I got up on the scale, with a little question in my mind as to what he might say, since Dotti and I celebrated our Silver Anniversary, and I had a few drinks. I thought I might have overdone it a bit. So, when Mr. Scale said, "224.5." I said, "Thank you!"

Yesterday, Dotti and I, planned to visit a little fair that a local shopkeeper told us was going to be happening at the town we are staying in. It is supposed to be associated with the Portland Rose Festival in some way. So, about 10:00 AM we got on our hiking clothes and headed out walking for "downtown." The sky was overcast, and so we wore our coats. I even put an umbrella in my backpack. However, about half way there, the sun suddenly broke through, and the coats had to go.

When we got there, there were no tents set up, or anything else going on. We asked another local shopkeeper when the fair was supposed to happen, and he said, "Oh, that is next weekend." Well we got a couple of miles of walking in anyway.We looked through a few of the shops. One of them had some really great paintings that we looked through.

When we got back to the room, and had lunch, we decided to stop by Cannon Beach and see what it is like. So, we hopped in the car and headed north. The traffic was much heavier than it had been all week, because on the weekends, the people pour over to the coast from the Portland area. We turned off highway 101, and headed down to Cannon Beach, but it was flooded with people. The sidewalks were full. The crosswalks were full. It all looked like a mad anthill. After our quiet little town, it was not what we were looking for, so we just drove on through and didn't stop. We continued north to Seaside, and stopped at a Safeway there for items Dotti needed to pick up. I sat in the car, listening to my audio book, and she went in.

When she came back to the car she was all excited. "Guess what I found?… SKINNY COWS!" That was music to my ears. We each had one, right on the spot.She had bought a bag of ice to put the skinny cow container in to keep the treats from melting on our drive back to the room.

While driving back to our motel, we spotted a turnout with a great view of the beach spread out below us, and so we took some pictures. (When we got back to the room I put three of them up on the web page, and then linked them in the daily thread.)

Last evening we celebrated our Anniversary a few hours early. (We wanted to be sober and well for the driving we will be doing on Monday morning.) This morning, I am firmly convinced that was an excellent choice, because I was a bit under the weather when I woke up.I am feeling a bit better now though.) I won't go into the details, but a fun time was had by all,and we are well on our way towards starting our second 25 years together. (We were married at 10:20 AM PDT on June 10, 1976, in Vancouver, Washington.)

After that, I was happy this morning to see that my weight had not jumped up a bit.

On to my eating for the day yesterday. I had my normal 6 point breakfast. When we got back from our 2 mile hike, I had 2 fried egg sandwiches with turkey bacon strips (3.5 points). In the Safeway parking lot, at Seaside, I had a Skinny Cow.(2 points) For dinner I had a steak smothered in onions and mushrooms (3 oz. 3 points) applesauce (1 point) and 42.6 grams of potatoes (3.5 points). I then had another Skinny Cow (still 2 points) and that brought my total to 21.0 points for the day. Then the celebration kicked in. Dotti had bought me some Crown Royal blended whiskey. I mixed it with a zero point soda, and that makes for 2 points a shot. Well, I ran my points right up to the limit, and was feeling pretty happy by the time I went to bed for the night about 11:00 PM. You have to understand that I am a very cheap drunk. I just don't drink very often. So, normally a little goes a long way. And for me to drink 5 shots in one night … well you can imagine.From where I sat, it wasn't bad at all though, until about 3 in the morning when I realized that loud noises, or even not so loud noises were sort of painful. I could hear the refrigerator humming away. The waves outside our door were loud. About 5:00 I was feeling a bit better when I woke up again, but I took some Alka-Seltzer, and then I grabbed a couple more hours of sleep. By 7:00 AM when I got up, my stomach was feeling almost stable, and my headache was down to a dull roar. After breakfast and some coffee, I was feeling most of the way back to normal. But the whole process reminds me why I don't drink much. I can't imagine going through that on a regular basis.

Okay, 5 shots contain 10 points, and that brought my total to 31 points for the day, which is right at the top of my range. I did not go over, but I hit the limit. Dot had her "zero point Kahula" and so she was fine.I also noticed that I changed ranges for points yesterday. I am now in the 200 to under 225 range. So, I lost two points off my range at both ends. (I am using the same program Dot did to lose her weight, the 123 Success program.) My range is now 24 to 31. I have already stayed pretty well within even this new range for my journey so far, so I don't foresee any problems with continuing to do so. And I will stay in this range all the way down to goal, at which time my range drops to 22 -29. My daily average has been less than 27, so I think I am on track to go where I want to go in the future with my weight.

