Week 90 Update

They often talk about "a month of Sundays," but my journey has now lasted 3 months of Sundays. Ninety weeks have gone by now since I first began my walk to goal.

I slept in until just after 05:00 this morning, and at 05:15 I stepped up on Mr. Scale. He promptly said, "185.5 pounds!" I think I smell a trend developing here. That makes the third week in a row I weighed in at that weight.

The weather has been a big deal the last couple of days in this area of the country. The rain has been coming down fairly steadily and we got over 2 inches yesterday. For the month of January we got 7.64 inches, but the majority of that came the last few days. The rivers are rising and areas were flooded last night. Today, we are supposed to get some more rain, but it sounds like it will be much lighter than what we have been getting. A neighborhood in Camas, a town that is just east of us, had to evacuate because of mudslides. Hopefully the worst is over and things will get back to normal soon.

I did better on my exercise this week. On Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday Dotti and I went to the gym together, and I got in a full hour of basketball practice each time. I have to say that I was a bit skeptical about how I would react to getting up early on Monday morning, a morning I normally despise anyway. However, it turned out to be really great! It took the sting out of Monday morning and the whole day was better as a result. I think I am going to like that arrangement. Getting to the gym at about 05:00 is great because the place is nearly vacant compared with the way it is at night. I can get in and get my exercise in with no problems at all.

On Sunday, Dotti and I walked to Subway and back (1.5 miles each way), which was very nice! On Tuesday, I walked 2 miles at lunchtime, in 30:16. I did the first mile in about 15:20, so on the second mile I was going a bit over 4.0 mph. For my lunchtime walks I am wearing about 10 pounds of clothes, plus a four-pound coat. It is not exactly gym attire, but it works, and carrying about 200 pounds on my walks helps burn more calories. :) The weather on Tuesday was good to me for my walk, because it had been raining all morning, but stopped just in time for my walk. It then rained some more in the afternoon.

Friday was not so nice. After taking Thursday off as an exercise rest day, I looked out the window before going to lunch and saw that it was going to be pouring for my walk. So, after I wrapped my left knee, I broke out my rain poncho and grabbed my umbrella from the car, and headed off to the park on my walk. The entire path is either asphalt, concrete, or wood (that would be the bridges). However, I found several areas where water was flowing across the path. There were a couple of places with standing water also. I actually had to leave the path, and go up onto the soggy grass, in two places because the water was too deep to wade through without soaking my shoes. Large sections of the path were nearly impossible to walk on without stepping on worms who were making their escape from the saturated grassy areas surround the asphalted walkway. There were hundreds of them altogether. The wind was up, so I could not use the umbrella for much of the walk, and as a result the lower, exposed section of my trouser legs did get a little wet. My coat sleeves also got wet where they extended outside of the poncho, but I overall I kept fairly dry. My biggest complaint was the fact that the poncho held in the heat, and I was fairly warm by the time the walk was over. I had the path pretty much to myself, but there were 4 other people I saw out either jogging or walking all told. I finished the 2 miles in 31:05, and I was quite happy with that, considering the conditions that I was walking in. When I got back to my desk, and got my coat off, I found that my pants legs were not all that wet and they dried out very quickly. It all turned out better than I had hoped.

So, overall for the week I got in 3 hours of basketball, and walked 7 miles. I earned over 40 aerobic points, which is 10 over my minimum goal for the week. :)

For my eating this week...

For my weekly weigh-in I stayed constant this week. However, my average weight for the week dropped from 186.0 to 185.57. My average points per day went down from 47.43 to 42.64.

On Saturday I was a half pound higher than my target so, I held my points down to 40.5. On Sunday, my weight held steady, so I dropped my points to 38.5. I dropped to 185.0 on Monday (and I weighed early at 04:00 before going to the gym). I ate 43.5 points, and my weight held steady on Tuesday. I ate 44.5 points and my weight jumped up to 186.5. I was a bit surprised at that, since I had been eating very close to normal, if not lower than normal. So, I ate 44.0 points and waited to see what would happen. Thursday morning I was 186.0. I knew I wasn't putting on fat, so I ate 44.5. Friday morning I was 185.5. Just to make sure that my weigh-in would be okay, I held my points down to 43.0, and this morning I was 185.5. (I weighed before going to the gym. When I got back I was 184.5 but I always drop a pound or two at the gym. It comes right back when I drink some water.)

My average water consumption per day dropped this week from 106.29 to 78.86, but that is still plenty of water (nearly 10 cups a day).

Books this week

I wrote a little something for this area, but after reading it over, it was just too political to be included here. Maybe next week...

1 year, 265 days OP, a lifetime to follow

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.5/185±2/BMI:23.19/WK-90
Weight Loss Graph/Year 1 Maint. Graph/Year 2 Maint. Graph/Success Story