Sunday, December 15, 2013

Clearing Hurdles and Hitting Benchmarks (Evaluation: Week 16)

Last Weigh In: Friday, 13 December 2013 (Aaaaaaaa.....)

Weight Information -
  • Weight: 407.0 lbs
  • Weight Change This Week: -9.8 lbs
  • Weight Change To Date: -46.2 lbs
  • Weight Gauge: YEAH!
  • BMI: 63.7 (down from 65.3 last week)
  • Daily PPV: 71 (unchanged)
  • PPV Used this Week: 130 out of 497
  • PPV Not Used this Week: 367 (71.8%)
Current Goals -
  • Number Goals
    • Weight: 403.2 lbs (3.8 lbs away, 50 lbs lost)
    • BMI: Reach a value below 40.0 (23.7 away)
    • PPV Not Used this Week: 367 (Beat by 150)
  • Waist Goal: Drop from 7 available holes to 6 available holes
  • Feel Good Goal: Set up the house. Get in the water with the kids
  • Physical Goal: Walk upright up the stairs of my house every time
  • The Y: Swim laps at the Y three times next week and work on the bicycle machine once next week
  • Weight Watchers:
    • Make a meal plan with the PPV's worked out for one day
    • Use the paper tracker to record calculated points every day this week
    • Use 40 for my daily points instead of 71
    • Avoid using 49 weekly points. Daily points leave 31 available every day. That's 217 left over points available per week
    • Attend two meetings this week. Scheduled for Wednesday and Saturday, especially important to attend Wednesday (see daily entry)
  • Overeaters Anonymous: 
    • Attend two meetings this week. Scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday
    • Face up to Step 1
    • Read Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of AA Big Book
  • Sticky Notes
    • Be active for 5 minutes out of every sedentary hour
    • Put down the fork and sip water between bites
    • Light a candle when carb cravings hit
    • Push Hard! 3.8 Pounds to 50 Pounds Gone!
    • Get to Bed!
Evaluation:
  • Weight Watcher's Awards this week -
    • Bravo - for sharing about avoiding public food samples (see daily entry)
    • 5 pound stars - Received two stars for passing two 5 pound marks
  • Number Goals: Always moving closer. Direction feels great. Quantity feels even better.
  • Waist Goal: Belt tail is still expanding. I have reached 7 available holes, very nearly at 6.
  • Feel Good Goal: Still working on it. The garage made progress this week. This will prepare space for clearing out the family room. Haven't scheduled when to take all of the kids. I take Asian Red Fox and/or Iguana to the Y every time I go without MBWM.
  • Physical Goal: Still need to crawl up the stairs, especially while recovering from exercise. Didn't exercise much this week, but stairs were still difficult.
  • The Y Goal: Terrible week. Didn't use the machines at all. Missed the swimming on Wednesday and Friday. Didn't feel well Tuesday through Thursday.
  • WW Goal: 
    • Still need to make meal plan goal. 
    • 130 points consumed, 367 points unconsumed. That's 73.8% of my available points remained unused. But I wasn't feeling very well for several days. This is an aberration that is unlikely to be repeated, especially since even in my mind, this is a dangerous amount of food missing from my diet.
  • OA Goal: Still facing up to the spiritual challenge of Step Zero - Is this where I belong for the spiritual assistance I need? I have been contemplating Step 1 frequently, especially as related to Step 2 and Step 3 where I have a wonderful relationship with my Higher Power. Especially since I feel the strong urge to make amends (Step 8) as soon as I have failed (in reference to the supernova of selfishness).
    Quite a bit of progress made this week. I need to build on it. For four days, I averaged 10 points of food consumed per day. That may account for quite a bit of my weight loss. While the exercise was lacking, my concern right now is more on the food consumed than anything else. Exercise is vital, but will be more efficacious when I am at a lower weight. I sometimes worry about my joints in the long run. They are in bad shape. They will be in bad shape from here on out. But will they be in better shape for not exercising until I have lost a substantial amount of weight? That's one reason I switched to swimming laps from the aquatics class (in-water calisthenics) and prefer the recumbent bike and the recumbent elliptical. I will have to work hard at both the diet and exercise this week.

