Week 238 Update

It was a cold 35° and 06:10 when I stepped on Mr. Scale. He said, "187.0 pounds!"

Normally, I feel upset a bit when I weigh-in at 187.0. That is right at the top of my range, and it means that I need to work my weight back down again. But this time, I am happy to see it. J

Last week, every one of my weigh-ins was over the upper limit of my target range. The week before, 5 of my 7 daily weigh-ins were over that limit. The week before that, 2 of my weigh-ins were above my upper limit. I have to go back to the week of Halloween before I have one where all my weigh-ins were in my target range. This is a trend that I am not happy with, and one that I hope to rectify.

This week was one of recovery. I started off weighing well up on the scale, and spent the entire week working it back down again. Starting on Monday, I was very careful with what I was eating. The scale responded in a positive way, just like it had responded in a negative way before, when I neglected my eating guidelines. The laws of physics are unforgiving, but they are also predictable.

Dotti remained right on track this week. As soon as we got home, she returned to her daily treadmill routine as if we had never left. She has her journal going every day, and she remains right on track!

You can continue to follow her progress at her Dotti's Return to Goal page.

Saturday - I weighed in at 188.5 pounds.

I was pretty upset with myself for that weigh-in. It broke a string of nearly 4 years of good weigh-ins, at or below the upper limit of my target range: 187.0. Of course I had fallen below my range before, and that means that this was not the first time I had moved out of my range, but it was the first time moving above it.

During the week I had come very close to moving upwards past my personal goal, and that would have upset me even more. Fortunately—and it was fortune alone that prevented it—I did not cross that line.

We were in Spokane to start the day, and, after loading up the car, we said our goodbyes to our dear friends Jim and Tammy, as well as to their daughters Misty and Jamie, and of course to Jamie's new little baby son, our grandson: Hunter. We always hate getting to that time of goodbyes, and soon we were on our way.

The weather report had said that we might be looking at several inches of snow. On Friday night we had given some thought to leaving that night to beat the snow. But it was fairly late already, and would have been pushing the safety factor to start a 6-hour drive that late. So, we waited for morning, trusting in Spokane's snow plows and our studded snow tires to bring us through.

As it turned out, we saw very little snow, and none on the roads we drove on. The rolling hills were dusted beside the highway, but that was just added beauty, and we were very happy that we had waited. We were well rested and even after the drive we felt pretty good. (Quite an improvement over what the drive up had been!)

We stopped for lunch at Taco Bell. I ordered 2 tostadas and a bean burrito, but they messed up the order a bit and gave me 2 burritos. I ended up eating one tostada (4.5 points) and one burrito (6.0 points) and left the duplicate remainder for dinner. When we got home, the microwave returned the burrito very closely the exact same condition it was in when we first received it, and the tostada was still good, though the cheese was melted in by the RF microwave energy.

Alas, I had snacked on the road, and my appetite had been conditioned to expect more than it should have by my last few weeks of straying. By the end of the day I had eaten 58.5 points. Clearly I still hadn't learned my lesson.

Sunday - I weighed 188.0 pounds.

I was down a half pound from Saturday. That was probably because our scale that we take on the road with us, normally reads a half-pound high. It surely was not an indication of good eating choices for Saturday!

The Sunday after our Spokane trips always is filled with things that we had put off doing for a week, and it is a transition day, sandwiched between the heavenly association with dear friends and family, to the base and common world of working for a living.

I was able to do better on my eating than I had done on Saturday, but I still was not in control. I snacked on cookies and candy bars on top of eating 29.0 points for my meals. Fortunately the snacks were not terribly high in points, but they still added up. I held it below 50 points, but just barely!

I ended up eating 49.5 points on Sunday. If I didn't wake up soon, I was going to go cruising off into the stratosphere, where I used to live full time. (I know how fast I can make 240 pounds from where I am now!)

Monday - I weighed 190.0 pounds.

Okay, that finally did it! I was right at my personal goal once again. Either I was going to find the beam and track it back into my target range, or I was going to spin off into places I don't want to be. Suddenly, I felt very motivated.

