I would like to add a vote for the South Beach Diet. I've lost 14 lbs and hubby has lost much more. (of course) This must be an unsettling time for you, I'm sorry your pain. Now you have this major adjustment, not fun at all. The good news is, this board is visited by many helpful and friendly people. I don't post often, but I thought I could help. This blog, www.kalynskitchen.com, is a great resource for low glycemic (won't mess with your blood sugar) recipes! One of my favorites: White Bean and Artichoke Dip with Whole Wheat Tortilla Chips (Makes about 2 cups of dip, recipe from Cooking New American.) 6-8 whole wheat flour tortillas (can also use pita bread) olive oil for brushing on tortillas (I used a mister) salt for sprinkling on tortillas (I used Vege-Sal) 1 can (15 oz.) cannellini beans 1 can (14 oz.) artichoke hearts (I used artichoke bottoms which have hearts only, no leaves) 1 small clove garlic, chopped (about one tsp. chopped garlic) 2 T fresh lemon juice 2 T extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling on top 3 T freshly grated parmesan cheese 1 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary (I used frozen rosemary, if you only have dried rosemary be sure it's completely crushed) salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste sweet paprika, for garnish Preheat broiler and get out a large cookie sheet for toasting tortilla chips. Brush or spray each flour tortilla with olive oil, then cut into triangles. Arrange in single layer on cookie sheet and toast under the broiler, about 3-4 minutes per side. Watch them carefully, because they get too dark rather quickly. Chips will seem soft when you take them out of the oven, but they harden and crisp as they cool. Drain beans into colander and rinse well, until no foam remains. Let drain at least 5 minutes. Drain artichokes. In food processor, combine beans, artichokes, garlic, and lemon juice and blend until fairly smooth. Keep food processor motor running and add the olive oil in a stream. Add parmesan, and finely chopped fresh rosemary and pulse about 10 times to blend. Season dip to taste with salt and fresh ground pepper. Place dip in a serving bowl, sprinkle with a small amount of paprika and drizzle over a small amount of olive. Arrange tortilla chips around bowl and serve. This printable recipe from KalynsKitchen.com. Another favorite website is skinnytaste.com. Chicken Piccata Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes 2 (16 oz total) chicken cutlet halves, all fat trimmed freshly ground black pepper 2 large egg whites 2/3 cup seasoned whole wheat dry bread crumbs olive oil spray (about 1 tbsp worth) 1 tbs light butter juice of 1 lemon, lemon halves reserved 1/4 cup dry white wine 1/2 cup fat free chicken broth 1 tbsp capers Sliced lemon, for serving Chopped fresh parsley leaves, for serving Cut chicken into 4 cutlets, then place cutlets between 2 sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap and pound out to 1/4-inch thick. Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. In a shallow plate, beat the egg whites and 1 teaspoon of water together. Place the bread crumbs in another plate. Dip each chicken breast first in the egg, then bread crumbs. Heat a large saute pan over medium to medium-low heat. Spray a generous amount of olive oil spray on one side of the chicken, and lay it in the pan, oil side down. Spray the top of the chicken generously to coat and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side, until cooked through. Set aside until you make the sauce. For the sauce, clean the saute pan. Over medium heat, melt butter, add the lemon juice, wine, chicken broth and the reserved lemon halves, salt, and pepper. Boil over high heat until reduced in half, about 2 minutes. Discard the lemon halves, add the capers and serve one chicken cutlet on each plate. Spoon on the sauce and serve with a slice of lemon and a sprinkling of fresh parsley. I truly hope you are able to turn this around and get your heart healthy. Sissy

