A FEW MORE THINGS
YOU MIGHT ENJOY
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WEEK 442
Week Ending November 4, 2009
On day 3099 of my Journey
Weight Watchers Goal
(the top of my normal weight range)
200.0 pounds
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Week 442 Update
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| Weigh-In Date: | 11/04/2009 |
| Weight: | 203.0 |
| Body Mass Index: | 25.37 |
| Average Daily Points: | 29.36 |
| Average Weight for week: | 204.43 |
| Miles Walked for week: | 15.00 |
| Miles Walked in 2009: | 191.75 |
| Pounds +/- for this week: | +1.0 |
| Pounds lost total: | 36.5 |
| Pounds From Personal Goal (185 lbs) | +18.0 |
Week's Data
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Sunday |
Monday |
Tuesday |
10/28/09 |
10/29/09 |
10/30/09 |
10/31/09 |
11/01/09 |
11/02/09 |
11/03/09 |
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202.0 lbs
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203.0 lbs
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204.5 lbs
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207.5 lbs
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203.0 lbs
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203.5 lbs
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206.5 lbs
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26.0 pts
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26.5 pts
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26.0 pts
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26.0 pts
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26.0 pts
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35.0 pts
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40.0 pts
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CONTROL PANEL
GRAPH (Calculated) |
CONTROL PANEL
GRAPH |
FUTURE
GRAPH |
60-DAY
GRAPH |
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90-DAY
GRAPH |
1-YEAR
GRAPH |
2-YEAR
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TODAY
BUTTON |
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It was 5:35 a.m. when I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "203.0 pounds!"
I imagine that some people who showed a gain this week, as I did, would have Halloween to use for an excuse. All that candy was just just sitting there and so they got into it. I can't hide behind that, because I had a total of 1.5 points worth of Halloween candy over the past 7 days. I ate a miniature Look bar for 1 point, and two pieces of bubble gum for a half-point. That wasn't my problem.
As far as the scale is concerned, I pretty much had a maintain this week. My average weight for the week was 204.43 and last week it was 203.64. While that looks like a change of 0.79, just over a half-pound, that one jump up on Saturday to 207.5 was 3 pounds higher than the day before it, and 4.5 pounds higher than the day after it. So, it was obviously not a change in fat weight; it had to be water. Looking at my eating on Friday night we find that I had 2 bags of popcorn, and some fries, all loaded with salt. I topped that off with two hot dogs smothered in sauerkraut, also loaded with sodium.
So, if you give me the same weight on Saturday as I had on the higher of the two days surrounding it, I would have weighed 204.5 on Saturday, and that would lower my average for the week by 3 / 7 or 0.43 pounds, down to 204 even. I would then be about 0.36 higher on my average weight for the week, and my scale and time of day for weighing would put more error into the data than that probably. If it is a real gain, it is a really small one.
Having said that, I am still not happy with this week. First off, I am in "losing mode" and a maintain is NOT what I am shooting for. So, a maintain is less than optimum to say the least.
Secondly, I am very disappointed in what I did the past two days, especially yesterday. On Monday, I went over my points by 4.0, and it was because I didn't plan. I was stuck in Les Schwab's Tire Center for over 2 hours and I put the time to good use, studying, but I also ate a Snicker's bar and 3 small bags of buttered popcorn. That was my lunch. It was also about 10 points more than I normally eat for lunch. I cut back for dinner but it wasn't enough.
What is worse, after blowing it on Monday, and having weigh-in on Wednesday, Tuesday I ate a Very Berry Sundae (8 points) and Churo (9.5 points) at Costco for lunch. That was even worse than what I did on Monday. I also had popcorn at home that evening, which boosted my sodium before weigh-in. (I normally skip having any popcorn on Tuesdays, but not this time.)
The bad news is that I was up a pound. The good news is that it was only a pound, after doing those two dumb things. I am actually in a position to do well on the up coming week, if I have the good sense to do it!
While I definitely was over points the past two days, I was not over points for the week! My average points-per-day was 29.36, over a point and a half below my limit. That means, based upon calories in, I should have shown a loss for the week. Since I didn't, it must be latently hanging around in there ready to pop out next time! And it will, if I just have the good sense to let it, by doing the right things this upcoming week.
