Day 30: A Cold Start !

 

Here we go ! It's a new year. Time to get back on track with diet and exercise. The goal is 100 pounds by 12-31-25. Can I do it ? Well, I won't know unless I try. My original Day 30 blog can be found here. It was titled "Live Your Life" and I guess that is exactly what I am doing. However, I'm not living my life the way I wanted to. I wanted to work until I was at least 65 and that didn't happen. I wanted to keep the weight off and that didn't happen. One item here was outside my control, but the other IS NOT ! I am fully capable of getting the weight off, so I need to work a lot harder than I have been. I know that once I get started on the treadmill I'll be fine, but getting started is proving to be difficult. The cold weather is a big part of it as I just want to stay cozy on the couch. It's 11:32 am and at least I'm up and dressed !

Breakfast was 160 calorie waffles with sugar free syrup and an 80 calorie yogurt. Late morning I had 2 of the cornbread swirls I baked last night. That was 340 calories. Lunch was a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. In the afternoon I had 6 pretzel rods. I think that equals 220 calories. Dinner was a 250 calorie enchilada with salsa and low cat sour cream. I also cooked a bag of green beans. Evening snack was 2 Eggo waffles with peanut butter. The waffles are 180 calories, I'm not sure on the peanut butter. Well, before bed I scarfed down not one, but two, Nutrisystem desserts. Both were new items: apple crumble and pumpkin spice cake. The apple item had an unpleasant aroma of artificial flavoring and the tiny portion isn't worth the effort. The pumpkin cake has good flavor but is also tiny and tends to be soggy. I won't be ordering either again.

I slept in past 9 am today ! I've been short on sleep the past couple days so I guess I needed it. I was awake around 7 but decided to go back to sleep. It helped that I didn't need to pee ! It was 6 degrees according to my phone but the thermometer in the kitchen window was closer to 18. It's possible it's a little warmer where I am. I checked it a little while ago (around 11:15) and it moved up into the 20's while my phone says it's 13. Anything is better than single digits and below ! I haven't tried using the kitchen faucet since I really don't need it. I will run it much later today when any chance of a flash freeze is gone. The house was chilly when I got up. I forgot to look at the temp in the bedroom, but it was 65 in the dining room and 57 in the laundry room. The dining room is at 68 now and the laundry room is at 58. Once temps start getting into the 30's and 40's it will be easier for my heating system to get to 68 in both zones. The upstairs is set at 65, which is perfect for sleeping. It was 62 when I went to bed and that was fine too.

To my surprise the little gray & white cat was out there waiting to eat this morning. Poor thing must have been freezing. She ate nearly a whole can of food and when I opened the door later to put out dry food she was sitting out there with the big orange & white male. I gave them both canned food. I wonder if the other strays will return when the weather gets better. Hopefully they have survived this severe winter and are just being fed elsewhere.

I spent the morning doing the usual: YouTube and online slots. Quick Hits took all my coins and is on the short list to be deleted, since there are few options to earn coins. I hate to do that, because it has some old classic casino games that I enjoy: Haunted Beauty and Diamond Hunt. They also have a low minimum bet of 40k. Dancing Drums slots has been good to me. They have a lot of opportunities to earn coins and it let me win quite a bit yesterday. It's funny though, I can't win squat on the actual "Dancing Drums" slot .. lol ! This slot has some classic casino games that I love as well: OMG! Kittens and OMG! Puppies. I don't care that Dancing Drums itself doesn't want to pay, as long as the kittens and puppies are around !

I had the weirdest dream early this morning. I was in a conference room somewhere with Laurie, and we were on a call with a customer at Chase talking about business billing issues. They were communicating that they had sent over their list of issues for the month and while that was going on Laurie had to leave the room. I very professionally told the customer I'd get right on their issues and ended the call. Then it dawned on me that I'd been laid off and no longer had access to my systems. OMG .. what a crazy dream ! Maybe Laurie was on my mind as she's been laid off now too and her last day is this Thursday, February 6. I don't know what her financial situation is, but she will have 6 months of severance pay to help her while she looks for another job. Hopefully she has better luck than me ! I suspect it will be difficult to find a job making what she was making at ATT. I was making close to $100k so she had to be making well over that. It's tough to lose a paycheck that size when the economy and job outlook isn't very good. I have to admit that I am very, very lucky. My financial future is looking bright, but I still plan to be careful with my money. I will not go back to the casino habit. I'm glad that I live so far away from the casino's, as they would be more tempting if I was closer. I'm also glad I was never a shopper. I have zero desire to buy clothes right now as I'm so fat. When I do lose the weight, I have a closet full of clothes to wear ! I have some transitional clothing too, so I shouldn't have to buy much over the next year. I sometimes browse on Amazon but I never see anything that I absolutely must have.

My plan for today is to try getting on the treadmill. I will probably wait until later in the day when it's warmed up. I weighed myself fully clothed and the scale read 288. Not good. The only good thing is if my clothes weigh 3 pounds I can be happy that I haven't gained back the 2 pounds I lost ! Said as I eat 2 of the cornbread swirls (340 calories) with a cup of tea (0 calories) ! I am SO glad I put the electric kettle on my Christmas list. It boils water so fast. I used to make tea using the microwave but the water just doesn't stay warm long enough. You really need to boil it the old fashioned way !

I never made it to the treadmill. I wasted yet another day sitting on the catch watching YouTube and playing online slots. 3 of the 5 games have sucked my coins dry and I may end up removing them this week. I'm not going to fall back into that habit of chasing coins day after day. I fired up Cookie Jam this evening and I'm going to start playing that more. No coins to chase here and ads are an option ! I also have 158 days of free lives and earn more every day ! I thought about trying some other slot games, and I may still do that, but I suspect I'll end up in the same boat with all of them. Even my old standby CluBillion let me down today. I was down to maybe 3B coins (I had over 300B a few days ago) but it finally gave me a big win that boosted me up to 22B. That game will live another day ! I'm at about 516 "friends" so I'm hoping free coins will start rolling in. I'm going to continue sending out more friend requests and see if I can get up to 1000.