I stepped up on Mr. Scale this morning at 7:00 AM and he said, “209.5 pounds.” I blinked, and smiled and figured he must be happy about our trip to Eugene; you know, sort of excited about getting out of the place for a while.

For eating yesterday, I started off with my standard breakfast (5pts). For lunch we had a treat. I offered to fry up some egg sandwiches (about the only thing that I ever cook) and Dot said that sounded good. But then she decided she would do it, and dress them up. I am so glad she did! We had a Dotti “egg McMuffin” that had cheese and strips of turkey bacon on the orowheat bread. Scrumptious! And only 7.0 points for 3 of them. (Dot only had two.) I was stuffed all afternoon, and they tasted great. For dinner, Dotti fixed a garden burger with cheese (no bread) which came to 2.5 points, and some garlic potatoes from a bag she purchased at Trader Joe’s. They were only 1.5 points for a cup of them. That was 4.0 points for dinner, which gave me a total of 16.0 meal points for the day. For snacks, I had a bag of Jolly Time Healthy Pop popcorn (2pts) and a WW Smoothie shake (2pts), a Peanut Butter Kashi bar (5pts) and 4 chocolate meringues (2pts). That gave me 11.0 snack points and brought my total points for the day to 27.0.

For water, I drank 12 cups or 96 ounces of water.

For whatever reason, the scale says that today, I weigh 30 whole pounds less than I did when I started my journey. Wow! It just doesn’t seem possible. Three months ago I was exactly where I had been for years, bumping up against 240 pounds, with no real hope of doing anything else in my mind. The journey was something I was going to get around to, someday, sort of like someone thinking that they were going to get out there and clean up the garage sooner or later. Watching the Dotti’s Weight Loss Zone Conference video was a wake up call to me. I was very unhappy with the way I looked and I decided it was time to “go out and clean the garage” right now. Who would have thought I would weigh less than 210 pounds (at least for one day) a week before 3 whole months had passed from the start of journey? Not me, that’s for sure.

The Navy had a standard that all the men had to have a percent of body fat that 10% or less. As it worked out that was right at 189 pound for me. It is funny, but the weight I had my senior year in high school (170 pounds), would be 0% body fat.

Thinking back as to why I was so thin my senior year, after spending all my grade school years being overweight, here are the reasons I can come up with. I had just reached my peak 6 foot 3 inch height (having shot up from 5 foot 11 when I started my 9th grade year), was on the school basketball team, and getting lots of exercise. I was eating cafeteria food 3 meals a day, with very little snacking between meals. I was a vegetarian, and I lived in a dormitory where I had to go up and down stairs many, many times every day. Life was filled with activity that kept me moving. It is no wonder I didn’t have an ounce of fat on me for that brief era of my life. Compared with most of my life afterwards, I was doing all the right things back then, and the wrong things since.

I took up smoking when I went through a traumatic event in 1974. I was in my twenties before I had my first cigarette. But it grew into a controlling habit that I thought I would never shake free from. My eating went out of control after high school, and it was only a few months later that my weight had gone up over 200 pounds. My physical activity level has seldom been as high as it was in high school either. A few times in the Navy I found myself with an activity level that could match my senior year in high school, and on my final cruise, my weight actually fell to 170, but I was not eating as well as I was in high school, and it was not a healthy weight loss. As soon as the cruise was over, I was back up again.

I am slowly chipping away at the things I have been doing wrong over the years since graduating, and now I no longer smoke, my eating is under control, and the next item in line to get taken care of will be my exercise. I am exercising a little more now than what would have been considered normal for me during the last 3 or 4 years. But I am still not up to the level I should be. My a knees have been a problem over the years, especially when my weight goes up. I was doing quite a bit of jogging the last time I was in the 190s for any length of time, but as soon as I quit smoking and the weight poured on, my knees rebelled against any significant running and I had to stop. Even long distance walking would make my knees swell if done too regularly. My goal now is to vary my exercise between racquetball, basketball, and walking and get myself into what I would consider good shape. Then I might be able to start some jogging again, once I am in the 190s.

