Week 217 Update

It was 06:15 when I stepped on Mr. Scale and he said, "184.5 pounds!" I certainly will not complain about that number!

This week I ate more points in a single day than on any day of my journey so far, as I recall. Even so, I ended up losing half a pound for the week. J

We spent this week in Spokane, with our very dear friends, Jim and Tammy, and their very gracious family, who always make us feel very welcome.

Here is how the week went...

Saturday - I got up at 07:15 and weighed in at 185.0 pounds. I was very tired, and remained so for most of the day. (In the future, we may return to leaving early in the morning on Saturday, rather than trying to push it by driving up Friday night.) Even drinking coffee didn't help too much until later in the day.

Despite feeling tired, I still enjoyed having the chance to visit with Jim and Tammy. We spent the day at the house and I ate fairly conservatively, consuming a total of 42.0 points for the day. In the evening Tammy fixed us some delicious fajitas. (I had one, and it was very good, and only was 4.0 points, so I had to have another. J)

It was really nice having LeRoy there with us for the weekend too. He has known Jim, Tammy, and their oldest daughter Claudette, nearly his entire life. In fact no event in his earliest memories antedates our two families' friendship. They have always been part of our family, and Claudette has always been like a sister to him. Now of course the younger sisters have joined Claudette as near siblings to him. LeRoy is nearly as at home at Jim and Tammy's place as he is at ours.

After dinner, Tammy and I took a 3.1 mile walk on the loop around the blocks near their house. It was a nice pleasant 64°, and gave us a chance to catch up on family news, while getting in some exercise.

Sunday - I weighed 184.5. I love it when I am just below my target weight, because it gives me more room to work with. I especially like that when I am on vacation, and the eating choices are more varied, and perhaps more loaded with calories. It is nice not having to say, "No thank you," when good food introduces itself.

Jim and Tammy took us to Gardner Cave in Crawford State Park, in Washington State. The first two pictures below show some of the road that we drove along getting to the cave. This is the country in the northeastern corner of Washington State. There are many lakes, and the forest is thick.

The final guided tour of the day for the cave was scheduled for 4PM, about one-half hour after we arrived. So, we had to wait a bit, even after walking the trail from the parking lot up to the mouth of the cave. The third picture shows Dotti standing near the gate where the tour was going to begin. In the next photo, you can see Jamie, Tammy, Jim and LeRoy visiting in the background, and in the foreground the signs at the entrance gate are seen. They announce the fact that we could not have visited the cave without a guide, and that there are tours only at the four times listed. (We had expected to be able to walk through the cave if we missed the tour, like Dotti and I did at the Ape Caves. After the fairly long drive we felt fortunate that we arrived a half hour early and not a half hour late!)

On the road	Forest highway	Dotti waiting for the tour	Jamie, Tammy, Jim, & LeRoy

Jim found a sign that said that the Canadian border was only a half mile away from the cave entrance! So, LeRoy and I set off at a brisk pace, about 15 minutes before the tour was to begin, to see if we could make it to Canada and back in time for the tour. We made it!J

As you can see in the next picture below, the path started out on the level, and if it had continued that way it would have been very easy to complete the task we had assigned ourselves. The occasional fallen tree as shown in the sixth picture was not really a problem. However, the path took a steep drop after a while, and we had to go quite a ways down before we finally reached the border. Again, not a problem, that is until we had to return. Coming back that change in elevation was a bit of a challenge, especially since we had on our coats. The air temperature was in the 70s, and we worked up a sweat on the return trail. The coats were required for the cave tour, because the air temp in there is a constant 39°F. We could have taken the coats off, but it was only a 15 minute walk.J

You can see from the next two pictures that LeRoy and I both made it to the border, where the ever vigilant sign was guarding the crossing point. J

The ninth picture shows that they have clear cut a break in the forest following the border across the mountainous terrain. Making that cut must have been a fun project.

LeRoy and I made it back just as they were letting the people start moving into the cave entrance. The next two pictures show some of the formations that were in the cave.

After our tour, on the drive back, we came across this critter walking in the middle of the road. He was breathing very hard, as if he had been running for some time. He started on the left side of the road, and finally wandered off the right side of the road. Fortunately Jim saw him in plenty of time to stop.

Path to the border	Partial block	LeRoy at the border	Al at the border
The US-Canada border	Gardner Cave	Cave tower	Fellow traveler

That evening we went to an eating establishment called Prospectors. Jim and Tammy have often said some great things about Prospector's food, with the caveat that Tammy added: "It is not point-friendly!" Prospectors had all sorts of old prospecting paraphernalia placed around the restaurant, and it made for an interesting setting for the very good food that they served up.

I had a pizza that we later calculated to be 40.0 points. I have to admit that I was pretty full after eating that. However, next there came my personal red-light demon: cheesecake. Oh my! I ordered one with whipped cream and chocolate. Jim ordered one with berries, and LeRoy ordered one with white chocolate. We cut them up into pieces and traded, so that we three got some of each. We also shared some with others, but I ended up eating just about an entire serving and quite a bit of the whipped cream. After looking up what cheesecake goes for, Dotti, Tammy and I agreed that I had eaten another 40.0 points in dessert. That came to a whopping 80.0 points for a single meal! After my other meals and snacks were added in, I was up to 101.5 points for the day. Dotti and Tammy both threatened me with violence if I lost weight the following day.

Monday - I was spared the threatened violence, as remained 184.5 on Monday. J LeRoy had to go back home, because he had to work in the evening, so we sadly said goodbye to him in the morning.

