Week 208 Update

It was 54° and 05:35 when I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, '187.0 pounds!'

I had really been running on the edge all week long for weight. Last week, since we were making the trip to Spokane, and would be arriving late, I didn’t want to worry about my Saturday weigh-in, after snacking on the road, etc. So, I had decided, for the second time on my journey, to weighed-in a day early, to free myself up, and to allow myself to relax in an unusual situation. My Official Friday weigh-in was 185.5, and that was great. However, by Saturday morning, I had jumped up to 189.5. I had only eaten 55.0 points on Friday, but it was low fiber, high-sodium stuff, like beef jerky.

From that high scale reading onwards, I found this week to be a trying one on the scale. This morning I was very happy to see a number in my target range!

Here’s how the week went…

Saturday - Dotti and I were in Spokane, Washington after our drive up from Vancouver the night before. I woke up at 05:30, even though I had gotten to bed late after our drive. My eyes just popped open and wouldn’t close. After stepping on the scale and unhappily seeing 189.5, I went out to the living room and found Tammy was up, because she had a couple of early WW meetings that she was going to work that morning. We visited for a while and then she headed off to work. Since the rest of the house was sleeping, I got my computer out and worked on that until Jim woke up. Soon LeRoy was up as well.

I took my niece Jamie out for breakfast, and we had a very nice visit. Jim and Tammy have raised girls that anyone would be proud of, and they are a joy to be around. We look forward to our time with them every time we visit Spokane. I think the waitress was throwing hints at us to leave by the time we were done, because we had eaten very slowly, and had a long talk. But we don’t have that opportunity very often.

I ended up eating 26.0 points at breakfast, and had a lot of day ahead of me still.

When we got back, Dotti--who had sensibly slept in after our post midnight visiting--was up, and soon Tammy was back home, and we loaded up in the van to head down to the Spokane Convention Center, where we were going to pick up our Bloomsday packets for the race the next day. Once we had our packets in hand, we wandered over to the area where the booths were set up, and milled about with the rest of the crowd looking at various items for sale targeted at walkers and runners. Dotti and Tammy found some walking shoes that they liked, and their feet were very happy as a result. J We grabbed a few free-sample snacks while there, and the ones I got were not low-point: cookies; and garlic bread.

Then, in the evening, we stopped by the Outback Restaurant. It was seriously crowded and we had to wait nearly an hour for a table, but fortunately, while we waited, there were shopping opportunities for the guys and gals. Dotti and Tammy headed off towards stores adjacent to the south, and Jim and I headed north a couple of doors to the Guitar Center. We had a lot of fun looking at guitars, and other instruments. We heard a pianist play some classical music, which surprised us. He was young and looked like he was really getting into the rock music on the overhead speaker, but when he sat down at the keyboard; some really beautiful music came out. It almost sounded like one of the demo recordings that come with keyboards these days, but it was his fingers that were producing the music. Very nice!

The acoustic guitar room was sealed off from the rest of the store, so the steady drone of music from the overhead was cut off, which was a pleasant feeling. We picked at some guitars, and then, just before we left, a guy came in and proceeded to play some blues licks that sounded pretty good. Soon it was time to head back to dinner.

I didn’t feel like a burger, or steak, and I wasn’t going to settle for a salad, so I ordered up lamb chops. Since Dotti had never seen me eat lamb before, and my food choices are usually fairly predictable, she was very much surprised. J The meal was great, and I even topped it off with a piece of cheesecake. The meal came to 38.0 points, bringing my total points for the day to 82.5, and if my weigh-in weight in the morning had been a legitimate 189.5 pounds, I would have been in serious risk of pushing past my 190 personal goal on Sunday. Fortunately that didn’t happen! My streak since 2001 was still intact. J

We didn’t stay up too late on Saturday night, because we had an early start awaiting us next day.

Sunday - I weighed 189.0 pounds at 06:00 AM on Sunday. I was quite happy to take a half-pound loss after the day I had just had on Saturday. J I had a much more conservative breakfast of coffee, cereal, and skim milk (6.0 points) to start this second day in Spokane. And the next meal would not be until after the Bloomsday Race.

