I woke Mr. Scale up a bit earlier this morning, at 6:30, and he said, “196.0 pounds.”

Yesterday, Dotti and I ran some errands. If you recall a while back, we visited an eye glass business, where we encountered a most disagreeable woman who made every effort to ensure that there would be no customer satisfaction if she could have her way. Dotti had purchased a set of glasses specifically to use with her laptop, with a light prescription lens on the top, and magnifying lens on the bottom, to allow her to see the computer screen, and the television by moving her eyes and not having to move her head as well. The lens had come back wrong. They had put the dividing line too low, even though Dotti had specifically insisted that the line be higher before the lenses were ordered. Anyway, during the ensuing discussion tempers flared, and I was asked to leave. The moronic lady who had been “helping” us that day, had bent the nose pieces on the glasses, pinching them together, forcing the frames to ride higher, claiming that was “fixing the problem.” Not only did it not fix the problem (Dotti did get new lens on order that day) but it destroyed the usefulness of the frames. Dotti ended up with a blister on the side of her nose, under one of the resting pads for the glasses. In trying to adjust it back to where it was before the (I am still having trouble not using the appropriate descriptive term here) lady got her clumsy hands on them, the resting pad finally just snapped off. So, that is why we made another trip to the little shop of eyeglass horrors yesterday. Fortunately there were other people available to wait on Dotti this time. (In support of the spirit of peace, I waited in the car, on call if needed.) They mentioned the fact that they had a lot of trouble with the “lady” who had waited on us before (I am really quite surprised by that. :) ), and they came up with some new frames and popped the lens in. Dotti walked out with her new frames, and a smile.

We then made it over to Costco where we loaded up on romaine lettuce hearts, and picked up some other goodies for my lunch box. I also got a 3 pack of Christmas CDs of some good old renditions of many of my Christmas favorites. We found a great big life-sized stuffed raccoon for an unbelievably low price, which I immediately got for Dotti. (It even has a little baby raccoon hanging onto its mother, which made it especially nice for Dot during this time LeRoy is so far away.) Mostly the time was just good fun walking around with my Dotti. After another stop or two, we headed home. In the afternoon we watched the second half of “David Copperfield,” a BBC 3 hour movie that is a fairly faithful rendition of the original story. (We have another version that was made in the 1970s that was abysmal, and soon to end up in the trash, but the one we watched yesterday is very good.) Each time I am exposed to another piece of Charles Dickens’ work, I am intrigued by his descriptive style, and the interesting nature of his characters. The man was a genius.

Halloween is still 10 days off, but some stores are already breaking out the Christmas merchandise. At Costco we saw decorative nutcrackers, painted like toy soldiers, that stood as tall as Dotti. There were decorations aplenty, and we could feel the Christmas season pushing hard against the restraints of time, like a spirited horse pushing at the racing gate before it opens. Soon the holly, the trees, the Silver Bells and the merry music will be all around us in a flood of Yuletide joy. It is a season that has brought joy to men’s hearts for thousands of years, both Christian and pagan, and it has lost none of its power today. If anything it is growing larger, as it covers more and more of the year, starting ever earlier to creep out into the stores, onto their shelves, and into their windows. In our house, Dotti and I have a miniature winter village, decked out in Christmas joy, set up the year round. No day of the year at our place is safe from the possible sound of a Christmas tune being played either.

At the conclusion of today, three weeks of October will be finished. Time is flying by at a rapid pace. The first 25 years of my life, seem in retrospect to have taken twice as long to get through as the second 25 years did. I fear, that if I should blink the next 25 will pass on by instantly. I think that phenomenon is a result of a combination of each year being a smaller and smaller percentage of my total life, and the fact that much of what I see each day is not new. In my youth each experience was a fresh look at life, something to be studied and filed away. Now the filing cabinet is getting filled up, and so much of life is merely a duplicate of what I already have on file. I think that has a lot to do with the appearance of time moving by quickly, since the days have less potential of being new and totally different from what I have already experienced. Of course there are days of totally new experience, but they are far fewer now than they were during my first 25 years. When I think back over my life, I realize that I could never have guessed where I was heading and what I would be going through when I turned 12, or 21. Who would have predicted that when I entered college as a theology major, I would end up instead as a sailor? Certainly not me! Who would have guessed that the guy who was pumping gas at the Mobil station in Riverside, California would end up as an electronics technician? And who would have ever dreamed the fool who got married the day before his nineteenth birthday, and was completely miserable for three and a half years as a result, would afterwards fall into the closest thing to heaven this earth has to offer when he met Dorothy, who later became Dotti, his soul mate? Life is never what you expect it to be.

