Week 181 Update

It was 06:34, one hour and 12 minutes before sunrise, when I stepped up on Mr. Scale today, and he said, "185.0 pounds!" The temperature was about the same as we have been seeing all week in the mornings: 50º.

Another week has passed by. Not only that, but tomorrow will be Halloween, and it only seems like yesterday when the kiddies were knocking on the door in 2003 saying, "Trick or Treat!" Also, tonight the clocks work their magic and automatically move backward one hour. (They get a bit of an assist from myself, as I turn knobs and push buttons.) Twice a year I get to marvel at the number of timekeeping devices we have in our house, and in our cars.

This week has been much better than last week for me. Dotti returned home from the coast, and my mom has been visiting as well. We have been showing her the sites a bit. Last weekend we took her out to the Columbia Gorge to look at the waterfalls. She finally got to see Multnomah Falls (she had been hearing us talk about them for years but this was her first time to actually see them). The rain was pouring down when we got there, but we managed to make it up to the bridge across the lower falls anyway. We then drove up to Crown Point, and the sun was breaking out. Timing is everything. We also took her up to Pittock Mansion. During the week, when I was at work, Dotti took Mom around shopping and to her bowling league. She also took her by Dotti's mother's assisted living center, so that both our Moms could visit with each other. Mom got to meet Dotti's twin sister too, and that was fun. There was some confusion for her when Dotti pulled up in one vehicle and her sister pulled up in the other, and for a moment it looked to her like Dotti was driving both cars.

I started the week at 184.5 pounds, and it looked like I might be heading downwards after Saturday, when I only ate 25.0 points. With all the driving around we did, I didn't get around to eating my normal amount for the day.

Sunday, the scale moved up to 185.0 anyway, so no harm was done. I ate a more normal 41.0 points that day, including a nice lunch at Sweet Tomatoes. (Mom likes that restaurant as much as we do. Being a vegetarian, it is always nice to find a restaurant that provides so many good choices for her to eat.) In the evening Dotti made her tasty "tortellini soup." That is one of my favorites.

Monday, for whatever reason, the scale took a leap upwards to 188.0. I knew it was not from overeating, so I was not too worried about it. I ended up eating 35.0 points for the day.

Tuesday morning the extra 3 pounds evaporated as easily as they arrived, and I was 185.0 pounds once more. I ate 44.0 points for the day.

Wednesday I dropped another pound to 184.0. Once again I ate 44.0 points for the day.

Thursday I held steady at 184.0 pounds. We went to Sweet Tomatoes once more and I ended up eating 52.0 points for the day.

Friday the scale moved up to 185.0 pounds. I wasn't intentionally closely watching but I held my points down to 32.0. Still, the scale was up to 189.0 when I went to bed last night, and I was a bit concerned that I might get a bump up like I had on Monday, for no good reason. I knew that I had consumed quite a bit of water during the evening, so I was hopeful that was where the extra weight was coming from, and it would gone by weigh-in time today. Fortunately it was.

My average weight for the week was 185.14, which is really close to my target of 185.0. I ended up eating 41.79 points per day, which is down more than 15 points per day from the previous week. It seems that the type of food that I eat has a lot to do with how many points I need. Perhaps changing my food occasionally, adding in some fat for a change shakes my system up temporarily. This week felt better, and other than the bump up on Monday, everything seemed to run on autopilot for me.

For water this week I drank plenty. I got at least 6 cups down every day, and I averaged drinking 61.71 ounces (7.7 cups) per day.

Exercise was good this week. On Saturday, I took a 3.05-mile walk with my mom, and on Sunday I did another one by myself. Then on Monday I walked three times for over 7 miles. Tuesday I again walked three times for over 8 miles (including an evening 3.05-mile walk with Mom). Wednesday I walked twice for over 6 miles. Thursday, I didn't have time to walk in the morning and I didn't feel up to walking in the evening, so I only walked at lunch for 3.17 miles. Friday I arrived very early for work and was able to walk 4.17 miles before starting my workday. At lunch I walked another 3.17 miles, and then when I got home in the evening Mom walked 3.05 miles with me.

