I started DietHobby in February 2011,
so it has now been in existence for 1 year.

Today, I'm taking a step back from the day-to-day involvement,
to look at the big picture, re-assess my progress, and perhaps
make adjustments to the project.

 I began the DietHobby website as an extension of my
diet forum involvement in order to provide a place of my own

that was under my own management and control,
to store my Thoughts about dieting and related subjects,
as it applies to my own Maintenance Progress.

I purchased my own Domain, DietHobby.com.
My web-genius-son wrote the code for this DietHobby website.
He brought it into existence and taught me how to use it.

People can easily learn about me and my dieting history
by reading the About Me page.

I've written frequent articles and stored them in the Archives
for easy accessibility for anyone interested.

I've made many recipe videos and put them in the Recipe section
to easily share them with others.

I've included some personal pictures in the Gallery section,
for those who would like to see my family or my stained glass projects.

I've completed a thorough summary of a best selling diet-book
and placed it in the BookTalk section.

I've organized and provided links to helpful sites,
and relevant videos in the Resources section,
including a Playlist of my Words of Wisdom video series
which is intended to be used as a positive motivational tool.

 DietHobby's companion channel on YouTube
began as a place to store the Recipe videos,
and the 30 second Inspirational videos
that I made for this website.

However, YouTube also has a community of its own
who view videos, make comments,
and subscribe to be notified of future videos.

This YouTube community includes all ages, from children through the elderly.
These are people of different tastes, interests, cultural backgrounds, education,
nationality, religion, race, sex, and political affiliations.

Although the YouTube DietHobby's primary viewers are in the United States,
there are also DietHobby viewers in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany,
the Netherlands, India, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Brazil, Thailand,
Turkey, Kazakhstan, and the Philippines, as well as other countries.

My web-genius-son suggested that I begin a third video series,
to better address the many needs and interests of the YouTube Community.
This video series is entitled "Ask Grandma", which answers questions from viewers.

 On YouTube, I am now known as Dr. Collins, the YouTube Grandma,
whose hobby is dieting. My recipe video series is known as, "Grandma's Recipes".
My Inspirational video series is known as "Words of Wisdom".
All of these video series tie in together to form an educational, how-to, channel.

This past year, in order to accomplish making videos.
I set up and learned how to use a Macintosh computer,
and many of the latest Apple software programs.
I learned how to use a camcorder with a tripod;
how to set up and use professional photography equipment,
including lighting, and backgrounds;
and how to set up and use a teleprompter.

I learned to prepare, set up, shoot, and edit all of my own videos,
and how to upload them into YouTube.

I've learned to navigate my way around YouTube,
and am learning more about Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Google +.

During this past year, I've also continued to engage myself
in my Hobby of Dieting, to connect with other dieters who have similar interests ,
and I have managed to maintain my weight-loss for yet another year.

At the beginning of 2011, I was a "windows" only computer user,
who didn't use a movie camera, seldom even took snapshots,
and knew nothing about photography technique.;
I knew very little about websites and knew nothing about
YouTube, or the other computer social networks.

 Now it's the beginning of 2012, and I've learned a lot.
So….what will happen this year?
I have no idea.

My primary DietHobby plan is to continue writing
and participating here at this DietHobby website,
and I hope that people with similar dieting interests will
come here and participate with me.

For the present,
I intend to continue my DietHobby involvement with YouTube.
and try to be helpful to the community there, while trying to attract
those adults who are interested in dieting and maintenance to
this DietHobby website.

YouTube is simply a massive website of it's own,
with millions, probably billions, of viewers from all over the world.
It is owned by Google, who is now in the process of
incorporating it into the "Google family". 

This is bringing a great many drastic changes to the YouTube website,
including the way it is set up, designed, and managed.
Right now, navigating through the New YouTube
is proving to be sort of a "crap shoot" for video "creators"
such as myself.

This is because YouTube…since being taken over by Google..
has many vague and poorly defined rules, and policies
that are sometimes shared, and sometimes kept private.
YouTube can pick and choose if and how they enforce these,
and any channel can disappear from the site without cause or notice.

YouTube is now moving toward a corporate goal
of becoming more like television…whatever that might mean to them….
and people who have video channels there…even those with
hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and millions of views…
are far less important or valuable to the owners of the YouTube website
than they were in the past years from its creation in 2006 to the present.

YouTube's new plans could benefit DietHobby,
or it could make the youtube website useless to DietHobby.
Either way, the process is interesting, and I am actually
very much looking forward to seeing how this develops over time.

 So…. this is what I've been doing this past year.
I'm hoping that this next year will be just as interesting.
But I also hope that DietHobby will take a lot less of my time,
and will be a whole lot less work.

Today, while I was (...finally...) doing my laundry, 
I was thinking about the fact that no matter what task I'm engaged in,
I find a voice inside of me telling me
that I should be doing more,
or that I should be doing something else.

So, I started thinking about the fact that I was thinking that,
and about the definition of that type of thinking.

Perfectionism…
I've never thought of myself as a perfectionist,
think of myself as more of a pragmatist,
my solution is "whatever works".

