Hair Change Decisions

OK I changed my mind again, I’m not going to get my hair done at all.

I cancelled my appointment for this Wednesday. I lost my $35 deposit when I did that.

But I dyed my hair brown this morning and pulled it into a curly bun and I really like it. I finally think my curls are really pretty and I don’t want to cut my hair any shorter. I want it to grow long and healthy. The only thing is my hair is thinning along my hair line. I’m not really sure what I can do about that. I eat well and take vitamins daily. Maybe just not putting any heat or chemicals on it for awhile and not putting strain on the edges with braids etc.. will help it grow there. Also this will save me a ton of money from not having to buy wigs regularly or get it done regularly. I redid my budget for the next year removing all hair stuff and I have so much extra money.

I got good feedback at work, on Facebook and from my family that I should just keep it as it is.

One of my sisters did suggest I dye it a light brown color, but my boyfriend said don’t do it. Also my friend Marlie, who is a hairdresser, said dyeing it lighter might make the thinning areas show up more, make it look even more thin in other words.

I did buy a bottle of lighter dye from Target, I will revisit in 2 weeks whether I will dye it lighter or not. For now I like it the way it is.

My coworker took some pictures of my hair today, I will post 3 of them below:

different hair

I’ve decided to do something different with my hair

I like the look of the wig…. the first month it gets done, but by the second month it looks a mess. It really needs to be done at minimum once a month but I can’t afford that. It cost $140 each time it gets done. So I’ve been getting it done every two months.

So I’ve decided to get my real hair styled.

I made an appointment to get a relaxer and hair cut. That will cost $100

Then once a month I will get a silk press to maintain it. That will be $70 a month.

How it saves me money is two-fold. Instead of needing to pay $140 a month, which is what I really needed with the wig, , I will pay $70 per month. And also, I won’t have to buy more wigs, which cost $260 a pop. I can get my hair done more often, hopefully it will look better longer.

I will get a new relaxer and hair cut every 4-5 months.

The challenge is, I have had relaxers before and had trouble maintaining them myself. But back then, I didn’t get it maintained professionally, which I plan to do this time. To be honest, I would prefer to get my hair done every two weeks, but I can’t afford $140 a month.

The other challenge is, my hair is thinning. I’m going to see if my hair dresser can help me get it back healthy, maybe with hair masks or hot oil treatments.

I went to Target yesterday and bought a hair dyer with comb attachments and a smaller flat iron as well as some nice hair products like a co wash, hair oil, and styling creme. I may have to wash my hair every two weeks, so I will need that stuff.

I am currently dyeing my hair a dark brown. It still had pink in it from last year, plus I wanted to cover the grey, which I have a lot of.

Also to be honest, Kevin Samuels has gotten into my head. He said high value men do not like wigs and fake hair on black women. So because I want to marry a high value man, I am changing my appearance, so I can cast a wider net.

Delaying Competing

Y’all know I want to compete in a bikini level bodybuilding competition in the Masters division

I had planned on doing it in 2024

Now that I am seeing how my body looks, with even more extra skin than before, I’m going to need to get all my plastic surgeries before I compete. Looking at my body now, I think I need a arm lift, a breast lift, a 360 degree tummy tuck, a butt lift (not the Brazilian butt lift that requires fat transfer, I’m talking about a skin removal butt lift, my butt is drooping down my legs.), thigh lift, and I also want rhinoplasty. All of that’s going to be about $40,000. I might even want to get my teeth fixed as well which requires dental bonding, which should cost about $12,000 but more if I need to get braces as well so maybe $15,000 worth of dental work. So basically I want a head to toe makeover which is going to cost about $55,000

It will probably take me 5 years to save for that AFTER I’ve gotten a decent job in accounting, hopefully I can get one in 2022. So 5 years after 2022 will be 2027.

Then I have to recover for a year, etc.. so wouldn’t be able to compete until 2028. I would be 55 years old at that time.

So in 7 years basically I can compete. I should be in a much much better place financially at that time, to afford the luxury of competing costs that I outlined in an earlier blog.

My top 5 weight loss tips

People ask me all the time how I am losing so much weight. This is an old post from May 2020, I’ve lost a lot more weight since then.

These are my tips for losing weight permanently if you are obese. I put them in order of importance. This is just to get you started, there are other tips I have as well.

1. Get a therapist. I know therapy is a privilege many can’t afford. I pay $6 a week for my therapist at the local university. She is a graduate student. You need to find out why you gained weight and how to resolve those feelings that led to your weight gain. Overeating is a mental health issue. If you eat certain foods to make you feel better, that is a mental health issue. I ate desserts to feel better. They were a coping mechanism for my depression and bipolar and anxiety. Therapy can be your new coping mechanism and accountability partner. There are therapist online thru
   http://www.betterhelp.com

   They charge about $50 per week.

2. Download a calorie tracker to your phone. Make sure its one that scans usp codes. I use MyFitnessPal. Use it every day and for EVERY thing you put in your mouth whether its 10 calorie water or a slice of pie and a pint of ice-cream. Never forget to input your calories. Do not wait till the end of the day to input your calories. Input them as the day goes on and immediately after eating. Do NOT FORGET!!. Looking at this eating track record will be very helpful for you. You can hook up other apps to it as well. Do this before you even start dieting to get into the habit. It will take a few months to make this a habit. It is imperative that you know how many calories you are currently eating daily. You cannot change to an appropriate amount if you dont have an accurate count of what you’re eating currently. Add me on MyFitnessPal , my name on there is : realvickinicole

    
    
3. Eat in a caloric deficit. After you’ve done some preliminary work by getting a therapist and tracking your calories. Lower your calories to below your BMR. MyFitnessPal calculates this for you as you update your current weight on it. You could also use a BMR calculator: https://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html
    

   That BMR calculator says I burn 1,740 Calories at rest. So I have to eat less than that to lose weight at 240 pounds. MyFitnessPal says I need to eat 1460 calories a day to lose 1 pound per week. DO NOT lower your calories too low though as that will back fire, you will be hungry, your weight will plateau‎, and you will gain the weight back. If your body thinks it’s starving, it will fight you. Trust me. This happens to me all the time. Then I have to eat more to get back on my body’s good side. Just lower it by a few hundred calories. No more than 400 calories at a time.

