Bumping as we had a recent invasion.

If you have a blender at home you can make vegetable soup. Trader Joes has relatively decent packaged soups. Greek yogurt and smothies are also good options. You can buy protein powder and add to smothies or apple sauce. Another trick that I used when I had oral surgery and did not have time for cooking - baby food. You have to add salt, but it Is OK and you can last on it for a few days. It is super easy to eat after the surgery and portable.

Since my initial reply I did try cartoned one (curiosity). While I think different brands would taste slightly differently, it does not really taste like coconut milk. If you look at the calorie count and ingredients you will understand why. It is very dilluted and has very low calorie count, while real coconut milk has a lot of fat and very high calorie count. If you would want to compare it, it is more like heavy cream. You cannot drink it by the glass. So the cartoned drink would work better for milk substitute, but would hardly have health benefits of coconut milk. Having said this, please keep in mind that coconut milk is very high in fat and calories and can be part of your healthy lifestyle only if you use it sparingly and to replace less healthy fats and empty calories in your diet. I.e. there is no food that can help you lose weight if you overeat in general, but coconut oil and coconut milk are very good options for those who prefer to eat food that provides certain health benefits and do not just try to meet their daily calorie allotments.

[quote=mikefarinha][quote=Spac... If some Muppet thinks eating rubbish food but at a low calorie is going to be good for them long term that's their look out and not my job to educate them [/quote] Diablo360x meet Spacey47, Spacey47 meet Diablo360x.[/quote] Mike, touché. This brilliantly summarizes several months of pointless discussions!

[quote=Spacey47] Oh your being funny....you should have said so....oh gosh silly me [/quote] Me, funny? The first time I ask for advice and this is what I get. This is how you treat your devoted fan. I thought I finally found the missing link. Oh, well, I thought I could appeal to your rational and scientific mind, and you take me for a joker.

[quote=Spacey47] it sounds to me like your heart isn't in it, until it is things won't permanently change no matter what method you choose to achieve a calorie deficit[/quote] Spacey, I desperately need your advice. I always knew something was terribly wrong. Now I know what. I left my heart in San Francisco. That is why things never change permanently. San Francisco is not "it". But where is "it"? Where should my heart be? I need a scientific and rational opinion. Please.

Check your liver.

Spacey, this is exciting. Best workout I've seen in years. Is there any way you can do a youTube video and post it? It would be an immediate success. Otherwise it is so hard to do the lunges and read at the same time. Especially when it is all in capitals. I am not sure I would be able to memorize the routine. Video would be so much easier to follow. Also do you by any chance have some guidance on how to estmate calories shed? I also was not quite sure what is that that you throw? I had a moment of serendipity. May be the secret was in glugging water. Glugging burns so many more calories. What was I thinking when I was delicately sipping it. I promise you, I will only glug now. This is a lifestyle change and I have to be persistent.

You cannot unfortunately reduce fat in one particular spot. You can try to lose more fat overall and pray that at least some will come from your problem area. You can also try to tone more. If you are what they call "apple shape", with tendency to store fat around your waist and belly, you might have hormonal imbalance. High levels of stress (including stress from dieting and overtraining) affect your cortisol levels and cause you store fat in the belly area as well. Where we store fat on our bodies is very individual, and is caused partially by hormones, partially by genetics. So if you take good care of yourself, the belly fat will eventually go away or get reduced, but there is no one good trick that can help you to reach your goal faster.

You calorie needs are individual and depend on your weight, height, age and activity level. 2000 calories is just a number given as an example of daily needs calculations for micronutrients. It is not healthy to eat 2000 calories unless this number matches your needs. Otherwise you will be either gaining or losing weight depending on your personal daily energy expenditure.

Congratulations. Keep going. It is great that you are losing weight and feel healthier.

It should be OK if you don't get over your total net carbs for the day. Unfortunately if you really want control over what you eat go for one ingredient food items like ground pork, or make your own sausage from scratch. They tend to sneak sugar or corn syrup into all processed food.

