Week 48, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 188.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.3

Today's blood pressure: 133/86

Today's food: yogurt, manuel's (chips and salsa, ribeye steak, small baked potato), banana, pork chop in red pepper cream sauce, asparagus, bowl of ice cream, miranda's skull and bone candy

Today's exercise: run 1 mile, walk 1 mile, run 1 mile; 60 pushups

Week 48, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 191.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.3

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: yogurt, crapload of caramel corn, peach, plum, apple, london broil, grilled asparagus, more caramel corn, cookie, microwave popcorn, 2 cookies

Today's exercise: too sore

Week 47 Wrapup

On Monday, I ran 6x400 at 7:15 pace. I did okay with only 200 meters of recovery between each rep, except I needed a full 400 between rep 3 & 4 to catch my breath. Wednesday was a tempo run at 8:45. That pace felt fairly easy, so I'll bump it up by 5 seconds next week. Thursday was a nice easy run, although I almost stepped on a snake on the path. I didn't stick around to see what kind it was, but I'm going to assume it was a rattlesnake, or possibly a cobra. I'm going to think a little bit about whether or not it's a good idea to take wilderness paths in the middle of the night versus sticking to roads or the track.

Saturday, I was up at 4:00 to meet up with a couple of guys from the ward to run Mt. Wrightson, which is the tallest peak in southern Arizona. We got to the trailhead about 5:30, then waited until there was a a little more light at 6:00 before heading up the trail. There are a few trails up the mountain, but we took the steepest route, a trail that goes from 5400' to 9400' over 6.2 miles. It's a really rocky trail, too, so it's a difficult hike, much less a run.

I was doing okay for the first couple of miles, but then I needed to walk a bit to catch my breath. I ran some more, walked some more, and by the last 2 miles I was spent. I was already resigned to hiking the last 2 miles, but there were some stretches where I felt like I didn't even have the strength to lift my legs up anymore. Carlos, who is 12 years my senior but is like half my weight and is also a machine, beat me to the top by about half an hour. Jon, who's probably 12 years younger than I am but is also half my weight, beat me by only a few minutes. Even though I hiked the last two miles, it was so rocky and so steep that I wasn't really going any slower than if I had been running. All I was doing was moving my legs up and down less.

It was very clear from the trip up that I'm sorely lacking in a couple of things, one being hill running ability and the other being lung ability. I definitely need to get better at those. The view from the top was really something, although I couldn't hang around and enjoy it since Jon and Carlos were already heading back down. You can see every mountain range in southern Arizona from there and well into Mexico, too.

The 6.2 miles back down was exhilarating but challenging. Because the trail was so rocky, you've got to have perfect concentration to keep from biting it. The fatigue in my legs made it that much harder, too, because my legs weren't lifting as high off the ground as I thought they were. I caught my foot on a rock a couple of times and thought I was going down for sure, but miraculously got my foot under me in time.

Now that it's over, I'm really sore and stiff. When I first started doing long runs, I felt sore like this, but it hasn't been like this for a long time. I'm more sore today than I was after running the marathon, and in more places. My quads are sore, of course, but I'm also really sore in my glutes and my lower back. I also rolled my left foot a few times on the rocks, so that's kind of hurting too. My schedule has me doing intervals tomorrow, but I'm going to have to see if I'm even capable of moving tomorrow.

Week 47, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 190.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.9

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: tortilla with cinnamon sugar, steak and egg burrito, plum, huge helping of caramel corn, brinner (2 small pancakes, 3 eggs, 4 strips bacon)

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 47, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 188.8*

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.6

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: clif bar, yogurt, 2 liters gatorade, 1 gel, chicken sandwich, almonds, 2 plums, cheeseburger, 24 oz cherry pepsi, porterhouse steak, kettle corn, ice cream

Today's exercise: run up Mt. Wrightson and back (total about 12.4 miles)

* before running. After running, clif bar, gatorade, 1 can diet mtn dew, 1/2 bottle water, 1 gel and a chicken sandwich, I weighed 185.4

Week 47, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 187.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.5

Today's blood pressure: 127/86

Today's food: peach, yogurt, banana, big bowl of leftover pork ragout, banana, potluck dinner (a little lasagna, 2 slices bread, some chicken, 3 taquitos, 1 piece cake, 2 cupcakes), 1 piece toast, 2 marshmallows

Today's exercise: none

Week 47, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 187.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.5

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: yogurt, 2 bananas, 2 pieces chocolate cake, leftover pork ragout, tri-tip steak, 1 piece fried chicken, banana

Today's exercise: easy 5 miles (10:00 pace)

Week 47, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 188.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.6

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: panda house (lo mein, beef with broccoli, honey shrimp, medium pepsi), banana, celery with peanut butter, 1 piece fried chicken, small serving potato salad

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles @ 8:45, 1 mile cooldown; 60 pushups

Week 47, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 188.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.5

Today's blood pressure: 141/94

Today's food: 2 biscuits, apple, saigon flavor (egg roll, chicken with pineapples and onion, fried rice), 4 donuts, popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Week 47, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 189.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.4

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: peach, yogurt, 3 stolen chicken nuggets, 1/2 serving of leftover short ribs, apple, pork ragout with pasta, 2 pieces garlic bread

Today's exercise: 1.25 mile warmup, intervals (6x400 @ 7:15 pace), 1 mile cooldown (total 4.83 miles); 60 pushups

Week 46 Wrapup

On Monday of this week, I went down to the track and ran a few intervals to see if I could do it in my 5k target pace of 7:15/mile. I ran 800m, 400m, then 200m twice, jogging in between, and timing myself every time. The good news is that I was able to maintain the 7:15 pace through each interval fairly easily, but the bad news is that it took a lot longer to recover between each interval than I would have liked. Normally, if you were doing intervals of 800m (2 laps), you might do 400m (1 lap) of jogging in between. I needed a full two laps after the 800 before I felt like I was ready for the 400, then a full two laps before I was ready for the first 200, then jogged a full lap and a half in between the two 200s.

My plan now is to do speedwork every Monday, and spend a few weeks just getting to the point where I can do the required number of intervals, and only use the alloted time for recovery. Then, I can spend a few weeks either throwing in longer intervals, like 1600m, or starting to push the intervals faster than race pace. While I'm doing all this, I'll also be doing the tempo runs, the hills, the long runs and all that which will extend the gains made in the speedwork to longer distances. If I had to hazard a total guess right now, I'd guess that as long as I keep up this 4 day a week schedule, I'd be able to hit the goal of a 22:30 5K by the end of the year (give or take about 3 months).

On Tuesday afternoon, I started feeling sick, and by that evening, I had a full-blown cold. I was still sick on Wednesday, so I skipped the tempo run I had planned that day. On Thursday I felt 90% okay again, but that afternoon, I flew to Vegas to spend the rest of the week there.

I had wanted to get in a long run on Saturday, so I looked on the Internet for good places to run in Vegas. I came across the Las Vegas Track Club's annual Forest Challenge, an 8 mile race on a dirt road way up on Mt. Charleston outside of Vegas. I thought that would be a great substitute for a long run. I had wanted to run 12 miles, but I figured the altitude and the hills in the race would make up for the missing 4 miles and that it would be a nice easy scenic training run. I was right about the scenic part, but definitely not about the "nice" or "easy" part.

On Saturday, I left the hotel at 4:30 AM. I've been in casinos at 4:30 AM before, but only on the wind-down from a long night, never after just waking up. So, it was very surreal for me to see how packed the casino still was at 4:30 with people who had no idea what time it was while I was stumbling through so groggily in my running gear. The drive out to the race site took about 80 minutes. When I got up to the parking area, it was still dark and really windy. It was about 55° out, so I put on shorts, but the wind was so bad I thought about changing into my running pants. The wind shortly died down, though, and it was plenty warm for shorts and short sleeves.

The race itself was an out and back course on a very rough dirt road. Like, covered with rocks, some the size of my head. It was also very hilly, way more than I had anticipated. There were very steep uphills, and very steep downhills. The altitude varied between 7500' and 8200', so it was higher than I had expected as well.

Before the race had started, I was thinking to myself that I'd try to do the whole thing in a 10:00 pace. I had no trouble doing 12 miles in a 10:00 pace last week, so I thought if I swap the extra 4 miles for the hills and the altitude, it would be an even trade. The race started with a gentle downhill, followed by a long gentle uphill. I felt like I was doing fine and would have no problem. Then, the uphill got a little steeper, then a little steeper still. About that time, I started feeling my lungs burning a little bit more. I decided to slow down a little bit and figured that an 11 minute pace for this course was still respectable.