It would be impossible to put all the impressions I have of the Bloomsday Race here, but it was a lot of fun. All four of Jim and Tammy’s girls, their son-in-law’s brother, and LeRoy, as well as us 'old folks,' piled into piled into the van, and LeRoy’s car. We drove over to the shopping mall, where we caught a bus downtown to the starting area for the race. Parking in downtown Spokane on Bloomsday, just isn’t available. The buses make it all much easier!

Since her knee was hurting Dotti, she and LeRoy--who had specifically driven over to be with her during this time--headed off for the finished line area not far away to wait for the rest of us. Later, before the race actually started, Jamie decided to join them because she wasn’t feeling up to doing the walk. The two remaining younger girls walked together, and we were left as a group of 6 (well, actually 5, but Dotti was there in spirit!), starting out on the 7.46 mile race. I had chosen to walk with the group this time, since I had gone off on my own the year before just to see how long it would take me to get through the course. Claudette and her husband’s brother slowly pulled ahead of Jim, Tammy, and myself, and that was the way the rest of the walk went, with Tammy setting the pace.

There were interesting costumes all around us, including a couple of guys walking in gorilla outfits, and they had to be very warm, because it was a bright sunshiny day, and I was feeling plenty warm in my light shirts. When we reached the top of 'Doomsday Hill' there was a guy in a huge vulture costume that put a smile on our faces. Soon the race was over, and we were all gathered together in the park in search of something to eat. We once again had some chocolate covered strawberries, because we had loved them so much the year before. J

When we got home, Dotti and Tammy headed out to do some shopping, and LeRoy ran to McDonalds and grabbed the men some lunch. Between the Bloomsday snacks, and the cheeseburger and small fries, lunchtime eating added up to 30.0 points. However, I then had some cake that the kids had bought for Tammy for an early Mother’s day, and it was a very rich dessert, with lots of icing. (20.0 points.)

I asked the others for their opinion, and they agreed to some Mexican food for our evening meal. It turned out to be very good, and I was once again loaded up with points for the day. When I finished Bloomsday, I had eaten 82.0 points. Not only that, but I had averaged over 82 points for two days running for the weekend.

Was it the food? Was it excess energy? I am not sure, but in the evening I was anxious to take another walk. I did the 3.1 mile loop that Tammy had measured out around the blocks near their house, and it brought my miles for the day up to 10.56.

Monday - I was down a pound from Sunday (or up 2.5 pounds from Friday) when I weighed 188.0 Monday morning. It was a sad day, because we had to say goodbye to our loved ones in Spokane, and to our son, who had to head back to Olympia for work that night. It had been a great weekend, but all good things must come to an end.

I woke up early, and just couldn’t help myself, and I had another piece of Tammy’s cake for breakfast. It was just a bit smaller and less icing coated (17.0 points) than the previous one. On the drive home Dotti and I stopped at Subway and I had a 6' sub. We stopped by McDonalds for 3.0 point cone before hitting the road again.

We were tired when we got home, and after dinner, we felt like we had hit a brick wall. We were in bed and sound asleep shortly after 6:30 pm. I had eaten 54.0 points for the day.

Tuesday - I was back down into my target range at 186.5 pounds Tuesday morning.

This week I was scheduled to help out with a training session at customer site on the eastside of Portland, which made for a much shorter drive to and from work each day! It tripped me up (no pun intended) for my walking schedule, since I didn’t have my normal walking paths available at the new location, but other than that, it was a nice change.

The customer site has a very long walk associated with the area I would be working, and I paced it off. Just the final hallway was about one-tenth of a mile long. There was quite a bit of additional walking just to get to that hallway, and there were 3 sets of stairs to go up in order to get to the right floor. (I was onsite for a year at this customer site several years ago, and I really remember those stairs from that time, when I wasn’t doing much walking.) At a bare minimum, each day I would have to do that walk round trip at least twice, and sometimes more. When the stairs were included in, each trip was a good round of exercise.

I did some walking at lunch (2.0 miles measured with my GPS), but not as much as I usually did at my regular customer’s site.

In the evenings this week it seemed like they were over almost before they began. I was answering email, and doing conference page related things.

On Tuesday, I ate 40.0 points.

Wednesday - I held steady at 186.5 pounds. My day was very similar to Tuesday, without the walk at lunch. All my exercise came inside the building walking around.

By the end of the day I had eaten 39.5 points.

