The ability that our bodies have to adapt to our behavior is remarkable.
One thing about counting calories is that no matter how careful we are,
the number we deal with is still an estimate.

As most of you know,
PERSONALLY, I choose to log all of my food into a computer journal every day,
which forces me to continually face my own food intake and my own food issues

I do my best to keep my calorie averages around a specific number,
because I am personally unable to keep my calorie-intake consistently similar, day-after-day.

Remember, our bodies are organic adapting devices,
not mechanical devices...
...although almost every "expert" uses the mechanical model
as an example of the way our bodies work.

A mechanical device in good working order, operates the same way every time.
A specific behavior - like pulling a lever- always causes the same result.
This is NOT true of our bodies, because we are organic adaptive creatures.
Although basics general laws of nature apply, there are great variations between
individual bodies, and even between the results of the same body at different times.

It is very hard to sustain consistent and patient eating behavior
when we do not see the hoped-for-weight-results,
but that is actually the requirement for successful weight-loss
and for long-term weight maintenance.

Sometimes we get tired of the struggle.
Sometimes we just want to "do what comes naturally"
...unfortunately this results in eating the way we did when we became fat....,
and actually, that Behavior is the only one with Guaranteed Results.
We will become fat again, only this time it will happen a little faster,
and we will become a little fatter.

For many years, I've also found a Focus on Behavior,
rather than on Results, to be essential for my own success.

One of the things I like about Reinhard of the No S Diet
is that he agrees with me in this.
On page 130 of Reinhard's book,  'The No S Diet"
regarding a "focus on behavior" he states :

"When you focus on behavior,
you get results thrown into the bargain
because behavior causes results.

When you focus on results,
you get neither because results cannot exist without behavior.
And behavior, besides being a better thing to measure,
is also an easier thing to measure.

Extreme obesity is defined as
having a body-mass index (BMI) of 40 or greater.
BMI is a statistical measure of whether a person is
normal, overweight or obese
based on whether weight and height are in proportion.

For those who don't know:

At my highest weight of 271,
I had a BMI of 53.
My current BMI is 22.5
And....I didn't grow taller.... 

Like Thomas Edison - Words of Wisdom from DietHobby on Vimeo.

One of the things I like best about DietPower
is that it is a stand alone software program,
and I don't have to be online to use it.

If, in the future, it changed to an online program,
as much as I love it,
I doubt if I would purchase the online program.,
For certain, I would still choose to use the current off-line DietPower
which I can load from a purchased disk.

DietPower works with Windows, but not with Macintosh.
In order to do videos for DietHobby, I got a Mac as an additional computer.
I installed the parallel program which allows it to run windows programs,
and then installed DietPower. At first it LOOKED like this was operational,
but after entering new data in the DietPower program inside the Mac,
a technical glitch occurs which makes the program non-operational.
In the Mac, DietPower seems fine for viewing, but is non-operational,
because it doesn’t support actual logging use.

There are similar online food journaling programs. One of these is "fit day",
another is "thedailyplate", another is “Lose it”. Some online programs
are free and others charge a monthly fee for continued access.
DietPower works with any kind of food plan.
It has a large data base of its own,
and gives me the ability to add any extra foods (using label information)
and also input recipes of my choice. Every time I make a homemade food,
I add the recipe to my DietPower dictionary, and almost all of my
all-time favorites are now inside the program.

It is important to me to have my personal data available off line.
There are times when I am unable to get online, but when this happens
I still eat, and I want to continue my Habit of logging in my food.
I also like the security that storing my own data gives me,
and a daily back-up only takes a few seconds of my time.

Online programs are managed by the owners of that website.
and my access to my own data there is subject to their whims.
At some sites if I want to retain access to my records,
I must pay an ongoing fee. Deciding against future use
also results in the loss of my past data that I previously entered.
If a web-site shuts down, my data is also lost.

A web-site owner can arbitrarily block my IP address from his site
at any time for any reason. Recently I experienced this
at a weight graphing program called” Physicsdiet” .

I’d been using the program for about a year and a half,
and liked it a great deal. In fact I posted it in DietHobby’s Links section,
and I was planning to feature the program in an article here.
However, two or three months ago a computer glitch occurred,
which caused the program to change the way it handled my file.
The program began automatically logging me out,
and would not allow me to log in.

Every day since that began, when I found myself locked out,
I left a courteous message for the site owner
letting him know the problem and asking him for help and suggestions.
I told him that I liked his program and even informed him of my plan to
recommend it here at DietHobby. He returned none of my messages,
however he was kind enough to log me in himself quite a few times
which allowed me to update my records.

But instead of fixing the problem, or e-mailing a message to me
in response to my many courteous pleas for help,
one morning I found that he had banned my IP address.
I assume that this was his solution to the problem.
However it forever shut off my access to the data I have stored there,
and made it impossible for me to contact him.
My point is that any website owner can choose to take any action
with that site, and therefore the off-line storage of data can sometimes be
very important. Fortunately, I have all my weight and calorie data stored on
my own computer, and this recent action of Physicsdiet was merely
an inconvenience for me.

I wish there was a magic trick I could tell you,
but the bottom line is that
the ongoing dieting that is nessary for our weight-loss
and for our maintenance of that weight-loss is often hard.

If dieting was easy then no one would be fat.

So keep on working toward your food intake goals.
one-day-at-a-time…one-step-at-a-time.
We are in a marathon without a finish line,
but we have the ability to develop a positive attitude,
which will make it possible to continue on.

I posted my last saved recipe video -- which was made before my broken arm.
See it here.  I don't plan to make any new cooking videos until I can use both hands again.
This would be a good time  to check out the entire RECIPE section
for videos of recipes you might have missed

Also you can find all of my Thinspiration Moment Videos together
in the RESOURCES section, under  Videos, by clicking the Title "Thinspiration Moments".

If you feel you've missed any Blog articles, or want to review those previously posted,
you can quickly access them in the ARCHIVES.

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients:

1 small lo-carb tortilla (La Tortilla Factory)
1 Beef Frank (Hebrew National)
1/2 oz shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Cook beef frankfurther in microwave.
Warm tortilla.
Sprinkle shredded cheese over warm tortilla,
Place frank on top,
Roll-up tortilla
Cook in microwave for about 30 seconds to melt cheese.

1 serving has:

Calories: 257
Carbs: 12.2 grams
Protein: 14.5 grams