It was back to work, and I was happy that it was a fairly quiet day. I did try to start up my walking again. I arrived early enough in the morning to walk 1.5 miles, and I felt pretty good afterwards. At lunch I decided to try the 3.17-mile loop that I hadn't done in quite some time. It was very pleasant, and after 4.57 miles of walking for the day, I thought I wasn't doing too badly.

At home I ate conservatively, and managed to keep my total points for the day down to 38.5 points. Much better!

Tuesday - I weighed 189.0 pounds.

At least it was move in the right direction. I couldn't find it in my heart to celebrate such a high number, but at least I avoided the grief that an increase would have given me. I was a bit worried because I had walked the day before, and that often causes me to hold on to some water weight. That could have pushed me up on the scale at time where I had no room to go up. But it didn't and I was happy with that.

I got out the door even earlier on Tuesday and did a 3.17-mile walk before work. Later on, at lunch, I did another 2.06 miles. At the end of that walk—actually all the way through it—I was feeling really tired. I felt like I had pushed it a little too hard.

I took Dotti to Sweet Tomatoes when I got home from work. With company like that, no meal can be anything other than perfect! I ended up eating 11.5 points for dinner, and that brought my total for meals for the day up to 24.0 points. I added another 13.0 points in snacking, and brought my total to 37.0 points on Tuesday.

Wednesday - I weighed 188.5 pounds.

That was another plodding step in the right direction. My belated efforts were paying off. I just had to keep doing what I had already been doing, and I would be okay.

I was very sore and tired when I woke up, and so I decided to take a rest from walking. After a quiet day at work, I made the drive home once more. The roads have been wet of late, and for the most part, the Portland drivers are finally getting their wits about them on how to deal with rain falling on their roads. (It is frankly unbelievable seeing how devastating it is when the rain finally sets in after the dry summer. Every freeway in town has an accident on it the first day, and it takes weeks for things to settle down into the relatively accident-free pattern that should have been there right away.)

However, on this night, my drive home took over 2 hours. I came up to I-5, where I normally drive across the Columbia River, but the onramp was more backed up than I had ever seen it before. So, I continued on over to I-205, my alternate route. Unfortunately, it was a problem on I-205 that had caused the backup on I-5, as people were taking an alternate route to avoid it. (One downside to listening to audio books on the road rather than the predominately superficial, if not outright pernicious, material provided on the radio, is that I miss traffic reports. This time I would have probably arrived home a few minutes earlier if I had remained with I-5.)

After a couple of odd twists and turns in my "flight plan" I finally made it onto I-205. The actual source of congestion was completely off the road at this time, and all the lanes were open, however, people are rubberneckers at heart and the slowdown was just as bad as if one of the lanes was still blocked. There was a mobile (modular in the common vernacular today) home, or at least part of it, up on blocks in the left breakdown lane on the Glenn Jackson Bridge. I am not sure what happened, but clearly the home was off its wheels, whatever form they originally took. A quick glance told me that the structure did not seem to be broken up, and perhaps was saved entirely. I didn't study it very closely, as I was intent on finally getting into a moving stream of traffic for a very pleasant change of pace.

Dotti had a nice meal for me when I got home, and we settled in for a nice evening.

When all my points were totaled for the day, I had eaten 39.5 points. The third day in a row where I ate less than 40 points.

Thursday - I weighed 188.0 pounds.

Here was yet another small step in the right direction. What a surprise: If I work the program, the program works for me. J

This was the first day of December. Christmas is coming up fast! This is my favorite time of year, and I love seeing the houses all decorated in Christmas lights. With the early sunset (around 4:30 PM) I am driving home in the dark, and I get to see the beautiful lights on the way. J

The weatherman had predicted snow for Thursday, but I only saw a few flakes as I drove over the Sylvan Hill (at 750 feet above sea level, it's the highest point on my drive into work). Even there, none were sticking, because the air temp was above freezing.

Since we put on studded snow tires, this is the second time that the weatherman had predicted that we would need them, but both times fizzled out. That's okay though. If it doesn't snow enough to shut down the roads, it might as well not bother doing so at all, when I have to drive in it. J

I still didn't feel like walking. I need to go at it slower, and maybe that would work better.

I had a project to do at work. It was something that should have taken 30 minutes, but because of the way the physical layout of the unit was designed, it took a couple of hours. (I had to replace two printed circuit cards. But they were buried beneath a bank of solenoids, as well as each other, so deeply that it became far more time consuming that it should have had to be. C'est la vie.) The good side to that is that it makes the time go by in a hurry.

