179 Pounds, Who'd have thought?

D'Linda wanted to lose weight, she decided to do a diet program called "Take Shape For Life". A friend of hers had lost 80 lbs and kept it off for over a year. I have always felt that when one spouse goes on a diet the other one should do it too. D'Linda wanted to get down to 119, she was at 141. My weight has been creeping up for a few years since my knees have stopped me from running. I try to bike regularly, but I don't get as many miles in as I need to, especially when the weather turns cold and wet. I weighed in at 220, I could really lose 20 lbs, so I said let's do it.
The diet uses packaged food that you buy in monthly quantities, it costs about $300 a month per person, plus you add some salad and lean protein every day. The brand of food is called Medifast it is packaged in individual meals, that aren't big and some aren't that good. I usually put jalapenos and salsa in everything, and some onions too. The diet has you eating at least every three hours, so I never really got hungry.
As we got into the diet it wasn't that bad. When I was doing the diet right I was losing between one half and three quarters of a pound a day. We did complicate things with a trip to Ohio for two weeks to help our daughter move into a new house. We did pretty good there, but then we went to Mexico for two weeks and one of those weeks we were at an all inclusive resort. I did pretty good, but I did enjoy myself.
We read the literature with the diet and they had some good stuff, the goal is not to just lose weight, but actually end up healthier. The goal was to get to a BMI under 25, I have never thought that BMI was that good of a scale, but I decided to give it a try. for me to get under 25 I needed to get under 190. I graduated from high school at 185 and was over 200 within a few years. I have only been under 200 a few times in my adult life, and I have been as high as 254.
Once I got into the diet it was really easy, I never got hungry and I never ran out of energy. I rode 42 miles with the Palm Desert Cycling Club last Saturday and I was a little tired after the ride, but was able to do some projects after. I don't feel like I have lost any strength or stamina. I didn't have a set weight goal, but as it was pretty easy I decided to go for 40 lbs. I hit 179 this morning that gives me a BMI of 23.6. I wouldn't have thought it was possible when I began. I feel great, D'Linda says that I am too skinny, but I don't feel weak at all.
Now that we have reached our goals we need to transition to our new diet for the rest of our life. We will add more fruits and vegetables. We will stay away from processed foods and limit saturated fats. If I eat that way I should be able to have a calorie limit of 3200 a day according to the calculations in the diet book. That should be easy seeing we have been doing fine on about 1000. The test will be what I weigh in a year, but I just wanted to let you know how easy it has been.

Gordon A Laird

This is my Fathers Obituary, it will be in the Bellingham Herald this weekend. Many friends don't live in the area so I thought I would put it out this way.

Gordon A Laird was born April fools day 1928. He passed away August 18, 2013 with his children, good friend Elaine Wolf and other friends and relatives at his side. He lived a full life by his own rules. He loved his grandchildren and great grandchildren and always told them to "Save your money", advice he never took. "Gordy" never met a stranger. He would always offer his opinion, whether it was wanted or useful. He was never shy or embarrassed, some thought him a little abrasive, but most loved him. If you were in need he would give you the shirt off his back. He will leave a big hole in many peoples lives. We would like to thank Whatcom Hospice, the staff on the 4th floor at Saint Joseph's and Dr Sharf and staff for the wonderful compassionate care they gave dad. He did not want a funeral or memorial service, but he never followed the "rules" so we won't either. We will have a time of remembering Gordy Laird on Monday the 26th at 3:00 at Lairmont Manor, 405 Fieldstone Rd. Please carpool if possible as parking is limited. In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to Whatcom Hospice Foundation, 2901 Squalicum Parkway, Bellingham 98225.

Gordon is survived by his children; Jack (D'Linda) Laird, James (Jeanette) Laird and Nancy Braam

Grandchildren; Ric (Mary) Wilson, Scott (Cynthia) Laird, Rusty (Jamie) Laird, Andrea (Arthur) Pannell, Jeff (Laura) Laird, Jennifer (Grant) Bell, Asa (Tressa) Braam and Lauren Braam 21 great grandchildren and 2 great great grandchildren.

Is science a tool or a god?

Wow, it just took me about a half an hour to get into my own blog, now I better say something worthwhile. I have been involved in a discussion with a nephew who I respect and admire. I think Facebook should only be for short comments so I am going to respond here. He wrote in support of the Pro-choice movement in Texas, and based his support on what he called "real unbiased science". I have thought about that and want to share. I doubt anybody can be truly unbiased, even in his argument he showed a bias against Christianity. I find that ironic in that much of science was pioneered by Christians trying to understand God's Creation. He is in the healthcare field, and hospitals were almost exclusively started by God followers. In the time of the plagues it was Christians who stayed and cared for the sick and buried the dead. Now Christian scientists are often ridiculed and or ignored.

