The weekends are my free meals. Yesterday I had poptarts and today I had peanut butter cups. No low blood sugar no cravings I just enjoyed having the higher carb stuff. Tomorrow is back to protein!

3-4 weeks ago I had joined the 500 crunches/day challenge. The next day I had a really severe headache. It went away the next I exercised it came back and I threw up all day. I had pulled a muscle the trapezius, when I moved and all those crunches ripped it. The nerves of that muscle go into the neck. I was so scared they a really strong muscle relaxant and weighed me because it causes rapid weight gain. For some reason I just didn't care about my diet much and gained a few pounds. I started going to physical therapy and my apartment was robbed while I was gone and the robbers took my car keys and came back and stole my SUV.

The good thing is, I have to rent a car to go grocery shopping, so I started living on the meat I had in the freezer, and I started losing weight. I can eat all the meat I want and my weight goes down. I walk to the exercise room, where of course there's a candy machine. I feel compelled to do some exercise once I get there. So I have some junk on the weekend but I have to walk 3 miles to get it!

Well as they necessity is the mother of invention. But an awful way to have to get there!! What a total bummer to get robbed like that. How did the robbers gain entry into your place?
While I don't like the traffic on the busy secondary road where I live, I actually think its a deterrant to a degree. (Although I have planted a thick tropical garden that now hides my place anyway so it probably doesn't matter now!) I have security doors and windows everywhere.

Anyway, glad to hear you are losing and at least this might help cheer you up after all those dreadful events. How are your muscles going now? I did the all meat fast many years ago, but it gave me ectopic heart beats from the extreme ketosis so can't do that.

Are you going to replace your vehicle? I wonder if you would consider the planet and get something that doesn't use much gas, unless of course you had a reason for owning a SUV..none of my business, but the hurricanes and other world weather disasters makes me worry about all this.. I am an active environmentalist and so its always in the forefront of my noggin, alongside the health/weight/exercise bit.. Apologies in advance if I offend in any way with these comments.

No wonder we didn't hear from you for a while there!! Hope you are feeling OK now.

Nancy, I have a question about the greek style yogurt, if you don't mind. Was the whey that you drained off the yogurt opaque? I was expecting it to be clear and a little more liquid, so I'm wondering if I didn't use enough cheesecloth. I have drained about half in a couple of hours...does it need to be drained for a long time? I'm using goat's milk yogurt. Thank you for any feedback. I'm allergic to cow's whey and thought I'd try this.~Gail

I am too an environmentalist who is obsessed with health/weight. Valewis, are you a member of any environmental organizations? I constantly try to get everyone to recycle at my work. I was once called the recycling nazi, a la Seinfeld.

Nawchem-- sorry to hear about your misfortune. My heart goes out to you.

Gail, I didn't use any cheese cloth. The liquid wasn't entirely clear, sort of like watered down milk. My strainer is very fine mesh and none of the yogurt fell through. My yogurt gave between 1-1.5 cups of liquid out. I let it drain overnight in the fridge. Also, I notice there's always a little more whey left. It starts to puddle up a tiny bit when you begin using the yogurt. But I don't fret, its far far less. I think Alton Brown explained that stirring or disturbing yogurt makes it release the whey.

I don't strain greek yogurt though, I think it is already strained.

Nancy, if you get to replace your old car with a new one, I highly recommend the Scion. I have the Xb (extra boxy). It is shaped like an SUV, but small. It has tons of room if you fold down the back seat and it gets up to 35 mpg! I adore mine! I felt a little self-conscious driving it at first, but its a darn nice little vehicle.

Even better, my parents were able to get in and out of it so easily compared to my old sedan.

I may not get a car for a while, for about 5 years I was taking the train to work and just drove my car for the other stuff. I don't know how well the train/bus system works here. It sure beats buying gas. I'm a hiker and some trails you have to have some type of truck, but I'm not sure how things are here. Also not sure about the snow thing. I had considered getting a hybrid, the toyota suv hybrid is coming out 2006. I may just go to san diego and get my sports car, I'll have to tow it here as I don't think it would make up the mountains-14,000 ft. I have had some Jeep Wrangler fantasies-its a twofer, convertible and off road vehicle.

