I woke up at 5:45 AM and stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, "190.0 pounds." Hmmm, that looks familiar. :)

Yesterday was spent visiting with family. Dotti's twin sister Catherine, and her fiancé Ed, came over about midday, and then Dotti left with her sister to go bowling in a "Christmas Bells" bowling tournament. Ed and I spent several hours playing around on the computer, and visiting. By the time 5:00 PM rolled around, the stomach juices were beginning to flow and we were looking up Johnny Rockets and Sonic Restaurants, and other hi-point food sources, reading the menus and drooling. :) On the way home from bowling the ladies stopped by Subway and picked dinner up for us. Then we all visited for the evening. It was a fun day.

I ate a lighter than normal lunch, possibly due to time constraints, and I was busy in the afternoon and evening, so I did not snack as much as normal. I did grab a few snacks late in the day, when I had a WW Just 2 Points bar, a Mr. Cookie Face, and some pita bread and cheese. But even so, I ended up only eating 25 points by day's end, which was several points lighter than I have been eating of late.

We will see how Sunday turns out. It is supposed to be cloudy today, like yesterday, and the high should be in the upper 40s. Dotti pointed out that my rain gauge was bumping up against the top at over 5.5 inches since our return from our Thanksgiving vacation on November 24th. So, I emptied it out and we will start over again. We have a lot of days with some rain in them, but most of the time it is not heavy rain. On the East Coast, were they actually get a greater number of inches of rain per year than we do here, the rain will come in bunches, hard and fast. Then it blows on by. Here, all winter long it tends to drizzle, overcast and gray for several months. When the sun breaks through you are surprised, for a moment trying to remember what that big bright thing in the sky is that is blinding your light-sensitive eyes. :) But that is the price we must pay for our beautiful green lands. And of course the skiers love it because there is almost always a nice fresh dusting of snow on Mt. Hood.

I remember in high school, I would spend my fall, winter and spring in Oregon, and when school let out, I would head back to Barstow, California and home. So, I would have cool, rainy weather for part of the year and then scorching Mojave Desert dry heat all summer. My blood would seem to thicken at school, and thin back out at home, with the huge climate change. The funny thing is, unlike Dotti, I love both climates. I think the desert has a very special beauty; with the lizards scurrying across the rocks, that lie strewn over a sometimes-colorful array of soil types. The Rainbow Canyon, outside of Barstow, has a multitude of different types of clay that give the canyon its name. You will pass a reddish hill, followed by a yellow hill, and then a green hill. And the clay is all in little pieces down the face of the hills. I used to love to climb to the top and come sliding down the loose mini-landslide, as if I were moving down a snowy slope. Even the sagebrush has its attractive side, and the tumbleweed rolling along in front of a stiff breeze is I sight that I have always loved.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had two turkey sandwiches (3.0 pt.) and some applesauce (1.0 pt.), with a diet cream soda (0.0 pt.), which totaled 4.0 points. For dinner, I had a 6 inch turkey breast Subway sandwich (6.0 pt.) and another zero point soda. So for meals, when all totaled up, I had 15.0 points. For snacks, I had 3 Dum Dum suckers (1.0 pt.), a WW Just 2 Points bars (2.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and a pita bread pocket with two little wedges of Laughing Cow cheese (4.0 pt.). That came to 10.0 snack points, and brought my total for the day to 25.0 points.

For water I drank 15 cups, or 120 ounces.

Just 16 days until Christmas!

211 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/190.0/200/BMI:23.7/WK-30/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I woke Mr. Scale up a little early today, and stepped up to be counted at 5:10 AM. He responded with, "192.0 pounds." Double-checking on the other scale, it was also up 2 pounds at 188.5 pounds. The reason why will follow…

Yesterday, I had to get out of the house, and so we went to Subway and had a sandwich. We then stopped by Wall Mart, which is nearly on the same property as Subway, it is so close to it. We found a complete collection of the 5 episodes of Davy Crocket made by Walt Disney in the mid 1950s, on DVD. I loved Davy Crocket when I was kid. I remember singing the "Ballad of Davy Crocket," and wanting a powder horn and coonskin cap, like all the other boys of the time. In any case, when we got back home we sat down for over 5 hours of Davy Crocket, including an interview with Fess Parker done in 2001. I had a ball walking down Nostalgia Lane.

