Week 185 Update

I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 05:57 and he said, “183.5 pounds!” The snow was flying outside, and the temperature was a brisk 27º. Fortunately, since we have to hit the road tomorrow, the weather forecast says, that the temperature will rise, and the snow will end today. Tomorrow, when we drive east into the Rocky Mountains and south through Missoula, Montana, and on into southern Idaho, the snow is supposed be light or non-existent. So, we are happy about that!

This morning LeRoy headed out for home, because he has to work tonight. It was great having him here with us for nearly the whole stay!

We always look forward to our Thanksgiving visit with Jim and Tammy and this year was no exception. Saturday, after I weighed in and got my numbers up on the page, we packed up the car and hit the road. The trip was very pleasant. The weather was nice, and when we stopped in Kennewick, Washington, which sits at about the midway point of our drive, there was only one table in Subway where we could sit without having to squint into the sun. Even there we had to sit on the same side of the table, because the bench on the other side was painted in bright sunlight.

We arrived in Spokane, just as it was getting dark, around 5 PM. The fun began immediately, as we quickly began to catch up on family news. During the week we went shopping, towed LeRoy’s car to the Honda dealership (after his transmission just gave up and died on a hill where he was blocking traffic for quite a while), played chess, and watched a few movies (Elf met my expectations, fortunately they were low).

Thanksgiving Day was great, with Tammy’s great cooking, and we were surrounded by visiting family members, and there were even some guitars and singing. The day after Dotti and Tammy were joined by LeRoy, on what he called “Black Friday,” (from his days working retail, and dealing with this busiest shopping day of the year), to cross swords with all the crazy shoppers fighting for “deals” at the local malls and department stores. They all survived, and returned with their treasures safely.

Last Saturday, I had weighed in at 185.0. Between snacking on the drive up to Spokane, and my meals, I ate 41.0 points.

Sunday I once again weighed 185.0. I didn’t eat the best food that day (for example we went to Costco and I had a Very Berry Sunday), but I held my points down to 45.5.

Monday my weight held steady at 185.0. At lunch Jim and I went to Sharis. I was feeling very hungry, and I ordered a Mushroom burger and fries. I actually ate the entire meal this time, which I do not normally do. I also had lasagna for dinner. My total for the day was 53.0 points.

Tuesday the scale dropped to 183.5. I was not really surprised, because with all the walking that I was doing, the amount of food that I had been eating just didn’t feel like it was enough. (That is why I bumped my points up on Monday.) I once again had higher points, including a very large meal at a Mexican restaurant named Azteca. I was hungry, and my weight had been down in the morning, so I ordered a large meal. I couldn’t finish it, but I got down 31.5 points worth, including all the chips and salsa I consumed before my platter (it was too big to be called a plate) arrived with my enchilada, tostada, tamale, beans, and rice. I was not the least bit hungry at the end of the meal. In fact I was completely stuffed. It was too much, and I don’t do that very often. I had a total of 57.5 points for the day.

Wednesday, not surprisingly, the scale jumped up to 185.5. I still had a large lunch at a place called the Swinging Doors. It was a breakfast plate called “Little Doors,” but it was a lot more than Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast, and added up to 23.0 points. I was still feeling full when we went to the Outback Restaurant that evening and I only had a salad. By the end of the day I had eaten 51.0 points.

Thursday I was back down to 185.0…just in time for Thanksgiving. I had a normal breakfast and a light lunch, saving up my energy for that wonderful Tammy-prepared-meal that we look forward to each year. It was awesome. After filling up all of the lines for dinner, I had to use part of my lunch section in my journal to hold all the items that I ate that night. I had 40.0 points of food and egg nog. My total points at the end of the day was 55.0.

Friday morning the scale dropped a half pound to 184.5. LeRoy had been having some problems with his car, and he decided to trade it in on a new one. So, Jim and I gave him a ride down to the Honda dealership and we spent 5 hours there as he worked out a deal to his liking. While waiting, we had a lot of coffee, and right beside the coffee dispensers, there was a box of doughnuts that was loudly calling my name. There were two maple bars in there that looked very good. I was strong and left them alone for several trips for coffee, but I hadn’t had lunch. As the afternoon wore on towards evening, the maple bars disappeared, but there was one item left that I hadn’t noticed before. It looked like it might be a Boston Cream Pie. I have no resistance to those at all. I snapped it up and bit into it. It wasn’t what I thought it was, but it was still good. It was filled with lemon pie filling, rather than the cream I was expecting. Still it was good. Later, I had a miniature doughnut as well. That night we had leftovers from the previous day’s delights, and they were once again delicious. The day added up to 50.0 points, leading to my weigh-in of 183.5 this morning.

