Today marks exactly four months since I started this ridiculous project, and I am so grateful to have had you (my imaginary readers) along by my side for every step of the way. Speaking of steps, in that time I have taken a total of 775,660 steps on the treadmill for a total distance of 374.91 miles. Also during that time I have lost 33.28 lbs, which is an average of 1.96 lbs per week. I have long understood that the healthy rate of weight loss is about 1-2 lbs per week, and so I feel like I am right on target.

Let's talk a bit more about that, plus about the end of The Invasion.

Sure, I wish I could just snap my fingers and be 220 lbs and buff, but if I got there by magic I wouldn't have earned it. As it is, I feel significantly better than I did a few months ago. Generally speaking I am sleeping much better, with far fewer nights of insomnia. In recent years I have had some persistent digestive issues, and those have also virtually disappeared. Back in my very first blog post on this journey, I wrote:

I don't care about any particular goal weight, I don't want to be "skinny" or "healthy" (whatever that means). I just want to feel good about myself physically and mentally.

So yeah, I definitely feel better about myself both physically and mentally than I did a few months ago, and that's really nice. I don't know what my destination weight will be or should be, I really have no idea. Mathematically, if I am currently about 1/4 of the way through the episodes and have lost 33 lbs, then of course I should finish up by losing about 132 lbs when the last credits roll, with a weight of about 175 lbs.  Right? Yeah, right. That ain't gonna happen. At the moment my only sort of aspirational goal is to be somewhere in the mid-to-low 260's when I show up in Vegas for two weeks in August. I want all of my co-workers who only see me once per year to go on and on about how amazing I look. That's not shallow, right?

Anyway, Doctor Who...

The Invasion - Episodes 7 & 8

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The invasion failed. The end.

What, you want more? Ok.

Actually the last two episodes were really spectacular. With all the people of Earth hypnotized by the Cyberman control signal (boosted by all of the electronic devices constructed by International Electromatics in the previous five years), the Doctor worked closely with the Brigadier and UNIT in order to repel the invasion. There is a great sequence in which a British missile defense unit repels a fleet of Cyberman landing ships, with the aid of mathematical genius Zoe who calculates on the fly the correct ballistic trajectories for the missiles to take. UNIT, having found the way to defeat the mind control on an individual level, also reaches out to Russia and helps them launch a large warhead directly at the Cybermen's command ship. On top of all of the tense "control room missile command" sequences, there is also a direct assault on the Cyberman-controlled main campus of International Electromatics in order to knock out the radio signal that is providing the orbital guidance that the Cybermen require. There may have been a little padding in the earlier episodes, but there is not a bit of fluff in the last two. It is classic Doctor Who at its finest.

Tomorrow I start The Krotons, which I have  never seen and have no idea what to expect. I am getting very near the end of the Second Doctor's era, with only four stories remaining. Two weeks from now on the Fourth of July I will enter the glorious color age. I am absolutely stoked.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Second
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot
Episode(s): The Invasion - Episodes 7 & 8
Steps Walked: 6,865 today, 775,660 total
Distance Walked: 3.67 miles today, 374.91 miles total
Weight: 274.02 lbs (five day moving average), net change -33.28 lbs