Week 339 Update

I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 05:17 this morning and he responded with, "200.0 pounds!"

This week I was up from last week. I even had one day where my daily weigh-in slipped up to 200.5, which is out of my target range. This means that I have to watch what I am doing much closer this week if I don't want to have another excursion up out of my normal range.

The Weight Commander graph shows that since around October 10, I have been tending to move upwards on my weigh-ins. It is a gradual increase but a real one. Throughout my maintenance journey I have found that the process is like driving my car while looking out at the horizon. I tend to hold a steady path more or less, but I have to make corrections on the wheel as the car drifts a bit left of right. My weigh-ins are seldom exactly the same from day to day, and even weekly trends seem to move back and forth. Right now I have just hit the raised reflectors on the white line and I need to make a correction to pull myself back into my lane.

As you can see in the Weight Commander Future graph, if I continue on my present course uncorrected, I can expect to be back up to 210 by Valentine's Day. Of course that supposes that I will not make a correction and get back on track starting now. My weekly weigh-in squeaked in under the wire to hold me in my target range, and my average weight for the week was below my upper limit of 200 at 199.57. This week was okay, but it was borderline, and I need to pay better attention this next week.

I played around with my weekly maintenance graph and drew lines from various points in the past through today's weight, to see where the various projection lines would take me over the next 90 days or 13 weeks. It was quite interesting actually. I came up with a very wide range of projected weights, depending upon which starting point I took. As with the Weight Commander's future graph, as I got closer to the present with my starting reference point, the projected weight tended to be higher.

The good news is that I can turn all of the projections around by simply paying close attention and dropping back down 2 or 3 pounds. I am still in my target range after all. The point of looking at these graphs is to give me a warning before it is actually a serious problem, and allow me to correct without ever actually crossing the white line. So, my task lies before me!

The next couple of weekly weigh-ins are going to be on our travel scale and I probably won't have the weight commander with me. (Right now I don't have it installed on my laptop.) But I will catch up the data when I get back.

My average points-per-day came to 40.71. Monday I was below that average by 2.2 points, and Thursday I was above it by 3.3 points. Other than those two days (which average only 0.55 points when taken together), I never was off the average by more than 1.2 points on any given day. In other words, I ate very consistently all week long.

My average weight for the last 14 days is 198.82 and my average points-per-day over that same period of time was 38.00. Since I started keeping track of my points again in March, I have dropped 8.5 pounds while eating an average of 39.00 points-per-day. So, right now, it appears that eating 39 points is below what I need to maintain my current weight, and 40.71 is too high. That should put my target points-per-day at around 40.0 points. Although I didn't do great hitting it, I normally do try to aim for under 40 points each day. This data seems to support that target. So, I will need to work harder at holding my points below 40 for the time being and monitor the results.

I only got out and walked twice this week. Last Saturday I walked around our 3.1 mile loop near our house, and then on Tuesday, Dotti and I walked to Wall Mart, for a 5.0-mile round trip walk. That came to 8.1 miles for the week. I really need to do better than that.

I got some really good news on my cholesterol results from the blood test we did last week. Before my total cholesterol had been sitting just at the upper limit of acceptable, but my HDL was way too low, and my LDL was well over the upper limit of acceptable. So, my doctor put me on a medication to correct this problem, since I don't eat much cholesterol in my diet, and there was nothing to correct there. (My mom is a strict vegetarian and eats almost zero cholesterol from day to day and she has the same problem, as does all of her sisters.) When I got my numbers back this week, everything was right where it should be. My doctor described of my numbers as "perfect." So, the medication worked very well indeed. Sadly it is a correction that has to be continually applied, and you normally never can get off of this med once you are on it. But even so, it is better than a heart attack, stroke, or bypass surgery.

The flu shots have pretty well worn off. Dotti seemed to be hit by it harder than I was but neither of us felt really great for a few days after the shots. Hopefully that minor inconvenience will hold off a major one later on when the flu comes around.

Looking back over the week I can't see anything that was horribly out of line in my eating. I had a lot of bananas this week, and they can tend to stay with you, and last night I had Taco Bell for dinner, and that nearly always moves the scale up for me the next day. So, since the scale actually dropped this morning by a half pound from yesterday, I was probably up on water weight Friday, and it was not a real reading as far as a fat gain. Thursday I ate some cheese and peanut butter toast, pushing my points up to 44.0, the high for the week. So, Friday really was no surprise on the scale.

Well, I have some good data, to work with; and I hope I have some good motivation to do that work. So, this next week should be a better one. Now let's go see…

6 years, 183 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-
6 '3" 239.5/200.0/197.5±2.5/BMI:25.0/WK- 339

Starting weight: 239.5       Target Weight Range: 195 lbs to 200 lbs