Week 60 Update

I brought Mr. Scale along with us, just so he could say, "185.0 pounds!" this morning.

Vacation week in Spokane, Washington. My eating, my water consumption, and my exercise were all affected by the changes in our lives for this week.

Starting with the negative: I did not bring my normal 24-ounce drinking glass, and that set the tone for my water consumption this week. I had a large 24 ounce cup of coffee in the morning, then would drink water only as I was thirsty. I probably didn’t even write down all that I drank. I just didn’t track it well all week long. As it turned out, I was well below my goal of at least 8 cups a day.

Moving on to my eating…I didn’t do too badly. My average points per day went up by 2.43 to 46.86, but I did not set any records for high point days, or even come close to my old record. I should mention that Tammy is an excellent cook, and all week long we always eat well when we are visiting. During the week for high point foods, I had burgers in 3 different meals, and for the one on July 4 th, I actually had 2 cheeseburgers for part of my dinner. We hit the Outback restaurant on Sunday, and I had a 17-point meal, including an excellent bowl of cream of potato soup. Through the week, we stopped for McDonalds cones a few times, and I had one small butterfinger McFlurry. But all of the eating was in control and within my program. On the Fourth of July, I didn’t have lunch as it turned out, and so when dinner came I was hungry. There was a family get-together at Jim’s and Tammy’s house that day, and Jim was cooking up some hamburgers and hot dogs on the barbecue. There was cake and ice cream (we were celebrating several birthdays). The potato salad was excellent, and Dotti’s crustless pie was excellent too! (That was my high point day of the week as it turned out. I had 41.0 points for the one meal, and 59.5 points for the day.)

In the maintenance arena for this week, the part I am most satisfied with is my exercise. I started off slow, not getting any exercise in until Tuesday. But then I got things moving well. Tammy has worked out a walking route that she has been using quite a bit. I used my pedometer on the walk and then I later used my car’s odometer to check it. My pedometer was pretty close, which I was happy to see. The route was just over 3 miles. (It was 3.02 miles according to my pedometer. My odometer had not rolled over yet from 3.0 to 3.1, by the time it hit the end of the course. However, on the drive home, I checked my odometer against a road mileage test, and in 3 miles, it was reading low by just over 0.1 mile. That means the course was actually something over 3.1 miles. )

I walked 3.1 miles on Tuesday morning. It took just under 43 minutes, giving me a 13:42 minutes per mile pace. Then later in the day, my son LeRoy and I went out and hit a baseball around for an hour or so. We hadn’t done that together in years, and I really enjoyed it. I was exhausted by the end of the day, but it felt good.

On Wednesday, I walked once again in the morning. It was comfortable walking in the morning air, and the sun was on me for nearly all of the first half of the walk. I was actually getting a bit warm by the 1.5 mile point, but the second half of the course led through a lot of shaded area, and I was nice and cool. I finished the 3-mile walk in just over 42 minutes, shaving 23 seconds off my time from the day before, and had a walking pace of 13:35 minutes per mile. I was walking at a good pace, but not speed walking. I am not up to doing a 3-mile walk at my “full tilt boogie” pace just yet.

Jim and Tammy took us to Riverside Park outside of Spokane, to see a local natural attraction called the “Bowl and Pitcher.” Dotti brought her cane along to protect her knee, and we walked up a trail to an overlook point of the Spokane river, and the volcanic outcroppings it has cut through. In the middle of the river there stood the two rocks: one looked like an upside down bowl, and the other could be imagined to be a pitcher standing beside it. All along the river were other standing rocks, and one rock that had a deep depression cut out of it by the river’s force. The depression was filled with logs deposited by the rapidly flowing water, when it was at a higher level than it was when we were there. We then walked back down off the overlook, and hiked around to a footbridge that crossed the Spokane River. This was an interesting bridge. As we walked up to it, we saw the cable footing, where the two steel support cables for the suspension bridge were anchored into concrete on the close end. (As we later saw, there was a duplicate set of anchors on the other end.) The span was probably 50 yards or more, and though it was about 7 feet wide, the bridge got to swaying as we walked out onto it. When we stopped in the middle, it was swaying pretty well, and it felt like we were on a ship underway. Jim, LeRoy, and I have spent a fair amount of time on ships underway, and it brought on some feelings of nostalgia. Looking over the bridge at the water only increased the feeling, because the water was flowing very rapidly below the bridge, and it was not that far below us. The illusion was created of standing on a moving ship’s deck, aft on the fantail, looking backwards at the wake the ship was creating with its screws.

Once we crossed the bridge, us guys went down a rock and dirt “path” to the water. Jim led the way, LeRoy behind him, and I brought up the rear. As I headed down, there 3 points that I thought I was going to lose my footing and have to painfully slide down the rest of the way. Fortunately, I was able to recover my balance each time, and was able to join the other two at the bottom unscathed. We tried skipping a few stones, but the fast moving water was far too rough to get any more than one sure skip from a stone. The pine trees, and towering volcanic basalt walls of the channel, all formed a beautiful setting for the river which loudly rushed by on its way to the Pacific, which lays many hundreds of miles down the water’s path. The final run for the water just happens to include the section of the Columbia River that flows past our house in Vancouver.

When we came back up, Tammy and Dotti had walked off in search for another overlook type of formation along the river, and we met a couple who were sitting down in a picnic shelter on the hill, overlooking the river. The lady mentioned that she was from St. Louis. I thought that was pretty cool, and told Dotti when she got back. Dotti and I talked with the lady and she said that all the ladies where she works use DWLZ all the time! She said she was going to go back home and tell them all that she has met Dotti. :^) It’s a small world.

We hiked back to the car, and Dotti’s knee was just fine. My knees were feeling pretty good too.

On Thursday, I was not sure how I was going to do. My knees had hurt some on Wednesday morning after my walk, but after walking it off during the day, they felt fine. So, when I headed out about 6:45 AM, I was taking a slower pace, to take it easy on my knees. The course is nearly all on sidewalks in Spokane. From where I was starting there is quite a bit of a drop down to the halfway point and then it comes back up on the second half. I walked the course in the backward direction on Thursday from the other two days. The reason I decided to change directions is that I feel more comfortable walking facing the traffic where I can keep an eye on what the drivers who are closest to me are doing; especially when I am crossing intersections, where cars are turning across my path. As it turned out however, on Thursday the temperature was the coldest of the three days. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but the sun was not up enough to provide any really warmth yet. I was wearing a tee-shirt, and walking the course in the reverse direction, put the shaded area up front in my walk. So, I was forced to keep my walking pace up a bit more than it would have been otherwise, just to keep warm. The traffic was very light, it being the Fourth of July holiday, and the walk was quite pleasant. My knees ached a bit at first but then worked the soreness out. I finished up the walk in about 44.5 minutes. My pace was 14:39 minutes per mile, which is still respectable. My knees did ache a bit afterwards, but not as bad as the day before.

By the time we had finished the dinner on Thursday evening, the kids wanted to go play basketball. Us old men (that would be Jim and I) went out and joined them. We played for over an hour, and the younger ones (ranging from high school to 25 years old) did more running than we did, but we got plenty of running in for ourselves, and even scoring our share of points. By the time we were done, and I sat down back at the house, I realized that my knees, especially my left one, were not happy campers. Fortunately I had wrapped them both up before I went to play, but even so, I was hurting. After taking some Ibuprofen, I took a really hot shower and that took away quite a bit of the pain, and by Friday morning I was feeling quite a bit better.

Just to give my knees a break, I did not go for a walk Friday morning. Jim, LeRoy, and I went and played miniature golf, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Then LeRoy and I jumped in the batting cage. I hit pitches in the 60 mph cage for about 8 minutes, and then moved over to the 70 mph cage and hit for another 7 minutes. I was tired, and glad that I had only paid for 15 minutes of pitches, and not 30. I had worked up two blisters on my right hand. I hit left handed about half of the time, and right handed the other half. But only my right hand got blisters on it. Both of them ripped wide open on me before I was done. It was worth it! It had been a long time since I hit against pitching of that speed, and it felt good to knock some of the rust off. On one swing I hit the ball up, and it hit a cross member of the cage framework. The ball came right back at me, and hit me right on the top of the helmet. (Good thing I was wearing one!) The 15 minutes of constant swinging was good for 2.25 aerobic points.

For the week, all of the walking and playing added up to 43 aerobic points, and that is much better than what I have been doing. I just have to find a way to continue the exercise back at home. I did find reason for optimism in the fact that my walking 3 miles did not completely wipe my knees out. Perhaps, when I get used to doing that regularly my knees will not be bothered at all by it.

This Week in Books

Closed for vacation. :^) Seriously, other than reading a bit in an encyclopedia while waiting for computer uploads, the only reading that I did this week was material on the Internet, and not much of that. There was just too much going on and by the time I got to bed, it was late, and I was tired. Next week it is back to normal for reading.

1 year, 55 days OP, a lifetime to follow!

-Al-

6'3" 239.5/185.0/185 ± 2/BMI:23.1/WK-60
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story