While watching Davy Crocket fighting the Indians, and taking on the bad guys, I ended up eating two bags of popcorn, which had plenty of salt. Also, for dinner I had a large pickle. So, I was not surprised when my water retention showed up on the scale this morning. Hopefully it will drop back down tomorrow. (I am still hearing "Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee…" playing in my head.)

Last night Dotti kicked up her high score on the Evil level of Snood to 22,732 which puts me in second place on that one. When Davy Crocket was over, I had about half an hour before bedtime, so I took a crack at it. I cleared the board but I only ended up in the low 21,000s. It didn't even beat either of my top two scores from before. Well, it will just have to wait until later. :)

I have been enjoying reading the old Lensman Series by E. E. Doc Smith. They are a decade short of being as old as Davy Crocket, but they are a lot of fun; with adventure covering the galaxy and even jumping over to the next galaxy on occasion. The series has 7 books in it, and I am approaching the end of book 4. It is slow going because I lie down at night, prop myself up with a couple of pillows, and read until my eyes droop. Sometimes it is just 5 minutes, and sometimes it goes for an hour. On average, I think it is about 15 minutes. So, at that rate, it takes a long time to finish a book. When I read Battlefield Earth (a very entertaining book, even though the movie was absolutely abysmal and had very little to do with what was in the book), it took me many months to finish its over 1000 pages, but I got through it eventually. Reading is fun (especially with the collection of old books I have stacked up over the years of perusing through used book stores) and it really does a good job on getting my mind ready for sleep. When I lay that book down, I know I will be asleep in just moments. And then it seems like no time at all and it is time to get up and visit Mr. Scale and write my journal entry for the day.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had a six inch turkey breast sub sandwich at Subway (6.0 pt.). For dinner, I had a 3 tomato sandwiches (2.0 pt.), with two pepperoncini peppers (0.0 pt.) and large pickle (0.0 pt.). That totaled 16.0 points for meals. For snacks, I had 4 chocolate Trader Joe's meringues (2.0 pt.), 3 cough drops (1.0 pt.), a cup of no fat hot cocoa (1.0 pt.), (¼ cup unpopped) air popped popcorn, made up into kettle corn (2.0 pt.), a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and a bag of Jolly Time Healthy Pop popcorn (2.0 pt.). That came to 16.0 snack points, and brought my total for the day to 29.0 points.

For water I drank 14 cups, or 112 ounces.

Just 15 days until Christmas!

212 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/190.0/200/BMI:23.7/WK-30/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

At 5:00 AM, on this 41 degree morning, I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "191.5 pounds." (New scale: 188.0 pounds.) Well, that is down half a pound from yesterday and looks like I am moving in the right direction to throw off that excess water from Sunday's popcorn jamboree.

Last night I printed up a couple of calendars for the month of December and I wrote down the days that I wanted to get some exercise in. It is obvious that the way I have been doing it is not working for me. Going when I feel like it, or when Dotti and I both feel like it, can lead to many days in a row of no exercise at all. The only way I can get the exercise in that I need to is to schedule it in advance and then hold myself to the schedule. I took one of the calendars with the schedule on it, and taped it up on a kitchen cabinet near the thermometer graph Dotti is using. That way I will be reminded every day which days are gym days. Also, Dotti will know which days I plan to go to the gym, so she can be ready if she wants to go along for some racquetball. I am hopeful that scheduling it this way will make it more "urgent," and less easily sloughed off. I have found with my eating, setting certain standards, and then writing down the results has done wonders for me. I am hopeful that making "appointments" on a calendar in advance will have similar results. Today will be the first test. We will see how it goes.

While playing around with the calendar, I found a solution to the midweek log jam at our gym. They have racquetball leagues scheduled for Tuesdays and Wednesdays, from 6:00 to 8:30 PM. That can make it difficult to get a court on those nights during the time when we would be most likely to exercise. Last time we went, it was on a Tuesday, and we did find a court anyway, but you just never know. If we played on Friday night and Sunday, as I was originally thinking about doing, the only way to get in a third session without playing two days in a row would be to play on Tuesday or Wednesday. It just came to me last night that my original premise was wrong. Instead of Friday and Sunday, I should have been looking at Thursday and Saturday, which then leaves Monday as the third session, without conflicting with the league nights or having to play two days in a row.