Working with the Weight Commander graphs is not as much fun on my bad weeks, but they still show useful information and so it needs to be done. When I put in my weigh-in for today, before I put in the rest of the data for the week, the Control Panel Graph ended up looking better than it did later, after adding the data.
The solid squares are almost locked into a straight line, but it is a line that is just slightly tilted downward. It is terrible compared with the downward trend of earlier weeks, but it is at least not going up for the past week. (The hollow squares are running along in on a level line since last Thursday.) It is very clear that the 202.0 weigh-in last Wednesday is low for the trend before it, and if you threw that out, the downward trend for this week would look even bigger, but still not outstanding.)
While calculated data may be fun to work with at times, I did have to put in the real information. 
My Weight Commander Control Panel Graph then changed and the trend now is moving upward. That Saturday data point is higher than any of the solid square points on the graph, and there are only a few other points anywhere on this graph that are higher. The jump yesterday wasn't a lot better for that matter. Take away those two points, and the week would look a lot better. And since, for both of those points, the day before and after were well below the high point. They were jumps that were not indicative of fat weight, only water weight.
You don't just magically lose or gain 3 or 4 pounds of fat in one day. That requires a calorie surplus or deficit of 3500 calories for each pound. Without a serious binge, you won't eat between 10,500 and 14,000 calories more than you will burn, especially when you have been eating OP for some weeks.
If you are like me, ice cream is a big problem area. I love ice cream, cheesecake, and chocolate cake with the richest frosting possible. If I am going to overload on calories in a really big way, one or more of those culprits will be at the event. So, lets look at ice cream.
One gallon—or 16 cups, which comes to 32 servings—of Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream, even at its 240 calories per serving, only comes to 7,800 calories. Of course I use the word "only" because it is relative to what you would need to eat in order to gain 3 pounds of fat weight. It is still enough calories to give you two pounds of fat, and some to spare!
Going the other way, you will have to do more work than you probably can do in order to burn 10,500 extra calories in one day. If you are burning that much over what you are eating, you are no doubt in awesome shape! If you weighed 200 pounds and ran a marathon, you would burn just over 4000 calories. If you think about it, you know you aren't going to burn up 3 pounds of extra calories in a normal day. 
One of the problems with people like me, who have trouble with controlling their weight, is that we will look at the above paragraphs and think about it! Not in thinking, I sure am going to stay away from large quantities of ice cream, but in thinking, Maybe I could do that once every once in a while and make up for it. This is what they call "stinking thinking," and we do it so well!
It is amazing how fast I can forget my track record and start talking myself into stupid things. "Sure, I can do that for awhile! I'll be okay. I'll catch myself before I get too far off track." Earth calling Al! Earth calling Al! Get your feet back on the ground, because you are floating away in the clouds of fantasy again!
I had been running a set of numbers on the left of the Control Panel that showed a 4.5-pound loss for the past 4 weeks, for a few weeks in a row. I finally blew that. This week, I have a one-pound gain this week, and I had a half-pound gain 4 weeks ago. The other two weeks of the four had losses of 1.5 pounds and 2.0 pounds. That means my 4-week drop was only 2 pounds this month. The gain this week fouled up the running 4-week loss I had been producing, but the half pound loss of 4 weeks ago falls off the chart for next week, and it will be up to me to come up with a good number to get myself back on track.
On the right side of the Control Panel, things are still looking good. I am 5 pounds under what I weighed 30 days ago (despite the 4-week total we were discussing), and I am 8 pounds less than I weighed 60 days ago. I weighed 12 pounds more than I do today, 90 days ago, and 1 year ago I was only 3 pounds under today's weigh-in.
This Control Panel shows that I am at a crossroads. I could buckle down and move in the right direction, and be within my Normal Range very soon, and at my personal goal before too terribly long, or I can lose my focus and drift back up so I will have to do all of this again later. Let me see, which would be the better course? Earth calling Al! Hello!