    Looking Forward:
    • Stay on program with Weight Watchers, maybe try to aim for even lower points than two weeks ago.
    • Stay on track with low carb / low fat food selection, although I didn't hold to this while sick or recovering and still lost massive weight.
    • Get back on track with swimming laps and exercise machines.
    • Push hard this week: 3.8 pounds of weight loss means 50 lbs lost, 7.2 pounds of weight loss means out of the 400's and into the 300's
      • Hope is 7.2 pounds this week.
      • Goal is 7.2 in two weeks.
      • Expectation is 7.2 pounds in three weeks.
    IVCUFI:
    I have found the way (IV) to keep going. Paying attention even while sick paid off.

    I have seized the road (CU) by losing the weight and not pushing quickly back into consuming food or consuming large quantities to make up for lost food.

    I am enjoying the journey (FI) only in numbers. The supernova of selfishness still haunts me, but it doesn't daunt me. It fades in from my memory to remind me of how much work I still have before me in other aspects of my life.


    Post Number: 71
    Review of Yesterday's Progress
         Daily Points Left: 50 of 71 (Goal: 31)
         Weekly Points Left: 49 of 49 (Goal: 49)
         Pedometer Reading: 6104 (paused)
         Meetings Attended: Weight Watchers Scheduled, Attended Day Before
         Exercise Completed: None Scheduled

    I will start off today's daily entry with the explanations that were prompted in the initial reviews among the bullets above. I received a Bravo star at the Weight Watchers meeting for sharing how I avoid public food samples put out by businesses to entice people. I said that if it's a bowl of food, like pretzels or M&M's, I imagine my kids rubbing the snot out from under their nose with the back of their hand and then reaching into the bowl. That thought keeps me from dipping into a communal bowl. If there are individual samples, then I just let my kids eat at them so there's nothing available for me. I was particularly generous with my kids a few days ago. The lady that was offering samples was letting a guy hit on her. Since she was paying more attention to him than her cookie samples, I let the kids eat all of the ones she had out. That meant there weren't any available for me.

    The next prompting for an explanation revolves around the fact that I need to attend Wednesday's Weight Watchers meeting. The leader was holding a raffle. You put in one ticket for weighing in. And you put in one ticket for attending the meeting. These tickets were collected for several weeks. I ended up winning the Weight Watcher's Success Handbook. I am quite excited. But I need to attend and thank her. Plus, I want to catch up with this group.

    So putting aside the angst and heartache for the supernova of selfishness for the rest of this post and hopefully for the rest of this week, I have been thinking during this review about hurdles and benchmarks. For me, a hurdle is something cleared on the way to the goal. A hurdle would be quantities I have already cleared, 5% weight loss, 25 pounds weight loss, or 10% weight loss, or those quantities I am about to clear, 50 pounds weight loss, less than 400 pounds, or 15% weight loss. A benchmark is a sign post that is a measure of progress along the pathway to success. A benchmark would be a quality of life improvement that shows my progress, such as being able to tie my shoes for myself, being able to walk up and down the stairs of my house comfortably, having to switch to a smaller belt, being able to wear the shoulder and waist portions of my car's seat belt. Right now, I sit on the waist portion and pull the shoulder portion over my head to have some measure of protection. There are many of these benchmarks and hurdles, which is why I list them.

    I have created some charts in my Excel file for tracking my numerical progress. I think I will start including them once a month during my additional monthly evaluation of the long-term and other goals. I could have created them at any time, but since I tend to go a little nuts with Excel, I held off as long as I could from creating the charts to go with the myriad of other information I am tracking. Plus, there is quite a bit of information I didn't start tracking until Week 10. But since I just created them, I cannot resist adding them in today.

    This shows my weight at weigh in since Week 10.

    This shows how much my weight changed at weigh in since Week 10.

    This shows the amount of food I have consumed measured in Weight Watchers points

    This shows the percentage of the points left unconsumed compared to the total point assigned. MBWM pointed out the typo (it's Percent not Precent). I have fixed it in my Excel file.

    This is my Body Mass Index (BMI) since Week 10.

