Interesting article Keld. The food really looks tasty, I could go for some of that right now! XD I do have a bit of a pet peeve when people compare or blame this on the US or US restaurants. I have traveled through many countries. KFC & McDonalds are doing awesome business all over the world. People in the US have more options and more of these restaurants, but if there were as many places like that anywhere, the results will be the same. It is happening in the Middle East right now, and I am sure everywhere else these restaurants are popping up. The food court here in Bahrain has dozens of restaurants of all varieties. Only 2 are consistently packed, McDonalds and KFC. Why, because it tastes good! Some countries like Japan or Italy have an issue where they feel "Only our food is best". Its not a bad thing, actually its good. Eventually they will learn that fries and burgers taste best too! Much like with drugs, or booze, we cant ban fast food, it wont help. People would cook burgers in their back rooms! OMG! lol Its about education. Its about what most of us do here on FS. Anyway, interesting article. I think it goes straight to the point of food porn, "Ohh that sounds/looks yummy! I Want that!" with no regard to the ramification afterwards. Sadly when people go out to eat at restaurants, thats what they want. That is why no healthy food restaurants will ever survive. Its just bad business, making no money.

Helewis, I really like yours, I may steal it all! My resolutions: 1 - Lose Weight - Goal 185. That's 30 lbs from now, 20 lbs from my pre holiday weight. Should be no problem really. 2 - Cycling - I want to do a Century (100 miles). That will be my only cycling goal that is "resolution worthy" besides to "keep cycling!" Thanks Keld, and all for inspiration. I used to despise resolutions (Maybe I still do), but these are realistic and something I would like to do.

He has spellcheck issues for sure, its Dear buddy I am sure. HCB rules!

I will concur with the folic acid recommendation. Its good for people taking medicines who have those issues too. Its cheap, and it helps with retaining hair.

Absolutely false. I have gone crazy with booze, and usually end up with a new low the following week. I could highlight many dates on my calendar for you, this week will be another one. Yes, its empty calories, yes, we lose control of our diets. Duh. Now, Can I erase a week of my weight loss by going on a weekend bender? Yes. But in your system of "indulgence day" which is a single day, I have not found it easy to stall me for a week. I can certainly stall a few days. Bottom line is, I think we can all agree if your serious about weight loss it often means limiting or eliminating your alcohol intake. Many diets suggest 30 days of abstinence starting out. /Cheers! (hic) JP

You can look at my weight history. I started a few times, maybe third time is the charm! It gets into your head and haunts you, lol.

I have a lot of "associations" that are really tough on my diet. Snacking with TV is a big one. So is cold beer by the pool or BBQ, etc. It is tough to beat out habits and psychology that we have trained ourselves for over the years. So, you are absolutely right in your assessment of why it is happening. Do not worry, just like smoking, it does get better! If your just starting out, your doing the right thing. Substitute it with something healthy, talk about it, acknowledge it. I remember posting to facebook "I am hungry, but I am not gonna eat". It was late at night while watching TV. I had my 3 good meals. as you go through this journey, you may find like I did that snacking in general is bad, and you stick to (or try to) your 3 square meals. I found early on surrounding myself with nuts, fruits, veggies, just kept me snacking. I would buy all kinds of "healthy treats" to have around me. Guess what? I ate them! So I found I even have to limit that. But yes, the baby carrots are great. I use them alot, and still do. They are sweet, crunchy, and quite a lot of them is hardly any calories.

It becomes habit or second nature to know the amounts, serving sizes, etc after a while. IE, it gets easier. Also your appetite eventually subsides or gets more normal, and it also leads to it being easier. That being said, logging and tracking is essential in my opinion, and I still do it. Bottom line is, starting is the hard part! It does get easier! Good luck!

Feel free to add me if you need more buddies. It always helps.

FS started for me as a calorie counter app to log food (and exercise too). And I like my journals, always have. Then I weighed in weekly, now i weigh in daily, and I like it. For exercise info, recipes, supplement info, and other information I go elsewhere mostly. FS to me is almost like a "starter" site to get you going on this journey. Many people take off into running, cycling, or other forms of exercise and this site may not be a suitable community for that purpose. Suffice to say, some of us outgrow FS for healthy reasons. Mark13, what you describe above sounds like live strong. While there is a ton of data there, much of it is not very useful. Kind of like about dot com. Its like they expect the users to have just crawled out from under a rock, and be "Oh, eating vegetables is good for me???"

Shh, your gonna make someone hungry with your silliness! And I think the King can throw down on 4KG of chocolate in one sitting, no problem. After that, he would throw down a wicked bass groove too.

Awesome Keld, glad I could help!

A wise man once told me "Its 80% what you eat, and 20% what you do". I believe it now. I tried the other way, I really did. Fried chicken + jogging = still fat.

The quick and dirty rule of thumb is 1200 for women, 1500 for men. My paid visit to a nutritionist confirmed that exactly, as has quite a few posts on this site. Blah blah, eat more fruits and veggies, fish and chicken, yada yaght. Chalk up the amount of inaccuracy and subconscious or conscious cheating you do to yourself when logging food, and those are solid numbers. I shoot for 1500 a day, knowing its probably around 1800 actual. I lose weight just fine on that, but I am now semi-active.

Agree with the King, Indulgence works for me. And 2 months is not all that long, it is a good stretch though. I often get stuck at a weight zone for 2-3 weeks, and just have to keep pluggin and chuggin. It will eventually work itself out if you chillax. Also, something I found while injured. Sometimes even it is good to completely lay off all exercise, and get your appetite and calories in check. Then and only then ease back into activity. I ruptured my achilles a month into my journey and was laid up on the sofa about a month. My appetite declined noticeably, and my weight loss also worked out just fine.. It was tough fighting off the "eating out of boredom" syndrome. Often we are all like "I want it now" and rush headlong into activity & diet expecting miracles, and our bodies work against us. It is basic math/chemistry whatever if you throw a fat body into motion, its gonna want more food (fuel). Then you have cravings, pains, etc etc. Good luck!

Yes, that is what I do with a few of my meals, and other hard to find foods in the DB. It is clunky, and I still dont understand how the saved meals get chosen to show up on my "Top 3."

I really like(d) Jennette Fulda, but alas her weight loss journey moved into other territories due to other issues such as headaches and vicodin, lol. She was fun to read though. Still is... Other than that not much else for me. But will be interesting to see your responses.

Good topic, I will be interested too. I have a ways to go though before I want to do this.

Sometimes I wonder if this argument is not simply based on the fact that if you get up at a reasonable hour, your spacing your meals out too far eating at 9PM. I know for me, my 7AM breakfast, noon lunch, waiting until 9-10 would be very tough. Also, its wild because other cultures I have visited, Europe (Italy), and the Middle East typically eat at 9-10PM at night. Because of the heat? Because of their different work schedules? Are they obese? (Not yet, but soon!!) I can accept that it is not a problem for me (to eat late), but I have had "old people" around me for the past 20 years. To them (And now me) eating at 6PM is late. :-) By 9PM all my diet rules would be tossed out the window, and I would probably have consumed empty calories and assaulted the pizza man. /Cheers, JP

Agree with Kingkeld 100 billion percent! I have been doing 1500 cals a day, with some crazy spike days! Every week, despite myself, I have been losing weight. So, the spike/cheat/indulgence day works for me. 1500 calories is something I can easily work with, any cravings get curbed by cheat day. Its quite nice. Good luck! Also, Awesome job so far on your weight loss! That really is impressive. So dont give up the fort yet, you have accomplished a ton (no pun intended), lol. I am sure you just need to throw something new into the mix. Like I said before cheat day has worked well, and I have taken up biking.