In order to give people a sneak-peak of what I’ve been up to, I’ve uploaded one of the free templates I’ll be offering when I finally get around to launching the themes section. This template, when completed, will be available in all of the colors on the rainbow and more. So far I’ve completed the red, orange, yellow, green and blue templates - I’ll have the rest completed sometime over the course of the next week. The sidebar is completely widget powered. I need to alter that for my own personal usage so I’ll have my blogrolling based links up and running as soon as possible!

I did quite a bit of walking in the last few days, and since I’m cutting back on spending I’ve done a bit less eating as well. I’m down another 5 pounds which brings me 25lb weight loss down to 30. I’m only 30lbs away from dropping under the 200lb mark, a place I haven’t been since high school. ::jumps for joy::

With all of the money I’m saving on food, I’m putting some aside so I can buy some new clothes. Mine are falling off me, I’ve switched over to pants with elastic bands instead of my usual pair of jeans. I can finally say that I own a pair of fat jeans, I just can’t hold them up with pride just yet…heh.

I enjoyed a slice of pizza, I haven’t tasted it in a very long time and when I walked past the shop on the boardwalk my mouth instantly began to drool and the two miles that I had just walked (most of which was in the rain) made me feel as though I’d earned it. I had one small slice, instead of my usual crystal light I only drank water and I blotted off a lot of the grease as well. After eating I wound up doing an extra two miles to help work it off. I want to think that the heat helped a bit considering how badly I was sweating but hey, I’m fully content either way.

I’m more than likely going to be eating salads for the next couple of days. I’m going to be spoiled on monday with my anniversary dinner. My fiance is taking me to The Olive Garden, no matter how healthy of a meal you ask for unless it’s straight salad you’re bringing in a lot of carbohydrates with the pasta dishes. It’ll be well worth it though, it’s my once-a-year treat that even a diet isn’t going to stop me from.

I am down another couple of pounds, this brings my total weightloss since April up to 25 pounds, I have to update my sidebar when I put up a new theme later. I’ve been designing freebie themes to get up in the Templates section on both this domain and a few others. I should have those up soon.

I don’t quite understand what’s going on with my body at the moment but while I’m happy to be down another 7 pounds, no matter how healthy of a daily life I’m having I still find myself getting sick very easily. I’m certain it’s not the weight loss because I’m only really losing about 2-3 pounds per week which is supposed to be perfectly normal and healthy. I’m eating better, smoking much less and working out on a daily basis (minus the three days I was in bed unable to move) but the gym for the complex has finally been opened so Sean and I have spent a lot of time working out. I’ve been doing some weight training, walking with random increases of incline and anything else I can get my hands on. I’m also working on getting some money together each month to put myself on Nutrisystem and a very strict work out routine. Instead of doing my own form of portion control I’m just going to work on someone elses. I know for sure that I can handle the plan considering all of my meals are done for me. I just pick what I want and then nuke it - I think I can handle that.

Dieting can extremely hard for everyone but I have to say that the one thing I have trouble accepting are those whom skip right over hard work and feel they can go straight for plastic surgery. I fully understand that there are people who are so severely over weight that having the gastric bypass is more than likely a necessary thing, and that’s fine. But, even with that surgery you do have to work out or you’re going to wind up with a lot of extra skin with absolutely no elasticity.

Procedures like a Los Angeles tummy tuck will more than likely give you the results that you were initially looking for but you’d also be dealing with a rather hefty price tag in the process. Yes I’ll admit that sometimes you may have to take that route if working out didn’t do it for you but while insurance would cover something like gastric bypass (for qualified patients) cosmetic surgery like a tummy tuck or even something like rhinoplasty for that matter - are coming straight out of your pocket - and trust me, it isn’t going to be cheap!

I personally think that the only way to go would be to work hard and then concern yourself with going under the knife. I also know that many people would agree with this as well, mainly because they - like myself and many others - are working on losing weight the proper way. A proper diet and exercise should give you the results that you desire. Not everyone is going to go from a size 12 to a size 2 with dieting, this is true, but if you can even get yourself close to that result by doing it the hard way they you’ve earned your new pant size, no questions asked.

I’m unfortunate enough to have come down with a pretty nasty cold. Some are telling me that it is bronchitis while others are telling me that it’s just congestion. Either way I’m rather unhappy and when I can start breathing through my nose and not having such a rough sounding inhale through my mouth - things will be much better!

It’s kind of easy to stick to a diet when you’ve spent 24 of the last 48 hours, asleep! I’ve been snacking here and there on 100 calorie packs but I’ve been drinking a lot of tea as well. It’s very hard to get myself to the point of being as active as I used to be considering I’m having trouble standing up.

I managed to get a little bit of exercise in tonight though. Bella hasn’t poo’d in about two days because there is a rabid animal on the loose and it’s already attacked a 70-100lb pit bull, lord knows what it could do to a 18 pound Lhasa who thinks she’s a cat, minus the whole crapping outside thing, naturally. Sean went off to do his own thing, not quite sure what it was but no matter how dizzy I was, Bella was going to take her much needed nightly poop walk. So I threw my sneakers on and high-tailed it out the door. I admit, I was having some trouble and half way down the road I realised that I’d be screwed if something did happen to jump out at us because I’m in no condition to run anywhere, I just know that my dog is not going to be attacked by a cat/racoon with an attitude problem. So the littlest bit of noise that I heard behind me wound up having me walk just a little bit faster. Sean caught up with me just as I was getting back to the house so I’m certain that he made some sort of noise to scare me but either way no one was attacked, Bella got to do her business and now we’re home safe and sound.

It’s been very hot for the last few days, I know previously in the week there have been record highs all across the mid-west. I heard that one area hit the 115°F(46°C) mark. I felt so bad for those people, and then it made it’s way over on the eastern shore. DE hit high 90’s for the last few days but at least I was lucky enough to have the air conditioner in the window and being fast asleep during most of the heat. There was supposed to be some massive storm going through here today but nothing ever touched down. I noticed that my flowers are dead and I have to say I’m really annoyed by it. No one could think of watering them for me and even on top of that - where’s the rainfall? We’re about 5 inches behind this year, many farmers in the are are suffering pretty badly as well considering their crops depend heavily on the rain and I don’t think they’ve got those big booms that shoot water along their 5+ acres of crop like many other farms in the area do. Either way it’s hot and it’s just aiding in making me even more uncomfortable.

I waddled my self over to the office, took me a while to get here too. The AC is on but that trip from the bed to the office after walking her has left me with little to no strength. I’m more than likely going to get myself in bed as soon as possible, no need for me to be up if I can’t be productive about anything, you know?