Week 173 Update

I woke up at 04:30, and stepped up on Mr. Scale. He promptly said, "183.5 pounds!"

For the second week in a row, it was 59º when I arose. I have really enjoyed the change in the weather, and though I am usually still wearing a tee shirt when we walk in the evening, it is starting to feel a bit cool dressed that way at the start. It won't be too much longer before some light coats will be in order once more. YES!

This week was a travel-and-work week. On Sunday we drove from Vancouver to Boise, Idaho.

Our trip's route

The 432-mile trip took us 7.5 hours. After crossing the Mountain Time Zone line, we arrived in the late afternoon. Naturally, on Sunday nearly everything closes early. So, we only had time enough to go to dinner at the Outback Restaurant, and then head back to the motel for the night.

Monday, we drove the remaining 226 miles into Pocatello, Idaho, arriving about 11:30 in the morning. Barb (librarylady2) showed up a few minutes later, and we all had a nice reunion. We walked over to Subway for lunch, and then later walked over to Applebee's for dinner. I went to sleep while the ladies visited, because I had a big work day ahead of me on Tuesday.

On day one of a major Preventive Maintenance activity, we like to get the machine torn apart, scrubbed clean, and then put back together so it can start pumping out its large chamber into high vacuum. (Starting somewhere less than 1.0 E-4 Torr, and working down into the E-7 Torr range the next morning.)

On day two the leak checking is done, to make sure that everything is sealed up properly, all the lead-screws are greased, the deionized water filters are changed, and various other little items are taken care of. If there are any issues created from the first day's activities they are fixed.

On day three, Thursday in this case, the final checkout is done. The customer usually runs the machine overnight from day 2, and any issues that might have cropped up are dealt with, and then the machine is returned to full production, and we are done.

So, since the whole PM action is "front-end-loaded," with day one being the most difficult by far; I knew that was coming on the next day, and I got to bed early on Monday night.

Tuesday, I was in for work a little before 07:00, because the guys, that I was going to be working with, wanted to get an early start. Unfortunately, the customer was still running the machine when we arrived, and it wasn't until after 09:00 that we could actually get started. Those two hours cost us at the end of the day, and we didn't get out of there until after 19:30 that evening, which made for a long day.

I was exhausted by the time I got back to the room, and poor Dotti was waiting patiently for me when I arrived, with her head hurting because she hadn't eaten yet. (Barb had left in the late afternoon with her parents.) Dotti and I quickly headed over to Subway for dinner. After that, we took a quick drive around Pocatello, just to see what was there. We found a shopping mall, but I was way too tired to even think about walking around in it. We did stop and get a McDonald's ice cream cone (3 Pts.), just before heading back to the room.

Wednesday, the work day was much easier, as I was hoping it would be. One of the guys who had come up from Salt Lake was able to head back home around noon, and I was able to get out a bit early too, using my cell phone as a pager, in case anything went wrong and I was needed. That gave me some time with Dotti, and we ate at Applebee's once more, and walked around the mall. We also went around and took some pictures of the area, and then went back to the room and watched a DVD of some episodes of an old 1950s show "Mr. and Mrs. North." We didn't go out to eat that evening, and I had fairly bad headache, and upset stomach. (I was beginning to wonder about the meal I had at lunch.) I had some popcorn and a plum while watching the DVD player, and then went to bed.

Following behind a forklift on Chubbuck Road in Pocatello, ID

Trailhead Marker

Hiking Trail in Pocatello

Thursday, I went in to look the machine over, and it had been running fine. Everything looked great. So, Dotti and I got to head out at a reasonable hour for home. It took us about 10.5 hours to make the trip (I love that 75 mph speed limit in Idaho!), and we arrived home early enough for me to take a walk after unloading the car.

Friday I had the day scheduled for a vacation day, since I wasn't sure how the drive home would be. I was not feeling like going in to work that day anyway, so Dotti and I took a nice day together. We ate at Sweet Tomatoes (we really missed that restaurant while we were away) and then had a nice dinner at home in the evening, after first visiting the brand new Costco that had opened up in Vancouver.

My weight did some fluctuating this week. Saturday, I weighed 183.0, and I ate at home all day, accumulating 56.0 points by day's end. Sunday my weight jumped up to 188.5. That was due to my taking some Aleve, and to taking an 8+ miles walk.

Sunday we were on the road, and at the end of the drive we ate at Outback. The evening meal was 18.0 points but the road snacking added up, and I ended the day with 62.0 points "under my belt."

Monday my weight came back down into my range at 187.0. I ended up eating 54.0 points for the day.

