Week 154 Update

It was 05:40, and the temperature was 41º, when I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, "186.5 pounds!" I'll take it.

Friday I was taking notice of the fact that my weight had been creeping up the previous few days. On that morning it was 187.5, and that was the first time since February 20th that I had a daily weigh-in outside of my target range. Checking my average weight for the previous 7 days, I found that it was 185.57, but the previous two days I had averaged 187.0. My average for points for the previous 7 days was 49.14, which was up from the previous week by nearly 5 points per day.

What should that mean? If I eat 5 additional points per day for a week, it means that I have eaten 5 x 7, or 35 additional points total. But that should only cause a half-pound increase in weight. It certainly should not cause a two-pound bump. So, the increase was obviously something other fat. The advantage of writing everything down that I eat is found in that I know pretty closely where I should be on the scale, and it really helps keep the stress out of scale fluctuations.

This week I was more focused on my walking than I was on my weight. But when my weight started to creep up, it got me to thinking about how the two are interrelated. When I walk a mile at a 3.5 mph pace, I burn about 130 calories per mile. When I walk at 4.5 mph, I burn about 150 calories per mile. That means that with the 30 miles that I have walked this week, I burned at least an additional 3900 calories, which translates to burning 1.1 pounds of fat, or the energy contained in about 78 points. Over and beyond my basic maintenance level of points (which, through trial and error, I previously found to be around 45 points per day, when I was not exercising), when doing that much walking, I should therefore be able to eat between 11 and 12 additional points per day. In other words, I should be able to eat 55 points per day and still maintain.

Though it did not work that way for me this week, it does not bother me, because I am not doing exercise for weight loss. I am exercising for health alone. Mentally, I keep my weight loss completely separate from my exercise. During week 153, when my weight averaged 185.43 pounds, I ate less than 45 points per day (just below the maintenance level that I had established before I started my exercise program!), but I walked over 30 miles too. This week I watched the scale move up, right out of my target range on one day, when I was averaging under 50 points per day. The moral of the story for me is that, while exercise does burn calories, it also causes muscles to hold water, and it creates other changes in my system that may affect the scale. That is why I don't bother tracking activity points, or adjust my eating according to my exercise level. If I did, I think I would get frustrated with the process. By keeping exercise and weight completely separate, at least at the level of exercise I am at, I find that things are a lot simpler, and I can focus on whichever needs the work, without worrying about the other. When the scale moves up, I have to move my points down, no matter what my exercise level has been.

Eating and Weight – Last Saturday I weighed 184.5 for my weekly weigh-in. I ended up eating a total of 47.0 points for the day, including a nice 18.0-point lunch at Sweet Tomatoes.

Sunday the scale held steady at 184.5, and I ate 51.5 points that day. Since we were out running errands again, we stopped at Sweet Tomatoes once more, but this time I added a couple of extra points, and lunch was 23.5 points. In the evening I had half of a cup of soy nuts, which had a quite a lot of salt, and I knew that it would do funny things to the scale.

After Sunday's 51.5-point day, on Monday I weighed 186.0. Bump! The sodium was working its black magic on the scale. But, knowing that it would pass, I was not too worried about that, and I ate 48.5 points for the day, including a lot of evening snacking.

Tuesday the scale came down a half pound to 185.5. I was pretty hungry in the evening and did some snacking, and ended the day with having eaten 54.0 points.

Naturally on Wednesday the scale dropped to 184.5 and I ended up eating 49.5 points.

Thursday the scale jumped up to 186.5. Rather than pulling back, as prudence would have dictated, I ate 49.5 points.

Friday I paid the price as I saw the scale jump up to 187.5! This time there was no fooling around. While I ate my normal breakfast of 5.0 points, and my normal lunch of 14.5 points plus a nice peeled orange that Dotti had added to my lunchbox that day (which only cost one extra point), I ate light for dinner, and did very little snacking during the evening. Dotti made a low-point dinner for me, including 2 tomato sandwiches, some cottage cheese, eggbeaters, and strawberries for desert. That came to 8.5 points and was very filling! The total for my meals came to 29.0 points. During the day I had 8.5 points in snacks, but only 2.5 of those came in the evening. I had 1.5 points shortly after dinner, and then a 1-point cup of coffee in mid-evening and that brought my total points for the day to 37.5. The rest of the time in the evening I was drinking lots of water, ending the day only after drinking a total of 15 cups. I was a pound or more over 190 when I went to bed, but I knew that I had drunk well over 4 pounds of fluids, and that my points were low for the day, and that I had avoided sodium. I felt fairly confident that I would be within my range this morning. However, I did make a lot of trips to the restroom during the night getting rid of all that water.