The funny thing is, the Navy demanded that I run a mile and a half in a certain amount of time. It demanded that I maintain my weight below a certain percent of body fat level. My natural tendency at the time was to rebel against being forced to run and watch my weight just because “the Navy wanted me to.” It was not until I got out of the Navy that I ever actually jogged. (When I did my Navy run for the physical fitness test, I would run as hard as I could until I ran out of breath, and then walked as fast as I could until I got my breath back and then ran again: back and forth, until I reached the end. Normally I could just come in under the time I had to meet in order pass the test, and I was good for another 6 months until the next test.) After I got out of the Navy, I finally took it as a challenge for my own feeling of accomplishment to jog for a mile and a half, at a time that was better than what the Navy had required. I reached the point where I was significantly below that time before I quit smoking, and after a life of never having run long distance at all, it made me feel pretty good.

Anyway, I feel like I am slowly but surely returning myself to the healthy lifestyle that I had for that brief time in high school, where I had never had a cigarette, ate well and exercised plenty. I no longer smoke, am zeroing in on eating right, and I am about ready mentally to jump on the exercise challenge. All and all, I am feeling much better about myself today than I did 3 months ago.

Well, I have to pack.

85 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/211.0/200/BMI:26.4/WK-12/Weight Loss Graph

For our first day in Eugene, Mr. Scale said, "209.5 pounds," at 5:35 AM. Two days in a row. I certainly won't complain.

When I woke up, I looked out the window of our motel, because the curtains were slightly opened, and it looked like there was a plane heading in towards the Eugene airport, with a second one off in the distance behind. What it turned out to be was Venus and another star just above it, arising on the eastern horizon. In the Portland area the lights are too bright to see the starts that brightly. As the stars rose in the sky, the magnification of the thick atmosphere layer close to the horizon was cleared, and they appeared to grow smaller with each passing minute. But at first they had appeared to be huge!

For food yesterday I ate my standard breakfast (5pts). I had a 6 inch turkey breast sandwich at Subway (6pts) for lunch, and then Dot made us some tostados for dinner (4pts for 2 of them). That added up to 15 points for meals. For snacks, we stopped at McDonald's on the road for a 3 point cone. I had 4 cough drops during the day for a point. We walked over to the Gateway Mall in Eugene (technically it is in Springfield next door to Eugene) and there we found they had an "All American" ice cream counter, with the 10 calories per ounce, no-fat ice cream. The flavor they had was "Banana Foster" and it was yummy. (4pts for a large in a waffle cone.) As the evening wore on, I had 3 Tastations (1pt), 5 Body Smart chews (1pt) a Laughing Cow cheese wedge (1pt) and 5 standard meringues (2pts). All that added up to 13 snack points and brought my total points for the day up to 28 points.

I drank 11 cups of water yesterday for 88 ounces.

Dot and I walked to the mall and back, which turned out to be a 1.6 mile walk, according to Dotti's pedometer. The temperature was in the 80's, and I could tell that it was warmer than what I am used to. Before we left, I checked the weather forecast for Portland and for Eugene for the next 10 days, on the Weather Channel web page. It said that Eugene was going to be between 5 and 10 degrees warmer each of the days than what Portland was. For the summer that is pretty standard. Eugene tends toward more an "inland" temperature on most days, and Portland seems to catch some of the moderation of a sea town, even though it is quite a ways from the sea. Fortunately, Eugene is supposed to get nice and cool in the evenings, dropping into the 50s and maybe even the 40s some of the nights, which will be pleasant.

The drive down was uneventful, and we were safely into our motel room before 3:00 PM. That allowed us to walk to the mall and look around, and be back at our motel, even before the mall closed. (I hate the way stores always close early on Sunday, if they open at all. Of course I remember when I was a kid, before there were indoor shopping malls, everything was closed on Sunday. Downtown, where all the stores were, was like a ghost town on Sunday. So, I suppose I shouldn't complain.) We headed to the grocery store and picked up some goodies for our stay, including some Skinny Cows! Alberson's had some, which we were happy to see. Unfortunately, we had already had two servings of ice cream by the time we picked up the Skinny Cows, and so we were strong and didn't have any. But today, all bets are off.