When I was on Diego Garcia, 1,500 miles south of India, which was the closest continental land to the little island, I felt like I was as low as the bottom of the sea, cut off from my girl, my life and all that I held dear for an entire year. And then right after that I got orders to Midway Island, where I would be with my wife every day, and not have to leave at all for the whole tour of duty, and I felt like I was on top of the world. It is hard sometimes to see that the mountain peaks would not be so high if it were not for the depth of the valleys. The light is precious because we have seen the darkness. The highs and lows of life contrast to make each more than it would be on its own. As you go through each day, it appears for the moment to be all that there is. But after a good night’s sleep, it all appears different. Why is that? It is perspective. Viewing life as a continuum, a long chain of events which rises and falls with time, brings the big picture into view, and the lows are not quite so devastating, when you step back from them a bit and realize that truly, 100 years from today, neither you nor anyone else is likely to be concerned about the problem that made you feel so discouraged yesterday. Yes, our problems are real, and some of them are devastating, but they are all part of the human experience that we call life. When I am feeling down, I just remember that he who feels pain is still alive. He who feels no pain, and he who feels no grief is lying beneath his tombstone. Those who live, will suffer pain, and exhilaration; they will be filled with joy and sorrow; they will have highs and lows. (Even their teeth will hurt on occasion. :( ) But just think of the opportunity that I have today to live 24 hours on planet earth, to see, to feel, to experience a world of sensation. The people of ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt had their day, and are no more. The people of future great kingdoms and societies will have their day, but today is our day, and we are given this chance to live it to its fullest. I hope that we make the most of it!

Moving back to the little details of daily existence, for eating yesterday, I had Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had a 6” turkey sub at Subway (6.0 pt.). For dinner I had a piece of pita bread (1.5 pt.), spread with Laughing Cow cheese (1.5 pt.), and a yogurt (2.0 pt.) That came to 5.0 points for dinner, and totaled 16.0 points for meals. For snacks, I had 3 cough drops (1.0 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt), a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.), a bag of Jolly Time Healthy Pop popcorn, with some I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter sprayed on, and some Splenda sweetener sprinkled over it. It tasted a bit like Kettle Corn, and was only 2.0 points. I also had a small can of V8 juice (0.5 pt.), and a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich (2.5 pt.). That gave me 12.0 snack points for the day, and brought my total points to 28.0, one point below my upper limit.

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

162 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/195.5/200/BMI:24.5/WK-23/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I crawled out of bed on this Monday morning at 5:30, and stepped up on Mr. Scale. He said, “197.5 pounds.” Not too surprising really. The law of cause and effect at work.

Yesterday, Dotti and I went to play racquetball in the morning. (Dotti took some “after” pictures for me at the court where we took my “before” pictures early in my journey. If you click on the My Journal link in my signature line, you can see the profile pictures on the Table of Contents page, and if you go down that page and click on one of the weeks listed there, you can see the head on shots. I am wearing the very same shorts in both sets of pictures, but they sure do fit differently now. :) ) While playing,, I over extended my right elbow, or I twisted, pulled or strained something in it. I did not notice it when it happened, but a couple of hours later my elbow started hurting. Late in the day I took some Advil for the pain, thinking it might help. (That was item number one contributing to today’s weight reading.) Dotti had not played in quite a while since before she hurt her back when we went to Eugene. She came out playing better than before! She made several exceptionally good shots, and really made me work for each game. One game we were tied at 14-14 before I finally took the game at 16-14. We both were good and tired when we finished. Starting her score off with 10 handicap points definitely makes the games a lot more fun for both of us. If this elbow turns out to be a long time healing, which is what happened the last time I hurt it, I may be playing left handed for a while. Most of the time that is not too big a handicap, but it does make me work harder. I just don’t have the fine edge on my shots with my left hand that I do with my right. Of course if I get enough practice at it, that may change.

