55. Odd, that.

if you're playing the calorie game and going into halloween without candy (sounds a bit sadistic to me ;) then i'd recommend checking out one of those exercise / calories burned charts. then if you overeat then you can exercise just enough to burn off the excess. by exercise i'm meaning like walking, sit-ups, something that doesn't require you to go anywhere, buy anything or deal with people.

i dunno, i inevitably find that depriving myself tends to lead to me rebounding and eating twice as much in the end. exercise good.

(yeah, i'm sure that's all totally obvious or whatever. put it in the "clueless guy trying to give supportive advice" rather than the "expert dude trying to shoot down your diet plans")

I actually joined a group of women in a challenge.� The challenge lasts 3 weeks and has different challenges/activities throughout the weeks.� ONE such challenge is the no-Halloween-junk.� It's very specific.� The basic gist is we are a team building as many points as possible by our individual successes.� We compete against some 20+ other teams doing the same kinds of things.

Each day of no junk food (ie, empty calories -- cake, icecream, candy, alcohol, etc.) counts as a point.� Staying within the designated calorie range results in TEN points.� Exercise and other things add up, too.� The Halloween candy challenge, if met, will result in a whopping TEN points.� I don't HAVE to do it - it's a challenge.� That's kind of the point.

Ordinarily, I would agree with you on the "eat candy, burn more calories" theory...except that I accepted the challenge.� :)� Call me a sucker.� A LIGHTER sucker, hopefully.

that's got to be the most intelligent diet i've ever heard of. competition is a good thing, that's a far better motivator than... well, whatever motivates people to lose weight :)