Week 162 Update

Although technically up, thanks to a thin layer of clouds on the horizon just over the Cascade Mountains, the sun was not yet visible – though his light was painting the sky – at 05:25 when I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "185.5 pounds!"

This week turned out to be pretty good. I moved over to Aleve from Tylenol for my back pain, to keep from pounding on my liver too much. The downside of that is that Aleve causes water retention. I have cut my points down quite a bit to compensate and it has worked pretty well. My weigh-in was within a half pound of my target weight.

I got in plenty of miles walking this week, and broke the 100-mile mark for the month already, and the 500-mile mark for the year. I am catching up on the 600-mile mark, which is where I need to be this month if I am going to average 100 miles per month for this year. I may not reach it in June, but I think I can fairly easily reach 700 miles for July and then I will on track.

Tomorrow is the beginning of summer, as the summer solstice occurs at around 6 PM. The sun has taken his trip north, and Sunday he turns around and heads south. As we have approached that longest day of the year, the weather has been warm, and it looks like it will continue to be warm for another week at least. This has made my walking program a little more complicated, as I have had to work around the hot zones of the day, but so far it has worked out pretty well for me.

One of the things I look forward to is when the days start to shorten up a bit. A day with a high of 90º or 100º in early July is much harder to deal with than one in late August, because the sun remains up and scorching until 9:00 PM, rather than 8:00 PM. When the sun sets, there is a drop in temperature usually that is quite pronounced with the passage of an hour or more. In July a hot day like that will eat up the entire evening, and give no time for a cool walk. Whereas in late August or early September; there is usually a cool part of the evening that exists before bedtime. Right now I just have to bite the bullet and wait out the heat, and do some walking when I will be uncomfortable.

Eating and Weight – I started off the week at 186.0 pounds on Saturday. Dotti and I walked to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. I ended up eating 42.5 points for the day.

Sunday I weighed 185.5 pounds. Dotti and I did a big hike to the top of Hamilton Mountain. We had lunch up near the peak, with rain dropping on the leaves above us, and the intense wind blocked by the rocky mountainside. My part added up to 14.5 points, which is the same as I normally eat for lunch on a workday. By the end of the day I had eaten 39.5 points.

Monday I weighed 188.0. I think most of the jump up was from the Aleve I had to take because my back was not happy about the hike on Sunday carrying my backpack. Dotti and I went out to eat at our favorite diner that night, but I still held my points down to 39.5 for the day.

Tuesday the scale dropped down to 186.5. I once more ate 39.5 points for the day.

Wednesday the scale remained steady at 186.5 pounds. We went to Sweet Tomatoes once more, and I ended up eating 48.5 points for the day.

Thursday the scale dropped to 186.0 pounds. I ate light in the evening and my points came to 38.5 for the day.

Friday I once again weighed 186.0 pounds. I was very hungry in the evening, and snacked a bit more than I had originally planned. I ended up eating 44.5 points for the day.

I was very tired in the evening. The walking and the low eating for the week probably caught up with me, and I went to bed a little earlier than usual. This morning I woke up feeling much better, and down to 185.5 on the scale.

Exercise – Walking has really taken over my life. I am thinking about it quite a bit during the day. I put all my walking for the year into a spreadsheet, and have been tracking the total miles for the year there. This week I moved my total miles for 2004 up over 500 miles. Spokane is 350 miles away, and it takes us about 6 hours to get there, driving freeway all the way. I have walked far enough to get to Spokane and 42% of the way back. For me, that is a lot of walking!

Right now my basic goal each week is to walk at least 2 miles at some time while at work, either in the morning before starting work, or at lunch, and then walk 3.1 miles in the evening with Dotti. That will give me at least 5 miles each workday, and at least 25 miles each week, adding up to at least 100 miles each month. Once I have my total miles for the year up to the point where my average for the previous months is over 100, then I can settle into that routine for the rest of the year and reach my goal of 1,200 miles for 2004.

In reality, I have been walking much more than that. I have been walking with Dotti on the weekends, and I have often been getting two walks in at work. So my total miles for the week ends up over 30, and this week nearly broke 40!

I have not been setting any records for my speed. My fastest walk this week came to 13:17 per mile (4.52 mph). Last week, on a nice cool Friday morning I did 2.4 miles at an average time of 12:56 per mile (4.64 mph). The temperature has a lot to do with how fast I go, and this week, my legs were pretty tired all week long from the hike on Sunday. But my goal right now is distance, not speed.

Saturday Dotti and I combined our walking with lunch. We walked to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. It was 1.89 miles in each direction. On the way there it took 33:32 (17:45 per mile, or 3.38 mph) and on the way home it took 32:34 (17:14 per mile, or 3.48 mph). So, we walked pretty much the same pace in each direction. Combined that gave us 7.19 aerobic points.

Sunday we went for a serious hike. We almost went on Saturday, but we decided too late in the day to actually go. As it turned out, Sunday was a perfect day for the hike. The sky was overcast, but we still got some very nice views of the Columbia Gorge. There was some rain, but it was nice and cool. The parking lot was at 400 feet above sea level, and the summit was at 2488 feet. So we climbed 2088 feet as well as walking 7.6 miles.

From start to finish, the hike took us 6 hours and 30 minutes. If you put that into the aerobic points equation, you come out with 0.28 aerobic points. The reason is that if you take that long to walk 7.6 miles on a flat surface, you are barely moving, and not getting any serious exercise. But we were really knocking ourselves out getting up that mountainside! So, to try and get a more accurate number, what I did was to throw out the time that we stopped for lunch, and stopped to take pictures, and count only the time that we were actually walking. That came out to at least 5 hours. I then checked Dr. Kenneth Cooper's book The Aerobics Program For Total Well Being and found that you count 4 points per hour for playing volleyball. We were definitely exerting ourselves at least as much during our hike as we would have been while playing volleyball! So, I counted 5 x 4, or 20.0 aerobic points for the hike.

Monday, I got to work early, and took a 2.0 mile walk, even though I had worked up two blisters on the backs of my heels from my new boots during Sunday's hike. I had put Band-Aids on them and they were fine. I completed the walk in 26:34, averaging 13:17 per mile (4.5 mph). It is interesting that this was my fastest time per mile all week long, considering it was the day after our hike. That walk was good for 6.03 aerobic points.

At lunch I headed out for another 2.0 mile walk. This one took 27:39 to complete for an average of 13:50 per mile (4.34 mph), earning 5.67 aerobic points. Then after I finished that walk, my customer came up and asked me if I would like to do another. Always! So we headed out and did a 2.3 mile walk in 46:23. (20:10 per mile, 2.98 mph.) That added in another 3.54 aerobic points to my total for the week, bringing it to 42.43.

Tuesday I arrived early to work, and walked 2.0 miles in 27:34 (13:47 per mile, or 4.35 mph.), which gave me 5.70 aerobic points. At lunch I walked 2.3 miles with my walking partner, and it took 41.54, averaging 18:13 per mile (3.29 mph). That was another 4.27 aerobic points.

In the evening Dotti and I did our 3.1 mile walk in 55:26, averaging 17:53 per mile (3.36 mph). It earned 6.30 aerobic points.

At this point in the week, I was up to 25.08 miles. My total miles for the month were sitting at 89.8 and for the year I was up to 487.0 miles. My normal goals for the week (25 miles) and the month (100) were either already met, or very close to it. However, I was still working on catching up for the year, because of some earlier months where I did not walk as much as I would have liked to. On May 31 I was sitting at 397.2 miles, which is almost exactly where I needed to be at the end of April to be on track for 1,200 miles for the year. On Tuesday this week (June 15) I was still 13 miles short of 500 miles for the year, the number of miles I should have completed by the end of May. So, I was therefore 15 days (plus an additional 13 miles) behind schedule. However, that means in 15 days I had not only walked the miles I needed to meet my normal weekly and monthly goals, but I walked enough additional miles to shave off 15 days from my deficit. By the end of the week, I was in position to pass up the May 31 mark of 500 miles, as well as complete the 100 miles for the month of June. That would leave the rest of June to work on carving into the remainder of the deficit.

