Hi Jim: That's a great idea .. putting a Christmas tree in the front porch. I thought about it, but held back ... our weather is so rainy & icy in zone 5a. My brother is a dermatologist & skilled surgeon. Acne treatment shifted from chemicals to expensive laser or light treatment. The acne drug, Acutane, has been linked to birth defects, and suicides in teenagers. There's Nicomide-T, a derivative from Vitamin B, for an expensive acne treatment. Brewer's yeast is cheaper to treat acne, since it's has all the B-vitamins. I did extensive research on Brewer's yeast since I plan to give that to my kid for her teenager acne. University of Maryland Medical center has a good review on Brewer's Yeast, known to help with diabetes, high cholesterol, plus preventing colds & flu. Here's an excerpt from below link: "At least one study has found that brewer's yeast may improve acne. Another linked it to a reduced risk of a second skin cancer. And one large, preliminary study found that taking a specific kind brewer’s yeast product (EpiCor) may help prevent colds and flu. Brewer's yeast is often used as a source of B-complex vitamins, chromium, and selenium. The B-complex vitamins in brewer's yeast include B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6 (pyridoxine), B9 (folic acid), and H or B7 (biotin). These vitamins help break down carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, which provide the body with energy. They also support the nervous system, help maintain the muscles used for digestion, and keep skin, hair, eyes, mouth, and liver healthy. http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/brewers-yeast#ixzz3MBHc8Nct I have been taking Brewer's Yeast for months. It was a God-sent when I was bed-ridden from my severe allergic reaction to Cantaloupe. I was so inflamed, but the brewer's yeast quenched the inflammation. Brewer's yeast is a by-product of the beer industry, sold cheap $10 for 1 lb. as NOW brewer's yeast. But one company convert that to pills, and sold under EpiCor for outrageous price of $42 a tiny bottle on Amazon, with many glowing reviews. Lots of perfect reviews on Amazon are corporate sponsored. NOW brewer's yeast has the LOWEST rating on Amazon, since it's cheap ... they don't pay people to boost their Amazon ratings. However, NOW brewer's yeast works as well as EpiCor. It tastes good if mixed with buckwheat honey and milk. It's a meal in itself, I don't get hungry until 4 or 5 hours later. The blood-sugar stabilization is fantastic. One drawback: can't take that before bedtime, since it makes me very hyperactive like caffeine. The last time I had a cold/flu ? That's when my kid was 4 years old. Nutritional Yeast tastes nasty like brewer's yeast, plus without the chromium. I already tried nutritional yeast, it was like stinky powder-egg. The below link shows the difference between the two: http://www.milkandhoneyhealthfoods.com/brewers-yeast-versus-nutritional-yeast Brewer's yeast helps me to lose weight, since it stabilizes my blood sugar. Here's an excerpt from below link: "A recent study has found that a hydrolysate from brewer’s yeast may help obese people lose weight and abdominal fat. Participants in the study included 54 obese men and women. Over the course of ten weeks they consumed either 0.5 grams of yeast hydrolysate or dextrin as a control 30 minutes before breakfast and again 30 minutes before dinner. At the six week point, the researchers noted that the yeast hydrolysate group already had significant reductions in calorie intake. This reduction was maintained through the end of the study. At the conclusion of the study, the researchers noted an average 5.7 lbs reduction in body weight and a 17.3 cm2 reduction in abdominal circumference in the yeast group, compared to 1.8 lbs and 7 cm2 reductions in the control group. Researchers from Jeonju University in South Korea conducted the study. It was published in the January 2014 issue of Nutrition." Below is my Christmas tree. It was decorated by my kid and her friend. I have NOT added the other decorations. Here is a link that might be useful: Brewer's yeast extract to lose weight

