Week 213 Update

It was 05:05 when I stepped up on Mr. Scale this morning and he said, "185.0 pounds!" It was right on the money this week; the first time since January 22.

This has been a challenging week for my exercise. My left foot has been having a little pain/discomfort for a while, but this week it reached the point where I had to take a break. I think it may have been my walking shoes, because the arch on the left foot just didn't feel right. I put on my older pair of shoes and they felt much better. I didn't do any walking after Monday, to try and give everything a chance to heal up. I will see if I can get back on track this week.

Also, I think that I am going to back off on the number of miles that I am doing, and hold to my original goal of 1,300 miles (and average of 25 miles per week, or 3.56 miles per day). I don't need any more than that for fitness, and fitness is why I am walking.

Here is how the week went…

Saturday - I weighed in at 184.0 pounds. We originally had planned to do a hike on Saturday, but we both had a lot of stuff to get done on our computers. So, we took a week off from the hiking club to catch up.

At lunch time we decided to take a walk to Sweet Tomatoes. We did the longer route in both directions this time (2.08 miles) to give us 4.16 miles for the round trip. I ended up eating 15.0 points, having added in some cottage cheese and a little pudding to my normal choices.

Dotti has a machine that she got from Starbucks that makes foamed milk, and hot coffee delights, and the 2-point Dotti Latte has become quite popular in our house of late. J She has gotten very good at making them, and I don't miss Starbucks at all when I have one of her concoctions in hand.

In the evening, in addition to the Dotti Latte, I had a fairly light meal and finished off the day with 45.0 points.

Sunday - I still was sitting at 184.0 pounds. Once again Dotti and I were working on our computers during the morning, but we took a break in the afternoon, and we walked to Jamba Juice (1.5 miles exactly) where I got a 7.0 point strawberry frozen drink. Dotti and I took our drinks in hand and headed off for Border Books (another 1.63 miles), where we browsed the tomes and picked up a couple of items. Then we walked to our favorite diner (0.24 miles), where I had a large meal. The mix of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, salad, broccoli and melted cheese, and corn bread always reminds me of home cooking from my childhood days. I now have the cheese, gravy, and salad dressing on the side, which saves me many, many points in the long run, and allows me to occasionally have a chocolate shake, which I did. J It was a 31.0 point meal by the time that I was finished. My other meals for the day had not been too extravagant, and I only had 7.5 points in snacks for the day, so my total points came to 53.5 at day's end, about 8.5 points higher than I normally shoot for.

From the diner we walked back home (1.25 miles) to finish off our 4.62 miles for the day.

Monday - I was 185.0 pounds on Monday. I walked 3.17 miles before work. In the afternoon I was called over to another customer site on the east side of town. I always love it when that happens, because my drive home is only about a third as long in driving time coming from that side! Also, Dotti was over in that area doing some shopping anyway, so after work we met at the Costco there, and had a Very Berry Sundae. It is 6.0 points but well worth it!

After my 19.5 dinner at home, my total points for the day were 42.0.

Tuesday - I weighed 185.5 pounds. As I mentioned above, my left foot was bothering me, and so didn't do any more walking for the rest of the week, to give it a chance to heal up.

I spent the day at the east side customer site once more. J At the end of the day, their machine was up and running and everyone was happy, especially me, because I got to arrive home earlier than normal!

I had a light dinner and finished off the day with 40.0 points total. Because of the way I finished off last week, with low points the final few days of the week, even after my 53.5-point Sunday, my 7-day points-per-day average was only 39.64.

Wednesday - I weighed 186.5. Considering my points intake, I knew that I had not suddenly jumped up a couple of pounds in fat weight, so I was not concerned. Fluctuations can't be helped, because things other than fat can move the scale around quite a bit.

I let Dotti sleep in this morning because I didn't need to have my lunch made today. The regional manager for our company was in town and we were going to have an office meeting, with the office paying for the lunch. Normally, I don't find their choices all that great for office lunches, but they asked me on Tuesday what sort of sub sandwich I would like. Awesome! It came from a sub shop (Big Town Hero) that I have not been to before, but it was a pretty good 8-inch turkey sub sandwich, and I estimated it at 10.0 points. Considering what our office meals are usually like, this was very good!

