I do the noodle routine too, tibs. My God however, I have had fifty-sixty dozen eggs at a crack to deal with. That's when our local charity kitchen got a good donation and they were thrilled. Do you have any idea how long it would take to make all those noodles? LOL I used to spend days on end making them as many as my clothes rack would hold at a time. I have had as many as thirty one gallons bags of them in the freezer. I have found if the whites are seperated they freeze quite well. I keep small bags of them frozen to make baked meringues and pavlovas.

I just started last week after reading the article in the Wall Street Journal by their health & nutrition writer Tara Parker-Pope about how diet tracking software can be very beneficial. Parker-Pope is my favorite health writer: so sensible. She mentions the free tracker at mypyramid.gov and some commercial ones. I ended up buying one of the commercial ones, Diet Power, for $50 because it's very customizable. So far I like it quite a lot. I hate obsessing over pounds to lose, so the tracking software is a good distraction. It makes me focus on the quality of my diet, not just quantity, and exercise. All I have to do is meet the daily goals. Better than fretting over scale that never changes fast enough :)

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!

Back in the Seventies a guy wrote a book called "Counting Calories". It was a best seller. The concept of calories was a new thing for some people and sounded all scientific to them. The 'counting calories' philosophy somehow stuck in people's minds. For good health it is more important to consider the glycemic index of individual foods. You just have to familiarize yourself with the foods and eat accordingly. You don't need a scale and a calculator to "count calories" or charts and graphs to check. "Not all carbohydrate foods are created equal, in fact they behave quite differently in our bodies. The glycemic index or GI describes this difference by ranking carbohydrates according to their effect on our blood glucose levels. Choosing low GI carbs - the ones that produce only small fluctuations in our blood glucose and insulin levels - is the secret to long-term health reducing your risk of heart disease and diabetes and is the key to sustainable weight loss." Here is a link that might be useful: Glycemic Index