Exercise – Saturday we talked it over and decided that we would take a day off from walking and then on Sunday do a double walk, to get a little closer to the 7.46 miles that we will be walking in Spokane the first weekend in May. Sunday we set off from our house on what we planned to be a 6.2-mile walk. When we started, Dotti was having problems with shin splints and other pain, and it took nearly 2 miles before she was able to walk the soreness out. As we were walking, the sun would break through the clouds for a while, and then the rain would come back. Dotti would take off her coat for a while, and then the rain would start up and she would put it back on. By the time we came back around the new loop we were trying out for the first time, my GPS was saying that we were going to come up a bit short on our miles when we got back home, but Dotti was not feeling up to going the full 6.2 miles anyway. So, I walked her to the house (which we reached at the 5.3 mile mark after 1 hour and 35 minutes) and then continued on until I completed 6.2 miles (10K) in 01:48:36. Overall, I averaged a pace of 17:31 per mile (3.43 mph), and earned 14.03. It was sad seeing Dotti hurting so much at the start of the walk, but I was very proud of her for working through the pain and staying with it, and doing over 5 miles!

Monday I arrived over a half hour early for work. I haven't been walking in the morning lately, but since I was so early and it was a nice cool morning, with some sun and some clouds, but no rain, I talked myself into taking a two-mile walk. I set off at a fast pace and it felt really good. As I reached the top of the hill at the end of my first mile, I noted that it had only taken me 12 minutes and 54 seconds to complete mile one. I turned around and headed back at the same pace. I completed the 2-mile walk in 25 minutes and 48 seconds. That gave me an average time of 12:54 per mile, and a speed of 4.65 mph. That was the fastest time this month for any of the miles that I walked. It earned me 6.30 aerobic points, and I didn't feel like I had overdone it at all after I was finished.

By lunchtime the rain had started. It wasn't too heavy and I walked 2.33 miles with my walking partner in 44:30. We averaged 19:06 per mile, so we took a slow pace of 3.14 mph, but it still earned 3.98 aerobic points.

The rain continued in the evening when Dotti and I did our 3.1-mile walk. Dotti was feeling better than she had the day before, and we kept up a good pace, completing the walk in 50:57. That means we only took 16:26 per mile and averaged 3.65 mph. That was a big improvement, and very close to the speed it would take to walk 12 K in 2 hours. We earned 7.21 aerobic points for that walk.

By adding all three walks together on Monday I found that I had walked 7.4 miles, which is almost the same distance as the Spokane walk is going to be. Adding the times together, slow and fast, they came to 2 hours and 1.25 minutes.

Tuesday the rain was falling harder. At the end of my 2.33 lunchtime walk with my walking partner, my Columbia Jacket had actually soaked through at the shoulders, but I didn't get too wet. We finished the walk a little faster taking 42:51, which came to 18:23 per mile (3.26 mph). That added 4.27 aerobic points to my weeks total, bringing it to 35.79, passing up my goal for the week. The walk also pushed me to 15.96 miles for the week, passing my basic goal there as well.

The rain continued in the evening when Dotti and I did our 3.1-mile walk. Dotti was feeling a lot better and she was walking a good pace all the way. We finished in our fastest time so far, taking 48:47 to complete the loop, and averaging 15:44 per mile, or 3.81 mph. We earned 7.71 aerobic points for the walk. My Columbia jacket was still wet at the time that we did the walk, and so I left it hanging on the hook, and I used my raincoat over a windbreaker underneath (the temperature was 47º). Dotti wore her similar but smaller raincoat and so we looked like a matched set walking together.

Wednesday the rain let up. We even had quite a bit of sunshine during the day. In the morning, I needed to go to another customer site to pick something up. Normally I would drive it, but it was sunny, and the site was only a half-mile away. I thought that after walking out to my car, and then finding a place to park on the other end, and walking in from the parking lot, I could walk it in nearly the same time, and get some exercise too. I walked the half mile over in 6:38, which was a pace of 13:17 per mile (4.52 mph). On the walk back, I covered the half-mile in 6:41, which was only 3 seconds different. (It came to 13:22 per mile or 4.49 mph.) I earned 1.26 and 1.24 respectively for the walks, and it added another mile to my total miles for the week and month, bringing them to 20.06 and 73.6. The walks even added 1.26 and 1.24 aerobic points to my total.

At lunch, even though the weather was the best it had been all week for walking, my walking partner could not make it for our walk. So, I set off alone in the sunshine to do my 2.4-mile loop. The sun was out nearly for the whole walk, only being blocked for a short section of about a quarter of a mile, just past the halfway point. The temperature was about 60º and I felt fairly comfortable all the way. I completed the walk in 31:00. (I thought for a moment, just as I was pushing the button on my stopwatch, that the time was going to be 30 minutes and some seconds, but it rolled over just as I pushed it.) So, I held a pace of 12:55 per mile (4.65 mph) for the walk, and earned 7.74 aerobic points.

