Week 190 Update

At 08:00 this morning I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said,

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!"

I replied, "The same to you buddy, but tell me my weight." He replied, "185.5 pounds!"

I for one am very happy to get out of 2004, and start into a new year. I don't believe in luck, but I sure found a lot to be unhappy about during the last 12 months. It feels good to close the book on that year of my life, and I am looking forward to the 2005 chapter, with high hopes of it being a better year.

The final week of the year was already an improvement over the what had gone on before. We had a nice visit with my mom, and I reached my walking goal of 1200 miles, while getting my 4th year of weight maintenance off to a good start.

The new year normally brings with it the feeling of new beginning. It follows closely on the heels of the winter solstice (the birthday of the Sun to the pagans, and later borrowed by the Christians as the birthday of the Son), where the shortest day gives way to longer and longer days. The increased sunlight cheers us up, and makes each of the 24-hour days actually seem longer. It is a form of rebirth, and we make resolutions, and our hearts fly with anticipation for all the things that we are going to do during the next 365 days. It is New Years Day today, and with that naturally comes anticipation. What will the next 365 days hold in store for us? Now we will see...one day at a time.

As for the last week in 2004, here is how it went for me...

Saturday 12/25/04 – Christmas Day! I weighed in at 186.0 pounds. Christmas is normally a day where my weight is down a bit. In fact since I started my weight loss/control journey, even including 2001, this is the highest Christmas weigh-in that I have had. (Previous weigh-ins have been: 184.5, 182.0, and 184.5.) I think it is best to view it that is the fourth Christmas in a row that I have weighed-in within my target range, and I am very happy about that. (Also, during the rest of the week, I actually hit 184.5, and 182.0 for my daily weigh-ins. J )

Mom is a Seventh-day Adventist, and so she normally attends church on Saturday. This week was no exception. While she was at church, I set off on a walk. I had naturally brought my handheld GPS with me, and I set off to measure off some walking paths.

When we arrived at Mom's house, I had already walked 1171.1 miles in 2004. My goal was to get in the remaining 28.9 miles before we left for home on Tuesday the 28th. That gave me about 4 days to work with. So, I was going to have to get in around 7.25 miles per day.

The weather turned out to be very helpful the entire time. I didn't have to get on my raingear at all. We did get some rain, but it was nearly all at night. We sometimes had wet sidewalks and roads to walk on, but there wasn't any rain falling as we walked.

Since we were last in town, Tiller had laid down some new sidewalks. The entire length of their sidewalk was just under half a mile. But it is a start anyway. J The path I walked ended up forming a T on the GPS tracking screen. I walked an iteration of the tee path, and it came to just over 2 miles. I continued on and did another, and with the temperature at 42º, I finished the walk just before noon with 4.15 miles. I was then up to 1175.2 miles for the year.

When Mom got home from church, and after lunch, she said that she would like to take a walk with me. It was after 3 PM, and the thermometer had risen a bit to 48º and it was very nice walking weather. We walked a short ways and Mom remembered something that she needed. So, after 0.63 miles, we were back at the house. Then we set out in earnest.

We walked out to the end of the sidewalk, and then continued on, following the road that leads to Canyonville, following the path of the South Umpqua River. I didn't realize it at first, but Mom had a landmark in mind that we were headed for. It was a mile marker for the road, and it was about one mile from the end of the sidewalk. Neither of us knew exactly how far it was. She had walked to it once before with her 79-year-old sister, but she had only made the walk once, and it had been quite a while since she had done it. As it turned out, we missed the mile marker because it was set behind a new guardrail that had been installed during the recent road construction project. The mile markers have not been repositioned to match the new road footprint. We did find a little stream beside the road, that Mom could use for future walks, which marked exactly one mile from her house. There were some other landmarks along the way that she wrote down the mileage for, so she will know in the future how far she has walked when she reaches them.

We finally reached a point where she knew that we had gone to far, and that we had clearly missed the mile marker. We turned around and headed back. The GPS said 2.77 miles when we hit the mile marker on our return, and for future reference, we noted that this would put it about a mile past the end of the sidewalk.

