This morning I got up on Mr. Scale at 6:45 AM and he said, “215.0 pounds.” After yesterday, I wasn’t sure what to expect today, but I think this about the top of my expectations for my morning weigh in, and I am quite happy with it.

What was special about yesterday? Right from the start I was pretty hungry, and I stayed that way most of the day. I think it was because on Friday I spent a couple of hours moving the boards around, kneeling on the ground and getting back up as I put my desk together, and then having a pretty good walk to start the day off yesterday. I ate a bit low on points on Friday, but I have done that before without being famished the next day. It probably was the exercise. Anyway, I was looking for something to eat all day long. When dinner rolled around it tasted like a gift from the gods it was so unbelievably tasty, just like when you sit out around a campfire after hiking in the woods, and the food tastes so much better than usual. I ran my points right up to 30 for the day, a point below my limit, and it was a fight to keep it there. Yesterday was a day that if I had not worked at it, could have gone out of control. I drank water, although not as much as I could have, and maybe should have. In the evening I ate the heart of a Romaine lettuce head for zero points. And right at the end of the day, Dotti and I split a Mr. Cookieface, because if I had eaten the whole thing I would have gone over my points limit. Wow, what a day!

Here’s how my eating went. Breakfast, my normal 5.0 points. We took our walk (more on that later). We stopped at Subway and I had a 6 inch turkey breast sub (6pts). We were planning to stop at the mall for a cone but, since Dotti had brought a Luna bar in the car, with peanut butter flavoring (which means Dot will never touch it), and we had to make another stop first, I ate the 3.5 Luna bar. I hate burning that many points on a single bar but, as I said, I was HUNGRY yesterday. We finally made it to the mall, after I got some additional exercise moving a table into storage. I was thinking about stopping at Starbucks and getting a treat (A white chocolate mocca that Dotti bought for me when we were in Seattle for the conference. I haven’t had one since.) but they did not carry it. (We even tried two other Starbucks in town and they didn’t either, and it probably just as well considering how much fun I had later on staying in my points range.) We had our no-fat, low point ice cream in a sugar cone (3pts), and headed home. I grabbed a Mr. Cookieface (3pts) pretty soon after getting home. Then Dotti made up a new version of the WW Smoothie shake (its called a “Cremesicle Smoothie” and the recipe came from Flo - thank you Flo!!!.) that was made with a vanilla WW Smoothie and a diet orange soda. Dotti added a capful of extra Vanilla flavoring and it produced over 40 fluid ounces of a very tasty shake, that tasted just like one of those Popsicles that are orange on the outside and filled with vanilla ice cream in the middle, and all for only 2 POINTS! Then I started to get a bit of a headache from what I guessed was a lack of caffeine. (Lately I have been drinking several cups a day and eating espresso beans.) So, I grabbed 6 espresso beans (1pt) and a cup of coffee (1pt). It was then pushing 5 PM and that is dinnertime for us. Dotti cooked us each an omelet, and 6 ounces of hash browns, both fried with PAM. The whole dinner only came to 4 points! And oh, how wonderful it tasted. I slowly ate each bite and savored it. I had eaten 18.5 points for my meals, and 10.0 points in snacks by this time, bringing me up to 28.5 points for the day. I started drinking water, and I grabbed a head of Romaine lettuce (0.0 pts) and devoured it. Along about 9 PM Dotti and I split a Mr. Cookieface (1.5pts each) and the brought my eating to an end for the day, at 30.0 points. One point below the top of the tank. Whew!

For water I drank 14 cups, or 112 ounces (7 pounds).

Okay, today starts a new eating day, and I hope it is a less exciting one!