    
4. Start moving your body. For the first year that I lost weight I did not exercise at all. The most I did was work at my job on my feet for 4-6 hours twice a week. I wanted to get accustomed to the eating less first and moving your body makes you hungry. I also didn’t want to get burnt out by doing too much all at once. You need to develop habits slowly and methodically. At the end of last year I bought myself a FitBit to track my steps. Then I decided to get a goal, which was to do 10,000 steps a day. When I worked I would make sure to walk a lot to get my steps in. Then I started occasionally walking to work or to the store. Then in March when Corona Virus started I decided to walk every day for 7,000 – 10,000 steps. I prefer to hit 10,000 cause I have my FitBit app hooked up to MyFitnessPal app and MyfitnessPal will give me additional calories when I’ve walked at least 10,000 steps. The amount of calories it gives you varies but this is very helpful for if I need to eat a little more on a certain day. I try not to make a habit of eating all my additional calories. But walking helps keep me in a caloric deficit every day.
    
5. Weigh Yourself every week. Weight yourself naked, first thing in the morning after you wake up. I weigh myself every day but I do not really recommend that. Being obsessed with numbers sucks. For me it’s helpful cause it tells me how to eat that day. If I’ve gone up a pound, I will eat a little less or a little more strict. If I’ve gone down a pound I know I’m on track. I would keep a record of my weekly weigh ins. I keep mine posted here on this website. It really makes a difference to see how you’re making progress. I’ve been recording my weight for 2 years now. It’s very motivational and it teaches you a lot. Like I can look at my weight chart and see that for about 6 months last year I made no progress in my weight loss. I needed that time though to get adjusted to different eating patterns and different foods and figure out what works and doesn’t work. So it’s fine. But I took everything I learned last year and used it to refine my eating habits and other things this year. And this year I can look at my weight loss chart and see how I am really progressing beyond my expectations.

Check out this link for a bonus tip: https://fattofiguregirl.wordpress.com/2020/10/01/lifestyle/

Hard Work Pays Off

I’ve been walking extra steps, almost 20,000 per day on average. Several days of 30,000 steps.

I also lowered my calories to 1399 per day and been sticking to it.

Well finally my hard work has paid off. I lost TWO pounds this week so far. I am now at 172 pounds.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, worries me because I am going to Grub burger for my Ladies Meetup group and plan to get a 900 calorie vegetarian burger that I always get from there.

I plan to walk 15,000 steps before I get to the restaurant, my plan is to walk to my mom’s house, then have my mom drop me off at the restaurant if I don’t have time to walk to it. But then I will walk home from the restaurant. So that’s at minimum 20,000 steps but I really need 30,000 steps tomorrow.

I know I will gain on Thursday and Friday from eating that veggie burger. But hopefully by Saturday and when I weigh in on Sunday, my weight will be back down to 172 pounds.

Anyway I’m excited to be making progress again.

New Youtube Video

My new Youtube video is up. It’s my 2021 Goals.

Please Like (thumbs up), Comment, Subscribe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCSEMZJPGwM

Doing well

I had a little episode this week, on Thursday and Friday, of overeating, mostly cause I took some CBD gummies called Delta, which gave me the munchies and I ate 6 bags of nuts that were in my car and I ordered dominoes for the next day. So the next day dominoes arrived and I had cheesy bread and a veggie sandwich. So yea for 2 days I walked over 30,000 steps to make up for all that overeating

and what do you know

today my weight is still low, 174.6 pounds

That makes me happy.

I worked so hard to keep it low.

A little Loss

Yesterday I had to work and I felt an overwhelming sadness and I cried most of the day

I can’t believe I won’t see her at work anymore.

Today I woke up and I had lost 3 pounds. I weigh 176.

I am still on my period, this is my 5th day. It’s usually over by this time.

I haven’t been constipated for about a week. I think it’s the walking that is helping with that.

I started walking home from work at night. So to protect myself, I went and bought a knife from the Pawn shop. But then he mentioned they sell tasers too, so I will probably buy that tomorrow or when I get paid on Friday. Just want to feel safe.

I’m happy about the weight loss.

Now just need to lose 2 more pounds to reach where I was before, at the beginning of March.

I’m thinking of signing back up for nutrisystem. They have a vegetarian plan but not many foods I want to eat because I don’t eat sugar. So most of the breakfasts and snacks I can’t eat. I also dont eat mushrooms so that cut out some meals. It cost $300 per month, but that would replace all my groceries and protein drinks.

I used it for about 4 months back in 2017. The food was mostly awful. But my taste buds have changed now that I am a vegetarian, so I might not despise the food as much this time. The only reason I am considering it is cause their food is very low calorie.

I guess I’ll wait to see how April goes with my weight loss. I want to get to 170 pounds by My birthday on May 5.

I also signed up for Noom. Just a 7 day trial. I can’t afford Noom, its $150 for 5 months. I ain’t got $150. I am curious to see if it will help me push past this minor weight gain. I’ve tried it before and found it to be super simple minded. I knew all the information they were giving me. Maybe it’s different now. My sister uses it and loves it.

March Update Video

Same Weight

Today I weigh the same thing I did on February 21: 178.4 pounds

Thats annoying

plus I’m on my period