My
Weight Commander Future Graph is a grim reminder of how fast things can turn around when you goof. Last week it had me down under 187 pounds in 90 days, now I am slotted for a 5-pound gain! It feels like balancing upon the edge of a sword, with every misstep being punished; either things go really well, with a big loss over the next 90 days, or really badly, where I am projected to have a large gain.
The one thing that takes the pressure off a bit when I see the Future Graph going up, is that I know it can overreact to changes, because projections like this are assuming a continuation of the most current trend. Real life is less consistent than that, and generally there are good times and bad times, easy days and weeks, and hard days and weeks.
What I really like about the Future Graph is that, when my attitude is right, it motivates me to continue to do what I have been doing, when the graph shows a projected loss, or to change what I am doing if it shows a projected gain.
My Weight Commander 60-Day Graph is still looking pretty good. Around October 5 I had a "double tooth" set of spikes like the one I am going through right now. After those spikes passed, the trend was riding a baseline with a slightly less sharp downward trend, and then, around the 25th of the month, it dropped again, to put me back on the original track. If I can have a good week coming up, I might do that again. We'll have to wait and see.
In any case, the line from point one through today's weigh-in is still in the middle of most of the points of the graph, and I am in a position to continue on down if I pay attention, and don't lose my hold on my determination to succeed.
The Weight Commander 90-Day Graph shows that I have currently hit a leveling off region on the graph. Of course that had to happen just above my Normal Range. However, that could be a good thing, because psychologically, what might have happened if I had it it after reaching my Weight Watchers' goal of 200, I might have said to myself, "Well, I am no longer overweight, so maybe that is good enough." As long as I am over 200 pounds, I know it is not good enough and I need to keep losing!
Taking the first and last points on this graph, the line between them has a nice sharp downward trend. So, right now, I am at a significantly better place than I was 90 days ago. I have great a "base station" from which to tackle the “ascent to to the top of my goal mountain.”
Today I am 18 pounds from my personal goal, while being a total of 36.5 pounds down. In other words, I have lost twice as many pounds from my top weight as I need to lose to hit my goal. This is a good place to be, and going the rest of the way from here is going to be much easier than starting over would be. I just have to remember that and stay with it.
The Weight Commander 1-Year Graph is a mountain with pine trees spiking the surface all the way up and back down the other side. The good part is that the path I am on right now definitely looks like the downhill side of the mountain, and still looks like it has a consistently sharp drop!
Stepping back and getting the big picture can help a lot, especially when you have a bad week.
And speaking of the big picture, my Weight Commander 2-Year Graph shows that I am falling back into the lower regions of the past two years of weigh-ins. The little leveling off point at the end is really tiny compared with the rest, and if I can start falling again, it will hardly be noticed in the future. If I can lose as many pounds over the same number of weeks as I have lost since mid September I will be lower than any point on this graph right now!
But that is not what really matters. What matters is not doing what I have done the past two years. I lost weight as I got into the Christmas Holiday Season, and then took off on a gaining trip. Last year it was dealing with my mother's problems, but I did it the year before as well. What I need most is to avoid hitting the skids this year and giving up yet once again.
The Today button on the Weight Commander Control Panel Graph didn't give such good news this time around for the Solid Squares, because they are RISING right now. But the rest of it really is pretty good. I dropped 3.5 pounds today from yesterday, showing that weight was artificially high, and I dropped 2.5 pounds last Wednesday too. Over the past 12 Wednesdays I have shown a loss of 19.5 pounds. Wednesdays have been good to me. And the fact that this particular Wednesday was good is surprising, since I didn't take the care I normally do to avoid a bad weigh-in!
When you are on a Weight Loss Journey, looking at the numbers only does good when you are searching for what is going on, and what to do to make things better. Sometimes, when the numbers are good, you make things better by not changing a thing! If the numbers are bad, it is not a time to sink into depression and give up the ship. Instead, it is merely a sign that something needs to be changed during the upcoming week. Something is not working, and action is required to get things moving in the right direction.
There are some good things about this week and some bad things about this week. It is never a good thing to go over your points limit, as I did the past two days. I need to fix that! On the other hand, my average points-per-day for the week was okay. That is a good thing. I also walked 15 miles this week, and that is good too. I need to continue the good things and see if I can avoid the bad. And then I will trust to the program to work for me, and hopefully I will see a drop on the scale next Wednesday.
