Week 82 Update

I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 05:00 this morning, 2 hours and 36 minutes before sunrise, and he said, "184.0 pounds!" The temperature was a brisk 30°, which is cooler than most mornings have been this week.

As the year winds down, and we approach the shortest day of the year, (the timing for which, incidentally, is what brought us the date for Christmas originally) we already are only getting 8 hours and 54 minutes of sunlight. The sun comes up at 07:36 and goes down at 16:30. That means that I go to work before the sun comes up, and come home after it sets. :( Of course the farther north you are, the shorter the days in winter, and the longer the days in summer. So, I guess it all balances out in the end. :^) )

It was definitely a week at home as far as the scale was concerned. A reality wake up call! My average daily points for the week went from 51.93 to 42.00, a drop of nearly 10 points per day! My average weight for the week went from 183.2 last week to 184.8 this week. So, my average points per pound dropped from 0.28 to 0.23. (Or looking at it the other way, my pounds per point went up from 3.5 to 4.4.) It seems that for about every 4 pounds of weight I am maintaining, I get to eat 1 point, or I get about 1/4 point per pound. You could look at that as a percentage and say my metabolism is at about 25%. (It would have been 28% last week, and 23% this week.) My normal 185 pounds for 43 points comes out to 23%, so I guess that is my norm for now.

As the week played out, I found myself hanging around 185 all week long. After my weigh-in at 183.0 in Spokane, the scale moved up on the next two days, until I was above 185 by half a pound on Monday. I had eaten 54.0 points on Saturday, and since the scale went up, I dropped to 42.5 points on Sunday. When it moved up again, I dropped my points to 39.5, which dropped me to 185.0 on Tuesday. I then ate 42.5, which is close to my standard points number, but the scale moved up to 186.0. So, on Wednesday I ate only 37.5. That brought my weight down to 184.0. Once again I ate close to normal with 42.0 points, and my weight moved up to 185.0 on Friday. I took in a lot of fluids on Friday, and it was hard to judge from the scale where I was really sitting. I weighed over 190 at 21:00, when I was trying to decide whether or not I was going to have a little something to bring my points up. Seeing the scale that high made up my mind for me that I was going to stop at 36.0 points for the day, and see what the scale said in the morning. As it turned out this morning, I dropped a pound and weighed-in at 184.0 pounds. I could never do this without journaling, because it constantly keeps me on my toes even with writing everything down.

I am going to take a look at what I am doing "on the road," and compare it with what I am doing at home, and see if I can figure out what is going on. I know I am getting more fat in my menu each day on the road, and I am eating fewer raw vegetables, and drinking less water. But it is hard to say which item is actually driving the changes that I am seeing. It would be nice to narrow down what it is exactly.

On Saturday, our drive home turned out to be an interesting one from Spokane. We started out with the temperature sitting at 25°, and the fog was heavy (in spots I could not see any more than an eighth of a mile ahead of me, if that) from just a few miles out of Spokane, down most of the way to the Tri-Cities area (about 150 miles), that was settling on the road and freezing in spots. When we stopped for gas about 60 miles from Spokane, the parking lot was covered with a thin layer of ice, and the trees looked quite wintry. (Click here for picture #1, and Click here for picture #2.) Fortunately, by the time we hit Kennewick and Pasco (two of the three Tri-Cities) the temperature was above freezing. There was still ice on our bumper, from the freezing fog, when we stopped at Subway in Kennewick, but it fell off while we were eating lunch. There was an electronic sign on the freeway as we were heading south out of Kennewick, on the way across the Columbia River into Oregon, that said to watch out for black ice and freezing fog. Fortunately, it had warmed up enough by that time where the black ice had melted and the fog was no longer freezing. From then on it just got warmer, and halfway into the Columbia Gorge the fog started breaking up. When we reached Vancouver, the sun was shining brightly, and I had to roll my window down to cool things off in the overly warm car. :^)

Dotti's voice today sounds about the same as it did at the end of the two DWLZ conferences: wiped out. She can barely get a whisper out. Her cold is all above the shoulders, and so she has still been going to the gym, even though she can't talk very well. (It's okay to exercise in silence. :) ) It is quite a trick in the evening trying to hear her over the phone. Yesterday she was at a craft fair with some lady friends, and she had been talking all day. By the time the evening rolled around, her voice was completely gone. Hopefully this will pass soon. I miss her sweet voice.

I have felt like something has been catching up with me as well, but so far it has only been a slightly sore throat and general tiredness. It is that time of year.

This Week In Books

I finally finished Major this week, and started Lieutenant-Colonel. (As far as I can tell, Shelley has only written one more book in the series so far: Colonel and I have that one. If he is going to write another one, it probably will not be too much longer before it comes out.) So far, the career of Lon Nolan has progressed during the series, from when he joined the corps as a cadet-officer just learning the ropes, up to the point where he has been in 19 years and is now a major. He has gotten married, and has a son and daughter. His son is now 16 and only 2 years from joining the Corps himself. The books look at the inner workings of the professional soldier's mind, and how the realities of war impact upon his world.

One of the things I find most interesting is the view of colonizing other planets. Earth in the 29th century has continued its mad dash into overpopulation, and big government solutions that only lead to more problems. The entire civilization on this planet is about to collapse. But out on the colony worlds things are sparsely populated, and frontier life is alive and well. Some of the planets have been colonized for centuries and they have progressed a long ways. Others are new worlds just getting started. The Corps is hired by some of these worlds to assist in fighting off invasions, and in stabilizing the various situations that have developed.

For me, it is not the war story that captures my fancy so much, but seeing the portrayal of the European/American form of civilization being expanded and vitalized through colonization of many worlds. The potential is out there, and who knows?

I completed That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis this week on audio book. I enjoy listening to the story and analyzing his attempt to wrap his mythical story around both the pagan and Christian view of the world, leaving both more or less intact. It is an interesting trick to attempt.

I started Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by CS Forester for my next audio book. I have ordered the next two books in that series and have decided that I should brush up on the first one again before launching off into the rest of them. It is an interesting time of history, in the late Eighteenth Century, and captures the feelings and thoughts of a young man entering naval service in that era. As with the futuristic Shelley books, the military of that time was totally male, and that fits in very closely with the real life experience that I had serving on warships during my own military career.

The portrayal of a duel, where both men survived unharmed, was well done by Forester, and he definitely has a feel for shipboard life. The British man, who is doing the reading for the tape, carries the story along very well, providing the authentic language for the proper flavor of the English naval life.

1 year, 209 days OP, a lifetime to follow!

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/184.0/185±2/BMI:23.0/WK-82
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story