A FEW MORE THINGS
YOU MIGHT ENJOY
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WEEK 415
Week Ending April 29, 2009
Weight Watchers Goal
(the top of my normal weight range)
200.0 pounds
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Week 415 Update
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| Weigh-In Date: | 04/29/2009 |
| Weight: | 216.0 |
| Body Mass Index: | 27.00 |
| Average Weight for week: | 214.93 |
| Miles Walked for week: | 15.18 |
| Miles Walked in 2009: | 41.77 |
| Pounds +/- for this week (8 days): | -3.5 |
| Pounds lost total: | 23.5 |
| Pounds From Personal Goal (185 lbs) | +31.0 |
RESTART!
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DATE
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WEIGHT
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April 21, 2009
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219.5
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Week's Data
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Sunday |
Monday |
Tuesday |
04/21/09 |
04/22/09 |
04/23/09 |
04/24/09 |
04/25/09 |
04/26/09 |
04/27/09 |
04/28/09 |
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219.5
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218.0
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216.0
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215.5
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214.5
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214.5
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213.5
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214.5
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CONTROL PANEL
GRAPH |
FUTURE
GRAPH |
60-DAY
GRAPH |
90-DAY
GRAPH |
1-YEAR
GRAPH |
587-Day
GRAPH |
TIME
CAPSULE |
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I weighed 216.0 pounds when I stepped up on the scale this morning.
I didn't pick Wednesday for any particular reason for my weigh-in this time around. I wanted to leave Saturdays open, without having an update to do first thing before we could do anything else. And this time I started journaling on a Wednesday, which made it easier to track my points for the week, etc. So, here we are.
I haven't run my Weight Commander in a while, and it told me so when I did fire it up, so I could do my graphs. I had to put in all my old data in order to bring it up to date, but I did it! Then, I looked at the graph and was not pleased with what I saw, naturally. (Okay, I knew that before I started putting in the numbers.)
My Weight Commander Control Panel Graph is back in roller coaster mode. I topped out over 220 pounds at the start of the month, and have been bouncing around ever since, at least up until this week. The thing I am most happy about this week is that I am back to writing things down and watching what I eat once more. It has been a long time since I have done that, and the graph shows it.
My Weight Commander Future Graph indicates that I had a good week, and if I continue to have good weeks, I will continue to have better results. In fact, by sometime in July, I should be under my goal weight of 200 pounds.
My Weight Commander 60-Day Graph could be a graph of my stress level over the same period of time. Our building just woulding get finished. (Even our electrician, who was one of the more competent people we worked with while there, took off on a "mission" to Honduras before the electrical inspection was done. He made it back in time to pass the inspection just before we packed up to leave.) Of course the problems with Mom were the biggest contributors, and as the realization set in deeper and deeper that we were not going to be able to help her, and that we were becoming traumatized ourselves, my stress level went up and up. Added to that all the terrible stresses of moving, multiplied by the fact that we had just done it before a few months earlier and I was at my limit, and even a bit past it. Weight loss and even health in general were not in my focus as my weight climbed.
My Weight Commander 90-Day Graph shows that the problems went back farther than 60 days. When January had passed, it became clear that our contractor had absolutely no intention of honoring any part of his word on showing up for work. Each week that went by things in general worsened. And worsened.
My Weight Commander 1-Year Graph shows how my journey has not been on track really for over the entire year. I really need to be under 200 and being around 190 would be better still. Notice, for over a year, I have been well above 190, and most of the year I have been above 200. The reasons are manyfold, but the primary problem is my ability to care. I have gone through a long drought of not caring. So many things have been wrong in my life, that my weight was pushed to the back burner.
I consider myself very lucky that I haven't started smoking again, because I have been very despondent many times, and gaining weight has been less of a health risk than smoking would be.
My Weight Commander 587-Day Graph shows that my problems go back farther than even a year. It is worse right now, but it hasn't been right since before October of 2007. Will it be right again now? Only time will tell.
My Weight Commander Time Capsule puts it in black and white: I have failed not only to move back to my personal goal weight, but I have failed to even hold my own, at just under the top of my weight range, where I was when I started using the program.
I don't know if this move will be good or bad for my journey yet. It is another major change in our lives, with some very positive aspects, but things could get overwhelming as well. My stress level today is still very high, but it is way down from where it was when we arrived. So, I hope that it continues to drop and we can settle into a quiet, comfortable routine where stress will be something we remember from the past, but not suffer much of in the present. I am emotionally tired, and can only hope for the best right now.
