Once again, I foolishly climbed up on the "hope chest" perch of Mr. Scale, and this time he said, "197.5 pounds." That is back to where I was for last week's weigh-in.

Yesterday was a bit hectic and, while I was trying hard to manage my eating properly, somehow my attention wandered off to other things. I was helping Mom with her computer and Jim with his, and before I knew it, midnight had rolled around, and I usually turn into a pumpkin long before that time. I went to bed and the next thing I knew it was nearly 7:00 AM. After climbing scale mountain for my weigh in, I pulled out my journal, and was shocked to find that I had only eaten 18.5 points yesterday.

While I am having true confessions, Dotti dug out the books yesterday and she found that my points range is actually 22 to 29 for where I am at (under 200). What made me think that the top of my range was 31 is the fact that I had been told that once you hit maintenance, you add a couple of points to stop losing and to stay where you are. So, quite sometime ago, I mistakenly told myself that 31 would always be my upper limit, and have been going on that assumption ever since. To maintain for 200, 31 would probably would be fine. In fact I would possibly have to go even higher than that. But I want to get down to 190, and that means I need to hold myself in my proper range until then. So, since September 29, 2001, I should have been holding my points down to 29.0. I actually did except for October 4 and 5, when I hit 32.5 points and 31.0 points respectively. This is not like me. I normally am right on top of things like that but I think I was getting a bit comfortable with what I thought I knew, and how much I was eating. It made me sloppy.

I also did something yesterday that I had not done at all before on my journey, I only drank 6 cups of water! It is amazing what not focusing on what needs to be done can lead to.

Well, now I know about the point range that I should be eating in. I also know that I have been out of range 3 times in the last 3 days. (32.5, 31.0, 18.5 point; average for the three days = 27.3 points) As a Senior Chief I had worked for in the Navy, once wisely pointed out during a Pinochle hand, "Paying attention is a part of the game." This journey is far more important than a card game, and paying attention is far more a part of this "game."

Dotti and I took our DWLZ walk yesterday, along the South Umpqua River, and out on the highway running through downtown Tiller, Oregon. The sky was blue, the air was cool, and the river was clear as spring water. We stopped at the Tiller Store and picked up some chap stick, and walked up a hill to where there is some housing for Forest Rangers, just to add some distance to our walk, and then headed back. By the time we reached the end of the walk, Dotti's pedometer read 1.03 miles.

For eating yesterday, I had my standard breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had 2 turkey sandwiches (Dotti had brought the fixings for them along with us) (3.0 pt.), a can of V-8 juice (0.5 pt.), and a Diet Dr. Pepper. For dinner I had "Mom's Instant Tacos" (a half cup refried beans for a point, vegetables piled over the top for zero points and 2 ounces of pepperjack cheese for six points) (7.0 pt.). So, for meals, I had 15.5 points total. For snacks I had 2 peaches (2 pt.), and a cup of coffee (1.0 pt.). That meant that I ate 3.0 points in snacks yesterday, and my total points for the day was 18.5. Too low.

For water yesterday, I drank 6 cups or 48 ounces.

For exercise I walked 1 mile at a medium pace.

It has been a fun visit with Mom and Jim, but today we head back for home.

148 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/198.5/200/BMI:24.8/WK-21/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

At 6:00 AM I stepped up on Mr. Scale. He was located back home in his normal location, and he said, “197.5 pounds.”

Our visit to Tiller came to an end yesterday morning. We said our good-byes to Mom and Jim, and hit the road for our four-hour drive. We stopped at some rest areas, and made one stop at a gas station to buy some cough drops, because my throat was having its allergy problems. Dotti wasn’t feeling too well, and hardly said a word all the way. When Dotti is not talking at all, she is usually not in the best of health. When we got home, and unpacked she laid down on the couch, and watched some of the bad news on television and then took a nap. It helped some, because afterwards she perked up bit. Hopefully today she will be back to normal.

Well, here it is Monday, the start of a new week with all sorts of opportunities to go to work, have a root canal in my tooth, and who knows what other joys and wonders. :) Mondays are my favorite days to get behind me quickly. Now, Friday that is a day for me. It is a work day, so it is not a lazy day, but all day long you know that the evening will bring the weekend. It is that anticipation that makes the day easy to take. On Monday, in the evening you have several days of work still staring you in the face before you get some time to do what you want to do, when the sun is still up.