Sorry about the delay in responding! I didn't do a six week plan because for me I know I can't be on a diet every day for six weeks. I'm sure it is a great plan, and healthy too, but I couldn't sign up to it myself. The six day plan is body-type based, and my body type's plan consisted of the following: Breakfast - 3 oz lean protein (egg whites, fish, chix or turkey breast, etc); 1/2 cup berries or 1/2 grapefruit Lunch & Dinner - 2 oz lean protein; 1/2 cup cooked brown rice; 1-2 cups vegetables (must be low-starch, the book has a specific list, but I would severely limit starchy vegetables. I did like to add a small spoonful of corn to dishes for flair, and it still worked fine. 2 snacks - 3 oz lean protein; 1/2 cups greens Nighttime snack (if needed) - 1 cup berries or 1 grapefruit I'm not going to sugar coat it - I was hungry. George Thurmond says you won't be hungry, but I was, quite often. I dealt with it by deciding to do the diet Monday thru Friday, just heap it on the M-F grind, and then on the weekend I would be able to live it up. Boy did I look forward to the weekend! Well following were my methods: For breakfast I usually ate smoked salmon - I make my own, so it's not so high in sodium and chemicals. My husband, serendipitously, had just bought me a Zojirushi rice cooker that had a brown rice setting, and this proved indispensable. I got creative with my combinations of vegetables, rice, and protein - fried rice, ceviche & rice, grilled vegetables, etc etc - I spent a good chunk of time cooking and prepping my meals. As for the snacks, they were primarily green salad with chicken and balsamic vinegar. I work full time, and there were days in which I did not think I could just whip out a salad at snack time, so I would bring cucumber sticks and broccoli stalks, and sneak a few grape tomatoes in there. It was much easier to manage. It was quite inconvenient and I was hungry often, but I was willing to do all this as long as I was losing weight. I would lose almost a pound a day. I would put on a few on the weekends, but I netted 1-2 pounds a week. This carried on for many weeks until I had lost about eighteen pounds, then the weight stopped coming off as fast and I switched to another plan. But it was an excellent jump start for me! I was so food addicted that I could not go from that to "lifestyle change" in one day, so I think I needed this type of regimen. After I lost 30 pounds I told my doctor how I did it, and she said it was not a good way to do it because of the swing from diet to feast every week. I wished she would have listened instead of just comparing me to the "textbook" because after several years this was the only method that worked for me. As my weight loss progressed my balance increased, and I am much better now, but not done. Now I am 7 pounds from my goal, and I will get in a groove and eat intuitively and have good results (I mean maybe a pound in a week or less) without hunger, but then I get a little out of balance, maybe pack on a couple, then go back on a diet. One more thing - I've found for me to lose weight I can't be afraid of a few hunger pangs. When I am successfully eating intuitively, I am usually a little hungry, but in a weird way it's not unpleasant. Maybe I went a little far with it, but like I said I am still seeking my balance. Woman's world had a good article on it -- basically you wait until you are quite hungry to eat (not the first hunger pang), eat slow in order to feel the fullness response, and stop at a certain level of fullness. To maintain my weight for the long term this is my ultimate goal, but sometimes my husband wants to go out for Polish food and mmmmm, it's hard not to finish that plate of cheese pirogies.... Take care!

lydia -- the 100+ food Elisa test sounds very interesting. I may give that a try, eventually. I'm convinced that I have quite a few food allergies. I used to throw up when I was given white milk as a child. Never drank any once my mother figured out the cause. Except in elementary school when I was forced by a teacher and I threw up. Funny how I was able to drink chocolate milk, though. I read later (as an adult) that in fact the chocolate in chocolate milk reduces the allergic reaction. Anyway, regarding food allergies, I know I'm sensitive to wheat though I'm not a celiac. I am also sensitive to dairy. (Ask me why I can't give up my goatsmilk yoghurt, this is the last frontier for me, hope to give it up eventually.) I subscribed to the test at http://www.enterolab.com/ which is where I got the results about wheat and dairly. The test was expensive. I think over $300.00. Glad I did it though. Sounds like the Elisa test may give you the same results plus some. This food allergy thing is tricky, I think. One of our dogs now it seems has food allergies. I asked the vet to test and she said that testing for food allergies is not very reliable (for dogs). I wonder if this is true for humans? A food elimination diet was the only thing she could recommend plus eating only a particular type of dog food that was "engineered to have a small enough molecule size so it doesn't trigger the allergic reactions" (her words). I was amazed and am wondering if raw food has "smaller molecules" than cooked food, HA, HA. Perhaps moite's methods that she got from her doctor about measuring her pulse rate may be the best way. I'm going the simple route with this raw food diet (for now) because it meets many other needs also. I had a great day yesterday. I went the whole day without the "wave of tiredness" that comes over me every day after lunch. I hope it wasn't an anomaly. Bad news is that with the raw food diet, there is a "detox phase" initially where some claim that you are ridding your system of toxins. The detox phase can produce acne which is what I just got yesterday. I haven't had a pimple on my face for many years but I have two now. Oh well. If my energy level stays good, I'll have to add that as one more reason why I'm glad I found this diet. I was craving cooked food day before yesterday but managed to get by without it. Hopefully those days will get less in number. This was kind of like craving a cigarette after quitting, as I remember it many years ago. Keep us posted about your food allergies. I'm becoming more and more convinced that for some of us, they are literally killing us or are reducing our quality of life (for some of us) to a very very large extent producing chronic problems and diseases that mainstream medicine doesn't have a clue. In my case, I definitely feel like I've become a guinea pig for trying out different "cures". I'm hoping that raw food will by my answer. I realize that because there is no definite proof, I could be wrong on this but as my DH says, it's gotta be better than being so overweight and hungry all the time. We were killing ourselves eating cooked food so how could this be any worse.

Three caplets of glucosamine sulphate daily, so the day starts with the first one. Told son the other day of setting steel cut oats to perk in water, with salt and a few raisins, the night before, to need less heating time in the morning, and had some of them and a banana. Then a mug of coffee, with cream and sugar, following by recently-added calcium pill, which needs to go with food. Felt like some more, so had about 2/3 of mug of milk ... ... before I remembered that I'm to take a large glass of water, to develop a full bladder, about an hour before my radiation, today scheduled just before ten. Made the sixteen or so miles, much of it on the freeway, safely, i.e. with no urinary-style accidents. And now ... time for another glucosamine sulphate. Stacey MB ... I'm surprised: I thought that all of your toads in Manitoba would have gone into hibernation deep underground by this time of year. o j