Moving on to the next contributing factor to what the scale said this morning: Dotti and I sat and watched two movies together. While doing so, we had some popcorn, fixed up like Kettle Corn, using I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray (0.0 pt.) and Splenda Sweetener (0.0 pt.). I had a bag of it, and then Dotti only ate half of hers, so I had the other half. Then later I had another bag of it. That was 2 and half bags, and plenty of salt. So, it is no surprise that I am carrying a fair amount of extra water weight this morning. Fortunately, it is not my weigh-in day, and I have several days ahead of me, before my next weigh-in, where I can recover my weight back to normal.

I took some more Advil this morning, and I hope that I don’t end up having to go in for a cortisone shot to get my elbow back on track. The last time I did this, a couple of years ago, I was bowling every week in two leagues, and my elbow took months to heal, and only finally did get better when I stop bowling for a while. The doctor wanted to give me a cortisone shot then, but I put it off and it finally did heal up. This time I may just take the shot if it comes down to it. I don’t want to go for months with a sore elbow again.

This week I am on-call. That means that I cannot make serious plans, and I cannot leave town. Beyond that it may mean very little, if things remain quiet, or it can mean a week from straight from the smoldering depths, if things break loose on me. So, this week, all week, I will actually be looking forward to next Monday morning, when I go back “off the pager.” It seems weird to actually look forward to a Monday, but I always do during my “pager weeks.”

For breakfast yesterday I had a cup of coffee (1.0 pt.) and 2 packets of Instant Cream of Wheat (4.0 pt.). So, it added up to the same 5.0 points that my breakfast usually does. For lunch I had a 6” turkey sub at Subway (6.0 pt.). For dinner Dotti fixed me 2 tostados (4.0 pt.), which brought my totaled to 15.0 points for meals. For snacks, I had 7 cough drops (2 pt.), 2.5 bags of Jolly Time Healthy Pop popcorn, with the butter spray and Splenda, (5.0 pt), a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich (2.5 pt.), and half a Kashi Bar (2.5 pt.) that I split with Dotti. That gave me 12.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 27.0.

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

For exercise, I played 45 minutes of racquetball, for 6.75 Aerobic Points. (That is about the same exercise value as walking 2 miles in 25 minutes.)

Well, I am off to face Monday.

163 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/195.5/200/BMI:24.5/WK-23/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I slept in a just a bit this morning, and at 6:15 Mr. Scale said, “196.5 pounds.” That is heading back in the right direction.

My elbow is feeling a bit better this morning. I can reach out and pick up my coffee cup without a stabbing pain in my arm. Yesterday I was drinking my coffee left handed because I was jerking the cup around in pain with my right hand and spilling it. I feel a bit of pain when I fully extend my arm but nothing compared with yesterday. When I play racquetball during the workweek this week I will play left handed and make sure that I don’t re-injure the elbow, and by this weekend it may be okay to play again. We will see.

We had some very interesting weather yesterday. I just love days like that. The wind was gusting up to about 40 miles per hour and the rain was coming down in sheets. As I approached the Interstate Bridge on I-5, which crosses the Columbia River, the trees had their leaves turning upside down from the whipping wind. I led a charmed existence on the freeways of Portland yesterday. On the news there were reports of accidents everywhere, but the route I normally take had far lighter traffic than usual, both going to work and coming home. I probably used up my portion of luck for at least this week, and will be sitting in a freeway parking lot for the rest of the week. :)

Fall is definitely on us. I can see red, yellow and orange leaves coming out all over. Leaves are falling, and the temperatures have dropped. We have turned on the heater a few times because even the temperature inside has fallen. Our apartment is fairly well insolated, and the heat produced through normal living usually keeps the temperature up during the day, as long as it is not too cold outside. But Jack Frost is thinking about waking up, and blows a warning breath every so often. I wore my heavy coat to work yesterday for the first time this season. It just felt like a heavy coat day. I call that one my "Boston coat," because it got me through the cold and snowy winters of Massachusetts for 7 years. It is getting a bit old and worn, and I will have to change it soon, but it is like an old friend that I hate to part with. (Dotti just recently bought a new bath robe for me, replacing one that I had for many years, but she had to fight me to get me to throw the old one out. It was worn and even after going through many repairs, it was still in need of more. Yet it had that comfortable feeling that only old clothes can have, and it was my favorite color. I am just starting to get used to the new robe, which is actually very similar to the old one except for the color.)

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had 1.5 cups of Life cereal (4.0 pt.) and a cup of skim milk (2.0 pt.). That made 4.0 points for dinner, and brought my meal points to a total of 18.0. For snacks, I had 18 cough drops (5.5 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich (2.5 pt.), and a Body Smart chocolate peanut crunch bar (2.0 pt.). That gave me 11.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 29.0, right at the top of my range.