But, life is good, and I have Dotti, which paints everything with a rosy glow for me. I can face a lot in life knowing that Dotti is going to be there when I get home, with her beautiful smile. Even Monday is something to look forward to when it comes right down to it. :)

Today is Columbus Day, and a holiday for many in our country. I always like to think of how happy I am that Columbus took his trip and, thanks to his efforts and then all those who followed him, we now have the greatest country here that has ever existed in the history of the world. We are the recipients of the accumulated efforts of so many people who came over and discovered, colonized, and built this great nation. They came, they lived, fought and died that we might have our cities, superhighways, and other marvels that history has no equivalent for. Today is a good day for patriotic Americans to remember that. If it were not for Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the pioneers, we would not be here today with New York City, Los Angeles and everything in between. For those who love America it is a great day to remember where America came from and what it stands for. Now that we are at war, hopefully more of them will do just that.

For eating yesterday, I had my standard breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.), a bag of popcorn (2.0 pt.) and a diet cream soda (0.0 pt.). For dinner I had two packs of instant Cream of Wheat (4.0 pt.). So, my meal points came to 16.0 points. For snacks, I had 10 cough drops (3.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face (3.0 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.) and 2 yogurts (4.0 pt.). That came to 11.0 snack points, bringing my total for the day to 27.0 points. (Finally back in range!)

For water yesterday I drank 12 cups or 96 ounces. That is back where it belongs too.

The only exercise I got was loading and unloading the car yesterday, and we were only gone for a couple of days, so our luggage was rather minimal.

140 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/198.5/200/BMI:24.8/WK-21/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

At 5:10 AM, I stepped up on Mr. Scale, wondering what words of wisdom he might have for me. “197.5 pounds,” spoke the oracle. It must be important, because he has said it 3 days in a row. :)

They came up with a “better” laptop computer for me at work, and I spent a lot of the day getting it ready to go, transferring files from my old one onto my new one. At the end of the day the new one showed some signs of having some hardware issues which may send me back to my old one. I also redid my old one, by repartitioning the drive back to one participation from the 3 I had before, and I upgraded it to Windows 98. If I have to go back to that one, at least it will have some changes on it. (I am not sure that on that older computer, that Windows 95 would not be a better choice for speed and so forth, but it has been upgraded and going back is not really an option at this point.) We’ll see how it all pans out over the next few days.

I worked on the computer straight through lunch, only running out to the car long enough to grab my lunch box and bring it in to eat while I was working. So, I did not get a walk in at lunch.

Traffic was great yesterday! Many people had the day off for Columbus Day. The drive to the office was pleasant, with the traffic being very light, and moving all the way. There are a few points along the way that traditionally are stop and go, but the entire drive was moving along. Even coming home in the evening, which is usually even worse than the drive in, found traffic moving along well, even along the strip where they shrunk the freeway for the nearly unused HOV lane. I wish everyday we would have that amount of traffic. It reminded me of the way things were back in 1974 and 1975 when we were here, and traffic was not bad at all. Alas, today the traffic will be back to normal and I will once again be sitting and waiting for the cars ahead of me to start moving again. :(

Some of the schools in the area are correctly getting Friday off instead of Monday. I am still trying to figure out why yesterday was even in the picture as a holiday, since the day the crew of Columbus’ ship the [i] Pinta[/i] spotted land in the New World was October 12 (and they landed on October 13). October 12 was the original, and traditional date for celebrating Columbus day. As has become the custom for some of our holidays, we have sliced the actual event away from the holiday, so that we can have a 3 day weekend. However, in this case the date of the actual event (October 12) falls on a Friday, which would provide a 3 day weekend anyway. There was no real excuse this year for not celebrating the event of Columbus discovering the New World on the day it actually happened. This seems to be saying that only a Saturday, Sunday, and Monday will do as a three day weekend, not a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Our weather has finally broken, and autumn is upon us. The highs are in the low 60s and the lows are in the 40s. Today the high is predicted to be 62, and the low is supposed to be 42. That is what I would expect for this time of year. After we pulled our air conditioners out of our windows, the temperatures shot up for a couple of weeks before falling back down to where they are supposed to be. It wasn’t too bad though, because the days are shorter, and by the time the temperatures got up into the uncomfortable zone, the sun would drop low on the horizon and the temperature would fall back down again, unlike the summertime, when temperatures shoot up early and hang around until late at night in the discomfort zone. That is when the air conditioners are mandatory.

Now we are moving towards “heater weather,” and there is something far more appealing to me about walking into a nice warm room coming in from the cold, than walking into a cool room from the heat. Last winter when we were in Boston, it was fun walking around in the snow, and even digging the car out from the snow, and then coming back into the nice warm hotel room. On a winter’s morning, there is a point when the car crosses over from being an icebox to feeling really warm, and I always enjoy that point in my drive. The leaves are turning, and soon Halloween will be here, which is where the holiday season starts for me. I am ready!

