I've never been to curves but based on this maintenance /plateauing problem..the people whom I've known to have lost significant weight did ramp up their exercise/whatever fav. physical activity plus change their diet.

Even for those who are fit, it does require long-term effort to be energetic and eat healthily. The key is to find healthy things and habits where you slip into your daily life..that you don't think about after awhile.

Like for me, I have a half cup of microwaved oatmeal--no sugar, some skim milk and if available, simple fruit. My quick breakfast at ...4:45 am since I get up so early to get to work. By the time I get to work, it's coffee with a fresh fruit..and yea, a light biscotti sometimes. I go grocery shopping on my bike all the time. It's just brainless healthy little things to do ...that when you don't do it..your body misses it.

Rethink how you can slowly chip away at the parts of lifestyle you don't like..but can easily change.

Orchid, this is some of the best advice I've read in a long time. It IS incorporating changes into your lifestyle that benefit you and help to make you healthier, and you are SO 100% right that once you skip one, or pass over it for a day or so, you miss it and that signals your brain who LOVES to maintain the status quo, or routines, to get back into it.

Take drinking water, for instance...I don't like to do it, and it can be so bla...but once I make it a part of my daily routine, and the more I drink, the more I actually begin to crave it and can't wait to have another 8 ounces. Fresh fruit is another example. If you try having a piece of fresh fruit around 9ish in the morning, and/or between 2-4 in the afternoon, you will find that if you skip it, your body/mind is going, "Where the H is my fruit!!!!"

Just take ONE change and see if this doesn't hold true for you. Thanks Orchid for that reminder!

That's so great jawjaw, about lovin' something like water and fruit zs part of lifestyle and habit. This past summer I started to become...a fruitbasket and am still going at it. I'm NOT sure why ...because for many years before that, I was a pedestrian eater of fresh fruit. I bought abit more fruit during local fruit harvest seasons because of the pricing and freshness.

But this summer, my partner and I spent double the amount of our food bill on twice as much more fresh local raspberries (British Columbia produces the high volume of raspberries in all of Canada), blueberries, blackberries, peaches (I rarely bought peaches before), cherries, apricots (oh yummers), etc. This year I started to notice some of the wonderful varieties of local grapes --champagne grapes, concord, etc. We went crazy. If I wash a pint of berries and leave it in the strainer to drain for the whole afternoon. 1/2 of it is eaten...by me...it's just dangerous to leave easy-to-eat fresh fruit out on the counter for me now.
I mean easy-to-eat, no extra peeling, no messy hands, etc.

And overall in the past 12 months, because of the false but necessary diabetes 2 scare that I had on my blood sugar tests, I've cut back on white rice consumption by 50%. It's all casual, I just have replaced this grain with lower carb, light Asian pasta. (less heavy than Italian-style pasts which I no longer buy. But will order handmade Italian pasta, ie. handmade ravioli or gnocchi at a restaurant). I don't think too much about this latest change, because I still eat noticeably Asian which informs alot of my diet long-term.

I use to think that fruit = apple. Period. Growing up the only fruit I ever ate besides an apple or a banana was in fruit cocktail or some other dessert containing cool whip or jell-o.

Now...I LOVE to grab a handfull of cherries, those big fat grapes even though they have seeds, oranges, tangerines, tangelos, apricots (dried or fresh), GRAPEFRUIT...GRAPEFRUIT..GRAPEFRUIT...and something new I've found that I love is cranberries. Man, Oh man, I love them. Blueberries as well....but there is one thing, blackberries, that I will NEVER love. Ewww....nasty old things!

By all rights I should weigh about 90 pounds...the other 200 pounds must be Oreos...sigh.

Until I began to live on the Pacific Coast where rain is more abundnat I didn't fully appreciate taste of blackberries. I'm from Ontario, where mulberry is the closest fit and those not particularily edible.

I assume you are talking about blackberries in Alabama? Here there are some wineries that sell blackberry wine which is lovely fruity dessert wine.

Once fruits get too expensive in winter, I end up having grapefruit several times / wk. for breakfast. Half of one.

Did you know how rare the apple is..in the Philippines? We have to remember some of our fruit is rare /non-growing in other parts of the world. I had a Malayasian roommate that tried to smuggle in a 6 lbs. of fresh black cherries into her country from Canada.

