Week 54 Update

The temperature had only fallen to 56 F, by the time got up just before 4:00 AM, and stepped up on Mr. Scale. He said, "184.0 pounds!" That is five weeks in a row! Another interesting item is that I averaged exactly the same number of points per day this week as I did last week, although the it was quite different the way that I ate the points.

This has been an unhappy week for me as to the way that I have felt. I missed work on Monday and Tuesday, and just barely felt up to going in on Wednesday. By Thursday I was feeling somewhat better. By Thursday night, I was feeling about 90% of normal, and Dotti and I were celebrating a bit (more as to why in a later post), and we went out to Shari's for dinner...

Well, I had eaten fairly low a couple days this week, and so I let out a few of the stops and had a chocolate shake, a burger, and fries. The shake was topped with whipped cream and they left the metal container there with the second half of the shake for when I finished the part they put in the glass for me. I figured it, with its real ice cream, at 20.0 points. The burger was well loaded with goodies, but no cheese: 14.0 points. And to top it off the fries were quite tasty, at 8.0 points. The meal came to 42 points, and I ate every one of them. This was not what I had planned for the day at it's beginning, but one of the cool things about this program is that it is flexible and can absorb some large variations from the norm on occasion. For the day, I hit 63.0 points. When averaged together for the week, I calculated that I could eat 30.0 points on Friday and still average just under 43.0 points, which has become the center of my target point range. (See below.) So, that is what I ate on Friday, and my average points for this week is identical with that for last week. I knew that I was in pretty good shape still, when I weighed 184.0 on Friday morning.

This week, including last night and this morning, I have not been able to stay up past 9:00 PM, and then I wake up between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM, and can't get back to sleep. Whatever this bug is, I hope it exits completely soon!

I have been very pleased with how my new standard lunch has been working out. I am eating 12.5 points every lunch, and getting in vegetables, and protein, while avoiding the high point desserts. It is filling me up just fine, and I feel that I am eating healthier than I was.

For exercise this week, I only got out on Saturday. I ran about half of the 2.26 miles, and covered the distance is 25:44 minutes. When I got back home I was not feeling very well. I thought that I had just overdone it, but looking back, I think the illness that was to keep my out of work on Monday and Tuesday, and make me feel under par all week long, was already at work. In fact, I had some pain in my digestive track on Friday for a bit of the drive home. It almost felt like an intestinal flu setting in, but then it went away as the drive neared its end and did not return. So, I didn't give it any more thought at the time. By Monday I was feeling really bad, and Tuesday morning I actually felt worse. So, I stayed at home both of those days. Wednesday, I made it into work, but was so happy that it was a quiet day. Just going up and down the stairs sent my head to spinning, and I was not up to doing much. Thursday I was feeling better, and Friday I felt some better still. But I am not 100% even yet. So, I did not get in anymore exercise this week. (Although at lunch on Friday, the sunny sky did make me think about it.) My joints are still achy, and my left knee is hurting some. So, I am taking it easy still.

During this past week I posted in the Lifetimers Maintaining at Person Goal forum, some thoughts concerning maintenance, that I felt should go into my journal. The following, with a couple of changes to bring the data up to date, is what I posted:

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Maintenance

I think that there is a difference between losing and maintenance that is very basic. Although we use the same tools for both, we don't use them exactly the same way. When we were losing, we had a range of points that we would eat within every day. We might eat at the high or low end of the range, but we ate within the range, and we lost weight. As far as the scale was concerned, getting a smaller number was all that mattered. A bigger loss was looked at as a better loss, but any loss was a plus. The part of that system that took up all of the slop, which was created by the competing metabolic variables, was the rate of loss. People, even though they were eating in the same range, lost faster or slower than others, because of all the individual variables involved, but for most people, if they ate within their range, they lost something over time. The rate of loss was the "governor" or the "flywheel" on the system, taking up all of the variation created by daily life, and calorie intake, and outgo. As long as the rate of loss was positive, and weight therefore was leaving, the system was considered to be working.

Now, what is the "governor", or the "flywheel" for our maintenance system? What takes up the slack, and smoothes out the bumps? And what do we expect from our range of points now? It is now quite different. Losing is not the goal. As with a plane changing to a lower altitude, the techniques used to go down to the new altitude, are different than the ones used to hold that new altitude. With a controlled descent, the main thing you are worried about is, are we heading down or not? Our simple rules were: descending is good; not descending is bad. But when we reach our altitude, our rules change. Now they are: descending is bad, and ascending is bad. Only, NOT descending, and NOT ascending will do.