Oh, I almost forgot my water. I drank 128 ounces yesterday (only 8 pounds).

I am not sure what we are going to do yet for our Silver Anniversary today, but I think it will be fairly quiet whatever it is.

29 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/224.5/200/BMI:28.1/WK-4

I woke up this morning with a serious tooth ache, but I still managed to crawl up on the scale, to see that I weighed 225.0. Dot and I loaded up the car and drove back home. Before we even pulled in at home, we stopped by the dentist’s office just around the corner from our place, and I set up an appointment for this afternoon. Fortunately they had an early afternoon opening. We went home and unloaded the car. I would never have dreamed that we could fit that much stuff into one van.

By the time we got the stuff unpacked, it was time to go to the dentist. Well, I have two less teeth, and happy to be rid of the troublesome things. For all my life I have had great teeth and they have never given me any trouble at all. In the last 7 months, all of my molars have gone on the offensive in one way or another. Soon they will all be replaced, and I will get the last laugh.

It is nice to be back at my regular keyboard and monitor to type this up, rather than looking at that small laptop screen and typing on the smaller keyboard. No matter how much fun you have away, it is always good to get back home.

Yesterday, I had a quiet eating day. Nothing fancy. Well, I did have a couple Skinny Cows, but otherwise it was similar meals as I have listed before. When the day was done, I had eaten a total of 24.0 points, which is in my new point range. I got carried away drinking water while I was playing Free Cell on the computer and listening to some audio lectures at the same time. (I ran my winning streak up to 37 in a row before I lost one. And then won 5 more before calling it a day. My all-time record for winning consecutive Free-Cell games is 103. I did that a little over a year ago, when I was working at a site where I had to be there, but nothing was going on most of the time, and I had to find something to occupy myself. It was a tough job but somebody had to do it.) I ended up drinking a total of 176 ounces (11 pounds) of water. It still seems incredible that a human body can take in that much water in a single day.

Well, our time at Rockaway Beach is over, and we are back home. But our anniversary vacation will run right through the upcoming weekend. We hope to have a lot more fun before we go back to our daily grind again. My teeth had been bothering me the last couple of days, and hopefully that is now behind me, so I hope the rest of the vacation will be more pleasant.

30 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/224.5/200/BMI:28.1/WK-4

I woke up this morning about 4:30, needing a pain pill for my aching gums. So, I took a pill, and swallowed a piece of low point bread to keep my stomach happy, and I drank 8 ounces of water exactly. I then went back to bed for a while. I got up and fiddled about until after 6:00 AM and then finally weighed for the day. Mr. Scale said, “224.0.” I am quite happy with that, since I have not had a very good last 48 hours with my teeth.

Yesterday, I had my teeth pulled around 1:30 PM. I was so busy with the unpacking and all that I never got around to eating lunch. Well, you can rest assured that I wasn’t going to eat it after having two of my molars yanked. No way!Dot and I went to the mall to pick up a book called, String of Pearls. Dotti had ordered the book because a lady had sent an email which said that she had found the DWLZ web page by seeing Dotti's site mentioned in that book. When we got the book from B. Dalton's, we went out in the Mall, grabbed a free bench and started looking through it. Sure enough, on page 95 it mentioned DWLZ, along with the author’s web page, and 3fatchicks.com. Pretty cool!

After picking up the book, we went to our favorite ice cream stand in the mall. This stand has ice cream that is only 10 calories and no fat, per ounce. Their small cone has 5 ounces of ice cream, and so that is one point. If you get it in a waffle cone it is a couple of more points. Under the circumstance, you can guess who did not have a waffle cone. No way, no how.But, a one point bowl of ice cream I could manage very well thank you, and I did. It was yummy!

We also stopped at K-Mart and got my prescription filled for my pain medication, and finally made it back home. Before the anaesthetic wore off, I followed my dentist’s advice and took a pill, along with two slices of bread, heavily soaked in water to keep from having to chew it much before swallowing. The bread comes out to .3 points per slice, so that was just over a half of a point.

For dinner, I really did not feel much like eating, and my pain medication was making me a bit sleepy. But I had only eaten 9.6 points for the day, and I had to at least try to bring that up some. I found some pudding cups that Dotti had stashed away for me from before I started this journey, and each of them is 2 points. I scarfed down 4 of them for 8 points. That brought my total points for the day up to 17.6. Well, I tried. That was it for me. I went to bed early, read in my Perry Mason novel for a few minutes, and then I was off to dream land.