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

164 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/195.5/200/BMI:24.5/WK-23/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 5:30 AM, and he said, “196.5 pounds.”

Yesterday, in the morning I stopped at a Safeway and picked up a head of romaine lettuce, and during the day on the road, I ate it all. Afterwards, on the way home from work, I also had some more romaine lettuce from my lunch box. I still had some lettuce and some fresh broccoli left over when I got home, which is a good thing. For weeks, I kept running out of the zero points snacks and left with cough drops as the only thing available in the car on my drive home. The cooler I am using is really too small for all the ice packs, and the produce Dot is putting in for me, along with my lunch. The lettuce has to be cut down, and jammed in just to fit. But I am not sure that I want to go with an even bigger cooler to lug up and down the stairs every day. But I will do what I have to do to make it work. I felt a lot better about eating a head of lettuce and 5 cough drops, as opposed to 18 cough drops like I did the day before yesterday. But even that is much better than what I was doing before I started my journey. I was going through cough drops by the bag every day. Now, though not perfect, my imperfections are limited to a much smaller size. Improvement is always good.

I was thinking about going to play racquetball yesterday at lunch, but the timing was bad. The courts are only available on the half hour, and that means either 11:30 - 12:30 or 12:20 - 1:30. I couldn’t get out early enough to make it over by 11:30, and the 12:30 slot was too late. So I took a walk instead. Unfortunately, after I had walked a half mile, the rain started in with gusto, and so I had to bail out. It was not much of a workout but it was better than nothing. Today I intend to get over to the racquetball court for sure. Either I will hit it at lunch (my first choice), or I will hit it after work before driving home. Unfortunately, the gym where we have our membership is on the east side of Portland, and I almost always work on the west side of town. In the evening rush hour, driving from west to east can easily take an hour to two hours. So, I will sometimes play racquetball at a center on the west side that charges $6 for a session. That is what I am planning to do today.

Timing is 90% of the obstacle to my exercising like I should be doing. With my weight loss journey, I have done everything I can to make it easy for myself. When it is easy I stay with it and when it is hard I give up after a while. While I have to make the time to make my workouts happen, I have to find a way that I can live with for the long haul. If I drive home in the evening, it can be 6:00 or 6:30 before I get home. Then I have to drive to the gym which makes it at least 6:30 or 7:00 PM. If I am lucky and can get a court at 7:00 (my gym takes reservations on the hour, and in the evening getting a court can be difficult), that still takes me to 8:00 PM when I am finished. Then, after I drive home, and shower, it is pushing 9:00 PM. My entire evening is shot, and I still haven’t eaten dinner. That will not work for me on a regular basis. So, I have to find a way to squeeze in at least one session during my work day each week. If I can get one in during a lunch break, that costs me nothing really, and that would be the best solution. The next best solution is to get over to the west side center at 4:30 PM, and play until 5:30, and head for home then. Traffic often lightens up a bit as it approaches 6:00 PM, and that would mean that I would not get home all that much later than usual, and I could still eat at a reasonable hour, and have some time left to do something in the evening. (The worst case would be to play from 5:30 - 6:30 PM, which would get me home sometime after 7:00 PM.)The only downside to this arrangement is having to pay twice, once for my gym membership and again to play at the center. Once I get the session in during the workweek, everything falls into place for getting in my 3 sessions for the week. I can easily get over on Saturday and Sunday to our gym on the east side, and that will take care of it.

I wish there was a gym right by our house that has racquetball courts. We thought we found one a few weeks ago. It is a huge building and from the outside it looks like it has everything, but when we got inside there was no racquetball courts, and no indoor track. So, we stayed with our current gym that is a good 25 minute drive from home.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had 2 egg sandwiches (2.0 pt.), 1.5 cup potatoes (1.5 pt.) and a yogurt (2.0 pt.), for 5.5 points. So, my meal points came to 18.0. For snacks, I had 5 cough drops (5.5 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.). That gave me 10.5 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 28.0.

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

165 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/195.5/200/BMI:24.5/WK-23/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

As has become my custom, I found my feet resting upon Mr. Scale, and my eyes intently viewing what his readout had to say. He said without much hesitation, “198.0 pounds.” It was not a happy sight, but not as bad as it may at first appear.

