Wow I did not realize I had left this so long. Between some remodeling and fall with lots of yard work and leaf raking, time has just slipped by.

Sort of good news - I went to the doctor in mid Oct and found out I have lost almost 35 pounds this year. My scale at home is still acting weird so I wasn't sure. I am only averaging about a pound or two a month since early summer and going low carb but as long as it is going down, it is still better than gaining. My problem with low carb, I still end up sometimes eating a couple of apples or yogurt cups here and there and blow the day for dieting but still stay within maintenance. I can live without potatoes, rice and most flour products but I love raisins, nuts, apples and oranges and have a hard time staying away from them - especially when I find a great sale on them.

Now speaking of gaining, the holiday season is here. I have already been invited to Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners and have more things planned at church. I know I am going to pig out and enjoy those dinners plus the electric bill is already rising so I am going to go back to low fat for a few months. I will stop worrying about carbs and be strict most of the time and hope it will balance out the fun stuff. I will be back to low carb after the holidays or when the electric bills go back down in the spring so this is a month to month thing.

I bought a 50 lb bag of potatoes today and will split all the meat into single servings before I put them in the freezer. I will be up to my elbows in cling wrap for hours tomorrow LOL.

Also on the menu, unbleached organic flour to bake bread, make pasta and drop biscuits and toppings for some mini homemade pot pies in my Express cooker. I bought lots of bags of fruit, bags and bags of nuts in the shell, some clearance veggies and lots of nonfat yogurt. I decided on peanut butter and sugar free fruit only preserves on stone ground crackers and bagels for snacks. No chips or stuff full of preservatives like last winter. I am hoping I won't be as sluggish.

My only problem - I haven't figured out what to do for my chocolate cravings. I may try to remember to pick up some Hershey's syrup and experiment with low fat cream cheese for some type of cheese cake. Also I still have about 20 bags of those SF Hershey's chocolate chips in the freezer. My friend Debby loves them in Cool Whip. I tried that and tried adding them to SF vanilla ice cream but found them very hard to bite into. I also tried to melt them and add them to the ice cream but it hardened immediately. Oh well, more experimenting in my future LOL.

Happy Dieting,
Linda B in TN:)