I had 80 ounces of water yesterday and so I was okay there. I was low on points, but with good reason. (But I must admit that was partly due to poor planning in not eating before going to the dentist.) The only exercise I got was loading and unloading the van. However, that was not insignificant. Our motel room was effectively on the third floor. (The whole structure is up on 6 or 8 feet stilts, perhaps in case of super hide tides during storm conditions or something. So we have to go up a set of stairs just to get to the first floor.) So, down the two sets of stairs we had to haul: our three laptops; CD ROM burner; CD carrying cases; all the stuff we had purchased during our stay; our clothes; and especially our books that we (yes, really it was I) had packed way too many of; and other assorted odds and ends. And that was the easy part. When we got home we had to haul all of that same stuff, right back up the stairs to our apartment. So, at least I did get some exercise. And probably there should be some activity points for writhing around in a dentist’s chair. What do you think?

Actually, yesterday was a good day in a lot of ways for me. I really enjoyed the drive home with Dotti, and then she was very supportive as I had to deal with my dental issues. And finally getting on a regular sized keyboard, with a full sized monitor is pretty cool too. It was also nice sleeping in my own bed again after a week away. So, I can’t complain. It was still better than a day at work.

I am going to cheat and include what went on today too. Why? Because, like an idiot I had already typed up some of what I was going to say for tomorrow, before I realized I was getting ahead of myself. This way, I will only have to put up my weigh-in tomorrow, and anything else that might happen after I post this tonight.

Today, I am a little tired, but other than that I feel okay. My gums have not been bothering me anywhere near as badly as my teeth were before I showed them the door. I am stuck with “soft food” for today. So, I let my cereal soak in the milk for a long time this morning to soften it up. It was quite easy to swallow by the time I got to the point of eating it. I also had my customary cup of coffee, but I used ice to cool it way down to where it would not bother my wounds. It was no problem drinking it. So, I managed to get my normal breakfast down without issue. That is a good thing.

There is one issue that remains: I do have a bit of a problem with my main snacking food. There is no way that I am going put that crunchy, sour, acidic rhubarb into my weak and wounded mouth. Not today. For now I am keeping it to soft stuff. Dot and I went to the mall and picked up some merchandise that we had ordered yesterday. (It was a little something for our 25th anniversary, that had to be engraved.) So, naturally we took advantage of the 10-calorie ice cream again. The flavor was “Angel Food Cake” and tasted great. I even got a large this time for 2 points.

When we got back home, I had two pudding cups for 4 points. That brought my points for the day up to 12.0. This evening, I decided that since the cereal had worked so well this morning, I was going to do it again tonight. That added another 4.0 points. I had a cup of instant potatoes for 3.5 points, and a 2 point cup of yogurt, which brought my daily total to 19.5 so far. I am thinking of having a cup of decaf a little later. I will write tomorrow what my point total will be at the end of today.

220 pounds is only 4 pounds away. I am really looking forward to that. Dotti is telling me how she can see a difference already, but she is so nice, she might just say that to make me feel good. But I did get a completely unsolicited complement when I sat down in the dentist’s chair, he said, “Have you been losing weight?” That is the first comment on my appearance from anyone not associated with Weight Watchers, or who did not know I was on a journey. One other interesting thing (and I am not going to explain as to how or why I came to this knowledge,) I inadvertently found that my 40 inch pants will now slide all the way down past my hips without unbuttoning them. Now, I couldn’t have even gotten them buttoned before I started, so this is quite a change. I may not be too far away from moving on down yet again to 38 inch waist pants. I must admit that, when I weighed 240 pounds, and I was wearing 42 inch waist pants, I had to unbutton the top of my pants whenever I was sitting down.

I still have quite a ways to go yet, but I am happy to see progress being made!

31 days OP (hey that makes a whole month!), and a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/224.5/200/BMI:28.1/WK-4

About 6:00 AM, I stepped up on Mr. Scale this morning, and was happy to see his response was, “223.0.” Yeee-haw! The last time that I was down here, I was struggling to just hold my weight down. I can remember being 222, and wishing that I were in the 190s, but instead of moving down, I ended up heading back up to 240. Now, I feel a bit like I am on a train and heading right past the old station, whose platform I used to be stuck on, nervously waiting for the train that just didn’t come.

Okay, I know it was just one day’s weigh-in and tomorrow I may be, in fact probably will be, up a little from this one. But whenever I see a low reading like that, I feel like it is something my body is capable of and all I have to do is be patient and it will become the normal, rather than the exceptional. For today, I am down 16.5 pounds from when I started 33 days ago. If we throw out the first week, which was an abnormally high loss, of 7.5 pounds, then I have lost 9.0 pounds over the last 3.5 weeks. That is a rate of about 2.6 pounds per week. So, it is faster than I expected, but not out of hand. And of course, as I move down closer to goal, I expect things to slow down a bit too.