    I am particularly enamored with the last one chart. The others are great, so let's look at what they mean first. My weight is going down in the first graph. In the second graph, the change in weight is usually negative (meaning weight loss). The middle graph says I am eating less. The next graph basically says the same thing except that it is showing the increase in uneaten food relative to the number of points I've been allotted. Eventually, this will wander somewhere around 0% when the allotted points are decreased. I may have to adjust this graph because, at the moment, the 49 weekly points are not a part of the calculation. In the future, when I am consuming them, I will want to include them in the percentage calculation. The last graph, though, is the one I find the most meaningful. It also shows my weight decreasing. But it demonstrates the demarcations of the various goals. And beyond the distance to and between the weight descriptions, it shows how long of a process this will be based on how quickly the BMI data appears to be approaching the lines. The interesting thing is that there is data that can be used to predict when I will reach major hurdles. As of this point in time, I am looking at the following hurdles being crossed on the following dates:

    Classification BMI Projected Week Projected Date
    Morbidly Obese 40 40.0 8/8/2014
    Severely Obese 35 45.0 9/12/2014
    Obese 30 50.0 10/18/2014
    Overweight 25 55.1 11/22/2014
    Normal 18.5 61.6 1/7/2015

    This shows that most of 2014 will be spent on getting down below Morbidly Obese. That is the reality. But the nice thing about the projection is that this presents the reality of the situation plus a little hope. The hope is that it's only a little over a month between each of the classifications after Morbidly Obese. This rate of changing classifications has absolutely nothing to do with reality. By that point in time, the weight will be coming off much slower. But still, there is reality and hope in the table.

    I need to get moving. Today has been a day full of shepherding that isn't quite complete.

    Yours in the information found in the numbers, the hurdles cleared and coming up, and benchmarks passed and being passed that all represent the joys of success past, present, and future,

    Eliot

    P.S.: If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will look lovely. - Roald Dahl

    P.P.S.: Just checked. I have reached the millennial mark thanks to all of the people who are reading this blog. As of Sunday night at 9:51 pm, there were 1003 page views. Wow! And Thank You! A Bunch!


    NOTES
    Weight Watchers, Friday, 13 December 2013
    Hedonic Hunger - Eating for pleasure rather than eating to satisfy one's energy needs

    How would you rate your hedonic hunger during the holidays, on a scale of 1 to 10?

    What triggers it?
    • Availability
    • Once a year foods, splurge time
    • Cold weather, comfort during cold weather
    • Memories
    • Activities like sledding, skiing, hay rides, and caroling
    • Parties, guests
    • Hectic schedule / Out of routine / Kids out of school
    • Smells
    • Darkness
    Manage holiday temptations. What will help you overcome holiday temptations?
    • Replaced food scented air fresheners with pine scent, made the speaker imagine exercising in forest around pine trees, which leads to burning imaginary calories. But the amount of hedonic hunger was less with a pine scent around.
    • Products with portion control built in (this was MBWM's comment)
    • A little is better than a lot. Just eat enough to satisfy the craving. (Personal Note: MBWM and I were wondering why she was at Weight Watchers because we wouldn't be at Weight Watchers if we could control our cravings).
    • Bite of each thing at a buffet. Very small bite.
    • Mix up filling high-fiber cereal for breakfast
    • Leaving fruits, veggies, low-fat cheese prepared and ready to eat or ready to go (this is useful for MBWM and I)
    • Use kids to help (this was my suggestion as described earlier in this post)
    • Examine reasons behind and consciously respond
    • Brain is a muscle. You can train your brain like you train a muscle (MBWM Comment: We've already trained it. Now we have to train it the other way.)
    • Replace comfort from food with other sources of comfort
    • Mental power will get you to lose weight and keep it off
    • Love foods. Holidays are just bigger, better, deeper, ... Must retrain the brain
    • Enjoy the pleasures without them being dipped in butter (or deep friend oil or smothered in home made whipped cream)
    • Wait 30 minutes when a craving hits to see if I still want it
    • Watch for mental successes and celebrate them when they happen
    • Avoid deprivations, replace with something enjoyable
    Surround yourself with things that will aid your success.

    "The holidays stress people out so much. I suggest you keep it simple and try to have as much fun as you can." - Giada De Laurentiis (chef)

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