For our Zonie Walk yesterday we went to the site of our very first date together back in 1974, Multnomah Falls. This 611 feet worth of falls is actually a double falls, with an upper (542 feet) and lower (69 feet) section. As we started out, at exactly 9:00 AM - and we had to hurry to make it on time- we passed a sign at the bottom that is brand new. It said, “Top of Falls 1.0 miles.” I had thought it was a bit more than that but for our Zonie Walk, it was a very good distance. The walk is up, cutting through numerous switch backs all the way, at a sharp ascending angle all the way to a point that is between 50 and 75 feet above the level of the top of the falls. It then drops sharply through several other switch backs down to the level of the stream that flows over the falls. I always feel like the walk has the work part done with, when we hit that summit point, and now the fun begins. Going down the switchbacks to the falls level makes your legs feel kind of wobbly because it is a completely different motion than the one you have been struggling with to get to the top. And the stretch of path along the stream to the actual top of the falls is one of the prettiest places on earth. The water rushes along happily, as if it were a herd of children at Disneyland, eager to get on a wonderful ride waiting ahead. The birds chirping, the lushly green forest land, and heavily shaded path, combine with the fact that your muscles are getting some very nice rest from the climb up, and all this shared with your best friend is really something very special. Although we had passed a number of people heading down as we came up, the little wooden platform, surrounded by a railing at the top of the falls, was completely empty when we got there. Every time we step on that platform it strikes us all over again like a surprise scene in a movie, where the plane flies right past a cliff edge to leave your stomach on the floor as you have a tremendous panorama laid out before you. The beautiful Columbia river stretches across the Columbia gorge, a channel ripped through the Cascade mountains, to the other side, in Washington, which in turn rises up even with where you are. The cars in the parking lot are like small toys, and you laugh as you see your own vehicle just barely recognizable.

It took us 34 minutes to walk all the way to the top, and then, once others started showing up at the top with us, we headed back “down.” The thing is, that when you start from the platform, the first thing you do is go up a surprising large number of stairs, which you never even noticed when you came down to the platform.Then you find yourself walking along the stream again on a path that actually has an upward angle which was completely unnoticed on your trip “up.” Next you hit the switchbacks that head back up to the summit point. I was walking very slowly at this point, because my legs were pretty tired. Finally we hit the summit and then the going was very easy the rest of the way down, because it was all downhill from there, and sharply so! We had our walking sticks with us, and we were swinging the sticks out, planting the rubber tips on the asphalt path out ahead of us, and allowing our arms to keep us from running away from our ability to control our speed. Our strides were long and our spirits up. We reached the starting point 23 minutes after we left the platform. If the entire path had been uphill to the falls and downhill from the falls, the times for the two legs of the trip would have been much more lopsided than they were.

This morning both Dotti and I are a bit sore from that walk. It shows that we are not getting up there as much as we should. I definitely need to be getting more exercise! I can see this as a next major project ( Shame on you!) for me. The one thing that is positive about losing my weight without a heavy reliance upon exercise is that if I should go through a period of inactivity in the future, I will not put on a bunch of weight. In the past, when I have used exercise to lose with, as soon as the opportunity to exercise closed down, I put the weight back on in a hurry. I am this time viewing them as two separate things, even though they are interrelated. Eating is for maintaining weight, and exercise is for body tone, and cardiovascular health. When you exercise you must eat a bit more, and when you do not, you must eat a bit less. The extra eating is to supply the energy you need to feed your muscles during activity. While using exercise alone to lose weight does work, it has a serious draw back. If you get injured, or if circumstances in any other way conspire to make exercise impossible, you will gain weight. Using eating alone to lose weight has the drawback of taking longer to lose, than doing it without exercise, and your body becomes thin, but flabby. So, both are needed, but I think keeping the roles straight is important. Eating for weight loss, exercise for toning and physical fitness. At least that is what works for me.

Well I am off to face day 65 on my journey. I hope that it is a bit less “interesting” than yesterday was as far as my appetite goes.

64 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/215.0/200/BMI:26.9/WK-9/Weight Loss Graph

Mr. Scale doesn’t like Monday mornings any more than I do apparently. He said, “216.0 pounds.”

