It works. Every single time.

Nothing earth shattering - if I eat good food - correct portions - and don't eat crap food - I will lose weight. It happens.

I do have to ask the question of myself - why is it that I don't do this all the time? I'm needing to try to find whatever balance it is that I'm going to end up having for the rest of my life.

I've cut out all refined carbs - no bread, no pasta, no rice (quinoa is OK), and ABSOLUTELY no sugar. But this is not something that I feel that I can do forever. There has to be some sort of balance.

So starting Saturday I'm going to start SLOWLY reintroducing just a few carbs - still no sugar, but I will have a piece of bread every so often.

Of course, I haven't been perfect on the carb ban - I went camping on Friday night. I had two light bratwurst sausage links for dinner and some Plumcots. It was pretty good. But in the morning, I helped the scouts cook breakfast burritos, and without thinking I ate one. It was a flour tortilla.

And you know what? I don't even feel bad. I needed the energy, and frankly, the bigger ban on carbs is the sugar. And my cravings have gone way down. Not to zero - I don't think they will ever go away - but they have lessened to about 15-20% of what they used to be.

I need to do an official weigh-in - that is with a pic and everything, but my weight is now 284.6. The official start of the dietbet is 297, and I'm nearly 100% sure that in the week after it started that i went up between 2 and 4 pounds before heading back down.

So like I said, this is working. I'm pretty stoked about it. I've got some goals that I've set for myself, and I'm hitting all of them.

And I am FINALLY starting to feel some differences in how my clothes are fitting.

This is hard stuff. I have to continually watch what it is that I'm eating and fighting against what it is that I really want to do.

But it is working. And so far, that is enough to keep it going.