The drive home was much better on Thursday, and I was home at my normal time. I was feeling good about the scale moving downward, and so I ate a light dinner, and by the end of the day I had only eaten 38.5 points. That was another day added to the string of below-40-points days.

Friday - I weighed 187.0 pounds.

"Yes!" I said it out loud when I saw that number on the scale. I was "back home" and it felt very good indeed. And it wasn't too soon either, because this was Friday, the day before weigh-in. I knew that all I had to do was to eat light, and I would be okay for Saturday.

At work I was busy all morning, working in an awkward position. In the afternoon by back was giving me a lot of pain. That lasted for the rest of the day, including my drive home and throughout the evening. (Fortunately, this morning [Saturday] it is feeling a little better.)

I was very careful on my eating for the day and I only consumed 27.5 points on Friday. While I didn't show a loss from Friday's weigh-in, I was at 187.0 this morning, and that put me back in my target range!

How do I rate this week? A nice recovery. I started off on shaky ground, but I ended up finishing strong.

Eating – I averaged 41.29 points-per-day. Last week I averaged 47.79 points-per-day. That means that I ate a total of 289.0 points this week, as opposed to the 334.5 points I ate last week. That is a difference of 45.5 points. That should have created a change of just over a half pound of weight. But that is what maintenance is filled with: adventure and a great deal of trial and error. In any case, I definitely ate better this week, and the scale agreed with my assessment.

Weight – My weigh-in weight was within my target range, and so that was very good. I am very happy to see it. However, my average weight was 188.21 and that was too high. Last week my average weight was 188.86. So, using my averages, I dropped 0.65 pounds this week. And here we have a much closer correlation between what I ate and what I weighed. I ate 45.5 points less this week, which should represent about 0.65 pounds. (Interestingly, 45.5 points divided by 70 points-per-pound equals 0.65 pounds. J)

Water – I did better on water this week. My lowest day was Tuesday when I only drank 6 cups. I did better on each of the other days this week. I averaged 64 ounces (8.0 cups) per day, right at the top of my minimum goal of drinking 6 to 8 cups per day. Very good!

Exercise – I tried, and that is best that I can say for it. I walked 9.90 miles, and that is something, but I paid a price for it. I need to take a more rational approach to it. NEEDS MORE WORK.

BOOKS – Things are looking up on the book front for me. I got my Cybook E-Book reader just before we went to Spokane. I didn't get to do much with it up there but I have been using it since I got home. With all of the titles available on the Internet for free, this is like being given the keys to the Library of Congress. J

Just for fun I read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I knew all the characters and most of the story, from movies about it, but it was fun actually seeing the entire story as originally written. I read the Pilgrim's Progress as an E-Book and it was very easy to do. (It had been years since I had read it last.)

I am nearly finished with Tarzan of the Apes. One of my roommates at high school (it was a boarding school), the one who actually first taught me how the pieces moved in chess, raved about the Tarzan books. Now, 47 years after first hearing about them, I am finally reading one, and am getting close to finishing it. It has turned out to be much better than I expected, and I will probably read more of the series.

There are many books that I have on my bookshelf right now that I have not gotten around to reading, that I will probably be reading as E-Books. I never much enjoyed reading books on a computer before (I read Robinson Crusoe that way, but it felt cumbersome), but now I can "curl up" with an E-Book just like a real book it is far more appealing. I can set the contrast, font size and turn the pages quickly and easily with a click of a button. I like it!

On the audio book side, I just finished Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy. I could spend days going over the various ethical questions that book raised, and the ominous implications for the future that were buried beneath its surface. Many of which I doubt even Tom Clancy was thinking of. But I won't. J

For me, I find that I am far more in touch with the older works than the ones that are running the best seller lists of today. Not perfectly in touch mind you, but just more in touch. The free expression of ideas, without a politically correct publisher in the way of publication, is quite refreshing. I am looking forward to all that which awaits me in the world of E-Books.

Another week comes to a close, and its time to start a new one.

4 years, 206 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/187.0/180±2/BMI:23.37/WK-238

GRAPHS:

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

2004 Walking Data