It wasn't long at all before the uphill got even steeper, and I started thinking that maybe a 12 minute pace would be a more realistic goal. Another quarter mile of even more steep uphill left me thinking that I would be proud of myself if I could just run the whole way and not stop to walk.

At about 1 3/4 miles, I thought "forget it" and started walking for the first time, revising my goal to just not coming in last. More feeble attempts at running, followed by more walking. After two miles, I thought coming in last wouldn't even be so bad. I could call it a nature hike and have a picnic lunch at the turnaround point. Shortly after the two mile mark, there was a nice downhill stretch, but mile 4 was almost entirely uphill.

By the time I got to the turnaround, there were only maybe a dozen people behind me. But, after the turnaround, all the uphills were now downhills and vice versa. So, I made really good time running downhill for all of mile 5, then did a little up and down for mile 6, then ran constantly for miles 7 & 8, passing a few people near the end.

I finished in 1:36:22, which is barely over a 12:00/mile pace. I managed to get third in my division, which is the first time I've placed in my age group, but since there were only 47 people overall in the 8 mile race, I'm pretty sure there were only 3 people in my division.

My mile splits look funny, because I have some miles as low as 8:46, and my slowest mile was 16:48. I rolled my foot a couple of time on the rocks, but I was really trucking on some of those downhill stretches, and I'm surprised nobody fell and broke anything.

So, the course was absolutely brutal for me. There were some pretty fast people there that made it look easy and made the rest of us look like wussies, but everyone was in agreement that it's a difficult run. I have had no hill training yet, and my only experience at altitude was Park City, which at its highest wasn't quite this high. The course was beautiful, though, with lots of pines and cedars and things. Every so often, you'd turn a corner and be able to see the whole valley spread out below you.

So, considering the course, and the fact I was sick that week, I did okay, but I'm still really disappointed I couldn't run the whole thing. I applied some conversion factors and did some math to factor out the hills and the altitude and see what this run would be like on level ground at sea level. I determined that this run is equivalent to running about 278 miles at home. My math may be a little bit off there, but it makes me feel better about my poor performance.

I'd like it if I could run that course every week just to see how long it would take me to be able to run the whole thing. But, on the other hand, my legs are in extreme pain right now, so that might not be such a great idea.

Because I was sick for a couple of days, my Thursday weigh in was actually so low that my BMI for that day was under 25, which is the dividing line between the "normal" and the "overweight" categories. I'm not going to care until the moving average gets under 25, but it was nice to be "normal", if only for a day.

The Vegas trip was a lot of fun, although I ate approximately 40 times my body weight over the course of the trip. It will take me several days to poop that out, so I think my moving average weight won't get back to a downward trend for another week or two.

While in Vegas, I bought my first pair of size 34 pants. When I left for college, most of my pants were size 34, but by 1992 or 1993, I was pretty solidly into a size 36, moving to size 38 by 1998. So, I'm nearly 100% positive I haven't bought or received a size 34 pant since 1993 at the very latest. On the trip home, we stopped at the outlet mall, and I picked up another size 34 pant, this time some khakis. The khakis are sorely needed, because the one pair of khakis I currently have are size 38, and look frankly ridiculous on me now.

Week 46, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): gone

Weight (weighted moving average): gone

Today's blood pressure: gone

Today's food: krispy kreme donut, café rio (2 salmon tacos, beans and rice, small dr. pepper), 3 more krispy kreme donuts, jack in the box (fish and chips, large dr. pepper), 3 more krispy kreme donuts

Today's exercise: day of rest

driving back from vegas

Week 46, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): gone

Weight (weighted moving average): gone

Today's blood pressure: gone

Today's food: clif bar, 1/4 orange, 1/2 banana, 2 krispy kreme, 1/2 bagel with cream cheese, 2 pancakes, 2 strips bacon, cup of sparkling cider, wynn buffet (no chance of remembering every item I ate there), cup of coke at hooters casino, wildfire casino ($1.49 breakfast special, $2.99 hamburger special)

Today's exercise: LVTC Forest Challenge (8 mile mountain race)

in las vegas

Week 46, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): gone

Weight (weighted moving average): gone

Today's blood pressure: gone

Today's food: $1.49 breakfast special at wild wild west (2 eggs over medium, hash browns, 2 sausage links, toast), café rio (grilled salmon salad, fresh lime pie, small dr. pepper), togoshi ramen (deep fried baby octopus, 3/4 bowl champon ramen, 2 deep fried whole shrimp)