Dotti and I are going to play racquetball this morning, and I usually find my body tissues holding water after that. But it is worth it to get the exercise. We hope to get in at least 2 sessions at the gym before our vacation is over. We also are planning to do some hiking on Saturday with Barbara. Sunday, we will see how we are feeling after Saturday’s walk, before we decide whether or not we are going to the gym again.

Well, I blew it last night. I never got around to eating a single additional point, and I ended up with a total of 19.5 points. I was on the computer answering emails and the next thing I realized was that I was totally exhausted and ready for bed. It was after my traditional bedtime of 10:00 PM, and I did not want to eat anything, either out of hunger, which I was fresh out of, or because it was that late at night. So, I laid down, read a couple of pages in my Perry Mason novel, and went to sleep. No guilt and move on. I am going to try to do much better today. My gums still hurt but they are not as tender as before, and I should be able to slip something by that is not quite “baby food” today. We’ll see how it goes.

I drank a lucky 13 glasses of water yesterday, for a total of 104 ounces. That’s only 6.5 pounds of water.

Oh, I almost forgot! Talking about my 40 inch waist pants sliding down, made me check and see how the 38 inch waist pants fit. I was able to pull them up, and button them. They were snug, but in a tight pinch (pun intended) they could be worn. Also, they fit more uniformly than either my 42’s did before I started the journey, or my 40’s do now. The bulk of my excess weight tends to reside in a zone between the base of my rib cage, and my upper thighs. So, to get pants to fit my waist, I have had to have really baggy legs. With the 38 inch waist pants, they were snug all the way down., which means I am losing where I need it most. I will still be wearing the 42’s for a bit still, but I am getting close to the 38’s.

Off to enjoy my vacation. Hopefully, Dot won’t hit me too many times with the racquetball today. Some days she gets me several times, and others not at all. But it seldom leaves any sort of marks, so it is okay. I rarely hit her, because I often will give up a good shot to make sure that I miss her. The only time I usually hit her with the ball is when she makes a really good shot that I have to work hard to get to, and don’t have time to look and see where she is exactly. The last time it happened, I had to run hard to the back wall, whirl, catch the carom and hit the ball full force. It would have been a pretty good shot too, if Dotti hadn’t been standing in the path between the ball and the front wall.I absolutely hate to hit her with the racquet ball. It stings very badly when a well hit ball strikes you squarely. And afterwards, when I see a big red welt on Dotti, from where I hit her, just the size of a racquetball, I feel really bad. So, as I said, I try very hard not to let that happen.

32 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/224.5/200/BMI:28.1/WK-4

When I got up on Mr. Scale today, he said, “224.0.” That is what I expected for today. Yesterday was a change that could have confused my body a bit. Dotti and I went and played racquetball, for an hour and it was good exercise. The first game and a half, I felt better than I had felt in years on the court. Dotti said that I was “playing like a teenager.” The first game she severed one ball that I put away on one shot, and then I served 15 straight points without a single change of serve. The second game started the same way, and went through about halfway, before reality started to set in, and I finally had to slow down a bit. Dotti is getting better and better on the court. On some very tough shots she is getting her racquet on the ball, when before she would not have gotten anywhere near the ball. And she is returning many shots today that she never would have touched before. I have a lot of fun on the court playing her.

We had one scary moment when in the confusion my racquet caught her elbow. That is something that almost never happens. We both are very careful to call a “hinder” when we are too close, and not take a swing at a ball when we might hit each other. Unfortunately, I lost track of where she was, and I thought she was clear when she wasn’t. I pulled back my swing as much as I could when I saw her, but she ended up with a bruise on her elbow anyway. It was not bad enough to where she had to quit, but for the rest of the day whenever she leaned her elbow on something, it hurt her, and I felt about 2 inches tall.

In spite of that, we had a good time playing, and it was great exercise for both of us. It was nice for me to get back on track after the dental work, and not have to take it easy any more.

Next, Dotti and I headed up to Mt. Saint Helens. We had been there before, but we had not gone all the way up from the southern approach before. We had gone up part way from the southern side, and walked and climbed through part of a lava tube, called the “APE Caves” but this was the first time we went all the way up to Windy Station Viewpoint. When you come from the Northern approach, much of the blow-down area has been replanted. So, you don’t get the same feel of devastation as you get coming from the south. My mouth literally dropped when I turned a corner in the road, and was suddenly exposed to the flattened forest, with its trees lying like a field of corpses after a battle. I had seen pictures of it before, and saw the wasteland spread before the opening to the crater, as viewed from the northern approach. But here were the actual naked trunks and branches of things killed by the blast. You could walk up to them and touch them with your own hands. It felt like a cemetery, built upon the very land where a mere 21 years ago, plus a couple of weeks, a thriving forest has stood, complete with huge green pines, deer, squirrels, rabbits, bears, birds of many varieties and even a few people, who should have known better than to be there. The pine needles had once laid a soft carpet, at the feet of majestic evergreens reaching for the sky, where now the bare dirt looked like my old home town in the Mojave Desert. To get to this location, we had just driven through forests just like the one that lay at our feet, once was. I looked up at the mountain that had done this, and it felt just a bit like looking down the barrel of a 12 gauge shot gun.

We drove on through miles of devastation, until we finally reached Spirit lake, which has acres and acres of trees still floating on its surface, clumped against the shore. I couldn’t help but think of old Harry Truman, who refused to leave his Spirit Lake, and now is tied forever to its lore. Did he see the mountain explode before it took his life? Mt. Saint Helens stands silently by, looming high above us, and doesn’t say a word. Down its sides are deep ravines that the melted glacier water cut, as it created huge mud flows 21 years ago. A mud flow runs off to the south, looking like a dry riverbed, strewn with the carcasses of trees that had been uprooted and scorched by the blast.

A walk through the forest has always been something that I have enjoyed. The feel of the old trees, who have been standing for hundreds of years, and who have laid their needles like a soft carpet for me to walk on, is something I have found nowhere else. The sound of the birds, and the timid animals scurrying to avoid the stranger in their home, all bring a peace that is very special. My mind refused to connect its image of a forest, with the image that was before me, resembling more the antics of giant who had cast a box of his tooth picks all across the desert landscape.

At this point Dotti pointed south, and there was Mt. Hood, sentinel of Portland, reminding us that it too is capable of doing what St. Helens did. This is a geologically active area, with lava spread in every direction. From Portland on a clear day, you can see three volcanoes if you are in the right location. Mt. Hood is the closest, with St. Helens not much farther away. Mt. Adams is visible, peaking its top over the Cascade Mountain range, from the northeast. Just out of view to the south is Mt. Jefferson, and to the north, just out of view is the king of the cascades, Mr. Rainier, over 14,000 feet of vocalic rock. When they are quiet, there is nothing more beautiful than the glacier covered volcano. But when it is angry, it can turn a forest into a desert in a wink of an eye. One huge blast can literally change the weather of the entire planet.

We came back home, having mentally established our own small position in the physical universe, and relaxed. Well, I did anyway. Dotti set to building a scrapbook of the First Annual DWLZ Conference. It was something that she just never found the time for before, but this is vacation and she decided to take the time.

As for my eating yesterday, I finally got back on track for my points. I had a 5 point breakfast that was pretty standard for me. But for lunch, I had two egg sandwiches. I wasn’t quite up to chewing the turkey bacon yet, so I didn’t have that. I did have a glass of skim milk (2 points) instead of my normal diet soda. I topped it off with a Mr. Cookieface ice cream sandwich for 3 more points. That all added together, along with 3 Tastations pieces of candy that I had (1 point) to a total of 8.5 points for lunch. For dinner, Dotti and I stopped at Subway after our trip and I had a 12 inch sub for 12 points. For my meals, I ate a total of 25.5 points. In the evening, I had one more Mr. Cookieface which brought my total points for the day up to 28.5 points. Finally, I have my points back up in my range where they belong!

We ate a little later than usual, and I think that may have had a little something to do with my bump back up to 224 today. Also, the exercise may have helped me hold on to a bit more water weight. And speaking of water, I only drank 80 ounces yesterday. I will try and do better today.

I have been taking a vitamin “Energy Pak” lately, to make sure that I am receiving all my vitamins. I am feeling well, and I have noticed that I have a bit of a spring in my step that I did not have before. I definitely feel like I am moving in the right direction.

33 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

PS here are a few photos from our trip yesterday.

Here is one of Dotti.
Click here for photo

Here is one of Al at the same location.
Click here for photo

Mt. St. Helens. I actually took this one on the way down from our visit, because the clouds finally cleared away enough to get a pretty good view.
Click here for photo

This one shows some of the devastation from the explosive eruption 21 years ago. You can see trees that have been snapped off, and others that were just steam cleaned of bark and needles. You can also see how the foliage is starting to creep back in, as plants and trees are beginning to grow again. Volcanic ash is very rich soil, and plants love it.
Click here for photo

Spirit Lake. Note all the dead trunks of trees filling the shoreline area.
Click here for photo

Interesting stump. Here is the stump of a tree killed by the 1980 eruption. I thought it was a very interesting sight. And you can see the growth of a new tree just above it. Life springs from the land laid to waste.
Click here for photo

Looking south at Mt. Hood from Mt. St. Helens.
Click here for photo

239.5/224.5/200/BMI:28.1/WK-4

(A few thoughts.)