Wednesday, my legs were feeling tired and sore from the hike on Sunday. But I was determined to get out there and do some walking. The sky turned brightly blue, and the sun was pouring down on the ground, and it put the Portland drivers into a confused state apparently, because there were several accidents on the freeways around town, and my early start was turned into a not so early arrival at work as a result. Still I had a little over 15 minutes to work with, so I headed out on a 1-miler. It took me 14:22 to finish (4.18 mph) and earned 2.17 aerobic points.

At lunch, it was warming up fast with the sun approaching its zenith, with the power of being nearly at its solstice, but I managed to get 2.0 miles done in 28:47, averaging (14:24 per mile, or 4.17 mph). That earned 5.33 aerobic points. In the evening it was hot and after waiting until 9 PM for it to cool off, we decided to not do a walk.

Thursday, I left even earlier, in hopes of getting in a good walk in the cool of the morning. As it turned out, once again the Portland drivers couldn't handle all that sunshine and the traffic was moving slowly due to an accident. Still I got to work with 35 minutes to spare. I did my 2.4-mile loop in 32:50, averaging 13:41 per mile (4.39 mph) and leading the heat curve by just a bit. I could feel the sun starting to flex its muscles just towards the end of the walk, but it was too late to slow me down much. That was good for 7.12 aerobic points.

At lunch I did a 2.0-mile walk, and it took 30:00 to complete. Whenever my stopwatch comes up right on an even number like that it catches my attention. I naturally averaged 15 minutes per mile and 4.0 mph. I also earned an even 5.00 aerobic points. But I didn't walk again in the evening.

Friday I got to work early enough to do my 2.4-mile loop. It took me 32:20 to complete, for an average of 13:28 per mile (4.45 mph), my second fastest rate for the week. It earned 7.28 aerobic points. I was sitting at 99.6 miles for the month. Nearly any more walking at all would push me over my 100-mile goal. For the week I was over 34 miles and really didn't have any additional goals in mind. But for the year, I was less than 4 miles from going over 500. I wanted those 4 miles!

At lunch, I started walking right at 11:30 AM to try and beat some of the heat. It was already 80º and I didn't want it to get any hotter. I completed 2.0 miles in 28:11, averaging 14:06 per mile (4.26 mph). That cleared the hurtle for my 100 miles, and earned 5.51 aerobic points. I was now up to 498.8 miles for the year. I needed another 1.2 miles to reach 500.

In the evening Dotti and I decided that we didn't care what the temperature was, we were going to take our walk as soon as I got home. My car exterior thermometer showed 92º when I started for home, and so I feared it was going to be a really hot one. However, about halfway home, the sky was about half filled with clouds to the east. Some of them had moved far enough into the west where they were blocking the sun a little. The temperature had fallen to 85º before I pulled into the garage at home, and the cloud cover was heavy in the part of the sky where the sun was residing. It looked like we might get lucky. We still made some preparation. We filled up a water bottle, and put in some ice (all of which had melted before we reached the halfway point of our walk). I wet my hair, put on a white ball cap, and a light colored tee shirt. Dotti and I both put on a water based cooling neckerchief that we purchased a while back but had never tried before.

When we stepped outside the sun was still covered and it nearly felt cool. The wind was blowing fairly hard from the north, and it felt like stormy weather. During our walk we saw the clouds to the north showing signs of dropping rain as they extended downward in pointed fingers. But none came to us. We remained dry. As we passed the 2.1-mile mark (the Target driveway) we saw a bolt of lightening jump from east to west between two clouds. There was no thunder. Still, it put a quickening in our steps. The wind was in our faces all along that stretch of road, until we made our turn to the west, heading back towards our house. Across the road we saw a store thermometer announcing the temperature as being 80º. So, it had dropped another 5º since we started. However, I could tell it was warmer than I liked even so. I felt very tired as we made it to the home stretch.

We finished our walk in 55:11, making it home safe and sound. We had averaged 17:48 per mile (3.37 mph), and earned 6.34 aerobic points.

