[Tania]

Dear Bruce

thanks for your kind reply. please find below my answers to your questions:

Is the miso in the spoon flat level or more than that?

---> no it is not falt, but more. i put a big full spoon of miso.

What do you mean by thyme (the herb and in what fashion do you eat it)?
---> here in Lebanon we mix the thyme (dried herb) with sesame and oil and we eat it as a spread on bread or pastries.

My questions are:

What is the climate, current outside temperature, and season, where you live?
--->i live in Lebanon (in the city) where we have four seasons and now we are in winter. the climate here is a very balanced one, not too cold not too hot, but we have lots of humidity. the current outside temperature is between 15 and 20 degrees and we are in winter now till 21 st of march.
How long have you been eating macrobiotically, and where have you learned your macrobiotic cooking and diet planning?

Is that whole wheat sourdough or yeasted bread?
--> it is yeasted.
Have you tried cooking a breakfast cereal?
---> yes, i've tried rice cream, but it doesn't fill me in for a long time. only bread seems to keep me filled in for more hours.

My friend wonders if you might be consuming too much salt.
----> i don't put salt in the rice, i use kombu. neither with the veggies.

And we both wonder what snacks you are thinking of consuming.
---> i saw some puffed rice with seaweeds inside in a macrobiotic health shop and i was thinking on trying them.

One other thing...if you exercise a lot, what is your current and preferred weight?
---> right now, since a month i've put on 2 kilos even though i haven't changed my eatings a lot! when i started macrobiotic in august, i was 44 kg, i lost 2 kilos and became 42, then after a couple of months my weight started
fluctuating up and down, and now i find myself to be switching from 45 to 46 kgs! which makes me want to stop eating the grains.
my ideal weight is 43 kg, even though being 45 / 46 makes me still slim, but i feel bloated.

thank you Bruce and ahve a great day.