A FEW MORE THINGS
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WEEK 438
Week Ending October 7, 2009
Weight Watchers Goal
(the top of my normal weight range)
200.0 pounds
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Week 438 Update
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| Weigh-In Date: | 10/07/2009 |
| Weight: | 205.0 |
| Body Mass Index: | 25.62 |
| Average Daily Points: | 27.07 |
| Average Weight for week: | 207.14 |
| Miles Walked for week: | 6.00 |
| Miles Walked in 2009: | 150.25 |
| Pounds +/- for this week: | -1.5 |
| Pounds lost total: | 34.5 |
| Pounds From Personal Goal (185 lbs) | +20.0 |
Week's Data
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Sunday |
Monday |
Tuesday |
09/30/09 |
10/01/09 |
10/02/09 |
10/03/09 |
10/04/09 |
10/05/09 |
10/06/09 |
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206.5 lbs
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207.0 lbs
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206.5 lbs
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208.5 lbs
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207.0 lbs
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208.0 lbs
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208.0 lbs
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28.5 pts
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25.0 pts
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24.5 pts
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25.0 pts
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31.0 pts
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32.5 pts
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23.0 pts
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CONTROL PANEL
GRAPH |
FUTURE
GRAPH |
60-DAY
GRAPH |
90-DAY
GRAPH |
1-YEAR
GRAPH |
2-YEAR
GRAPH |
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It was 7:30 AM when I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "205.0 pounds!"
Yesterday, I didn't have any ibuprofen and I didn't eat any popcorn, which is a change from the previous couple of days. That cleared the water out of my system I am sure, and had something to do with the lower weight today.
The last time I weight this little was on February 22 this year. That was 227 days ago. That was Week 405 and I felt like had fallen down the rabbit hole in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I was hoping things were about to stabilize, but they instead only got worse.
So here I am today, trying to recover from the events that followed from that situation. My weight at least has returned to the level of that time, and it is on the downward path.
My personal goal is 54.5 pounds below my starting weight in 2001. One thing that I have noticed is that the total number of pounds I have lost (34.5) is significantly larger than the number of pounds I have to lose to reach my goal (20.0). It wasn't too long ago when those numbers were reversed.
My
Weight Commander Control Panel Graph couldn't really be much better than it is. The solid squares are showing a downward trend ever since my restart on September 1. There was a steeper slope for those squares as they moved from September 1 to about September 15, but from September 17 on the slope has been pretty constant, nearly forming a straight line with a nice downward trend. 
The week's daily weigh-ins (shown by the hollow squares) landed with 3 squares above the average line, and 4 below it. The ones below were a bit farther from the average than the ones above and that was a good thing, and kept the average moving downward. (Today's weight was a real drop.)
The numbers on the left of the panel look pretty good! They are not all losses, but the one gain was 4 weeks ago, and it was only a half pound. The losses were 1.5 or 2.0 pounds. If you take the sum of the 4 numbers you get -4.5 pounds.
Once again, on the right I find that my weight today is lower than my weight of 30, 60, and 90 days ago. And the difference is greater than I have been seeing, especially for the 90 day number. I am still 6 pounds over my weight of 1 year ago, but my weight continues to drop and I will catch that number too, sooner or later! (Positive thinking is a very good thing. )
My
Weight Commander Future Graph looks better this week. Last week it was predicting my weight to be around 203 pounds for Christmas, while this week it shows me down around 197 pounds on Christmas Day. I like that better. Still, even last week, it was showing a loss over the upcoming 90 days and that was still positive. This is just more positive. 
It is interesting that on my Weight Commander 60-Day Graph, if you draw a line from the first point through the last point, you not only have a downward trend, but the entire line lies below every other point on the graph. The first point was a low one for where I was at the start of the graph, and my weight today is well below all the other points.
While that is interesting, it isn't terribly important. Daily fluctuations are very common. But what is important is that if you draw a line through the trend of the points on the graph, the trend line is sharply dropping! I just have to keep doing what I am doing today and I will be okay.
While you can't do the same thing with my Weight Commander 90-Day Graph, you will only cut off a couple of points that are below the line, if you do draw a line to join the first and last points. Nearly all of the points would lie above, and a line from the point at July 21 through today's point would have all the other points sitting above it.
