Well, if you're talking about that Calorie Counter assessment, I really like it, but it is only a general guide, and probably based on a "one size fits all" function. However, I am coming in consistently very low on fiber which is odd since I always thought I ate a lot of fiber. I'm trying to fix that. Basically I think I'm coming in low in fiber because I'm just not eating that many calories. I'm also low in calcium but I knew that and have been taking calcium/magnesium supplements with a vit. C chaser for years. They make a huge difference in how well I sleep and help me avoid "restless leg syndrome." Other than that, I take a multi-vitamin and acidophilous every day. That's plenty IMHO. Most vitamins are not stored by the body, so you're just peeing away money by taking a lot of supplements. BF swears high dose B vitamins give him energy, but they just give me weird dreams. I'd rather take my fish oil in the form of fish. I guess I should do flax, but I don't at this point. The best thing is to freshly grind the seeds but I'm not organized enough to do that. I also come in low in iron, but the body stores iron so you don't have to have adequate intake every day. Too much iron is toxic, so I just have some iron pills which I take every once and a while, with a C chaster for absorption. Calcium blocks iron, and iron is absorbed best on an empty stomach, and my thyroid medicine blocks calcium too. So timing and absporption are important with taking vitamins. I take my calcium at night, my multi and acidophilous with lunch, and my eye vitamins and iron if I'm taking it, before breakfast. Oh yeah, I have macular degeneration so I take Lutein with some other antioxidants. Probably futile. My mom has it so it is probably genetic. I don't have the worst kind though.

See below link in Organic Rose forum .. everyone is welcomed there to post on organic gardening & healthy eating & losing weight. I will post my daily progress in the below link, and I hope you'll join me so we can motivate & inspire one another to take better care of ourselves ... that's more important than gardening or roses. http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3579603/12-29-15-foods-to-lose-weight-daily-journal-toward-health-and-joy

See link below on some tips to lose weight, from Chi, originally posted in cooking forum. Also appreciate JohnLiu's honesty & humor. Below link also has pics. of portion-sizes: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3579603/12-29-15-foods-to-lose-weight-daily-journal-toward-health-and-joy?n=21 WebMD on foods that help with weight loss: http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/9-foods-to-help-you-lose-weight?page=2 Eggs and Sausage A protein-rich breakfast may help you resist snack attacks throughout the day. Nuts Research shows that when people munch on nuts, they automatically eat less at later meals. Apples Whole fruit blunts appetite in a way that fruit juices and sauces don’t. One reason is that raw fruit has more fiber. Yogurt A Harvard study followed more than 120,000 people for a decade or longer. Yogurt, of all the foods that were tracked, was most closely linked to weight loss. Grapefruit Yes, grapefruit really can help you shed pounds, especially if you are at risk for diabetes. Researchers at Scripps Clinic in San Diego found that when obese people ate half a grapefruit before each meal, they dropped an average of 3 ½ pounds over 12 weeks. Drinking grapefruit juice had the same results. **** From Straw: Agree on eggs & I use sprouted & high protein Ezekiel bread. Agree on nuts and apple ... Sunflower seeds rank second to sesame seed in lowering cholesterol ... both are highest in plant sterols. Here's from ABC news: " A team of Japanese researchers split 210 overweight people into three groups. While everyone consumed a daily 7-ounce serving of fermented milk, two of the groups drank milk spiked with varying amounts of a probiotic called Lactobacillus gasseri SBT2055 which past research has tied to fat loss. After 12 weeks, people slugging the probiotic milk formulas dropped roughly 8 to 9 percent of their visceral fat." http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/probiotics-lose-weight/story?id=19607875 The below link offers clinical assessment of which yogurt is hype, and which probiotics is beneficial: http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/nah_probiotics.pdf For probiotics supplement which contains Acidophilus gasseri, Dr. Oz Show recommends Phillips Colon health. The year that I lost weight fast ... I had a tiny bit of Dannon yogurt for desert after every meal. A few days ago Google News had an article on how beneficial bacteria signal fullness so mice consume less per meal. Having yogurt AFTER meal makes sense, since the beneficial bacteria help to signal fullness. A few lean countries have a yogurt after meal. The timing of eating yogurt: right after meals matter more than the amount, See below WebMD info." A study published in the April 2005 International Journal of Obesity looked at obese adults who cut 500 calories a day while consuming three daily servings of low-fat yogurt. It found that they lost significant amounts of fat, especially around the waist, while maintaining lean muscle tissue. The three-yogurts-a-day group lost 22% more weight, 61% more body fat, and 81% more stomach fat than a comparison group who ate just one serving of yogurt daily. http://www.webmd.com/diet/french-womens-diet-secret-yogurt Below are some cherry tomato from my garden. They freeze well, and are much sweeter than big tomato. They are fantastic in soups for the winter, or I put in Ramen noodles, with kale, or Nappa cabage & shrimp. What are your healthy recipes, tips to eat more produce, any recipes for raw salads? Thanks.

I think at some point I will perhaps get into this "kefir-ing" but not right yet. I am just super busy. Don't know if I will be any more successful than I was at "sourdough-ing" which I tried at the beginning of the pandemic. The problem with that was, we just don't eat enough baked goods to make it worthwhile expending the time and energy maintaining a starter. Even the lowest maintenance options. We just don't eat a lot of baked goods. I'd love to eat more, but it just can't happen for a whole lot of reasons. On the flip side, kefir sounds like something we would consume on a daily basis, either water or milk. I can get good dairy kefir with live cultures at my local grocery, but it is something like 4-5 dollars a pint so I don't normally buy it. But I will take you all up on the offers of help at some point if I can. Kefir water sounds great because I actually don't like plain water. Practically have to force it down. For whatever reason plain water does not sit well with me. I often drink flavored soda water but that's not the cheapest way to stay hydrated. Am slowly recovering the use of my digestive tract. Ironically, I don't eat many of the fodmap foods anyway, not a fan of onions and garlic, although I do eat them in small amounts, and I rarely eat fresh pears or apples. Hubs eats and apple a day, but not me. That's because of the aforementioned dislike of drinking water, so I often dilute water with fruit juice, and that's how I have tended to consume my fruit calories a lot of the time. I drink a lot of cider and apple juice, don't know if that contributes to digestive issues, I think not but I can certainly cut down on the apple juice . . . the other fodmap no-no that I eat regularly though, is beans. But I've been eating beans my whole adult vegetarian life. I think with them the issue is being well-soaked ahead of time, and cooked, and the skins broken down or sieved out. Also the time of day you eat them, earlier is much better since stuff moves through your digestive tract (when it is functioning properly) faster during the day when you are up and moving. I have been limiting my bean intake and also pureeing the beans, which takes some of the digestive issues off the table . . .