Good news about my back!

I went to the Brigham and Women's Pain Management Center in Jamaica Plain to get my back checked out. I've been having more pain lately and I was worried it was starting all over again with a new disk, but I got some good news! They said it's just a pinched nerve and most likely not disc related. They think since I've been going to the gym so much and hiking, etc. that it's just aggravating a nerve and they can fix it very easily. They're going to confirm it on the 21st, then possibly burn the nerve and that should eliminate the pain for "years". If it goes well, I should be mostly pain free and back to hiking much more soon! :)

Oh also, I'm back to only being down 30 lbs, but I've also gained a good amount of muscle so I'm hoping that is a good thing? lol. I've been going to the gym 4 times per week and I'm excited to keep it up.

My Pet Salamander

Hey, It's been a while since I've updated this site, but I've been really busy with a bunch of things. I took a vacation day Friday which was great and went to boston to a nice restaurant. I broke my lawnmower, then bought another one and it didn't work well so got a third one and it's working perfectly so far! The garden is really getting wild and I kind of see it like a mini wildlife refuge. The pumpkins seem to be thriving at least :). I've also found some weird creatures!

Great Burger

I made an amazing burger lol. I took a head of kale, a carton of mushrooms, and an onion and mixed them with two packages of 99% lean turkey ground meat. It's pretty much the healthiest thing you could ever eat and tastes awesome. I used lettuce from my garden too. This gigantic burger with bun was less than 500 calories and it's probably a half pound, so very filling!

Down 30 lbs!!

I had a good day today. Did a few big errands in the morning, went to the gym, brought the car to the shop, took a bike ride, made dinner, then took my photo for the site to show my progress. I think from this point on, I'm not as embarrassed to be seen in public lol... so I'm going to try to put a photo up of every 5 lbs. Here's 30 down, 65 lbs to go to my goal. Oh and might as well post a shot of dinner lol.... it tasted way better than it looks trust me! It's Zatarian's parmesan rice with fresh asparagus, tomatoes, zucchini, a red onion, and a half a jalapeño. I ate all vegetarian this weekend.

A New Hummingbird in Slow Motion

This time I got a video of one of the hummingbirds with a red chest in slow motion with the iPhone...

As you can probably tell by my posts, the pain in my back is bad one week sometimes, then fine the next. This last week was pretty bad so I was worried I was going to have ongoing issues, but today I feel almost no pain! I'm excited to get to the gym tonight and to have a good end of the week at Newfound lake :)

I seem to have hit a plateau where the last 2 months I haven't lost weight. I have also been weight lifting, so I assume I'm gaining some muscle as well. I hopefully will be able to post about some progress soon!

Dave and Kasia

Dave and Kasia invited a lot of family and friends to a get together at Kasia's apartment building in Boston to celebrate their recent wedding! It was very nice... We got to meet lots of new people, her friends are all fun and friendly, the food was outstanding and the view was amazing!!

Boston and a new Alexa

I had a fun day in Boston yesterday. We went on a historical boat ride and got lobster mac and cheese at Durgin park in Faneuil Hall. There was an entire lobster in it, claws and all. My new Alexa from Amazon showed up in the morning so now there will be music throughout the house. This one can control smart lights and turn appliances and things off and on. It also works with a security system i picked up too.

Today, I actually have to head right back in to Boston for a get together with my cousin Dave... so I'm hopping on the train once again to head in to the city! $10 for an all weekend pass on the T is great. $2.50 a trip and it's an hour and a half train ride!

New plants in the garden

So I took a closer look today at the plants in the garden and I realized that there's a battle happening in my backyard. I tilled the lawn just to make a quick garden, left the grass, and tossed out a bunch of heirloom seeds (25 different plants), just to see what happens for fun. Next year I will re-till, only the top layer and remove the grass, then flatten the land and re-construct the fence before planting about 3 months earlier than I did this year haha. But anyway, I was looking today and I realized there's about 10 different plants in the garden. The grass has re-seeded and is trying to take over. All the plants are fighting for sun in slow motion. I look at it every day just to see which plants are winning and it's definitely the pumpkins. They have giant leaves so they can get to the sun. I don't know how long they take to grow but they better move quick because I only planted in June lol. I want some pumpkins for Halloween!! Here's all the plants I found:

Another day another dinner

I've been cooking a lot since I lived in West Chester across the street from a farmer's market. I enjoy it very much, but I'm not great at it. One thing I can do well is scallops. They are filling and low calorie, so I tend to eat them every few weeks. I ended up close to 2,000 calories today... A little over but I did alright. I'm gonna try to be better about always being under 2,000 moving forward. The biggest problem is that my back has been keeping me from working out and I'd really like to bike and get back to the gym, but I'm resting and taking care of it for now. It was hurting last week and lately when that happens, it's just gotten better in a couple of days. This time it has gotten worse... so I might need to see a doctor again soon. I've done it before, I can do it again. Hope all is well with you all.

