This ia  picture of one serving of food from my new cooking video,
Shrimp Avocado Salad
which is located at DietHobby, under RECIPES,  Mealtime.

Easter brings to mind a variety of things,

all of which involve the idea of new beginnings.

  Spring is dressing up my yard with flowers, 

and the sound of birds are mixing with the wind chimes 

Doves are nesting in a few of the eves of my patio roof.

A new outlook is what Easter symbolizes. 

Colored eggs, easter baskets, new clothing

are all tokens of celebration of life opening up

to fresh and new ideas. 

It's a good  time to refresh my mind, 

and realign my goals.

So I will.  

 Here at Easter time, I'm thinking about new beginnings,
my own life path, and the necessitiy to keep moving on toward 
what I consider to be my own "right" direction.

Today is Good Friday 2012.
About this same time of day one year ago on Good Friday, 2011
I was shooting one of these Words of Wisdom videos in my front yard,
and stepped backwards in the wrong spot,
which caused me to trip and fall backwards, breaking my left arm. 

I spent the rest of that day in the Hospital Emergency room,
and have worked all year to recover from that injury. 
I did not recover the complete dexterity that I had before the injury,
and my wrist, hand, and fingers ache slightly much of the time. 

But I can wear my wedding ring again, and I'm typing with all my fingers,
and I can pick up medium-heavy objects with my left hand. 
I can finally even hook my bra in back again. 
I am very grateful for my recovery, 

And today, this Good Friday, I'm going to stay inside my house.  

Today, I'm thinking and rambling on about Vegetables
and about Artificial Sweeteners.

Recently, in my search for a better, more sustainable way of eating
that would allow me to maintain or reduce my current weight,
I looked into the specifics of several diets
that involve reducing or eliminating processed food,
and eating "real" food.

That's a tough one because I am very fond of
what they term "foodlike substances".

I've been able to reduce sugar… although I haven't totally eliminated it,
because the information available has convinced me that sugar
essentially has no food value, and makes me tired and fat,
and I've often noticed that it causes a sick feeling in my body
while at the same time making me crave more sugar.

During the past few years I've also run personal experiments
where I reduced carbs, and where I eliminated wheat,
but these did very little to improve the quality of my life
or help me in maintenance or weight-reduction.
I, also, have not been able to personally sustain that eating behavior
for more than about twelve weeks at a time.

The main reason that I've been successful at reducing sugar,
is because I can get about the same taste from artificial sweeteners,
without the tired, sick feeling, or cravings,
or the added calories that make me fat.

Artificial sweeteners can definitely be termed "foodlike substances".
However, using them as a substitute is immensely valuable to me,
and so I'm not about to try to reduce or eliminate them
without some cold, hard proof showing me
that my life will greatly improve without them.

This is a real sticking point for me,
which does tend to keep me out of the "real food" mindset.

Anyway, what I noticed was that most of these "real food" plans
… except for the very low carb ones …
require eating a great many more vegetables than I am accustomed to.
I could eat vegetables. I just hardly ever do.
This would not be a hardship.
Trading some of my processed foods for vegetables
is something I've seldom focused on,
and perhaps I'll try THAT PART of a real food plan.

Hell will probably freeze over before I'm ready to
give up Splenda and Diet Cokes.
It would take some very convincing research,
…..far beyond what now exists,…
providing PROOF that artificial sweeteners are the CAUSE
of my personal weight problems before I would be willing
to adopt a plan for their elimination.

There are many other, less desirable, "foodlike substances"
which I have not yet eliminated in my dieting lifestyle
and I would reduce or eliminate those things
and watch my results, before addressing my Splenda.
As far as artificial sweeteners go,
I'm not willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

So what does this all mean?
I don't know… but
today I had a green salad with vegetable soup for my lunch,
and a small bowl of raw cauliflower for a snack.

 I 've been busy lately,
engaged with the small details of life,
together with work on the DietHobby YouTube channel,
and I've put writing articles for this DietHobby website on a back-burner.

I've been reading, and writing, and watching videos,
while I work toward keeping my calories low enough
to maintain my current weight… and even drop a bit.

But although I've been keeping my calories as low as possible,
the drop isn't happening, and even maintaining my current weight
is a real challenge, because my body seems to no longer follow
the rules that the nutrition "experts" have set in stone.

My personal experimentation with Increasing my calorie average
proves that this leads to immediate weight gain,
and which refuses to drop off even when the calorie average is lowered.

Several times, I've experimented with lowering my calorie average 250 per day,
for long lengths of time, 8 to 12 weeks, which results in an immediate 2 to 3 lb loss,
but it is only water weight, because within a week of raising my calorie average 250 a day,
returning my calorie average back up to between up to 1000 - 1150 daily,
all of the weight returns, and I find that is no net weight-loss.

This is uncharted territory, because there are no research studies
involving "reduced obese" people who have reached normal weight
are maintaining over a 100 lb weight loss for more than 7 years.
Add to that, the fact that this person ( me) has kept computer food journals of
all food eaten EVERY day for that 7 years,
while weighing, measuring & working hard to be accurate.

There is no data for my current situation, and those rules
that worked for my body in the past,-- even during the first two years
of my maintenance, don't seem to be applicable.

Somedays I find this incredibly depressing, but I am grateful
that I have a normal size body, and that I can wear lovely clothing,
and that my body is minus any major aches and pains.

It is worth the work, and the frustration.
The words of wisdom "Sing Anyway" are definitely applicable here.