Week 51 Update

All week long I look forward to Friday, and the weekend; where life is in my own hands and I can do what I wish rather than what the company I work for wishes. The only time that is not true is on the weeks where I "have the pager" and am on-call. Weekends can be very unpleasant at times when I on call. If things get jumping around town, and several customers have problems I can be going non-stop all weekend long.

I don't know how the rest of the weekend will go, but this one started off very badly. I had not even finished my 8 hour work day, and it was becoming clear that I would have to be going to another customer site and work on a problem. I made it over there by 5:00 PM, after swinging by my home along the way for a quick bite to eat that Dotti had put together for me. I worked until 10:30 when I was able to leave with the problem in the machine narrowed down to one probable cause, but not yet fixed. I will find out this morning whether or not their night shift fixed it. If so, I may be able to start my weekend. If not, it's back to work today for more fun. (I stand in waiting for the call of the wild pager hanging on my belt.)

My points-per-day average is down to 41.21 this week. I was planning to eat more points yesterday, but I got called in to work in the evening, and you can't eat in the clean room. I did stop at Dairy Queen at lunch and have a banana split (11 pt.) but dinner was only 6.0 points and my total for meals was 29.0 for the day. Dotti slipped me a Just 2 Points bar for the car when I headed off for my evening work obligation, and I ate it on the drive home afterwards. (I was glad I had it too, because I was feeling a bit hungry.) I had a Skinny Cow when I got home, and added together with the cup of coffee I had at work in the morning, it totaled 6 snack points, making 35 points for the day. I was a little concerned that my weight would be low today, because it was only about 185 when I went to bed. However, I did not drink very much water yesterday and my weight did not drop overnight as much as usual. In fact I slept straight through the night without a break for a change.

Last Saturday, I weighed in the same as I did today: 184.0 pounds. That is where I want to be, and so I ate 38.0 points which I felt should help me to maintain where I was. However, my weight dropped a half-pound the next morning. So, I ate 40.0 points on Sunday to bring it back up a bit. On Monday it held steady at 183.5, and my points were pretty steady too at 39.5. Tuesday morning Mr. Scale moved up a pound and a half to my target weight of 185.0. I had a Kashi bar as my last snack for the night to push my points up to 31.0 but overall I did not eat as much because I did not want to go over 185.0. On Wednesday, my weight dropped to 184.0. I had a feeling that I was on a downward slide just a bit. Something told me my weight was about to drop, so I kicked in the points on Wednesday up to 55.0 (Dotti was feeling ill that morning and did not make my lunch. I decided that I could afford a McDonalds splurge, and so I had 24.5 points there, including a large Butterfinger McFlurry). Thursday, my weight did drop, to 182.5. So, I kept my points high again at 50.5. Friday my weight moved up one-half pound. I was going to hit it a bit harder on my points for the day, but that plan was OBE (overcome by events) as some folks in the Navy are fond of saying. I topped out at 35.0 points, but fortunately, Mr. Scale did not cry this morning, "Foul! Too low!" Instead I hit well within my target range. If the pager will leave me alone today, I plan to have a few more points than I had yesterday. We have the Zonie walk scheduled this morning, to get some exercise, and then we will see what the day brings.

Before last night, I was getting to bed very early this week, still recovering from the conference and the accompanying drive. I still woke up about 5:30 AM this morning, even though I did not get to sleep until well after 11:00 PM. So, maybe I am almost back to normal now, and can start getting to bed at my normal hour.

I must have between 50 and 100 emails in my mailbox that I collected over the two weeks of conference, and I haven't been able to get to more than 4 or 5 of them. It is one more thing that I hope to get to this weekend, pager willing.

I think that Tom may have helped to provide me some motivation for exercise, so that I can be in good enough shape to do some serious walking at the next conference. I may be even be able to work up to some jogging again by that time. It would be nice. Dotti and I have been talking about getting back to the gym this weekend (again pager willing), since her knee is feeling a bit better. Doing some gentle exercise for the knee would probably do it some good. We will see what happens. I may even get started on some circuit weight training. If I can get my body exercising and I stay the same weight, I will be able to cut out the layer of fat from my stomach and build some muscles in other areas; sculpt and shape. It certainly is the next area of personal improvement that I would like to tackle.

This Week In Books

I finished listening to The Two Towers this week driving to and from work. I am now listening to The Return of the again. I think one of the most appealing things about the story is the Old English feel there is to the writing. Things are described with names and phrasing that proclaim age and dignity for the writing. It is free of the most of the things that current literature is filled with, and that I find unappealing: PC thought, sexual escapades outside of marriage, etc. The story is about a time filled with war, and so violence is a part of the story. However, JRR Tolkein treats the subject with discretion, and unlike many authors today who share Stephen King's tendency to spend extensive verbiage upon minutely detailed descriptions of the most horrible aspects of such events, Tolkein focuses upon the results of the war, with the all of the associated feelings of loss and sorrow, without playing to the voyeur side of the reader, attempting to horrify and jade with gory detail.

For my bedtime reading I have started a book I purchased a while back called, "The Good Stuff." It is a collection of old sci-fi stories, which I love to read. I have only just begun reading the book, and am still in the middle of the first story.

357 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6'3" 239.5/184.0/185 ± 2/BMI:23.0/WK-51
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story