Walking this week was cooler than it has been in the past. I am wearing heavier coats and starting to have to deal with weather. Wednesday I walked my 3 miles with my new heavy blue coat on, and the temperature was 43°.
 On Thursday, about 10 a.m., I set off on a walk with my medium yellow coat on under my Carhart jacket. It was snowing a bit and 36°, and felt a lot colder. You can see the light dusting on the top of our pumpkin, and girl scarecrow in the front yard. In the background, beyond the vacant lot, the rooftops are also lightly dusted. A few stubborn leaves are holding on to the tree, but they are doomed soon.
Here I am about two-thirds of the way done with my walk, and this field shows the light coating of snow. It was not much and it was gone soon, but it was fun to see. Later on, it will be a lot thicker I am sure, and cold enough to hang around for a long time.
Foggy Friday 3-Mile Walk
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Foggy
Street |
Squirrel
At Edge |
Squirrel
In Middle |
Uh-Oh! |
Friday, just after 8:15 a.m. when I started my walk, the temperature was up to 45° and it was foggy. I took the "Foggy Street" picture above to show the way the path disappeared into the ground-level cloud surrounding me. It reminded me of the fog we used to deal with in Lemoore, California, back when we first met our friends Jim and Tammy. The San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst fog you will ever see on earth. The fatal crashes around there are too frequent. You can come up to a stop sign and be into an intersection without ever seeing the sign or any indication that you have entered cross-running traffic. Very dangerous! I have had to roll my window down and stick my head out of my car, driving as slow as I can, in order to see the white line, in a California fog. This fog I walked in on Friday was nothing compared with those days, but it still called my memory back.
The next three pictures were taken about a quarter of the way into my walk. I had my hiking boots on, so I could walk down off the road in the mud, rocks, or whatever was there, whenever a car came along. I always walk against traffic when there is no sidewalk, and a couple of stretches of road there isn't a lot of extra space for walking down there. This particular spot wasn't too bad, but the car moved over into the other lane to give me extra room, which is always appreciated, even though I was off the road at the time.
In the first picture of the series of three pictures, the car is off into the fog. Its lights are just barely discernible. You can see a power line running across the road from the left to right. The pole on the right is smaller and probably being used as a power feed to a house. Directly below that right pole, you can see a dark spot breaking the white line on the right of the road. That dark spot is a squirrel, who is thinking about crossing the road.
In the second picture of the three, the squirrel has reached the middle of the road. If he had kept right on going, he would have been safely across with no story to tell about it. But he saw me about then and came to a halt. Meanwhile, the care off in the distance is getting closer. I was beginning to worry just a bit about the little fellow.
In the last picture of the three, I felt disaster was imminent. The squirrel still hadn't budged, and continued to sit right on the line. That might have been okay if I were not standing there. The car would have stayed in his lane and missed the squirrel completely. But, I was standing there and the car swerved away from me bringing his tires right in line with the frozen squirrel. Time was running out and not a muscle twitched. Would he be killed?
I feared the worst, but at the last possible instant the squirrel made a dash back to the side of the road where he started from and was safe.
Later on Friday, we had planned to have a pumpkin carving session. LeRoy bought 4 pumpkins, and brought them over to our house. Dotti had procured a pumpkin carving kit and we thought we would try it out to see how it would work. Jamie brought Hunter over and the 4 adults attacked the pumpkins while Hunter was busy playing a learning game on Grammy Dot's computer.
Here is Hunter intently watching the screen and moving that mouse. He won't be 4 years old for another month, but he is well ahead of the curve for his age. 
Some people take their pumpkin carving very seriously. LeRoy felt the creative power flowing up into his hands and it overwhelmed the moment. "I have attainted entry into the heart of the beast!" he is shouting. Can victory be far behind? 
We decided that a little magic was in order as Dotti opened up her pumpkin and I snuck up from behind. Watch out for that moon on the left, it is getting too close!
The Nightmare is upon us, as Halloween approaches! Jamie, carve the pumpkin, not LeRoy!