The trend line for this graph would not be as sharply downward as the one for the 60-day graph, because I had an increase in weight at the beginning of this graph, but it is still a downward trend and is much better than many of my previous 90-day graphs.
My Weight Commander 1-Year Graph shows that I am still up in the air from where I was one year ago. And one year ago I was dropping. (At Halloween last year I was in the low 190s!) I still have some catching up to do, but I am heading in the right direction.
I finally have enough points entered into Weight Commander to be able to create a 2-Year Graph! It is interesting to see how that this time of year I tend to lose weight, while afterwards I put it back on. I really do hope to break that trend this time!
I see that last Halloween was the low point for the last two years, and so when I get below that point I will be into new territory, for at least the past two years.
This year I climbed much faster, as well as higher than last year, but I started back downwards earlier. In fact, except for a bit of a bump in July, I have been on a losing trend since May. The good news about the slip up in July is that I got back into the saddle fairly soon after falling out of it, instead of waiting months.
When I lose 10 more pounds I will be close to the lowest point on this two year graph! When I lose 15 pounds I will be below all the points shown, and actually off this graph completely, since the baseline is 193.1, and I will be at 190 even.
The climb from last Halloween to the high point in April looks like the path of a rocket launch, or when the pilot of an F-14 would stand it on its tail. Up, up, up, in a hurry.
It is scary that I can gain weight that fast by simply letting go for a while. It only reminds me yet once again, I am not going to get well from this condition. Either I will take the reins in hand and watch what I am doing religiously, or I will gain weight. There are no other options. How many times will I have to go through this process before I learn that simple lesson?
This has been an interesting week. I was contacted by my Vancouver dentist who was the architect of the Mastication Miracle to see about scheduling the final steps, which unfortunately includes taking that failed, and deeply imbedded implant out through oral surgery. It looks like November might find us making a trip to Vancouver for some more "time in the chair." 
I really like this dentist, so it will truly be nice to see him again, but the circumstances are not ones that I relish going through.
Thursday I took a three mile walk and during that walk I finished up That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis. (I previously went through the earlier two books of his trilogy: Out of the silent Planet and Paralandra, and so I completed the whole trilogy during my walks here in Spokane. This makes the third time through the trilogy at least, perhaps the fourth.)
No matter how you view his beliefs, you have to admire C.S. Lewis' imagination! He tells an incredible story, and makes it sound completely credible. He brought Merlin back to life and made it sound like it could happen. The forces at work were a wild mix of Pagan and Christian deities and, they were all on the same side.
What I found very interesting was how many of the ideas in this final book of the trilogy are virtually identical with the ideas in The Singularity is Near. Lewis wrote his book clear back in 1945, and he cast the scientists and politicians who wanted to detach intellect from biology as the arch villains, working directly with the Devil’s crew, whom they referred to as the “Macrobes.”
What was surprising to me this time, was the way it hit me after reading The Singularity is Near so recently. It was very interesting matching up the ideas between the two works and seeing how many places they intersected, even though they were starting from two apparently unrelated points.
I knew I was running out of book when I started my walk, and so I also brought along another one that I recently purchased:
The Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. I have never read this book before, and I have not seen any movie version of it, nor read any reviews of it. So, it will be a complete surprise for me. It starts in 1775, which is an interesting point in history for us Americans. One thing is very sure: it has to be a great book, being written by Charles Dickens. He may be the greatest writer of prose in history. He certainly takes a back seat to no other writer.
I can finish about 50 minutes of an audio book right now on my 3 mile walks. I am walking at a very comfortable pace. I may speed that up as I get conditioned to what I am doing now. We will see. I have walked 12-minute miles in the past for 3 miles, but I don’t think I need to go that hard to get enough exercise. The main thing I want to do is get consistent exercise, not set records.
So, in a few days of walking, I can work my way through a book. Of course some books require more walks than others. It is fun having a story to listen to as I walk; the walk really goes by fast.
Since I don’t have that long commute anymore, this gives me an opportunity to listen to my audio books. I really can’t just sit in a chair and listen to an audio book. I have to be doing something else as well. I have used audio books to help me through some assembly projects, such as building the bookcases that we bought when we moved. It makes that task much more pleasant as well.
What I use on my walks is a Coby MP3 player. It fits nicely into the change pocket on my blue jeans. I route the wires for the headphones down inside the front of my shirt, and out the last space between my buttons, and over to the Coby. The jack is right on the end of the player so the cord goes in without any strain or unnatural bending. I can pull the player out at any time as I am walking, without losing a stride, if I need to pause the recording, change the volume, or back it up because I missed something.
I had all three of the CS Lewis Books on one Coby 1 GB player. It worked great. I can just drag and drop the MP3 files onto the player like a jump drive and I don’t have to mess with iTunes or any other shepherding program. Having a good book to listen to really helps to motivate me to get out there and walk.
Friday I had hoped to go and hit some baseballs, but when we got there, the batting cages were closed because we had a bit of rain that morning. I was unhappy at the news, but having LeRoy join Dotti and I while we played some miniature golf made up for it; a good time was had by all.
Sunday, we went by Jim and Tammy's house, and Tammy cooked Dotti a special birthday dinner! We had a nice visit, and Jim and I went over some of the features of Photoshop on his computer.
Monday we celebrated Dotti's twenty-first birthday. Well, the number is something like that I am sure.  We started off by taking her to her ophthalmologist for a followup on a problem she had earlier. All was well. I next took her shopping, and then in the evening LeRoy, Jamie, and Hunter showed up to celebrate with Dotti.
Dotti put up a secretly taken (to me anyway) video on YouTube of the "cake lighting ceremony," where Hunter put the candles on the pie, and I lit the candles, and then after the Happy Birthday, Hunter removed the candles and licked all the good stuff off them.
These days you never know when you are on Candid Camera.
Tuesday morning, first thing, I had a dentist appointment here in Spokane. My permanent crown was ready and the dentist installed it after the temporary was removed. It all came off without a hitch and the new crown really works well.
In the afternoon, Jim and I went over to the batting cages and this time they were open! I ended up swinging at over 300 pitches, more than on any other visit so far, and fouled one of them off my right shin. Ouch! Unfortunately, I had done the same thing to my left shin last week, and it is still not 100% healed. I feel lucky that I hit the other shin this time rather than hitting that same spot. I really enjoy getting into the 70 mph cage and swinging at the ball, but if I don’t hit it squarely, it can do funny things.
The slow-pitch softball cage on the left end of the string of cages was locked and not available. So, Jim went into the fast-pitch cage and he was getting around on them pretty good! He had never been in a batting cage before, but he took to it like a fish to water!
They had done some much needed maintenance on the pitching machines, because they were running a bit better overall, but we found that the ball was moving inside and outside a lot more than we expected. It was certainly more than I had seen here before. One of the pitches came hard inside when I was batting on the right side of the plate and it completely surprised me. I didn't move quick enough, and it hit me on the inside of my right thigh. Ouch!
Of all the times I have been there, I have never had a ball come close to me when I was in the batter’s box and not crowding the plate. It made a nice red circle on the inside of my leg that is aching a bit, but not too bad.
Being less than 2 years short of age 60, I suppose that I am really too old to be in the 70 mph cage, but I refuse to give up easily to age. It takes more than its share on its own without my giving up additional ground to it! And I still like the feel of getting all of a belt high fastball.
In the end, Jim and I went down to the other end of the cages and there was a slow-pitch cage working there, so we finished up by swapping off hitting balls in that cage.
It was really nice having Jim there with me! Normally I am out there all by myself while Dotti plays arcade games inside. Sometimes Dotti or LeRoy will come out for a few swings, but this was nice, sharing the experience with my best friend for the entire time!
One of the lessons that is hardest for me to learn is that a slow application of good practices will override my natural tendencies to overeat and gain weight. I will lose slowly and consistently if I merely do the right things. BUT, I will gain weight without fail if I don't apply those same practices. Here's hoping I can finally learn the lesson.
8 years, 148 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.
-Al-
6'3" 239.5/205.0/185.0±2.5/BMI:25.62/WK-438
Starting weight: 239.5
Target Weight Range: 185.0±2.5 pounds
BACK TO WEEK 437 On To WEEK 439
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