Week 98 Update

“You almost blew it this time buddy!" said Mr. Scale. “187.0 pounds!" I even let him sleep in until 06:00 this morning, but it didn’t seem to help. Last night I was 185.5 when I got home from work. I had a very light 4.0-point dinner, and a few snack points. The rest was water. I had not drunk any water to speak of all day long. I then drank 12 cups of water last evening. By the time I went to bed, I was over 190 pounds. That didn’t worry me too much, because after a big water night, I have dropped a lot more than 3 pounds, or even 5, by morning. Today, I just barely got rid of enough of it.

It has been an interesting week for me, but I am glad that it is over. At work I had to leave my normal customer site and go to help another Field Service Engineer with a problem he was having at his site. It was definitely not a nice quiet end of the workweek. (Actually that makes two weeks in a row that I was working up to, and past, quitting time on Friday, on a machine problem.)

For eating this week, I had an average of 49.71 points per day. On Saturday, I ate 49.0, after weighing in at 186.0. On Sunday the scale said 188.0. That is higher than I like to see, even on a daily weigh-in, but I ended up eating 52.5 points anyway. Almost half of those points were snack points, because I was snacking all day long. On Monday, the scale dropped to 187.5, but that was still too high. I ate 41.5 points and the scale responded on Tueday by dropping to 185.5. So, I ate 54.5 points. Wednesday the scale moved up only a half pound to 186.0. I ate 53.0 points that day, and watched the scale drop to 185.0 on Thursday. I thought that was good, so I ate 58.5 points, and the scale moved up to 185.5 pounds. At that point, I was feeling really good about my weigh-in today. I thought I could eat 50 points and still be safe. But old habits die hard, and I decided to go light on my points for Friday, and take an easy pass for the weigh-in today. Ha! After only eating 39.0 points, the scale jumped up a pound and a half and nearly put me out of my target range. You just have to love this maintenance tightrope.

Overall, my average points per day went up from 47.93 to 49.71, while my average weight went up from 186.29 to 186.36. That means my points-to-pounds ratio went up from 0.257 to 0.267. (And so my pounds-to-point ratio went down from 3.89 to 3.75.)

Exercise is a little more predictable, because either you do it, or you don’t. On Saturday, I got to the gym and did my lower body weight training, and then 30:00 minutes of basketball. (4.5 aerobic points.) Sunday, I took a day off from exercise. Monday, I walked 3 miles at lunchtime for 9.81 aerobic points. Tuesday morning, bright and early it was back to the gym. I did an upper body workout on the weights and then another 30:00 minutes of basketball. (4.5 aerobic points.) Wednesday was another rest day, and then Thursday it was back to the gym for a lower body weight workout, and I walked 3 miles on the treadmill, for 11.33 aerobic points. Friday at lunch I walked 2 miles for 5.98 aerobic points. That brought my aerobic points total to 36.12 for the week, which was well over my 30 AP goal.

The weights are starting to have an affect on my appearance; nothing to “write home about" yet, but visible nonetheless. It helps to motivate me to keep going back. The basketball has been fun, and I have really liked getting my shooting eye back. However, my driving focus has really been my walking times. I knew I used to do 12 minute miles or faster years ago, and so I have been working up to that again. On the treadmill I have finally reached the point where I can do that. On Thursday, I walked 3 miles in 35:13. I therefore averaged 11:44 minutes per mile, and that was an average speed of 5.11 mph! My fastest mile was 11:32 (5.2 mph) which I was very happy with.

At work, my times are always slower. First off, each “mile" that I am walking is a bit longer than 5280 feet. That is especially true of the extra mile I walk at lunch to give me 3 miles. I am pretty sure that one is close to 1.1 mile. Also, I am usually wearing my steel-toed shoes, which are heavier, and not really made for walking. I have my coat on, and clothes that are heavier than I wear at the gym. Lastly, the walking path has hills that I have to cross which tend to slow me down a bit. When you add all these things together, you come up with slower times. In spite of that, I have been bringing my times down for my lunchtime walks. Yesterday, without pushing it too hard, I averaged 13:22 per mile, for my two-mile walk. A month ago, for the same walk, I averaged 14:00 per mile. On Monday, I walked the 3-mile course at lunchtime and average 13:01.7 for each mile, and that include the longer “3rd" mile. Now, I did have my walking shoes on for that one, and it was warm enough so I didn’t wear a coat, and I did push it for that walk. It was easily my best walking day on that course so far.

On Saturday night Dotti, LeRoy and I all went bowling at a “Monte Carlo" night. It was the first time I had thrown a bowling ball in well over a year. I did not do terrible, but I did not do terribly well either. My first game was a 170 and I slid down from there. (I think my last game was in the 140s.) It was fun getting together with some of our old bowling friends that I hadn’t seen in quite some time, and it was fun having our son along to join in the fun. When I agreed to go, I didn’t think about the starting time, which was 8:45. On most nights it's getting close to time for bed by 9:00 PM. So, after 3 games of bowling, and watching the clock approach midnight, I had to take in a lot of caffeine to stay awake.

The surprising thing for me was that, even after doing my weight training, basketball, and walking for the last few weeks, and feeling like I am in much better shape, I was really sore the next few days after bowling. Throwing my 16-pound, and 15-pound bowling balls really put my right forearm through its paces apparently. I didn’t expect that. Also, by the third game, my left knee was starting to hurt quite a bit. Fortunately, the next day it was feeling fine again.

So, for the week:

1 year, 321 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/187.0/185±2/BMI:23.37/WK-98
Weight Loss Graph/Year 1 Maint. Graph/Year 2 Maint. Graph/Success Story