Vian

I find that eggs as my sole protein source in a meal do not keep me full very long. If i add in some meat though, it keeps me full much longer. I am a 5'9" female, 250lbs, and i can hold 5-6 eggs in one hand (i have done it when i gather eggs from my chickens) but i have a hard time eating more than 3 eggs in a meal with fat and veggies, especially for breakfast.

**Emphasis added** But it's probably the artificial sweeteners that are contributing/causing her migraines, and crystal light has the same artificial sweeteners in it as diet soda...I used to get headaches from splenda and aspartame (though I had to consume a lot more aspartame to get a headache, which I think is odd) My friend likes to joke and say that all I eat is kale. "You can't have that, it's not made of kale." He also calls me a hippie a lot. Just because I go to the farmer's market every saturday, make my own deoderant and toothpaste, doesn't mean I'm a hippie...Ok, maybe a little...

I do it this way: 1-2 palm-sized portions of meat, a dollop of healthy fat (mayo, guac, or I count it if I have fatty meat or made a sauce with plenty of fat in it) and then I eat as many veggies as I can until I'm full. I don't really measure, but it's usually about 1-2 cups of veg, depending on how much fat I had. More fat = more satiating = eat less volume because fat is so calorie dense.

I have 3 eggs and some cubed roasted sweet potato most mornings.

You can buy a bottle of GT's Original kombucha, the plain unflavored kind, and add that instead of more ACV.

NEVER put a scoby in the fridge!! A scoby hotel should be at room temp. All you need to do is leave the scoby in a jar somewhere dark and occasionally add some fresh sweet tea. It will stay dormant (but healthy) for months and months. http://www.kombuchakamp.com/2011/10/kombucha-brewing-problems-dehydrated-and-refrigerated-scobys.html

Today I got the "Don't lose anymore weight or you'll be too skinny!" comment for the first time. I was at church and my pastor commented about how good I looked from losing so much weight, and I said "I'm still working on it, have another 30-40 lbs. to go" And he said "Oh no, then you'd be too skinny" It upset me more than I thought it would. I'm 207 pounds. Even being pretty tall at 5'9" that's not an ideal weight. I feel uncomfortable in my body. I feel ungainly and awkward. I feel self conscious of my stomach sticking out. 160-170lbs is not "too skinny" for someone who's 5'9" While I don't put a whole lot of stock in BMI, that's still at the upper range of healthy for that height, and I'm not interested in looking like a runway model, but I would like to be fit and strong. I honestly don't care about the actual number, it's more about the way I look and perform at my life, but 200 pounds is simply overweight for a woman unless she's really tall and an athlete with a lot of muscle, of which I am neither.

It's usually better to drink smaller amounts more frequently. I was drinking 16oz. all at once with my dinner, but I switched to drinking 8oz. each with breakfast and lunch instead. I like to drink it with meals so that the bacteria have food to work on and if I don't I get a slightly upset tummy. If you find you get strong detox symptoms, start with less, like 2 ounces, and work your way up to having 8-16 ounces a couple times a day.

I made my last 2 batches of kombucha with loose leaf jasmine tea I got at the asian market. I just tasted it and HOLY COW is it good! And it got ULTRA fizzy! Is there any issue with using Jasmine tea every time I brew? Only ingredients are Green tea and Jasmine flowers.

*sigh* I just can't seem to get my booch right. I had a nice system going, where I pulled from my CB every sunday, put it in quart bottles with a little juice concentrate and let it sit 3 days for second ferment. But when I tasted it straight up right out of the CB, it was very bland, no tartness at all, too sweet, but not really sweet... So I decided to let it go a few more days last time and tasted it daily and after brewing 12 days it was perfect. I pulled it off, added my juice concentrate and let it second ferment for 3 days again and tasted it. It tasted great. So I drank 2 cups of it after it got cold in the fridge...and it was very alcoholic. I got the feeling I get whenever I have alcohol, which I don't like. So either my booch is non-alcoholic, but very weak and too sweet, or alcoholic and tasty. I don't know what to do to make it less alcoholic...

I've been having very good luck with my kombucha lately. I switched from fruit juice, to using straight up concentrate. I use 100% juice concentrate and my favorite flavors are berry or apple/berry mixtures (apple cherry, apple raspberry, grape, blueberry pomegranate). I make a total of 120 ounces of kombucha a week (3x 32 oz. bottles and 1x24oz bottle) I measure out 1/4 c. juice concentrate for the 24 oz. bottle, then divide the remaining concentrate (from a 12oz. can of frozen concentrate) evenly among the 3 larger bottles. I do CB still in a 1.8 gallon beverage dispenser, but I treat it more like a batch brew (I pull off all my booch at once). I boil a gallon of tap water, then add 1 cup organic sugar and dissolve it, then let it cool for about 30-40 minutes, then add 4 white tea bags and 4 green tea bags and steep them until I remember to take them out (usually an hour or so). Then I let the fresh tea cool to room temp. I pull off my booch from the CB container with my big 4 cup measuring cup and fill my bottles that already have the juice concentrate in them, close them up and turn them back and forth to make sure the juice mixes evenly and set them aside in a warm spot in the kitchen. I do my second ferment for 3 days. For the Cb container, I use my 4 cup measuring cup to pour the fresh tea into the container, but I use a plastic chopstick to wick the tea over to the side of the container and underneath my scoby. My container is hexagonal, so my scoby ends up shaped like a stop sign. I use the chop stick to push one corner down and then the tea follows the chopstick down into the container and ends up under the scoby, so that the scoby can stay floating on top. Currently I have 3 1/4" thick scobies (two are from times I wasn't able to keep them floating, so they sunk and a new one formed). Because it's winter and a bit colder, I keep my whole setup sitting on top of my hot water heater. I have a half-sized water heater that is in my kitchen and is inside a housing that makes up part of my kitchen counter. The top gets slightly warm to the touch from the 120+ degree water being held inside it, so my booch ferments pretty quickly. I was doing things almost the same, only I was using fresh fruit juice (blending fresh fruit and straining it) and my booch was ending up very, very acidic (burned my throat) and alcoholic (I can tell immediately if I've had alcohol). I let it sit for about 3 months just ignoring it, and when I finally got in there and cleaned it all up and got things going again, my booch has been tangy and pleasantly tart, but very drinkable and no more throat burning, as well as no more alcohol. I'm loving my booch again and enjoy having a couple cups of it every night with dinner instead of my old can of coke zero.

That's interesting. It says that gelatin and "anything Fermented" has processed free glutamic acid. I know MSG is naturally occurring in some foods, are these included in that category?

Yes, ascorbic acid and citric acid are fine. The only preservatives/additives you have to watch out for are Carageenan (often used to thicken things and give them a creamy texture like ice cream, almond, soy, and coconut milk, etc) MSG (used as a flavor booster in savory things) and Sulfites, along with any other non-compliant ingredients (dairy, sugar, grains, legumes) of course. Go for canned items that are minimally processed and have as short an ingredient list as possible.

Oh the irony!

And you have to keep in mind that the people who were ranking those diets probably all buy into the lies that whole grains are good for your heart and saturated fat is the enemy and/or are in the pocket of organizations that make money off that lie.