Yesterday was a quiet day at home. My eating was actually quite light up until fairly late. For breakfast (5pts), it was business as usual. For lunch, Dotti split a Heaven’s Bistro pizza with me (4.5pts) and made a WW Smoothie shake (1.5pts). [Dotti ran the nutritional info for the smoothie package through the calculator, which I just rechecked to get the exact number, and it comes out to 1.525 points for each packet.] So, for those two meals I ate 11.0 points, which is pretty standard. Then for dinner, Dotti fixed me two tomato sandwiches for only one point. That means for all my meals yesterday, I only ate 12 points. For snacks I had two cups of decaf (2pts), 2 chocolate meringues (1pt), a bag of Jolly Time popcorn (3 points), a Mr. Cookieface Ice cream sandwich (3pts), a strawberry yogurt (2pts), a Luna Bar (3.5 pts) and then Dotti wanted to split a Mr. Cookieface with me just before bed (1.5pts). That totaled 17.0 points for snacks, and with the 12.0 points for meals, brought me to 29.0 points, and under my limit.

The thing was, I ate my yogurt, Luna bar, and half a Mr. Cookieface very late, just before bed, in order to get my points up for the day. I also chugged down a 32 ounce glass of water just before going to bed, in order to get my water in for the day. Add to that the increase in sodium from the popcorn, and it is not surprising that I was up a pound for the morning scale reading. I did not go over on my eating, and that means I did not gain fat weight. Whatever I put on, has to be in the form of water, and water will go away sooner rather than later usually.

For water yesterday, I drank 16 ounces first thing, and then 32 ounces a just a bit later in the morning. Then I drank 32 more ounces just before bed. That was a total of 80 ounces (5 pounds) of water. Ten cups is not much water for me normally. However, I did have two of the WW Smoothie shakes, which have quite a bit of water in them, and the 3 cups of coffee did too. So, I was not really lacking in water intake yesterday.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I had another first on my journey yesterday. In spite of all the late eating and drinking, I still weighed 219 just before going to bed last night, which was my first evening weight check that came in under 220. I was in the 2-teens all day yesterday, or at least at the start and the end of the day!

Today its back to work after a very nice weekend. Good weekends are like mini-vacations, and vacations are always hard to bring to an end.

65 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/215.0/200/BMI:26.9/WK-9/Weight Loss Graph

Mr. Scale said, “215.5 pounds” this morning.

Yesterday was a low exercise day again. Carrying my computer around was the extent of my “workout.”

For my eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5pts), but in addition to my normal fair for lunch, Dot put in 3 Testations candies for a point, and 2 and half meringues for 1 point. So, my lunch total was 8 points, even after the zero point Romaine lettuce and two 0-point cucumbers. For dinner I had 2 cups of mixed oriental vegetables (0pts), 3/4 cup of minute rice (3pts) with a tablespoon of Brummel margarine (1pt), along with a WW Smoothie shake (2pts). That made dinner 6 points, and a total of 19 points for meals. For snacks during the day, I had two cups of coffee (2pts) and a Mr. Cookieface ice cream sandwich (3pts). That made 5 points for snacks. So, my total for points for the day was 24.0, and inside my range.

For water, I drank 15 cups for 120 ounces (7.5 pounds). I must be a glutton for punishment, because once again I put down 32 ounces just before going to bed, and I am still getting rid of it this morning.

The place where I am really noticing a big change is when I weigh with my clothes on. I used to come home from work and crawl up on the scale with my steel-toed shoes, and belt of electronic balls-and-chains, with pockets filled with all sorts of stuff, and see a reading of 250 or more. Now it reads in the mid 220s. Loaded for bear, and still weighing far less than I used to in my zero-ounce weigh-in outfit. I think that is really cool.

Well, another ugly Monday behind me. (Give my a Friday the 13th, or a Friday the anything, anytime!) On to face the rest of the week.

66 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/215.0/200/BMI:26.9/WK-9/Weight Loss Graph

At 5:45 AM, Mr. Scale was wondering if the birds shouldn’t be allowed to awaken first before he was bothered, but I thoughtlessly proceeded to weigh myself. In spite of everything he said, “215.0.” What a nice guy.

