Marks Blog

I don't know of a solution. Or even if there IS a solution. But in my own opinion maybe looking to Washington for solutions might be looking in the wrong direction. One half of the debate wants to blame guns. "Just ban all guns, if we get rid of all of every single gun and then nobody will ever get shot" The problem with this argument (apart from the massive numbers of guns out there) is that the second amendment of the constitution allows for the ownership of guns. They can not legally make a law banning everyone from owning guns. I guess "in theory" this "could" change. But they couldn't even do their jobs enough to keep the government from shutting down TWICE this year. Getting enough political clout to change the BILL OF RIGHTS isn't going to happen. The other half of the debate wants to make it a mental health issue. They claim, "It's just a crazy person with a gun" the problem with this side i

Decaffeination Day 13 Weight: 342.4 Waist: 56 Mood: chilled An interesting thing I've noticed in the last couple of days, I've stopped needing pain relievers. I'm not on anything crazy or anything. I have a bottle of acetaminophen at my desk and I was taking goody energy shots several times a day. But lately my foot and joint pains have really gone down. Feet still hurt at the end of the day and in the morning, but not as much during the day. I've been hoping to be losing weight this week. But that doesn't seem to be happening. To be fair though I haven't been very good on my freezer meal plan. Right now all I have in my freezer is a lot of hamburger, but not any of the casseroles that I wanted to be living off of. And I guess it doesn't help that I never remember to weigh in before dinner. I am confident that I will be losing weight once I get back on top of my freezer meals. Noting how I'm also walking to work and dropping

Decaffeination Day 12 Weight: 337.8 Waist: 55 Mood: Well Rested Today was a blessing. Just sat at my computer I did get a bit of my living room cleaned up. But mostly I just sat around listing to music and watching YouTube. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll be disappointed with how much I didn't do today. It was nice to have a day where I didn't hear my name being screeched at me every 30 seconds or so. I can't really say that I was all that driven to drink any caffeinated beverages. I did go out to eat, but I got root beer instead of Pepsi or Mt dew or any other caffeinated sodas. I did finish looking over the finances enough to justify buying a gaming PC later this spring. So I'm looking forward to that. I was looking into building one. But it seems that right now would be a really bad time to do that. Since Cryptocurrencies are driving up prices of components. So I'm going to be looking into buying a premade PC. Probably an Alienware or

Decaffeination Day 11 Weight: 343.4 Waist: 57 inches Mood: meh I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time with this blog. I started this blog because I thought that quitting caffeine would have been more of a challenge. But outside of the habits it really hasn't been much of a struggle. And outside of repeating myself and complaining about work there really isn't much to say on here. I think I'll try to make a couple of more daily blogs, just to get to an even two weeks. Of course that's when I'll drink an entire pot of coffee and go walking on the ceiling or something stupid. Speaking about doing something stupid. I was really craving a stuffed crust meat lovers from Pizza hut so that's what I had for dinner along with a order of the Garlic Parmesan boneless wings. Thankfully I did a little bit of extra walking so according to my calorie counter I'm still 4,000 calories short for the day. The app gave an estimate of how much I

Decaffeination Day 10 Weight: Low Battery Waist: 55 inches Mood: Calm It's nice to have a scale that lasted until the battery died. So far I've had three scales and the previous two just failed. This one flashed “Low” and didn't show a weight and then was dead, so I'm going to assume that the battery is done. As far as quitting caffeine I've never ran into any withdraw symptoms. I still catch myself staring longingly at the displays of energy drinks and I have occasionally have had headaches, but that I think had more to do with dehydration or lack of food than lack of caffeine. I am really tired as I write these blogs. However I think that has to do with the fact that the only time I manage to find any time to write these damn things is the middle of the night because I feel like I'm back in that cycle of wake up, go back to work, go back to bed. Today was a successful day I managed to make a weekly weight loss video, managed to rem

