Week 56 Update

It was a cool June morning at 47°F, with the clock reading 5:10 AM, when I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, "184.0 pounds!" Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar. :^)

I had three evenings this week where I was just not really up to eating any more, but my points were still fairly low. I did not force myself to eat more than I wanted, and it worked out fairly well for my overall points for the week, and for my weigh-in. For the week, at 44 points per day, I was a point over the 43 points that I am targeting now. I had two high-point days. One ended up being higher than I originally planned (69.0 points) because I knew I needed some extra points that day. So, I decided to grab a dessert at lunch, but then in the evening we unexpectedly ended up going to a restaurant, which added several extra points. I knew I could afford the points, and I enjoyed the meal. The second high point day came about because my weight had dropped a half of a pound for two days running, and I wanted to bump it back up. Last night, I was just plain full at 33 points. I really wasn't too hungry at 28.5 points, but I knew that was too low for the day.

Since my weight was down a half pound at last week's weigh-in, I needed to increase things a bit for this week. The extra 1.0-point per day seems to have been just about right.

Between the weather and my left knee hurting this week, I didn't get out for exercise. I think when I get back at it again; I am going to keep it to walking for a while. Jogging seems to hammer the joints in my legs too much.

My new standard lunch has really worked out pretty well. I'm getting some extra dairy with the yogurt, and I am getting some protein with the peanut butter. I don't miss the meringues, which I eliminated, and I have only had an extra dessert on a couple of occasions in the weeks since I increased the size of my lunch. I am eating a large amount of celery every day on my drive home, along with a red bell pepper, a large cucumber and a Romaine lettuce heart. Plenty of fiber. :^)

My evening meal is where most of the variety in my eating comes from. This week I had meals ranging between 4.5 points and 34.0 points. I averaged 10.9 points per evening meal for the week. I usually have eaten 17.5 points by the time that I walk into the door at home in the evening. (It may be up to 18.5 if I have a cup of decaf during the day, but at work I usually only drink herbal tea.) That normally leaves me about 25 points for the evening, for dinner and snacks. That is a whole lot more wiggle room than I had while I was losing. As long as I write everything down, and don't nuts on high point meals and snacks, maintenance seems to be a pretty smooth road at this time. However, I am not quite convinced just yet. I think a few more surprises are probably out there waiting for me to let down my guard.

I really like being able to wear the new (smaller) shirts that we picked up a few weeks ago, and lately I have gotten a number of comments at work on the weight that I have dropped. On one occasion this last week, we were working on a problem in a small area, and one guy said, "You ought to send in the tall skinny guy." At a BMI of 23, I am just about where I should be, but after years of being overweight, it is nice to be thought of as being thin for a change. (And I have really noticed my size difference these days when I have to squeeze into cramped spaces.)

This Week in Books

I finished The Case of the Angry Mourner by Erle Stanley Gardner on Thursday night. (As I neared the end, I had to force myself to put it down on Wednesday night, or else I would have been up too late reading, and been tired all day on Thursday.) As usual I enjoyed watching Perry Mason pull all the pieces of the puzzle together to get the guilty party in the end.

I didn't start a new book last night, because LeRoy came to visit us, and we all sat down and played the Boston edition of Monopoly for the evening. (We had picked that game up at the Boston Museum of Science while we were still living in the area.) By the time I made it to bed, I was much too tired to try and read.

On Friday at lunch, I finished The Winds of Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley, copyright 1970, and published by Ace Publishing. It was a bit of science fiction, and a lot of fantasy. Although it is not my favorite genre, the story wasn't too bad. On Monday, I get to flip the book over, and start reading the novel on the other side of this Ace Double book.

This week I finished listening to The Odyssey. The story reached the climax as Odysseus paid back the scoundrels who were wasting his wealth, and trying to woo his wife into a marriage she didn't want, while he was away from home. All of their bodies were hauled away to be buried, as their spirits were guided to Hades. That was an interesting addition to the story. Normally when someone dies in a story, that is it. But here the ghosts were shown to be talking to others in Hades about how they were dispatched by Odysseus.

To fill in until I can get another book, I am now listening to the Roddy McDowall reading of Battlefield Earth. It is an abridged version, but he does a very good job reading it, and so I listen to it every so often. The unabridged version is read adequately, and it has a lot more detail in it, but I do very much like the way Roddy McDowall did his reading.

1 year, 27 days OP, a lifetime to follow!

-Al-

6'3" 239.5/184.0/185 ± 2/BMI:22.9/WK-56
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story