86 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/211.0/200/BMI:26.4/WK-12/Weight Loss Graph

Mr. Scale said, "210.0 pounds," at 5:40 AM, and the way things ended last night, that was pretty good.

I had my normal breakfast (5pts) and lunch (7.0pts) and then for dinner I had a 6 inch sub at Subway (6pts). That gave me 18 meal points. When I got home from work we went to the mall again and had another All American cone (4pts). We went out and did some shopping and when we got back I had a Skinny Cow (2.5 pts). And then I tried something that sort of took over my evening. Dotti was trying something new, it was a pita bread with some Laughing Cow cheese spread, and I decided that I was going to have a piece of pita bread (2pts) the other half of a Jalapeno pepper (0.0pts) that we had picked up at the store the other night. (I ate the first half with my tostados the night before.) I have eaten Jalapeno peppers all of my life, but always they were the kind in a jar that had been canned. This was my very first fresh one. And it was even hotter than I expected. The pita bread was gone, and the pepper was still going full tilt boogie in my mouth. I grabbed a cup of skim milk (2pts), which usually is really good at cooling down a pepper burn, but it only slowed it down a bit. I grab a cough drop (that made 2 for the day for 0.5pt) to see if that would slow it down some. It didn't help much. That had brought my points up to 29.0 for the day, and wasn't going to eat anymore than that. So, it led into my water.

For water, I drank 2 cups at work (the water in the office here is terrible) and then I had the pepper. I just started putting the water down, glass after glass for the rest of the evening. I finished the evening about 10:00 PM, after drinking a total of 14 cups of water. That is 112 ounces or 7 pounds of water. Needless to say, I was up and down all night getting rid of that water and I don't think I was finished yet even when I finally got up for good and weighed.

When we went to the mall, we walked again, even though the temp was up in the mid 80s. The walk over and back is 1.6 miles and then we walked around in the mall for a while too. So, we got some exercise, I stayed within my points, and drank my water. It was a good OP day. :)

Hopefully today will be less eventful. (No Jalapeno peppers today!)

87 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/211.0/200/BMI:26.4/WK-12/Weight Loss Graph

When I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 5:10 AM, he said, "209.5 pounds." That sounds familiar. :)

I was anxious to get into the 2-teens, and didn't give as much thought to next decade down. Today I am less than 10 pounds to goal, and it doesn't quite seem real. I feel excited inside, but I am not doing handsprings, even mentally. Not yet anyway. I Guess I just want to wait and see how it goes from here. I have to reach goal, which may end up going in half-pound losses as some point again, or it may just fall rapidly. Only time will tell. Then I will be focused on my personal goal, which I am fairly well set in my mind as being 189, and for maintenance holding the range from 185 to 190 pounds. I think it will be great to have my upper end weight set at 190 instead of 240. That will put my overall loss at 50 pounds. It will also bring my BMI down to 23.7, well into the normal range, after starting out in the Obesity range at 30 BMI, and moving down through the entire Overweight range (29 - 25 BMI). When that is added to the fact that I have quit smoking, (and then later added to getting into better shape) I should have significantly lowered my odds of both heart attack and stroke for the future. (Not to mention cancer, diabetes and many other diseases and conditions just waiting for the opportunity to jump onto an ailing body.) Of course there are no guarantees in life, but it is nice to be doing good things for my health instead of destructive things.

Speaking of exercise, I am beginning to mentally address that as my next project. I am going to use the Kenneth Cooper Aerobic point system to set my level of exercise, and try and build up to 30 Aerobic points a week. With my weight down, my knees just might let me do it, and that would put my weight and my exercise into the "Good" category. And then I will be off to tackle the next challenge. (Challenges never end in life, but actually taking them on one at a time and succeeding does wonders for your self esteem!)

Yesterday was a physically quiet day. Dot, who has not been feeling too well the last couple of days, was not feeling up to our walk when I came home from the office, and since nothing very physically active was going on at work either, I did not get much exercise for the day.