The whole time I was at 240 pounds, I can only remember one negative comment that anyone made to me. When I was in the training department of my company, teaching technicians how to fix ion implanters, I spent quite a bit of time at my computer designing course materials. One day, my chair just gave up the ghost. One of the supports gave way and it was ready for the chair graveyard. As my supervisor was helping me locate a new one, and to wheel out the old one, he said, “Why don’t you lose a little weight?” That was all there was to it. That little comment was said over 6 years ago, but I can remember it like it was yesterday, probably better. Most of the negative comments of my being overweight, have been internal, from my own personal observations. Observing, while looking at myself in a full length mirror from the side, that there was a fat man looking back at me, where a much thinner man should have been standing. Noting that I was out of energy, and having to work to get motivated to do things, or to tackle the stairs again, did bother me, but never quite enough to get me going. It was looking at the DWLZ Conference pictures and videos that reached out and slapped me in the face. Hard! I saw a man standing there, who knew how to lose weight, and who was choosing to be fat, on purpose. It is like a man being covered in dirt, standing in the shower and refusing to turn on the water. “What an idiot!” I told myself. “You can do so much better than you are doing, so do it!”

Anyway, I have not had to suffer a great many biting and cutting comments from others, like so many others have had to endure while being overweight, including my wonderful Dotti. (It’s a d*mn good thing no one ever had the guts to make a comment like that about Dot when I was in ear shot!) I did generate my own internal negative comments but from the outside things were relatively quiet. Since I have started losing weight, I have already had many positive comments from those on this board (and even one from someone off the board) and it really feels good! It shows that people were being kind before with their silence, as they are being kind today with their expressions of support. It is a nice feeling knowing that I am surrounded by such kind people, and that includes you!

I love visiting the volcanoes. The first one I ever remember visiting was Lassen Peak, in 1971 or so. At that time, it was the volcano in the 48 contiguous States, which had most recently erupted, early in the 20th century. The first volcano that I ever remember seeing was Mt Shasta, back in 1966. It also stands over 14,000 feet, but is just a bit shorter than Mt. Rainier. However, Mt. Shasta is right beside the freeway (I-5), and you can’t miss it as you head north towards the Oregon border. In fact, even from Medford, Oregon, which is a ways into Oregon, you can find some spots where Mt. Shasta looks pretty big. On one side of the mountain is a secondary cone that looks like a baby growing. They call that one “Shastina.” When caught on a clear day, Mt. Shasta is one of the most grand sights I have ever seen from a car.

Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge was the “Overlook Hotel” in the movie “The Shining,” for all the external shots. Crater Lake, is the site of one of the greatest volcanic explosions of all times, thousands of years ago, when Mt. Mazama blew its entire magma chamber all at once, along with a sizable portion of the top of the mountain into the air. The empty magma chamber collapsed under the weight of the mountain, and created a deep bowl shaped caldera, which over hundreds of years filled up with rain water and melted snow. Now it is the deepest fresh water lake in the USA. It is deeper than the Great Lakes, and its 300 to 500 inches of snow every year, makes the snowfall on the Great Lakes look small as well. Unfortunately, because of the snow, most of the year it is hard to get to, and impossible to drive all the way around the cone. Some of the roads are only open for a month or two before being buried in snow again.

I could go on and on about the Cascade volcanoes. Like you said, there is nothing like seeing them for yourself. If you ever take a flight out of Portland, heading south for San Francisco on a clear day, it is just awesome seeing the volcanoes parade past the left side of your plane. At take off you can catch Mt. St. Helens to the north, and Mt. Adams to the northeast, and then usually you catch a glorious view of Mt. Hood standing due east from Portland. As you turn south, you pass Mt. Jefferson, the Three Sisters (the South Sister was doing some acting up a couple of weeks ago), Mt. Thielsen, Crater Lake, Mt. McLoughlin, and finally Mt. Shasta. Off to the east and a bit to the south of Shasta, you might even catch a glimpse of Lassen Peak. If you fly out of Seattle, you should also be able to see, Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, and the glorious Mt. Rainier. Another point to consider is that while some of the Rocky Mountains have higher elevations than Rainier or Shasta, the foot of the Rocky Mountains is already setting at over 5,000 feet. The entire eastern 2/3 of the continent is riding on a single, solid granite base which is not level. It tilts uphill, all the way from the Atlantic Ocean, to the Rocky Mountains. Denver is on the plains, but it is over a mile up in the air. So, if you measure the Rocky Mountains from their base, at over 5,000 feet, to their tops, they are significantly shorter than several of the Cascade peaks from base to top. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Rocky Mountains too. And the Grand Tetons are beautiful. I am just very partial to the beautiful Cascade peaks. And right beside Mt. Hood, where the mighty Columbia River has cut its way through the Cascade Mountains, to make its way passed Portland and Vancouver, is a tremendous gorge with sharp sides and beautiful waterfalls. There are more hiking trails in that gorge, than you could ever walk in a lifetime. They go through forest, past streams, over the tops of waterfalls and right up to, and along the rim of a river and forest kingdom laid out hundreds of feet below you. Yes, there is a reason that the locals call this “God’s Country.” It is just too beautiful to believe.

