Week 96 Update

While the thermometer at 52° was shedding his winter coat, and barely putting on a wind breaker, Mr. Scale said, “185.0 pounds!” when I stepped on him this morning at 04:30. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Yesterday morning Mr. Scale was in a very bad mood. He said I was 189.5 pounds when I got up, and that was not what I wanted to see. But that is getting ahead of myself.

This week on the scale went like this. On Saturday, I weighed in at 185.0 pounds. That was right where I wanted to be. I ate 41.0 points, which I normally would consider low. (Since I started my exercise routine things have shuffled around on me however.) On Sunday I weighed 185.5. I ate 35.0 points, even though we went out to dinner at the Outback Restaurant, only to see the scale move up to 186.5 on Monday. So, I ate 42.5 points, and then on Tuesday the scale dropped to 185.5. We went out to dinner at the Starlight Diner and I ate 55.0 points for the day. Wednesday, the scale dropped a half pound to 185.0. I ate 48.0 points, which was within a point of what I had established as my maintenance points level before I started exercising. I also started taking Advil for my tooth problems. My weight went up to 186.5 on Thursday. I ate 42.0 points, but on Friday my weight jumped to 189.5. (Yuk!) I had a bowl of soup for dinner on Thursday that was fairly high in sodium which didn’t help either. So, on Friday I went all day without any Advil, and I only ate 32.0 points, with a very light dinner, and only drank 24 ounces of water during the evening. After dinner (before drinking the water), I had already dropped to 186.0 pounds. That made me feel fairly confident that I would be okay this morning for my weigh-in. (Yesterday morning I was concerned that I was going to break my streak. Instead I was able to extend it to 47 weeks in a row hitting within my target zone on my weigh-in day.) I never felt more like being on a tightrope as I did this week. Between the exercise and the Advil, I was struggling to hang on.

My average points per day this week did go up from 39.43 to 42.21 but my average weight went up also from 185.79 to 186.21.

For exercise I was very pleased with how the week went. I made it to the gym 4 times and for my "resistance training" or "weight training," I got in 2 upper body workouts and 2 lower body workouts. I got in 1.5 hours of basketball. I also walked on 4 days (1 of the gym days, and on all 3 of the non-gym days), for a total of 10 miles. I even jogged a mile on the treadmill! All of this activity added up to a total of 44.49 aerobic points, which well exceeded my goal of 30. There are some visible changes in my appearance from the weights, and I can feel the difference as well. All-in-all I have been very satisfied with the way my exercise program has gone. I hope that I can continue it indefinitely into the future.

I walked 2 miles yesterday during lunch, and the wind was up, especially in the upper altitudes. I had to drive to the office in the morning, and when I got back to my customer’s site at just after 11:00, the skies were blue. I was thinking about just taking an early lunch and head right out on my walk, but I didn’t have my knee wrapped yet and so I went inside, and came back out about 11:40 ready to walk. By that time the clouds had blown in and the rain was coming down. I grabbed my raincoat and umbrella and set out. At the end of my first mile the rain was slowing way down. Most of the walk back it was not raining, and by the end there were patches of blue overhead again. The clouds were rapidly flying across the sky. It had also been raining on my Wednesday walk, but on that day I didn’t get any of the blue skies.

It was 10 days ago, on March 5, that I took my last rest day from exercise. This last week, I merely held my walking distance down to 2 miles on the days that I didn’t feel too energetic. That seems to do the trick. I get my aerobic points in and don’t push it too hard. On my gym days I normally get in my harder workouts.

The trees are all budding out, or in some cases exploding with flowers, and I can tell that my allergies are starting to kick in a bit. Most people who have allergies have been complaining the last few days. Spring is less than a week away!

1 year, 307 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/185.0/185±2/BMI:23.12/WK-96
Weight Loss Graph/Year 1 Maint. Graph/Year 2 Maint. Graph/Success Story