Decaffeination Day 9 Weight: 337.4 Waist: 55 inches Mood: Good I might not be jumping off the walls awesome mood. I do have to say I am in a really good mood compared to what I usually feel like coming home from work. The second half of my shift tonight wasn't a bad night. I have a feeling I could write several paragraphs about the first half, but this isn't what this blog is about. Leaving for work I was a little confused as to wither it as actually Saturday or not. I had some mail in my mailbox and at the junior collage where I take a shortcut through the parking lot had a lot of cars parked there. But I guess they have Saturday classes, today was most defiantly Saturday. One of the things I was frustrated about work was that the person that was supposed to close the self checkout called in sick. So I stayed a couple of hours late. I do think it is interesting that I am not more tired later in the day. I was scheduled to work from 12-9. but

Decaffeination Day 8 Weight: 337.6 lbs Waist: 56 inches Mood: hopeful My feet and knee have seemed to stopped hurting. But I'm not sure if that's because of the week plus without soda or because I had the day off and spent the day sitting at my computer. However I did walk for 3.28 miles today. I walked to the store to turn in my vacation request form for the year. I have enough hours to have three weeks off this year. I'm not sure why they make us fill out the form at the beginning of the year. We still have to fill out another time off slip two weeks before the actual vacation time off. I filed my taxes today. That does sound very boring, but it did excite me when I started thinking about my return. I have a financial program on my computer called Quicken which tracks my spending and bills. And I spent most of the day rearranging my bills. My new financial plan is each Thursday when my paycheck comes in I'll transfer all but $25 into my sav

Decaffeination Day 7 Weight: 339.0 lbs Waist: Mood: Proud I am happy to report an entire week without soda. And that includes multiple opening shifts. I really didn't mean for this to be a complaining about work blog. It is just how this thing turned out. And I really just can't think of other things to talk about. I thought that the experiences of quitting caffeine cold turkey would lead to some thoughts and stuff to talk about. But all of the drama at work has been clouding my mind. I am truly trying to stop complaining about work on this blog. That's not the point. But I did confirm with co-workers, this last week and a half has NOT been normal. People constantly calling in, not showing up, being scheduled at completely different stores. I have a VERY long to-do list of things to complain about on my YouTube channel. But this last week or two I just can't wrap my head around the stuff that is happening. It would be easy to claim that lack

Decaffeination Day 6 Weight: 335.0 lbs Waist: 55 inches wow, that was a hell of a drop in weight for a single day. But than again I haven't been drinking the water I wanted to be drinking. I wont make too many excuses for a eight pound drop in a single day though. I was talking with a co-worker. And the last two weeks have NOT been normal. We've been having giant swarms of people checking out with massive cartloads of groceries. And nobody seems to be showing up for work. What few people are scheduled to be there anyway. Everyday for the last week and a half I've arrived at work and the entire schedule for the day is in the process of being reworked because one person called in, another no called no showed, and one more is scheduled to be at another store altogether. They say that this is a particularly bad flu season, but goddamn people, this can't go on like this much longer. I'm seriously wondering how much caffeine effects the mi

Weight: 343.0 lbs Waist: 56 in Mood: chilled Almost didn't get around to posting today. I thought I would take the day I got off to rearrange my living room. I have been meaning to do this for a really long time. (Mostly in the winter, my computer is next to the window and it gets REALLY cold) And it is fascinating to me that I have finally found the time and energy to do something that I've been meaning to do for a couple of years now that I am not drinking a lot of stimulants. There was a lot of other, arguably more important, things I could have been doing with my day off today. But hey at least I'm away from the damn window. I did gain a little bit of weight for today's weigh in because fairly late in the day I thought of doing the drink one gallon a day of water tip I have seen a lot of. I did manage to buy the fruit I need for the breakfast smoothies I want to be drinking. The smoothies are a combination of Avocado, Banana, Kale, and