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner, I had half of a Heaven’s Bistro Pizza (4.5 points), and a chocolate WW Smoothie Shake. That brought my points for meals up to 19.5. For snacks, I had 3 cough drops (1.0 pt.), a Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.), and a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.). That made 8.0 points for snacks. So, for the day I ate 27.5 points.

For water yesterday, I drank 9 cups, or 72 ounces.

150 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/198.5/200/BMI:24.8/WK-21/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

It was 6:00 AM, dark, and the temperature was 47 degrees F outside, when I decided to face Mr. Scale. I stepped up, and he said, “197.5 pounds.” It is beginning to sound like a mantra that one would repeat over and over again, in order to properly understand the cosmic place of one’s naval in the entire scheme of things. “Ohmmmm. 197.5. 197.5. 197.5...” I am not complaining mind you. I think 197.5 is something I could live with for the rest of my life quite comfortably. But I am not going to just yet. First I am going find out what 189.0 feels like. Then the mantra will be adjusted to the points where I feel the best.

I woke up with a headache yesterday, and I had a slightly sore throat, with a gland under my jaw being slightly swollen. I am feeling a bit better this morning.

I work around people who are on a “compressed shift,” where they work four 12 hour days, and then get 3 days off, and then they work three 12 hour days, and get 4 days off. They have it set up so the “front half” works Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and every other Wednesday, while the “back half” works every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and the Wednesdays that the front half doesn’t. Anyway, yesterday was the end of the “short week” for the front half (they don’t work Wednesday this week) and so, as usual they were all to happy to point out to me that it was “Friday.” It is small compensation, but I always point out to them that I will be thinking of them on Sunday, when I will be relaxing and they will be working their 12 hour day. I know the 12 hour days are long, but those 3 and 4 day weekends are great every week. And another benefit is that they only have to drive to work 4 times on the long week and 3 times on the short week. For me that is a savings of over 2 hours every week and 2 additional hours on the other week. On average, that is 3 hours a week. Another thing that I have noticed about compressed shift is that they take meal breaks and coffee breaks that are all part of the 12 hours. So, they just love to rub it in on us poor 5 day a week slobs, especially on their “Fridays.”

Yesterday I ate my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.), and for dinner I had 3 tomato sandwiches (2.0 pt.), yogurt (2.0 pt.), and a WW smoothie shake (2.0 pt.). So, for dinner I ate 6.0 points and for meals I ate 18.0 points. For snacks, I had 18 cough drops (5.5 pt.), two cups of decaf (2.0 pt.), and a WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.). That brought my snacks to 9.5 points, and my total points for the day to 27.5 points.

For water yesterday I drank 9 cups, or 72 ounces.

151 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/198.5/200/BMI:24.8/WK-21/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

Mr. Scale must have heard me yesterday and so he decided to shake things up a bit this morning. When I stepped on him he said, “198.0 pounds.” That wasn’t quite what I had in mind. :)

At lunchtime yesterday I drove to a local grocery store and was hunting around for something good to snack on in the car, with low points. I found a head of romaine lettuce with all the leaves and everything. I have been eating “romaine hearts” for quite some time, but I hardly get on the road and suddenly one of those hearts will be gone. The head I picked up yesterday had some substance to it, I was eating it all the way home, only taking a break from it long enough to eat my cucumber. The lettuce was good!

I was working on a machine in the afternoon yesterday and so I was up and around and doing things, which is better for exercise than just sitting around.

I was noticing that for the last four days I have been eating right at 27 or 27.5 points. I think that is a result of the upset that I had when I realized that the three days before that I had been either above or below my range. I have been conscientiously focusing on keeping my points in my range, and not letting them get too low. The result has been a regularity of points being eaten that I would not have suspected until I looked at my journal just now. I don’t have a problem with it, I just thought it was interesting.

I honestly believe that if you eat exactly the same number of points every day, or if you average that same value, by moving your points around, over a month or more, the scale will read about the same in the end. For the short term it does seem to make a difference for many, but in the long haul, I feel certain that my body will settle on the same weight for one amount of calories being eaten, no matter how I eat them. (Assuming exercise, medications, or any other metabolism altering or water retention altering factor is the same.)

For me the challenge of this journey was to reduce my caloric intake without pain. For if it was to be painful, I would not stay with it.

