It was 6:00 AM, and 35º outside, as I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, "184.0 pounds." (NS: 180.0 lbs.)

While my maintenance graph is looking very stable for the last three weeks, registering 185.0 for each week, my daily weight continues to fluctuate over and below 185.0. Of course that is to be expected, and it helps to keep me from falling asleep at the wheel. :^) Small corrections will always be needed from now on, but fortunately they are corrections that I can deal with easily.

Dotti and I went out shopping yesterday, and we ended up in the Barnes and Noble bookstore again. (Alas, books are my greatest weakness; well at least my greatest weakness after Dotti. :^) ) I found a good book on sale on earthquakes, and Dotti found some books related to the web page.

We also stopped at their coffee shop and had a treat: I had a white chocolate mocha. I don't do it very often, but that makes it all the sweeter. Yes, I was making those dangerous "yummy sounds" as I was drinking it too. Dotti suggested that if I only drank part of it, then I could count only 3 points. I gave that due consideration, oh for a microsecond, or maybe two, and then continued drinking. It was worth the extra point to finish it off. The only downside to having that drink here in Vancouver/Portland is that we have not been able to find anyplace that serves it like we had it in Seattle, at the end of the first conference, where we were able to get the white chocolate mocha, with pieces of delicious grated white chocolate floating on the top. We are talking heaven here! 8^)

In the evening we watched a couple of movies on DVD that we picked up at Hollywood video, during which I had a bag of popcorn, and some water. After the snacks I had had earlier on, I planned on a light dinner. But as it turned out, I just skipped it altogether. After the movies I got into organizing my study a bit, getting rid of some old files and such, making room for more books. :^)

While I was in the middle of doing that, Dotti told me that she had received an email about my Standard Meals page having an error in it. When I checked it out, sure enough it did. I compared the file on the web page with the one on my hard drive, and they were different. The one on my hard drive was correct. I must have made changes to something on that page in the past, from another computer (either Dot's main computer or my laptop), and in the process inserted the error at that time. Anyway, since I was there anyway, I went through the page and reformatted the whole thing. I made the required corrections, and then put the page up on the site.

I am glad that the lady wrote in and mentioned the error! Sometimes, that is the only way I find out about mistakes in my journal, and its associated files. Proofreading your own stuff is tricky at best, because you know what you are trying to say, so naturally what is written appears to convey your thoughts well. You read what you thought you wrote, not necessarily what is actually there. It is only when someone else reads what you wrote that it becomes clear whether or not you have actually effectively communicated.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had a 6" sub sandwich at Subway (6.0 pt.). As it worked out, I ended up skipping dinner. That gave me a total of 11.0 meal points. For snacks I had, 15 cough drops (4.5 pt.), a white chocolate mocha, made with decaf (4.0 pt.), 2 oranges (2.0 pt.), a bag of Jolly Time Jiffy Pop popcorn (2.0 pt.), and 10 Body Smarts Chews (2.0 pt.). That added up to 14.5 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 25.5.

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

Average points per day for the last:
   7 days - 28.00
  14 days - 28.71

Weight change during last:
   7 days - -2.0 pounds
  14 days - -1.0 pounds.

246 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/185.0/200/BMI:23.1/WK-35
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story

It was 6:00 AM, and 36º outside, as I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, “185.0 pounds.” (NS: 181.0 lbs.)

Yesterday I decided to eat 30 points, as part of my “closed loop control system.” My weight had fallen one pound below the bottom of my goal weight range, so I moved my points up a bit for the day. Today I am back at 185.

About lunch time yesterday, Dotti and I went to Costco (stopping by Subway on the way) and now I am all set for fresh vegetables for a few days. Dotti also continued with her early “spring cleaning.” She has done wonders with organizing everything. I worked on my study some and it is looking a bit better, but it still has a long ways to go.

Later on, we sat down and watched the movie “61*,” which turned out to be a really good movie. Dotti and I both enjoyed it. Although I am no longer a fan of pro sports per se, I was a very avid fan of baseball in my younger days, and I recognized nearly all of the names of players mentioned in the movie from the year 1961. (And of course, the bracketing story of St. Louis’ Joe McGuire, and his successful run at the homerun record was hard to ignore when it was going on.)