Of course, I have a problem with the company taking my time to run their meeting on, even if they do supply the meal. But what are you going to do?

Dotti made a nice little meal when I got home (12.0 points) and I ended the day having eaten 41.0 points total.

Thursday - I weighed 186.0 pounds. I was back to my normal customer site for work, and had a busy morning. At one point a water line popped loose in a machine, and sprayed me pretty good. My "bunny suit" got soaked and my cloths underneath were damp, but they dried fairly soon. The most troubling part was the fact that some circuit board got sprayed quite a bit as well. We killed power and I took things all apart and dried them off completely. In the end it all came back up and ran fine. (Whew!)

We went to Sharis for dinner, and I ended up with 21.5 points for the meal. Half a patty melt (12.0 pts.) was where the bulk of the points came from, but it was tasty. And the Chicken noodle soup was excellent! At the end of the day, I had eaten 51.0 points.

Friday - I weighed 186.0 pounds when I got up. Again I was not worried about the extra pound, because I knew I was not out of control with my eating. Over the previous 7 days, I had averaged 43.71 points, and that was not going to make me gain weight.

I had a fairly quiet day at work, and spent the evening finishing up a hike from 2004 on the CFHC page: Silver Falls 9/25/04. It was a fun hike and we had lots of pictures from it, but I had just never gotten around to putting them up. Dotti would remind me from time to time, and I finally got a "round tuit." J

At the end of the day, I had eaten 34.0 points, which led to my weigh-in of 185.0 pounds this morning.

How did this week go?

I am fairly happy with this week.

For my eating, I averaged a comfortable 43.79 points-per-day. That is a couple points below my normal maintenance level but it is close.

My weight went no higher than 186.5, and averaged 185.43, less than a half pound over my target weight. I will take that any week I can get it!

I actually did better than I thought I had on my water this week. I drank at least 6 cups every day, and that is my real goal. I averaged 56.00 ounces (7 cups) of water per day. I am very happy with that.

On the exercise front I did a slowdown, but I am still in great shape for hitting my year's goal of 1,300 miles. I am over 80 miles ahead of where I need to be in order to average 25 miles per week. I still have 658 miles to go but I have six full months and most of June left, to do it in. I have still averaged 4.09 miles per day over the entire year, and I only need to average 3.16 miles per day for the rest of the way to hit my goal. If I continued on at a 4.09 miles-per-day pace I would almost hit 1,500 miles for the year. It is time to slow down a bit for the hard walking days of summer and then I can pick it back up again when the good walking weather comes back in fall. All in all, I am very happy with how my exercise has gone this year!

For the week, I was short on miles, only walking 11.95, and on aerobic points, only earning 20.86, but it was also a chance to rest up and heal. I feel really good, and this week I had a very good indication of how much better my conditioning is. I spent a day of working on a problem where I had to get down on the floor and back up numerous times, and effectively doing leg squats over and over again. When the day was over, I was not excessively tired, and the next day I was not sore. I felt really good the entire time. That same process would have left me feeling quite worn out and sore before I started my walking program! I am excited about that improvement!

Over my entire journey, since day one, when I was 239.5 pounds and looking to start losing, right up through yesterday, I have averaged eating 42.3 points-per-day and my weight has averaged 188.2 pounds. My average points-per-day are still moving upwards, and my average weight is still moving downwards, but the motion is very slow now, because the averages are approaching where I actually am at right now. The points average is less than 4 points off my normal maintenance value of 46, and the weight average is only 3.2 pounds off from my target weight, and it is 1.8 pounds below my personal goal weight! That means for 1491 days of my journey my weight has averaged being below my personal goal, even though that data includes several months of being well above my personal goal.

I think that my greatest danger at this point is losing focus, and growing complacent. I cannot afford to fool myself into believing that I have this thing all figured out, and so I don't need to journal and track what I am doing any more. That would lead to disaster sooner or later. Either I stay with it, or I will put on weight. There is no other option.

4 years, 31 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.0/180±2/BMI:23.12/WK-213

GRAPHS:

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

2004 Walking Data