You should not be juicing fruit. Try juicing green leafy vegetables, cellery, cucumbers, zucchini. Even carrots willl add too much sugar. If you try to add some fat to the juice (heavy cream for example) it slows absorption as well. Juicing can fit into any diet, you just need to select right vegetables. Yes you can and should eat vegetables whole as well. Juicing is just some extra insuarance that you get enough vitamins and mineralls from food and not from pills.

Just a wild guess, but I always feel hungry after I eat apples. I noticed you eat a lot of them. In theory, what you eat should not affect your hunger level, in practice it does. If you are allergic to any food, your body can interpret allergy as hunger. Also if you have any mineral or vitamin defficiency, your body can interpret it as hunger. What about your sleep patterns? If you are sleep deprived and lack energy you can also feel hungry. You already mentioned hormones, that can be a reason as well. Our brain is responsible for interpreting the signals it gets and sometimes it gets confused and interprets other issues as hunger. I hope you are able to figure it out soon.

The only advice I can give you is be patient and persistent. Some lose it fast, some lose it slow, but if you are persistent and patient you will lose it. You just lost 10 lb and you do not have that much to lose anyway. Your body needs time to adjust. Don't get discouraged.

Your symptoms might be caused by food intolerance or allergy, though can be caused by something else as well. You can be allergic to absolutely any food ingredient. It is very individual, as well as actual symptoms. If you suspect a particular food item, eliminate it from your diet, wait for about a month and see if it helps. Do not expect immediate relief as your body might need time to heal.

It is correct behavior of the application. It defaults to two activities - sleep and rest. This is because you burn the calories all day long, even when you sleep and rest. To add exercise, you need to replace some of the sleep or rest time with actual exercise. You cannot delete sleep or rest, just replace with X min of other activities. It is general consensus on the forum that replacing rest with activities like driving or desk work (i.e. low impact activities) will result in FS overestimating your calorie needs. So it makes sense to only track actual exercise or work that makes you burn a lot of calories.

Most likely water retention. Frustrating but happens to everybody. You should really only look at the overall trend over a few week, and do not pay attention to minor ups and downs.

I am both wheat and lactose intolerant. After staying away from all dairy for more than 2 decades I found out that my condition improved and I only need to avoid milk now, but am OK with smaller amount of lactose in fermented dairy products and cheese. Wheat is becoming a bigger problem though. Like most people I first tried to find substitutes for my favorite foods, but soon realized that "fakes" don't taste same, and usually contain questionable ingredients. I still use Silk soy milk every now and then, but try not to make it a staple in my diet. Tried to experiment with other brands as well as different brands of commercial nut and rice milks. Too many chemicals added, and do not like the taste, they also taste too watery for me. Same with most gluten free immitation of real bread or baked goods. Though found some good staff like lentil crackers, that I eat occasionally. I decided I would rather learn new recipes and cook dishes that do not require adding dairy and flour than try to adjust old ones. Works rather well, there is plenty of tasty dishes that are both dairy and wheat free, especially if you are willing to go outside the box and look into other countries cousine. Eating out is more of a challenge. I do not always want to advertise my intolerances, and had a few unpleasant moments when everybody wanted to share pizza and I had to order something else for myself and explain why. Also some food in the restaurants can contain wheat or milk even though it does not seem to belong there. You can always ask the waiter (if he cares to give you correct information), but again it depends on who you are dining with. It is not a very appropriate topic for a business lunch. Good luck, you need to find what works for you, but you can still eat well and enjoy your food too.

You can have small, medium or large body frame (which can be calculated by measuring your wrist or elbow). If you have large frame calculate your normal BMI by adding 10% to the numbers that are used by calculators. If your frame is small you have to substract 10%. BMI is also only relatively accurate for medium height, if you are shorter or taller than average, your numbers are also off. I have large frame, so even though I still have some weight to lose, I am not aiming for lower range. And I will never be size 2 either. As for skinny, statistics does not support this theory either. People with low BMI do not live longer, and are not healthier. Anyway it is statistics, we are individuals, and when applied to one person statistics does not work. We all need to try to take good care of ourselves, but weight by itself is not a good measurement of health. Lots of people unfortunately lose weight when in poor health. We are so concerned with losing weight, that sometimes do not even realize that there are lots of people on this site who are tracking their calorie intake to gain weight or make sure they do not lose more.