Pollo Ezechiele (Ezekiel's Chicken) from "Cucina Ebraica - Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen" by Joyce Goldstein Serves 4 1 small fryer chicken, 2 1/2 to 3 lbs., cut into serving pieces Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 4 TBLSP olive oil 1/3 cup pitted Mediterranean-style black olives, coarsely chopped 3 cloves garlic 1 TBLSP chopped fresh sage 1 TBLSP chopped fresh rosemary 1 TBLSP chopped fresh basil (extra fresh herbs to garnish, optional) 2 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped 1/2 cup dry red wine Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Warm the olive oil in a large saute pan over high heat. Add the chicken pieces and saute until golden on all sides. Add the olives, garlic, herbs, and tomatoes. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook, until the chicken is tender, about 25 minutes. Uncover the pan and add the red wine. Raise the heat to high and cook rapidly to reduce the pan juices. Adjust the seasonings. Transfer to a warmed platter and sprinkle with more fresh herbs, if desired. Serve at once. Can add a sliced onion to the initial saute and sub tomato paste instead of tomatoes. OK, that's Joyce's recipe. Here's how I adapt it for my budget and slow cooker. Do the saute part to brown the chicken, onion and garlic. Then transfer to the crockpot and add a can of whole tomatoes, chopped, and the olives and herbs. I use dried herbs, subbing 1 tsp. dried for 1 TBLSP fresh. Cook in the crockpot on low for 4 hours. When the chicken is done, take it out and transfer it to a serving dish. Dump the juices into a saute pan, add the wine and reduce/thicken the sauce. Can add a cornstarch slurry and some tomato paste to make the sauce even richer, and freshen with additional herbs if necessary. Pour the sauce over the chicken and garnish with fresh or frozen chopped parsley. The key is to brown the chicken before putting it in the crockpot, to use smaller pieces, (some folks only do thighs, which supposedly turn out best in the crockpot, but I think all the parts are OK if you don't overcook and don't use boneless and don't use huge pieces.) For dessert I may just serve my warmed up applesauce with yogurt and toasted almonds in the cut glass cups, I have done that before. Or I may use my homeade strawberry or strawberry rhubarb sauce over angelfood cake, store bought. I have served the applesauce dessert before to good effect. That is one big plus to canning, you can pull out homeade stuff at the last minute. I'd like to do something with those apricots, but this is why the dang things have been sitting in the fridge in brandy for almost a year! I just never get around to messing with them! We'll see how it goes. As Jessy said, I may get tired and want to take the easiest possible route. Back in the day when I had more free time, I always enjoyed making something kind of fancy when I had folks over for dinner, stuff single-me would never bother fussing with by myself. Especially desserts--I'd make pies, cakes or cobblers, or one of my favorites--blackberry shortbread! Oh well, like you all said, the most important thing is the guests/company, fussing over the food should not be the main focus of a get together! But I would still like it to be homey. The best dinner parties I've been to have been the ones where the food was not fussy, but still delicious, not too many dishes and overdone. The hosts could serve it in a relaxed manner. I think I have not yet quite mastered that art. Alexa sure managed that art at our little get-together! My aunt, who is in her mid 80's has always managed to do that, pull incredibly delicious stuff out of her kitchen with mysteriously little fanfare. But I know she has a lifetime of little tricks up her sleeve! Just her little special touches and recipes. A lot of it is her knowledge of quality ingredients, and how she always has a little something going in the kitchen, so that when the final dish comes out we don't notice that the process took two days of manging the various parts bit by bit. I get so tired of restaurant or pre-made stuff from the store. Not that it isn't nice, but there's just something about it. It isn't the same as homeade, even a homeade tuna fish sandwich carries that special something. I'm trying to focus these days on simple, simple yet homeade foods. It makes a huge difference to me not to be eating out. I can't totally describe the effect, it's just something a bit spiritual I think.

Great idea for early Christmas tree !! Looks good, Jim. I don't put mine up until the last minute, since my kid likes to jump rope everywhere. Then her friends come over and want to jump rope, so we always have empty space. I gave away a sofa to make room for their exercises. I'm breaking out in rash from using fish oil. It was fine for the first few weeks, then I developed an allergic reaction after repeated using. Sam's club sells Barlean's Omega-Swirl liquid fish oil really cheap .. $4 for a huge bottle, 24 OZ. It tastes like sorbet. Regular price is over $30, but Sam's club sells it for $4 since it's end of season, plus there's the news that fish oil raised the risk of prostrate cancer. Dairy & calcium also raise prostate cancer risk. The late rosarian Karl Bapst had prostate cancer. From WebMD: " The researchers reviewed 12 studies, conducted between 1966 and 2005, which examined dairy and calcium intake and prostate cancer incidence. They report that men who ate the most dairy products had an 11% increase in prostate cancer risk compared with men who ate the fewest. Men with the highest intake of calcium were 39% more likely to develop prostate cancer than men with the lowest. The risk increases reported in the studies were modest. But an author of the latest work tells WebMD that it is potentially significant because prostate cancer is so common. Prostate cancer is the most widely diagnosed cancer among American men. According to the American Cancer Society, one out of six men will develop the disease. One out of 34 men will die from the disease." http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20051206/lots-of-dairy-linked-to-prostate-cancer From Straw: Omega-3 in fish oil raises prostate cancer risk even more. Fish oil capsule is quite stinky once I poke it to sniff. The fish oil liquid I take is stinky compared to eating FRESH fish. Anything stinky & concentrated isn't good for health. The book "The China Study" written by Dr. Campbell tested fish-protein, cow-milk protein and induced cancer in rats with BOTH. But vegetables and plant-protein shrank tumor in rats. " Mercury is not the only toxin found in fish and fish oil. Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are commonly found, in high levels, in fish Oil supplements. PCBs are considered carcinogens, or cancer causing, and are also known to cause headaches, cough, fatigue, skin sores and more. There is currently a lawsuit against fish oil companies because they are not disclosing the levels of PCBs and other chemicals present in their products." http://ezinearticles.com/?3-Reasons-Fish-Oil-is-Bad-For-You&id=4371461 "These anti-inflammatory omega-3s were associated with a 43 percent increased risk for prostate cancer overall, and a 71 percent increased risk in aggressive prostate cancer," said study lead author Theodore Brasky, a research assistant professor at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus, who was at Hutchinson at the time of the study." http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20130710/too-much-fish-oil-might-boost-prostate-cancer-risk-study-says?page=2

All very true, plllog, and I acknowledge the problem with stuffing myself: it's a habit I need to unlearn. I do some of the eating a bit between meals, and find it a good practice. I think my diet is more balanced than you think. My bread of this morning is made with milk and oil and whole wheat (made that way on purpose! for the nutrition!), and the coffee is lengthened with half milk, half water. Some sugar, some fat, some fiber, some protein. It works: I walked five miles to town this morning, moving quickly and easily over hilly country, and arrived not in the least tired. Right now it's six hours since I finished breakfast and I'm only just starting to get hungry. I've eaten this kind of breakfast for years and find it quite substantial and satisfying. I've been an ovo-lacto vegetarian for about twenty-five years and have overall enjoyed good health and good energy while keeping a healthy weight. I was also never anemic, which many women in their fertile years complain of. I want to talk more about exercise. I walk, just because I like it and have the time, and it's more than exercise, since I love to see the country this way: I live in a beautiful part of the world. Not everybody has the time for or enjoys walking. A different kind of exercise may be more intensive and burn more calories; may have a larger aerobic component (though my heart was pumping this morning after a mile of steady uphill) or build more muscle. All that's good. But I think that even people who exercise rarely get a lot of exercise. That guy on the pioneer show did: he worked dawn to dusk, physical labor, but few people do that. If you want to eat heartily, and I do, you need to exercise a lot more than the minimum. A place where you'll see average citizens of the western world who are thin and fit is Venice. They can't drive cars--no roads--they can't even ride motor scooters or bicycles on account of the bridges, which are steep little humps with steps. They have to walk everywhere, and they're the fittest people you ever saw. And they speed along: I was out during rush hour, and though I'm a good walker they left me in the dust. It was remarkable. Motion is part of their lives, not something they do for their health. And that's the easiest way to stay thin and be able to enjoy your food--if you can manage it; not everybody can--make physical activity part of your commute, part of your chores, part of your hobby, or part of your job. The last two jobs I had, I commuted on foot and then by bike part of the time. I did make an effort to find places to live that allowed me to walk to work, and succeeded. When I got a new job further away I worked out a bike route, and then biked part of the time. Sometimes, if you think about it and make it a priority, you can do these things. I got much of my exercise in those days going to and from work, and have happy memories of the experience.