I answered some email after the movie and it was after 11:15 PM before I finished. So, I went to bed without reading last night.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had a 6” sub sandwich at Subway (6.0 pt.). For dinner I had 3 tomato sandwiches (2.0 pt.). That gave me a total of 13.0 meal points. For snacks I had, a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), 7 cough drops (2.0 pt.), 2 rice cakes with 4 teaspoons of whipped peanut butter (4.0 pt.), a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and one half of a Kashi bar that I split with Dotti (2.5 pt.). That added up to 17.5 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 30.5.

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

Average points per day for the last:
   7 days - 28.14
  14 days - 28.75

Weight change during last:
   7 days - -3.0 pounds
  14 days - -1.0 pounds.

247 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/185.0/200/BMI:23.1/WK-35
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story

It was 5:00 AM, and 26º outside, as I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, “184.0 pounds.” (NS: 180.0 lbs.) It is a mite nippy outside. Usually in this part of the country, it is only on the nights when it is clear that we get enough radiant cooling to drop the temperature below 32 degrees. That is what happened last night. The clouds went away, and the protective blanket that they form was gone -- just like when you kick the covers off in the middle of the night, you wake up cold in the morning. :) But it also means dry roads, and not icy roads, which is a good thing.

Since my weight was down the day before and sitting at 185.0 in the morning, I thought I would eat higher in my points range yesterday to see what would happen on the scale today. I was hungry, late in the evening, and had half a Kashi bar moving me from 28.5 points up to 31. As it turned out, this morning I was down a pound. Unfortunately, there is a “lag in response” in this system. It is sort of like stepping on the gas pedal today and having your car begin to accelerate two days from now. Or like pulling back on the pressure on the pedal, only to have to wait a couple of days to begin slowing down. It is an inertia-like effect that tends to keep you moving in the direction you are already going, and change on the scale takes time to implement, especially controlled change.

I have to say that I am actually enjoying this phase of my journey more than I was during the losing phase. First of all, I am where I want to be. That is a big plus. Secondly, I am just as interested in the results of what I do now. I have lost weight so many time in the past, only to put it back on again, and so I am pretty excited about my weekly weigh-ins remaining under 200 for 16 weeks (nearly 4 months), and being at or below 190 for 8 weeks (nearly 2 months). The last three weekly weigh-ins have been right at 185.0 pounds. I honestly find that every bit as exciting as the weeks when I was losing and I dropped 2 pounds, or seeing my loss graph dropping at a 2 pound per week rate. Now my challenge is to see how close I can keep my weight to 185 pounds. Before it was to see if I could lose a couple of pounds. It is better now, because I can eat a little more, but otherwise the process is just the same:

     1. Journaling
     2. Counting my points religiously.
     3. Drinking my water.
     4. Monitoring the results.

As long as I continue to do these things, I know that my weight will remain within a few pounds of where I want to be. On most days I would expect it to be within one pound, but on some days, water retention can move it by as many as 4 at least.

Of course, I have only been working with maintenance for a relatively short time. I have been in my personal goal range for just under 2 months. When I have more time under my (smaller) belt, I can see if things still look as rosy as they do now. Time has a way of washing the false away and leaving the truth behind. Today, I feel that I am in control, and that things are fairly clear as to what I need to do, day to day, to remain where I am. One year from now, what my situation and thoughts will be I can only guess at. However, I am not currently worried that things will be that much different next year at this time. I sincerely feel that the journey, while being more mature, will still be the same in all of the essential aspects of it. We shall see.