Didn't work.

Oh Lord, I forgot about raspberries. I love raspberries everything. Drink, fruit, whatever. Also, I do love Blackberry Wine Cake. I have the recipe if you ever want to go to heaven. Blackberry Wine is used in it.

Mulberry Wine is another one that is soooo good, especially the homemade wines. I don't make it, but I have friends that do.

Do you like dried fruit? I love the banana chips and mango.

How did we go from fruit to wine so quickly?

orchid, I' love hearing about people who are willing to make the necessary diet changes for their health sake. Trust me, you don't want to take medicine for diabetes. Keep biking and eating well and you may very well be able to avoid it.

My favorite fruit this time of year is a clementine. They are so delish. But you have to be careful because they sell for anywhere 4.99 a crate to 8.99 a crate. They peel so easily, taste so good, and are gone in no time. Love those dang things.

I haven't been able to exercise in 2 weeks because every time I take a deep breath, I break out coughing. It makes me feel like a sludge at the computer all day.

I've always been a big fruit eater. I lovvvvve fresh fruit and always have. In Chicago during high school, the only fruit we got in winter was oranges, and I'd go through a 5-lb. bag every few days. This week's fruit purchase was 3 grapefruits, 14 fuyu persimmons and 1 pineapple, all of which will be gone by Sunday. Plus 1 lb. of FRESH raisins, an absolutely incredible treat bearing very little resemblance to store-bought imposters.

What's changed about my diet recently is vegetable intake. All my favorites -- beets, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and orange squash -- are the ones hubbo doesn't like, so we've fallen into the rut of onions, mushrooms, and green/red pepper with everything.

Now that I'm trading with vegetable vendors at the market, every week I bring home several lbs. of assorted mystery seasonal greens, which completely fills up both vegetable crispers -- and spoils if not used in a timely manner.

The first week I had to fight Hubbo, who wrinkled his nose and complained about mystery greens. Then they wilted or got slimy and I threw 1/2 of it out, and let him know that he was wasting OUR money and throwing out FREE FOOD. So now he eats it. Every Sunday after market, I pull out a pad of paper during lunch and plan the week's dinners. Figure out what else we need to augment the mystery greens. Creative ways of re-packaging mystery greens. So we're eating TWICE as much greens as we were a month ago. I never realized I could do so much with food I can barely identify.

I'm gradually remembering their names as well. This week, I got:
Chinese broccoli
large bok choy
baby bok choy
2 types of chard
2 types of kale
basil
parsley
tomatoes
and 2 bags of soft-leaf ...mystery greens.

However, hubbo needs names that are familiar or he won't eat it. So I tell him that everything is "just like" something he likes -- that would be lettuce, spinach, broccoli, bok choy or zucchini. Whatever mystery green I get, it's "just like" one of those lol.

So jawjaw, how about that Blackberry Wine cake recipe? (I might end up cutting back on sugar...most recipes have too much sugar...if this one does have sugar.)

Geez, meredith that's alot of persimmons. My partner gets a wierd reaction to persimmons, if they are not ripe, he feels as if his throat is constricted. Not I.

You're lucky to barter with the other vendors for veggies....
I admit that I find kale a mystery to me..seems like a veggie that needs flavouring agent. One of my sisters (who was vegan but no longer) cooks with it.

And what do fresh raisins taste like?

clementines and tangerines are handy things...and not as messy to eat compared to oranges.

Orchid, the weird taste comes from hachiya, not fuyu persimmons. Fuyu are shaped like miniature squat pumpkins and can be eaten hard or soft. Hachiyas are vaguely acorn shaped and have to be completely ripe/soft or they're bitter. Persimmons are one of my absolute favorite fruits and they're only in season for one month more. Hubbo and I each eat at least one a day.

I use a variety of spices on everything I cook.

fresh raisins are also seasonal available during grape season and maybe 2 months after harvest is done. They're made like regular raisins but the process is cut short before they're completely dried out. The result is both plumper and sweeter, never leathery. They last about 2 months (in theory. We've never had them sit around that long!) as opposed to store-bought raisins which last forever. I've never seen them outside of California.

I'll be buying more citrus in January when persimmons and Asian apple pears are out of season.