I walked 12 times, at least 3.1 miles each time. Jim walked with me on two of my walks, and Tammy walked with me on another one. Their youngest girl walked with me on yet another one. On Sunday my morning walk of 3.1 miles began around 07:45, and the temperature was 34º. I had expected the temperature to be in the twenties somewhere, because right at sundown the night before it was already down to 37º. I had put on an extra and very heavy flannel shirt, in addition to another flannel shirt and my heavy coat. I was overdressed, and I felt too warm for most of the walk. In the evening at 8:15, the temperature was only one degree warmer than it had been for my morning walk. But this time I didn’t wear that extra shirt and I was fine.

Monday morning the temperature was 33º at around 06:30 when I set out on my walk. It was 40º at 1 PM when I walked with Jim and Tammy’s youngest. She is 11, and made it around the 3.1-mile loop in just under 1 hour and 4 minutes. I had been only a bit under 47 minutes for the loop on my previous walks, so I thought she did really well.

Tuesday morning at 7 AM I tried out a longer loop that Tammy told me about. It came to 4.17 miles on my GPS, and took me just under 1 hour and 6 minutes, with the temperature sitting at 35º. In the evening, about 5 PM Jim and I took a 3.1-mile walk, and it took 49:51. considering that he hadn’t been doing any walking, that was not bad at all.

Wednesday morning it had warmed up, and at 06:45 it was 43º. I was once again overdressed for the walk, and it took me 50:12 to complete the walk. At 7 PM Tammy and I set out to walk a 3.59-mile path, and we finished in just under 1 hour and 3 minutes. Tammy hasn’t been walking much, and that was a very good pace.

Thanksgiving morning it was 44º at 07:10 when I set out on my walk, and it felt nice and warm. I did the 3.10-mile loop in 49:42.

In the afternoon, I took Jim and Tammy’s grandson over to a playground and he enjoyed the playground equipment. We ended up running all over a couple of baseball fields, with him chasing me, and I was pretty tired when it was all finished, but it was a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving evening, after Thanksgiving Dinner, LeRoy was surprised to see me in my coat and getting ready to head out on my walk. However, Jim wasn't surprised, and he got on his walking shoes and coat and did the 3.10 mile loop with me. We finished in 51:11, which wasn’t bad after the large meal. Fortunately, we had played the guitars and sang for quite a while before setting out on the walk, after we had eaten, so our stomachs were not totally overloaded for the walk.

Friday I walked the 3.10-mile loop twice alone. In the morning, at 07:10, the colder temperatures had returned, and it was down to 28º. I did the loop in 48:22. For my evening walk, at 7 PM, it was 36º, and I did the walk in 48:29.

I have read that, for someone at my weight, walking 1 mile will burn about 100 calories. That is about 2 points worth of energy. I walked just over 38 miles this week. That would be 3,800 calories (~76 points). One pound holds 3,500 calories (~70 points) worth of energy, so I walked off one pound this week. In other words, I walked enough miles where I could eat around 10 additional points-per-day than I could have otherwise eaten, and still maintain where I was at on the scale. In looking at my average points-per-day for the previous week, I had eaten 40.43, and this week it was 50.43, and that would be an interesting coincidence if I had stayed the same on the scale. However, I dropped 1.5 pounds, and even my average weight dropped ~1.3 pounds. Since I walked 23 miles last week, and that should have been good for 6 points-per-day, this week I was able to eat more, and the scale dropped more, than I should have expected.

So, the numbers are not precise, and there is sometimes a time lag in what the scale shows us after we eat something, but the basic principle seems sound: if you exercise a lot, you need more energy input in order to maintain where you are. The digestive track sometimes gets clogged, and sometimes it works efficiently. That can throw the scale readings off as well. It seems that collecting data over a long period of time is the only safe way to see what the results are for various levels of caloric input and output (including things like the number of points eaten, and the number of miles walked).

On November 24, I passed my 3-year mark of being at or below my personal goal! It hardly seems possible that 3 years have gone by already.

Our happy week in Spokane is nearly over, and that is unfortunate. We always have a wonderful time with Jim and Tammy, and all of their family. Over the twenty-six years that we have known them they have become more than mere friends to us; they are family, and by that I mean family that holds the best that the word implies. One day, and I hope it will not be too far in the future, we are going to live once more close enough to them where we can be in daily contact. We have done that in the past in Lemoore, California, Spokane, Washington, and Norfolk, Virginia, and the next place where we finally get together, we hope that it will be permanent. Many friendships fade when the friends are separated by time and space, but Jim and Tammy have remained dear to us. Our children are like siblings, and we love them all. Their grandkids feel like our grandkids, and our lives have been enhanced in so many wonderful ways by this friendship. We are already looking forward to our next time together at the DWLZ conference in April!

3 years, 200 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/183.5/180±2/BMI:22.94/WK-185
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint./Miles Walked
                Success Story