This was the Fourth of July, and we all went over to Tammy's Mom's house for a barbeque to celebrate the holiday. Tammy's sister has a daughter who is loaded up with just about unlimited energy. After we ate (I had 51.0 points worth of hamburger, beans, potato salad, rolls, corn on the cob, ice cream, and cake), while most of the people there were visiting, Tammy's niece took a shine to me, and started chasing me around the outside of the house. Dotti said I was trying to work off my gluttonous extravagances, and she may have been right. In any case, I was on my feet running around the house for over an hour before we both ran out of energy. Jim spelled me for a few minutes towards the end, but I think I got more exercise that day than all the days in the rest of the week combined. J

It wasn't as bad as the day before, but I still ended up eating 60.5 points for the Fourth of July.

Tuesday - I finally moved up on the scale on Tuesday to 185.5 pounds. That is still not too bad, and so I didn't watch myself too closely that day. My meals only added up to 26.0 points, and normally they come to around 30 points. So, that was okay. However, one of our nieces sold us a box of Almond Rocha candy, and over the course of the day, I ended up eating the whole silly box. It added up to 12 pieces total, for 22.0 points. I had a few other snacks, and finished the day off at 56.0 points. That was my last day this week where I went over 46.0 points.

Jim had to work each day for the rest of the week, starting on Tuesday. So, I spent the days mostly visiting with Dotti and Tammy, and the kids, or on occasion working on my computer. (Mostly working with the pictures that I was taking during the week.)

Wednesday - The scale finally caught up with what I had been doing so far in the week, as it said, "187.0 pounds" on Wednesday morning. I finally started to rein things in and held my points down to 33.0 for the day. For dinner I had a couple of fat free hot dogs, with chili and sauerkraut, and that usually causes a bump up on the scale on the following day. So, I was expecting the scale to move up some more on Thursday.

In the evening I took a walk by myself around the 3.10 mile loop. It was dark by the end of the walk, and I was glad that I had my flashlight with me.

Thursday - The scale didn't surprise me, when it indicated 187.5 on Thursday. It could have been worse.

I took Claudette out for lunch, so we could visit a bit and we had a very nice afternoon together. We ate at Outback and we split a "Sinful Sundae" after eating a portion of our hamburgers and fries. It all added up to only 24.0 points, which really isn't bad for that restaurant.

When I first met Claudette, she was only 6 months old, and LeRoy was one year. Now they both are 27 years old. (LeRoy turns 28 this month.) She is very much like a daughter to me, and I really enjoyed having the time with her. She has turned out to be a quite a lady, wife, and mother of three. I am really proud of her!

In the evening we had steak and potatoes, and I feel very happy, after eating at Outback, and then having such a tasty meal in the evening, for getting away with only having eaten 46.0 points for the entire day!

Friday - The scale slipped back to 186.0 on Friday. I ate light all day. The one out of the ordinary thing that I had was a peanut butter celery stick that Tammy made for me. I was thinking that it was going to be high in points, but it was only 2.5 points! There wasn't as much peanut butter on it as I had expected, and it was very good. (Thank you Tammy!)

We watched the movie Braveheart in the evening, but I only drank water, rather than snacking during the movie. By the end of the day, I had eaten only 26.5 points. When I was going to bed I stepped on the scale, and I only weighed 186.5 pounds. I knew I was going to have a good weigh-in today when I saw that number the night before!

How did this week go?

I had some moments when I was pretty much just ignoring what I was eating, other than just writing it down. (I always write it down, no matter how many points it is.) However, I always keep an eye on the scale. I may frolic and overdo it a bit when I am low on the scale, but if the scale starts bumping up against the top of my range, I get very serious about pulling back and moving the scale back down again. This week I went from eating 101.5 points on one day down to eating only 26.5 points on another. That is quite a range of eating for me.

My weight did go above 187.0 once this week. But I was able to pull it right back down. My average weight was 185.64, which was less than the previous week! And of course my weekly weigh-in actually dropped half a pound from the previous week! For weight, I am happy with how this week went.

For points, I had 3 days that were over 46, and one day that was over twice that. If the scale had of been running very high as a result, I would have not been happy with those numbers. But since the scale was okay, I am satisfied with how I ate for the week. My average for points-per-day was 52.29. That is 6.29 points higher than I would have liked to have seen. That adds up to a total of only 44.03 points extra for the week, and that is just about one-half pound's worth of extra food. That much weight can be lost in the error of my scale, which only goes down to the nearest half-pound. In any case, since the scale didn't run up on me for the week, I am content with how the eating went.

I was only under on my water consumption on one day this week, and I had 4 cups on that day. All the rest of the week I had at least 6 cups per day, and my average water per day for the week was 56.0 ounces (7.0 cups). That is right in the middle of my target range of between 6 to 8 cups per day. That is great!

For exercise, at least for the exercise that I could officially count, I was on vacation this week. J I walked only 10.30 miles for the week. I did get in some exercise on the Fourth of July running around as much as I did, but I can't count that, because it wasn't measured. Still, I am not doing too badly on heading for my goal for the year, and these hot summer months will be gone one day, and I can get back to those nice cool days of fall and winter once more. In the meantime, I will try to get in as many miles as I can.

It is back to work once more this week, and we will see what that brings. For now, there are 217 weeks completed, and in the books for my journey. On to week 218...

4 years, 59 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/184.5/180±2/BMI:23.06/WK-217

GRAPHS:

Weight Loss Maintenance Year 1 Maintenance Year 2 Maintenance Year 3 Maintenance Year 4 2005 Walking 2005 Walking Data

2004 Walking Data