Thursday - The scaled jumped up to 188.0 pounds this morning. I had soup for dinner the night before, and perhaps it was high in sodium. I was eating low on points, so I know that wasn’t it.

I decided to walk at lunch. I took my GPS and just started walking. I checked elevation at a few points along the way and found that I was starting out at 222 feet above sea level, walked about a mile to reach a point that was 312 feet in elevation, and then walked about a half mile downhill to a location 190 feet above sea level. I then made the return trip for a total of 3.0 miles, and total elevation change of 212 feet. It was almost a 'half-Bloomsday' but not quite. When I went back inside, after that walk, that long set of 3 stairs really made my legs burn.

At the end of the day, I had eaten 35.5 points.

Friday - I was back up to 188.5 pounds. It is surprising how much of my normal journey is tied to routine. Normally, when I am at work at my regular site, my body responds to what I eat and drink, in a particular way. When my routine is broken, it seems like nothing works quite right. My digestive track is either efficient or inefficient based upon my routine. When I see a jump up on the scale, large or small, when the points do not merit it, I know that I just need to wait a bit and things will all settle out again.

I didn’t walk at lunch, but when I came back in after eating in my car, and reading my book, I was just hitting the bottom of the stairs when a nice guy held the doors open in the elevator that he was about to take up. I thanked him very much and pointed to the stairs. I then ran up them to the top and was waiting there when he arrived in the elevator, and I said with a smile, 'Those are more fun.' He replied, 'I should take them more often myself.'

The run up the stairs (something I would not have tried before I started my journey) didn’t make my legs burn this time, but it took a while for me to catch my breath. Still, I can really tell that I am very much better shape physically than I was when I was working onsite and going up those stairs everyday.

I also noticed the large number of guys that I worked around who were clearly overweight. This industry makes it fairly easy to physically vegetate, and grow lots of fat cells. I was right there doing the same thing when I was going up and down those stairs before I started my journey. So, I know how easy it is to get to that point.

When I got home I felt like I should take a walk, just to round out the week, where I had done very little walking. I did our 3.05 mile loop. If I had known where my total miles for the year was sitting, I would probably found some way to get another mile in this week, because that total is now sitting at 499.45 miles. J

I ate light, and only consumed 34.0 points for the day, which set me up for my 187.0 pound weigh-in this morning.

How did the week go?

On the negative side-

• I only walked 18.61 miles, when my goal is at least 25 miles each week.
  
  
• On three of the days this week, I drank less than 6 cups of water, and I averaged 38.9 ounces (4.9 cups) per day, well below my goal.
  
  
• My weight was way high on several days this week, and my average weight for the week was 0.64 pounds above my target zone.
  
  
• My average points-per-day for the week was 52.5, about 6 points above my normal maintenance level.
  
  

After all the negatives it might seem like there are no positives, but there are!

On the postive side-

• I walked 18.61 miles, which is most of my goal for walking.
  
  
• I always took the long stairs at work instead of using the elevator.
  
  
• During the 4 workdays I walked at least 3 additional miles just from the top of the stairs to my work area and back.
  
  
• I walked a great 7.46-mile course on Sunday, and the 3.0 mile walk on Thursday had a lot of elevation change in it.
  
  
• I drank 6 cups of water 4 of the 7 days.
  
  
• I was below my personal goal weight for every one of my weigh-ins this week!
  
  
• I would have paid a lot of money in Y2K to have a week this good!
  
  

The journey continues, and my goal for the upcoming week is to see if I cannot bring my focus back to where it should be. I want to get in at least 25 miles of walking, and to keep my points down below 50, and my weight down inside my target range. It has been a while since I have seen a daily number below 185.0 and I would like to get some of them posted this week. We’ll see.

In the meantime, it is another week OP completed, and my records of no weekly weigh-ins above 187.0, and no daily weigh-ins above 190.0 are still intact from 2001. That means a lot to me, and I want to see if I cannot work up a little space between what I weigh, and those upper limit numbers.

3 years, 361 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/187.0/180±2/BMI:23.37/WK-208

GRAPHS:

Weight Loss Maintenance Year 1 Maintenance Year 2 Maintenance Year 3 Maintenance Year 4 2005 Walking 2005 Walking Data

2004 Walking Data