For eating yesterday, I had my normal breakfast (5pts), standard lunch (7pts), and for dinner Dotti made me 3 tomato sandwiches (2.0pts), and one of her pita bread/Laughing Cow cheese sandwiches (3.5pts). That brought my meal points to 17.5. For snacks, I had 5 cough drops (1.5pts), a Smoothie Shake (2.0pts), a bag of Jolly Time Health pop popcorn (2.0pts which I ate while Dotti and I watched "The Santa Clause" on DVD. -- My name is Al, and I am a Christmas junkie. I will listen to Christmas music and watch Christmas movies all year long.), 5 Body Smarts chews (1.0pt), and a Skinny Cow (2.5pts). That came to 9.0 snack points and brought my point total for the day up to 26.5 points.

For water I drank 17 cups, or 136 ounces (8.5 pounds). I was able to drink 3 glasses at work, each glass holding 2 cups (16 ounces). So, that got me off to a good start, having already drank 6 cups before I got home. During the evening I was sipping on my water the whole time.

Off to face Wednesday….

88 Days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/211.0/200/BMI:26.4/WK-12/Weight Loss Graph

A few minutes after 6:00 AM I stepped up, and Mr. Scale said, "210.0 pounds." Since my hands are puffy and I got to bed late last night, I think that is not too bad.

I was busy yesterday. I was on site at the fab by 7:30 AM and suited up and in the clean room a little after 8:00. I didn't leave at all from the clean room until 3:30 PM. So, I didn't have my lunch or anything to drink until after I was done. I came out of the fab for just a moment and remembered something that I had to go back in for, and that brought me almost all the way to 4:00 PM before I could leave and get something to eat. I was gulping down some water in the car. I also had a couple of small cups of water as I was leaving the clean room, that I did not write down in my journal because I was unsure of the quantity. It came from a water machine in the changing room that served ice cold water. (After 8 hours of not drinking anything, it was delicious!)

When I got back to the room, I ate the lunch that Dotti had made for me, that I was supposed to eat at lunchtime. So, after my standard breakfast (5pts), I had my standard lunch, minus the fruit (6pts) and that was it for meals. My total for meal points was 11.0. We headed out to Trader Joe's so Dotti could get some more pita bread, and then we walked around the little mall beside it, for just a little while. All the stores were closing, and it was only 6 PM. However, there was a Borders book store which was not closing. Borders is sort of an approximation of what my view of heaven would be like. Books everywhere of every kind. We didn't get out of there until after 8 PM, and I had a White Chocolate Mocha (5pts) while I was reading through some books. When we got back to the room, Dotti made up a WW Smoothie shake (3.0 PTS) for me, and that finished my snack points, which totaled 8.0. For the day, I only ate 19.0 points, too low but it was that kind of day.

I was on my feet pretty much the whole time from 7:30 AM to 3:50 PM. I was climbing up and kneeling down. I had to pull out a large aluminum "can" that is a RF resonator cavity, and that weighs something over 80 pounds. It is not terribly heavy but the position I had to pull it out of required a lot of effort to maintain control of the load. And if you don't pull it out just so, it will be damaged. And of course I had to install a new one in place of the old one I pulled out, and that required the same type of effort. I threw it up on my shoulder and guided it into place. The can, looks a lot like an old dairy milk can, about 3 and half feet long and a couple of feet in diameter, and it is mounted about 4.5 feet in the air. It has a delicate probe on the end that cannot be banged or it will be damaged. And of course there was the crating and uncrating of the can. After that, there was the aligning and calibration, cable hook up and various other tasks. The machine ended up producing some additional problems that took a the rest of my day to correct. Again, there was a lot of bending, kneeling, lifting and so on. The point is, I had a very active day for a change, and it went by very quickly.

I had intended to take a break and eat lunch, but there never was a convenient moment to do so. Once I got the can installed, I had to restore the machine to a high vacuum state. Then other things became important to do, and each step along the way, pushed me farther past the normal time for lunch. Finally it just became easier to finish rather than worry about lunch. I finally reached the point where I could run the machine up and test it. It was working fine, and I was done for the day. I was tired but it felt good to get the job done. And eating my lunch for dinner made the lunch taste even better, because I was definitely hungry for it!

