I, too, am a huge fan - although I'm finding it a little more difficult than when I started 3 months ago. No biggie though, it's still achievable and maintenance this way is easy. (I lowered my goal weight and despite the green bar I'm happy to consider myself in maintenance mode.)

I'm a sun-lover, I also love swimming, outdoor walking (like Baxie), daylight, and loads of fruit and vegetables so summer wins hands down for me. I really dislike being cold and I feel the cold easily. We get lots of very high winds and storms which makes outdoor walking on a regular basis almost impossible - Baxie, I'm seriously considering investing in an elliptical exerciser to use at home. Most of the fruit and veg we get is seasonal and local and there is a lack of variety over the winter months so it gets monotonous. Roll on next summer!

I've always been a breakfast lover but my breakfast has changed a lot over the years, from cereal and toast in England to Turkish style with bread, cheese, tomat, cucumber, olives, egg, etc. Now I have some kind of cereal like muesli, oats or granola with yogurt, fruit in season, honey and a sprinkle of toasted seeds like pumpkin and sunflower. This is about a third of my RDI and it keeps me full for about 6 hours till lunchtime.

Eritrea!

@Posterchild - re: stuff being not as good as you expected, I ate some Pringles last week, they used to be a favourite thing with a beer. On reaquaintance - they're disgusting!

Happy Sunday morning, Kingkeld! I don't think I do the diet in the same way as you do in that I don't calculate against RMR. However, once a week I do allow myself a day when I can eat more - usually 30 to 50% over RDI. On the best weeks, the remaining days I kept it just under RDI by about 5%. During the time when I was doing this carefully, I lost weight consistently every week. My target weight loss is only 5 kg anyway, and I was losing an average half a kilo a week (I'd have to look up the numbers to be sure). I think it is so worth it and definitely not a waste of time. Even though I don't usually feel deprived on my diet, because I include small, calorie counted portions of things I love anyway, the indulgence day allows me to eat out without worrying too much and to drink as much as I like on that evening, and that's how I usually use my indulgence day. In fact, if we're not going out, I don't usually use my indulgence. I'm reasonably careful on Indulgence not to go for 'heavy' foods - dishes that I know can make me feel bloated and overfull, because their effects continue for days with bloating and constipation. My indulgence calories are usually taken up by a little more cheese, olive-oil rich starter dishes, maybe some fried kalamari or prawns, a dessert (or half a one) and two or three alcoholic drinks. However, there are drawbacks. After weeks of using indulgence carefully, I think the security of knowing that we can go over RDI and still lose led to my sabotage of my efforts after reaching my goal weight. Personal psychology and willpower are, I think, both important factors in using indulgence successfully, but then, they are important in the whole journey, aren't they? Is this gonna be the subject of your book?

I don't know if there's an easier way but I input homemade dishes as recipes in my cookbook - you don't have to publish them, just save - then you can state how many it serves and FS will calculate calories for one serving. You can then go back to your cookbook and select a portion the next time you make the same meal.

I agree with Marlene's last post - small children will tell you they're thirsty but as we get older the signals can get muddled and we often don't recognise thirst for what it is. It's good to get into a water-drinking habit so that you measure your minimum requirement for the day in advance and work your way through it at short intervals. It soon becomes part of your way of life.

My advice - eat a healthy, balanced diet - no fads. Get fat secret to calculate your RDI then log EVERYTHING you put into your mouth in the food diary. Weigh yourself once a week and log the weigh-ins. Get yourself some buddies on fat secret. Try to increase the amount you exercise - even by 15 minutes a day - it will make a difference. Don't give up! Good luck!

I agree with all the previous comments - why bother? If you honestly log all your food in your food diary you can keep tabs on your calorie count and stick to a healthy, balanced diet that you can sustain.

Turks don't give Christmas wishes - but at new year they say Nice Mutlu Yillar "Many Happy Years!" pronounced neejay mootloo yul lar (approximately!!!)

I only started a week ago and lost 1.5kg in the first week :) I'm pretty much eating what I normally eat - loads of fruit and veg, but I've cut back drastically on the fat (olive oil and cheese mostly) and also cut out weeknight alcohol and the accompanying snacks.

Hi Groovegal, Well done you! When did you start? Seems like our start and goal weights are about the same. I agree that if you stick to it you'll see a loss again next week, but maybe you could try changing your workout to increase intensity or add one or two more exercise periods to your week. Whatever you do, don't give up, you're so close to your goal.