Day 67: A Day of Rest and A Little Fun !

 

Wednesday October 23, 2024

Here is the link to my original Day 67. It was Monday March 11, 2019. My headline for that day was "Never Give Up On A Dream". This was a reference to having dreams and not reaching them. This is part of what that blog said: "Too often I set lofty unreachable goals and then gave up because it was too hard or it took too long to get there. In reality I just wasn’t willing to put in the effort required. I’ve done that 100 times in my life." These words are still true. I still catch myself making unreasonable goals but I'm making progress on not abandoning them. I've stopped and started trying to re-lose the weight over the past couple of years. I never put in the work required to do it until now. Even now, it took me a while to get where I am today. At the beginning of these 67 days I was still stopping and starting and sabotaging myself. The past 6 days were amazing and here I am at day 7, tired. I could not get to sleep last night and was still awake at nearly 4 am. I might have dozed but when I got up at about 9:20 I still felt tired. The only reason I got up is because I knew the cats would be waiting to eat. There were 4 of them this morning. On a side note, I spotted a black kitten last night that seems to have joined the party. I'm not sure who its mama is, as none of the strays I've seen are black. Anyhow, the dilemma I had was exercise. Honestly, I wasn't feeling it and I really didn't want to get all dressed, only to have to get undressed to shower and get ready to go out. So I decided to take today as a rest day. However, that doesn't mean every Wednesday will be a rest day. Today I'm listening to my tired body but tomorrow is a new day and the start of another 6 days of 4 workouts per day. Oops .. there is another unrealistic goal. I need to go to the grocery store and gas station in the next few days, so I may have a day that 4 workouts is just not going to work. Can I motivate myself to go tomorrow as soon as I get up ? Perhaps ! It's going to be a chilly 50 degrees tomorrow but all the rain that was in the forecast seems to have disappeared. I hope the snow they forecast this winter disappears too !

Breakfast was a 180 calorie cinnamon roll followed by an 80 calorie yogurt. I skipped my morning and afternoon snacks. Lunch was a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. Dinner was half of a buffalo chicken wrap with home made potato chips and 2 Michelob Ultra. Evening snack was a 120 calorie oatmeal chocolate chip square with whipped cream. I also had some pretzel rods, as I took the rest of my vitamins and wanted to make sure I had enough food in my stomach.

I weighed myself this morning and the scale still reads 274.4. I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed, again. See what I mean about lofty, unreachable goals ? The scale is not going to move every day ! I am, however, glad that the number did not increase ! I remember during my first weight loss journey seeing no movement on the scale and then a sudden drop of several pounds. That is just the way the body works. Your day to day weight is very much influenced by the amount of fluid in your body, along with the material in your digestive tract. I did eat a few extra calories yesterday (a yogurt & some pretzels) but my calories in were definitely exceeded by the calories burned. I just have to trust the process ! With no exercise today, and pizza and beer planned for dinner, the scale will likely not move today and could possibly temporarily increase. I did skip my morning snack and afternoon snack to help balance out the extra calories.

In ironic news, I got an automated call from Wegman's this morning regarding the nationwide recall of some store brands of waffles ! There is apparently a problem with listeria ! I'm wondering if the bloody diarrhea I had back in April was caused by that ? I've been perfectly fine ever since that cleared up. I don't recall when I bought the waffles, my receipts on the app don't indicate I bought any in March/April and my blogs back then did not document what I was eating. I still think it was produce related or the Miralax I was using. I no longer use that (stupid way to try and lose weight) and don't even take Metamucil right now. Listeria symptoms include nausea and vomiting and I didn't have those symptoms. I really just had the bloody diarrhea and a mild loss of appetite for a day or so. It took me a while to eat salad again and I'm more careful about washing my hands after petting any stray cat or handling their bowls. Yesterday news came of an e-coli outbreak related to McDonald's quarter pounders. Early signs indicate it is likely the raw onions that were contaminated. That was always my burger of choice but I haven't been to McD in quite some time. Seems like lately there are recalls and food borne illness outbreaks very frequently. Between that and all the cyber attacks, it's a pretty scary time !

I spent the morning watching YouTube and playing Cookie Jam. I'm up to 90 levels for the current challenge and 2nd place is still at 10, so I think I'll win this one. Regardless, I'll keep playing through Friday as I'm really working on the challenge that awards 50 coins if you complete 12 levels within a 3 hour window. I completed it 4 times this morning, thanks to some extra boosts. This game has been my sanity since I was laid off. I was at around level 1700 back then and I'm now approaching 6200 ! The game has over 12,000 levels and adds new ones all the time, so I don't know if I'll ever reach the "end". I've never gotten this far with any game, so I'll take that as an accomplishment !

I was thinking about my financial options last night and I found out that you can apply for unemployment up to 18 months after losing your job, so I plan to file on 01-01-25 if I don't have a job. I may also start collecting my pension in 2025 and possibly social security if I can't find a job. I'd have to take a lump sum on the pension and roll it into my IRA in order to collect unemployment & the pension. I didn't realize NYS doesn't tax SS benefits, so that was nice to find out as well. Also, Federal tax appears to only be calculated on 50% of your benefit and whether or not you're taxed depends on how much you actually earn. Lots of decisions to make in the new year ! I will get a tax refund and a prorated bonus from AT&T, so that will bring in a couple thousand dollars to add to my savings. I would really like to avoid claiming SS as long as possible. I don't think I can last 5 years without it. My mortgage ($350) won't be paid off until 2031 (I refinanced in 2016) and my car ($460) won't be paid off until September 2027.

Rock and roll bingo was fun ! Barb won a round and contributed her $10 gift card to the meal. It was my night to pay so I appreciated that ! It cost me about $113 with tip after the $10 gift card. I thought I had a $15 voucher but apparently I didn't. Since I don't go to Turning Stone they've reduced the free plays they offer, along with the vouchers. Oh well .. I'm saving thousands by not going there !

I'm okay with the fact that I didn't complete all items on the checklist today. After not getting much sleep I really needed a day to recover and I plan to get right back to work on my fitness tomorrow ! I had a nice day and I'm hoping to get a better nights sleep. I ended up turning off the 8 am alarm last night because I knew I wouldn't get up. Even so, I was awakened at 7 when my "do not disturb" on my phone ended. Ding ding ding went all the waiting notifications ! I went back to sleep but tonight I updated the setting to change the hours to 11 to 8 instead of 10 to 7.

My total workout time today is 0 plus 0 minutes of warm up/cool down for a grand total of 0. I am keeping this paragraph so it's easier to copy/paste to my next blog. I still have 80 workouts for 2024. My goal for 2025 is still 500+ workouts ! As of 11:02 pm, Fitbit says I completed 3,601 steps and burned 2,450 calories.

This tired old body is ready for bed. Hopefully I sleep better and can get back in the exercise groove tomorrow !

Below is what I achieved today. I am focusing on what I do each day, and not looking back to what I did or didn't do any other day. I hope that one day soon I won't need a checklist to ensure I do all of these everyday tasks !   

Make the bed - x

feed cats - x

have breakfast - x

get dressed - x

exercise - 

clean litter boxes - 

take vitamins - x

have morning snack - 

have lunch - x

have afternoon snack - 

have dinner - x

have evening snack - x

shower - x

skincare - x

brush teeth - x