After 14 separate walks, I had walked 41.42 miles this week. My total for the month was pushed up against 150 miles, and my total for the year was moved all the way up to 975.0 miles. I still have two more days to walk this month, and I am only 25 miles short of where I should be at the end of October. (I was nearly 75 miles short at the end of September.) Whatever I walk on these next two days will come right off the top of those 25 miles, leaving me a fairly small number of miles behind where I should be.

I wrote the following on Friday afternoon, after my first two walks that day...

Friday 10/29/04

Morning walk

It was dark. On the drive in to work, the clouds hung over the Sylvan Hill, resting off the ground, somewhere between the asphalt and the streetlights, whose bright heads shone eerily through the water droplets, that somehow managed not to fall. When carbon dioxide vapor creates a spooky cloud, that cloud holds close to the ground. But the fog this morning was hanging 20 feet up, resting on apparently nothing, creating the feeling that overhead was a roof, and I was driving indoors.

When I started my walk, I had 1 hour and 14 minutes to work with. How many miles should I walk? At 15 minutes per mile, a speed I know that I can usually hold without any serious difficulty, I could complete 4 full miles for sure. I often use a measured, out-and-back, one-mile path that starts from the parking lot. I also use a 3.17-mile loop that conveniently starts from the same place. I decided to consecutively do both of them.

If I did the loop first, I reasoned, I might be tired and, I just might talk myself out of doing the one-mile out-and-back afterwards. So, I did the one-miler first, and then did the loop.

There is a short quarter-mile stretch where the two routes overlap. So, I was going to have to retrace my steps there. The rest of the walking was going to be done on separate paths.

When I started out, it was an hour before the sun would break the horizon. The dark was broken up here and there by streetlights, placed just close enough together to keep my feet properly and safely on the path. The trees along my route stood simultaneously in two worlds, with darkness hugging them from behind, as their leaves in front were gently touch by the lamps.

Off to the side there was the airport. It is just a little facility, with Lear jets being the largest aircraft to arrive, dropping off visiting CEOs of companies associated with the high tech world located in this area. Small private planes, and helicopters often use this airport as well. The runways were lined with the obligatory blue lights. High on various taller structures there were red lights, and white lights shone around the hanger. Nothing was taking off or landing as I walked by. It was just sitting and waiting, as so many things do in life.

Off in the murky distance, I could just make out the form of an approaching stranger, carrying something long, black and obscure in his hand. As he draws nearer, I could see that he is a young man, with a blond beard, a bandana, carrying an umbrella, and displaying a serious look on his face. My "Good Morning," was returned courteously but formally, and we both continued on our oppositely headed ways.

I was drawing close to my turn around point: the half-mile marker. It hardly seemed possible that I had gone that far already. Once turned around and headed back, up ahead I could see the shadowy figure of the young man, whom I had passed by earlier. My pace was rapid, and I was wondering if I was going to overtake him. What would he think when this stranger who just passed him a few moments ago, appeared to be sneaking up from behind? Things are so different in the darkness of predawn.

My concern was for nothing, because before it could become an issue, he turned off at a building, apparently an employee there. By the time I reached his cutoff point he was already across the parking lot and nearly into the building. I quickly continued on, making my way around the corner, and I was back to my starting point. One mile finished.

Turning immediately around, I was once again on my way. For just over a quarter-mile, I was walking on ground that I had already walked on twice that morning. I then took a sharp turn to the left into a very dark tunnel, which formed an underpass leading to the other side of the road that I had just been walking beside. Even in this dark world, there was enough light from the streetlamps outside, to reflect off the large water fountain ahead, that was shooting water towards the sky. If I had continued on straight ahead through the tunnel and did not turn, I would find myself walking into a lake, and finally slosh right up to the fountain.

My footsteps echoed off the walls, ceiling and floor of the tunnel, and enhanced the lonely feeling of the darkness there. I was glad to be out the other side when I finally reached it. Turning to the right, I was soon walking up a short hill bringing me back to street level. The road I was walking beside normally carries many cars, but occasionally this morning, there were moments where no cars were visible or audible. Suddenly it almost felt like I was walking out in a huge field, all by myself. I was alone, and the trees were my only companions. The aloneness was pressing in on me.

