I'm reading this while eating some absolutely delightful fresh melon for breakfast. If the melon isn't soft enough on its own you could add it to a fruit smoothie.

It's very easy to cook your own edamame, and by doing so you can control exactly how much salt is on them as well as other seasonings.

[url=http://fatsecret.com/reci... sweet pears[/url] are a really excellent 150-calorie dessert too. Also, here's a [url=http://fatsecret.com/reci... mousse clone[/url] that's less than 100 calories. I think you'll be able to see that with a direct link.

I won't eat artificial sweeteners, so I tend toward fruit-based desserts. My favorite thing to do is to make individual fruit crisps. I slice up an apple, or grab a handful of berries, then put the fruit into a ramekin. I usually precook this in a microwave for 2-3 minutes. Separately, I melt about a teaspoon of butter and mix it with some rolled oats, cinnamon, and teaspoon or two of brown sugar. This mixture gets sprinkled on top of the fruit, then I pop the whole thing into a 375o oven until it looks done.

I don't think fruit is mandatory, but it certainly has value as part of a healthy, balanced diet. Does fruit work for you as an ingredient, rather than as an end unto itself? As Rita41 suggests, fruits blend really well into green salads. You can also mix some fruits into oatmeal. Apricots pair well with chicken. You can make fun salads with fennel and oranges or apples or pears. If you don't like sweet, but you want fruit, you can try to incorporate less-sweet fruits like cranberries, grapefruit, tart cherries, etc.

Teaching you to fish: Google has an excellent units converter available to you. If you search for "1 cup in mililters", you'll see what I mean. You can do this for all sorts of units. One of my favorites is "one furlong per fortnight in miles per year".

See a physical therapist. Meloxicam was sort of a wonder drug for my shoulder.

For jogging, you should go to a running store and get properly fitted. You want shoes that fit your feet, not mine, so any recommendation that I give you will probably be wrong.

Bear in mind that one gram of carbohydrate is four calories. Basic math says that you can't find a food that has carbohydrates but no calories. The most efficient way to get carbohydrates without any non-carb calories would be sugar. One teaspoon of sugar contains 4.2g of carbohydrates and 16 calories. I'm not saying that this is a good idea, mind you... I'm just setting the floor for what is possible. Similar but more practical: five medium strawberries have 4.6g of carbohydrate and 19 calories. An ounce of blueberries is in the same ballpark.

It could be lack of sleep, PMS, sodium intake... any number of things.

No, you should not stop consuming fats. Your body requires fats in order to operate. http://www.tracidmitchell.com/...

FatSecret tends to overestimate calorie intake. I would start around, oh, maybe 3000 and see how your body reacts to that.

There's no need to make up new ones! We already have Raspberry Ketones, HCG, green tea extract, Hoodia, and about a zillion other types of snake oil.

It would, however, be a good way to make your wallet significantly lighter.

phoenixflameamy, I've yet to see any peer-reviewed scientific studies that suggest that alkaline water has an effect on weight loss.

I'm sure there's something that would make water more alkaline, but you could achieve the same effect (or more) simply by taking a couple of Tums every day. I can guarantee that it will be a lot cheaper than alkaline water systems.

Your body doesn't go into starvation mode after a day or two of fasting.

There are lots of good body weight exercises. Crunches, push-ups, and squats are a few of the classic ones that you're probably already aware of, but there are lots of others. You can also take a walk or go for a fun.

Yes, you can. One way to do it: Search for the item you want. On the right side of the page, fairly far down, click the link to add a new item. Set it to "my own custom food entry" unless you want to share it. Enter the info, and save it.

Prunes work wonders and they're tasty.