As it has worked out, I am eating well, and quite satisfied at the end of the day. Yesterday, for example, after dinner I still felt like eating some more. I had already consumed 23 points, and for safety’s sake I don’t like to run my points clear to the very top number, which is 29 in this case. (There have been a number of times during the last 5 months, when the buffer that I left at the top of my range has saved me from going over, when I checked my numbers the next morning and found an error that I had made the day before.) So, I brewed a cup of decaf (pushing my points to 24.0) while I was thinking about it, and before I drank the coffee, I quickly downed 24 ounces of water. That completely took the edge off my hunger, and postponed my decision until later. I finally settled on a Mr. Cookie Face to bring me up to the upper area in my range, but still leaving a buffer.

There was some effort required on my part, but there was no pain. That is the key to my staying OP. If I can keep it fun and pain-free, I will stay with it for life. If I were routinely suffering, sooner or later I would quit.

For eating yesterday, I had Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had 2 cups of Trader Joe’s Pasta Italiano (5.0 pt.), and 2 slices of toast with some Brummel spread (1.0 pt.). That made 6.0 points for dinner and overall totaled 18.0 points for meals. For snacks, I had 13 cough drops (4.0 pt.), 2 cups of decaf (2.0 pt), and a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.). That made 9,0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 27.0.

Yesterday I drank 10 cups of water, or 80 ounces.

152 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/198.5/200/BMI:24.8/WK-21/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

It was 48 degrees this morning when I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 5:30, and he said, “198.0 pounds.” I think he is getting me back for complaining about 197.5. :)

My hands are swollen and puffy this morning, and I am not sure why. Yesterday was a physically quiet day for me for the most part. Hopefully by tomorrow’s weigh-in that will be gone.

The daily routine seems to have become habit these days. Most of what I am doing, I don’t even have to think about. The one part of the day where I still do have to think about what I am doing is in the evening. If my points are low I will grab snacks in the evening until my points are up in my range, and then I grab water after that. On most days I could easily grab water first instead of a snack, but my mindset is to keep my points in my range, and to make sure I am not starving myself. So, I normally focus on getting my points right first and then finish with water.

This week, with the way I have been feeling, and with my teeth still being an issue, I have not gotten much in the way of exercise. This is an area that is going to take more focus on my part than what I have been giving it so far.

We have finally been getting some rain the last couple of days. Last winter was pretty dry, and though this summer was a bit wetter than the previous one, it did not make up for the dryer winter. So, I am hoping that we get plenty of rain this winter. (Of course not as much as the first winter we moved back here - 1995-96. They had serious flood that year.)

I can see LeRoy’s candle's light shining through the window by where I am sitting right now, and as always when I see that light, I think of how much I hope that he is safe in this time of crisis. He has grown up into quite a man. I can’t help but remember him as child: taking his first steps; his first tee-ball game; his bringing home a ribbon for his performance of a kata in a Chuck Norris karate competition; and later that time when he was warming up for a Little League game and a baseball caught him just under the eye and nearly closed it for him. But I also know that those childhood days are gone and he is doing a man’s job in a world that is not a playground. I am so proud of him!

Yesterday I had Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had half a Heaven’s Bistro pizza (4.5 pt.). That brought my points for meals to 18.0. For snacks I had 2 cups of decaf at work (2.0 pt.), 4 cough drops (1.5 pt.) and to bring my points up in the evening a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.). That made 8.5 snack points and made a total of 26.5 points for the day.

For water I drank 2 cups in the car and then in the evening I drank another 9 cups for a total of 11 cups, or 88 ounces.

153 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/198.5/200/BMI:24.8/WK-21/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

*** Weigh-in for WEEK 22 ***

Week Completed:	___22___
Weigh-In Weight:	197.0
Body Mass Index:	24.7
Week’s Average Points/Day:	25.5
Pounds +/- for this week:	-1.5
Pounds lost total:	42.5
Pounds to go to 10%:	0.0*
Pounds to go to goal:	0.0**
* Made 10% at 215.5 pounds on 7/14/01 ** Made Goal at 200.0 pounds on 9/22/01

___________________________

I stepped up on Mr. Scale at about 6:30 AM, and he said, “197.0.” I said, “It’s just about time!”

Actually I am very happy with how things have gone over the last 4 weeks. Since September 15, just four weeks ago, I have dropped a total of 5.5 pounds. That is an average loss of 1.375 pounds per week. Even since I reached goal, on September 22, three weeks ago, I have lost 3 pounds. That is a one pound per week average loss since making goal, even including the one pound gain last week. As I said before, I felt that the big drop on September 29 was not a healthy one, but was caused by my dental/medical issues. I think I am just now starting to catch up to where I would have been if that hadn’t of happened. (Of course it is not really over yet, because I have some additional dental events coming up soon concerning that same tooth.)