My numbers for the week were pretty good. I had walked 39.98 miles. (If I had known how close I was going to come to 40, I think I would have found one other time during the week to walk a short walk.) I had earned 97.45 aerobic points. (Once again, 100 aerobic points would have been great. I could have taken just one more short walk.) Considering that my base goals are 25 miles and 35 aerobic points, I feel that things went well this week. Moving my monthly total to 104.7 miles was something that I was very happy with, and finally getting my total for the year up to 501.9 was overdue, and very welcome. If I don't bring it up to where it should be by the end of June (600 miles), I will be a great position to do so in July (700 miles).

Water – Saturday was my lowest day for water at 6 cups. Sunday I was up to 9 cups, and then the rest of the week I got in 10 or more cups every day. I averaged 90.3 ounces (11.3 cups) per day, which is well above my minimum goal of 6 to 8 cups per day.

Week's Evaluation – I am very happy with how this week went. I weighed in at only half a pound over my target weight, and I averaged 186.36 for the week, well inside my target range. I did have one day where I was up to 188.0 pounds, but I had taken a maximum allowable dose of Aleve the day before, and the sodium was holding on to that water. So, I was completely satisfied with my weight for the week.

For exercise I did better than I had hoped to do before the week started. I have already reached my goal for miles for the month and am working on my goal for the year. I wish that I could do as well every week.

For water, I drank enough to keep me at or above 6 cups every single day. I averaged well over 8 cups a day. I am happy with that.

So, overall I consider this week a success.

A few Thoughts - The last few months I have had to struggle with motivation. I have watched my Mom's husband Jim go through neuropathy, so great that he couldn't use his arms or legs, and then only recover some of their control over time. I have witnessed my mother go through triple bypass surgery, a stroke, and recovery. I have watched Jim go through 2 weeks in ICU with all that that entails – sedated and struggling for life, and I watched him pass away, when the life support was removed. I watched my Mom's grief, as she dealt with the loss, after only a few weeks having passed since her own surgery. The time that has passed since the funeral has allowed things to settle in my mind a little, but like when a major earthquake strikes, the lay of the land is not quite the same. Things have permanently shifted. Things generally seem a bit more serious today than they did before 2004 came to visit.

At times like these, it is easy to let go. Who cares if I count my points? What difference does it make if I am at goal or not? Why should I continue to struggle, when cutting loose and drifting along would be so much easier?

Since I am feeling more serious, I have had some very plain and serious thoughts as well. I have done a lot of walking this year, and along the paths and trails that I have walked on I have seen the results of giving up. There on the path I have seen several dead birds, and a rat. I have seen other creatures that are no longer struggling as well. They are food for other animals, from the microscopic to the full sized scavenger. They do not move, produce, or survive. That is the choice we all have: to struggle, or not to struggle. It is true of individuals, or groups of people or animals. Life is a struggle, always. When the struggle is ended, so is the life.

So, what of weight loss? In the fabric of my life, what do the many threads associated with my journey count for? What pattern do they make, and of what value are they? Is the price I pay a fair one for the returns gained by the struggle? It all boils down to that.

Each day when I step on that scale I am reminded that I am seeing a number there that I worked for. For one thousand one hundred thirty-six days I have struggled, and at the end of all that time, what do I have to show for it? The numbers are interesting in that my total overall average weight for all my weigh-ins has fallen to 189.1 pounds; less than 3 pounds more than my average weight for this past week. So, I have established at least a little consistency, which is something I have never, ever been able to do before. I have trained my mind to do the right things to hold the course, even when I don't really care if I do hold the course. But even that would not last, if my motivation to struggle were to disappear.

What I have accomplished so far is to position myself for further struggle. My struggle today is in a way a defensive struggle, in trying to hold that which I have, rather than an offensive struggle in trying to get something that I don't have. But in reality, it is the same. So many people forget that simple fact. They feel that weight maintenance is a new and different struggle than weight loss. They treat it differently, and do different things, and then find themselves in trouble.

