Living life 20 pounds lighter

I am not yet 20 pounds lighter from when I began the Noom Health and Wellness program. I’m only 15 pounds lighter since then.

However, I was hovering around 200 pounds just 6 months ago, and now I am in the 180 area.

What’s that feel like to me?

In a word, I feel healthier.

I can see how much my visceral fat — that’s the fat that covers the organs in the abdomen, and otherwise resides behind the abdominal muscles — has diminished. That stuff is gross, dangerous, and I gotta keep it away.

My blood pressure is better regulated. My readings went from a consistent 132/90 to 124/80. That’s huge, because it gets my doctor off my back about taking meds for my blood pressure, which is something I’ve resisted for many years.

Continue reading “Living life 20 pounds lighter”

4 months sober and NyQuil®

I quit drinking about 4 months ago. I wrote about it in a post a couple weeks ago.

I recently had a cold, which I also discussed in a different earlier post.

I hate having a cold, as I’m sure you do, too. It’s terrible to feel congested, but I really hate not feeling bad enough to stay in, but fretting about giving my illness to others.

At any rate, I bought a 2-pack of cold medication, the Target house brand version of DayQuil® and NyQuil®.

(For the record, I like the taste of DayQuil better than NyQuil, but that’s neither here nor there.)

I don’t use medications like that when I have the occasional cold — I stick with zinc and megadoses of garlic — but in this case, I was headed to Houston to perform a longform improv set at Station Theater, and I wanted to make sure I’d be able to do a show without being too symptomatic. So I tried them.

Continue reading “4 months sober and NyQuil®”

Losing weight with Noom

After 6 weeks on the Noom weight loss program, I had hoped to be at my goal weight. But I’m not.

But let me tell you: I could not be happier with the program!

I’ll give you the numbers and let you decide. I started at 195.0. I am now, 6 weeks later, at 182.8

My goal, or, rather, the goal Noom set for me after my digital interview, was 181.3 after 6 weeks. I’m 1.5 pounds above that.

But I am down 12 pounds! That is 2 pounds per week, and that, as I recall from all my reading over the years on nutrition, health, and weight loss, is a good rate of loss for sustainable downsizing.

I’m ecstatic!

I’ve been trying to lose fat for the past few years, and I’ve failed. When I went below 190 after a couple weeks, I was pretty excited. When I went below 185, I was elated. When I popped back up a little, I was disappointed, but now that the first 6 weeks are over and I’m down 12(.2) pounds, I have a feeling of accomplishment.

Continue reading “Losing weight with Noom”

Finding sobriety

I quit drinking a few months ago. In fact, August 27, 2019, was the last day I had a drink.

I’d tried to quit drinking for years. It’s not that my drinking was disrupting my life. It wasn’t. But the potential was there.

Sometimes I’d say or do stupid things when I was drunk, but that’s normal (right?), and all part of being a drinker, who occasionally drinks to excess.

I’d drive drunk. Not often, but there were nights when I drove home with one eye closed, wondering why I wasn’t being pulled over by the cops.

I abhor the fact that I engaged in drunk driving. Not from the social responsibility standpoint, but from a more selfish understanding that a DUI had the potential to severely impact my life to the point of crippling it, and I always felt stupid for putting myself in that position. But I did it anyway.

Neither the possibility of a DUI, nor doing stupid shit in public were what I disliked most about my drinking. Nope.

Continue reading “Finding sobriety”