Yesterday was a quiet day at work and I spent most of the day at my computer. When I got home, Dotti was busy playing with her Sony palmtop computer, and having fun. (I could tell it was fun by all the frustration-generated expletives she was emitting. :) ) I spent a few hours answering email. It seems that the more I answer, the more I need to answer. Between all of my email accounts I usually get between 50 and a hundred emails every day. About a quarter of them are spam -- commercial emails-- that I delete immediately. Many others are from mailing lists that I seldom have time to actually read. Those get moved into a folder for later, which means they will get deleted without being read most likely. The rest I have to prioritize as to which is the most important and try to get to those first. I very seldom get to all of the ones that I actually need to answer. After typing for 2 or 3 hours I have gotten to most of the important ones and consider it a job well done.

Today is Tuesday. Normally I feel better about Tuesdays than I do about Mondays. I hope that feeling is justified today. Yesterday was actually a pretty good day. If today is even better, that would very nice indeed. I am off to see.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had 3 fried egg sandwiches (3.0 pt.) and two potato paddies (2.5 pt.), giving me 5.5 dinner points and a total of 17.5 meal points. For snacks I had, 17 cough drops (5.0 pt.), a cup of hot chocolate (1.0 pt.), 10 Body Smart Chews (2.0 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and one half of a Kashi bar that I split with Dotti (2.5 pt.). That added up to 13.5 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 31.0.

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

Average points per day for the last:
   7 days - 28.50
  14 days - 29.00

Weight change during last:
   7 days - -3.0 pounds
  14 days - 2.0 pounds.

248 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/185.0/200/BMI:23.1/WK-35
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story

It was 5:30 AM, and 33º outside, as I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, “184.0 pounds.” (NS: 180.0 lbs.) I was guessing that I would have an upturn in my weight today, and so yesterday I kept my points down to 28.0 to minimize it. Alas, I guessed wrong and my weight remained the same. So, I will have to move my points up just a bit today.

On Sunday, I had measured the volume of my coffee mug at home, and I found that it was a full 16 ounces, which was more than I thought. So, that inspired me to finally measure my large coffee mug at work, which I had purchased a few weeks back specifically for its formidable appearing volume. I had been counting it as 16 ounces all along, but I found out on Monday that it actually holds 24 ounces. So, for several days last week, and for many days during the previous weeks, I have showed in my journal as many as 4 cups (32 ounces) less than I actually drank during the workday.

I drink herbal tea (Captain’s Stash Wild Raspberry Tea) at work, and if I do not spend the day in the clean room, I will often drink 4 of my mugs of the tea, which totals 12 cups, or 96 ounces. Yesterday, since I did have to go into the fab in the afternoon, I drank only three of them, which added up to 9 cups of herbal tea.

Yesterday looked like it was going to be another perfectly quiet day at work. A coworker wanted to come over and check some things out on one of the machines at my site, as to configuration and cabling. So, I went into the clean room with him for a few minutes while he did what he wanted, and then it was back out again for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon sometime after two, someone dumped the power in the building, while changing some batteries. I am not sure if it was in the power plant for the building or somewhere else that the mistake was made, but suddenly power dropped, and alarms went off, and the personnel for the entire facility were suddenly standing out in the parking lot in thirty degree weather while the building was checked out for safe occupancy. We were out there for over a half hour before they filed us into the cafeteria which had been checked out as being safe. That was much warmer. (Many of the people had not had time to grab their coats when the alarms went off. Fortunately I had mine.)

Once things settled down, and the clean room was determined to be safe for entry, I headed in to help with bringing my machines back online. One of them had been cycling wafers at the time of the power loss and dropped one of the wafers inside the vacuum chamber. I had to vent that chamber up, and retrieve the wafer, and then get all of the wafers off of the machine. All of my machines have cryogenic pumps – that use cold to pump away the last whips of atmosphere from the inside of the vacuum chamber – and they needed to have high vacuum conditions restored. The cryo pumps had to be “regenerated” and cooled back down to 10º K. (i.e. -263.15º C or -441.7º F), because they had all been warmed up to over 310º K. (+37º C or +98º F). The cool-down process takes a couple of hours to get done, and I had to leave most of the waiting for it to cool down to the customer’s techs, because it was after 5:00 PM and there was nothing that I could do to speed up the process. Cryo pumps cool down in their own good time, and normally do not need to be watched as they do it. Hopefully everything came right back up and things will be running smoothly when I go back in this morning.

