Week 100 Update

It was 04:00 and 49°, when I stepped up on Mr. Scale this morning and he said, “185.0 pounds!”

This brings the 100th week of my journey to a close. I have completed 700 days OP, and am one month away from completing the second year of my journey. It also marks the 68th week in a row that I have weighed-in at or below the top of my target range (187.0 pounds), and the 51st week in a row that I have weighed-in at a weight that was completely within my target range.

This week I ate more points than any week since Christmas. I averaged 50.64 points per day (up from last week’s 48.93), and while my weigh-in went up by a pound and a half from last Saturday, my overall average weight actually dropped by over a pound, from 184.64 to 183.57.

For eating this week, I started out with a low weigh-in on Saturday, but I only ate 43.5 points that day. Normally, I would expect to hold steady if I eat about 47 points. However, on Sunday, I came in at 183.5 again. I ate 52.5 points to see if I could bring it up a bit. I didn’t eat anything special that day, I just snacked more.

Monday morning, my weight had dropped to 181.5! So, at lunch I went by Dairy Queen, and picked up a Banana Split for lunch to help pick up my points. I ended up eating 50.5 points that day. Tuesday the scale did come back up to 183.0, but that is still right at the bottom of my range. So, I had another lunchtime treat of a Butterfinger McFlurry at McDonalds. It had been a while since I had had any splurges during lunch, and to do two in a row felt really strange. It boosted my points for the day to 60.0 and the scale moved up to 183.5 on Wednesday morning.

I didn’t have anything special for lunch that day, and as it turned out, Dotti and went to the gym that evening, before dinner. After the gym, I was just not all that hungry and I ended up eating only 35.0 points for the day. No matter, the scale moved up anyway to 184.0 Thursday morning. I didn’t want to see another big drop just before my weekly weigh-in, so I had another treat at dinner, a banana split at a restaurant we went to. (I also felt overly full at the end of that meal, which is something that doesn’t happen very often.) My points for the day reached 63.0. Friday morning, I was very interested in what the scale was going to say. It read 184.5 pounds. After the way the week had gone, I didn’t worry about my points yesterday too much and ate 50.0. I didn’t do anything special to hold back. On Fridays, I am still normally a bit careful, because I want to keep my string alive of consecutive weeks weighing-in inside of my target range. This time, after the way the week had gone, I just felt like it wasn’t going to matter too much what I ate. Part of that was because I had weighed myself when I got off from work, and I was only 185.0. Usually, I expect to be about 187-189 at that time of day. So, I felt confident that I would not blow it by over eating. I didn’t go nuts, but I ate what I wanted.

I am not sure why, but the last 4 weeks, my average points per day have increased. I weighed in at 185.0 on March 15, and I had averaged 42.21 points per day that week. The week before was also a 185.0 weigh-in and I only ate 39.43 points per day that week. However, since then, I have averaged 47.93, 49.71, 48.93 and now 50.64, with a weigh-in of 185.0 again this week. It may be that the exercise is finally starting to have an impact, even though the last two weeks have not been too good on that score since I got sick. (And that may have had something to do with it as well.) We’ll see what next week brings.

For exercise this week, I only made it to the gym two times, and I only earned 12.72 Aerobic Points for the week. Now that I am feeling better, I will see if I can get back on track this week, and get at least 3 gym visits in, and 30 aerobic points.

For water, I had at least 6 cups each day, and I averaged over 60 ounces (7.5 cups) per day for the week.

Dotti picked up a pair of pants for me yesterday that had a 34-inch waist. I was not happy to see that I could not wear them. Although I am building a bit of muscle mass from the weight training, it is having an insignificant impact on my waist so far. The trainer at the gym may be right, and I may have to drop a few more pounds if I am going to lose the fat around my middle. Everywhere else on my body I am perfectly happy with my weight loss, except for perhaps in my face, where I lost a little more than I would have liked. It is hard to shape things the way you would like to. Doing abdomen exercises does nothing towards losing fat in the stomach area. It only builds muscle underneath the fat and pushes it out farther. To get rid of fat, you have to lose fat weight. Exercising an area of the body will build muscle in that area, but it will not decrease fat in that area beyond the loss created by burning calories from exercise, which would be the same no matter what part of your body you exercise. One of my goals has been to comfortably get back into 34-inch waist pants. So, far that has not happened. It is going to happen one day, even if I have to change my target weight down a few pounds.

700 days (= 100 weeks = 23 months = 1 year 11 months 0 days) OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.0/185±2/BMI:23.12/WK-100
Weight Loss Graph/Year 1 Maint. Graph/Year 2 Maint. Graph/Success Story