Week 138 Update

It was 07:35, only 15 minutes before sunrise, when I woke up and stepped on Mr. Scale, and he said, "187.0 pounds!" And I was quite happy with that. Quite happy indeed.

This week was very much out of the normal for me. After all was said and done, I only averaged 41.64 points per day but my weight still jumped up two pounds. Yesterday my weight was up to 188.5. Things were nip and tuck right up to the wire this morning to see whether or not I was going to weigh in under my upper limit of 187.0.

Snow was a big part of the story this week. I got in very little exercise, partly because snow was covering the ground, and I don't have any good snow boots for hiking in. The boots I have are okay for short walks to the car, or to the store from the car, but they are not comfortable for long walks. It looks like I will have to get myself another pair.

This week we went down for 4 days to visit my mom and her husband Jim. It is always a challenge when we do that, because their eating is so different than ours. Dotti has traditionally put on weight every time we have gone down there, because there are way too many red flag foods (like M&Ms etc.) just lying around in bowls for grabbing. However this time down she was very good, and remained OP, and she lost a half pound for the week to boot! I was very impressed. It is a clear sign of how focused she is these days that she could do well there.

On New Year's Eve Dotti and I made it back home from Mom's, and we had some snow on the ground at both ends of the trip. When I got up in the morning that day, I decided to let Dotti get a little extra sleep before we hit the road. However, I started to see some flakes of snow begin to fall, mixed in with the rain. As I continued to watch, hoping it was just a temporary thing, the flakes became more numerous, and finally the rain was completely replaced by snowflakes. When the snow began to stick, I decided that we needed to get on the road before things got really ugly. So, we started home about an hour earlier than we originally planned. Then, after only going a couple of miles, the snow that was falling, changed over to rain, and we didn't see another flake drop for the rest of the trip. We did see plenty of snow during the drive, but it was mostly lying on the upper parts of the hills around us, a ways above the road. At times the snow level came all the way down to the road, but the road itself was free of snow or slush, though it remained wet for nearly all parts of the trip. Back in our home town of Vancouver, when we made a stop at a store, the parking lot was covered in slush, and there were a couple of inches of snow in our driveway when we got home as well. However, the snow was fortunately pretty much a non-issue for the actual drive.

Vancouver snow 12/31/03

For me, it was the drive home on New Year's Eve, and then on New Year's Day when I ate my highest number of points. I averaged 51.5 points for the two days. Before my back injury those would have hardly been considered high days. But now that average was 10 points higher than my overall average for the week, and I still gained 2 pounds!

Yesterday Dotti, LeRoy and I went to see Return of the King the final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (That is not to say that they will not someday make The Hobbit, which is the lead in story to the trilogy.) The movie was 3 hours and 20 minutes long, and worth every minute of it. Considering the movie industry's deplorable record with taking a book and making a movie out of it, I have to say that the Lord of the Rings did remarkably well in carrying the essence of the story, despite having to cut it and compress it, in order to fit it into a movie format. While there were some distortions and changes in the movie from the original book, and that was unfortunate, these were relatively small when weighed against the overall successful conveyance of the story. We were treated to beautiful scenery over and over again during the movies, and special effects that were top of the line. When I heard that they were going to make a movie based upon the book, I expected yet another Hollywood butcher job, politically correct, that is free from any significant contamination from the original story, or even original characters. As a result, I have been very pleasantly surprised at what was actually produced. (I have to add that I think the LOTR movies are not suitable for kids, because of the high level of violence, but then I would not recommend that young children read the books either. Judging from the makeup of the audience at the movie yesterday, mine is clearly a minority opinion.)

Eating and Weight – I started the week off in pretty good shape. I weighed in at 185.0 on Saturday, which is my target weight. I only ate 42.0 points, but on Sunday my weight went up to 185.5. On Saturday we spent over 4 hours in the car driving down to my mom's house, and I did some car snacking. I didn't eat lunch until late, and then dinner was added on to that. On Sunday, Mom cooked up a "Christmas Dinner" but I was careful and only ate 40.5 points. Still, my weight jumped up to 187.0. I knew that couldn't be fat weight, and so I ate 43.5 points on Monday. That included eating at two restaurants during the day, since we drove into town for some shopping. Tuesday morning my weight fell to 186.0. For dinner I had some leftovers from the "Christmas Dinner" but very small servings. My total points for the day ended up at 33.5. My weight fell to 184.5 on Wednesday. I felt like I was in really good shape for the week, and let go a bit. We drove back home that day, and I ate 17 points in the car. By the end of the day, after celebrating a bit for New Year's, I was up to 48.5 points. The next morning I weighed 186.0. I was still feeling confident, and I ate 54.5 points on Thursday. We pulled down our Christmas decorations that day, and I was snacking all day long. Friday I suddenly had my confidence evaporate. The scale jumped up to 188.5! I only ate 29.0 points and just barely snuck under the wire this morning.

Exercise – I was really bad on exercise this week. On Saturday, when our drive was nearly finished, we stopped at a casino, and I did a walk in the parking lot, while Dotti and LeRoy went inside to test their luck. I planned to do 2 miles, but it didn't work out. First of all, I walked a mile, and was surprised that it had taken me nearly 14:30 to complete, because I felt I was walking fairly fast. Then, as I was doing the next half-mile, I started feeling light headed, and my feet didn't feel right. I kept feeling like my I was losing traction, when I don't believe that I was. At the end of 1.5 miles I cut my walk short. It had taken me 22:19 to complete, and had earned me 3.54 aerobic points. I believe that my problem was that I hadn't had enough to eat during the day. This was in the afternoon, and we didn't eat lunch until after we got to Mom's place. At the time, I was afraid that I was coming down with the flu or something, but after I got some food into my stomach I started feeling better.

I had planned to get outdoors and do some walking while we were visiting, but the weather was not kind. I ended up not doing much outdoor walking. I went out on one day and took some pictures of the river, which was at a high level, but that was about it. Dotti, LeRoy and I went up to South Umpqua Falls, but we didn't do much walking while we were there.

On Sunday, I did get on my mom's treadmill, and I did 2 miles in 26:47, earning 5.96 aerobic points, and bringing my total for the week up to an anemic 9.50. Things kept coming up and I didn't get on the treadmill again on Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday we traveled home. Thursday was New Year's day, and I figured the gym was closed. The snow was enough to stop me from walking outside. Friday, it just didn't happen. So, I came up very short on my exercise this week.

Water – I blew my water on Saturday, and only drank 1 cup, but the rest of the week was okay. I drank 6 or more cups each of the other days, and got in 12 on Sunday. I averaged 53.71 ounces (6.7 cups) per day, which is within my goal of 6 to 8 cups each day.

Week's Evaluation – I had a struggle this week, but overall I am happy with the results. I definitely fell down on the exercise, and I will have to work on that this next week. I averaged 41.64 points per day for the week, which is well within my normal range. My weight averaged 186.36, and that was inside my target as well. My weekly weigh-in came in at the top of my range. And I got my water in on average for the week. I will take it, and I will see if I can do better next week.

2 years, 236 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/187.0/180±2/BMI:23.37/WK-138
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint.
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