On my drive into work and and back home for the last two days, I have been listening to an audio book: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, written by CS Forester. It has been surprisingly good, and I have enjoyed it very much. I believe that 8 separate Hornblower novels were written by that author. (I can’t help but remember the gaff that Jimmy Carter made at the Democratic National Convention when he spoke in tribute to the recently deceased Senator Humphrey: "I am speaking of a great man who should have been President and would have been one of the greatest Presidents in history, Hubert Horatio Hornblower." He must have felt about an inch tall after doing that.) I will no doubt get some of the other Hornblower books in the future.

We go over the hump today for the week. From here on in, it is all down hill.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and my Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had a cheese omelet (2.5 pt.), two potato paddies (2.5 pt.), and 2 pieces of toast (0.5 pt.), giving me 5.5 dinner points and a total of 17.5 meal points, just like the day before yesterday. For snacks I had, 15 cough drops (4.5 pt.), a cup of hot chocolate (1.0 pt.), one half of a crustless pumpkin pie (2.0 pt.), and a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.). That added up to 10.5 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 28.0.

For water yesterday, I drank 17 cups, or 136 ounces.

Average points per day for the last:
   7 days - 28.36
  14 days - 28.89

Weight change during last:
   7 days - -2.0 pounds
  14 days - 3.0 pounds.

248 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/185.0/200/BMI:23.1/WK-35
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story

It was 5:30 AM, and 31º outside, as I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, “183.5 pounds.” (NS: 179.5 lbs.) I moved my points up again yesterday to 32.0, in order to swing my weight back up towards 185.0. Instead it dropped another half-pound. I will have to keep my points up again today and see what happens tomorrow.

Our son LeRoy is coming home next week, and we are very excited about that! I got the day off so I can be there when he lands, and then spend the rest of the day with him. (I might let Dotti visit with him some too. :) ) Our family’s primary focus of attention will now be turned from the USS Kitty Hawk, to the USS Abraham Lincoln. We also are only looking at another year and about 2 months until LeRoy’s enlistment is over and he will be a civilian Navy veteran like his old man. Well actually, he still will have a couple of extra years tacked on the end of his contract of “inactive reserve” time. Depending on our wartime status at that time, he could technically be held over or called back. However, inactive reserves are usually called back last. They include all of the military retirees as well. (Anyone drawing a “retirement check” from the military is still in the inactive reserves.) There are no other obligations, such as attending weekend outings or two-week excursions every year like the active reserves have. So, unless we go into major wartime conditions the inactive reserves are usually free to go about their lives normally.

Well, I finished Robinson Crusoe yesterday. As is the case with many novels, the story became more complicated as it approached the end. After the Englishman Caruso was into his 24th year on the island all alone, he saved one cannibal from several others preparing to eat him. This man he called Friday, after the day of the week upon which he saved him. From that day until the end of the book, Friday became his servant. For 3 years they were alone on the island together and then all sorts of new characters began to show up: a Spaniard; Friday's father; more cannibals; and finally a ship full of Englishmen, gone to mutiny. The ship of mutineers was ultimately taken, but only with brave daring, by Caruso's men. Even after he finally left the island, Caruso's adventures continued, and the story line moved right along, clear to the end. (Even at the very end he closes with a teaser suggesting that there may be even more possible tales to follow... opening the door for a sequel.)

I think the book gave a very interesting look into the era that was very near the one that gave birth to the United States of America, and at the people of England who both populated the American soil, and therefore the Revolutionary Army, and also the army that fought against the Americans. (In a very real sense that war was an English Civil War, with the colonies, small as they were at the time, fighting for "secession," and winning it; launching America onto its way into a future that we now more or less study as history.)

Daniel Defoe died 44 years before the Revolutionary War began, but he understood the people who fought in that war. He wrote Robinson Crusoe 56 years before the war began, but his picture of that era is very helpful in understanding the cultural background of those people; America's forefathers.

