The construction of DietHobby website has been completed,
and today I feel very grateful for the opportunity to share
myself and my lifestyle here.

Thanks to my son-the-web-genius for his hard work and creative
talent; Thanks to my husband who has patiently tolerated the
(temporary) disturbance in his routine; and Thanks to each of you
for coming here and participating in this adventure.
I am grateful to the Universe, and to you.

I googled the words ‘Gratitude’ and ‘Thank You’ in an effort to find
some special words, some special way to say Thank you.
Mostly what I found were quotes on how important it is
to be grateful and to say Thank you.
Like….”Let’s be Grateful.”

I already knew that. Why would I even be interested in
finding words of gratitude unless I was feeling grateful?

One site wouldn’t let me see ‘Thank You’ and ‘Gratitude’ quotes
unless I gave them my cell phone number.
What’s that all about? I left without any quotes.
I did not give it my Thanks nor my cell phone number.

So I didn’t find what I was looking for.
But here is a quote that I liked:

“If you haven’t all the things you want,
be grateful for the things you don’t have that you wouldn’t want.”

I wrote this article in Word, and when I went to DietHobby to post it,
I discovered that the advertisements are now up and running.
My son and I had issues about this concept because I didn’t want any ads.
However, we arrived at a compromise, with my agreement to allow Google
to place one “banner type” ad at the bottom of the page, and one block add at the
bottom of the right side of the page. The site owner has no choice in the ad selections.

You might be amused to know that when I explained my personal aversion to ads to my son,
I told him that as an example, I didn’t want to see Jillian’s belly at DietHobby. But, never
in my wildest dreams did I imagine that my site would actually ATTRACT her ads,
….AND even IN COLOR. Evidentially each site page has different ads. You can imagine
the surprise and other emotions I felt when coming to this site and seeing her ads here
for the first time. That visit I went from page to page and counted six Jillian ads on the different
pages here...SIX !!!  I often watch The Biggest Loser, but her training style is not my personal
choice. Of course, MY belly wasn't firm and flat like that even when I was 16 years old.  
I understand that these ads are on some type of rotation and that they will greatly vary
from time to time. I've actually never paid much attention to that factor in my online travels.

Well...I promised to give ads a try, perhaps I’ll become accustomed to seeing them, who knows,
My philosophy is that each of us is an Experiment-of-one, and there are many different paths
that people can follow, so perhaps a few of these random ads will be helpful to some.

Anyway, despite my initial surprise,  I am maintaining my attitude of gratitude. Personally I’m
going to do my best to ignore the ads, and I hope you will feel free to do the same.

                                 

In a previous Blog, A Thousand Words AND Pictures,
I shared about my video adventures.
Those Videos are now all posted here on DietHobby.

In yesterday's Blog, When Life Takes You In A Different Direction,
I posted my Book Discussion Announcement Video.

My Cooking Videos are posted under RECIPES.
You can access them from the links at the right-side-top-of-the-main-page
or from the Recipes drop-down menu.

You can also find them under RESOURCES..... Videos.......Cooking Videos

Here's one of them.

The focus of DietHobby is the various aspects of Dieting.
However, since DietHobby is my site, participating here
makes you one of my online friends, so occasionally
I plan to share a bit of introductory personal information.

This is one of these times.

Here’s picture of me with my husband at our wedding.
FYI: I spent more than 6 months on a medically-supervised liquid diet
to drop down to 150 lbs, in order to fit into my wedding dress, but I still think it was worth it.

 We’ve been together now for almost 30 years, and I’m still very fond of him.
Here is a recent picture of us, and the card he gave me on Valentine’s day.

I have an adult daughter, an adult son, and an adult step-son,
who are now in their 30s and 40s, but my mind still sees my son and my daughter like this.

     

I'm an Attorney, retired after 25 years of Practicing Family Law.
Here are pictures of my sign and former office.

 FYI - I probably weighed somewhere in the 180s in this office picture.

When the construction on this DietHobby site is completed,
there will be a gallery, where I intend to occasionally post
relevant photographs – hopefully most of them on interesting topics.

Enough for personal details. 
I look forward to sharing the adventure of DietHobby with you.

