Day 73: A Much Better Day

 

Tuesday October 29, 2024

Here is the link to my original Day 73. It was Sunday March 17, 2019 - St Patrick's Day ! My headline for that day was "Improving Yourself". This reference is pretty self-explanatory !

I woke up shortly before 9 and I'm not sure of the exact time I got up, not that it matters. I had 6 stray cats to feed this morning ! Minnie and I had our usual morning snuggle but when she hopped down just after 10 I took the opportunity to make my bed, get dressed, brew a second cup of coffee, take the trash out, open the porch curtains and put the mums outside. I didn't have to make a shake as I still had the one I made yesterday. I also weighed myself and the scale read 273.6, which was great. It was 273 on the nose yesterday. I am still behind. By this time I had lost 39.4 pounds the first time around. I don't think I can catch up, but I'm going to try my best !

There didn't seem to be any blood in my stool this morning. There might have been a bit of mucous, but otherwise things seem to be improving. The second time I used the bathroom it was 100% normal. I crashed pretty hard yesterday, mostly out of fear. Here I am facing an insurance change come 12-1 and I was wondering what I was going to do if I have a serious medical condition, such as cancer. I am going to make sure I establish a doctor as soon as my insurance changes, because I need to have a colonoscopy just to ease my mind.

I spent the day on the couch yesterday watching YouTube and playing Cookie Jam. I didn't feel sick, but I had that upper left quadrant pain. It disappears once I am up and moving, so I really do think it's a positional thing. I've had this many times over the years. If I sit with my spine straight I am perfectly fine. I didn't overeat yesterday, though the temptation was there. I had those waffles for breakfast, a yogurt very late in the day, a chicken bacon ranch quesadilla with salsa & low fat sour cream for lunch, and a cheese stick for afternoon snack. The grand finale of my day was an entire tube of biscuits. There were 5 in the can and I ate them all with butter. You know what ? They weren't that good. I really like baking powder biscuits and that isn't what these were. I also had a couple s'mores clusters. Those were delicious but I avoided the temptation to take the bag to bed with me. Instead, I took a sleeve of Biscoff cookies, but never opened them. I had a lot of gas last night and that contributed to my gut not feeling it's best. Once the gas was relieved, I felt better. I am half wondering if the cauliflower I ate had something to do with it. I had cauliflower Thursday at dinner and the blood showed up Saturday but not on Sunday. I had the rest of that same package of cauliflower on Sunday and had blood again on Monday. It could just be that a gassy food like that irritated a digestive tract that was already irritated by ibuprofen. I only have 1 entree left that I would use cauliflower with, so I won't be buying any for a while. I also threw away the ibuprofen, so I won't be taking that ever again. I will say that my hip feels better. I guess the day of rest was a good thing !

I am definitely feeling better as I stopped to clean up spilled cat litter in the garage when I brought my garbage bin back in. It's been there for weeks, if not months and I just ignored it until today. I also stopped outside and checked the dryer vent. I'm glad I did as there was some built up lint that hadn't escaped. I also remembered to throw out the old hamburger that I had in the freezer, along with all the produce I had. It was all several weeks old and I will buy fresh tomorrow. I also threw away a few expired Nutrisystem items. I had 3 tubs of beef stew that expired in 2022, along with 3 jalapeno chicken sticks in the freezer that expired in 2023. I didn't really care for either item and I'm glad to have all that old stuff gone. I've thrown away or eaten all the old items except the frozen chicken breasts. I do like those, so I'm going to start eating them. I had 5 snack items (cookies) that I tossed as they are long expired and very stale, I'm sure. I also tossed the pretzels I had in a bin on the counter. They are very old and likely stale. I also tossed some baggies of pasta I had portioned out then never ate. I know I will never eat it, so I threw it away. When I make pasta I tend to make gnocchi, as they are my favorite. Tossing all those vitamins made it that much easier to toss the old food items. 

