Week 262 Update

The thermometer outside our kitchen door said 52° at 05:45 when I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he replied, "184.5 pounds!"

I had weighed myself last night, wondering how I would do this morning after the out-of-the-normal week that we had had. I was happy to see that I was already in my target range, and guessed correctly that I would be even lighter this morning. The whole week wasn't like that however, as I found myself climbing upwards for a while.

Even though we were out of our normal routine for eating, Dotti had a great week, as she once again lost a half-pound! For 36 weeks in a row Dotti has been right on track. I am so proud of her!

As always, you can follow Dotti's consistent progress at her Dotti's Return to Goal page.

Here is what happened this week:

After my weigh-in on Saturday, Dotti and I drove down to my Mom's house, so that we could spend Mother's day with her on Sunday. We got a later start than we normally would have and we actually had lunch at Taco Bell just as we were getting on the road. Along the way I had a Butterfinger ice cream bar (8.0 points) as a snack. However, by the end of the day, I had only eaten 40.0 points, so it didn't put me over.

We had a great week with Mom, catching up on how things have been going in her life, going into town for some shopping, and helping her with her humming bird feeders on her patio. The weather was hotter than I normally like (climbing up to 100° on Monday) but at least it was clear and the rain stayed away until Friday, the day we headed home.

This visit was even more pleasant than usual, because we had little "business" to conduct, and instead we relaxed and did fun stuff together. On separate days, we went to both cities that Mom normally shops at: Roseburg and Medford. From thrift stores to mall walking, we did a lot of shopping, and the ladies didn't kill me even once. J

As an aside, a major difference the past two years at Mom's house, since my step-father Jim passed away, is a significantly decreased amount of time that the television is on. Jim had a serious breathing disorder brought on by his smoking days, and he couldn't do much other than sit in his chair and watch television. So, it was turned on nearly every moment that he was awake. He was a master of the satellite controller, and kept movies going nearly all day long.

In contrast to that, the television didn't go on once the entire time we were there on this visit. Mom doesn't watch a lot of television anyway, and these days, when she watches it, she normally only watches the Seventh-day Adventist network: 3ABN (Three Angel's Broadcasting Network). She used to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune as well, but something recently changed with her satellite system, and she lost the location where those shows were located on her selector; and she hasn't had enough desire to pursue it to find out where they are now. So, it is down to 3ABN. But for this past week, even that was not on.

Instead, Dotti worked on two scrapbooks in the living room, and they turned out awesome! Mom caught us up on what was going on in her life. I even set up a recorder and "interviewed her," about her life, and family. I have wanted to do that for a long time, because she has so much information tucked away in her memory, and whenever we get to talking about her childhood, and my early childhood, I wish that I had a recording of it. This time I did, and now I have over 3 hours of tape to transcribe.

Those tapes are going to be priceless to me from now on, and I am sure that I will be doing many more in the future, since it worked so well this time. Mom said that she was amazed at how much she could remember about various things she talked about. Whenever she hit a lull in her story I would ask another question to get her started once more.

One of the things that Dotti absolutely loves about Mom's house is that it has visitors from the wildlife world surrounding it. Mom's house is situated on a beautiful river, and she is miles from anything that could be confused with a city. She has deer coming to visit nearly everyday, and they will eat her grass, or flowers (Mom hates that!) and make themselves right at home. This time around I caught one of the deer in the yard on my camera. I moved very slowly to keep from chasing it away too soon, but it finally got tired of my clicking shutter sound, and me being too close, and it went over the fence and down the bank to the river. Soon, it was out of sight, but not before Dotti got a good look at it, and I had some pretty good pictures of it.

Mom loves her humming birds, and she calls them her "babies." She has three feeders for them that she fills up with sugar water. The birds don't have to worry about cavities in their nonexistent teeth, and so it is a great treat for them. They buzzed by our heads all day long, whenever we went out onto the patio. (When we were in town we picked up a 10 pound bag of sugar, and Mom told us that it would last her nearly 2 years filling up those feeders.)

When we were in Roseburg we stopped at Los Dos Amigos, a Mexican Food Restaurant, where we have eaten a number of times before. It was early enough in the day to allow us to order off the lunch menu, and that gave us some lighter choices. Still, I put away 31.5 points for the meal. Later on, after we did our shopping, and in keeping with the theme, we stopped at Taco Bell for dinner. That added on another 15.0 points for me. I was up to 50.5 by day's end.

When we went to Medford, we once again had Taco Bell, but my total for that day was a bit lower at 47.0 points.

After our fun visit with Mom, we headed back home on Friday. As much as we enjoyed our visit, it was very nice to get back home and sleep in our own bed last night. I didn't snack on the road very much, and by the end of the day I had only eaten 25.0 points.

Mother's Day Photos
Al & Mom	LeRoy called to wish Dotti a Happy Mother’s day	My Mom and the Mother of My Son

How do I rate this week?

"All's well that end's well," old Ben Franklin said, and I think that applies here.

Eating – I had some high-point days, breaking 50 twice, and overrunning my 40 point cap on two other days. That makes 4 of the 7 days where I ate high. I only had one day that was really low on points, but I was 15 points below my 40 point target, so it helped my average: 42.86 points-per-day. A bit high, but not way out of bounds.

Weight – The weigh-in this morning was great at 184.5 pounds. However, I had 5 days where I was over the top of my target range, and my average weight for the week was 0.64 over that 187.0 pound limit as well. I had to take 2 Ibuprofen on one day in the middle of the week, and that may have skewed the scale upwards a bit. Also, when I am on the road, I have to use my travel scale, and it seems to read about half a pound higher than our home scale does. Another bright spot was that, for my daily weigh-ins, I never went over my personal goal of 190, or even up to it. That coupled with my quite satisfactory weight this morning means that I am quite happy with the week overall.

Water – I was off all week. I either drank 4 or 5 cups each day. I don't know why it was such a problem. I drank coffee, and even some hot cocoa. But I don't count those as "water." I averaged 36.57 ounces (4.5 cups) per day. That leaves some room for improvement for next week.

Exercise – The only walking I got in was around town when we went shopping. This area really needs work for me.

5 years, 9 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3"/239.5/184.5/180±2/BMI:23.06/WK-262