My hands are swollen this morning, and I am sore from head to toe. So, I am sure that water buildup, in my body this morning, is at the root of my weigh-in weight. At work yesterday, I was on my feet all day, and there was some lifting and moving of heavy objects. I was active all day long. So, naturally, on a day when I was already getting some exercise at work it would be the day that ended up tackled my goal of making it to the gym and playing racquetball.

I first of all was hoping for an opportunity to get to the gym for lunch. As it turned out, we were in the middle of replacing a major unit of the machine, and so a long lunch hour was not feasible. As it turned out, my lunch time window ran from just before 12 noon, to just before 1:00 PM. (Courts are available only starting on the half hour.) When I saw that I was not going to make it during lunch, I decided to try for 5:30 PM, which would give me no trouble getting there okay. Unfortunately, they were all filled up at 5:30 PM. I was not getting a good feeling by this time. So, I asked if they had a court available at 4:30 PM. They did have one then. I made a reservation for a court. I went through the afternoon checking my watch and hoping that we would finish up what we were doing in time to make my court time. As it turned out, we did. I hurried over to the gym, dressed quickly and made it onto the court before 4:35. I spent the next 50 minutes hitting the ball around, and chasing it. I used my left hand, to give my right elbow a rest. It is a harder to play both sides of a game, running quickly to return a shot I just made myself. I got a very good workout. I tried to avoid overdoing it on my left arm and so did not hit a lot of power shots. My left arm is sore this morning but the elbow and shoulder joints do not feel injured, and that was what I wanted to make sure of.

Then came the drive home. The traffic on the west side of town was horrible. It took over an hour just to get over the hills and drop down into Portland proper. State route 26 was a parking lot all the way out, and so I hopped on a back road. It was very slow going for several miles and finally broke loose after awhile and lightened up a bit. In Portland, as I approached the downtown area, I had to get on the freeway I-405, and I didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, the freeways were clear the rest of the way and I got home pretty quickly from there, but even so, it took me an hour and 25 minutes to get home from the gym. If I had to do it over again, I would have taken a different route, that would have been out of my way for the first 5 or 10 minutes, and then it would have almost certainly been much less crowed. Hopefully next week, I will be able to get my workout in during a lunch hour, and I will be able to avoid the late battle with the traffic. If I had to go through this several times a week, I would give up the whole idea. But once a week, I can handle.

My right elbow feels back to normal today. I can extend it all the way out with no pain. Picking things up and moving the arm around throughout the normal range of motion is pain free. So, hopefully I will be ready to go with it on Saturday for my racquetball date with Dotti.

I have been eating lots and lots of romaine lettuce the past few days. I may grow tired of it before too long, but for now it makes an excellent road snack, and with me being on the road at least a couple of hours each day, that is important.

I finally finished the Fountainhead audio tapes. It was not as good as Atlas Shrugged, but it was worth a single listen. All of Ayn Rand’s books that I have gone through (those two plus Anthem) seem to be saying the same thing. She makes an excellent case against all forms of socialism, and there I find myself in complete agreement with her. (The government is the worst possible entity to run almost anything that you can think of, especially charity. Another example of government getting in where it doesn’t belong is that we had the world’s best school system in this country before they created a federal Department of Education. We still have good teachers in our schools, if the government would get out of the way and let them teach.) Some of her other points I do not agree with, but I found the process of going though her books to be intellectually interesting, and I found some food for thought.

I am back to listening to one of my old tapes the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov, written back in the 1950s. I don’t even know how many times I have listened to it. I know I have read the series at least 3 or 4 times as well. I will have to visit the Books on Tape site again soon and find my next unabridged book to order from them.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had 2 tostados (4.0 pt.) and an orange WW Smoothie Shake (2.0 pt.), adding up to 6.0 points. For my meals the total came to 18.0 points. For snacks, I had 11 cough drops (3,5 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), and a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.). That made 9.5 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 27.5.

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

For exercise, I played 50 minutes of racquetball, and earned 7.5 Aerobic Points.

166 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/195.5/200/BMI:24.5/WK-23/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

It was 43 degrees outside, when I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 5:30 AM, and he said, “198.0 pounds.” This was not what I had hoped for but, c’est la vie.