To lose altitude, you push the stick forward and the plane drops. To maintain altitude that simple rule is gone. Now you have to monitor altitude and pull back sometimes on the stick and push forward at other times on the stick. There are many things that will attempt to change your altitude for you. Your exercise level may change, due to circumstances beyond your control, or even by your own design. You may eat different kinds of food, altering the caloric content of your points, and/or the amount of sodium you are eating. Your body may just be on a low, or high day and your metabolism may temporarily slow down, or speed up. Even your emotional state can affect the digestion process and your appetite. I am becoming more and more convinced that a "points range" for maintenance, if it exists at all, is going to have to be used quite differently than it was for losing.

The way that I am currently seeing the "points range" for maintenance is as a sanity check. Eating below or above that range will tend to drive me into unhealthy areas, either for possible long term destructive habit creation, or unbalancing the machinery in a way that may be hard to correct from.

My first step has been to zero in on a points value (rather than a range) where, when I average eating that many points, my weight holds me close to where I want to be. Then I create a points range by adding to, or subtracting from that value, based upon the deviation that my weight has taken from the optimum value. The limit, which is the maximum offset value that I add or subtract from my "ideal" point value as a correction factor each day, defines my point range.

The last five weigh-ins, I have weighed 184.0 pounds. I have averaged 43.0 points per day over the last 4 weeks, and all three of those weeks, my points have been close to that value. (There were no huge weekly swings being averaged out to come up with 43.0.) So, that means, at least for now, my target point value should be 43.0 points. If I wake up in the morning and my weight is 183.0, I then eat more than 43.0 points per day until my weight comes back up to 184.0. If I weigh more than my target weight, then I eat less than 43.0 points per day, until my weight drops. (I am currently using 10 points.)

As long as I am at home (on the road is a whole different ball game), my points range is in reality loosely split into two separate ranges: the losing range (33.0 - 43.0 points) and my gaining range (43.0 - 56.0 points). The higher I am above my target weight, the lower my points for the day go down. The lower my weight drops, the higher my points go above 43.0. If for some reason my weight takes a real drop (as it has on the road a couple of times) I then will add a power dose of points to boost me back on track, as I recently did.

What I have found, for my personal maintenance journey, is that the "governor" or the "flywheel" for taking out the bumps created by all the competing variables is now myself, taking a scale reading each day, and responding accordingly. For most days, my weight is very close to where I want it to be. So, I do not have to change the amount that I am eating very much from day to day. I let my appetite decide for me as much as possible as to how much I eat each day. If I weigh what I should, and I am full, and satisfied, I don't push more points in, just because I am a bit lower than I had planned for the day. Also, I may eat a few points more than 43.0 if I am hungry and my weight is good. However, if my weight is not where it should be, then the applicable points range goes into effect until the correction has been achieved.

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This Week in Books

Since today is exactly 7 months until Christmas, it seems only right that this week I read When Santa Was a Shaman by Tony van Renterghem Publisher: Llewellyn Publications. It was more of editorial piece than a history. It did have a number of interesting historical items, and was worth the read, but a great deal appeared to be speculation, and the author allowed his political views (which clashed strongly with my own) to overshadow far too much of the book, and it crowded out the topic in several places. In spite of that, it was interesting to see his speculations as to where so many of the customs that we associate with the Yuletide (as well as Easter and other holidays) came from. Many of his ideas I had been exposed to in other places, but a few were new to me. It opened the door to many questions, especially on the topic of traditional European customs. I have some books on the Celts and the Druids, etc. on my shelf that I may finally get to as a follow up to this book.

I finished The Case of the Stepdaughter's Secret by Erle Stanley Gardner this week. It was a fun read, as all of the Perry Mason books seem to be. This one had to do with blackmail, high society, and double-cross, all neatly worked through by the bright-witted lawyer, with the aid of his private sleuth, Paul Drake, and his beautiful and efficient secretary, Della Street.

On Friday, I also started a Sherlock Holmes story, The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have a CD which contains all of the Sherlock Holmes stories that Doyle wrote on the topic. I read A Study in Scarlet a while back from that CD. Reading a story on a laptop screen is not as easy as reading from a book. I read Robinson Crusoe from a CD, and it was a slower process than a book would have been, and of course it didn't have a book jacket to give it that familiar feel that most books have while you are reading them. However, it is hard to beat having hundreds of books available at any given moment, whenever I have my laptop with me.

On my lunches, I have gotten back into the Winds of Darkover, and have worked my way nearly halfway through. It is part of an ACE Double book, and the book on the other side of it looks like it may have certain fantasy aspects to it as well. While fantasy is not my favorite genre, I seem to have developed some tolerance for it, after the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I did not listen to as much of The Odyssey this week as I had hoped but the saga continues on my tape deck. (I actually listened to some Celtic music the last couple of days on the road, because I find it so relaxing, and since I was ill this week for a couple of days, I wanted to keep things as relaxed as possible on the road.

1 year, 13 days OP, a lifetime to follow!

-Al-

6'3" 239.5/184.0/185 ± 2/BMI:23.0/WK-54
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story