Week 187 Update

On Saturday, just after 2 AM, I received a tearful phone call from Dotti, saying that her mother had died. She and her brother had been holding vigil over her bed that night and they were there with her when she passed away. I threw on my clothes and was out the door in a hurry. Even though I had to come from Vancouver, I was the first one to arrive. For the next 3 hours or so, while waiting for the funeral home driver to arrive, everyone had some time to say goodbye to her. It was one of the emotionally black times where differences are laid aside and everyone's focus is sharply on a single event.

When Dotti's mother had been taken to the funeral parlor, we all headed back our respective homes, to get a little sleep before jumping into a very busy day. Very soon we were back up.

Dotti and I had gone through the process of planning, and going through a funeral in May, but each situation is unique. Dotti, as is her nature, shouldered the primary responsibility of making sure everything worked out okay, working hand in hand with her twin sister, and her youngest brother and sister, while gathering input from all 8 of the siblings, and from her step father.

I kept out of the way as much as possible so that Dotti could freely work with her siblings, letting them focus on their loss, and deciding how best to show their feelings in planning the funeral.

It gave me some time to think about other things. I was still too tired to try to do any walking. The previous Tuesday and Wednesday I worked long hours (12 and 11 respectively) and I didn't get as much sleep as I should of. Wednesday night we packed, and got to bed late. We got on the road after about 3.5 hours of sleep, and I drove 10.5 hours through to Portland. Under the circumstances I didn't sleep very well on Thursday or Friday, and I was trying to recover my equilibrium, while trying to deal with the emotional struggle going on with Dotti's mother's end of life struggle. Saturday morning, as previously mentioned was in complete disarray, and our sleeping time was very much shortened.

On Saturday, my weigh-in was very early: 2:12 AM and the scale said 184.0 pounds. Somehow, I had remembered to step on the scale before throwing on my clothes and running out the door. Other than a weigh-in that I did once on a Friday, this was my earliest weigh-in ever. I ate very poorly on this day, grabbing snacks here and there, and only eating a real meal once, at dinner. It all came to 51.5 points for the day. We did get to bed at a reasonable hour on Saturday night, completely exhausted.

Sunday, I woke up at 6:44 AM, after the best night's sleep I had had in many a day, and I weighed 184.0 pounds. With 8 children in the family, and just as many opinions as to how things should be done, Dotti did a wonderful job working with them all, and keeping things on track. Dotti's mom had 5 biological children, and they were working together closely in planning things, while consulting with the 3 stepchildren. Considering the political potential for hurt feelings, and so forth, everything had gone as well as could be expected by this point.

As I was on my own for much of the day on Sunday, in the late morning I decided to tackle my walking project once more. I had 1049.3 miles under my belt for the year and I needed to get another 150.7 miles by year's end. At the end of the day, I knew that I would only have 26 days left in which to do it. Either I was going to start getting some big mileage days, or I wasn't going to reach my goal. So, I set off on what I hoped would be a long walk.

I started walking in a more or less northerly direction, using my GPS to track my distance. I went up back streets, and over from one street to another, as I searched for a path leading to a particular main road. I found the path, reached the road and walked along it until my odometer reached 5.0 miles. I then turned around and headed back. The GPS has a feature of showing you a track of where you have walked so far on the current trip. I used that feature to retrace my steps, making all the same turns, in reverse direction, on all the little back streets I had hunted through to get through to the main road. I did make a couple of false turns and had to double back, after going a short distance. That caused my ending value to be increased to 10.2 miles, after walking for 2 hours and 32 minutes. ( I averaged 14:55 per mile, or 4.02 mph during the entire walk.) When it was all over, my legs were tired, but I had wrapped my knees well before starting, so they were not complaining much at all. I stepped up on the scale after my walk, and it read 181.0 pounds. I had definitely sweated off some pounds of water.

Later on Sunday, I started working on the numbers to see what I would have to do to get the job done of reaching 1200 miles for the year. With 26 more days left in the year, I still had 140.5 miles to go. That meant I had to average 5.4 miles per day for the rest of the way. For the entire year to date, I had averaged 3.12 miles per day. Considering all of the missed days of walking during the year (e.g. I did less than 17 miles in the entire month of July), 5.4 miles per day is definitely possible. When I multiplied by 7, it gave me a minimum goal of 37.8 miles per week that I must reach. I have broken 40 miles in a week a number of times this year, so it is not unreasonable to set my goal at 38 miles per week for the rest of the month.

I knew that 9 miles could be reasonably done on a good workday. I can walk 3 miles in the morning before work. (That is the toughest part of the equation, but it can be done.) I can then walk 3 miles at lunch with little difficulty. In the evening, I can walk 3 miles at home. On the weekend, it is up to me to get the miles in whenever convenient, but 9 miles are not completely out of the question even then. So, how long would it take to make it to my goal at 9-miles per day? Just under 16 days, leaving me ten extra days in the month.

I knew that my knees would probably start acting up if I did 9 miles every day for 16 days, but I just might be able to do it if I had to. However, since I had those 10 extra days to work with, I didn't have to walk that many miles every day. I just had to average 38 miles per week at a minimum. So, my goal was set: walk as many miles as I could fit in, making sure that I always reach at least 38 miles each week.

