Week 286 Update

This week was very consistent. My weight this morning was 199.0 and my average weight for the week was 199.07. Of the last 8 days, 5 of them I weighed 199.0 and I never deviated more than one pound either way for any of my morning weigh-ins.

My points jumped around a bit more than that, as they always do. But they were not all that eccentric either. They only ranged from 40.5 for my high point day, down to 31.5, and I had 5 of the 7 days land within 2 points of 38.5 points. And the ones that missed, missed low, bringing my average for points-per-day down to 37.5.

The only placed that I feel like missed this week was on my exercise. This is my weak spot, and I have to find a solution to it. I am reminded of the fact that my maternal grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 57, only 2 years older than I am right now. I am sure that I got my height from him (he was 6' 2" just like LeRoy is), because none of my other known ancestors were that tall. So, I might have inherited his heart design as well. At least to my mind, that means that exercise is important for me, along with monitoring my cholesterol.

But overall, I would rate this week as a success on the weight control front. Wednesday was a sort of milestone on my journey, it marked day number 2000 for me! I have my journal books that go back to the start, and they include 2000 days of eating, exercise and water, as well as every weigh-in for all of those days. Two thousand days of a journey that will never be over, as long as I live. It is a good start. J

I spent a lot of time at the computer this week, and I got a lot done on my major project. Saturday was my most productive day, followed closely by Sunday, but right up through Wednesday I got in a lot of hours and made some real headway.

Tuesday, Dotti was back in the TV room working on her laptop, and I was typing away at my computer in our office, when the doorbell rang. "Who could that be?" I asked myself. I open the door and there were two small creatures: a witch and a Jedi knight. "What on earth?" I thought. "Trick or treat!" they replied as if in answer to my unspoken question.

It was Halloween, and the fun had already started without us! I couldn't believe that it was so late in the day that the kids were already out. But the sun was down! Fortunately Dotti had put out our candy earlier in the day, so I was able to grab some and hand to the kids, before running back and telling Dotti that the kids were out already.

Soon, Dotti and I were in our costumes. (I had put on my flannel shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy hat for a temporary costume, while Dotti got on her witch's costume. And then after she was dressed, I put on my grim reaper costume.)

We had purchased two CDs with Halloween noises for this occasion and I had one playing out in the garage on our boom box that we have set up for our exercise equipment and the other CD was playing on my computer in our office near the front door. I opened the garage door about 8 inches so the sound could come out from underneath it, and turned the garage light off so it was pitch black inside. The trick or treaters had to walk past that dark partly opened garage door to get to our front door.

By the time that Dotti opened the front door with her witch's costume on, the poor kids had already been hearing the spooky sounds, but now they were greeted with even more of the sounds which were pouring out the front door, and they were looking Dotti's scary mask. I saw on kid, who was dressed in a devil's outfit, turn around before he even made it onto the walkway to our door.

One group of kids came and they were pretty scared by Dotti's mask. So she lifted her mask so the kids could see that it wasn't real, but the one in the back all at once spied my glowing mask and she freaked out. I felt sorry for because she cried out in terror and pointed at my mask and was ready to bolt in fear for her life. Her parents held there but she was very afraid.

Later on we went through a period of about 45 minutes when nobody came, and so we thought it was over. We took off our costumes and then a while later we got another rash of kids. They missed out on the sounds and costumes, but they got candy anyway. J

Thursday was an odd day for me. It was going to be a "weekend day" for us, because Dotti had to go to the doctor's office first thing in the morning, and we had some shopping to take care of. Wednesday night we both got really tired about 7PM, so we went bed. I woke up just after midnight, and was wide awake. So, I got up and worked for about 5 hours, and then went back to bed at 5:00 a.m. for 3 more hours of sleep. It ended up working pretty well, and I got in 5 hours of work that I didn't expect to have a chance to do. Talk about flex hours. J

When we went set out for the doctor's office it was raining. Early in the rainy season, Portland and Vancouver drivers don't do any better on a wet road than would someone raised in Death Valley, and who had never driven anywhere else. We left 45 minutes before the appointment, knowing that we normally only take about 20 minutes to get there. By 09:00 we were still on the Vancouver side of Columbia River and trying to get onto the freeway. Dotti called the doctor's office about 08:30 to tell them that we couldn't possibly be on time, and they said we could have an appointment at 9:30 instead of 8:45. We just barely made 9:30, but then they didn't see Dotti until after 10 a.m. so we might as well not hurried once we finally broke free of traffic.

After the appointment, we went down to Clackamas Town Center, the largest mall in the Portland area. We hadn't been there in quite a while. We walked into an entrance into JC Penney's in order to get into the mall. We immediately were treated to a major Christmas display, but were at the same time confronted with the now absolutely essential lack of the actual word Christmas on any of the signs. It appears that we are gearing for yet another battle against the Christmas Season while hypocritically raking in money from that very season by the usual list of suspects. Whether these store are too weak-kneed to stand up to the anti-Christmas brigade or actual members of it really doesn't matter. The results are the same.

We had a nice time walking through some of the stores, and Dotti even found us an All American Ice Cream counter where we got a nice cone!

Friday there was a rummage sale going on a Portland's Expo center, and we had had it on our calendar for some time, and that is where I second weekend day started. After going through the various areas of the sale, and picking up a few items, we wandered over to Jansen Beach to look into getting some software at Comp USA. We found what we needed and made it back home after stopping at Taco Bell for dinner.

Another week is in the books. I hope that I can improve my exercise soon, but other than that I felt I had a pretty good week on program.

5 years, 177 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3"/239.5/199.0/180±2/BMI:24.87/WK-286