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.

My quote of this page is : Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again. Andre Gide

Super! Others will chime in, and probably do a much more in depth job than I. I'll start you off though with what I feel comfortable with. 1. No, I didn't root prune. First time I repoted 4 5 years ago, the roots were were wrapped around the soil. The second time I repoted, to the actual pot, 2 or 3 years ago the roots hadn't grown so much as the first time. 2. I used regular house plants potting soil with neutral ph (7 i think). The soil is rather airy, not dense or heavy. It has good drainage I think. When the time comes, youre going to want to strip all that soil off, bare root it, and prune 1/3 of the roots away. Any that are old (brown), dead, circling, or taproot looking (growing straight down). Keep all the thin hairlike fibrous roots, they are what you need for a healthy plant. Get rid of all that bagged soil media is step one. [Here is a link you will find especially helpful![(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/why-root-prune-when-you-repot-dsvw-vd~2025020) 3. I'm watering once a week during winter time, and once every 4-5 days in summer. I pour approximately 1 liter of water. It is water from my own water source, so it is not treated with anything. I have just a couple of filters in place at the pump. Are any of these filters salt based? When you water, can you bring that big plant somewhere where youre flushing the soil well at least once a month? Don't water on a schedule, water when the plant needs it. Best way I have gleaned from others here it to use a wooden dowel (1/4" and 5/16" fit in a pencil sharpener!) and insert it all the way to the bottom of the pot. Count to ten and pull it out. If it's wet, wait to water. You want to water when just the sharpened tip of the dowel is moist. This thread is HUGE, and very intimidating. trust me, it will solve all your issues and get you back to enjoying this coffee tree! Take the time to read it and all the comments. TRUST ME! :) 4. To be honest, not really. I put some fertilizer in the water especially from March to October, but not I'm not rigurous about it. I often forget. Then from October to March rarely. And I used some fertilizer for palm trees or tropical plants, found in the supermarket. I'm quite afraid of not using too much... As you'll see in that thread, you want to use at least some fertilizer. if you don't have the desire, time, or want to add fert at a low dose at each watering, that's ok! At the very least add some Controlled Release Fertilizer (CRF). A lot of folks here (myself included) use Dynagro Folaige Pro 9-3-6. I use it at the maintenance dose which is 1/4tsp per gallon at each watering, and flush the soil often. Further reading and discussion on fertilize in containerized plants can be found here. Long read, but again, TRUST ME! 5. The tree is positioned near a glass door which is facing east, and there's another window facing south. I would say it has enough light from the end of March until October. Right now the sun rises at 8 and sets just after 5 in the evening, so pretty short days. Also most of the days it is overcast from November until March. I am by no means a Coffee tree grower, i'll let other determine if this is enough light or not. From what I have briefly read they are a tolerant species capable of full sun to limited light such as an east window. 5a. I never got it outside, no. I wanted to, but never decided where I should position it, as to no have the foliage "burned" by direct sunlight. It will love the outdoors, lets see what more experienced growers suggest for where to put it. 6. Romania, Eastern Europe. Equivalent to USDA hardiness zone 7a to 6b. Similar to me. Don't repot or prune until around the end of May. The plant will need to build up energy reserves after a dark winter, and this allows enough time for it to recover and rebuild more energy reserves after you work on it. Not that you can't do it all now, but the tree won't be happy about it. Patience.

Serenade Lawn Disease Control is out there. Same great bacteria, same great effect, works like a charm. It might be a different concentration usage, I'm not sure--the lawn stuff is QST 713 at 1.34%, used at 5 oz per thousand square feet of lawn. 1 bottle, 28 oz, covers about 5500 square feet. The dilution rate is not specified in the premixed bottle but seems to be close to 1 gallon of water. A wee bit of poking shows this to be exactly the same strain and percentage concentration, but the application rates for other plants do differ and hence the labeling in this case does, actually, differ.