This week I have altered my routine a bit, and that may be significant. Last week, I averaged eating 24.5 points per day, and this week I have not had a day where I ate less than 27. My average per day has been just over 28 so far. I would just about have to completely fast today to get my average for the week down to what it was last week. (And I am not going to do that!) That means that I have eaten 21 more points this week than last week. At most that comes to 1050 calories. What do I make of that? Well, even if 24.5 points were the right number of points to maintain my weight, increasing my intake by 1050 calories could only add 1/3 of a pound of fat. So, we are not talking about fat here. There is no way that 24.5 points, or even 28 points will maintain my weight in the 190s. So, it must be something else.

The next area where I have altered my routine is in exercise. I have played racquetball twice this week so far. I took a walk yesterday, and the day before yesterday, besides the racquetball, I had a very active day at work. So, my physical activity this week took a big jump up. That can cause tissues to retain water as they heal up from minor damage produced by the exercise. It can also produced increase muscle mass, which weighs more than fat does. So, today I am up 2.5 pounds from Saturday, but I have not gone over my points limit, I am still in the 190s under my goal, and I have been getting some exercise in. Overall, this week has still be a success for me.

Yesterday I took a walk at lunch. I don’t know why, but I just felt like walking by that time in the day. I was originally planning to just take it easy after the day I had before, but as I headed outside I just had an urge to go for it, so I did. I walked 2 miles in 29 minutes and 47.03 seconds. (I do like the stop watch feature on my wristwatch.) That works out to 5.05 Aerobic points for the walk. (For racquetball this week I earned 6.75 points, and 7.5 points, so my total for the week so far is 19.3 points. That is about 2/3 of what I want to achieve when I am up to speed on my exercise program. It is a good start!) The day was cool, and I started out with my heavy coat zipped up. My hands were getting cold, and so I put on my leather gloves that I keep in my coat pocket. A bit farther on and my ears were getting cold, so I put on my knit cap that I keep in my other coat pocket. I was then warm and toasty and moving out into the park. The asphalt path was damp from an earlier rain, and there were small branches here and there from a good blow they had come through. There were leaves everywhere spread out over the ground, and the colors on the trees went from bright red, to sharp yellow. Some of the trees were completely changed over, where all their leaves were colored brightly. Others were yellow on top and green at the bottom, like a giant had come along and splashed only part of them with paint. The ponds and streams where all carrying leaves like boats out for a holiday. When I got to the stand of hundred foot pine trees, the path was covered with a coating of pine needles, and strewn here and there with small branches that had broken off the giants in the wind. I felt like I was walking a mountain trail. I really love that park! When I reached the one mile turn around point, my stop watch said, “15:05.” So, I picked up my pace just slightly so I could get my time under 15 minutes per mile. About this time I realized that I was getting just a bit warm, so I took off my gloves. Then I took off my hat. It helped but it still wasn’t quite enough, so I unzipped my coat, and that did the trick. The air was cool and it was efficient at cooling me off as I walked. When I reached the end, I pulled my heavy coat off and slung it over my shoulder as I did my 5 minute cool down walk. I felt plenty warm by that time.

On my drive home last night the traffic was much better than the day before. On the way I ate two bags of romaine lettuce, a large cucumber and some fresh broccoli. I was filled to the brim when I got home with vegetables, and what was for dinner? A big plate of mixed vegetables, and a corn on the cob, with instant potatoes. My stomach said, “No way!” at first, but I was finally able to get it down. I just let the vegetables sit for about 30 minutes, and then I finally had room for them. (There were some baby corn cobs, baby carrots, and bean pods all mixed up with some other smaller vegetables.) Since I started this journey, I have had more vegetables than I could shake a stick at. I have fresh lettuce, cucumbers and broccoli nearly every day driving home from work, and there is lettuce in my sandwiches I have at lunch. So far I haven’t gotten sick of them, and they make my drive home a lot more pleasant. Without a doubt my digestive track is operating much more efficiently as a result as well.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had a cob of corn (1.0 pt.), instant potatoes 3.0 pt.), mixed vegetable (1.0 pt.). That gave me 5.0 points for dinner and 17.0 points for my meals. For snacks, I had 10 cough drops (3.5 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), and a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.) and a Mr. Cookie Face (3.0 pt.). That came to 12.0 snack points, and for the day I had 29.0 points, right at the top of my range.

For water yesterday I drank 18 cups, or 144 ounces.

For exercise, I walked 2 miles in 29:57.03, and earned 5.05 Aerobic Points.