Today's exercise: 44 pushups

in las vegas

Week 46, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 183.2*

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.2*

Today's blood pressure: 130/84

Today's food: 1/2 cup chocolate milk, 2 trefoils (girls scout cookies), yogurt, 2 nectarines, cup of orange juice on plane, airplane peanuts, raising cane's (3 chicken finger combo, small coke)

Today's exercise: 44 pushups

* both new lows

Week 46, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 186.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.7*

Today's blood pressure: 128/87

Today's food: 2 bananas, 1 lemon crème girl scout cookie, yogurt, 1 small bag baked cheetos, pastrami sandwich, peach

Today's exercise: none (sick)

* new low

Week 46, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 187.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.8*

Today's blood pressure: 138/72

Today's food: yogurt, plum, banana, 2 samoas, 6 pancakes, 2 more samoas

Today's exercise: none

* new low

Week 46, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 187.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 187.9*

Today's blood pressure: 128/81

Today's food: yogurt, pluot, pastrami sandwich, banana, small bowl of leftover short ribs, doritos

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 1x800m, 1x400m, and 2x200m intervals @ 7:15 pace with recovery jogs in between,1 mile cool down (about 4.8 miles total); 44 pushups

* new low

Week 45 Wrapup

I went back to a more normal running schedule this week. I switched to the new shoes, and they feel fine except it seems like there's a little too much room in the toe. I don't know if a half size smaller would have been better, or if that would have been more prone to blisters, or what. As it stands, the toe on one of the shoes has developed a crease in it from getting folded while I run, and the crease itself rubs on my big toe. If I get another pair of these, I think I'll get them in an 11.5 instead of 12 just to see what happens. I don't know if Mizuno makes these shoes on a bigger last than my previous pair, or if I've lost too much weight in my foot, or what the difference might be. The guy at the shoe store never asked my size or anything, and I never thought to really examine the toe, so it's all a surprise to me.

I'm having a hard time deciding what to do next. I'd like to keep running, but I need specific goals for motivation. I don't know if I want to set my next goal to be another marathon or something else. One thing I know for sure is that I'd like to get faster. The worst part of the marathon training (aside from the overpowering heat and the agonizing pain) was how long those training runs were. If I could speed up, I could get those things done and over with faster.

On my marathon training long runs, I started at a pace of around 10:57/mi, then bumped it up every four weeks until I was doing 10:30/mi. If I could improve that a little bit, to a 9:00/mi pace, that would save a full half hour on a 20 mile run. So, I definitely don't want to do a full marathon training program until I can at least do my long runs at a 9:00/mi pace. To test that, I pushed myself a little bit harder on the 12 miles I did yesterday, and finished it at a 9:56/mi pace. I feel like I could have pushed a little harder still, but probably couldn't sustain 9:00/mi for that long yet. It feels close, though.

I'd like to try at least a couple of 5Ks or 10Ks in the next few months as well, as a way of testing my improved speed. The last 5K I did gave me a time of 28:33, but based on the paces I was doing for the speedwork and tempo runs in my marathon training, I'm fairly confident I could do 5K in somewhere between 25 and 26 minutes right now.

As a long term goal, I'd like to get down to a 20 minute 5K time. Looking at the results for some local 5Ks, that would be a good enough time to win my division and place in the top 5 outright in some of the smaller races. Of course, in some of the bigger races, it wouldn't even be in the top 10 in my division, but at least it's a time that's competitive under the right circumstances. I don't have any idea how long it would take or what kind of work would be involved in getting to this point. I don't know if that's something that's possible in 6 months, or if it would take 6 years for me to get there.

I think what I'm going to do is this: Set a short term goal of a 22:30 5K time, and work for as long as it takes to get there. Then, depending on how hard that was or how long that took, reevaluate where to go from there.

For the specifics of my training, I'm going to do a few things. For starters, I'll switch to a 4 day a week schedule. The 3 days made more sense for the marathon training, since so much time was tied up in the long runs. 3 days is a lot easier to manage schedule wise, too. But, if I want to be serious about this, the extra day will probably be required.

