I hate listening to the radio, hearing a song I really like, and the DJ never mentioning the artist or song title. YES.net solves that problem. By selecting your city, station and time, you can find out the last ten songs played on air around the particular time frame you select (playlists are only displayed for one day). Very handy!

Today marks the one year anniversary of starting the South Beach Diet. It's hard to believe I've been following the plan for that long and actually managed to stick with it. My overall weight loss is down to 52.5 lbs., which has surpassed my first major goal of 50 lbs!

The toughest thing for me during the past year has been exercising regularly. I hate to do it. I dread doing it. And if I don't feel like doing it, half the time I won't. I've been walking. Occasionally, if I don't feel like walking I'll go through a taped workout using my Pilates ball, which I actually enjoy doing sit-ups with.

My goals for this coming year are to stick to the walking and move on to jogging. So far, my routine is to jog half of every lap. It's a slow start, but works for now. I also think I'll achieve my overall goal weight if I lose another 30 pounds, but that may change depending on how I think I look.

The South Beach Diet has been really simple to follow and I've never been conscience or groaning about being on a diet. The breads I eat are whole wheat, whole grain, or just have the lowest carbohydrates and sugar counts. I eat brown rice. I eat whole grain or whole wheat pasta occasionally. I'll eat a sweet potato instead of a russet or otherwise. I use Splenda sweetner. I mainly drink water. I use low carb tortillas for a pizza "crust." Basically, there's a modification to everything. There's nothing I can't eat -- it just may be in a different form than normal (ie: crustless quiche, bun-less/lettuce-wrapped cheeseburger), but everything is usually equally delicious and satisfying.

The three books from South Beach have been tremendously helpful:

SBD Good Fats/Good Carbs Guide: The Complete and Easy Reference for All Your Favorite Foods -- A quick reference guide that tells you which foods to avoid, which are okay in moderation and which foods are allowed in unlimited amounts. Very handy when making a grocery shopping list.

SBD: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss -- The original "text" book and cookbook, the "blue one" (as I refer to it). This book explains the logic behind the diet and why it works, and includes recipes. The most helpful thing to me was the meal by meal layout for the first two weeks of each phase of the diet. It took the guess work out of everything when we first started the diet. I used the recipes from this book exclusively for several months.

SBD: More than 200 Delicious Recipes That Fit the Nation's Top Diet -- The "orange one" includes a ton of recipes. I use this one most often now, since the recipes are more varied than the blue one. I love the wild rice turkey burgers, the turkey meat loaf and turkey meatballs from this book (Can you tell I've discovered ground turkey?). There are ton of options included in this cookbook -- from breakfast to dessert.

There is also a really good show on the Food Network called "Low Carb & Lovin' It." The chef, George Stella, cooks easy dishes and is always extremely enthusiastic about eating low carb. One thing I like about his show is he comes up with simple snack alternatives, for those in-between meal fixes.

I hand knit an afghan for each of my brothers for Christmas presents this year. The first, Auburn Afghan, followed a random pattern I made up as I went along. The second, Ripple Afghan, followed a free pattern from Lion Brand's website.

I am in love with this knit wrap from Lion Brand's website! I'm already knitting a completely different type wrap, but I think I'm going to have to add this one to my list.

Michael Wolf's photos of Hong Kong apartments are simply amazing! And, we complain about over-crowding our cities...