It is an easy trap to fall into. When you are wearing small clothes, you don't feel ill anymore. You are well. Why should you have to journal? Why should you have to count your points? You are there! But alas, holding your ground is just as tough as it was conquering that ground in the first place. If you do the work, you can hold the ground. The actual labor required is easier to perform than what you did to lose the weight, but only slightly. And the motivation is even harder to hang onto.

Why should I journal today, when the scale says that I am at goal? That is how the human mind works, especially for someone who has an eating problem. The reason that you journal today, and the reason that you count your points today, is because if you don't, in the long run you are not going to remain at goal.

Remaining at goal, just like life itself, is a struggle. Every day it is a struggle. When you live you must take that next breath. You must eat that next meal. You must drink that next cup of water. Maybe you don't want to do that but you do it anyway, and that is the heart of survival, in life and in weight maintenance.

Monday morning the alarm goes off. I have to get up to go to work. Well, do I really have to? No I don't. Oh there will be a price to paid if I just roll over and go back to sleep, but the work police will not march into my bedroom and physically oust me from my bed and force me into my car to go to work if I choose not to go. Even though I don't want to have to get up and go to work every day, it is the price I pay in order to live as a productive member of society, and as the breadwinner for my family. I do what I must do, when that alarms goes off, even though some days I absolutely hate it, in order to achieve that which I feel is more important than my personal comfort.

There are hundreds of choices throughout each day where we choose to do something that is personally uncomfortable, or even painful, in order to accomplish something that is valued greater in our minds than our personal comfort. And that is the stuff that successful weight loss, and weight maintenance, is made of. Today, I choose to journal because it will give me the results that I want. Today, I will count my points, because I value being at goal more than I value my personal comfort when I am tired and don't want to bother with it.

Struggle is life. But we strive to make that struggle easy. We join with people like ourselves to form families, towns, and nations. We attempt to create safe environments to raise our children. We establish dependable sources of food, and armies for defense. We try to make daily living as close to secure as we can. We try and remove as much of the pain out of the struggle as is humanly possible. And that is exactly what we will do in the weight loss and maintenance struggle if we wish to be successful.

We can spend time right up front and organize our eating. We can create one or more standard breakfast meals, which will always be easily prepared and ready to grab in the morning when we get up. We can do the same for lunch and dinner. In other words, we can take all of the hassle, and discomfort out of creating a meal to fill our hunger. You don't have to figure points or rummage around looking for something to eat. You already know what you are going to eat and you can grab it now. If all your meals and all your snacks are laid out that way, you are never caught in a situation where you are just too tired to do it right. It is already done.

We can have a book that is easy to use and readily available, where we can write everything down. If you have a standard meal, it makes it even easier. For example I know that I eat 5.0 points every day for breakfast at home. That is not a lot of work to keep track of. My standard lunch is 14.5 points. Again, this is very easy to track. My evening meal is the only one where I have to figure points, and I have a calculator by my chair so I don't even have to "tax my brain" in figuring the points in my head. (I do figure them in my head in the stores when we are food shopping, or at home if the calculator is not within reach.) The actual journaling part takes about 15 minutes a day. When I consider all that I do just to go to work, that seems an insignificant enough price to pay to remain at goal.

Routine and repeatability make the struggle much easier. However, if variety and spontaneity are what you crave, there is nothing saying that you cannot have them. You just have to be willing to "pay the price." You can have a unique meal 3 times a day as long as you count the points, and hold them within your limits. It takes longer, but if that is what you need, then it will still be a small price to pay for remaining at goal.

We can never remove the struggle entirely, but we can moderate its painfulness, just as we have done with life. We must keep in mind that we must struggle today, just like we must take that next breath. The only question is, do I want to struggle, or do I want the alternative. Do I want to journal, count points, and eat within my limits or do I want to be overweight? Today I must make that decision once more. For 162 weeks I have joined in the struggle, and decided each day to do what I need to do to remain OP. I cannot make the decision for tomorrow, because that is beyond my reach. The days in the past, when I made the wrong choices, are also beyond my control to fix. But today I can touch. Today I can choose. Not only that, but today I MUST choose.

3 years, 39 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.5/180±2/BMI:23.19/WK-162
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint.
                Success Story