I did like the fact that there was a specific focus to each of the days on the 3 day plan, and I'd like to carry that over to my new plan and give each day a specific workout and goal. One day will be pure speedwork (intervals). One day will be a tempo run. One day will be hills. And then Saturday will still be long runs (8-16 miles). I might not need runs that long for short distance races, but they'll really help with endurance. The main reason I'll keep doing them, though, is that I'd like to keep myself in good long run shape so that I could jump in to anything if needed. If I decided that I wanted to run a marathon in a month, that would still be totally possible. I might not have the best time, but if I'm still doing long enough runs, I'll at least be likely to finish without walking. Also, I want to keep doing the long runs, because I need to be working toward that 9:00/mi goal for the long runs. I'll attempt to thrown in a spin class occasionally (or at least whenever I feel like waking up at 4:45), also.

The other thing I like about the marathon training plan was that it had steady increases in mileage for 3 weeks, then took a break with some short easy runs for a week. Then it would come back at a harder pace with even more mileage for another 3 weeks, then break for another week, and so on. I'll probably try something similar. I'll run at a certain pace for a few weeks, then take it easy for a week (or taper for a race). Then, crank up each pace a notch and do it again. I'll probably just pull some starting paces out of my butt, then adjust a little if they feel wrong, then after each rest week, step up the interval paces by 5 seconds, the tempo pace by 10, the long run by 15, or something like that. I know that if I want to hit 22:30 for a 5K time, I have to sustain a 7:15 pace. That breaks down to about 3:37 for 800m, 1:48 for 400m, and 0:54 for 200m, so at some point, my intervals will probably have to be faster than that.

Next week, I'm going to Vegas for a couple of days and taking care of the kids by myself the rest of the time, so I won't get a lot of running in. But, I'm going to go to the track and time myself for a couple of distances and see where I'm at now so that I can start my new schedule at a good pace the following week.

Week 45, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 188.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.0

Today's blood pressure: 123/82

Today's food: miniature oatmeal cookie, banana, pork burrito, quesadilla, crock-pot korean style short ribs with rice, broccoli, nectarine, 5 orange slices (the candy, not actual orange slices), pistachio crisps

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 45, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 187.6*

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.0

Today's blood pressure: 131/72

Today's food: granola bar, 2 pancakes with whipped cream, 4 sausage links, yogurt, spaghetti with meatballs, pluot, NY strip steak, 1/2 apple, bowl of peanuts

Today's exercise: run 12 miles (9:56/mile); 44 pushups

* Before running. After eating 1 granola bar, running, and drinking 40 ounces of Gatorade, weight was 185.6

Week 45, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 186.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.0*

Today's blood pressure: 132/79

Today's food: grapes, yogurt, pluot, 1/2 bag combos™, spaghetti with meatballs, 1 1/2 pieces garlic bread, 2 s'mores

Today's exercise: none

* new low

Week 45, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 188.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.2

Today's blood pressure: 134/88

Today's food: 2 pieces of toast, yogurt, plum, pastrami sandwich, pluot, burger king double cheeseburger, cupcake, quesadilla, a few bites of broccoli and salmon, a lot more salmon

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, intervals - 1 mile @ 8:22 X2, 1/2 mile cooldown; 44 pushups

I was supposed to do at least one more rep of the intervals, but it was raining, and the lightning kept getting closer, and I'm, well, afraid of lightning.

Week 45, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 187.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.2*

Today's blood pressure: 134/83

Today's food: yogurt, grapes, cedar planked salmon, green beans, plum, café rio style pork salad (tortilla, cheese, beans, pork, lettuce), tortilla with butter and cinnamon sugar, watermelon, peanuts

Today's exercise: none - too rainy

* new low

Week 45, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 186.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.3*

Today's blood pressure: 137/88

Today's food: yogurt, plum, manuel's (chips and salsa, slice of deluxe cheese crisp, ribeye steak, 3/4 baked potato, flan), watermelon, bowl of peanuts

Today's exercise: none

* new low

Week 45, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 186.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.5*

Today's blood pressure: 129/77

Today's food: banana, leftover parmesan noodles, china vic buffet (fried chicken, crab puffs, egg roll, fried bread things, a little garlic chicken), grapes, yogurt, 1/2 bowl brown rice/sausage/corn thing, watermelon, pastrami cheese burger

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles @ 8:52, 1 mile cooldown; 44 pushups. First day with the new shoes.

* new low

Week 44 Wrapup

This week, I only ran 3 easy runs for a total of 10 miles for the week. I'm still trying to take it easy for recovery. Next week, I'll start something a little more intensive.

The month of August was pretty much a wash for me weight-loss-wise. August was spent tapering for the marathon (and burning less calories). During the taper, I was eating a lot more just because I was way more hungry. Also, whenever I'm traveling I tend to eat more, so the marathon trip itself put in a few extra calories. So, on the last day of August, my moving average of my weight was only down a tenth of a pound from where it was on the first day of August.

To make up for that (and to preemptively make up for my upcoming Vegas trip), I made a concerted effort this week to eat a lot less (today's binge notwithstanding). The upside is that my weigh-in today is a full 4 pounds lower than it was last Sunday (which was already about 3 1/2 pounds down from the week before that). The moving average is a little slower to change (by design), but it was still down 2.1 pounds this week, which is almost the largest single week drop in the moving average so far.

Twice this week I picked up my Forerunner only to find it dead. The first time I thought I must have left it on and had the battery run out. But, I charged it fully, put it away, then picked it up two days later only to find it dead again. It's theoretically possible that I left it on again, and it's also more than a little likely that some little kid found it and turned it on. But, my big fear is that the battery's shot and the watch will need replacement. On the one hand, I'd like an excuse to upgrade to the new 405, but on the other hand I've bought so much crap lately that there's no possible way to justify the expense of buying a new one.

I decided that I've lost enough weight/exercised enough that I should be able to see if I've made a difference in the high ALT/high triglycerides/high cholesterol/low testosterone that kind of got me started on this kick in the first place. I initially planned to remeasure everything after the first eight weeks, but kind of didn't get around to it. Plus, I wanted to only measure after a significant change, and I'm only now at the point where I feel like the change is significant and provable. Yeah, saying "I've been trying to run for the last few weeks" may be a good improvement for some, but saying "I got up off my butt and ran enough in the last ten months to finish a marathon in under 5 hours, losing 35 pounds in the process" seems way more serious. I've made an appointment to see the doctor next week to update all the labs, and I won't have the results for maybe a week or two after that, but it should be interesting to see how all that turns out.

Week 44, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 185.4*

Weight (weighted moving average): 188.8*

Today's blood pressure: 133/82

Today's food: pop tart, yogurt, banana, 2 big salmon tacos, fritos, plum, chicken fajita, small piece of cheesecake, 6 mini cream puffs, 1 glazed donut, 2 small bags popcorn, 20 oz sonic strawberry creamslush

Today's exercise: day of rest

* new lows

Week 44, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 185.6*

Weight (weighted moving average): 189.1*

Today's blood pressure: 137/80

Today's food: banana, yogurt, mcdonalds (3 chicken strips, medium fries, medium coke, 2 mcnuggets, 1/2 cheeseburger), grapes, (brown rice with andouille, chicken, corn and red peppers), broccoli with cheese sauce

Today's exercise: run 4 miles; 30 pushups

*new lows

Week 44, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 186.2*

Weight (weighted moving average): 189.5*

Today's blood pressure: 138/81

Today's food: yogurt, pluot, nectarine, leftover pot roast and mashed potatoes, sam's club samples, 2 1/2 slices pizza, 1/2 cup tampico punch, watermelon

Today's exercise: none

* new lows

Week 44, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 186.8*

Weight (weighted moving average): 189.9*

Today's blood pressure: 132/87

Today's food: yogurt, cheddar cheese flavored combos™, 2 pluots, banana, chicken pot pie, grilled asparagus, 12oz pepsi, banana, watermelon

Today's exercise: walk 1 lap, run 12 laps (3 miles), walk 3 laps; 30 pushups

* new lows

Week 44, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 188.0*

Weight (weighted moving average): 190.2*

Today's blood pressure: 136/83

Today's food: yogurt, pluot, 8 pieces of sushi, banana, pluot, cedar planked salmon, au gratin potatoes, green beans

Today's exercise: none

* new lows

Week 44, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 188.4*

Weight (weighted moving average): 190.5

Today's blood pressure: 145/83

Today's food: yogurt, pluot, chicken pot pie, broccoli with cheese sauce, leftover pot roast, mashed potatoes, pluot, bowl of peanuts, big glass of grapefruit juice cocktail

Today's exercise: none

* new low

Week 44, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 188.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 190.7

Today's blood pressure: 127/80

Today's food: yogurt, 12 oz pepsi, cheeseburger, baked beans, au gratin potatoes, watermelon, brownie, large movie popcorn, large soda, refill of large soda

Today's exercise: walk 1/4 mile, easy run for 3 miles, walk 3/4 mile; 30 pushups