Eat to Live is not only a diet, but also a way of life as I relearn how to eat.

It has been four months since I began this new diet. My reason for eating this way is for health reasons. The added benefit is that I lost a few pounds also. I will write about my health issues in another post.

I needed to loose around 18 pounds according to Dr. Fuhrman's recommendations and have lost 11 of those pounds. I guess I should be more serious about loosing the weight, but I know that the holidays will be a challenge for me and I will get more serious in January.

Overall I have been following the diet at least 90% . My challenges have been nut butters and dates. I am almost getting to the point where I don't want to buy cashew butter anymore because I love it so much. And it is difficult to stop at one or two tablespoons.

Thanksgiving I gave myself permisson to indulge some off diet foods. We call these SAD (standard american diet) foods. We traveled 6 hours to my daughter's home and enjoyed visting with them and went around the table thanking God for what we were grateful for.

My daughter cooked a marvelous meal and I did partake of some of the food but ate a very large salad so that I wouldn't eat very much of the Thanksgiving meal. My challenge was more in the sweets department and did indulge. Since we are allowed 10% of non "Eat To Live" food, I saved up my calories for the holiday.

This was my first Thanksgiving while following "Eat To Live" and have decided that next year I will make some pies that are healthy according to what is allowed in the E2L (eat to live) diet. I'll also make a couple of dishes that are healthy so that I won't have just salad to eat. Overall I am happy with my choices. I ate salad each day. I had my morning blended salad smoothie or some fruit so I mostly followed E2L.