Yesterday was very cold for mid July. I wore a coat to work, and even at lunchtime I wore it in and out of the office. It is 57 degrees right now and is supposed to get up to 67 for a high today. I am currently reading a book that talks about the mechanisms involved in starting an ice age, which we are due to start sometime during the next couple of millennia. One scientist quoted, said that some significant cooling during the next 2 centuries could well be expected. (The Global Warming scare may be misplaced. It may be that we will need all the global warming we can get in the future. But that discussion is beyond the scope of this journal. ) Anyway, the one thing that is required to start an ice age is cool summers in the upper latitudes (winter temps don’t matter as long as it still gets cold enough to snow). Maybe I should take up ice sculpting?

On top of the hibernation type weather, it was a fairly quiet work day, so my exercise was minimal. I did get some studying in, but that did not burn an exciting number of calories.

For my meals, Breakfast (5pts) and lunch (6pts) were standard. (Dot didn't put in a rice cake, or else lunch would have been 7 points.) On my hour and a half drive home (the traffic was not nice yesterday) I ate some Romaine lettuce and 2 cucumbers. The Romaine may have had some chemicals still on it, or something, because it worked its way through my system in short order and made my evening visits to the rest room rather pressing indeed.

For dinner Dotti fixed up some Zesty Ravioli, and I had 2 cups of it (6.0pts) and it was very good. I also had 2 pieces of toast (1pt) and a new version of the orange shake (2pts), which included a 3/4 cup of low point ice cream in place of the WW Smoothie mix. That brought my meal points up to 20.0. For snacks, I had 3 additional cups of coffee/decaf (3pts), and a Mr. Cookieface, bringing my point total for the day up to 26.0.

For water, I drank 11 cups, for 88 ounces (5.5 pounds). I did not drink any water after 9:15 PM this time, just to avoid a busy up and down night. It worked.

I was looking at my old 5 year graph yesterday, and I was looking at the V shape my losses always took on it. I might lose a great deal of weight, but I would put it right back on, and do it just as fast as it came off. Pretty sad. The best part of what I am doing now is knowing that this time the V will be replaced by an L. Because I now have the tools in hand to maintain my weight loss, once I achieve it, I feel very confident that I will not put the weight back on. When I reach the area I want to be in, I only have to continue to do what I have been doing all along, for the rest of my life, and my weight will stay there. The journey merely moves to a new phase, one that is just as important as this phase is. Losing weight is useless, unless it stays off. Only maintaining afterwards, is what gives the weight loss any real meaning. What difference does a won battle make, if the war is lost? It is sustaining the victory, which really counts.

I am eagerly looking forward to that challenge. The opportunity for experimentation, and regimentation into paths of habit that are positive and productive is going to be fun to embrace. I think that part of the journey is going to be, in many ways, even more exciting than this part is.

67 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/215.0/200/BMI:26.9/WK-9/Weight Loss Graph

I stepped up on Mr. Scale this morning at 5:30 AM and he said, “Hey buddy, that is 25.0 pounds you have lost!” I said, “What?” and He replied, “214.5 pounds!”

Last night when I got home from work, I weighed myself and it said 214.5 then also. So, I was hoping that it would be there again this morning. 25 pounds lost, and 14.5 pounds to go to goal! (The thermometer program shows the mercury at 63% or so, and in the WARM category.)

Yesterday was another physically quiet day. I ate my normal Breakfast (5pts) and lunch (7pts - we remembered the rice cake this time ). During the day at work I got a bit hungry, and so I had a bag of Jolly Time popcorn (3pts) along with my 2 cups of coffee (2pts). That brought me home (this time the drive was 1 hour and 20 minutes), with 17 points under my belt, so to speak. Dotti fixed another “orange float” shake (2.0pts) and 2 tostados (5.5pts) for dinner and, a besides being very tasty, they were quite filling. That brought my points up to 24.5 as the evening was wearing on. Then Dotti wanted to split a Mr. Cookieface with me, and so I ended up with 26.0 points for my total for the day.

For water, I drank 11 cups, or 88 ounces (5.5 pounds). I finished with my water by around 9:00 PM but I still did some up and down during the night.