Science has built a box and refuses to believe anything outside of their box exists. Science is restricted to observable, testable, repeatable results. That leaves a lot of things out. Many things do exist that cannot be confirmed or denied by science. History is a simple example, right and wrong is another, how about beauty or art? Human emotion, or attitudes, or love? Science would like to think of man as just some kind of biological robot. Given certain stimuli he will respond in a certain manner, but how do you explain personality, and differences in siblings? Philosophy, poetry and thought itself, cannot be understood scientifically.

How complete is science? That is an imposible question because we don't know where the end is, but is science nearing the end or just in it's infancy? Even math, called the pure science, is learning new things. Mathematicians are still trying to understand PI, a seemingly infinite number that has been studied for centuries. For argument's sake I will say science is 50% complete. That would mean that anyone basing their life on purely science only has half of the facts. Science has experienced game changing discoveries in the past and is sure to in the future. Even if science had 99% of the facts, the 1% left could change it all.

I think science is valuable, but it cannot answer all of life's questions, and pure science shouldn't even try. Science should be about facts not about whether it is good or evil. Science thought homosexuality was a defect that could be cured just a few years ago, now it  considers it normal, was it wrong then, or wrong now? What else does science have wrong?

"Real unbiased science" also sets up an interesting dilema, who decides? Is the process democratic Scientific consensus has been wrong in the past. Who is the ultimate arbiter of what is "real science"? History is full of scientist that were ridiculed and persecuted only to be eventually be proved correct.

Everyone has a right to make moral decisions, but to base them on science, an admittedly incomplete field, is not logical. Morality is another subject that is not open to scientific debate. We all must make decisions and decide to take stands. I choose to use a broader perspective than just science.

WE ARE GOING TO BE # 1

Last night I couldn't sleep, that isn't uncommon for me when I am away from my own bed. In fact that is how this blog started. I was visiting my son in Liberia and had been to a orphanage that day and couldn't sleep thinking of the orphans I had seen. I got up and blogged about my thoughts. I am in Ecuador now, helping with a remodeling project at Camp Bellevue. It is about 10,000 feet above sea level here and it takes a while to get used to the altitude. I was awake for quite a while last night, but instead of getting up and writing I just thought. Here are those thoughts.

A friend posted a Quote from Margaret Sanger on Facebook. I am not a fan of Margaret, she was a founder of Planned Parenthood. She believed in and promoted Eugenics, if you don't know what that is, think Hitler and master race. Eugenics was practiced in the US in the early 20th century, in an effort to "improve" the population, over 60,000 people were sterilized because they were deemed inferior. Margaret deemed all blacks and yellows inferior. She promoted abortion as a woman's right. "No woman can call herself free unless she controls her own body" was the quote. I got into a discussion about abortion with my friend. I believe abortion to be murder. We wrote back and forth about reasons for abortion, but to me the reason doesn't really matter, the baby isn't guilty no matter the reason. My friend is a good person and I don't know if I persuaded her or not, but I have continued to think about abortion.

I thought about the issue some people have, when is the fetus really human? Some say at birth, however we all know of premature babies that have lived just fine, so babies born before their due date, or because of some trauma are certainly human. Yet abortions have been performed just before a due date. What about viable, we hear when the fetus is viable. With the advancement in medical science that definition would have to be changed every few years, with each new break through. I have done some reading lately on DNA, it is very remarkable stuff. Do you know if we asked a CSI tech to sample DNA from an aborted fetus, they would identify that DNA as human. Not partial, not becoming, not almost, but human. In fact your DNA is the same from conception to death.

Since abortion became legal in the US in 1973 there have been 54,599,612 humans killed by abortion. Hitler is estimated to have killed 20 million people. The communists in Russia killed around 30 million. The all time leader, Mao, is credited with 60 million. In just a few years we will surpass Moa, and become #1. To all my flag waving friends, does that make you proud to be an American? I probably shouldn't say that, but we worry about taxes and deficits, and if we will be able to carry our favorite assault rifle out in public.

In Genesis 4 God says to Cain "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground". Imagine how loud the blood of 54,599,612 innocent babies could scream. Many people pray to God to heal our country, but I wonder if He can hear over the screams? Why don't we stop this evil? Oh well, American Idol, or The Bachelor, or maybe a rerun of Seinfeld is on, got to go.