I finished my carbup day and am back to protein today. Gee, I have no appetite at all. My bodyfat has been going down on my tanita so I'm actually looking forward to measuring, probably when I get to goal.

Nancy who makes the scion? I'll look that up.

It's built by Toyota.

Val they came in through the window in broad daylight which was amazing to me. They cut out the screen. When the police came they showed how you can get any window to open just by messing with it. I've been having a hard time sleeping since they showed me that. But they said people that have any kind of siren or alarm will probably not get robbed since its just not worth the effort to the average crook. so when I finally get to go out I will be buying one of those bars so they would have to actually break the window to get in.

I would advice everyone to hide their spare keys. The robbers went through all my things even dumped the film out of the cannisters, dumped the coffee, went through my sewing kit. So it has to be a well thought out spot.

I used to watch this show on the discovery channel (I think) it was two former thieves who would randomly pick a house, get agreement from the owners, then they'd rob them. Of course, they got their stuff back and a security remodel afterwards, but it was VERY informative and interesting.

One thing they talked about was keys to cars, snowmobiles and such and how sometimes they take them and come back later for the car!

PBGirl, yes I am the Vice President of the Sunshine Coast Environment Council which is an umbrella org for our region, which includes 4 shires (similar to maybe 2 counties in area) and
about a half dozen or so towns scattered through...only about 250000 people and rapidly growing. I may be Pres. very soon as ours is away working all the time and hasn't been making meetings....I have had to stand in for her for months now.

Nawchem, when I bought my townhouse, which is right in a busy little tourist town, I had security screens installed on all windows and patio doors..these ones consists of metal grids (large-look like colonial windows). In summer you can leave the glass window or door open as these screens will provide safety.
The ones that are doors have keyed safety bolts and the ones on the windows are permanent and can only be removed from the inside. The downside of their design is that with the doors you have to keep them locked all the time because a thief could slit the flyscreen, reach a hand through the grid and unlock it otherwise. But they are attractive and made of steel so I feel pretty safe thus far...

LOL one time I built a house in the tropics. Now, the design was of course very open for breezes, and it was built inside a gated community. Still people freaked that I had no security. I said that unless you had an enclosed place (as I do now) there is not any way you can really do it, as a motivated burglar is just going to smash windows etc. SO better to just leave it easy to get in and hide the valuables. I had a safe. As this development was built at the end of a fairly steep climb and you couldn't access it by car due to being gated, my reasoning was that single burglars would only be able to carry cash or jewelry anyway. It worked for the year I lived there... the person who bought it enclosed it sadly.

Nawchem, delighted to hear you are going to think about a hybrid car...way to go! Nancy's sounds terrific too. My SIL had a fairly new Jeep Wrangler- it had a huge V8 motor and ate gas.
Of course if your sports car is economical and will do around town, you could always just rent a SUV for going on difficult hikes etc, as it would be a lot cheaper than owning and maintaining one just for those occasions. JMO of course, I add hastily!

Vegas did me in I ate pretty well, but the cocktails were pretty much endless. So I'm back to 277 today. Not a problem, I suspect it's mostly water. I'm back on psmf today. Hope to see the 260s again asap!

Look on the bright side of this; you probly knocked out any flu virus into the next millenium! LOLOL!

Cindy, that's my downfall every friggen weekend. My partner orders wine from Napa Valley. We end up with bottles of wine all weekend... I wish alcohol could be low calorie.....

Weeellll... don't know how this suggestion will go over but you could make the wine lower calorie by making wine spritzers?

Hey, I have to give up beer for a couple of months while I try out a gluten free diet. Not that I drink it often, but I like a beer when I'm having dinner with friends.

Security screen idea sounds great! I looked at the Jeep Wrangler and it is the 2nd most commonly stolen vehicle in Colorado. Its kind of funny my sportcar only gets 20mpg but my suv got 30.

Doing my freemeal the Cad way worked pretty well, even with 2 in a row. I'm up 0.5lb. Yesterday was my first day back to LC and I had awful cravings.