It was great having the time together with Mom. For an hour, thirty-two minutes, and 38 seconds, we were able to visit and enjoy the mountains, pine trees and the sight and sound of the flowing South Umpqua River, as we walked for 4.22 miles. The sun was down, and it was getting dark as we got back home, where Dotti was beginning to worry about us. My total for miles this year was then up to 1180.1, leaving me with 3 days at Mom's, and less than 20 miles to go.

I ate 46.0 points on Christmas, including a very nice dinner that Mom prepared.

Sunday I weighed 185.0 pounds. We all decided that we would like to go into Roseburg for the day. We didn't have a lot of set plans, we just wanted to go in and do some shopping and have a fun day. I did expect to get some walking in, and I was hoping for at least 7 to 9 miles. It worked out well, because the ladies loved the shopping opportunities, and that freed me up to hit the sidewalks walking.

It was 42º when I left Mom and Dotti at the mall, and set out towards the freeway. I walked past the Hospital where we had such an unhappy 2 weeks in May, when Jim spent his last two weeks fighting for life in ICU. I continued on until I crossed over the bridge that overpasses Interstate 5, and I reached the motel that we had stayed at in May. I turned around there, as my GPS read 1.5 miles. I headed back to the mall and completed my 3.00-mile walk at 2:02 PM. I was very hungry and I found Mom and Dotti still busy shopping. J As Jim Stafford musically said, "All good things must come to an end..." L and the shopping had to be interupted for LUNCH.

We had a very nice lunch at Los Dos Amigos, our favorite Mexican restaurant in Roseburg. I had some enchiladas, and other goodies, and it all came to 36.0 points.

Afterwards, Mom and Dotti wanted to go to Wal-Mart. That gave me some time to do some more walking. The temperature was fine at 46º, however time was running out on the daylight hours. It was after 4 PM already, and the sun was to set around 4:45. My knees had been getting a workout lately, and so I wrapped them both before I did my walk.

As it turns out, in Roseburg, Wall-Mart sets right across the street from the mall. So, my starting point was very close to the same one I had used earlier in the day. However, I headed off in the opposite direction this time, as well as starting on the opposite side of the road. I came to a little pedestrian underpass that looked promising, perhaps leading to a walking trail. When I got to its mouth, the tunnel was dark, but out the other side, I could see a creek bed, grass and trees, which might be the start of a cool place to walk. Alas, when I got out the other end, I had only gotten to the side of the road, and the trail merely led up to the sidewalk.

As I started walking along the road again, I realised that I was beside the Roseburg Seventh-day Adventist church, where I came to sing with my high school choir several times in the 1960s. I continued on down the road until I hit another overpass for Interstate 5. This one had a walking trail that dropped off to the right, and I took that rather than crossing the freeway. It led out beside a golf course and was a very pleasant place to walk. I was worried in a couple of places that my GPS would lose its communication with the satellites, because the trees were extending their branches so thickly over the trail. Fortunately it was wintertime, and they were not evergreens. The branches were bare, and my GPS kept tracking my position without a hitch.

I hit a Y in the trail, with one branch leading under the freeway to the other side, and one continued on around the golf course. I stayed with the golf course trail until it ended at a road. I was over 1.5 miles into my walk, and I turned around and headed back. I would have liked to take the other branch of the Y when I got back to it, but the sun was rapidly dropping and it was getting darker by the minute. So, I continued back to the city streets where there was plenty of artificial light.

On the way back to the pedestrian underpass, I came to a VA's hospital campus, that I had ignored on the way out. The sidewalks there were lighted, and it looked inviting. I turned in, and took a stroll through the grounds. When I came back out, the sky was getting quite dark, but the streetlights were on.

