Week 123 Update

After a very bad night, where I got very little sleep, I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 07:15 and he said, "186.5 pounds!" (An interesting aside is that later in the day, about noon, after a normal breakfast, I was back down to 183.5.)

This was an interesting week. My weight started creeping up at the end of the week, and I am not quite sure what caused it. It wasn't from overeating on any day other than possibly Monday. My average points-per-day for the week did go up to 48.07 from 45.64 the week before, but it was lower this week than the average was two weeks ago. One big change was that I didn't do any physical therapy this week. That combined with the fact that I only got two walks in, meant that my exercise level was down this week. That might have been part of the problem.

This is why I have a 2 pound leeway in both directions around my target weight. Sometimes the scale just takes a trip in one direction or another, and you have to have some wiggle room in order to compensate. I used up nearly all of mine this morning.

Eating and weight – The week started off with me weighing-in at 184.0 on Saturday. I like that weight, because it is easier to add weight than it is to take it off. When I am just below my target weight I feel like I am in complete control because I can usually deal with any fluctuations easily. If the scale drops I just add a few points and it comes back up. If it climbs, I have an extra pound to work with while I bring it back down.

I ate 38.0 points on Saturday. For lunch I had a Subway sandwich, and that was only 6.0 points. Normally, during the week, I have 15.5 or 16.5 points for lunch. So, that was low. Then for dinner we had "Instant Tacos" (a sort of taco salad) for another 7.0 points. Combined, my lunch and dinner was less than my normal lunch. Breakfast was my normal 5 points, so I was definitely low going into snack time. I gave it a good shot with 20 points, but it left me a bit low by the end of the day.

Sunday the scale climbed up a pound to 185.0. I ate 45.5 points and on Monday the scale dropped to 183.5. That was more or less what I was expecting, after only averaging 41.75 points per day for two days. So, I kicked up at lunch with a high point dessert, and then when I got home I found out that Dotti was thinking about eating at a restaurant. I was wishing that I hadn't had the dessert at that point but I figured I still had some room in my points for the day with the scale down in the morning. I went a little overboard with the chocolate shake, and at the end of the day I had eaten 75.5 points. This still was not too bad because my average for the week was only 53 points, or a total of 9 points over my target value. This should not be a problem.

Tuesday the scale only moved up a pound to 184.5. I decided to hold it down and see if there would be a delayed reaction to the big point day on Monday. So, I ate 46.5 points. Wednesday the scale held steady at 184.5. I held it down again, this time to 44.5. However, there was a quirk on this one too.

I had to work right through my lunch because of a problem on a machine. I had time enough during a phone conference call, to grab a 6.5-point snack, but that was it. So, I was very hungry when I got in the car to drive home. I ate part of my lunch on the drive, and then ate a dinner on top of it. Including the snack and what I ate from my lunch, I ate a normal lunch (16.5 points). The dinner was 11.0 points. Nothing out of line. However, I was overfilled at the end of dinner, and felt like I put more into my system, later in the day than usual. So, even though I was low on points that day, I was late on eating them.

At this point I was bang on 50.0 points-per-day average for the week. On Thursday I was up to 185.0 pounds. It was hard to judge if that was good or bad. It was my target weight, and so I couldn't really complain. However, I was up a pound from Saturday's weigh-in. I ate 43.0 points that day to see if I could edge it back down to 184.0.

On Friday the scale jumped up to 186.0. Friday was a day off and Dotti and I had a nice day. But my eating was all askew. I only ate 43.0 points, but we went to a movie (Seabiscuit) and I ended up eating 18.0 points of junk. I had a 6" sub at Subway before that. In the evening I added 6.0 more points, and it all came out to 43.5 at the end of the day. I was ill all night on Friday, and hardly got any sleep. I drank a lot of water during the evening, and I was up to 192.0 pounds on the scale before I went to bed. Normally, that would not concern me, but last night I was holding on to that water for some reason and the scale nearly put me over the top when I weighed in. Things finally shook loose later in the day, and I think my system is operating much closer to normal now. We will see tomorrow when I weigh.

Exercise – This is my toughest challenge. Partially it is do to pain. Some days, every joint in my body is aching, and it hard to get myself out there to walk, or especially to go to the gym. If I walk every day, my hip joints ache. My back hurts sometimes when I exercise. So, I have to grit my teeth and overcome that when I exercise. It is just something I am going to have to do. Another problem, and this is mostly for the gym, I hate crowds, and the only time of day that is convenient for me to go to the gym is when the crowds are there. If I don't go right after work, I probably am not going to make it anytime during the day, at least not regularly. Right after work the parking lot is jammed, the machines are in use and you have to jump in when they come available, and so forth. So, while the time is convenient, the gym situation is not.

So, I am faced with having to do something that I do not like to do, and do it regularly. This is a standard formula for failure for me. So, what is the solution? Perhaps I need to just shift my entire day around a bit. Perhaps getting up at 04:30 everyday, instead of 05:15 would work. If I did it all the time, it would feel normal after awhile. Then I would be up early enough to go to the gym before work everyday, and then actually going to the gym would not seem like such a big deal. And that early in the day, the place is mine. Almost nobody is there. If I just try to get up early a couple of times a week, I will get tired of it and stop. (I have already done that before.) It has be part of my normal routine or it will not happen. Now with my ongoing back issues, it has to happen. So, I guess I will have to make the change.

As for this week, I did nothing on the weekend last week. On Monday I walked 2 miles before work in 30:22. A pretty slow time. It was good for 4.90 aerobic points. On Tuesday, I got to work a little earlier and I walked 3 miles in 42:21. That was an average time of 14:07 per mile and a speed of 4.25 mph. I was happy with that for a distance of 3 miles. It was good for 8.75 aerobic points. That brought my total up for the week to 13.65. It was nearly half of my goal and I was in a good position to pick up the rest of what I needed if I would get out there and do it. But I didn't. I did no more walking for the week. I will see if I can do better this week.

Water – I drank more water this week. I had a low day on Saturday with only 3 cups, but I had 6 on Wednesday, 9 on Sunday and all the other days I had 12 or more. I averaged 80 ounces (10 cups) per day for the week. That is the best that I have done since the week ending July 26.

I definitely left room for improvement this week, so I will see if I can take advantage of that and actually make some.

2 years, 131 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/186.5/180±2/BMI:23.31/WK-123
Weight Loss Graph/Year 1 Maint. Graph/Year 2 Maint. Graph/Success Story