Week 55 Update

At 5:00 AM, the temperature was sitting at 55°F, and for some reason I just couldn't sleep any more. So, I stepped on Mr. Scale, and he said, "183.5 pounds!"

Well, I finally broke my string of 5 weeks in a row at 184.0 pounds. Yesterday, I had a long day at work, (11.5 hours with my only break, driving from one customer's site to another, and grabbing my lunch on the way). I was on my feet for 6.5 hours straight, in the afternoon and evening, and was feeling pretty tired when I got home. Also, since it was late when I got home, I did not eat as much as I would have eaten if I had made it home at my regular time. (I had planned to eat close to my 43.0 points yesterday, but only ate 33.0.)

As it turned out for the week, I still averaged 42.86 points per day, which is very close to my target 43.0.

On my drive home from work, I have really cut the stress factor down, by taking the back roads. It usually takes between 50 and 60 minutes to get home on this route, but it is usually a drive where I am moving the whole time (except for 13 stop lights, and 9 STOP signs; which my cousin used to call Squeal Tires On Pavement signs when we were kids. :^) ), which is very important to me. I hate stop and go driving. Also, the scenery on the back roads is much nicer. Part of it is a mountain road, with tall trees, and greenery in nearly every direction I can look, including straight up. The rest of the drive flows fairly smoothly. There is one point on the run where 3 railroad tracks cross the highway, one right after the other. There always seem to be a row of school buses at that point, each stopping; moving to the next track; stopping; and then doing it again on the third one. Fortunately, there are two lanes at this point so traffic can continue on. Unless, of course a train is crossing. :^( I have been caught by a couple of them, nearly 100 cars long. The last was 92 cars, counting the engines. (Counting cars is an old habit that I picked up as a child. My Mom and I used to count the cars of the trains when we were waiting for the trains to pass in my hometown, where the tracks ran between where our house was, and where the "downtown" area was. -- With only 2,000 people in the town, there wasn't much of a downtown. The town's only claim to fame was the medical school: Loma Linda University.) So, when I get home these days, my stress level is way down from where it used to be, driving the parking lot, laughingly referred to as the "freeway."

Letting my appetite dictate how much I eat each day, has been working pretty well. If I decide to go to a restaurant, I can have some real food, which will run up my points a bit for that day, but then the next day bring it back down to reality. As long as it averages out to about 43.0 points for the week, I seem to be okay. I had 3 days this week where I ate about 33 points. Two of them were at that level because I had eaten enough for the day, and one was because of my late running workday. (I had 4 days over my target and 3 days under.) All and all, I am very comfortable with how things are going. I am hungry less of the time now, than I was when I weighed 240 pounds! I am more satisfied, and far less frustrated with the whole nutritional area of my life. I am drinking more water, eating more vegetables and fruits, and all around putting more nutritious food into my body, while feeling fuller and less deprived than before. I keep asking myself, "Why didn't you do this years ago?"

I have been feeling better this week, and now am pretty much back to normal. I haven't had a cough drop, a McFlurry, or a DQ banana split in over a week. My new standard lunch has been filling me up, and getting me through the afternoons well. All and all, things are going well.

I did not get out and exercise this week. My left knee was aching a few of the days, and my right knee was aching a couple of other days. Of course all my joints were aching when I was ill. So, I took a break this week from walking or running.

This Week in Books

I have been working on The Case of the Angry Mourner by Erle Stanley Gardner this week. This Perry Mason book started off a little differently. It started with a mother who thought that her daughter had shot a man, and so she cleaned up the scene of the crime when she stumbled across it. The daughter thought that the mother did the shooting and was trying to protect her. And Perry Mason is then thrown into the middle of the mess. In this case, as it often is, the guy who got murdered, richly deserved it. He was called a "wolf" by the characters in the book, but what he was, was a date-rapist. He would get girls into compromising situations and then "have his way with them." His father was rich and powerful, and usually the girls were afraid to say anything, and if they did, daddy got it got covered up. (Sounds somewhat similar to a famous family in Massachusetts.) The people in the surrounding area had no sympathy for the guy, because they had a good idea how he was operating. So, now some of them are seeking to cover things up, because they think the daughter did it. It should be an entertaining light read.

I continued on with the Winds of Darkover at lunch. I had errands to run on a couple of days, and I had to drive across town yesterday at lunch, but I did read a couple of days. I am probably 2/3 of the way done with it. It is a story about a society that is near medieval, with castles and horses, and swords, dominated with ESP and magic. But it is set in an era of advanced science being used by the earthmen who have a base on the planet. It is not my favorite type of novel, but it is moving along fairly well.

I am over halfway through The Odyssey now. I think it is interesting the things that were obviously important to the Greeks, about a thousand years before the time of Christ. The differences between their culture and ours are immense, yet I can see where the foundation that they laid for their society still has its indications in our own. Many of their values are still with us, while others seem very strange.

The workings of the gods in the book make for an entertaining view of life. All things that happen, for good or ill, have their source in the action of the gods. Chaos, random chance, and normal weather fluctuations, are ideas predated, and alternately explained by the whim of Zeus, Poseidon or some other god.

The wild, romantic tale of Odysseus (Latin form: Ulysses) is an interesting story in its own right, and it holds the attention, over and beyond the insight that it gives into Greek life of about 1000 BC. Of course it really focuses on the very upper crust of Greek society of the time. The characters seem to go from one palace to another, where they lay around and feast with servants taking care of their every desire, filling their cups and their plates, and the rich hosts giving gifts. So far at least two of the givers of gifts, passed along a gift that they had received from some other important personage. It reminded me of the Hobbits passing out birthday presents, that they had received as presents earlier. :^)

The story is building to the point where Odysseus will render justice to those who moved into his house, and were helping themselves to his rightful wealth, and to that, which should have been the inheritance of his son. "The suitors" are not going to be happy campers at the end of the book.

It took thousands of years to build the European culture which was transported to the American colonies, and formed the foundation of our own society. I find it very interesting, in The Odyssey, to see a word picture of where it was at in its development a thousand years before the time of Christ.

1 year, 20 days OP, a lifetime to follow!

-Al-

6'3" 239.5/183.5/185 ± 2/BMI:22.9/WK-55
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story