Sorry for getting so carried away. It is one of my favorite subjects as you might be able to tell.

-Al-

239.5/224.5/200/BMI:28.1/WK-4

I stepped on the scale this morning and it said, “222.5.” I can’t complain about that.

Things went pretty well yesterday, through all my meals. But I ran into a trouble at night, because I got heavy into a (dare I say it?) project, which held my full attention. The next thing I knew it was bedtime and my points were only at 21.5. When I hit my goal weight, the bottom of my range will be 22.0 points, so I was definitely too low yesterday. When I started my journey, I thought my trouble would be keeping my points below the top, but I have been struggling much more to keep my points over the bottom number. I am going to have to get more aggressive on bringing my points up. However, on the day before weigh-in I am not going to go crazy in going for high points. Tomorrow I will be focused on keeping my points completely in my range each day, and not just under the top number.

I had my normal cereal and skim milk for breakfast, and a cup of coffee, with Hazelnut creamer. I found that for almost a week I had been counting that creamer as 2 points when it really was only 1. Now, I am on track for that. My breakfast was 5.0 points total. For lunch I had two fried egg sandwiches for 2.5 points, and a 3 point Mr. Cookieface ice cream sandwich, bringing my total for the day up to 10.5 points. For dinner, I had potatoes (3.0 points), 14 asparagus spears (5.4 ounces and zero points), a garden burger (2pts), with a cheese slice (0.5pts) and two slices of bread (0.5pts). That was a 9.0 point dinner when you include the second Mr. Cookieface ice cream sandwich. (I sure do love those things!) So, after 3 meals, I had eaten 19.5 points. During and for a while after dinner, Dot and I watched a movie (War Games it was great looking at all that obsolete computer equipment,) on our DVD, and for a snack late in the movie, I ate a yogurt (2pts). That was it, because I got into a computer project that tied up the rest of my evening. Next thing I knew, it was time for bed, in fact it was two hours past my normal bedtime, and my point total was 21.5.

Well, no guilt, and move on….

I did do very well on my water yesterday. I drank 26 eight ounce glasses of water. That is a total of 208 ounces! I am amazed that I could get 13 pounds of water down my throat in one day. That is 1.62 gallons, so it is not much more than what I would have drunk if I filled up a gallon jug and drank it down and then filled it halfway and drank it down again. Anyway, I have always liked water, even as kid. My Mom and Dad were real strict with me early on, and I hardly ever had soda pop when growing up. I had my first coca cola after I left home. (That was because of the caffeine in it, not the fact it was a soda. It was a religious thing.) Even Koolaid or other sweetened drinks were seldom available. My two beverages were whole milk (only at mealtimes) and water. Fortunately, I loved water so it was no big deal to me at the time. And it is no big deal even today to drink water. I do have a diet soda with some of my meals, and on occasion a glass of skim milk. (Whole milk is gone from my life. I, the one who swore that he would never leave whole milk for those watered down alternatives, no longer even like whole milk. I would rather drink water with my meal than whole milk. I still find that is something that generates amazement for me. It is because I was so adamant about not giving up whole milk at one point in my life, and now to have done a complete 180 degree turn around.)

After 13 pounds of water in, the scale says that 14.5 must have gone out.I thought I was spending more time in the bathroom lately.

We didn’t do anything too exciting yesterday, sort of took it easy at home. No exercise, and no pictures. I am not sure what we will end up doing today, but I will let you know tomorrow.

The vacation is winding down, as they always do. In a couple of more days it will be back to the old grind, and I can go back to working on stress control, instead of living stress free as I have been doing the last two weeks. In 309 days and a few hours it will be time for the start of the Second Annual DWLZ Conference in St. Louis. That gives me a few more days to reach my goal of 200 pounds by Conference.

33.0 days OP, a lifetime to go.

-Al-

239.5/224.5/200/BMI:28.1/WK-4

*** Weigh-in for WEEK 5 ***

Week Completed:	__5__
Weigh-In Weight:	222.0
Body Mass Index:	27.8
Week’s Average Points/Day:	24.2
Pounds lost this week:	2.5
Pounds lost total:	17.5
Pounds to go to 10%:	6.5
Pounds to go to goal:	22.0

___________________________

Here it is another weigh-in day and I stepped up on Mr. Scale. He said, “222.0 pounds.” Which is a 2.5 pound loss for this week.!

Yesterday, I did some reorganizing with my books. A good percentage of my books are in storage right now, because the place we live is too small to put up all the book cases that are required to shelve them. I took several hundred more pounds of books to the shed yesterday. It’s a long story. Anyway, I had two very large containers filled with books as well as 3 pretty good sized wooden boxes filled with books. I first, filled them, and then I carried them downstairs to the van, and later unloaded and stacked them in the shed. By the time I was done I realized that I had done some work. My shoulders were tired and a bit sore. It wasn’t all that much, but at least it was some exercise.

Dotti and I stopped by the mall and had another one of those low-point cones. This time I had a sugar cone too, instead of eating it out of a bowl. We each got a large, and it was only 4 points! MMM-MMM Good! We rummaged around in a video store and picked up a couple of DVDs. We ended up watching one of them last night: Cast Away with Tom Hanks. It wasn’t bad. We didn’t finish until almost midnight. (Since we had a late night, I didn’t get up this morning and weigh until 7:30 AM.)

My eating was real straight forward. I had my 5.0 point breakfast, and did not eat again until about 3:30 PM. I had a Subway 12” sub sandwich (12.0 pts) when we went to the shed with the books, and I then had the ice cream cone for 4.0 points. That brought me up to 21.0 points for the day. In the evening just before the movie, I had a Mr. Cookieface for 3.0 points, bringing me to 24.0 points, just inside my points range.

I drank water during the movie, and had been drinking quite a bit all day. I finished up with a total of 30 eight ounce glasses of water. That is 240 ounces (15 pounds!) of water. What I do is to use a big 32 ounce cup. As soon as it runs out, I mark down 4 eight ounce glasses in my journal, and then I fill it up again. As I am thirsty or a bit hungry, I just take a swallow. The next thing I know, I am filling it up again. I also drank 16 ounces from another cup at one point, but the rest I drank by filling my 32 ounce cup and downing it, 7 times during the day. Actually, I think 7 glasses of water doesn’t sound quite as bad as 30 does. They are big glasses, that is all.

So far I have lost 17.5 pounds. My weight loss has tracked pretty close to the one Dotti had when she lost her weight. I learned a lot from watching her lose, and so, far, it has been a lot more fun than I thought it would be. In the movie last night, a lady offer a gentleman a cup of coffee, and my first thought was, “do you have no-fat creamer?” It was just barely at the conscious level. I can’t think of anything to do with food without thinking points and being OP. The habit is well on its way to being created. When I was walking past the food court at the mall, one of the food stands tried to give me a free sample, and I just smiled and said, “No thanks!” What I was thinking at first was, “Are you crazy?!” But I quickly recovered and just smiled as he replied, “Thank you sir.” I was thinking that he had given me an opportunity to see how deeply this journey was engraved in my mind, and I replied, “Thank YOU!”

In another 6 pounds, I will have lost 10% of my original body weight, not to mention be at a point that I have not been at for quite a while. The last time I was at 216, my 10% point, I had gotten there on a diet. I got my weight down into the 190s okay, but I put it all back on, all the way back up to 240. This time, I am not on a diet. This time it is for life. My goal is not to reach my goal weight. That I could do with a diet. My goal is to live at goal weight for the rest of my life. To accomplish that long term goal, I have set my daily short term goal of staying OP for today. I am reminded of the line that Professor Harold Hill said to the librarian, “Ah Marian, if you gather enough tomorrows, you will end up with a lot of empty yesterdays.” Each day is an opportunity to do something positive that will enhance your life, or something negative that will take away from it. We always move, and it is impossible to stand still. Either we move up, or we move down. We age, and we change. By making each day a success, we build our lives into a long term success. This is true of weight loss, a marriage, a career, or raising a child. Nothing that takes a lifetime to finish will ever be completed in a day, but neither will it be completed without that which is accomplished in a day, each day.

35 days - 5 weeks - OP, and a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/222.0/200/BMI:27.8/WK-5