 I like to think about the different aspects of Diets and Dieting,and the benefits this brings to my life.

I've experienced a great deal of weight-loss through dieting, but dieting has been beneficial to me in other ways as well.

As part of my DietHobby, I engage in various activities which includes: reading many diet books; experimenting with many diet plans; participating in various online forums; reviewing the blogs of others; and reading various diet and health nutrition articles. Many of these activities provide me with interesting facts, and some of them provide me with intense amusement.

In my Blog here on DietHobby, I will discuss, in no particular order, various articles, books, and diet concepts as thoughts about those subjects occur to me.

 I like hearing about the experiences of others, and I look forward to receiving ideas and comments from you. I’d like to hear your slant on things. I want to hear your opinions, whether you agree with me or not.  I’m hoping this site will help establish and nurture an online friendship  between you and me, and also friendships between those of you who make comments.

I am very pleased by the positive responses I've received about the
DietHobby site,since my recent announcement that it is now operational.
I plan to post frequently in this ongoing blog, and also add more pictures
and videos, and recipes and links and other information here in DietHobby.

As with all technical things, some glitches don't show up prior to use,
so we are still working out some problems with registration and log-in,
which is supposed to be required before making comments. (to avoid spammers etc)

I hope to remain responsive to viewers, and make changes in my policies as needed.
Originally I was advised to exclude signatures because people's user names
are supposed to automatically appear.  Due to some technical registration and log-in issues,
that isn't yet operating perfectly.  So I made a change this morning and am asking people to
PLEASE DO put their signature INSIDE their comment.
Signatures. Please DO end your comment with your user name.

My understanding of the process here is:
people can access and view anything on DietHobby without registering or logging in.
However, before they can participate by making comments, they must register.
Registering is meant to be easy, and no data gets saved or published or sold etc.

After people fill out the short registration form, they are supposed to return to their e-mail
and click the link the web-site sends them. As soon as they do that, they are registered,
and from them on all they have to do is log in.
When someone registers, the site automatically sends an e-mail to me,
telling me that I have a new registration and who it is.

I've noticed that most of the websites I normally go to log-in with a user name,
However, my web-developer-genius (son) absolutely insists on using an e-mail address for log-in.
This seems to be mainly because so many people get locked out because they forget
their user names, and dealing with that issue is a hassle for the site-owner (me).
Your e-mail address is totally confidential and no one will ever send you anything,
including me, unless you give me special permission.

You can log on or off while you're on the site, but when you leave you are automatically logged off,
and will need to re-log each time you return and want to make a new comment.
I'm don't understand the technical reason for this, but that's the way my son says it's going to be. 
So, it will be helpful to me to have my online friends register, log-in, and make comments
as soon as possible, because that is the way I can discover any problems of the DietHobby site.
Please send me an e-mail if you have any difficulties so I can get them fixed.
My e-mail address is drcollins@diethobby.com which is also posted here under CONTACTS.

All my blogs reside here in my HOME link -- including the posts re books under discussion in BOOKTALK.
My oldest posted Blogs, which are numbered from 1-22,  are my "Why We Get Fat"  Summaries and comments.
The easiest way to read and comment on these first 22 posts, is to click the link BOOKTALK.
This will take you  to a list of links  of all those Chapter Summaries and comments
making it easier to read and comment on them.
My regular ongoing comments start AFTER   those first 22 "Why We Get Fat" chapter summary posts,
The starting date is February 7th, and Including this one, I have  9 such blogs posted so far, 
and will be continually adding to them. So, if you are here, and you travel backwards to read prior posts,
after the February 7th post, it will be easier to leave this area and go to BOOKTALK area.

I made the "Why We Get Fat" Chapter Summaries and comments first, and lumped them all together,
for easy access, because those Blogs will be highlighted for a very long time, probably at least a year.
Some of my online friends from the No S Diet forum have already read my basic summary because
although a primary reason for I briefing that book was to use it here in DietHobby,  I first posted it in
a No S Diet forum Thread  for a discussion between me and a fellow No S Diet forum member, 

Again, I want to remain responsive to you, my online friends, by addressing issues that will arise as
we take this DietHobby journey together.   Here is a link to my newly revised Comment Guidelines