It was too late to make it to the gym last night when I figured this out, so we are going tonight in hopes that we can find a court. From here on out we should be on track for three sessions a week, with a day off in between sessions.

For the Christmas week we may be away from the gym, and so I scheduled some walking on the calendar for that period of time. That way I can still get my exercise even if we can't play racquetball.

Well, I "ran the idea up the flag pole," we'll see if anybody "salutes." :) I am the type of guy who likes system and regimen in my life. I think that I will be far more likely to stay with a program where I know what is coming on what day in advance without having to work up a lot of enthusiasm in order to make it to the gym. Today is a gym day, so I go to the gym; no thought, no discussion, just go. That is normally what works for me. We will see how it works in this case.

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 pt.). So, I had 13.0 points for meals. For snacks, I had 15 cough drops (4.5 pt.), 3 Dum Dum suckers (1.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), a WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.) and a Kashi bar (2.5 pt.). That came to 13.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 29.5.

For water I drank 11 cups, or 88 ounces.

Just 14 days (that makes 2 weeks :) ) until Christmas!

213 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/190.0/200/BMI:23.7/WK-30/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I woke up a bit early this morning and decided that Mr. Scale didn't need to sleep in either. I stepped up on him at 4:50 AM and he said, "190.5 pounds." (New scale: 187.0 pounds.) That is down another pound from the "popcorn jump" from Sunday.

After a quiet day at work, when I got home, Dotti was all ready to go to the gym, even though she was not feeling her best. She looked tired. I threw on my gym clothes and we headed off for some racquetball. We were able to find an empty court, one of the two "tournament courts," with glass walls in the back and windows in the front walls.

We played for 35 minutes (giving me 5.25 Aerobic points), and decided that was enough for our first time out in a while. As we got towards the end of our last game I was feeling a bit tired, and Dotti looked like she was very tired. It is very easy to do too much when you are starting out on an exercise regimen, and I wanted to avoid that. Thursday we will try it again.

I always like to step on the scale after exercising. Unfortunately, I drank down about a cup and a half of water last night before remembering to weigh. When I finally did step on the scale it said 190.0 pounds. I then ate dinner, and drank 3 more cups of water. By the time I went to bed I was back up to 193.5 pounds, but then this morning I was almost all the way back down to where I was before eating dinner. :)

When I went digging in my cooler yesterday on my way home from work, I realized that I was very light on the vegetables. I ran out before I reached the halfway point, and ended up eating more cough drops than I had wanted to for the day. On the drive into work I had eaten quite a few (it was a longer than normal drive, since I had to swing by the office on the way in to my customer's site). It was well that I saved a couple of points at lunch by skipping my dessert, since I ended up having 8 points in cough drops for the day. Today, I am going drop by a supermarket and pick up some celery at lunch so I will have plenty to munch on for my trip home.

Here it is midweek already. Where does the time go? Our office is having a lunch today, for the Christmas season, and it is at a restaurant called Sanford's. Dotti tells me that they have salads, and so I will probably find one on the menu that I will like. I have never been fond of restaurant eating anyway, and now I like it even less. For me it just something I have to get through, by selecting something that is low in points, and not too unappetizing. As for the eating part, I would much rather skip it, and stick with my nice lunch in my cooler. But it is the one chance I have to see some of the guys in the office that I have not seen since our last get together many months ago. We'll see how it goes.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). I would have had my Standard Lunch, but I ended up stopping at Office Depot during lunch and I forgot to eat my applesauce and jello dessert. (I realized this on the way home from work when I was digging out my fresh vegetables for the trip home, and there the extra food items were.) So, I only had 5.0 points for lunch. For dinner, I had a 6-inch sub sandwich from Subway (6.0 pt.). That gave me 16.0 points for meals. For snacks, I had 27 cough drops (8.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and half of a Kashi bar (2.5 pt.). That came to 13.5 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 29.5.

For water I drank 10 cups, or 80 ounces.

Just 13 days until Christmas!

214 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/190.0/200/BMI:23.7/WK-30/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I woke up later on this "gym day" morning, and in celebration Mr. Scale said, "189.0 pounds." (New scale: 185.5 pounds.) That is down another pound and a half since yesterday and I am back in the 180s again! I would say that I am rid of the salty popcorn finally. :)

For lunch my regional manager took the whole office (more that 25 guys, and our only lady showed up) to a restaurant called Standford's in the Portland area. Looking at the menu I didn't see anything that I could count easily, so I ordered a tossed green salad, with thousand island dressing on the side. It showed up with croutons and a square of garlic bread covered with cheese, and just dripping something greasy from it. I set the bread off my plate onto a napkin, and pushed the croutons aside, and set to eating my salad. At the very bottom of the salad I came across a very small amount of cheese. Since I didn't end up using any of the dressing, I only counted one point for lunch. I sipped unsweetened iced tea for my beverage, so that was zero points.

On the way back to work from the luncheon, I stopped at a grocery store and purchased some free food for my car ride home, and some extra for the next couple of days. I bought a bunch of celery (I am not sure how many sticks are in a bunch but I think there must have been 15 of varying sizes at least.) I also picked up some romaine lettuce, and some cucumbers. I did not end up eating any of the cucumbers during the day (I like them better peeled.) I ate the entire bunch of celery on the way home from work, and started on the romaine lettuce, but I only made a small dent in what was available.

When I got home, I had half of a Heaven's Bistro pizza, and cable Internet access! We had to play around a bit to get Dotti's laptop online, and she is still having some trouble with her Digichat program but things are nearly back to normal. The cable access is not the same for the two networked access computers (Dotti's laptop and my study computer). We have to make a request more than once usually to get things to happen. I am not sure why. If we go to a page, it comes up quickly with the "Page Cannot be Displayed" message. Then if we hit refresh once or twice, it comes right up. When I was picking up my 193 emails from another account, which I had not collected since our cable went down, I had to try 3 or 4 times for it to collect the mail. Once it finally hooked up, the email downloaded in a jiffy. I am not sure what is up yet, but I can say for sure things are much better than they were before I left for work yesterday.

The temperature is 50 this morning, so we must be having a warm front moving through. We are about a week from the official start of winter, but our temperatures have already been running about where our wintertime temperatures normally stay. Hopefully we won't have an exceptionally cold winter this year. We need some rain, but not ice.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had a tossed green salad (1.0 pt.). For dinner, I had half of a Heaven's Bistro pizza. (4.5 pt.) That only came to 10.5 points for meals. For snacks, I had 13 cough drops (4.0 pt.), an entire bunch of celery (0.0 pt.), a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), a yogurt (2.0 pt.) and a WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.). That came to 16.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 26.5.

For water I drank 15 cups, or 120 ounces.

Just 12 days until Christmas!

I am off to face Thursday.

215 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

For water I drank 10 cups, or 80 ounces.

Just 13 days until Christmas!

214 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/190.0/200/BMI:23.7/WK-30/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

At 5:10 AM I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, “189.0 pounds.” (New scale: 185.5 pounds.) It is good to see it staying in the 180s, especially after eating a bit later than usual last night and with the exercise I got yesterday.

I have to comment on the fact that the “Weatherbug,” a program that I have running on my computer, shows the temperature sitting at 56 degrees this morning, and it shows a picture of the sun in the little box indicating the forecast for tomorrow. It has been quite sometime since one of those boxes had that picture in it. We have been overcast and raining for quite awhile. Also, it predicts a high of 60 degrees for today. Alas, there is only a picture of clouds for the forecast for today. However, the forecast for tonight shows a picture of the stars and moon, with a low dropping into the 20s. When the clouds go away, they no longer hold the heat in, and it radiates away, dropping the temperature. It is going to be a cold one tonight. As is usually the case for us, when the clouds are here and dropping precipitation, the temperature is held above freezing. It is usually only when the clouds are gone when the temperature drops below 32. It is kind of funny that Portland, Oregon is actually farther north than Portland, Maine, but we don’t get anywhere near as harsh weather here as they do there.

At lunch I picked up some more celery and a small pairing knife to cut off the inedible parts. I trimmed all the stalks down for the entire bunch and stuffed them in a plastic bag for driving home in the evening.

At work yesterday, things were pretty quiet, but on the drive home the weather was looking plenty active. There was a weather-alert out for flooding in parts of southwest Washington, and I saw several areas where there was standing water and flowing water on the road. Fortunately, it was not anything serious or deep, and I made it home in the normal amount of time. I ate the entire bunch of celery, a head of romaine lettuce, and a cucumber on the drive home. So, far I am not getting tired of these food items. I am enjoying munching on them every day. As long as I can continue to enjoy doing that, I will keep on doing it.

Dotti has been having some neck pain, and so she did not go with me to the gym last night. I stopped in at home, changed my clothes, and I headed off to the gym; with my racquetball stuff and my basketball (which was a bit air-depleted when I checked it, and so I had to pump it up). I figured I could choose which sport I would use for exercise when I got there. As it turned out, the basketball courts were all filled up. I think that they had some organized leagues playing. Even the racquetball courts were pretty busy, but I found an empty one, and I set to playing. I was sweating pretty well before long, and after an hour I was feeling tired. But I still went back out and checked the basketball courts once more and there was an open hoop this time. So, I went and shot baskets for another 10 minutes. I hadn’t done that in many moons, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of my shots were dropping, in spite of my rusty condition. I am sure that LeRoy is going to want to play some basketball with me when he gets home in a month or so, and that means I have to get practiced up some, if I am going to be able to give him some competition.

With the 60 minutes of racquetball, and 10 minutes of basketball, I earned 10.5 aerobic points yesterday.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner, I had a bowl of two cups of bran cereal (4.0 pt.) and one cup of skim milk (2.0 pt.), for a total of 6.0 dinner points. That brought my meal points to 18.0 for the day. For snacks, I had 17 cough drops (5.0 pt.), an entire bunch of celery (0.0 pt.), an entire head of romaine lettuce (0.0 pt.), and a cucumber (0.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), a cup of hot cocoa with zero point raspberry syrup (1.0 pt.) and a WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.). That came to 11.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 29.0.

For water I drank 11 cups, or 88 ounces.

Just 11 days until Christmas!

216 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/190.0/200/BMI:23.7/WK-30/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

*** Weigh-in for WEEK 31 ***

Week Completed:	___31___
Weigh-In Weight:	188.0
Body Mass Index:	23.5
Aerobic Points for week:	15.75
Week’s Average Points/Day:	28.2
Pounds +/- for this week:	-2.0
Pounds lost total:	51.5
Pounds to go to 10%:	0.0*
Pounds to go to goal:	0.0**
Pounds to go to 20%:	0.0***
Made PERSONAL GOAL: 11/23/2001 †
* Made 10% at 215.5 pounds on 7/14/01 ** Made Goal at 200.0 pounds on 9/22/01 *** Made 20% at 191.5 pounds on 11/3/01 † Personal Goal is 190 pounds.

___________________________

I let Mr. Scale sleep in a bit, and didn’t step on him until 6:35 AM. He replied, “188.0 pounds.” (New scale: 184.5 pounds.) On my maintenance graph that looks better, being well into the green, personal goal zone.

It is funny about the Weatherbug, and the weather for yesterday. When I got to work my Weatherbug on my laptop had a completely different forecast. It said clouds and rain and not a word or picture about sunshine. When I got back home last night I checked out my Weatherbug and the stupid thing was set for Maryland. :) What had happened was that the computer was running so slow that I restored it back to an earlier date. It really helped! My computer is running much faster now, however all the settings on all the programs that I run have been restored back to the way they were in early November. Why the Weatherbug was ever set for Maryland I have no idea. They will be enjoying their sunshine, however, and we will be getting more rain. :(

At lunch yesterday I dropped by a used book store and browsed their shelves for a bit. Unfortunately it was nearly all fiction with very little non-fiction.

The drive home was uneventful, but Dotti added a new item to my free food: red bell peppers. They were very tasty and a nice addition, to the cucumber, romaine lettuce and celery.

I have been fighting with the network and cable Internet access ever since the new AT&T setup came on line. Dotti’s laptop has not worked quite right for the Internet, and my computer in my study has not either, although the main computer worked just fine. So, this morning I rewired the system to a different configuration and the Internet is working well, but the network is not working at all. For now, that is a worthwhile trade. Sooner or later I hope we can get both of them up 100%, at the same time. (It was working just fine before AT&T made the change over, so I must assume it is at least partly something to do with their new hardware set up.)

I was getting tired of seeing 190 or even more on the scale last week. I want to keep my weight under 190 every day, not just on weigh in days. So, I am going to continue to hold my points down a bit until I reach 185 or 186, and then see if I can level off there instead of at 190. Some of my 36-inch waist pants are too tight when I am sitting down, when my weight creeps over 190. I didn’t lose weight so I can be uncomfortable with too tight pants.

Since manufacturers of pants don’t offer fine tuned sizing, you have to work your body around 2 inch jumps. If your waist is 35 inches you have to buy 36-inch pants. If your waist is 36.5 inches, you have to buy 38-inch pants. It just doesn’t seem right somehow.

I hope that my new exercise program will trim up my stomach area and drop an inch or two off. There is still some fat around my stomach, and if it went away, I might even be back down to 34-inch pants, the smallest pants that I can remember ever having worn as an adult. I am not so much interested in getting down to 34s though. My main goal is to make sure that all of my 36s fit loose enough to be comfortable, even sitting down. (It is amazing the difference in waist size between different 36-inch pants too! Either it is 36 inches around or it isn’t. For many of them, it obviously isn’t.)

I averaged eating 28.2 points per day this past week. The week before I averaged 30.6 points per day. That is nearly 2.5 points less per day. I dropped 2 pounds, but part of that may have been due to the extra exercise combined with the decrease in points consumption. I am going to make no changes in my points range for the upcoming week. I will leave it at 24-31 points. Mid-scale for that range is 27.5 points, and I ate just a bit above that for this past week. I will monitor the results for the upcoming week and see if I need to make any changes then.

Dotti and I are planning to get some Christmas season things in this weekend. We have some lights to see, and places to visit that come alive at Christmas time.

Ah Christmas! The Christian church melded many of the ancient and fun pagan customs into the Christmas holiday season, and thereby created a very special and unique time of year. The pagans considered the evergreen “Christmas tree” holy, because it remains green even in the harsh wintertime. (Since our home state of Washington is “The Evergreen State” we have a lot of potential Christmas trees growing here.) The song “Oh Christmas Tree” in its first verse or two is totally pagan in its flavor, praising the tree for being green and strong. The trappings of the season: the Yule log, holly, and mistletoe… all predated Christianity, but they have come down to us, along with Christmas. The very date of Christmas, December 25th, was the birthday of the Sun god, before Christianity chose to use it to celebrate the actually unknown day of Christ’s birth. For thousands of years the Europeans have celebrated “Christmas,” even before Christ was born. And what of the “jolly old elf”? Santa Claus, who lives at the North Pole, is a conglomeration of pagan and Christian tradition. Thor was said to have flown across the sky in a chariot pulled by two goats, Gnasher and Cracker, and his element was smoke, allowing him to travel through chimneys. When elves and pagan gods were melded with the real life Saint Nicholas a very interesting character came to life in the imagination of all the Christian children. There is absolutely nothing like Christmas throughout the entire year, and it is definitely my favorite season. The traditions, the decorations, the happy feelings, the old movies, the music and all the accumulated memories of past Christmases come together to make a whole package that is so wonderful to me, that it is impossible to properly describe. I just want to shout it out, “Merry Christmas!”

Today is also a gym day, and I think Dotti will be up to going over to the gym with me this morning. That will be a lot more fun that going by myself. I do feel a lot better getting my exercise in during the last few days, and I hope to be able to keep it going, continuing to follow my new schedule.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner, I had a cup and a half of hash brown potatoes (1.5 pt. and mmm-mmm good!), 2 tomato sandwiches (1.5 pt.) and a chocolate WW Smoothie shake (3.0 pt.), for a total of 6.0 dinner points. That brought my meal points to 18.0 for the day. For snacks, I had 13 cough drops (4.0 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), an entire bunch of celery (0.0 pt.), an entire head of romaine lettuce (0.0 pt.), a red bell pepper (0.0 pt.), a cucumber (0.0 pt.), a Mr. Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), a cup of hot cocoa with zero point raspberry syrup (1.0 pt.) and a WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.). That came to 11.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 29.0.

For water I drank 8 cups, or 72 ounces.

Just 10 days until Christmas!

217 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/188.0/200/BMI:23.4/WK-31/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph