Tag: weight watchers

Weight loss progress

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

noom weight graph

I started using Noom in January 2013 and I successfully lost 70lbs in the first 7 months, but then I hit a plateau, as you can see in my weight graph.  I tried to maintain my weight, which was 194lbs, but I had a hard time.  The holidays came and I had gained about 20lbs.  I have been saying 15lbs because I seem to get to 208 to 210lbs and stay there, but occasionally it will go up to 213 or 214.

My New Year’s Resolution again was to get down to 150 which is my ultimate goal weight.  I said 57lbs, that was because when I made the new goal, I was 207lbs.  People are always telling me that 150 is too thin, but they don’t realize is that when I was 150lbs before I gained all this weight, I could still pinch an inch or so, so 150lbs wasn’t that thin for me.  I could probably get down to 140, but I won’t go that far.  If I get down to 160 and I’m happy, then I will stay there, but I would really love to get down to 150.

I don’t have the same willpower that I had a year ago, but I am working on that.  I just can’t seem to recall what I did exactly.  I mean, I remember that I cut out bread, which I have decided to do again, I cut out sweets, which I have had a difficult time with because it is shoved in my face at every turn.  I am trying to control my willpower.  I cut out soda and other high calorie drinks.  I don’t really drink soda too often and when I do it’s usually diet coke, but I even cut that out of my diet.  Let’s see, I cut out all high calorie snacks last year, but I don’t seem to be following, but I’m trying.  Okay, enough is enough!  No more crap food!  No See’s candy, no pudding snack packs, no cheese nips or pretzels!

I have gone down a few pounds though.  I weighed myself today at 205lbs so I know I am going to succeed if I try.  I’ve been eating a bowl of mixed cereals (rice chex, honey nut Cheerios and bran flakes) with a sliced banana and vanilla flavored light almond milk for breakfast.  I bought some Progreso light soup which is 70, 80 and 100 calories per serving, and that seems to be filling.  For dinner I’m eating the Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinners.  I tend to be more hungry at night than I do in the morning for some odd reason, but I’m trying to keep my snacking down.  I will eat some fruit or veggies if I do snack.  We bought a bag of red apples at Dollar General for $1.95.  You can’t beat that price.

Anyway, I am trying at least.  The Noom app will ask me to weigh myself every few days, so I’ve been doing that and my weight has pretty much stayed the same, 208, but now it’s 205 so I look forward to what I will be the next time it asks.  Last year I only weighed myself on Fridays, but this year I will weigh in when it asks me to.

I’m rambling lol.  I just wanted an excuse to blog because I haven’t been blogging lately.  Anyway, tootles!

New Year, Noom Me… Again

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

Noom Logo

What do we always do on January 1st?  We make a new years resolution.  What is the number one resolution?  Say it with me.  To lose weight.  I did just that in 2013 with Noom and I plan on doing it again starting today.

We have already been to Food Maxx to buy our Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinners which is what helped me to lose 70lbs in 2013.  We also have our frozen veggies and fruit in the fruit bowl.  I start physical therapy on January 3rd and I will most likely ride my bike to get there and use the Noom cardio trainer app to log my bike ride and my PT.  I took the Noom app off my phone and put it on my Nook HD+ because I like the bigger screen and because I need the space on my phone.

Like i said, last year I was lucky enough to lose 70lbs and every week I had weight loss, and no gain.  I would love to do the same exact thing this year, but even I know that is nearly impossible.  If you try hard to do something you did before, you won’t do it and you will become frustrated and you will end up doing the opposite, so I’m just going to relax and hope for the best.  If it happens, it happens, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.  But I hope it does lol.

So from right this moment, every breakfast I will measure the exact amount of cereal and pour the exact amount of soy milk and slice exactly 1 banana into it for breakfast.  For my snacks I will stick with fruits and lunch and dinner I will try to stick with veggies and the weight watchers meals.  That is how I did it in 2013.

It’s not difficult to do something if you set your mind to it.  I said that I will NOT eat chocolate or cookies or ice cream, and I kept my word.  Instead of eating those bad things, I substituted them for fruits.  Instead of eating chocolate ice cream, I chopped and froze a banana or cantaloupe and blended them in the food processor and made my own healthier ice cream.  Instead of eating store-bought cookies, I made my own from a recipe that I found.  In fact, here are all of my healthy recipes that I found and altered to make them healthy.

I don’t drink soda or any alcoholic beverages, so that’s a blessing, but I do drink coffee with creamer and no calorie sweetener.  I did okay on the diet last year with the coffee, so that’s not a problem.  I tried to drink water, but I just can’t stand plain old water.  I drink Crystal Light, or well the Food Maxx generic version of it anyway.  It’s 5 calories per 8oz which is not too bad.  Although people are always telling me to cut out the sweeteners and blah blah blah, but again, 70lbs last year speaks for itself.

Anyway, so that’s my plan and I am hoping to drop down to 160lbs this time.  I would like to get down to 150lbs, but I’m just going to try for 160 and see how that goes.  If I find myself wanting to drop another 10lbs then I will.  Once I get to my main goal then I will continue using the Noom app to maintain my weight.  And of course I will start blogging every weigh in day again.  My weigh in days in 2013 were Fridays, so how does Friday sound?  Sounds good to me.  So it’s settled.  This coming Friday will be my first official weigh in and blog post.

Day 5 After Parotidectomy Surgery

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog5 Comments

surgery scar 5 days

My surgery was on November 20th so it has been 5 days and I thought I would take a picture to show my progress.  It appears that my ear is swelling up and my face is a lot redder than it was.  I had just gotten out of the bath tub when I took the picture on the right, but it has been more than an hour since then and it is still just as red.  All of the red area is completely numb.

The way the doctor cut my face and stitched it up was perfect.  He followed my ear all the way down and went behind my ear lobe before going down following the line of my beard.  Genius!  In my opinion, he did an excellent job.  I saw pictures of other people who had the same surgery and their incisions didn’t look this good, so I feel very blessed that I had such an artist.

My face has a golf ball sized hole in front of my ear where my gland used to be swollen.  I figured it would have filled in by now, but it is still dented.  I’m sure it will fill in, I’m not worried about that.  It is still numb too.

The only thing that isn’t numb is where the tube is sticking out.  I don’t really care too much for having a tube sticking out of my neck.  It would be awesome if I didn’t have to have it in me for 2 whole weeks.  It was supposed to be removed after 7 days, and they even wrote a note on the paperwork that said “Follow-up KMC ENT Clinic next Friday.”  Well, that is the day after Thanksgiving and they are closed that day.  The reason they said Friday and not Wednesday is because that surgeon is only in the surgery clinic on Friday.  I guess he is the only one who can take the tube out so I will have to wait until December 6th.

I have been catching up on my sleep.  Today I woke up to the sound of my alarm on my phone to tell me to take my pills at 8am.  I had other pills to take at 10am and it had to wake me up again for those.  Then my partner woke me up at 12:30pm and I decided I wanted to get out of bed.  I don’t like sleeping the day away lol.

Another good thing about this is that I am losing weight again.  That’s not always a good thing because the reason I am losing weight is because of the medication, but I am using that to my advantage.  I am normally always hungry, so since I don’t feel too hungry all the time, I am eating the same amount of food I ate when I lost 70lbs.  I have been eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerio’s for breakfast with a banana and Silk Vanilla Light Almond Milk.  I ate a Yoplait light Strawberry yogurt at 10am which is my usual snack time and I ate a Weight Watchers Smart Ones meal with Fettuccine Alfredo and Chicken.  It is my 3pm snack time now so I will have a banana, then at dinner I will have another Weight Watchers Smart Ones meal.

When I stopped losing weight in July, I was still eating this same diet, although I was eating a little bit more food and I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep which seems to be the key.  I am getting more sleep now and eating the right foods, so I am losing weight again.  When I stopped losing weight I was 192lbs, but then I went back up to 202lbs and fluctuated between 202 and 210.  Last week when I had my surgery I was 208.  Today I am 199.8.  So I will just keep doing what I am doing to help get me back down to 192.  Whatever it takes, right?  This was the boost I needed and hopefully I will continue to lose weight.

Well, back to bed I go.

Weight Gain

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, Food, Noom, Pain, WeightLeave a comment

WeightGain

We went to the doctor’s office today so I could get my clearance note for surgery to remove my parotid gland.  They had me step on the scale and I was shocked to see that I was 205lbs.  So yeah, I’m a bit verklempt lol.

One of my issues with exercising is that when I walk or ride my bike or do anything that burns calories, the Noom app tells me that I can eat more calories, so I end up eating those extra calories, but then I might even go over those extra calories because I think to myself that I did such a good job that it’s okay.  Well, that’s not how it works.  I should still stick with 1400 calories, 1500 at the most.  Even if it says I can eat 1700, I should draw the line in the sand at 1500.

I’ve been using the Noom app for my cardio, but I decided to download the Noom Cardio Trainer.  I’m sure that it will still show the extra calories in the Noom app, but I just want to see how it goes with the Noom Cardio Trainer.

I’ve been eating those Quinoa and Tofu burgers every day with hamburger buns which is not a good idea; I should be eating them without any bread.  Here is my typical day:

Every morning I will either have a bowl of Malt-O-Meal or a banana for breakfast, which by the way the Malt-O-Meal is a green food (which means healthy) and the banana is obviously a green food.  For my morning snack (second breakfast?) I usually have a banana.  For lunch I normally eat a Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinner, although I’ve been eating the Quinoa and Tofu burgers, both by the way are green, except for the bun of course.  Afternoon snack (linner?) is typically a banana or crackers or sometimes I will have a bowl of broccoli.  That has been consistent.  Dinner is typically a Weight Watchers Smart Ones, but I’ve been eating the Quinoa and Tofu Burgers.  For evening snack I’ve been eating a lot of crackers.  I need to stop doing that, but I get so hungry that it feels like I’m famished.

I’m assuming that my issue here is the bread and the crackers.  I also have to admit that I’ve been eating candy corn, but not daily.  I’m guessing that the amount that I’ve eaten so far is finally catching up to me, so I will stop eating them for the rest of the season.  If I am having this much difficulty from the candy corn, just imagine how it’s going to be when Eggnog is available in stores.  I’m going to go crazy because I just LOVE eggnog lol.

So getting back to the Noom cardio trainer, I have set up 5 days a week to go riding on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.  I’m going to go out 5 days a week to do at least 11 miles per day, if I can do more, then great, but I’m not going to push myself that hard.  The app suggests 5 days a week, so I’m giving myself 2 days off, but not 2 consecutive days which is why I chose Sundays and Wednesdays as my days off.

balance ballI am also going to buy that Gaiam Total Body Balance Ball Kit which is sold on Amazon for $20.  It has an exercise DVD with it which I can watch while doing the exercises in my bedroom.  The doctor at Physical Therapy told me I should buy one so I can do exercises for my back since I only have 3 more sessions left.  My insurance only pays for so many sessions, then I’m on my own.  My back isn’t in as much pain as it was, but anyone who has, or anyone who knows anyone with scoliosis knows that the pain is really bad.  The only thing that really helps my pain is the exercises.  Pain meds don’t do anything for my back pain, they help my parotid gland pain, but not my back pain.  $20 is a small price to pay for pain relief.  I wanted to buy one at Target, but they were the same price, but without the DVD.

I really hope I can get back down to my comfortable weight of 192lbs and possibly get back on track with my weight loss so I can get down to my ultimate goal of 170lbs.  Considering I lost 70lbs this year, 35lbs shouldn’t be that difficult to lose, although it’s harder than I thought.

So to recap, my goal is to stay away from Halloween Candy and any other holiday sweets, bread and to exercise more and to try not to eat more than 1500 calories per day, even when the app says I can eat more.

Ready… set…  GO!

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

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…

Vaping and Dieting

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, E-Cigarette, Food, Health, Products I Like, Recipes, Vaping, Weight2 Comments

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.

New Way of Thinking About Food

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Exercise, HealthLeave a comment

Boy oh boy.  Here comes the post where I have to talk about changing my diet habits when I start riding my bike again.

I haven’t actually gotten the new front wheel yet and I haven’t gotten my Camelbak or Diablo skull cap so I can’t really start riding yet.  Even if I get my wheel tomorrow, if I don’t have the camelbak or the skull cap I’m not riding yet.  Yeah I know I’ve ridden without them just fine in the past but I really want to have them when I start riding again.  I think it will help me stay hydrated a lot longer than the old 32oz bottle because I can feel free to drink more since I now have 70oz of water to drink so I won’t be conserving it so much.

But what about my food habits?  Ok, well, no more McDonald’s that’s number one.  No more fried chicken from Albertson’s or cocoa pebbles cereal filled all the way to the top of the bowl.

From now on I am going to try my hardest to only eat good foods.  I don’t know what is a good example of good foods but I’m sure I will figure it out soon enough.  Instead of buying the crap cereals, I’m going to buy either Raisin Bran or the Weight Watchers cereal.  Costco used to have the Weight Watchers cereal and it was so good and I was measuring it instead of just pouring it into my bowl.  I have to start doing that again.

It’s all mentally and physically preparing myself for the torture I’m going to be putting myself through on a daily basis.  Can you imagine riding for 20 miles straight in a couple of hours burning something like 1000 calories?  Then coming home and taking a shower just to get ready to go to McDonald’s to eat lunch?  OMG That totally cancels out the whole ride.  Just 1 McChicken sandwich cancels all that out.  Not to mention the 2nd chicken sandwich that I would normally eat as well as the small fry and 2 apple pies.  I don’t count the diet coke, it has no calories.

No, I’m going to have to spend a little more money on my food at the store rather than eating a $5 lunch at McDonald’s.  And when we go out to restaurants I’m going to have to get the side salad or sandwich every time so I don’t cancel myself out again.

Oh and forget about ever being able to have ice cream again lol.  Ok, Ice Cream is fine in moderation.  I can safely eat ice cream as long as it’s 1 scoop of ice cream, not an entire container of ice cream.  You know, those little $5 cups of Häagen-Dazs.

With my birthday coming up it’s not going to be easy for me but I think I can manage.  And Darrin is diabetic so I know he’s not going to buy me a cake that he can’t eat.  So I think that we will figure it out.  They have these single serve cakes that we can buy and we can buy 1 of those small Häagen-Dazs ice cream cups and split it.  It’s hard to scoop from a tiny cup lol.  Oh wait they have these little tiny cups that measures to I think half a cup of ice cream which I believe is 1 serving so maybe I’ll buy 2 of those lol.  They ain’t cheap, they cost $1 each.

The point is, I’m going to start riding my bike again hopefully this weekend maybe tomorrow.  I’m not going to ride on Chips days off, just 5 days a week when he works so that he won’t think I’m blowing him off to go bike riding.  But before I start riding again I’ve gotta rethink my whole eating habits so that I don’t keep making the same mistakes I always make and think hey well I’m exercising so one ice cream won’t hurt or 2 McChicken won’t hurt.  They will.

Ugh!  It’s a lot of mental preparation and a lot of physical torture but I gotta do it.  I just wish my stuff would come in so I can do it sooner than later lol.