Robinson Crusoe also gave a peek at much of the world routinely touched by the 18th century European man. The reader is taken from England to western Africa, to South America, and back to Western Europe. We see how sea travel was so important to the people of that time, and how dangerous it could actually be. Even more interesting, at least to me, is having a peek at how they thought at that time. What was right to them, and what was wrong? What was honorable, and what was dishonorable? It was certainly worth the read!

It is hard to believe that it is Thursday already. The time is just flying by. We are discussing more of the details of what is going to happen at the DWLZ Conference in St. Louis, because it is not that far away now. Has it already been 9 months since the last conference?

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and my Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had a 6-inch turkey breast sandwich (6.0 pt.). That gave me a total of 18.0 meal points. For snacks I had, 17 cough drops (5.0 pt.), a cup of hot chocolate (1.0 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.). That added up to 14.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 32.0.

For water yesterday, I drank 11 cups, or 88 ounces.

Average points per day for the last:
   7 days - 28.71
  14 days - 29.00

Weight change during last:
   7 days - -3.5 pounds
  14 days - 2.5 pounds.

-Al-

239.5/185.0/200/BMI:23.1/WK-35
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story

It was 6:15 AM, and 37º outside, as I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, “184.5 pounds.” (NS: 181.0 lbs.) Once again I ate 32 points yesterday, and this time I moved back up a pound. I am going to shoot for 29 or 30 today, to avoid overshooting too far.

Yesterday was another quiet day at work, and at home. More reading, writing, and enjoying my Thursday. Now it is Friday!

This will be my next to last entry in my daily journal. I will probably continue to put up some tracking data in the future for accountability.

For eating yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and my Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had one half of a Heaven’s Bistro pizza (4.5 pt.). That gave me a total of 16.5 meal points. For snacks I had, 14 cough drops (4.5 pt.), a cup of hot chocolate (1.0 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.), and 2 teaspoons of whipped peanut butter on a chocolate rice cake (2.0 pt.). That added up to 15.5 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 32.0.

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

Average points per day eaten for the last: 7 days – 29.29 14 days – 29.18 Weight change during last: 7 days – -4.5 pounds 14 days – -3.0 pounds.

Average points per day for the last:
   7 days - 29.29
  14 days - 29.18

Weight change during last:
   7 days - -4.5 pounds
  14 days - -3.0 pounds.

-Al-

239.5/185.0/200/BMI:23.1/WK-35
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story

*** Weigh-in for WEEK 36 ***

Week Completed:	___36___
Weigh-In Weight:	184.5
Body Mass Index:	23.0
Aerobic Points for week:	0.00
Week’s Average Points/Day:	29.7
Pounds +/- for this week:	-0.5
Pounds lost total:	55.0
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.

___________________________

It was 5:00 AM, and 39º outside, as I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, “184.5 pounds.” (NS: 181.0 lbs.)

Here it is the 253rd day of my journey, and the scale says that I weigh 55 pounds less than I did 252 days ago. For the last 113 days I have been under my main goal weight of 200 pounds. For every one of the last 38 days I have been at or below my personal goal weight of 190 pounds. For nine weekly weigh-ins in a row, I have been at or below 190. For the last 4 weekly weigh-ins in a row, I have been within one half of a pound of my target weight of 185.0 pounds.

The original investment of effort was considerable, as I organized my life around eating within my points range. I had to learn to balance calories, fat and fiber against a stomach that would growl if I made the wrong choices and ran out of points. Finding foods that would fit the bill on that score was of utmost importance at first. Dotti was of great help at that time, because she had already done the leg work on many of the foods that were to become staples in my daily eating regime. Foods were found and tried. Some were rejected and some became close friends, still with me today.

I also had to develop new habits. I started tracking water that I drank. I found that having a glass, with a known volume, that I used all of the time for water, made it easy to count the cups as they went down. My glass holds 24 ounces, and that is 3 cups that get marked in my journal every time I finish a glass. At the end of the day, if I had not consumed 64 ounces of water or more, I would drink as much as necessary to bring it up to that amount.

