........ well, I'm back ................ Not sure what happened in the meantime, but I gained it all back and then some, without paying a lot of attention to what I was doing.

A couple of months ago, I got a strong feeling that I wasn't going to be around much longer if I didn't get serious and do something right away. Time to get serious.

My brother did some version of PSMF (protein-sparing modified fast) using shake mixes, etc. (maybe Optifast?) last year, with dramatic results. I looked for a version that uses normal foods for most of it, and decided on Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss.

I started Aug 3 with 6 days of Atkins-style Induction, then switched over to RFL. LM recommends 2 "relief meals" per week at this stage, and a break of 1-2 weeks every 6-12 weeks. Among other things, planning your "cheats" apparently makes it easier to get back on plan. I intend a 1-week break in October, after 9 weeks, and probably a 2-week break at Christmas after 9 more weeks on plan.

In case anybody's interested, this plan bases its calculations on estimated Lean Body Mass. For people with average bone structure and musculature (not me!), it can be approximated using height, I think. His website has a calculator to do the conversion. I lied to it to get a number I thought was realistic at the time - now I think the actual value is probably about halfway between the two numbers. I'll redo the calculations in October before I restart. And, over Christmas, I plan to look up a place that will do Body Fat Percentage measurements to get a more accurate number.

The plan is 1g protein per pound of LBM per day, eat non-starchy vegetables at every meal, and limit fat and carbs to 5g (or less) each, per meal. It's not a lot of food. Some days are hard, but over all, it hasn't been as hard as I expected. And the scales have been kind to me.