As I was averaging my daily point totals for the past week, I noticed that at the beginning of the week, I had a very low day (18.5 pt.) and at the end I had a low day (22.5 pt.) but all the other days I was in the upper end of my range. The final average came out to 25.5 points, and was within 0.3 of a point of the average that I had last week. The midpoint of my range is 25.5 points, and so I hit it dead center this week.

Today it is the 509th anniversary of when Columbus and his crew first set foot on land in the New World. At the same time it is the year depicted by Author C. Clark as the time of a “Space Odyssey.” The two are connected, because it is the pioneer spirit, and the drive onward to reach and subdue new and unexplored frontiers that created the land today known as the United States of America. I think that it is a great tragedy that America took a wrong turn after visiting the Moon a few times. Instead of investing in the spirit of Columbus and moving onward into space, colonizing the Moon and landing on Mars, pushing the frontiers ever outward, we have tightened the purse strings and nearly suffocated the desire to jump off this planet and colonize space. We went from moving like a drag racer, rushing to reach the Moon, to moving at a snail’s pace. We have not been back to our nearest neighbor in decades. We have wasted trillions of federal tax dollars on other things, with no positive result to show for them, money that could have pushed us so far into space that “2001 a Space Odyssey “ would have underestimated our accomplishments by this year.

There is unlimited energy in space just waiting for us to claim it. There are minerals, and there is room to grow in an unlimited fashion for thousands of years. Like priming a pump, it takes money to get it all started, but once it is going it will more than pay for itself. I don’t know what it will take, but I hope to see the next Columbus reach out and plant his foot on another world, to be followed by a rush of others, a rush that will produce even greater things in space, than what the European rush to the New World produced in the USA. I may be a dreamer but one day I hope that it happens.

The weather has definitely turned to autumn. The leaves are changing colors, and beginning to fall. The temperatures are reaching no higher than the low 60s and falling well into the 40s at night. The wind has a cutting bite, with just a touch of what winter will feel like. In the stores the pumpkins and the orange and brown displays are everywhere. Halloween candy and costumes are finding their way to the store shelves. (Can Elvira be far behind? :) ) The clouds are dropping their precious cargo upon the land, and the roads are often damp. However, a few days ago, I saw one of the most beautiful sunrises of my life, driving to work.

I was crossing the Glenn Jackson Bridge, on I-205 over the mighty Columbia River. Off to the left, the Columbia stretched out pointing the way to Mt. Hood, which stood out against a strip of orange sky that no artist could reproduce. Above the 11,000 foot peak the clouds were spread across the sky, but terminating before they reached the eastern horizon. The rising sun was shoving its light from underneath, high against the clouds, painting them orange and purple, and actually producing a shadow upon them of the volcano’s shape. In the upper left hand part of the visible sky a bright white light jumped out at me. It was the landing lights of an incoming plane, but it was so far away that it looked like a super bright star refusing to yield the sky to the burning orb rising rapidly in the east. On either side of Mt. Hood, the Cascade Mountain range ran off into the distance, silhouetted against the sky exploding in color. I had to struggle very hard to concentrate on driving, and on not becoming too distracted by the view. In the river the light was reflected, and the trees lining its banks were dark but just beginning to be touched with an outline of color. The islands in the river formed dark strips that were outlined in reflected orange, that was rippling slightly. What a sight!

Each day driving over that bridge, I have a sense of excitement. I never know what I am going to see. Some days Mt. Hood is invisible; completely covered by clouds. Sometimes there are wisps of fog hanging over the river and its lining trees. Planes landing at the airport on the right, pass right over the bridge and add a touch of wonder at seeing metal gliding so smoothly in the sky. If it is dark the city lights of Portland create a beautiful panorama. If it is light, the green trees covering the ancient, dead and worn volcanic peaks run all the way off in the distance, to join up with those growing on the not so dead volcanic peaks. Everywhere I look, I see beauty from the bridge. Twenty-six years ago when we had to leave this city, it was memories like that which made me sure that one day, no matter how long it took, we would find our way back to live here. I am so glad that we made it!

For eating yesterday, I had Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had my traditional Friday evening 3 tomato sandwiches (1.5 pt.), and a chocolate WW Smoothie Shake (3.0 pt.). That brought my meal points to 16.5. For snacks, I had 10 cough drops (3.0 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), and a yogurt (2.0 pt.). That added up to 6.0 snack points, and when added to my meals it made a total of 22.5 points for the day. In my range at the low end.

For water yesterday, I drank 9 cups, or 72 ounces.

154 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/197.0/200/BMI:24.7/WK-22/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph