One thing that I am learning, Lut, and I will probably let this be the answer to your PM (just wanted you to know I got it), is that you need to keep food in your body at regular intervals. If I only ate when I was hungry, I wouldn't be eating very much. In fact, I'm eating more food now than I was before I started dieting. But I'm eating more of the right things, too. I don't eat after 8 pm at night if I can help it and I'm making myself eat breakfast, which I didn't normally do during the week Today and yesterday have been hard because I had a root canal yesterday afternoon and I am in a lot of pain and don't feel like chewing (also got very sick from the pain meds this morning).

Anyway, another big "no no" on the diet I am on is high levels of sodium. I have cut my Diet Coke consumption back to no more than 2 cans per day. I drank far more than that normally. I have always been a big water drinker, too, and I'm drinking even more now than I was (another big thing they push). You'd be astonished at what contains sodium. Fresh frozen fish and shrimp in the grocery store is high in sodium content! I had no idea. I bought Boca Burgers because I thought that would be good for us if we liked them. We loved them, but then I read the label! Vegetarian food contains huge amount of sodium! I read the labels on vegetarian cheese and other products and it is all that way.

We are eating chicken breast, lean beef like sirloin and tenderloin (which is quite expensive), plus ground turkey, and all kinds of fish and shellfish (as long as they are fresh). No pork! Scott bought a meat grinder to fit onto my Kitchen Aid mixer and we have been grinding our own chicken breasts and sirloin. The George Forman Grill has been used a lot as well as the grill! There are great seasonings available that do not contain salt, too, so I've been experimenting with those. And I use a lot of vegetable spray since I am very limited on how much oil/fat I can have (1 serving/day and I'm not going to blow it on a little cooking oil LOL!!). Everything is tracked in a diary and I get only so many of each of the food groups each day, but I need to use them all. My daughter is doing it too, and she gets to eat a lot more than I do as a result of her age and exercise (as well as the fact that she is not trying to lose nearly as much as I am). We weigh a lot of it on a food scale (especially the meat) and measure amount of our fruits and vegetables to make sure we don't exceed the quantities we are allowed.

This was an enormous decision for me. I've always fought against formal dieting because I don't like to fail and I always see lots of people get on a band wagon, talk about it all the time, then not follow through and gain all their weight back. I didn't want to be one of those people so I really had to be ready, and finally I was.

I'm trying to lose 48 pounds so I have quite a ways to go, but I feel confident that I can do it now that I'm into the program. I have high blood pressure and take medication daily. My doctor and I talked about it and although he had not ever said a word about my weight, I asked him if he thought I could come off of it if I lost the weight and he said there is a high chance that I will be able to. That's enough reason to do it!

I wish good luck to all of you. I know how good I'm going to feel when I'm done and it will have been worth every penny I have spent to get there. I'm sure!

Logan