Week 170 Update

With the temperature at 65º at 06:00, I received a happy surprise this morning when I stepped up on Mr. Scale, because he said, "185.5 pounds!"

The last few days I have been fighting a high reading on the scale and yesterday it was alarmingly high at 190.0 pounds. My whole tactic of choosing 185 as my target weight was to make sure that my daily weigh-ins did not go over 190, and it was really close to doing just that!

I think that most of the problem was sodium. On Saturday I had a lot of beef jerky on our drive home from Spokane, and I ate 60 points for the day as well. Sunday I had sauerkraut, and Monday I had a salty "breakfast for dinner" in the evening. Tuesday I ate 56 points (about half of those were at Sweet Tomatoes), and somewhere in there I no doubt had too much salt. Wednesday I had another restaurant meal at Sharis with some fried and salty food. Thursday, though my points were low it was corn on the cob with plenty of salt. So, I was carrying around a lot of excess water by Friday morning. I also hadn't been too regular up to that point in the week.

So, although I only ate 33.5 points on Thursday, Friday I got very serious. I avoided all salt during the day, and by the time I went to bed I had eaten only 23.5 points. I drank 12 cups of water, including some tea, getting my system back on track. When I got home from work I was at 189.5 pounds, down a half-pound from when I had gotten up in the morning. I ate very light for dinner and when I went to bed I was sitting at 189.0 pounds. I needed to drop down 2 more pounds to get in my target range for my weigh-in and I was wondering if I was going to do it or not.

Obviously the sodium was flushed out of my system, because I dropped back to normal this morning. However, I did not like being in the position where I have to struggle to get back into my target range on Friday. It is much better to keep my weight there all the time!

My points this week were a bit high early in the week, but at week's end my average points per day had fallen to 44.21, very close to my long term maintenance target of 45 points. My average weight for the week was high 186.93, but that was skewed by my high weigh-ins on Thursday and Friday. After Wednesday's weigh-in my 7-day average was only 185.64 pounds.

Exercise this week was a bit better. I am still not up to where I want to be but at least I am out there walking some. Last week I got in 13.6 miles. This week I did 17.1 miles, and I earned 39.53 aerobic points. (Dr. Kenneth Cooper recommends at least 30 for cardio-vascular fitness.)

My goal of 1,200 miles for the year is still within reach, but I am not gaining on it at this pace. I have walked 581.8 miles this years so far, which is nearly halfway there. However, I am well into the 8th month of the year and should be over 700 miles already. I am hoping that once I get these hot months out of the way, I will be able to do some longer distances regularly, and catch up to my goal. I also have some medical issues that still need resolving and I hope to get them out of the way soon as well.

For water this week I got in at least 6 cups every day! I averaged drinking 82.3 ounces (10.3 cups) per day and that is in excess of my minimum goal of 6 to 8 cups per day.

On Thursday and Friday this week I watched the Blue Angels flying at an air show nearby and it was impressive to watch. It reminded me of the flying I used to watch from the USS John F. Kennedy, the aircraft carrier I was stationed on. The talent, experience, and technology that those flying acrobats demonstrated were absolutely breathtaking.

I found myself musing later on, when I was taking a walk near the airport where the show took place, that if one of those planes were suddenly transported back 1000 years and unleashed upon a town, it would seem to the people of the time, very much like the attack of the monstrous dragons of their legends. The loud noise of the engines, the fire created by the missile shot "out of its mouth" and its ability to defy gravity and climb into the sky in an instant. Then again, so much that we take for granted today would have been pure, and powerful magic to the people of that time.

In a sense, the printing press made their medieval world impossible, because it made certain types of ignorance untenable. Science advanced, slowly and against great odds, but it was unstoppable once books were. Today we are seeing another revolution that may be just as far reaching as the one created by the printing press. The Internet now bypasses the great publishing houses and media conglomerates, and makes information available that would not otherwise be there for the masses. If the Internet continues to be a place for the free exchange of ideas, it will revolutionize our world every bit as much as the printing press did to the world of the Dark Ages. There are unfortunately many who are striving to dam this new and exciting river of information, and only time will tell whether it will survive, or they will succeed and it will merely become another controlled dried up bed of salt like the television has. But my hope is that it will continue to surge unabated, and work its magic.

Thursday I watched one of The Blue Angels stand his plane up on its tail, and while pouring white smoke out the back he climbed like a rocket for the stars. Up, up he went, and I was reminded that I once discussed that very maneuver with a pilot from the USS John F. Kennedy when we were both attending firefighting school, and he said it was "better than any ride at Disneyland." When he said it, his eyes were gleaming with emotion that backed up his words. For me, just watching that jet climb straight up like that was pretty darn thrilling all by itself. I can only imagine what the guy at the stick was feeling.

3 years, 95 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.5/180±2/BMI:23.19/WK-170
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint./Miles Walked
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