Decaffeination Day 4 Weight: 338.4 lbs Waist: 56 in Mood: Hopeful Okay, I was able to wake up and function without caffeine even for a opening shift. Had a hard time building momentum this morning. Feet were in some serious pain. Walking to work, two miles each way and then walking around for eight hours. Yeah, that's been having an effect. My right foot feels like there's a spike through the top of it and my left knee feels weak. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to keep up with the increasing pace of the day.  For the most part I really didn't notice the difference between this morning and any other day when I opened. I am really trying to not complain about work on here, that's not the point of this blog. I did notice that I didn't have to run to the bathroom as much as I did when I was drinking energy drinks. If I could get a bit graphic here for a few sentences. I know that caffeine is a diuretic. However I have been

Weight: 340.2 lbs Waist: 54 Mood: Optimistic Really the hardest thing about quitting soda is the habits. When going on lunch or walking around the registers at work looking at the energy shots, I do catch myself reaching for the soda. I do have to say that I have been handling the lack of caffeine pretty well. Tomorrow will be the real test as I have to be at work at 6 am and I am going to force myself to not to pick up that energy shot. It will be nice to have a normal day to see how I am really doing. The last several days have been completely insanely busy. And the help in the store has been completely nonexistent. Honestly this isn't supposed to be the Mark complaining about work blog, but wow are they giving me material to complain about. But I have a weekly video series to complain about work that's not what this blog is for. I do have to say though it is infuriating when it gets busy and it seems that people don't realize that it is busy so t

Days without caffeine: 2 Weight: 342.8 lbs Waist: 56 in Mood: Frustrated I have to say that I might of chosen the worst weekend ever to try to quit caffeine. Just like I said yesterday. This weekend is the first of the month, the weekend of the Super Bowl Sunday, and there's a rumor of snow this weekend. Such a weak chance of snow they aren't even giving an estimate for accumulation. But that hasn't stopped every single idiot in town running to the store to stock up for the approaching snowmageddon. And apparently the Super Bowl is the one of the biggest eating holidays. I have a running theory that the more people in a area the dumber the individual in an area, and MY GOD it was busy today. It really felt like every single person that went through the store was straight up pissed off. Some would say that if everyone around you is pissed, it might be a problem with you. But I felt that I really was doing fine (well fine when I wasn't having th

Days without caffeine: 1 Weight: 343.2 lbs Waist:56 in Mood: tired...so tired Today was the real first day that I avoided soda. I'm not sure that today would have been the best day to start this. Truly I didn't mean to start on the beginning of the month. But the day I decided to quit drinking soda just happened to be the first Friday of the month, the weekend of the Super Bowl, and there's a rumor of a snow storm later this weekend. I have a feeling I could have red bull on a freaking IV tree running behind me and I'd still be tired at the end of this shift. To be honest I did grab an energy shot but I convinced myself to but it back. I did drink a lot of juice this morning. So I was really craving some sugar today. And one of the energy shot's that I really enjoy drinking is a Goody brand energy shot, so it is a pain relief energy shot so my legs and feet were missing that one. Along with a bit of a headache towards the end of the shift.

Decaffeination Day 0 Days without caffeine:0 Weight: 348.9 lbs Waist: 55 inches Mood: hopeful I've been wanting to lose weight for quite some time. I have also done research as to how soda effects the mind and body (spoilers it's not good). But I have yet to stop drinking the stuff. Don't get me wrong, in the past I've promised myself that this case/bottle/whatever will be the last one I'll ever buy and then I'll quit soda forever. Or rather two or three days later. (if that at all) This time when I quit drinking soda I'll use this blog to keep me on task.  I've tried to quit soda before, with little success, but that was before I remembered that I have this blog. Hopefully if I keep in mind that I have to make a daily blog post about drinking soda I will find it difficult to justify buying the soda. I thought of making this as a YouTube series, but I already have more than I should probably handle with my various YouTube se