Hammj,

Just saw your note to me. This is what I've learned.

I started on CAD yesterday so I'm not sure if I'm the one you want to hear anything from yet since I don't have the days to back up the CAD program.

But I know what you're feeling. My brothers can eat anything in any amount and it would make me so mad. It wasn't fair! They could eat it and because I was on my 'diet' of the month I couldn't.

I guess the thing is that you have to take it on faith because every body is different. I was on Schwarzbein, which works great for some people. But not for me. I cheated because I wanted sweet things.

Shark01 (I don't think he'd mind if you checked out his journal) has traded off between LCing and CAD. He's had A LOT of success with it.

However, after reading both both CAD and CALP I decided to mix them together. No artificial sweeteners, eat complementary when hungry, and enjoy the reward meal totally!

Because, dang it! I wanted the 'eat what every you want, how much you want... so long as it's balanced' (I believe that to mean, eat some good stuff along with your carbs). Look at what Rachael Heller ate in her story at the beginning of the CAD book. That is what I wanted to follow. That to me is freedom.

I scored 53 out of 60 on the test, I ate basically a few carbs during the day. (Not really hungry) And I had a WONDERFUL reward meal. No guilt, but nutritious. I think people guilt themselves too much. I think your mind can stall you on losing weight just as much as what you eat can. Because if you tell yourself your starving... well... your body's going to take that serious.

If it sucks and I gain weight (I wouldn't cheat knowing what I can have for a reward) then I'll find something new. But so far, this is the best one yet and I plan to believe that it works until it proves me wrong.

Hope that helped.

Bry