tap it 5 times and it will show lights to show you how you are doing. If it only has 1 light on the top, you haven’t done anything yet, if it shows half, then you know you’ve still got a ways to go. If all the lights come on, and they blink, then you still have a few minutes of exercise to go. You know you’re finished when all the lights glow and they don’t blink. That’s when you can sigh and say I’m done! And if you meet your goal for the day, the week or the month, you get a trophy. The image at the top of this paragraph is my first trophy which says I met my goal of 6000 steps. I got the same trophy on my 2nd day using it. The trophies are a fun way to encourage you to meet all of your goals. Although, you don’t get an actual trophy, but if you do all of the work and eat right, you get a flat tummy, and isn’t that worth all the trophies in the world?
Xanapus` Lair 