Thanks, folks -- I'm looking forward to hearing what Dr. S actually says in the visit!

As for the metabolism thing from a history of bad dieting -- quite possibly that may be the answer. I have been on a very lax version of weight watchers for about a year and a half, which has usually worked fine until recently. I basically would stay on the program most days (averaging about 1400 -- 1500 cals in a traditional low fat diet) and give myself a lot of latitude when I went out and did special things, then back on the program. Over the last few months it's been harder and harder to maintain my weight with that approach.

As a teenager and in my early twenties I did a lot of stupid dieting, but pretty much stabilized over the last 10 years at about the weight I am now, but always vigilent about keeping it down. Never fun, and it just got frustrating feeling like I couldn't have a fun food weekend without having to pay for it over the next month.

So perhaps I trained my body to stay put at about 1400 cals a day. I'm assuming then that I may need to retrain it. Humph. It is so frustrating to feel like food is always going to be a challenge that I have to put energy into every day when other people casually eat whatever and whenever it strikes them. I think I've killed my body's ability to regulate free-feeding.

RE: body fat percentage. I've always been at about 28-29% body fat at around this size -- and several months ago I got caliper tested at 29.

OTher things I'm including in my diet -- and I'm curious who else is doing this or similar -- is a multivitamin tab, b vitamins, CLA oil tablets, green tea extract, and EPA oil tablets.

Enough rambling. As always, thanks for all your thoughtful input,
Abby