Week 133 Update

At 04:45, with the temperature outside resting at 41°, I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "185.5 pounds!" I am very happy with that.

This was a unique week for this year. Normally we have 2 similar weeks, where we come to Spokane, have a great time visiting with Jim and Tammy, and then head back to Vancouver. (The reason that we go to Spokane each time is because normally Dotti and I only have to bring ourselves for such a trip, and when LeRoy comes along he can drive himself, like he did this week. Jim and Tammy still have 3 girls living at home with them, and so traveling would be far more difficult. They have a much larger house than we do, making accommodations far more comfortable for all concerned this way as well. Perhaps even more importantly, Jim and Tammy have many family members who live in Spokane, and each time we visit, there also is a family reunion that brings these loved ones together. That would be lost if we visited in Vancouver.) This year we missed our trip in July, and we all really missed it. So, this trip was especially nice for us.

This week marked the second anniversary for me of making my personal goal weight! (On November 24, 2001 had my first official weigh-in at less than 190 pounds. I have never had a weekly weigh-in since that was higher than 190. Later, once I set my target at 185, all of my weekly weigh-ins fell to at least 3 pounds less than 190.) I think it is really cool that I made my personal goal the week that we were in Spokane for Thanksgiving in 2001. Not only did I have a great Thanksgiving meal that week, orchestrated by Tammy, but also I lost 2.5 pounds, and finally hit my personal goal.

Today I weighed-in at 3 pounds under what I weighed for my official weekly weigh-in two years ago, but for the last 2 years I have been very close to the same weight each week. My body is feeling comfortable here now. Tammy’s Mom came up to me on Thanksgiving Day and told me that she thought I was “looking better now.” Part of that is probably that the shock of seeing me thin has warn off, and part of it is that my body has adjusted to being here, tightening things up a bit. I have been doing some exercise this year, which may have also helped some.

We had quite a bit of snow when we first arrived in Spokane, but after the first couple of days, things settle down, and the snow on the ground right now is all several days old. When we cleaned the snow off of LeRoy’s car so that he could drive home on Thanksgiving evening, it was only about 2 inches thick. (He had not driven his car during the time he was here. So, the 8 or so inches that we had received overall had mostly melted away.) Today, we will be driving home, and the temperature is well above freezing, which we are thankful for!

I didn’t get in much exercise this week, staying indoors most of the time. Dotti was out and about with Tammy quite a bit more, and she did more walking as a result. However, this week I had a really great time, and it went a long ways towards “recharging my batteries.”

Eating and Weight - On Saturday, at 186.5, I was close to bumping up against my upper limit. However, I knew that was still water weight giving me a hard time. We drove up to Spokane that day, and with the car-snacking and the meals we ended up eating, I ate 49.5 points. Sunday I dropped a half-pound to186.0. I ate light that day and only consumed 39.5 points. On Monday, even though I weighed at 04:00, I held steady at 186.0. (Normally, if I wait a couple of hours to weigh, I will drop another pound or so, especially if I drank a lot of water the previous day.) I ate 52.0 points and then on Tuesday, the scale fell to 184.5 pounds. I ate 45.5 points, including half of a jar of honey-roasted peanuts (15 points) that my niece gave to me as a gift. Wednesday, I held steady at 184.5. I ate 46.0 points, trying to be at least a bit frugal, in case Thanksgiving ended up going high. The scale said 185.5 on Thanksgiving morning. I ate 26.5 points for the big dinner that day, and only had 49.0 points total, a point less than my maintenance target. The scale moved up a half-pound to 186.0 on Friday. Perhaps it was sodium, because my points for the previous several days were not high enough to create fat weight. I was planning on eating low on Friday, just because I had weigh-in coming up this morning. However, after I totaled up my points after dinner, I was already up to 57.0 points for the day. Well, that shut down my eating for the evening. I switched over to water, and that is all I had for the rest of the night. It all worked out okay, as my weight fell to 185.5 this morning.

Exercise - I didn’t get any exercise in that I could count. I did go out a couple of days and do some walking around at stores, and I was up and down the stairs at Jim’s and Tammy’s house each day several times, but that was about it. It was a sedentary week.

Water - I wasn’t perfect on water, but I did pretty well. Wednesday I only drank 3 cups, but all the other days I had at least 6 cups. Overall, I drank an average of 65.14 ounces (8.14 cups) per day, which is above my minimum goal of 6 to 8 cups per day.

Week's Evaluation - I feel this week was a success. While I was not very active for exercise, I still held my ground on my weight, hitting only 0.5 pounds over my target, and I got my water in. I am in a good position to start off my new week.

I am now all set to start on my third year, at my personal goal, as I continue working on my 6th year of being smoke-free.

2 years, 201 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.5/180±2/BMI:23.19/WK-133
Weight Loss Graph/Year 1 Maint. Graph/Year 2 Maint. Graph/Success Story