In positive news, I can get dental insurance as a retiree ! I enrolled today for the DMO plan that I always had, so I'll be able to continue going to Aspen Dental. The premium is less than $31 a month ! You can bet I'll be making an appointment in January ! I do have to pay 40% of the cost for things like crowns, but what they'd pay towards one crown would more than cover the premium for the entire year ! The premium for retiree medical would be over $1k, so I'll be buying medical insurance on the NYS insurance exchange. That's going to be the biggest expense I have for the next 3 years, unless I happen to find a job at some point. Looking at the benefits website, it looks like they still carry life insurance on me, so I'll have to print some documentation of that to ensure my family collects it if something happens to me. It's almost $100k ! I was also able to keep the Care Plus insurance for $1 a month. I need to print some documentation of what that covers as well.

Weather today was gloomy and chilly. Rain moved in this afternoon to complete the gloomy day. Tomorrow and Thursday we're going to be back in the upper 70's before a crash back to the 50's on Friday. 

Breakfast was 180 calorie Eggo waffles with sugar free syrup and an 80 calorie yogurt. Morning snack was a 155 calorie vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 230 calorie ravioli with meat sauce. Afternoon snack was an 80 calorie cheese stick and 120 calorie crackers. Dinner was 260 calorie roasted turkey with mashed potatoes and green beans. Evening snack was a 120 calorie oatmeal chocolate chip square with whipped cream.

My first workout was the Lafayette Beach walk and it was complete as of 2:41 pm. This is still the hardest 20m12s of the day, since it's cardio. My heart rate maxed out at 142, which is well within my 164/165 range. I got a late start because Minnie settled in for nap #2 before I had motivated myself enough to get off the couch. I treasure those little naps, so exercise could wait !

I checked in on my utility bill after my workout and the payment posted. I also logged into my bank account and had a reply from the message I sent Sunday. Turns out ACH payments are not processed on weekends, which is what I suspected. Going forward I will make sure I do not schedule any payments on a weekend or holiday. I made a note of that in my bill spreadsheet. I wish you could pay everything with a credit card, it would be so much easier to just make one payment per month !

By 3:30 I was ready to get on the treadmill for workout #2. Well, kinda. It took me until 3:36 to drag myself away from the couch and tv .. lol ! By 4:13 I had completed 24m44s and workout #2 was history ! My heart rate briefly jumped to 172. This appears to have occurred when the speed went from 1.5 mph to 2.2 mph. Right after that it settled down to well within my range. No hip pain today and my baby toe feels better ! I'm going to try getting to workout #3 at 5:30 or so. It has a couple of brief 8% inclines, so that will be a challenge. At least they're in the beginning, I hate when they add incline towards the end when I'm already tired.

As of 6:23 pm workout #3 was done ! It was 23m28s and it's the 2nd to the last workout in the series. My heart rate maxed out at 119. Workout #4 is a couple minutes shorter but it was some 5% incline, so it won't be a cake walk ! I may end up repeating the first 3 workouts in the series as they do not show "completed" in the app, despite the fact that I did them all on 10-21. This happens sometimes and unless all workouts are completed the series won't show up as completed.

It took until 8:45 pm, but workout #4 is done ! It was 18m50s in Italy. I ended up swapping out the workout for a shorter/easier one, since I got such a late start. It's one I did on 10-21, but the app didn't record it as complete in the series as I mentioned above. My heart rate maxed out at 111.

My total workout time today is 87m14s plus 28 minutes of warm up/cool down for a grand total of 115m4s. I'm at 100 workouts for 2024 and I should be eligible to buy the 100 workout t-shirt. I think I already have one, so I probably won't spend the $40 it would cost. My goal for 2025 is 500+ workouts and that is very reachable if I continue this pace. As of 10:42 pm, Fitbit says I completed 14,633 steps and burned 3,552 calories. A much better fitness day !

As much as I hate to take tomorrow off from exercise, I absolutely must go to the grocery store. I only have 1 yogurt left, no milk and no produce. I also only have 1 bag of frozen veggies.

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 - x x x x 

clean litter boxes - x

have morning snack - x

have lunch - x

have afternoon snack - x

have dinner - x

have evening snack - x

shower - 

skincare - 

brush teeth -