My goal is not a number, but a state of health. I want to be healthy and mobile, pain free and flexible.

Another reason for my not setting a number goal is my own personal weakness of thinking that if I'm on a diet, when it's over I can dive into a vat of chocolate. Slurp!

I've been using LCHF since 1972 for weight control, but it has taken me this long to finally get it through my head that the answer is consistency and that there are certain foods which I cannot eat. EVER.

Recently, while trying to solve an allergic dermatitis mystery, I gave up all dairy and for the first time in a year the scale went down. Maybe it's the inflammation going away. So I learned another lesson: What I crave is what my body is addicted to.

As for the chocolate, I now make my own LC dark chocolate candies and, unlike the sugared kind, it's a simple matter for me to have just a bite and then stop. Stop at a bite? That's not like the old me at all. And I eat it rarely.

So technically I haven't lost to below goal, but my success is encouraging and enough to keep me on this road.