For water I drank 8 cups, or 64 ounces, which I did not finish until late. Spending the whole day in the fab threw my water and my eating off kilter for the day. I hope that today will be a little more normal. We will see!

89 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/211.0/200/BMI:26.4/WK-12/Weight Loss Graph

I don't think that Mr. Scale likes the heat. He said, "211.0 pounds," when I stepped up on him today.

Of course I was begging for that, because I watched another movie ("Miracle on 34th Street") with Dot last night, complete with late night popcorn and water till bedtime. But it was worth it. We set the laptop up on a coffee table, height adjusted with a pillow, and we cuddled up on the couch to watch it. It had the flavor of a drive-in movie, and we just love drive-in movies. (We both are really depressed that so many of them have closed down.) By the time it was over, it was my bedtime.

I spent the workday yesterday in the clean room again, but it was not as physical as the day before. I was mostly working with the computer system and operating the machine, troubleshooting an issue. I even broke for lunch, and so my eating was closer to normal. The temperature was really ugly for Oregon. It got up to 97 degrees. I was beginning to feel like I had returned to the Mojave Desert. Fortunately the motel room has a good air conditioner in it.

My van barely has a chance to cool down by the time I get from one point to another in Eugene. It is a very small town compared with Portland, and the traffic is absolutely nothing as a result. I drive about 14 miles from the fab to the office and on to the motel room. Since some of it is with stop lights and back streets, the entire process takes about 20 minutes. Compare that with my drive from the office in Portland to home, which is a 25 mile drive, and often takes an hour or more to complete. (Another thing that I have noticed about Eugene, all the hippies that were running around in the 60s and 70s seem to have retired to Eugene. And to highlight that fact, I walked out of my office the other morning and I was hit with the smell of someone smoking that whackie-tobackie in one of the adjoining offices. Yep, that is Eugene.)

We were bound and determined to take a walk yesterday, and I suggested we do some mall-walking. (We are conditioned to 50s, 60s, and 70s for temperatures. We can just barely tolerate mid to low 80s, but there is no way we were going out into 97 degrees of scorching temperature and trying to do a fast walk.) So, this time we drove to the mall, and then we used Dot's pedometer to track our walk. We thought it was funny when we had finished and were getting back in the van (which I had managed to park in the shade of a tree) that we had walked exactly the same amount as we had the very first day, walking from our room, around the mall and then back: 1.63 miles. Walking across the parking lot, we were hit with a breeze. It felt like it had passed through a blast furnace to get to us. You know it is too hot when a breeze makes you feel even hotter.

Back in the room, it was nice and cool. In fact it goes in stages. We walked in the back door, and it went from scorching down to warm. Walking up the stairs it was still warm all the way. Then we walked through the door into the hallway, and right there was an air conditioner outlet that blasted us with cold, wonderful air. A few doors down and we were in our room, and it was like heaven. Ah. I don't know which is more enjoyable, walking into a heavenly cool room from the desert sands, or into a warm room from the snow covered, wind whipped winterscape. But today I will take the cool room, even though the Friday forecast is for only the low 90s, rather than pushing 100.

For food yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5pts), Standard Lunch (7.0pts and on time!) and a 6-inch Subway turkey sandwich (6pts). That gave me 18.0 points for my meals. Then for snacks, I had 4 cough drops (1.5points), a large "All-American" Banana Foster Glace cone at the mall, 10 Body Smart chews (2.0pts) and Jolly Time Healthy Pop popcorn (2.0 pts), for a total of 9.5 points. That brought my total points for the day up to 27.5 points.

For water I drank 10 cups for 80 ounces. During the evening, I had a couple of the 24 ounce cups with ice in it and that slowed the rate at which I could drink it. But it sure tasted good!

It is Friday finally. I am looking forward to the weekend. I don't know what the scale will say tomorrow (the last couple of days have been heading the wrong way) but I know I have been OP and so, it has been a good week for me. I will be on call this weekend but I hope that we can get out and finally see a few of the sites of Eugene. (Last time I was down here, I was working non-stop and we did not get to do much site-seeing at all. I came here for a visit a couple of times during the 1960s when I was in high school (and as I said some of the people here have never left that era) and have not really had much of an opportunity to wander around Eugene proper since then.