Still, I went searching for the definition of perfectionism,
which resulted in the following:

Perfectionism includes:

The irrational belief that you and/or your environment must be perfectly as you wish it to be.

The striving to be the best, to reach the ideal and it is unacceptable to make mistakes.

A habit developed from youth that keeps you constantly alert to the imperfections, failings,
and weakness in yourself and others.

A level of consciousness that keeps you ever vigilant to any deviations from the norm,
the guidelines or the way things are "supposed to be".

The belief that no matter what you attempt it is never "good enough" to meet
your own or others' expectations.

 This led me to see that although, I'm not exactly a perfectionist,
there are elements of perfectionism in my character.

So, what rational behaviors are needed to overcome perfectionist tendencies?
To overcome perfectionism, one needs to:

Accept self as a human being.

Forgive self for mistakes or failings.

Accept that the ideal is only a guideline or goal to be worked toward,
not to be achieved 100 percent.

Set realistic and flexible time frames for the achievement of a goal.

Develop a sense of patience and to reduce the need to "get it done yesterday".

Be easier on oneself; setting unrealistic or unreasonable goals
or deadlines sets you up for failure.

Recognize that the human condition is one of failings, weakness, deviations,
imperfections and mistakes; it is acceptable to be human.

Develop an ability to use "thought stopping" techniques whenever you find yourself
mentally scolding yourself for not being "good enough".

Visualize reality as it will be for a human rather than for a super human.

Learn to accept yourself the way you are; let go of the ideas of how you should be.

Learn to enjoy success without the need to second guess
your ability to sustain the achievement.

Love yourself; to believe that you deserve good things.

To eliminate unrealistic expectations and the idea that you are infallible.

Visualize yourself as "winning" even when it takes more energy,
and more perseverance, than what you had planned.

Let go of rigid, moralistic judgments of your performance and to develop
an open, compassionate understanding for the hard times, obstacles and temptations.

Be flexible in setting goals and be willing to reassess your plan
from time to time to keep things realistic.

Realize that the important thing is to be going in a positive direction.

 Can I do these things?

Well,
I don't have to be Perfect. .......  LOL   

Today I'm taking responsibility for myself. 
Yesterday, I ate "too much"  from the heart-shaped box of candy
that I received from my husband for Valentine's Day.

He wasn't sabotaging my maintenance efforts.
This was a gift that I wanted,
and one that he knew I wanted. 

Each chocolate that I ate was my own choice,
and my personal responsibility. 
I knew that one chocolate was between 80 and 100 calories.
I knew that keeping the box in plain sight on the kitchen table
would make me return to it again and again.
Despite this knowledge I made this personal choice for myself. 

During the day, each time I ate from the box,
I went over to my computer
and entered the food into my DietPower food log. 
I was aware of what I was doing
for all of the time that I did it. 
I made the choice. 
It was my own activity.
I, alone, am responsible.

Now, I must cut back on my food calorie intake for the rest of the week. 
I engaged in weight-gaining behavior,
now I must engage in weight-loss behavior. 
Bummer .... but so it goes here in Maintenance. 

  Here's my Ask Grandma Valentine's Day video.  

Yesterday in Facebook, I came across a cite to the following article.
I haven't checked out the underlying research, 
and I don't plan to experiment with this idea,
because I've already had a lifetime
of unsuccessful experimentation wth it.

Still, it's an interesting article, 
and I see it as one more example
of how different each of us can be, and
that the same things don't work for everyone.

"10 February 2012

Attempting to avoid sweets entirely can create a psychological addiction to these same foods in the long-term, explains Daniela Jakubowicz, professor at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, who led the study.

Over the course of a 32-week-long study, participants who added dessert to their breakfast - cookies, cake, or chocolate - lost an average of 40 pounds more than a group that avoided such foods, the journal Steroids reports.

What’s more, they kept off the pounds longer. A meal in the morning provides energy for the day’s tasks, aids in brain functioning, and kick-starts the body’s metabolism, making it crucial for weight loss and maintenance, according to a Tel Aviv statement.

And breakfast is the meal that most successfully regulates ghrelin, the hormone that increases hunger, explains Jakubowicz. While the level of ghrelin rises before every meal, it is suppressed most effectively at breakfast time.

These findings were based on 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults, who were randomly assigned to one of two diet groups with identical caloric intake - the men consumed 1,600 calories daily and the women 1,400.

However, the first group was given a low carbohydrate diet including a small 300 calorie breakfast, and the second was given a 600 calorie breakfast high in protein and carbohydrates, always including a dessert item (i.e. chocolate).

Halfway through the study, participants in both groups had lost an average of 33 pounds per person. But in the second half of the study, results differed drastically.

The participants in the low-carb group regained an average of 22 pounds each, but participants in the group with a larger breakfast lost another 15 pounds each.

At the end of the 32 weeks, those who had consumed a 600 calorie breakfast had lost an average of 40 pounds more per person than their peers.

Jakubowicz conducted the study with Julio Wainstein and Mona Boaz from Tel Aviv and Oren Froy of Hebrew University Jerusalem."