In the evening Dotti and I headed out for our 3.1 mile walk with our raincoats on. I started to go with my windbreaker instead, but there was just a bit of a sprinkle coming down and I decided to change coats. The rain didn't last long, and it never was heavy. I could have stayed with the windbreaker, but I didn't want to chance it. The blue sky was continually trading places with the clouds, with the sky winning most of the time. The sun was up off the horizon and not yet getting to the point where it was turning red as it set, and as a result we were treated to a very bright and beautiful canopy of white, blue, and gray over our heads.

Dotti was having some pain in her legs as we were walking and held back her pace a bit to see if it would help. It did seem to be effective. We were surprised at the end of our walk, having held back our pace a bit, to find that our time was 49:13, only 26 seconds longer than it took to do our walk on Tuesday, which had been our fastest. So, we still had a fast time. We averaged 15:53 per mile and 3.78 mph. For aerobic points, we earned 7.61, which was nearly the same as what I had earned for my fast 2.4-mile walk at lunch. Our 3.1-mile walks are giving us a very good cardio workout!

By day's end on Wednesday, I had accumulated 25.56 miles, exceeding my basic goal of 15 miles by more than 10 miles, and nearly matching my bonus goal of 26.2 miles (marathon distance) for the week. For the month I had reached the 79.1-mile point, only 20.9 miles from the 100-mile mark. I have a standing goal for 30 aerobic points for any given week, and I had more than doubled that with 61.35 aerobic points. My monthly goal for aerobic points is 35 aerobic points per week, which comes out to (35 x 4.28 =) 149.8. On Wednesday I hit 186.7 aerobic points for the month already moving me well past my goal for the month.

Thursday was a bright sunshiny day. In fact driving home from work, even with my sunglasses on, the sunlight had given me a splitting headache by the time I had gotten home. (There is one place where I have to spend a number of minutes waiting to get onto the freeway with one of those cursed metering lights. The sun was low on the horizon on my left and just beating at my eyes.) But for walking it was very nice day. At lunch I didn't wear a coat because the temperature was around 73º. My walking partner and I ended up missing each other, and he started walking long before I could break free. So, I did a 2-mile walk by myself. I took 27:33 to walk 2 miles, which is a pace of 13:47 per mile (4.36 mph). It was good for 5.71 aerobic points.

In the evening Dotti's leg was hurting, probably from a strain she sustained during her bowling earlier in the day. So, we tried to walk a bit slower to put less work on the aching limb. The weather was perfect, and we had an enjoyable conversation all the way. It ended up taking us 53:00 to do the 3.1 miles. That was 17:06 per mile, and a pace of 3.51 mph. I thought that was pretty good, all things considered. It gave us 6.77 aerobic points.

Friday, one of my fellow field service guys joined my normal walking partner and I for our 2.33-mile walk. The temperature was about 59º at the outset, and while I was wearing my coat, I was concerned that the other two guys, who were wearing shirts with no coats, might get cold, especially if the clouds overhead cut loose with some rain. However, towards the end of the walk, I think they were the wise ones, because the sun broke out and I was a bit too warm for the last half mile.

We completed our walk in 42:37, with a pace of 18:17 per mile (3.28 mph), adding another 4.31 aerobic points to my week's total.

Dotti wanted to give her leg a rest for Friday night, I felt like a rest was in order as well, so that ended my exercise for this week. I had walked 32.99 miles during the week, and earned 78.14 aerobic points. That more than doubled my basic goal of 35 aerobic points, and 15 miles for the week. My bonus goal of doing 26.2 miles was also covered by my total miles. For my monthly goal, I am aiming at walking at least 100 miles. By week's end I had reached 86.5 miles for the month. I have one full week left in the month, and if I walk another 30 miles next week I will reach my goal without any problem.

Water – This week I did better, because I got in at least 6 cups of water every day! I averaged drinking 61.71 ounces (7.7 cups) per day, which is towards the top of my minimum range of 6 to 8 cups per day. Of course Friday night's water festival boosted the average for the week. On Thursday, I had averaged only 51.43 ounces (6.4 cups) per day for the previous 7 days. But that is still in my target range for water.

Week's Evaluation – In spite of the bump up on the scale, I feel this was a good week. I made my corrections and hopefully am back on track in that area. My weigh-in was within my target range, and my average weight for the week was within a pound of my target. I averaged eating 48.21 points-per-day, up by 3.64 points (adding a total of 25.5 points). I averaged drinking enough water, and reached and exceeded my exercise goals of 15 miles, and 35 aerobic points, as well as my goal to hit 26.2 miles for the week. With 86.5 miles in the bank, I am right on track to reach my monthly goals for exercise as well. I definitely consider this week a success.

2 years, 348 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/186.5/180±2/BMI:23.44/WK-154
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint.
                Success Story/ April Exercise