But first, before the weekend, there must come Friday. (Today is the last day in my journal book. Tomorrow I start the new journal that I made up on my computer, and then had printed and bound at Office Max a few weeks ago. I am looking forward to seeing how that works out.)

90 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/211.0/200/BMI:26.4/WK-12/Weight Loss Graph

*** Weigh-in for WEEK 13 ***

Week Completed:	__13__
Weigh-In Weight:	209.0
Body Mass Index:	26.2
Week’s Average Points/Day:	25.3
Pounds lost this week:	2.0
Pounds lost total:	30.5
Pounds to go to 10%:	0.0*
Pounds to go to goal:	9.0
* Made 10% at 215.5 pounds on 7/14/01

___________________________

I stepped up at 6:40 AM, and Mr. Scale said, "Wow, you have lost more than 30 pounds so far!" Okay, it was me that said that, all Mr. Scale said was, "209.0." The temperature was a bit cooler yesterday, and this morning it is a cool 56 degrees. It must have put him in a better mood.

Thirty pounds. That is 480 ounces, which amounts to 3.75 gallons of water. (One gallon of water weighs 8 pounds.) Imagine going to your grocery store, picking up 4 gallons of mineral water, and then lugging it around with you all day long, everywhere you go, morning till night. That makes me tired just thinking about it. (When I think of the 100 pounds that Dotti lost, which is the equivalent of 12.5 gallons of water strapped to her back, I am completely overwhelmed. No wonder she's got such a spring in her step!) I can already tell that I am feeling less tired all the time, and it is a nice feeling.

Yesterday was another clean-room day. I was up on my feet a lot of the time, but there was no heavy lifting or anything too strenuous going on. I felt pretty good when I got home, not too tired out. I was able to eat my lunch, about an hour later than I normally do, but I did get it in. When I got back to the room Dotti was kind of tired so we stayed in.

For my eating, I had my standard breakfast (5pts), and lunch (7pts). For dinner I wanted something light since it was Weigh-in Eve. I had 3 tomato sandwiches (2pts), a WW Smoothie Shake (2.0pts) and two strips of pita bread with Laughing Cow (Skinny Cows and Laughing Cows, what is it cows and weight loss? :)) cheese spread on them (3.5pts). That brought my meal points to 19.5 points. For snacks I had 2 cough drops (0.5pts), and a cup of decaf with non-fat hazelnut creamer (1.0pt). So, I had 1.5 snack points, bringing my total points for the day to 21.0.

The last couple of days my point total was a little low, but for the week my average was at 25.3 which is just great.

I did not drink any water to speak of all day until after work. When I got back to the room, I started drinking at a pretty good clip. By the end of the evening, in addition to the 40+ ounces of WW Smoothie Shake, I had consumed 11 cups of water, or 88 ounces. When I finished eating and drinking last night, I weighed 216.5 pounds. I always check. :) Adding the smoothie, and water together, it just about came to the 7.5 pounds I lost overnight. I go through this every Friday night. I start off carrying a large load of water, and then overnight get rid of it, to bring me down to my weigh-in weight. Dotti is always amazed at the amount of weight I can drop overnight, but it is all water.

Well, I must retire my first written journal today, because it is all filled up. It holds 91 days of information for a very interesting time of my life. It is funny, but I never enjoyed eating as much I have the last 3 months. I have learned to appreciate each thing that I eat, and that is something I never really did before. I ate more then, but I enjoyed it less. (Like the old bromide, "Smoking more, and enjoying it less?") By paying attention to what I was eating, it not only brought it under control, but it made eating something that I could more fully appreciate. I am going to put this first journal book in a very safe place of honor. It will always be special to me.

Today I hope to see some of the local sites in Eugene. The temperature is supposed to stay below 86 degrees at the warmest, and so we might be able to have some fun walking around. The waterways through Eugene are pretty and should provide some nice walking opportunities. There is a "Farmer's Market" downtown that is a real flashback to the days when Dotti and I first met in the 70s. We will see what we find to do.

91 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/209.0/200/BMI:26.2/WK-13/Weight Loss Graph