I don’t know where I’ve been, but November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month. This disease is of particular interest to me and my family. My grandfather died from this debilitating disease in 1984 and my mother is showing the initial signs of dementia.

Statistics indicate that 5.2 million Americans are afflicted with this disease and someone develops the disease every 71 seconds. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and it is projected the numbers of people suffering from the disease will double within the next ten years.

There is more and more research directed towards the study of the disease, but to date very little is really understood regarding Alzheimer’s as well as the other brain diseases manifesting themselves in dementia.

This disease has probably touched your family or the family of someone you know. People with the disease require almost constant care. As horrible as the disease is for the patient, it is also incredibly difficult for the family of the loved one as they struggle with dealing with the realities of caring for a loved family member whose needs frequently exceed their capabilities.

So, wear purple this month to show your support for continuing research to learn more about this horrible disease.

I went to my Weight Watchers meeting last night.

Did you know there are as many people in the world who do not get enough to eat as there are people in the world who are over weight? Sorry, I didn’t take notes, I think she said 1.1 billion people in each category. That’s a huge number of hungry people.

To do their part and make a difference, Weight Watchers has a new campaign called Lose for Good. For every pound lost by a Weight Watcher member between 7 Sep and 18 Oct, they will donate the equivalent of one pound of food to the hungry.

So, if you want to loose weight, have been considering joining a weight loss group, but just haven’t acted on it, now is a great time to start. You will be doing something for yourself that you know you need (and want) to do, and your actions will make a difference to some people in the world who are less fortunate.

Go to www.weightwatchers.com and find a meeting near you. You won’t be sorry!

Does cleansing work? Is one product better than another?

OK, so I’m a middle aged woman approaching old age. I’ve already told you I have spent life as a nutritional flunky!

But since I am trying to change my nutritional ways, and since I’m middle aged, that means when I can’t sleep I end up watching probably far too many late night paid programs!

One night I was completely caught up in a colon cleanse product documentary. What a concept! Take a pill and it will clean out your colon and you will loose maybe ten pounds in the process! I was all ready to order until I found out this particular product cost in excess of $200! I wasn’t quite ready to plunk down quite that much change to find out if a product worked…

But I was still intrigued with the concept. And I think I believe in cleansing. I just don’t really know exactly which products work or what diets are necessary, or just where to start. Dieting as I am right now, I would like to get the most out of the nutrients I am eating, so maybe now is the right time to cleanse.

We are exposed to a multitude of toxins everyday as we live our lives. We ingest toxins with our food, in fact, sometimes our food is toxic! There are airborne toxins we are exposed to every day as well.

So, is there a way to clean these toxins from our bodies?

I am going to try. I have made a decision to use a cleansing product called Renew. It’s a new product, so there is no data available on it’s effectiveness. The price is good, though, so I feel as though I have nothing to really lose.

I will definitely share the story if it causes me to lose ten pounds in a week. That seems unrealistic to me. But I’m open to the experience. I wonder if I’ll have to spend the week in the bathroom…. that would be so not good….

If anyone has suggestions on cleansing products they have had success with, I would love to hear about it. Any suggestions are welcome!

If you read my article on “Ride the Rockies Anyone,” you know that part of my fitness plan is cycling. Which I am learning!

I’ve had out of town visitors, so it’s been about two weekends since I have had the opportunity to go back out. I didn’t make it yesterday, mostly because it looked like rain. And in fact they were predicting scattered showers. So, being the wimp I am, I didn’t take a chance!

So, I went out today. Packed up my bike, threw in my helmet and water and drove the two miles to the Reservoir. I was so proud of myself!

But when I got to the gate, it was closed and locked. They had closed the park to visitors because of a Danskin triathlon. So, I came back home and rode around the block. Somehow, it didn’t seem as much fun!

But, I did learn a few things about biking this week. Wednesday was Ride Your Bike to Work Day, which is pretty big out here in Colorado. There were many news reports, and on our local NBC channel, the morning sports anchor rode to work. She stopped periodically and, of course, showed her on the news talking to representatives from Bicycle Village. These are the amazing things I learned:

Tingling in the hands (which I attributed to my carpal tunnel syndrome) can be caused by a bike that isn’t fitted properly. And gloves might help, too.

I also learned that those pockets on the back of biker shirts are quite useful to tuck a lightweight jacket into while you’re riding, and get hot. That explained a mystery to me! I thought it was just a really strange biker fashion choice.

I still haven’t purchased biker shorts. So, I guess when I do, I’ll try to pick up some gloves, too.

This is getting scary. Pretty soon I’m going to look like a biker and people are going to expect me to have some skills!

I’m not good at getting back out on my bike during the week. I go to work too early in the morning to ride before work. And for some strange (lazy?) reason, I don’t make it out after. It was also a very hot week, which did not help my lack of motivation. It was close to 100 degrees towards the end of the week.

But on Saturday, my friend, Frank, and I went out to the reservoir around 5:00 pm. A cold front had come through the area and it was probably the nicest day of the week. Temperatures were in the mid 80’s on Saturday. So it was perfect.

When we got there, the route I usually take was blocked off! It was posted the road was closed to public traffic. You could see piles of rocks periodically spaced and piled on the bike trail. Weird…

So, we went the other direction! Of course we didn’t know how far we would be able to go. It turns out we were able to go most of the way around the Reservoir, probably 6 - 6 1/2 miles of the total 8 1/2 mile trail. When we got to the other side of the blocked off area, we continued that direction despite the signs warning us not to. Soon enough, we ran into the first pile of rocks. Not being that proficient, I chose to walk the rest of the way! The point is exercise, so it wasn’t a complete waste. But it was disappointing.

I’m not sure what they are doing. The sign said that part of the trail would be closed from 7 - 23 July. I have no ideas what the piles of rock are for or why they felt it necessary to pile them right on top of the paved path! Couldn’t they have placed them to the side?

I’ll go back later and see what’s going on. I hope they aren’t planning on piling rocks around the whole path! Sometimes, it just feels like there is a higher power trying to keep me from my workout!

But other than that, the ride was really fun! And my gloves worked like a charm!

So, then, we just went home and I fixed the salmon and asparagus recipes listed below. Yummy!

I did ride around the reservoir yesterday, but did not update my blog.

I got out early before it got hot. This time I was prepared to take pictures or videos! I took my Flip camera and was completely prepared to use it! Since I got out to the lake before 8:00 am, I was hoping to catch some wildlife (OK, I was hoping to see that doe and fawn again!), but I was disappointed.

This was the first time I experienced wind. Wow, what a difference that made! Dale had told me before I started riding that when I could ride around the lake three times, I would be ready to ride to work. After fighting the wind for 8.5 miles, I see what he means! I could ride the 9.5 miles to work fairly easily, and probably ride home later in the day now. But If I had to fight the wind, I’m pretty sure I’m not ready. So, I’ll just keep training!

OK, so riding two days in a row reminded that I need to get some biking shorts! I also need some gloves. My hands got very sweaty and I was concerned that I might loose my grip. That would be disastrous!

Another reason I wanted to make sure to get out early was that I went to the Cherry Creek Arts Festival with a friend in the afternoon. The art festival is always fun. In addition to all the art vendors, they have several stages with performers of various types and the required food stands. It tickled me that my girlfriend and I didn’t buy from any of the vendors, but went into the Chicos store and bought new clothes. Typical girls,  huh? It’s not like we needed a reason to go to Chicos, we can go there anytime!

But, we had fun!

Today was my first opportunity to take my bike out again. I want to make it out more frequently, but I want to ride early before it gets hot.

So, today I got up a little bit late, fixed my coffee, checked my email and then got dressed and ready to go. Right as I was about to leave the house (it was 8:45 am) my phone rang. I checked the caller id and it was from my mom’s number in Ohio. She hasn’t been doing well, and since it was almost but not quite 9:00 am here in Colorado, I was afraid it might be one of my brothers calling with bad news. Being the pragmatists they are, they probably wouldn’t call me in the middle of the night with bad news there was nothing I cold do anything about. But they might call a little bit before 9:00 am. So, I answered it.

The good news was it was my Mom, who has no concept of time. So, she is OK but wanted to chat. This was all good, it just put me a little bit farther behind on my riding schedule.

Finally we said good bye, so I locked up the dogs and went out to load my bike into my car. I made it to the reservoir by 9:30, so I was pretty happy about that. This time, I wanted to time myself. I had no idea how long it should take me to ride the 8 1/2 miles around the reservoir, but it seemed to me it shouldn’t take more than about half an hour.

I set off around the lake, and it was wonderful! Even though it  is the Fourth of July, there were very few people out biking or hiking the trail yet. The lake was beautiful, there were dragonflies flitting around, life was good!

I stopped for water before getting to the club house and got off and walked my bike through the concession area. I’m still not comfortable with my abilities (inabilities!) around people. So walking my bike through that area seemed prudent in order to protect the innocent!

So I kept riding, and riding, and riding. It got hotter and hotter, my hands got sweatier and sweatier…. I felt something that felt like it was poking the back of my leg, but I didn’t want to take either of my hands off the handlebars. Finally, I slowed down to drink more water and saw something that looked like a deer fly chewing on my leg. Yuck! Oh well, killed that sucker, but if it was a deer fly like we had back east, that is going to take some time to heal.

So I got back on the bike and pedalled and pedalled and pedalled. OK, so I decided this wasn’t quite as much fun as when Pam and I rode and gossiped the whole time!

But then I got my reward. I came around this curve where the trail was nearer to the water. There is an area that has a few trees close to the lake and there is that real tall “swamp” grass. I looked in that direction, and there grazing away was a doe with her fawn! How cool was that!

I am always inspired by nature, and happening upon this beautiful deer family really made this trip special to me.

So I’m riding and looking at the deer, when the doe turned and looked at me. So cool! I did have a fleeting thought, “please don’t run in front of me!” After all, a cyclist had an up close and personal experience with a bear this past week in Boulder. He was riding, training for a race, travelling along about 45 miles an hour, when he rounded a curve and ran into a bear! The cyclist went down, suffering a severe case of road rash, and the bear was not happy! The bear screamed at the cyclist, but I guess he decided it wasn’t worth the effort, because he left without harming the cyclist. He was lucky! The cyclist, not the bear!

So I was pretty sure the doe wouldn’t hurt me if I ran into her, but I’m not sure the ground would have been as forgiving! But, not to worry. The doe just watched me and I just said hi and pedaled on my way. I guess that’s the cool thing about a bicycle. You don’t make much noise, so you have an opportunity to see wildlife.

But it really was cool! My treat for being good and working out. Next time I’ll have to take a camera or my Flip video. That would have been so cool to post here.

So, I finished my ride a happy camper! By the time I packed my bike back into the car and made it home it was about 10:30. So, my excursion took about an hour.

I had the forethought to wear my heart rate monitor and according to it, I burned 663 calories. Yeah! I can have a beer tonight at the cookout I’m going to!

Happy Fourth of July everyone. I hope you take time to be thankful for the freedoms we enjoy and share some special time with the people you care most about.