Day 42 and 21 pounds gone -- lost another last night
 

2-11-07
265/244/200

Day 42 and 21 pounds gone - another pound gone last night.

I got on my scale today and saw that another pound had gone and so I
am at 244. (With my system of weighing on my balance beam scale, I
would not have moved the indicator higher if I weighed more. I know
that if I continue on a low calorie approach I WILL lose the weight.)

I just finished walking up my little hill and then returning for some
pushups, etc. In starting to walk up the hill, I had some minor
discomfort in my right knee and left Achilles tendon, but the
discomfort went away about 10 minutes into the walk. Now I'm still
discomfort free.

On Day 42 I'm pretty much into my schedule. There's a behavior
approach called "shaping," also called "the method of successive
approximation." This involves reinforcing behaviors that are closer
and closer to the desired behavior. In a presentation yesterday
someone described a study in which attention in schizophrenics was
lengthened to 30 minute periods. They were then able to attend and
participate in group interactions more effectively. Also the number of
off-topic statements were reduced. Now on Day 42 I am exhibiting
pretty much the behaviors I need to exhibit for the next hundred days
or so - that is, fairly low-calorie with exercise. (I've nudged my
daily calorie intake to about 1200 to 1400 calories, plus or minus a
couple of hundred, and am feeling no hunger whatsoever. Actually, I
feel better than I have in well over a year.)

I had some beer this last Friday (two days ago) but substituted that
for food and yesterday was right back on no beer again. So I'm just
going to keep plugging away doing what I'm doing.

I really did try not to ask questions at the conference but I found
myself asking a question at the end of the first set of talks I
listened to on Friday - about rehabilitation after a traumatic brain
injury. I asked whether anyone had studied the role of a public
speaking organization, such as Toastmasters, and none of the panelists
has ever heard of anyone examining that approach. I explained that
Toastmasters is an international nonprofit group that teaches public
speaking - and indeed is only interested in improving the speaking
skills of its members.

I think I'm going to volunteer to offer a 10-week Toastmasters-like
program here in Portland for mild brain-injured people. And in
teaching people public speaking, Toastmasters also teaches people self-
confidence, how to take what others say with a grain of salt, and,
among other things, I think it teaches independence. These are skills
that might be of great value in the whole weight-loss enterprise. We
have to learn when to go our own way and keep doing what we're doing!

At any rate, I sure hope everyone has a great week ahead!

Yours truly,

Caleb