On the other hand, I know there are some very positive things about Spokane for Dotti and I, and so my expectations really are quite high, once I get my feet back under me again.
Tuesday last week I stepped up on the scale, and I saw it read: 219.5. I had been out of control with my eating for quite some time, and the results, as always is the case, were that my weight was going up and up. Even the exercise of moving boxes around and such didn't make up for the stupid way I was eating.
I also noticed that my 40 inch waist pants, which I have been wearing for years, were getting really tight on me, after being way too loose for most of the time I had used them. I was going to have to make a stand and start going down, or move up to larger pants.
The net result of all this was that of a slap in the face. It was time to wake up and smell the coffee. The vacation from my journey was over, and it was time to get back to work.
Wednesday, after being a bit careful on my eating the day before, found me weighing 218.0 pounds in the morning. I put my target point range at the top of my journal page: 24-31 points. I would try my best to stay within that range. I began writing everything down that I ate for the day, and ended up with 29.5 points. Dotti helped me, by making my lunch, and a nice dinner of chile and potatoes in the evening.
I also mapped out two walking paths around our new house where I could walk 1.59 miles or 3.0 miles, depending upon my energy level on any given day.
In the afternoon, I set off on the smaller loop. It took me 47:41 minutes to walk it, so my pace was not very fast, but that was okay. I did a walk, and that was something I hadn't done in quite some time; in fact March 18 was my last recorded walk—more than a month had gone by.
Thursday I dropped down to 216.0 pounds. Obviously I was flushing some water out of my system as I cut back on my eating and therefore my sodium intake. Still, it was motivational to see the drop on the scale.
At one point in the day we took a break and drove over to Borders bookstore. It is a place that always reminds us of our Vancouver walks from our house to sit in the Borders Cafe and work on our computers.
Alas, it would be very difficult for us to do that walk today. At 1.78 miles, as the crow flies, the actual direct physical distance is not that much greater to the Spokane Borders from our house. However, it is 4.5 miles as the car drives or the foot walks—and there is a 400-foot elevation change, which is over half the elevation change of walking up the Multnomah Falls Trail! And as if the 9 mile round trip with a 400-foot change in height were not enough, the road down from the plateau, where our house is located, is very narrow, and not really a safe place to be walking. (Driving the U-Haul truck up and down that road was a bit tricky, since the narrow road didn't give much extra space for oncoming traffic.)
Still, it was fun visiting Borders again.
Dotti made my lunch once more, with a couple of turkey sandwiches and some crackers. (It was a bit like going to subway, but the waitress was far more beautiful here!) Dotti also took a nice 3-mile walk with me, checking out the new loop I had mapped out on Wednesday. It turned out to be a nice walk, that included some snow falling in the early part of the walk. 
Friday, I weighed 215.5 pounds. It was nice to see the drop, but I ended up eating more than I should have slightly, at 31.5 points.
One of the problems that I have now, is that I know more about where my maintenance level will be when I am done. When I went through my weight loss at the first of my journey, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just following the program as literally as I possibly could and hoped for the best. Today, I know that if I am highly active, I can eat 40 or more points and maintain 185 pounds. I could eat in the mid 30s and have little problem remaining below 200, even if I were not all that active. I think that is the reason that I have not not been as rigid this week on making sure that I didn't go over my points limit of 31.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't like going over my limit, even a little bit. I want to remain below 31 points every day. But I am not as quick to check early in the day this time around to make sure I am not going over. Friday was only a half point over, and that was a very minor infraction, but then Saturday was worse and that one got my attention.
We had Subway for lunch, and I ate a bag of chips, which I wouldn't have done the first time around. So, my lunch total for points was 8.5, instead of only 6.0. That is how mistakes are made. Adding a point here or there, and your plan for the day gets knocked out of whack.
We stopped for a McDonald's ice cream cone as well. This was a standard treat all during my first weight loss phase, and so there is nothing amiss here. But instead of getting a small 3-point cone, I got a large 4-point cone. That added another extra unnecessary point.
In the evening, Dotti fixed me a Turkey, vegetable combo over rice with a WW 1-point bar for dessert. The entire package was 8 points. When I had a 2.5-point bag of popcorn in the evening, I was a half-point too high. With a bit of planning and a bit of restraint, I would have easily remained under my limit. Still, at 31.5 points, it was a lot better than I had been doing the past few months.
In the evening, I took a 1.59 mile walk. It was raining a bit, but not too bad. On my solo walks, I have been listening to my Coby MP3 Player, and going through Out Of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis. It is very old science fiction, and the science is out dated, but the story is still a good one, and I enjoy it every time I listen to it.
The 1.59-mile path takes me closer to the edge of the plateau we live on, and I can see over the lip a bit down into Spokane. So far I have really enjoyed these walks.
When I got up on Saturday, I was down to 214.5, and that was nice to see. After lunch (7.5 points), I took Dotti to a thrift store near our house, so she could look around for a couple of things to help set up our house as we continue to move in. Also, it is a fun break for her, because she loves to walk through these types of stores.
Dotti and I headed over to a "strip mall" where the Guitar Center is located, and I looked for some guitar books that might help in giving some guitar lessons. My niece Caudy has indicated that she would like to learn to play a bit, and I thought I would check and see if I could find a good book. (As it turned out, the books I already have are better than any I found that day.) I did have some fun in the acoustical guitar room, playing a few tunes, since I had the room to myself for a bit. When I was picking at the old Beatle's tune Michelle one of the store employees came through on an errand and said she liked that tune. (My cousin Bill taught me the lead-in to that back in the 1960's and I think of him most times when I play that. He lives in Texas now, and I wish he lived closer!) I moved over to the keyboard section and played around on those a while and it helped. Playing music, even at my amateur level of play, really helps to lower my stress level. These days, few things are more important in my life, as I am doing a big recovery from what we passed through. Music is incredibly healthy for the soul.
While I was relaxing in one of my favorite stores, Dotti was over in one of her favorites also: Bed Bath and Beyond. (I always ask her to see if she can get me one of those remotes from the "Way Beyond" section but she hasn't been able to find one yet. )
Back at home again, I took a 3-mile walk. As I was walking out of the garage to get to the trunk of my car, where I had my raincoat, the rain cut loose and started pelting the ground and car windshields. I scurried to the rear of the car and popped the trunk, grabbed my raincoat, and shot back around the side of the house where our front door is nestled back off the road. The wind was blowing from west to east (which seems to be pretty consistent, at least so far) at a good clip, and so the garage wall provided an excellent rain shadow for me to stand in. The concrete of our walkway was completely dry, while that of the driveway a foot away was getting soaked. I put on my raincoat over my normal yellow coat, routed the headphone cord down inside my shirt, out the bottom button, and over to the Coby I keep tucked away in my change pocket of my blue jeans, and plugged it in. I put on my gloves, zipped up both coats, pulled the hoods up, one over the other and set out. It was awesome!
I love walking in weather that is interesting. Rain, snow, sleet, wind and almost anything but lightening I enjoy walking through. Spokane gets some snow in the winter, and I will be doing some trudging through the white stuff when that comes around again here. I will see if I can find something in footwear for ice, that will give me good traction, for those times when the sidewalks are glazed over. (The equivalent of studded tires for the car. ) Snow is no problem, as long as it doesn't get too deep, but ice is dangerous, unless you can grab some traction that is dependable. I have a few months before I have to worry about that, but I am already thinking about it.
A week before, I had been down for the count with a cold or something. I had a low grade fever that wouldn't go away and stay away. But that was all behind me now.
During the day, I had two things that were out of the normal for me, and they pushed my points total over the top again, and this time it was worse than on Friday. I had another large McDonald's ice cream cone for 4 points, and my dinner came to 9.5 points. I normally try to hold dinner at or below 8 points, and I could have easily done without the cone. At day's end, I was up to 36.5 points.
On Sunday, I once again weighed 214.5 pounds. For years I so wanted to be below 200 pounds. Many times I could work my way down to around 210 and then it became really hard. If I succeeded breaking through into the 190s, I always went right back up. So, being at 214.5 pounds reminds me that this is one of the places where I often used to feel helpless and frustrated. Today, I know that I am not helpless, and all that I have to do is to work the program and I will walk right back down into the 190s. I know that if I continue to work the program, I will remain below 200 pounds—as long as I keep working the program.
I found that my hunger level popped up about now, and I had to do something to keep that backed off. So, I fell back to my old tried and true ally: water! I drank lots of water when I got hungry. A 24-ounce glass would go right down, followed by some sipping water beside me if I started to feel like I wanted to eat something when it wasn't time to be eating something. It worked.
Dotti and I took a scenic backroad route to the Spokane Valley Mall (using the Magellan GPS to keep us on track) and did some walking all through the mall, and that added to our exercise level. After that I had a big challenge to face.
One of Dotti's favorite restaurants is Red Robin. They have some menu items that she craves and that are OP. Unfortunately, I don't like the same items much at all. So, I am left with a lot of good tasting choices that are way off program for me. And I had just been over the day before by 5.5 points. I absolutely did not want a repeat of that. But, being that I love to see Dotti smile, and she really wanted to eat at Red Robin, I took her there.
Now what could I do? I wasn't going off program, even if I had to sit there and drink water. I did drink a couple glasses of cold water and it was good! I also had a couple of glasses of diet soda. For my one food item, I ordered the "Hawaiian Heartthrob Smoothie." The waiter asked me if I were going to get "anything to eat." I told him that was it.
As it turned out, it was enough. I was feeling satisfied at the time, and it was already into the afternoon, and I knew that dinner was not all that far off. The smoothie was small enough to come in at 4 points, and I was left in great shape to have a nice dinner and still remain OP.
At home I took a 1.59 mile walk, and I was feeling pretty light-headed by the end. I was OP, but my blood sugar had apparently fallen off a bit. Dinner helped out a lot, and Dotti cooked up a "breakfast for dinner" combo that only added up to 5 points! I had some free vegetables that added filling volume, oil-free hashbrowns (3 points), egg beaters (1.0 point) and an English muffin with I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT BUTTER spray (1.0 point).
It really is amazing how much food you can eat if you just eat the right food. I had a couple of bags of popcorn, and some other snacks that added up to 12.0 points for the day, but when added to the mere 16 points I had for meals, I came in at 28.0 points for the day! It almost made up for my bad day the day before.
Monday I dropped to 213.5, six pounds down from where I was six days earlier. One-pound-per-day is not a sustainable, nor even a desirable weight loss rate. So, Christmas is nearly over for the scale, I know. These quick drops at the beginning are nice for motivation, if you use them correctly. The only drawback is when you come to expect these magical numbers to continue on indefinitely. Once the water clears out of your system, you are back to 3500 calories burned, over what you eat, equals one pound of fat loss. In other words, things are about to slow down for me, I am sure.
Dotti has really made big progress in getting our upstairs whipped into shape. Things are really looking nice. In fact, her office area, reminds me a lot of the way she had it set up when she first created Dotti's Weight Loss Zone in 1998, only it is a larger area and looks much nicer now. Dotti has a gift for making the most of any given space. I've been lucky all these years, because I get to reap the benefits of her talents.
I took a 3-mile walk but I ate a WW 1-point bar before leaving, and I carried one with me, that I ate on the way, and I felt fine for the entire walk. Since I have been eating a lot less, I need to make sure that I don't get depleted during my exercise. I walked at an 18-minute mile pace, which is not power walking at all, but it is walking, and building up my endurance so I will be able to do some power walking before too long. I would have loved to do Bloomsday this year, but Dotti and I aren't quite up to speed for that yet, and it is going to be run in just a few days. 
For lunch I had 6.0 points, from 2 sandwiches and other goodies Dotti put together for me. Dinner she cooked a nice meal that came to 7.0 points. I added in a banana (1.5 points) and with my other snacks, I was up to 31.5 points at the end of the day. Once again I was slightly over my limit. I am not doing too bad, but I would like to do better.
At least I have been doing better on my exercise this time. In 2001 I really didn't rely much on exercise to lose the weight. I ended up losing muscle as well as fat as a result, I think. This time around, I hope to keep the muscle and lose the fat.
Tuesday, reality set in and I was back up to 214.5 pounds. I did the 3.0-mile walk once more, and held my points down to 29.0 for the day. I did get some sodium in with some Eggbeater sandwiches at lunch and I had some volume for dinner, with beans, potatoes and vegetables, and fresh strawberries, along with a couple of bags of popcorn in the evening. So, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that scale jumped up to 216.0 for my weigh-in this morning.
7 years, 352 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.
-Al-
6'3" 239.5/216.0/185.0±2.5/BMI:27.00/WK-415
Starting weight: 239.5
Target Weight Range: 185.0±2.5 pounds
BACK TO WEEK 414 On To WEEK 416
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