Week 125 Update

At 05:05, two hours and 7 minutes before sunrise, with the temperature sitting at 57°, I stepped on Mr. Scale and he said, "187.0 pounds!" I am just squeaking by these days but I am still staying within my target range. All week long I was bouncing between 186.5 and 187.0. The tightrope has suddenly had a stiff breeze coming across it. So, far I have been able to compensate for it.

Thirty years ago today, it was a Thursday, and I was on my 35th day of boot camp in San Diego. I still had 7 and a half weeks to go to completion. By this time, my newly issued uniforms had begun to feel "normal" and my Navy "boondockers" (high topped shoes, quite similar in size to common hiking boots today, but nowhere near as comfortable) were well broken in from all the marching we had done. It was a male world, and we hadn't seen a single woman in all that time. It was all routine and drill. By that time, the first night -- arriving from the airport in the wee hours, and hitting the rack at 02:30, only to be awoken at 04:30 by a metal trash can being thrown down the center aisle of the barracks, and some fool yelling at the top of his lungs -- already had seemed like a lifetime away. Now, it seems impossible that all of that took place 30 years ago. Today, my son who was one and half then, is a chief petty officer in the Navy, and is coming up on his 32nd birthday in January. LeRoy, who is 26 now, and also a Navy veteran, wasn't to be born for nearly another four years.

I was actually thinner 30 years ago today than I am now, but not by too much. I was in the 190s when I went it, and in the 170s when I got out. So, at this point in boot camp I was probably around 180. That puts me a lot closer to being the same weight today than I was when I was 27 years from boot camp, and weighing about 240. I don't know if I could run a mile and a half in 14:30 now, but I do know that I just barely made it then, with some of my company helping me by pulling me along on the back stretch, and coaching me along at the end when they were told to stop pulling. I had to make it or I wouldn't have passed boot camp and I had already failed two other attempts (my first time was 17:45!). It was the only thing in boot camp that I found to be a serious challenge, and it scared me right up until the end when I finally passed it with a week to spare. Some 17 years later I made a 14:30 time on a mile and a half without any of the yelling or pulling, and felt pretty good at the end. But I can still picture myself 30 years ago, lying on the ground after collapsing after crossing the finished line, and having the petty officers in charge of the test screaming at me to get up, and I just laid there anyway, because I was completely spent. Running has always been a big challenge to me.

Fast-forwarding up 30 years…

Eating and Weight – This week was a struggle. Pain medications, and eating were fighting each other to see who would rule the scale. I started off on Saturday weighing 186.5. That was high but still in my range. I ate 47.0 points, and the scale moved up to 187.0. I knew that I was not putting on fat weight with 47 points so I ate 47.5 on Sunday. The scale dropped to 186.5 on Monday. Not to push my luck, I ate 43.5 points. Tuesday the scale jumped back up to 187.0. I dropped my points to 36.5 and Wednesday the scale dropped to 186.5. I ate 45.0 points, and Thursday I was back to 187.0. I ate 48.0 points and the scale dropped to 186.5. It was beginning to look like no matter what I ate, the scale was going to bounce back and forth between those two weights. On Friday, I ate 36.5 points, and I was busy all day, my back felt great, and I didn't take any pain medication. The scale once again went up to 187.0 this morning. Mr. Scale seemed to have a mind of his own this week. However, I did remain within my target range, and even my average weight for the week was there, so I consider this week a success in the weight department!

Exercise – My exercise this week consisted of 3 visits to the gym. For all three of them I did a standard weight set that my physical therapist had set up for me, and I did 10 minutes on the arm bike, which has turned out to be an exercise that I have started to like. It is great for working the upper body, especially the entire arm and shoulder on both sides. The biceps and triceps are both worked to exhaustion. I will push with the right arm and pull with the left until I am too tired to continue, and then I will push with the left arm and pull with the right. I sometimes push alternately with my left and right arm, and then I will alternately pull with each arm. The variation allows my exhausted muscles to recover and I can hold the RPMs somewhere around 69 or 70 for the entire 10 minutes. My only complaint about that exercise is that they have place machine right under a set of speakers and the music they are blaring just can't be ignored. The only thing about the gym that I find hard to take is that music. If people want music they can bring their own (as most people do anyway) but what about those like me who would like a little peace and quite when I am exercising? It is like a non-smoker who doesn't like second hand smoke; well I don't like other people's choice of noise pollution either. But I am coping so far. I am contemplating bringing some ear plugs to get me through the time under those speakers.