Then the spell would be broken, as another string of cars would come along. After a mile or so, I came to an even busier road, which has no such moments of quiet. Cars are forever moving beside the walker. This stretch went on for just over a half mile before another turn took me onto yet another road. Soon, I reached the 2-mile point, and it made me feel like I was really on the downhill side of the walk.

Shortly after that I passed it. It is a property that has been sold and condemned. It holds a house, and multiple garages, and the process of taking the buildings apart has already started. The sliding glass doors have been removed, leaving a cavernous opening in the wall beside the deck. Several of the windows are gone as well, and the house stands open to the elements. The dining room table that was left by the last occupants, keeps watch over the house that someone, probably many someones, once called home.

I am always reminded when I see a house fall, that someone at one time, sought to build that house. Someone was eager to buy it, and move into it, and furnish it with love, and possessions. It was the place where families lived, made decisions, and laughed together. It was home, and the most special place on earth for someone. And now it is trash, to be taken to the dump. This is the way of all things; even stars grow old and explode or collapse into darkness. Entropy will increase, and that which is built will be torn down, by man or by natural forces. Life is a struggle to fight against this process.

The rest of the trail is all well kept up and clean. Soon the loop is completed. Did I really just walk 4.17 miles? Yes I did, and my tired legs confirm that fact.

Lunchtime Walk

It was a perfect autumn day. The sky was gray, and moisture hung in the cool air. A flock of geese flew overhead in a lopsided V-shaped formation. The less used paths stretching off to the side were covered nearly completely with a layer of leaves, with only obscure lines barely discernable through the carpet showing the asphalt or concrete below. The main paths had been blown mostly free of leaves by the gardening staff. Still the occasional leaf was to be found, and the trees along the way held more candidates in large numbers, ready to drop; like children lined up eagerly for a ride at Disneyland, hoping that their turn would come soon. The ones who had already been on the ride were piled up along the path, looking more like a flowing stream than once living photosynthesis factories.

The cars hurried by, each creating a current of air that moved the leaves on the trees, and caused me to anticipate which of the them might fall this time. Where leaves congregated on the sidewalk, I had to be careful of the loss of friction that they can create.

Often as I walked along, the occasional leaf would drop suddenly across my field of vision and remind me that this is my favorite time of year. Sometimes one would drop on my head and draw me back from my mental meanderings.

At the end of one mile, I still felt cool, and the hat and gloves were very welcome indeed. At mile 2, the gloves were feeling like they were a bit too much, and I took them off. Before I hit mile three, the hat was gone, and I had unzipped my coat and its liner. Even with those modifications, I still was a little too warm, but fortunately, the walk was soon over after that.

The trees I saw were like people in their individuality. Some were dressed minimally, having cast off nearly all of their leaves. Others were holding onto a few red ones, just to throw at passersby. There were the yellow covered trees, and one, I swear, looked like it was wearing a leaf-party dress, with light green underneath, yellow filling out the dominate pattern, and red splashed just here and there for highlights. There were the stern conservative evergreens who refuse to acknowledge the change of seasons at all, green and unmoving in the breeze. What a delight to behold.

On the final stretch--shortly after the point where one tree, when hit with a stiff breeze, had dropped enough leaves over me to where I felt as if I were in a snow storm--the leaves were scattered all over the trail, and I spotted one that was very small. A baby leaf it looked, not grown up enough to be lying there orange and dying. Too young, and yet it was cast in with all the older leaves, and meeting their same fate. Old Jack Frost, the grim reaper for leaves had passed through. As I was thinking this, yet another leaf fell just ahead.

At the end of the walk, I actually cast a shadow, because the sun was starting to break through, and even some blue was visible off to the south. It would not be a lengthy visit, just long enough to help overheat this tired walker, but even that is part the perfect autumn day.

3 years, 172 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.0/180±2/BMI:23.12/WK-181
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint.
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