Tuesday my weight fell to 186.0. However, I had my third burger of the trip. Even though I was only eating half of the burgers each time, I was not happy with this trend. Also, when I ate my evening meal at Subway, for the second time this trip, I had "a meal" which included a 6" sub and two macadamia nut cookies.

Winger's Restaurant

An interesting aside is the fact that when we broke for lunch on Tuesday, the two guys I was working with took me to a place I had never heard of before, called "Wingers." In the evening when I was talking with Dotti she said, "Barb took me to this really nice place called 'Wingers.'" I said, "No way! The guys took me there too!" When we compared notes we realized that we had sat in very nearly the same table, had the same absent-minded, but very nice waitress, and had only missed each other by about 20 minutes. (Dotti and Barb had left just before we got there.)

Wednesday my weight was back up to 187.0. Normally when I am "on the road" my weight falls, and my points go way up compared with normal. However, this time, everything seemed off a bit. When I saw that I was up to 187.0 I decided it was time to start pulling back a bit. I had yet another burger at Applebee's for lunch (I just couldn't find anything on that menu that caught my fancy). I started feeling bad a couple of hours later and didn't get any better until Thursday morning. I held my points down to 37.5 for the day.

Thursday I jumped up to 190.0 pounds. Now that was unacceptable to me! That is my personal goal weight, and I picked 185.0 pounds as my target weight, so that no daily weigh-in would go over my personal goal. This was too close to doing just that for me! So, even though we were on the road all day, driving from Pocatello to Vancouver, I held my points down to 33.5. I had a Subway 6" sandwich for lunch, and a bowl of cereal for dinner. My stomach was still not right from Wednesday, and then my digestive track suddenly decided to get going again. That made the drive a little less pleasant than it would have been, but it wasn't too bad.

Friday I was rewarded finally for holding my points down, and the scale dropped to 184.0. That took a lot of the pressure off me. But I still only ate 38.5 points.

This morning the scale came in at 183.5 and I was very happy with that.

For exercise, I knew this was going to be a tough week. Finding a good place to walk on the road is not always easy. So, on Saturday I went out with my GPS and took an extra long walk. I walked all the way to Wall Mart, even using a back way, looking to extend the distance that I was walking. When I got back home, I had gone 8.2 miles, in 1 hour and 52 minutes. (I hit 7.46 miles -- the distance for the Bloomsday walk -- at 1:42:00, a bit slower than the time I actually did Bloomsday, but I didn't do much running this time.) I was tired at the end, because it was the eleventh day in a row that I had walked, the fifth day during that time that I had walked over 7 miles, and the third day in a row where I had walked 7.5 miles or more. I had to wrap my knees for this walk, and it really helped. I was glad that I got this walk in, because I was not able to walk at all on Sunday.

Monday, when we got to Pocatello, I headed out on a walk, using my GPS, after plotting out a course on a city street map. (I was happy to see that the GPS had matched up very closely with the estimates that I had made from the map, using its range scale.) When I was all done, I had gone 3.4 miles in 51:03. This walk pushed me over the 100-mile mark for the month of August! I finished the month with 102.6 miles walked. That brought me to 654.0 miles for the year, and left me 546.0 miles to go to reach 1,200. At least August didn't put me farther behind in my quest to average 100 miles per month for the year of 2004. Now, I will see if September can put me closer to being on track.

Tuesday and Wednesday I did not get any walking in. However, when we got back on Thursday, I did a 3.1-mile walk in 43:52. I wasn't at my best, after the long drive, but I was happy to average 4.24 mph for the walk.

Friday I got in a morning walk of 3.1 miles. This time it only took me 40:38, a better time. I averaged 4.58 mph, and that is 13:06 per mile. In the evening, Dotti and I did our 3.1 mile walk in 54:57, and that brought my walking to an end for this week. In spite of the no-walking days this week, I was still able to get in 20.9 miles. I was able to get my month's total for August up to over 100 miles, and my yearly total up to 663.0. This upcoming week could push me over 700 miles for the year, moving me closer to my goal.

My cardio goal of 30 aerobic points per week seems like a very small challenge now. I cleared 61.36 aerobic points this week, and my walk on Saturday gave me over 26 of them all by itself. These days I am just focused on the miles, because it looks like if I get in the miles, the aerobic points will be easily covered.

This month marks the 30th Anniversary of when Dotti and I met. We met and then we were engaged to be married not long after that. These 30 years have easily been the happiest of my life, and September is the month when it all began. Is it any wonder that I feel like the year seems to begin in September?

3 years, 116 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/183.5/180±2/BMI:23.00/WK-173
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint./Miles Walked
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