While I did pretty good on my walking for Sunday, I went really high on my eating for the day. I had my normal breakfast, but I went to McDonald's for lunch. I ordered 2 cheeseburgers, a small fries, shake, and small McFlurry. They converted it into a meal of some sort and I ended up with a medium fries instead. (I hate it when I tell someone exactly what I want, and then he thinks he knows better than I, and alters my order, without even asking.) It was late in the afternoon, and I knew that I was not going to be having dinner. Also, I could tell that I needed some food after all that walking. I also did some additional snacking, and by the end of the day, my points had accumulated up to 75.0.

Monday morning I weighed 185.0 pounds. I was up a pound, but I think that was at least partly all the sodium that I had the day before. Dotti was still busy with the planning, but she was able to break free in the late afternoon, and we went to Sweet Tomatoes together. It was very nice! My points for the day ended up being 49.5.

I had wrapped my knees up before walking on Sunday, and on Monday the left one was pretty sore. I wrapped them up again and walked 3.05 miles in the morning and another 3.05 miles in the evening. My left knee was hurting a lot by the end of the second walk.

Tuesday, the day of the funeral, I weighed in at 183.0 pounds. My left knee was aching, and I didn't do any exercise walking that day. It was a very emotionally packed day, and very little, other than the funeral itself, was planned. I asked Dotti if she would like to go to Sharis for breakfast, and just as we were getting ready to go, LeRoy showed up. So, we all three went. I ended up with far less appetite than I had expected and only ate what I would have had at home (cereal and milk). It came to more points, because they didn't have a high fiber, low calorie sort of cereal, but it was a nice change of pace.

We met Dotti's twin sister at that funeral parlor beforehand, to make sure everything was all set up okay, and then all three of us rode together in our van to Dotti's stepfather's place. We stopped for a Starbucks on the way because we were early. When the limousine arrived, the 8 children climbed in, along with Dotti's stepfather and rode to the funeral home. I took my niece and her son with me in the van as we followed behind.

The service went as well as could be expected, and the final goodbyes were said. It was a day that we will all remember.

At the get together afterwards there was a lot of sugar available in the form of cake and cookies. Between that and the coffee, I felt a bit like I had been plugged into a light socket. I didn't eat anything for dinner, so all day long I had not had much that would have qualified as healthy food. I did accumulate 65.5 points along the way.

Wednesday I weighed 183.0 pounds at 6 AM. I ate a little closer to normal, with breakfast at home, lunch at Sharis, and a 12-inch sub sandwich at Subway for dinner. I only had 3.5 points worth of snacks during the day, so most of my calories were hearty ones. I ended up eating 50.0 points for the day.

For walking, I did my 3.05 loop 3 times during the day: in the morning, at around 6:15, with the temperature sitting at 48º; at 1 PM, and 53º; and then finally in the rain in the evening around 7 PM, and 47º. That gave me another 9.15 miles added to my total, bringing it to 1074.8. I didn't wrap my knees this time, because it seemed like that only made them worse last time. It looked like a good decision, because my knees felt much better.

Thursday I weighed 184.5. Dotti and LeRoy had worked late the night before getting our outside Christmas decorations up, and they looked absolutely beautiful when I set out on my morning walk at 5:50 AM. It was 46º, and I did my 3.05-mile loop in 50 minutes and 50 seconds.

I did my company physical first thing in the morning. (I took my breakfast with me in the morning, because I couldn't eat anything before they took my blood for my physical, so I had my cereal and milk in the parking lot afterwards.) The doctor likes Dotti's web page, and we talk about each year. He said that one of his relatives created a web page, and when he went and checked the links out, he "sure enough" found DWLZ.com listed. He thought that was great, and asked how many visitors Dotti was getting on the page. I told him it was over 28 million now.

The physical went well, and then I was off to work. At lunch I walked 3.17 miles, and that finished off my walking for the day. I felt too tired to walk when I got home, but I was still up to 1081.0 miles for the year, and making progress.

I held my points down for the day, and only ate 38.5.

Friday I weighed 184.0 pounds at 5:15 AM. I got on the road early to work, and I arrived early enough to walk more than usual. I did my 3.17-mile loop and then tacked on another mile, making 4.17 miles total. It was a warm 59º and I finished up at 7:49 AM.

At lunch I did another 3.17 miles, and the temperature had only risen one degree to 60º. I had to go down the street later on, and rather than driving I just walked it, and got in 0.5 miles each way, which added in another mile to my total. In the evening, since traffic is so terrible on Fridays, I decided to walk my 3.17-mile loop before driving home. As it turned out, it only took me a little over an hour to drive home afterwards, and it usually takes at least an hour and a half. So, I saved some time. The temperature was 57º for my walk. All day it was unseasonably warm. I did have to put on my rain gear for the final walk, because it was pouring down pretty hard. The wind was blowing as well, and I would have gotten my pants soaked if I had not covered them up. It was a great evening for a walk though, and I really enjoyed the rain, the wind, and the exercise.

That concluded my walking for my day at 11.5 miles, and it finished off my week with a grand total of 1092.5 miles for the year so far. I should be breaking through the 1100-mile barrier soon.

I only ate 32.0 points for the day, and that brought me to my weigh-in this morning of 183.0 pounds.

3 years, 214 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/183.0/180±2/BMI:22.87/WK-187
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint./Miles Walked
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