The temperature outside right now is 55 degrees F. (The high is supposed to be up to 72 degrees later.) I wore my coat again to work yesterday, because it was so cool outside. To be honest, I would love it if the whole summer were like this. I like cool weather. But I fully expect the temperature to snap out of it and force on our air conditioners again before long. And then it will be warm for a couple of months, before it gets nice again.

Here it is Thursday, day 69 in my journey. Hopefully it will be a good day. I am truly sick and tired of fighting the traffic every night, but that is the price I have to pay to live in the Pacific Northwest. (When we lived in Massachusetts it took me about 10 minutes to get to work, and to get home at night. If the traffic was heavy, maybe 15 minutes. I do miss that drive!) Fortunately, I have some good things to munch on while I am driving, and I always have an audio book to listen to, so the time is not totally wasted.

68 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/215.0/200/BMI:26.9/WK-9/Weight Loss Graph

Mr. Scale was a bit surly this morning as he said, “215.5,” at 5:20 AM. Perhaps it was the early hour.

Yesterday, things were hopping at work, at least in the afternoon. I took a one mile walk at lunch at a 15:32 pace, and then was very active from 1:00 PM to 6:45 PM. I was actually quite tired and sore when I got home last night. I am still a bit tired and sore this morning. We’ll see what today brings in the way of exercise, and hours of work.

My hands are a bit puffy, and I think I am having a bit of water retention this morning. Hopefully I can shake that off by tomorrow’s weigh-in. The main thing, in the long run, is that water retention is temporary and will have no permanent effect on my weight. In the short run, it can play havoc with my weigh-in. We will see what happens.

For my eating, everything was pretty standard. I had my coffee, cereal and milk breakfast for 5.0 points and my standard lunch for 7.0 points. For dinner it was leftovers of the Zesty Ravioli, and a WW smoothie shake. Snacks included 2 cups of coffee (2pts) at work, a Mr. Cookieface (3pts) in the evening. So, my total points for the day was 24.5, well within my range. For my water yesterday I only drank my 8 glasses for 64 ounces. Not as much as usual. It is often the case, that I have trouble getting my water in when I spend the day in the fab (clean room) at work.

So, the only two variables that changed yesterday were: a bit less water; and a lot more exercise than usual. That tells me that the pound bounce up this morning is nothing but a water weight fluctuation, and is nothing to worry about.

The temperature made it up into the 70’s yesterday, and but it fell off into the 50’s at night as usual. Next week we are supposed to make it up into the 80’s, starting Monday.

It’s Friday. Hopefully things will settled down at work so my weekend can start on time, but I will just have to wait and see.

69 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/215.0/200/BMI:26.9/WK-9/Weight Loss Graph

*** Weigh-in for WEEK 10 ***

Week Completed:	__10__
Weigh-In Weight:	214.5
Body Mass Index:	26.9
Week’s Average Points/Day:	26.5
Pounds lost this week:	0.5
Pounds lost total:	25.0
Pounds to go to 10%:	0.0*
Pounds to go to goal:	14.5
* Made 10% at 215.5 pounds

___________________________

I stepped up on Mr. Scale, for my tenth week weigh-in, and he said, “214.5 pounds, it’s official, you have lost 25 pounds!” I said, “Thank you!”

It was only a half pound loss this week, but any loss is better than a gain, and I will take it! My primary goal in this phase is to stay within my points range, and I did that. I averaged 26.5 points a day, stayed below the top of my range, and never fell below 24 points for any given day. I felt that it was a successful week, and hitting 25 pounds for my total loss so far, makes a nice conclusion to my first 10 weeks on program.

Last night Dotti and I went over to Jantzen Beach, a shopping center just over the Columbia River from us, on the Oregon side. We wanted to do a little browsing through Comp USA, one of our favorite stores. There is a McDonalds there as well, and so we stopped to have one of their 3 point cones. Fortunately I had points to spare, because the guy who ran the cone machine got into mountain building as a hobby. These cones were huge. We counted them as 5 point cones, and enjoyed them. Of course, you know that something like that is only going to happen on the day before weigh-in.

