Week 253 Update

I woke up this morning with great anticipation: Today is Dotti's Teleseminar with Dr. Roberta—a live Internet broadcast discussion on weight loss.

It was 06:40 when I stepped upon Mr. Scale, and he said, "187.5 pounds!" That is a pound and a half down from last week, and getting close to my target range, only a half pound over it. J

Before I get into my journey for this week, I have to talk about what Dotti is doing. First off, she lost another half pound this week. That is now 29 pounds that she has dropped from her peak of 223 pounds. (That was still 22 pounds below where she started her 1997-98 journey.) For 19 straight weeks she has dropped one-half pound like clockwork. She is right on track and doing awesome!!!

As always, you can follow her progress at her Dotti's Return to Goal page.

But as cool as that is, that is not the big Dotti story this week! The Teleseminar is the thing that is catching the spotlight in our house today. J If you missed it live, and would like to listen, it will be available for a limited time at Dotti & Dr. Roberta Teleseminar. It is definitely worth checking out! Dotti did great!!! I couldn't be more proud of Dotti!!!

This morning was about 36° when I got up, and there was no threat of rain. That was nice change of pace after last night's downpour of hail and rail.

This was another week right on program for me, and I was happy to see that the scale agreed with that assessment. J

Here is how my week went:

Saturday - I weighed in at 189.0 pounds. I was feeling pretty bad. If it had of been a work day, I might have gone to the doctor's office to be checked out. My walk on Thursday apparently did something to my back or abdomen, because I was in a lot of pain and had to really take it easy all day long. I have been fighting with this problem for a couple of years now, but this was worse because I had been doing no walking and then jumped right in walked 2.5 miles quickly. Not smart.

I couldn't sit at the computer much either. I just relaxed for the day. It helped, fortunately.

I ended up only eating 34.0 points for the day.

Sunday - I weighed in at 188.5 pounds. That was pretty good, since I had some popcorn the night before, and that moved my sodium level a bit.

I was feeling a little better on Sunday, but not completely back to 100%. It was frustrating being down for the count this weekend, because we had the E-Letter deadline coming up on Wednesday. I needed to finish up my article, and I couldn't work on it. Fortunately, at the end of the day, I was feeling like going to work would be okay the next morning.

I ate 33.0 points for the day.

Monday - I weighed in at 190.0 pounds. I am not sure what bumped me on the scale, but I knew it wasn't eating too much that did it. J Also, I was happy to see that my weight was not above my personal goal weight!

I did find the time to finish up my article during the day, and that made me feel a lot better. Work wasn't too busy, and didn't strain my complaining body to much.

Shortly after I got home from work LeRoy showed up for a visit, and we all went out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. I held my dinner down to 10.5 points, and still had plenty to eat. J

My total points for the day turned out to be 38.5 points.

Tuesday - I weighed in at 188.5 pounds. That is still not as low as I would like, but at least it is below my personal goal weight, and that is important to me.

In the evening we put most of the E-Letter together, but it wasn't quite ready to ship. So, we decided to put it off until Wednesday, since that is the actual promised ship date.

LeRoy had brought some steaks with him when he came down. So, the three of us had a great dinner, and it was only 12.0 points, thanks to Dotti's skills at keeping the points low, while creating a great meal. J

I ate 38.0 points for the day.

Wednesday - I weighed in at 189.0 pounds. After the good dinner the night before, this was not too tough to take.

I was feeling much better, and I was busy at work, making the day go by quickly.

In the evening we visited with LeRoy, until he headed back home.

I ate 39.0 points for the day.

Thursday - I weighed in at 188.0 pounds.

On the road, I have been listening to the unabridged audio books of The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis. (I am on the last one The Last Battle.) Lewis was truly a genius. He was writing for children, but he still created very interesting characters, and stories, and his powers of description are wonderful. These are the best fantasy stories that I have ever read for children. (I have read all six of the Harry Potter books that have been published, and I still stand by that assessment.)

The world of Narnia is just as varied and interesting as his friend JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings world, but his books were written for a younger audience.

As he has done in his many other works, Lewis has underlain his entire series of Narnia books with Christian symbolism. Aslan the Lion represents Christ himself, and he is always just under the surface of all the stories, when not directly participating. These are clearly Christian books, and I wonder how the Hollywood crowd, as they make the Narnia movies, will deal with this subject that they seem to find so troubling generally. The first movie is out (covering the second book of the series: The Lion [Aslan or Christ], the Witch, and the Wardrobe) but I haven't seen it yet. I will be interested in how it is handled, and whether or not it will be "sanitized" of its "troubling" elements.

I had light dinner and ended up eating 37.5 points for the day.

Friday - I weighed in at 187.5 pounds. That was nice to see! Even though it was a half pound above my target range, it was nice seeing the 187 part of the number. J I am definitely heading in the right direction.

I was going all day long at work, but it made day go by very quickly, which is great on a Friday (especially on a week where I don’t have the pagerJ).

Dotti cooked up a nice dinner when I got home and it only cost me 7.5 points!

I was feeling very tired all evening, and when I finally made it into bed, it really felt good to finally be able to just relax and head off into sleep.

I ate 36.0 points for the day, and that led to my 187.5 pounds weigh-in this morning.

How do I rate this week?

Very good! I felt very much on track.

Eating – I not only kept my points at or below 40 points each day, but I never ate more than 39.0 points on any day. I averaged 36.57 points-per-day for the week. That was right on track and it paid off on the scale.

Weight – I not only dropped a pound and a half on my weekly weigh-in, but I dropped 1.43 on my average weight as well! That means that my weight is really falling. J

Water – I did pretty good on my water this week. I only got in 5 cups on Monday, but I was at or above my goal range of 6 to 8 cups per day. I averaged 7.4 cups (59.43 oz.) per day, and this just fine.

Exercise –This is still a tough nut for me to crack. I spent this week trying to recover from the results of last week's walk.

4 years, 311 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3"/239.5/187.5/180±2/BMI:23.44/WK-253