On Monday, Dotti jumped in and decided that she was going to see how fast she could do the modified "Multnomah Falls Hike." (The treadmill settings to simulate an actual MFH would be 13% incline for 1.2 miles. The modified MFH holds the incline at 15% and goes for 1.2 miles. The net result is an increase of 127 extra vertical feet during the hike.) Dotti actually cut a time faster than mine! She did the modified MFH in 21:45! I took 22:17 to go the same distance. During the walk I found at the end when I was trying to catch Dotti, that I could hold 4.0 mph for a while, so that helped my thinking for the next time. I also walked out a full 30 minutes, and covered a total of 1.77 miles in that amount of time.

On Wednesday, unfortunately Dotti was not feeling very well, and she couldn't make it to the gym. So, I just had to focus on beating her old time. I walked the modified MFH in 20:31 with an average speed 3.51 mph. I then lowered the incline to 0% and walked out the rest of the 30:00 minutes. I completed 1.92 miles, averaging a rate of 4.55 mph for the 0% portion. Overall I averaged 3.84 for the entire 1.92 miles.

On Friday, Dotti was back, but her hip had been injured by the Monday hike so she did not participate in the MFH. I did the modified MFH in 19:55 with an average rate of 3.61 mph. I started off at 3.5 mph, and held it there for half a mile, and then moved it up to 3.6 for the second half mile, and then for the last 0.2 mile I put it at 4.0 mph. I then put it back down to 0% and continued out to 30 minutes. When I hit that point, I was at 1.98 miles, so I figured I was so close to 2 miles, why not finish it? So, I hit 2.0 miles in 30:15. I had my speed up to 5.2 mph for the last couple of minutes, and it didn’t feel too bad. I am slowly working my speed up on both the incline and the non-incline parts of my walk. My average rate of speed for the entire two miles was 3.97, which was 15:07 per mile. I am getting close to bringing the whole thing up to 4.0 mph. If I can continue to improve, I hope to bring the incline up to a speed faster than 4.0 and then the overall will slide up towards the mid 4's for rate.

The sweat is just pouring off me by the end of treadmill time. (My weight drops a pound and a half each day after the gym visit, at least until I drink some water.) On Monday I pulled off my heavy sweat pants and walked in my shorts, but on Wednesday and Friday I just left the sweats on. I may have go back to removing them as my time gets faster.

I have not been doing any walking between the gym visits. I feel like my knees can use the rest. In time I may start to insert the in between walks again. But the temperature is dropping, and the trees along the road are starting to get some color and it will not be long before they will be looking like they did when I took the pictures of that hiking path a couple of years ago. So, the incentive to do some walking will be strong.

I am counting each gym session as 10.00 aerobic points. So, with 3 visits, I got in 30 aerobic points, which is my weekly goal. The early morning sessions are working well, so I was able to get my 3 visits in to the gym, which is my other exercise goal. So, for exercise, the week was a success for me.

Water – I hit 6 or more cups each day this week! That is something that I have been failing to do for quite some time. I have been averaging enough cups-per-day but I have had one or two days below 6 cups; but not this week. My low day was last Saturday, when I only got in 6 cups. Overall I averaged 78.86 ounces-per-day, which comes out to 9.85 cups-per-day, well over my minimum of 6 to 8 cups per day. So, for water I had a successful week too.

Even though I have been struggling holding the weight down within the target range, it was a good week overall and I am satisfied with it. If it were all perfectly easy, what would be the point of talking about?

2 years, 145 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/187.0/180±2/BMI:23.37/WK-125
Weight Loss Graph/Year 1 Maint. Graph/Year 2 Maint. Graph/Success Story