It’s Friday!!!!

167 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/195.5/200/BMI:24.5/WK-23/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

*** Weigh-in for WEEK 24 ***

Week Completed:	___24___
Weigh-In Weight:	195.5
Body Mass Index:	24.5
Aerobic Points for week:	19.3
Week’s Average Points/Day:	27.2
Pounds +/- for this week:	-0.0
Pounds lost total:	44.0
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 pulled out all the stops on this one, and still the best I could get out of Mr. Scale this morning at 8:00 was “195.5 pounds,” for no loss this week. However, I was happy to not show a gain after the way things had gone all week.

Last night, after eating dinner, and getting my water in, I was sitting at 199 pounds. I had eaten light and even kept my water to 10 cups so I would not be up all night visiting the rest room. I weighed late, to get the best weigh-in I could. I did everything I could to make sure that I did not have any unnecessary ounces hanging around in my body, for this morning. I was happy to see a no gain.

The most important thing that happened yesterday was that Dotti and I received some great news from our son LeRoy. His orders went through and he has the hard copy in his hands! (And a copy of them are now in our hands as well.) I never believe in orders until I see the hard copy. Too many things can go wrong with “promised” orders. But once they are issued and printed up, it is far less likely that they will be changed. So, Dotti and I celebrated last night! Now he will be transferring to a ship that pulls into an American port when it comes home, and that American port is only 3 hours away from Vancouver! That is a much better deal than having him thousands of miles away in Japan. We are excited!!! He is being transferred to another aircraft carrier and on it he may turn right back around and head back into the conflict, but having his home port so close, for when he returns, will be like heaven for us.

I took my camera in to work yesterday. Cameras are not allowed inside the building, because of the proprietary information that could be transferred that way. So, I left my camera in the car and then at my morning break, and then again at lunch, I went out on a picture taking spree. I completely filled up my memory stick with pictures and then took a couple more on floppy disk before I was finished. You can see them if you CLICK HERE. I have been raving about how beautiful that park is, and so I thought some pictures were in order.

Dotti and I were very happy, because of the news from LeRoy, and we were up celebrating until after midnight. It is was so great getting that news. We hadn’t heard from LeRoy in a while and were anxious for some news from him, but we never expected that news!

Today we have a racquetball court reserved. Hopefully this week I will be able to get 3 sessions in. If I do, that will bring me close to my 30 Aerobic Points goal for the week. I may even get a walk in to help out with that. My right elbow feels good today, so I will try it out. I am going to try extra hard not to over do it. My competitive nature takes over sometimes and I have to watch that when games get close. Today I will try to focus on exercise and not competition. (I think I can. I think I can. I think I can... :))

I am hopeful that this week, my body will be more accustomed to the exercise I will be getting and so it will not hang on to water weight so much as it did last week.

Even with the struggling with Mr. Scale this past week, I had some good moments too. I finally had to retire my belt. (It is the one that I wore at the conference.) I had it pulled all the way in on the tightest notch, and there was so much extra leather sticking out on the left side, it was interfering with my pagers that I have hanging there. I was just about ready for another notch as well, which it doesn’t have. So, I hung it up on the retired hook with some of my other items of old. I dug out another belt that I had not worn in years, and it fit fine. I was surprise to see that am about half way into the notches on that one. Also, at the Oregon State Fair, Dotti bought a brand new belt for me, a wide black shiny belt that has some interesting workings in its surface. I put a belt buckle on it that we had purchased in South Dakota when we drove through it on our way out here in 1995. It is a fairly large buckle, with a shiny chrome surface. When we first got the belt it was tight on me. I could just hook the buckle onto the first notch, but it was uncomfortable to sit down when I did. This week I moved it in to the second notch on that belt and it feels very comfortable. So, I am still progressing, and feeling good about my journey.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had a cup of brand flakes (2.0 pt.), and a cup of skim milk (2.0 pt.). That gave me 4.0 points for dinner and 16.0 points for my meals. For snacks, I had 10 cough drops (3.0 pt.), and a Mr. Cookie Face (3.0 pt.). That came to 6.0 snack points, and for the day that gave me 22.0 total points, just at the bottom of my points range.

For water yesterday I drank 10 cups, or 80 ounces.

For exercise, I walked over a mile taking pictures, but did not time it, and so I earned 0.0 Aerobic Points.

168 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/195.5/200/BMI:24.5/WK-23/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph