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*** Weigh-in for WEEK 330 ***
09/08/2007
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| Week Completed: | ___330___ |
| Weigh-In Weight: | 200.0 |
| Body Mass Index: | 25.0 |
| Average Weight for week: | 201.43 |
| Miles Walked for week: | 9.4 |
| Miles Walked in 2007: | 161.20 |
| Week’s Average Points/Day: | 45.21 |
| Pounds +/- for this week: | -2.0 |
| Pounds lost total: | 39.5 |
| Made GOAL: 9/22/2001 † | |
* Made 10% at 215.5 pounds on 7/14/01
† Goal is 200 pounds.
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Week’s Data
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Day |
Date |
Weight |
Points |
Water |
Miles
Walked |
| Saturday |
09/01/2007
|
202.0
|
48.5
|
6 cups (48 oz)
|
0.00
|
| Sunday |
09/02/2007
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203.0
|
46.0
|
6 cups (48 oz)
|
0.00
|
| Monday |
09/03/2007
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202.0
|
44.0
|
6 cups (48 oz)
|
2.20
|
| Tuesday |
09/04/2007
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202.0
|
44.5
|
6 cups (48 oz)
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0.00
|
| Wednesday |
09/05/2007
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200.5
|
55.0
|
6 cups (48 oz)
|
0.00
|
| Thursday |
09/06/2007
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202.0
|
40.0
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6 cups (48 oz)
|
2.20
|
| Friday |
09/07/2007
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200.5
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38.5
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8 cups (64 oz)
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5.00
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Week 330 Update
It was 6:54 a.m. when I stepped up on Mr. Scale for the two thousand three hundred and eleventh time, and he said, “200.0 pounds!” It is good to be back into my target range, after my little excursion last week.
Here is something I fell into this week:
It has been sitting there right at the top of Dotti’s web page, just about as long as there has been a web page, but I have just now finally gotten around to seriously test-driving the Weight Commander the last couple of days, and it has been fun! I put in my data for the past 90 days, and it does cool things with it.
First off it graphs my daily weigh-ins automatically and it even warned me that today is a problem area for me, because over the past twelve weeks the scale has averaged a big jump on Sundays. (That is true because psychologically I let up after my weigh in.) Everywhere I turned in the program there was something else that was interesting. It even tells the future! (It is sort of like Harry Seldon’s psycho-historical method: extrapolating the past into the future, based upon your historical track record.) You can see where your current trends will take you over the next day or 90 days. Weight Commander helps you see where you have been, and where you are going, as well as getting a clearer picture of where you are.
At under $10, this is an under priced piece of software, and you can download it for free and test it out before deciding if you like it. (And you won’t find a nicer guy to work with than Michael, who takes a personal interest in your satisfaction with his program.) I can see me using this for quite some time in the future.  It tells you how many calories you can eat to maintain your weight depending upon your activity level and lots of other cool stuff, like giving you pep talks, and motivational ideas. I like it! And, I actually look forward to starting the program up each day, just to see what it is going to tell me.
If you enjoy tracking your journey at all, you will almost certainly like the Weight Commander, and you will certainly like Michael, no matter how you feel about the software.
Of course Dotti checked this out a long time ago: click here if you want to read what she says about it. However, I have been doing my own thing on tracking my data, as you already know if you have been reading my journal. But even with all the stuff my numbers have told me, I still learned some new things from the Weight Commander. And it has a friendly feel to it, far more personable than other software. (Michael has a good sense of humor and has put that into his program, along with his caring nature; he wants you to succeed, and you can tell that is what this program is about!
I have been trying to ramp up my walking because a friend of mine who I used to work with a couple of years ago contacted me recently and suggested that we do a hike. Well, the one he suggested was beyond my current state of fitness, so I have been trying to work up to it. (The Larch Mountain Hike we did was part of that process.) I still have a ways to go, but I am doing better. I walked 9.4 miles this week, but the hike we are talking about is over 12 miles long, and has an elevation increase of about 1200 feet. It isn’t dreadfully steep—compare the Multnomah Falls trail where you go up over half that elevation in only a mile of walking—but 12 miles of walking is still 12 miles!
Yesterday I walked 5 miles in about an hour and a half, but the elevation change wasn’t much more than 100 feet, and I was pretty tired by the end of the walk. I still have some work to do to get ready.
Saturday 9/1
Weight: 202.0
Points: 48.5
Saturday our dear friends Jim and Tammy drove down for a visit on the long weekend, and we really enjoyed their company. It was late in the evening when they arrived, but we had all day on Sunday, and a bit of Monday to share with them, and it was great!
Sunday 9/2
Weight: 203.0
Points: 46.0
Sunday we went to...you guessed it: LARCH MOUNTAIN! Are we crazy or what? 
This time we just went up to share the great view with Jim and Tammy. We had a perfect day for viewing the Cascade Mountains, and what better place to take them for the view than to the 4056-foot Sherrard Point on the top of Larch Mountain?
I have to admit I had some odd feelings as we looked at the trailhead heading down to Multnomah Falls, and the 6.8 miles on the sign looked more like 680 miles to the eyes in my tired body. But we worked past that, walked the 1/4 mile, including the long run of stairs up to the view point. We took in the wonderful view and took some pictures as well.
There were 5 major volcanic peaks visible from Sherrard Point that day, besides the minor one we were standing on. (I am sure that it was not so minor in its youth before glaciers tore it down from its earlier grandeur. But today Larch Mountain it is only 4056 feet at the top.) Mount St. Helens was to the northwest, while Mt. Rainier was due north. Mt. Adams lay to the northeast, and Mt. Hood stood to the southeast. Mt. Jefferson was peaking over the Cascade Range at us from the south.
The sun was out and the air was clear. It was a beautiful day. And with dear friends like this to share it with, it was perfect!
Monday 9/3
Weight: 202.0
Points: 44.0
Labor Day, Jim and Tammy headed back home late in the afternoon, and they arrived safely several hours later. We were really glad that they came to visit, and we had a great time while they were here!
After they left, Dotti and I took a walk over to Borders Books, for a little relaxation and reading. The round trip walk was 2.2 miles.
Tuesday 9/4
Weight: 202.0
Points: 44.5
I woke up early, just before 3 a.m., and I was able to finish the Larch Mountain Hike finally. I got the write up done, and included Dotti’s flower pictures.
I felt that adding in the 3-D maps added a better feel for the terrain that we were hiking, and even made things clearer to me about where we had been and what the path was actually running through, since so much of the hike was through trees that blocked any long views we might have had.
Wednesday 9/5
Weight: 200.5
Points: 55.0
Dotti's Newsletter day. It was also Dotti's Weight Watcher Meeting day, and that made things a bit busier. Dotti had worked hard Tuesday night to get the rest of the newsletter done, but the article part still needed to be written. I volunteered to write it for her, so it wouldn't interfere with her meeting. (I will do whatever I can to make it easy for her to make her meetings. They are so important and have been extremely helpful to her success in the past. She lost 100 pounds, and kept it off for nearly 4 years with the help of those meetings. Today she is attending them again and I am very happy about that!) Of course I can never replace Dotti's wonderful warmth in her newsletters, but I like to help out where I can.
It was a long day, and I didn't hit the send button on the newsletter until 7:35 p.m., but it was finally on its way to its 47,370 recipients. (It is a bit intimidating talking with so many people all at once. )
Thursday 9/6
Weight: 202.0
Points: 40.0
The day after newsletter day is usually one where we come down a bit from the adrenaline rush of meeting a deadline. We helped the relaxation process in the evening by walking over to Red Robin for dinner (I have grown very fond of their chili!) and then continued over to Borders next door to do some reading.
I really like being able to study material that will help with the web page and still feel comfortable in a warm, pleasant environment. I have a cup of coffee (2 points with the creamer) and a book, and the world’s most beautiful lady sitting beside me. If heaven isn’t a lot like that, it isn’t.
I am continuing to fine tune Dotti's BMI calculator, based upon some suggestions I received, and Karen—KCalla from the message board—was one of those who helped, and I appreciate it! Thank you Karen!!!
In that vein, I was reading a book, while in the Borders coffee shop, called “Don’t Make Me Think," and the author described the way most designers view building a web page and the way users actually use them. The difference is incredible. People like to go with a “guess and by golly" approach, and don’t sit and analyse a web page and pick the best approach. They try something to see if it works. If it doesn’t, they try their back button (the most used feature of any browser) and then try again. If that doesn’t work then they will either settle down and try to reason it out, or they will just go to another page. That is why having people test your stuff out is so important. What you think is really cool and useful may frustrate the heck out of someone else. If they don’t tell you, you think you did a good job. (Ignorance may feel like bliss, but it doesn’t get the job done.  ) I am sure the BMI calculator is still not in its final state but I think it is better today than it was at the start of yesterday. 
The walk home from Borders was in the dark, because it was after 9:00 p.m., but it was romantic, even though it was a bit chilly. I brought along a red flasher and a flashlight, so that we could see and be seen.
Friday 9/7
Weight: 200.5
Points: 38.5
This week I also redid the Coon Family Hiking Club home page. And in the one step forward, several steps backward department, as I was checking the links I found that I still had some unfinished hikes there, with pictures up but with either no write up or only part of a write up done. There is still a lot of work to do there. (Insert the sound of a tired sigh here.)
Dotti had some errands to run yesterday and so I decided to join her part way into the process. First off, she had some things to take care of that I could add little to help with. So, while she was doing those things, I set out on a walk towards Costco, since we had a few things we needed to get there, as part of Dotti's TO-DO List. When she finished her other items she could pick me up along the way at whatever point I had made it to. I was aiming for 5.0 miles, the halfway point, in order to complete the walk I started the other day, when I walked half way home from Costco. And as it turned out, that is how far I got when Dotti said she was on the way to pick me up. (So, now I have walked all of the path from Costco to home. One day I will do the whole thing all at once.)
I walked at a faster pace than I have in a while and at the end of the walk I was feeling a little tired.
During the walk, I noticed that a bit of color was showing in some of the leaves!
And I came across a field of pumpkins beside the road!
Is this the Great Pumpkin Charley Brown?
At Costco we passed by this mirror and I couldn't resist the urge to snap a picture of the two of us.
After Costco we stopped at our shed and picked up our autumn house decorations, because we are ready for fall this year. Pumpkins, orange, yellow and red leaves, and even our straw scarecrow were all in the car along with a few other items from the shed and our shopping merchandise. When we got home, I found out how tired I really was from the walk as I unloaded the car. But all was well and I felt better as the evening wore on.
Dotti put out our festive place mats on the table, and our fall season had officially begun. (Yes, we know the equinox is a couple of weeks off, but we aren't waiting!)
6 years, 120 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.
-Al-
6 '3" 239.5/200.0/197.5±2.5/BMI:25.0/WK- 330
Starting weight: 239.5
Target Weight Range: 195 lbs to 200 lbs
BACK TO WEEK THREE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE
ON TO WEEK THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE
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