My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 59

What is a good journey, without a few bumps in the road.

Today, I think we hit a monster bump. Stress levels have shot up quite a bit.

I won’t get into too many details, but this weekend we are making an emergency trip down south. My sister-in-law, and her husband, are having some severe issues. Their oldest lives at home still, and has been relaying information to us over the last few weeks. It seems they have a drinking problem. The oldest kid is like 30. Their youngest is 7. More and more, the parents have been passed out, and the seven year old has gone without for hours until the oldest kid comes home from work. Then she finds the 7 year old crying in her room. I guess even cops have been called in the past when they had some bad fights.

So the oldest sent out a text to the family (my wife and her other sisters), because things really went over the top today. So she was asking for help. I know some are heading that way, and we are going this weekend. I don’t know how we can help, but we are going to do what we can. I found out the husband is in the hospital tonight, apparently he tried to OD on pills. His brother was telling my wife, that things are much worse then we think.

Won’t give up, can’t give up

I thought emotionally, I was doing fine. My old me, fat brain is trying to get me. Those old sugar and carb demons trying to make it to the surface. “Hey, all that junk you haven’t been eating is all right there. Go ahead, and grab some. It’s all a big fail now, right?” Sorry fat brain, I’m not going down that easy.

I have come too far so far, to give into these temptations.

The rest of the week

For now, we continue on. Thursday I have bowling. Kids will still be in school tomorrow and Friday. We are going to head out Friday night, and drive back on Monday. No idea how food will be, or anything else for that matter. I’ll have my laptop, so I should be able to make my blog posts.

I am going to try to do my best though.

#1 Keep food on check as best as I can. I want to stay Keto if possible. I know the hotel were are staying at does a breakfast. So i am hoping I can get eggs there. I imagine that fast food will be the king of meals this couple of days. I am going to do my best to keep my feast monster in check, and order as healthy as I can. I’m not worried about Intermittent fasting. I want to stick to it, but my main focus will be my food. I hope to still track it, but we shall see.

#2 Try to keep my sleep routine going. I am going to bring my book with me. So I don’t want to stay up all hours of the night either (unless that is what is called for with being there for the family)

So I am hoping to keep myself somewhat grounded. I don’t have to focus on too much while emotions will be high.

I know the sister in law was already texting my wife “I’m fine, you guys don’t need to drive here. Everything is OK now” But we all know how much crap that is. At the very least, we can be there with others to offer support or help anyway we can. They might kick us out, but it’s family. We have to go.

My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 58

Bah hum bug scale!!! For some reason, looks like I gained 2 pounds this morning. Just one of those fluctuations that happens. I’ve seen worse haha.

Today, I didn’t get out for a walk. I was feeling some random pain in my leg/hip area. Like right where the leg socket would go into the hip. This morning it was fine. I should have got my walk in. This afternoon, just random flare ups as I moved around. So I figured I would play it safe, and not walk today.

I think pretty soon, I am going to start adding in body weight workouts, or something. I think it is about that time. Maybe after I get a few things straightened out here at home.

Monday Recap

I didn’t walk on Monday. This is usual though, since I post up my weekly recaps. Plus I have bowling.

Bowling last night was kinda good, and kinda bad. I bowled 260, 168, 199 for a 627 series. I had a great start. I was crushing the pins. Then in the second game, things started changing. Getting a split in the 10th frame didn’t help any! Third game, I did come back and bowl better though. Overall a good series, just not very consistent.

Food:

MyFitnessPal Food Diary.  1642 Calories, 11 net carbs. I ate withing my eating window yesterday. Ended up just doing two meals. I had a bit bigger dinner meal to make sure I got my calories in.

Exercise:

None

Sleep:

12:22 am to 7:41 am. I got my reading in, and headed to bed at midnight. A not so quick bathroom trip, made me get to sleep slightly later. It was a decent sleep, until the morning.

Tomorrow

I made progress in my desk area today. Hopefully, I can finish it up tomorrow, or get pretty close. I might have to take my son to school in the morning. Also planning on hitting up the store to get a few items. I need to make sure I get that walk in too. Lots to do!

My Journey to a Healthy me, Day 57

Week 8 is done and in the books. Hopefully, everyone out there is doing well. So far, I am doing wonderful. I’m feeling great, and looking forward to doing better each week.

Monday is starting to turn into one of my favorite days. It’s the day that I take time to look back, and see just how I have done during the week.

This last week has gone well for me. Not just physical, but mentally too.

Weight loss:

I am down 5.7 lbs this week. Now I did switch to my fitbit scale now. I still use the other one, and it has me about a pound heavier. I figure I am going to use both for awhile just to make sure I am not getting weird readings. So far they have been pretty close.

Since I started this “Journey to a Healthy Me” I have lost a total of 37.5 lbs.  January 1st I was 367.6 lbs. Today I am 330.1 lbs. Progress is being made.

I have been pretty pleased so far too.

Food:

02/19 – 1433 Calories, 8 net carbs. Ate in my IF window.
02/20 – 1778 Calories, 12 net carbs. Ate in IF window.
02/21 – 1416 Calories, 7 net carbs. Ate outside IF window.
02/22 – 1406 Calories, 6 net carbs. Ate in my IF window.
02/23 – 1861 Calories, 8 net carbs. Ate in my IF window.
02/24 – 1734 Calories, 9 net carbs. Ate in my IF window.
02/25 – 1535 Calories, 11 net carbs. Ate in my IF window.

I had one day I ate outside of my eating window. I had forgotten it was 5 pm, and didn’t heat up my food yet. Not too big of a worry though. I have noticed that I do have some times when I am really bumping close to that 5 pm mark. I am considering moving it to 6 pm. That would give me a little more buffer for eating with the rest of the family. For now though, I am sticking with 5 pm.

Exercise:

02/19 –  No walk
02/20 – 2.08 Miles, 40 minutes
02/21 – 2.30 Miles, 40 minutes
02/22 – No walk
02/23 – No walk
02/24 – 2.55 Miles, 40 minutes
02/25 – 1.30 + 0.88 Miles, 36 minutes

Not 100% where I want to be at yet with walking, but I am getting there. Four days of walks in. Will try to get it up to 5 this week. We have rain coming in, so I might have some wet days.

Sleep:

This week I have been hitting all of my sleep goals. I am getting in some reading, then heading off to bed by midnight. I did technically stay awake the night of the Men’s Gold medal curling match, but I still was in bed.

I have also been sleeping better (less pain) with our new mattress.

Last night I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep, but only because I starting thinking of things I wanted to get done today. Sometimes my brain wants to get into active mode before bed. haha.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Bowling tonight. Depends on my mood, I might try to get our for a walk tonight. I need to get more done around my desk area.

Excitement is starting to pick up more about New York. It isn’t that far out.

My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 56

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was filled with walking. I also got the area setup for my wife’s desk. Some more work, and setting up the rest of my desk area is up next.

I got back from my walk today a bit ago. My phone is back to rebooting. So that is frustrating.

I made my tradition scrabbled eggs for my kid this morning, then made myself some breakfast a couple of hours later. I had to wait for my eating window!

I’ll have my week 8 wrap up tomorrow. I’ll cover the weekend today.

Food:

Saturday – MyFitnessPal Food Diary. 1734 Calories, 9 net carbs.
Sunday – MyFitnessPal Food Diary. 1535 Calories, 11 net carbs.

Tonight was pizza night. There was a craving, but I was able to fight it off. Instead of pizza, I had wings, chicken meatballs, and almonds. Even the Dog ate pizza crusts. I swear, it is his favorite thing of all time. haha.

Exercise:

Saturday – 2.55 Miles, 40 minutes. Took a different route to change it up a bit.

Sunday – 2.18 Miles roughly. 38 minutes. Phone crashed, so it is in two parts. Luckily, I had it paused while I was fighting a gym in Pokémon Go, so the distance should be fairly accurate.

Sleep:

12:06 am to 8:02 am. Didn’t have much problem falling to sleep. I was pretty tired. I did have a wake up moment int he morning before getting up.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow will be my usual Monday. Week wrap ups to post. My wife is getting a ride to work, so I will have the car to pick up my son from school. I’ve also got a Pokémon Go EX raid to do at 11:30 am. After that, I have my Monday night bowling league. AS always, who knows what other things will pop up to get done.

My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 55

Well, I am happy to report that the Beatsx are still working well. They aren’t perfect, but they did have a good connection on most of my walk tonight. So I am happy.

I did get out for a walk tonight. Walked a bit different route. Had some good music playing on Backspin (SirusXM) tonight.

I’m sure if people saw me walking around tonight, they would probably think I am a crazy person. Lip syncing, strutting, all that stuff. Just having myself a lot of fun out there.

Weight is still coming down. So I must be doing things correctly for the most part.

I had ribs again tonight, but this time I took the meat off the bone first, then weighed it on the scale. That number seemed much more reasonable.

Curling

So last night, was the gold medal game. I was just going to bed, and my wife had it on. I am not exactly sure why, but I have really liked curling more and more. So of course, I had to watch. It was worth staying up for. Some really great shots, and Team U.S.A. pulled it out.

 

AND THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE!@TeamShuster doubles their score on one throw in End 8! 😱 https://t.co/crSmtNeRXW pic.twitter.com/D6s4z1cMAl

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 24, 2018

Friday Recap

Friday night, I spent time with the wife catching up on some of our shows. I could have went for a walk, but didn’t. (Really should have went earlier). I did get some cooking in, bought new glasses that will be ready in in a couple of weeks, and got some other errands done.

Food:

MyFitnessPal Food Diary.  1861 Calories, 8 net carbs. I think the Calorie numbers are inflated a bit from the ribs I had. If I subtracted what I didn’t eat, I bet the numbers would have been better. Well, now I know! I did eat in my Intermittent fasting window. It is seeming more and more that I should make my cut off later. I’m still seeing if I can make it work though.

Exercise:

None done on Friday, other then walking around Costco and the mall.

Sleep:

FitBit tracked 12:11 am to 8:01 am, though I was awake till a bit after 1 watching the Olympics. I was lying there still with my cpap machine on and all. I just wanted to see that curling match!

Tomorrow

I mapped out my computer area, so time to actually work on getting my Wife’s desk setup, and mine moved around a bit. Plus I have a World of Warcraft raid Sunday night. I’m aiming to get in my walk early tomorrow, otherwise it will have to be after my raid. I do need to hit up the store for a couple of items as well. So busy, busy!

My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 54

Today has been a little busy, just not with really exercising. No walk today. We did however get to Costco to stock up on a few items. Then we went to LensCrafters to pick up some new glasses and sunglasses for me. I haven’t had new ones since 2013! Never realized it had been so long until I went to the eye doctor earlier this year.

I also cooked some chicken breast, and ribs in the pressure cooker. No sauce on the ribs (which they kinda need I think) MyFitnessPal said the two ribs I ate was 700 Calories. I couldn’t believe that. Maybe since I weighed it in grams on my food scale, the bones made it heavier? I may investigate more tomorrow.

Emotionally, I have been feeling pretty good this week. I know not long ago I was kinda down on everything. I’ve been having some pretty good victories though. I’m really excited to see where this newer regime can take me.

Thursday Recap

No walk on Thursday. No bowling as well. I did however get the desk built for my wife. Sore arms, so I skipped bowling.

Food:

MyFitnessPal Food Diary.  1406 Calories, 6 net carbs. I had a bit longer fast. I made sure I was pretty much done eating near 4:30 pm. Then didn’t have Lunch till close to noon today. I was pretty hungry then.

Exercise:

Some mall and Costco walking, but no getting out for an actual walk.

Sleep:

12:08 am to 8:42 am. Got in my reading before hand. I tried to sleep in a different position last night, but it wasn’t really working. I did wake up a few times to roll over. Sometimes my CPAP machine cord annoys me enough to have to wake up to move it around too.

Tomorrow

My son has bowling. I might try to get in a walk before. After bowling, I believe my older son and I will go hit up a park for Pokémon GO Community Day Special Pokémon are out. It is a good chance to meet others in the community, but I am sure my son and I will go head off to another spot haha.

Afterwords, I think it is time to get things finished setup with my wife’s desk, and maybe my desk area too.

My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 53

Man, my arms are tired. Today I realized I need a power screw driver. I got my wife’s desk put together today. So many screws. It was enough that my arms were actually sore, so I skipped bowling tonight.

I also did not get out for a walk, but I’m OK with that. I plan on walking the next 3 days. Hopefully, morning walks.

We got some bad news on the car front. My wife’s suv has been in the shop for a few days. We finally got some money to get repairs done. Turns out, what we feared was wrong, actually was wrong plus a bit more. New transmission is needed, and new computer. The computer is in the transmission, and was filled with metal flakes. That will cost us like $4-5,000 to fix, and another 9-10 days in the shop. Parts have to come from the east coast. It was good we had saved up for it, just still a shock that it is so much. Hopefully, this will at least give up another 3-5 years out of it. Then my car will be paid off.

Wednesday Recap

Overall, the day went well. I did eat outside of my Intermittent Fasting window, but I am not too worried about it. I actually ate late into the window too. We had Habit Burger grill, so I didn’t break my fast until 12:30-1 pm.

Food:

MyFitnessPal Food Diary. 1416 Calories, 7 net carbs.

Exercise:

2.3 miles, 40 minutes. Headphone worked well. There was a few breaks in the audio, but that might be from the pixel xl bluetooth. Hopefully, it won’t become horrible like the last headphones did.

Sleep:

12:03 am to 8:40 am. I did get my reading in. Finished Book 2 from the Expanse series. It took me a bit to get to sleep. Once I did, it was fine. The morning was up a bit, because the wife and kid were heading to Santa Cruz. They went on a train around the mountains.

Tomorrow

Looks to be a busy one. Need to get gas in the car, then go to Costco for a few items. After that, we are going to hit up LensCrafters. It is about time I got some new glasses. My current ones are like 5 years old, and my prescription has changed a bit.

My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 52

Hey, new wireless headphones to take on my walks!

 

I had tried some other wireless headset recently, and they were ok for a day. Then they went to garbage mode the next day. I hope, spending a little money will mean better headphones. I have never owned beats headphones, but have really only heard negative things. I read a reviews about these working really well. I figured I would give them a go.

I went for a walk tonight, and overall they worked well. There was a few connection drop outs, but that might just be my Pixel XL’s bluetooth tech. So I hope they will continue to work at least as well as they did tonight.

I was late on my eating tonight. I was talking with my wife about the new desk she bought. I get to put it together still. Suddenly, I realized it was 5 pm. So I was done by 5:30 pm.

Tuesday recap

I forgot to add a couple of little victories yesterday.

First, I realized that I was low enough weight to use my Fitbit Alta scale again. I thought I had to be under 330 lbs, but I guess the limit is 350 lbs. I think I will start using it now, since it auto reports to my fitbit account.

Second, I fit into my older clothes. At least some of them. Currently, I am wearing 4xlt (long tall to give me plenty of room to cover the gut) Well, I tried on my old 3xlt’s and it looked like they fit. I even tried on a 2xlt “muscle” shirt, and it fit decently too. Just slightly tighter.

Food:

MyFitnessPal Food Diary. 1778 Calories, 12 net carbs. Food went fine. I was eating a little past 5 pm. The Togo’s Pastrami in a bowl was pretty good.

Exercise:

2.08 miles, 40 minutes.  I think the Endomondo app didn’t quite track my entire walk. I spent 10 or 15 minutes walking around in a small circle area. I had to battle and take over a Pokémon Go gym!

Sleep:

12:07 am to 7:10 am. Sleep was pretty good, though I was woke up early by a message on my phone. We needed to get up earlier anyhow. I also got in my reading.

Tomorrow

I have Thursday night bowling league at night. Either tonight, or tomorrow I need to build the desk for my wife. Just keeping on moving each day.

My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 51

Just got back in from an evening walk. It had been chilly here lately. Well, chilly for California. Still it isn’t so bad, once I am out moving for a bit.

Today has gone well. I did eat about 10-15 minutes out side of my 5 pm eating schedule. My wife wanted  a sandwich. So she was bringing me Togo’s Pastrami in a bowl again. She didn’t get home till 4:55 pm. Still, I ate it. It is times like this were I have been considering more of a 16:8 schedule for eating. Then I can go to 7 pm instead of 5 pm. Of course, I could move up my morning break to 1 pm instead of 11 am. So far though, I feel my body wanting that food around 11.

Monday recap

Overall, Monday was alright. I’m a stay at home Dad, so there was no day off for me. My kid is out of school all week! Wife was not off either. We also have one vehicle in the shop, so I have no transportation anywhere during the day this week.

I did have my Monday night bowling league. Struggled a bit. Bowled 191-160-193 I believe. Missed too many 10 pin spares, and got too many splits. That’s bowling though. You can’t always get all the breaks your way.

Food:

MyFitnessPal Food Diary. 1433 Calories, 8 net carbs. Had a weird issue when I was trying to get to sleep. I suddenly felt hungry. Not a massive hunger or anything. Just a random thought from the brain “Hey, stomach wants food” Otherwise, food seemed fine.

Exercise:

Seems like my Mondays are usually busy enough that I pass on getting my walks in.

Sleep:

12:01 am to 7:45 am. A little trouble falling to sleep, then a couple of random wake ups. I think my allergies might have been acting up some. In the morning, my wife took my son to his doctors appointment. I think she made enough noise to make sure I was waking up too haha.

Tomorrow

We have a meeting to attend tomorrow morning. It might be another later night walk tomorrow. Will just keep pushing forward.

My Journey to a Healthy Me, Day 50

50 days in. Time flies!

So today, I am going to start off with my Motivational Monday.

This graph on Fitbit represents my greatest failure.

That big step incline there. That was me gaining back 128 lbs in less then a year. October 27th, 2014 I was 257 lbs. September 21st, 2015 I was 385.

Now during that incline, I was really messed up mentally. It was more and more failures everyday. Thoughts of “What kind of person does this to them self” Even after I peaked, I was completely embarrassed. I was too embarrassed to even come back here. I was too ashamed of what I had let happen to myself. I wanted to get right back into lose it all mode. I just couldn’t. What seemed to work before, just would not help this time. Where I had the iron will to turn down whatever cookie/candy/donuts or whatever sweets showed up, I could no longer do it. Still, I tried. I did get myself back down a bit into the 360-370 area. But I stayed like that for like 2 years. Late 2017 I got the surgery scare from my doctor. I had a really bad blood test result. It looked like my body couldn’t do it anymore. Hell, I knew that though. Even without blood tests, I knew my body was breaking again.

Even in the worst times, I did come to check out some people’s progress on Nerdfitness. The last year or so, I had also been watching the Keto subreddit. Very inspiring stuff. It wasn’t enough to get me to stick to it, but it was getting me there I think. After my Doctor saying she wanted me to really consider the surgery possibility, I knew I needed change. Like now or never change. At first I started by giving myself a slight timeline. Get things moving in the right direction, or tell the doctor you give in, and do surgery. I started playing with Keto a bit. I wanted to see if I would be able to do it. Things were looking positive. I just wasn’t 100% committed to the process. It was easy enough to join on board with my wife in the “Well, I will just do better after New Years” So that meant I got to “enjoy” my Thanksgiving and Christmas by eating all the things. I noticed that the small positive I had made weeks before, was completely erased with all the bad I was eating.

I was tired of that old me. It was time to bring back the new me. The Healthier me. The one that ran two Spartan races. The me that ran a 5k for the first time in my like. The me, that felt a lot better then the old me. As of today, I am the lightest I have been since April 16th, 2015. That was when I was on the uphill climb.

So while this picture represents my greatest failure of all time. It also will represent my one of my greatest achievements. It will be this year, or next year, or even the year after that. That downward trend will continue. I will beat my previous low weight record of 257 lbs. I will get under 200 lbs. I will be, that healthier, stronger, much more badass version of me.

Week 7 wrap time

7 weeks in to the new year. The year I am turning my life around.

This week, I weigh in at 335.8 lbs. That is 4.5 lbs the week, and 31.8 lbs since January 1st.

Food:

02/12 – 1767 Calories, 8 net carbs. Ate with in my IF window
02/13 – 1525 Calories, 10 net carbs. Ate with in my IF window
02/14 – 1675 Calories, 12 net carbs. Ate with in my IF window
02/15 – 1579 Calories, 12 net carbs. Ate with in my IF window
02/16 – 1583 Calories, 10 net carbs. Was eating a few minutes after IF window still, but close enough.
02/17 – 1354 Calories, 10 net carbs. Ate with in IF window
02/18 – 1874 Calories, 10 net carbs. Ate with in IF window

Overall, great week with food. I have been able to stay with a 18:6 Intermittent fasting schedule. It is a little tough, and I may switch back to a 16:8 eventually. For now though, It is working fine.

Exercise:

Not my greatest week, but better then last week. I went out 3 times this week to walk. My goal was to get out there 5 times. So room to improve this week.

Sleep:

One night, I didn’t read this week. I did however get to bed at midnight. I didn’t always fall asleep right away. I also had a couple of really bad nights of sleep, which in turn made it easy for me to give up on walks and such.

This week

So this week, we kill it. Not just me, but anyone reading. Remember those New Years Resolutions? If you slipped, you slipped. Time to get back up on try to tackle it again.