The lettuce in the photos is from my new garden by the way.

My building just got hit by lightning!

I'm at work and my building / the tower outside just got hit by lightening! It flashed so bright that it blinded me for a couple of seconds and I think I could feel it... like static on my arms.

I took a photo of the storm coming in on my lunch break:

Healthy first meal at the table

The car is finally fixed!

My cousin Carolyn stopped by to see the house today and she loved it. I'm really happy here but soon I need to get away in to the woods and put the house chores aside...once my back is a little better anyway... Hopefully I'll post photos from a hike soon. I purged my kitchen of bad food today and had my first dinner at the table. I was just under 1500 calories for the day, but I feel full... so a good start to my plan!

Today is rebuilding day!

I have a newfound focus on my diet and exercise. I just recently realized that I need to do it right now more than ever. I've decided to dedicate my life to this until I'm below 200lbs... and then I want to stay below 200 for the rest of my life. I'm going to post all of my progress on here! I have 68 lbs to go. I faltered this weekend and went out and partied with my friend Bob a bit, but this morning I realized I'm finally ready to do this.

One issue is that my spine pain has come back pretty bad this week and it makes things difficult... but I'm going to work through it because I'm more determined than I ever have been before. I know I need to do this to be healthy and happy and I'm very excited about it!

I also have a bunch of fun things to do today. I got this table this week and stained it but didn't realize until after it came out sort of black....so I ordered new dark brown stain to try to fix it. I'll post photos again after I try. I'm going to rebuild the garden by taking all of the grass and weeds out (all kinds of things are popping up, but i think the pumpkins may take over! I'm very excited to see what grows. Then i'm going to begin cleaning, fixing, and rebuilding the house the way I want it to be. It's so much work with a bad back but I'm going to get it done regardless.

Videos of things at the new house

July 2018

Down 30 Lbs

I still have a long way to go, but I'm getting there and I'm excited to keep working at it!

I've done so much with the house lately it's hard to know where to begin. I tilled a garden:

Jessica, me and Jackson did a bunch of fun things:

We built a fire pit and put up a grill with Bob's help:

So many other things too... we set up a room for Jackson, joined the gym, Jessica painted the downstairs walls:

We put in a bunch of fruit and berry plants:

I found this baby bunny:

And some miscellaneous photos for you. I'll try to keep up more with the posting!:

Joined the Gym. Down 25 lbs!

I joined planet fitness today which is one exit away from me and on my way home from work. It's perfect for $10 a day right now because I can't do too much anyway as my back heals. I plan to go 3-4 times per week then housework to keep me busy. This weekend I'm heading to Maine to meet a blacksmith to pick up things for the house and the kombucha will be ready to try!! It's so nice to have nice weather! :)

This is me today..I'll upload more pictures as I go so you can all see my progress.

All moved in!

I'm all moved in to the new house. The hard part is over. However, the place is a disaster!!!!! It's going to take me weeks to sort this all out, but I'm excited for when it's done!! Today my dad is helping me clean the old apartment and it's the last day i'll see it. It will probably be the last time I plan to go downtown Lowell other than the folk festival lol. I'll be happy to be done living downtown. This is my first place I've lived that has grass since my parents home in Dracut. Well... better get to it.

The Kombucha Is Brewing!

Hi Everyone,

So good news! All of the Kombucha brewing supplies that I needed got here and I brewed my first Booch today. I'm moving in all of the rest of my things tomorrow and the place is a mess, but I'm slowly setting it all up. It's beginning to feel more like home than a big new empty house.

A week in to the new House

Ok, so now I've been in my new home for a week and it's beginning to feel like home. I had a furnace person, and electrician, the oil people, a tree removal person, etc. all coming by this week! It's been very busy but fun for me as well. I didn't know being a home owner was this crazy, but I love my little piece of the United States and I'm excited to take care of it and make it my own. I still have most of my things at the apartment... I'm planing on moving them in this week... but here's some photos of the mostly empty house for you all. I'll post more once I've filled the house with my things!

New Phase in my life

So I sort of lost interest in my focus on dieting the last few months too... but the good news is that running around many days doing a lot of fun things for the last few months has kept me pretty busy and I just didn't eat as bad as I normally do so I'm actually down 25 lbs now! I'm very excited about that and excited to keep it going. I'm going to start back up with the 2,000 calories a day today, though i've been under the last 5 days or so.

ok so... moving on :) This is the house and I LOVE it. The photos are from the listing...it's pretty empty right now so I'll take some photos of the inside soon and the projects that I'll be working on. I'm also gonna keep documenting my diet and weight loss to keep it going!