I went to the gym last night and worked out for the first time in a really long time. I had the unpleasant experience of weighing myself and seeing a number 5 pounds higher than my previous highest recorded weight. Yikes. I knew that being sick, not being active, and eating lots of comfort food had wrought havoc on me. Even my fat pants are tight now but I hadn't realized it was this bad. I just restarted on the Body for Life plan. It has a fairly sensible nutrition component (eat 6 small meals a day, one portion of protein and one of complex carbohydrates, cut out the refined stuff) and a fairly sensible excercise component. The nice thing is that one day a week is the "free day", during which you can eat or drink anything without limit to content or amount. One of my friends has lost 50 pounds on the Atkins diet. This is not so extreme, and because it is predicated on you doing weightlifting and cardio work seems to be more healthy to me. You don't just try to lose fat, putting on more muscle is one of the mechanisms to burning off the fat, so when you are done you look that much better. We shall see how it works.