Lisa's fat camp

So I don't have $10,000 for fat camp, or the inclination or time to stop my life and do some fad thing. I've decided instead to put myself on a strict food/exercise program and have that be my top priority. I am just finishing up my eighth week and am pleased with my general downward climb, slow and steady as it may be.

Here's the plan: I am back on Weight Watchers. I stick within my daily points limit and don't use much if any of the extra weekly points. I aim for 30 activity points a week. (For non-adherents, how WW's current iteration works is this: You're allotted a certain number of "points" to eat a day based on weight, age and activity level. My daily point level is 23. It will decrease as I lose weight and as I age. If I took a job entailing heavy physical activity, it would increase. Foods are assigned points value based on calories, fat and fiber. Roughly, 50 calories equals 1 point, though higher fiber reduces points and fat increases points. In addition, you are allowed to eat 35 points more over the course of a week, though I have less success when I eat many of the extra points.) In addition, you "earn" activity points by exercising or engaging in strenuous activity. Activity points can be swapped for food points, but I think only after you've used up your additional 35 weekly points, which I never come close to doing. So I never swap them.

A lot has been written/said about Weight Watchers. While it has its down sides, I personally really like the program. It's fairly easy to follow. If you follow it, it works. It takes a lot of the figuring and guesswork and game-playing out of weight loss for me. No foods are prohibited, so if I really want something that's high in points, I just figure out how to fit it in or I eat a small portion or I take a hard look at myself and realize that really I don't want it because it's not worth the points to me.

My exercise plan, like my eating plan, has been to take it one day at a time. I have been doing something just about every day -- sometimes more, sometimes less, but something. I generally walk Bandit, when I get up, on the little dirt road that we call Fishwick down in Ganther Hollow. It's 1.8 miles roundtrip, and sometimes I detour up into the woods. It's about a 35-minute walk at a moderate pace. Then, I either go to the gym and swim 40 or 50 laps or I go for a longer walk without the dog. The longest so far was walking from my house in Baldwin to PNC Park on the North Side, a little more than 8 miles, with a lot of hills. It took me just under 3 hours with a few stops to get some water and rest my feet. I hadn't had much sleep the night before or I would've enjoyed it more but I couldn't complain. The weather was perfect -- cool and a little misty rain near the end of the walk. I love walking through neighborhoods and seeing all the little diners and bars and daycares and churches. Pittsburgh has a lot of character and generally people are fairly friendly. Some of the neighborhoods were pretty trashed -- Beltzhoover in particular stood out as rundown and depressing and really needing some street crews out there picking up garbage off the streets.

I ended up at the Pirates game and they looked awful. I did get a free T-shirt and was amused by the bleacher bums -- a guy in a gorilla suit and another guy dressed as a pirate. They let no bad play by the Bucs go unnoticed and the comments were often vulgar and funny. Still, I got freezing cold and hadn't brought a jacket. So I left just as the 7th inning was starting and drove home for a shower before heading back to work (Lou had driven the car in that morning for me and parked it in the lot at the Clark Building, where I work).

I kind of have it in my head, punishing as that walk was, to do it every time there's a T-shirt Thursday throughout the season. I wouldn't mind company for the walk though I was fine by myself too -- lots of time to think, and accompanied by my old college roommate and friend Carol Curtis singing her CD "Pink Cafe" on my iPod. I was pretty darn sore sitting at my desk all night after that walk on concrete and had to take the next day real easy -- just walked Bandit and left it at that.