In spite of that fiasco, which was at least a tasty fiasco, I ended up only eating 26 points yesterday. After my standard 5-point breakfast, 7-point lunch (see Standard Meals below), and cup of coffee at work, (I also had a cup of herbal tea for zero points) I had only eaten 13 points when I walked in the door at home. I grabbed 5 meringues for 2 points, bringing me up to 15 points. (I may have made a different choice on the sweet meringues, if I had known what was coming later.) We decided to go to Subway for dinner and catch a cone afterwards. At Subway I had a 6 inch sub (6pts) and then McDonald’s overloaded my cone for me and took up 5 points. That brought my total points up to the aforementioned 26.0.

At work things were much quieter yesterday, and so I did not get much exercise there. I am still sore from Thursday. Hopefully this weekend I will be able to work some of that out. Exercise is the one part of my journey that really needs work. (No pun intended.) I need to set up an exercise schedule and stick with it. But in order to make that happen, I will need the same sort of commitment that I have on my eating phase. It will come, I am confident of that. And if I start slowing down on my weight loss (I have had two weeks now with only half a pound loss) it might be just the spark I need to fire up my exercise efforts. Everything is mental, and without mental motivation, nothing happens.

For water yesterday, I drank 13 cups, or 104 ounces (6.5 pounds). I drank my last cup at about 8:30 PM, just so I wouldn’t have to fight so hard to get rid of the last drop in the morning.

If I average 0.5 pound loss per week, I will hit goal on February 9, 2002, in plenty of time for the next conference, which was my original goal. Since I have averaged 2.5 pounds per week so far, I am hopeful that I can at least manage the half a pound. But weight loss is a funny business, and it can go in fits and starts. As I have said before, I am looking at it like I am flying a plane by instruments. If the compass says that I am heading in the right direction, then I have to believe I am heading in the right direction. When I eat within my points, I have to believe, that given enough time, I am going to lose. Therefore, my only real concern is, did I, or did I not, eat within my points range. In order to answer that question, I have to know exactly what I ate. But if I do know exactly what I ate, measured and weighed, and I have eaten within my points, then I am a success, because in time, I am going to reach goal -- just like a plane or ship will reach its destination as long as it stays on course, as defined by the compass.

Eleven weeks ago, I had no idea where I would be today. Ten weeks ago, I was hoping I would be were I am today by this time, but I was not expecting to have come quite this far this soon. All and all, it has been a very fun and enjoyable journey, and having my very best friend along side of me all the way has made it absolutely wonderful for me. Thank you Dotti!!!!

Off to enjoy the weekend.

70 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/214.5/200/BMI:26.9/WK-10/Weight Loss Graph

In my journal I refer to my “STANDARD BREAKFAST” and my “STANDARD LUNCH”. Just for reference here is what I mean:

STANDARD BREAKFAST (5PTS)

1 cup of coffee 0 points
4 teaspoons of non-dairy creamer 1 point
1 cup of bran flakes or similar cereal 1 point
1 cup of skim milk 1 point

STANDARD LUNCH (7 PTS)

2 turkey sandwiches 3 points
2 slices turkey – 1.0
4 slices bread – 1.0
1 slice cheese – 1.0
light mayo
(very light coating) ~ 0.0

1 piece of fruit 1.0 point
medium orange
plum
tangarine

6 Espresso Beans 1.0 point

Jello dessert 6 oz. 1.point
(See Creamsicle Jello)

Snack 1.0 point
2.5 standard meringues
2.0 chocolate meringues
1.0 chocolate rice cake

Free vegetables 0.0 points
Rhubarb
Romaine Lettuce
Cucumbers

My food needs are rather simple, and I have been having cereal and milk for breakfast since before I can remember. We swapped from whole milk to skim milk close to 10 years ago. My folks would not let me have sugar cereal as a child, so I never developed a taste for it. The only thing different today is that I am measuring my cereal, and probably eating only half as much as I was before starting my journey. For lunch, I had been eating two peanut butter sandwiches and a 200+ calorie snack every day for years. I am now eating a lot better lunch. It is tastier and more filling, as well as having less points.

-Al-