As I reached the pedestrian underpass once more, I was remembering how dark it was in that tunnel when the sun was still up, and so I expected it to be really black this time. I broke out my little LED flashlight and turned it on as I headed down the path towards the tunnel. When I got down where I could see into it, there were lights that had come on inside the tunnel, and there was no need for the flashlight. J

Out the other side, and back to the Wall-Mart driveway I went, and my GPS said that I had completed about 4 miles. I wanted to get in 6 miles. So, I continued on past the driveway entrance, and was off in the same direction that I had walked earlier in the day. I made it to where the overpass was located for Interstate 5 but I veered to the right and continued on for a short while before turning around and heading back. I finished my walk by encircling the large Wall-Mart parking lot, finally reaching the 6-mile mark. I took off my gloves, hat, and my knee wraps and put them all in the car, while a guy watched me suspiciously from a dark car parked in a nearby slot. He didn't seem to be enjoying the Christmas holiday spirit. J

I had completed 9 miles of walking on Sunday, and my total for the year was up to 1189.1. I was only 10.9 miles from my goal!

By day's end I had eaten 56.5 points.

Monday I weighed 184.5 pounds. Part of me wanted to "go nuts" and just walk the 11 miles. However, I didn't want to overdo it, and maybe injure myself. Mom was up for a walk in the morning. The temperature was 37º, and we headed up river, on the back road. We once again noted landmarks for Mom to use in the future. We reached the 1.5 mile point, and there was a nice easy to identify landmark there. We turned around and walked back home. On the way back I had released my GPS, and let it swing from my neck for a while a couple of times to free up my hands for a while. That can throw the GPS off a bit, and it always gives a lower reading on the odometer when I do that. When we got back, it only read 2.91 miles. So, that is what I wrote down in my log. We took 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 43 seconds to complete the walk, and we finished at 10:04 AM.

In the afternoon, Dotti said that she wanted to take a walk. I was very happy to hear that! We set off, not sure how far we were going to go. We walked to the end of the side walk, and back to the Ranger station, and she said that it would be nice to go to the end of the sidewalk again. Before long, that is where we were heading. By the time we made it back to the house we had covered 2.04 miles in 42 minutes and 3 seconds. My total for the year was now sitting at 1194.0 miles. I was just under 6 miles from reaching 1200 miles!

I ended up eating 39.5 points on Monday.

Tuesday I only weighed 182.0 pounds. I wanted to close the book on my 1200-mile odyssey. On Monday Mom had said that she would like to walk the last mile with me, but on Tuesday she said she wanted to do the last 3 miles! I got an early start, and I walked a fairly quick 3 miles (44:05) as a setup for the finale. My total miles then were up to 1197.1, and I picked up Mom for the final 3-mile stretch. She got all bundled up, because it was 36º, and we set off up river. We walked up to the landmark we had spotted on our earlier walk, and turned around. One hour, 5 minutes, and 2 seconds into our walk we crossed the finished line! Mom gave me a big hug, and then Dotti did too.

For all the details on my 1200 miles in 2004, click here.

Dotti and I headed home after that, and we stopped by Roseburg to have another go at Los Dos Amigos. J Between that, and the snacking on the road as we drove home, I consumed 59.5 points.

Wednesday I weighed 183.5 pounds. I didn't do any walking for the rest of the week to rest up for starting my new walking program on January 1. Dotti and I had dinner at Sweet Tomatoes and I ended up eating a total of 51.5 points by the end of the day.

Thursday I weighed 185.0 pounds. I ate light throughout the day and only had 36.5 points.

Friday I weighed 185.0 pounds. Dotti and I went out and did some shopping. We had lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, and an All American ice cream cone at the mall. By the end of the day I had eaten 42.0 points. I had some popcorn and pepperoni late last night as we saw in the new year, while watching the original Stepford Wives, an interesting propaganda piece. Fireworks were going off all over the neighborhood, as 2005 arrived. This time of year, with all of the rain, there was very little chance of fires starting either. J.

3 years, 235 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.5/180±2/BMI:23.19/WK-190

GRAPHS:

Weight Loss Maintenance Year 1 Maintenance Year 2 Maintenance Year 3 Maintenance Year 4

2004 Walking Data