One of the most important things was having fun. I did not want to fall into the mistake of doing a diet, where I could only eat certain (unpalatable) foods until I lost my weight, and then go off it again before I lost my mind with boredom, or with desire for something I was dying for. So, all along the way, I have treated myself to things that I like. I have only eaten foods that I like. It has been fun! I am eating well, and on most days, during my journey so far, I have found myself searching for something to eat in the evening to bring my points up to where they need to be, rather than sitting at my point limit for the day, like an overused credit card, wishing that the day would end so I wouldn’t have to be hungry any more.

But even on the few days where I hit my point limit earlier than I would have liked, by drinking lots of water, I didn’t really suffer. I found other things to think about and filled my stomach with the magic fluid, and I was fine. There have been very few times in my journey where I was uncomfortable due to lack of food, while I was in a position where I couldn’t eat something.

Now, it is second nature. My journal is open on the counter all day, every day. The first thing that I do when I get home from work is make sure that my written journal is up to date with everything that went on during the workday. (Water, lunch, snacks and exercise.) After dinner, I total up all the points that I have had so far in the day, and figure how many I have left for snacks in the evening. If I am running low on points, I may plan out what I am going to have right through until bedtime, making sure that I will not run out too early. If I have plenty of points left, I may just wing it, grabbing something whenever I feel hungry. In all cases the journal is the key to my journey. I have developed the habit of always “writing it down.” Once I have done that, the rest is easy.

I consider the process for me to be very much the same, as an alcoholic must consider his 12 steps as the process to maintain his sobriety. As long as I continue the process of writing everything down, I will remain in control and at the weight I desire to be at. If I discontinue the process and start guessing what I have eaten for the day, I will gain weight. The longer I am away from the process, the more weight I will gain. I have no delusions on this score.

I have a personality type that will dive right into destructive behavior if given the chance. I didn’t smoke a few cigarettes a day when I was smoking. I was a 3-pack-a-day smoker. On stressful days, I smoked even more. I was compulsive about smoking. When I quit smoking, I turned to eating, something I had done before I started smoking. The problem had not gone away, it had just been covered up with the cigarettes. Compulsive… a way of dealing with the bumps in the road of life that were too painful to deal with using my personal mental toolbox of solutions. My weight zoomed out of control, as I floundered around like a man who can’t swim thrown into the deep end of a pool.

I finally learned to face life without cigarettes (yes!), but I was left with the eating problem. The point I am trying to get at is that my compulsive personality is still there. I have not killed that negative or weak aspect of who I am. What I have attempted to do is to direct that compulsion towards something positive rather than negative. I now compulsively journal and track my water etc. I still compulsively eat in the car, but it is celery and lettuce that I eat rather than doughnuts or candy bars. I do eat too many cough drops often, but I track them all and keep them within my points limit. Compulsion is still there, but it is under leash, thanks to the process. My flaws are myriad, and my potential for destructive behavior has not wavered a millimeter. Instead, I am taking one day at a time, and using the structure of the process to keep me safe from my own failings. And guess what? It is working!!!!

For my last food entry it only makes sense that yesterday I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and my Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner I had a Subway 6-inch turkey breast sandwich (6.0 pt.). That gave me a total of 17.0 meal points. For snacks I had 19 cough drops (5.5 pt.), a cup of hot chocolate (1.0 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and one half of a Kashi bar (2.5 pt.). That added up to 12.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 29.0. (I was trying to guess what would give me a 185.0-pound weigh-in this morning. It ended up close.)

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

Average points per day eaten for the last: 7 days – 29.71 14 days – 29.14 Weight change during last: 7 days – -0.5 pounds 14 days – -0.5 pounds.

This brings my online daily journal to an end. I do plan to continue updating my stats on a weekly basis on the web page journal.

To those who have been reading, I hope that documenting my journey has been helpful, and at least a little bit interesting.

Average points per day for the last:
   7 days - 29.71
  14 days - 29.14

Weight change during last:
   7 days - -0.5 pounds
  14 days - -0.5 pounds.

-Al-

239.5/184.5/200/BMI:23.0/WK-36
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story