The frolicking is over and it is time to do some serious carving. LeRoy was doing some intricate work on a small feature he wanted to get just right.
Call me a biased father if you will, but I think that is an awesome job on this jack-o-lantern! Way to go LeRoy!!!
We thought putting it right under a light might help bring out the interior behind the carving. ( You may think that this shows that the pumpkin was upside down, but surely that is only an optical illusion. Isn't it? )
One of the special joys, when LeRoy comes to visit—one of many—is seeing the way that Dotti lights up so completely. It does my heart a lot of good to see this look on Dotti's face! And our handsome son is always great to see in his own right!
LeRoy with his pumpkin one more time, moving into the Time Tunnel for this shot. (If you remember that show, you are telling your age! )
Dotti and I got up early and set to work on Halloween morning to get the rest of the decorations up for the big night ahead.
We had bought a 5-foot skeleton and I thought it would be a simple, snap it together and hang it up, sort of project. I was wrong. The joints were all really weak and there was no way to get it together using them. So, I drilled holes and tied each joint together with fishing line. The only joints that worked okay without tying were the wrists and ankles. The skull/neck, pelvis, shoulders, elbows, and knees all had to be drilled and tied. However, when I was done it looked pretty good. I was then trying to decide where to hang it up.
I decided to tie a hangman's noose and hang it from a gutter in the front yard. Dotti was hard at work putting up the archway and many other decorations. The wind was blowing very hard, so we had to tie things down. The gravestone fell over repeatedly before I tied it. I had to fill our plastic skull up with water to weight it down enough to stay put. But when we finished, we liked the way everything looked. It was ready for some visitors.
It was about 3 p.m. when we finished up and I set off on a walk. It was a beautiful day for it! The temperature was 57°, and the sun was out. A few clouds were painted across the sky for decoration only.
I have enjoyed watching this house go up the past few weeks. The long fall shadows, with the low weak sunlight painting the tree, field and sky brings a warm feeling to me. I love this time of year, and the weather was gearing up for a perfect Halloween night!
Back at home, our giant bat waits to greet our guests with a wink. The monster doorbell sits below, and the skull light covering looks down and laughs.
And this is Grim Reaper Al, with a full set of teeth! The mask lights up and if you look very closely at the chin, and across the forehead, you can see just a bit of lightening where the blue light is on. In the dark it looks cool, but in the light of day, it is hard to see.
The moon was nearly full for this Halloween night. Our skeleton was just hanging around, waiting for the visitors to start arriving.
Dotti had on our glasses from Scarywood (just look at those eyes!), and her witch's make up and costume. She was ready for Halloween!
The skull sat right at the corner where all the little ones would have to pass in order to get to our door. The wind had blown him out of his planter earlier, and so I filled it up with water, and it stayed put the rest of the night with no problem. Dotti found a nice little battery powered LED lamp to brighten things up for the skull.
Our garage light covers were decked out in festive orange and black. The wind was strongest at this point and I really had to secure these well for the evening.
This large illuminated pumpkin was the same one you saw earlier with the snow on top of it. He was all dried out and still smiling for tonight though!
Here is a overview shot of the decorations that greeted the trick or treaters. The skull and garage lights were off to the left of this shot. You can almost see the edge of the skull's planter at the lower left corner, but not quite. There is an illuminated skull hanging down from the gutter right before entering the archway. Lighted skulls line the sidewalk down to a lighted pumpkin on the left, lights around the pole on the right, and of course the bat and skull light cover. On the right you can see a beware sign, our four carved pumpkins, a RIP gravestone, a spiderweb light display on the window, four hanging skeletons with lit eyeballs, and the silhouette of the skeleton hanging from the noose. Upstairs in the living room window are two more decretive pumpkins lit up.
The window behind the carved pumpkins is open and I had my guitar amp on inside there with the volume up high. If you look closely, you can see the microphone cable running from the living room window down the wall and into the lower window. I would talk into the mike when I saw kids coming down the sidewalk to scare them. One of the smaller kids covered up her ears when she came to get the candy because she was afraid. Dotti would explain to any of the children who were really frightened that "it is just my husband!"
Here is our little gravestone decoration. The light you can see is the same type that we used for the skull in the planter on the sidewalk. They are great lights for many uses. We used them as backups for power failures in some areas of the house, but they did a great job for lighting up things on Halloween.
Dotti's brother's nickname is Rip, and he jokes about how popular his name is every Halloween. See, he's right!
Of course Halloween is about the kids and we had our 3 nephews and 1 niece (Caudy's children) as well as their mother drop in as our first visitors for the night. Dotti took the kids around the neighborhood to get some candy from our neighbors after giving them each a special Halloween basket of candy. Later Hunter and Jamie showed up as well! Here is Hunter in his costume. LeRoy later told me that he was "Maximus Prime." The name meant nothing to me, but Hunter looked like he was excited about it.
Is that a vampire bat flying out from that castle? Witch Dotti has her evil eyes cooking for the evening as you can tell!
Here Jamie and Hunter are looking less Halloween-like and just plain everyday awesome!
Hunter took Grammy down to the bottom of the stairs by the front door, so they could be ready to give out the candy to any kids who arrived. Later, LeRoy arrive and surprised them when they didn't hear him and he opened the door unexpectedly. He was lucky Dotti didn't have her wand with her! (She had given it to Kaydee our pretty niece earlier when the little sweetheart said she liked it.) He would have been turned into a toad or worse!
We were winding down. We were waiting to see if Jim and Tammy would swing by to see our decorations, but they couldn't make it. It was about time to take off the costumes. Dotti's glasses were off and sitting on top of my journal and it was time to relax.
Here is Dotti's pumpkin of the witch face. Halloween was a witch motif for her this year.
I was out taking this picture of all our carved pumpkins (LeRoy's was the upper left, Jamie's was in the middle, and Dotti's was on the bottom right, with mine on the top right.) when we got word that LeRoy's girlfriend and her daughter were on the way over for a visit! We had a great time closing out Halloween with just five of us talking for quite awhile. It was really nice!
We really enjoyed our Halloween this year! I think the pumpkin carving session will become a tradition in our household, because it was a lot of fun!
Sunday morning, we finally got around to setting our clocks back an hour. (The alarm clock in our bed room had to be set a second time after setting itself a week earlier and that had to be corrected.) I do enjoy going around the house and finding all the clocks—and we have a lot of them—and putting them all right. It gives me a chance to change batteries and adjust the minutes to the correct time as well as getting the hours correct. It has been my little task for all the years of our marriage. I just wish they would leave the dates alone when we do it.
Sunday evening Dotti took a walk with me! I love it when she does that! It was dark out, and so we put on our flashers and carried our flashlights. I had a great time walking hand-in-hand with my lovely wife! It was 36° and so we bundled up before we left. We didn't even have any sunshine to warm us up above the air temperature. However, we have had some practice now getting the right layers of clothes on, and we were just fine for the walk.
Sunday was the first day we could have legally put on studded snow tires for our cars, but I thought it would be too busy on the weekend to do that, and we didn't have snow in the forecast for a while anyway. So, we waited until Monday. We went down to Les Schwab's Tire Center with both cars, after I loaded all 8 snow tires into the van, and waited for over 2 hours for them to get to the cars. They changed the tires over for us and changed our windshield wipers as well. While waiting I study a book I brought with me, and I ended up eating a candy bar and 3 small bags of popcorn. I also had two cups of coffee with cream. So, I put too many calories in for a meal. I skipped lunch after that, and that helped, but I still went over for the day.
On Tuesday, we met LeRoy down at Costco for some shopping we needed to do, but I stupidly had a Very Berry Sundae and Churo. This is the sort of thing that blows you off program. The sundae could have been worked around, but the churo was complete waste of calories. I was 9 points over at the end of the day. Big mistake!
But that is spilled milk and there is no putting it back in the cup. So, no crying, I'll just move on. A new week is starting, and I hope it will be a better one!
8 years, 176 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.
-Al-
6'3" 239.5/203.0/185.0±2.5/BMI:25.37/WK-442
Starting weight: 239.5
Target Weight Range: 185.0±2.5 pounds
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