Week 337 Update

I weighed in at 198.5 pounds this morning at 6:45.

It was a good week on the scale, with my numbers remaining below 200 all week. The Weight Commander has continued to help hold my focus as I put in my weight each day.

I was greeted with a red block as soon as I put in my weight for today, with a warning that I had reversed my trend, and instead of losing, I was now on a gaining trend. If I were overweight and trying to lose, this would be a great reminder that I needed to stop and evaluate what I was doing, and to make adjustments. Or as the Weight Commander suggested, "Eat less, exercise more."

I took the Weight Commander control panel screen and put it into Paint and drew in a line for where my target weight is on the graph, and it brings everything into perspective. Since I am maintaining and not losing, the trend is not important, as long as my weight remains in my target range. The Black squares show the running weight average, and the black square is right on the Target Weight line this morning.

When I looked at the "Future" prediction graph, it shows a gradual trend up towards 204 pounds. It suggests that if I continue on my present course, I will be over 200 by thanksgiving. (As it turns out, that is interesting, because Dotti is aiming at being under 200 by Thanksgiving, and if she continues doing all the things that she is doing right now, I am convinced she will make it!) While, I may bounce around a bit from day to day and week to week, the main graph on the control panel shows that since I started using the Weight Commander, my weight has dropped steadily down into my target range, and has only started to trend up after I went below my target weight. If I am going to maintain, I will have to do that when I fall below my target weight. I am really happy with the way the Weight Commander has helped me turn things around!

On Saturday I went over on my points slightly (I consider 46.0 points to be my upper limit, but I aim to hold it below 40.0 generally), because I was down on the scale to 195.0 and threatening to drop right under the bottom of my target range. I also was feeling hungrier that I had in a while and felt like I needed to make a change in my eating towards more food. I had been in a "weight loss mode" for some time, thanks to my weight creeping up earlier, but now the job was done, and I needed to make a correction.

The place where I applied the most upwards pressure was in my snacking, by having a special treat that I haven't had in a while: peanut butter toast! It wasn't toast really. I merely put some I Can't Believe it's Not Butter on 4 slices of bread, and then put a layer of peanut butter over that, and then put the whole thing into the microwave for 25 seconds or so. Out came some hot, soft, and delicious bread that put my taste buds into ecstasy and my points total up by 12.0 points. It was indeed points well spent; it was healthier than eating cheesecake, or some other sweet treat, and for me, it was just as delightful. I have always loved peanut butter.

Even though we went out to eat at Catedral Tapatia, a local Mexican Food restaurant, with our friends Carole and Ralph from Canada, I only ate 12 points for that meal and my total points for meals was under my normal upper limit of 30.0 points for the day. If you take away the 12 points for the PB bread, I was at 36 points for the day. So, I had one treat, but otherwise ate in control for the day.

For the rest of the week I was below the 46-point upper limit, and the only other day I was over 40 points was on Thursday. It was the only other day when I was also hungry beyond what I would have expected. At dinner I had a 6-inch sub sandwich, as I normally do. I also had 3-points of chips. That would have usually been my entire meal. But not on Thursday. I felt like I needed more calories. I was below my target weight of 197.5 by half a pound, and for whatever reason, I really wanted more food. So, I had a bowl of Weight Watchers cereal and skim milk for an added 8 points. Still my meals for the day only came to 33.0 points, and it was the 4.5 points worth of bananas that I had in my snacks that finally pushed me over the 40 point threshold for the day. I averaged 38.14 points-per-day for the week, and I would normally consider that to be right on track to maintain where I am at right now.