OK, this is "Anything goes," right? I don't want to get in trouble for an "off-topic" post. And I am going to try to bring this up for those who are interested without any blatant commercial-type message, so please let me know if I've overstepped any bounds or anything.

Many of you "hypermilers" out there (myself included) have noted that driving for max FE is like a "real world video game," that some of us really enjoy. Well, I have been trying to lose weight lately, and succeeding (!), in large part due to a computer program that I've discovered (yeah, you have to buy it, so I'm not going to mention the name here, but you can get a free 15-day trial) that plays to the same "real life video game"-loving part of my brain as does driving for max FE. It requires that you input everything that you eat (and exercise), and then shows you in a bar chart how you are doing nutritionally for the day, week, month and quarter. So in addition to telling you whether you are eating few enough calories to lose weight, and having some other interesting features that I won't go into, it provides an "Average FE"-type gauge of your nutrition, that you can improve by eating better. I find I want to get the chart "looking perfect" in the same way that I want to raise the MPG on that little display. It even gives you a letter grade (D,C,B,A,A+), for your daily (etc.) nutrition. My husband takes pride in the fact that when I eat his cooking I usually get an "A"!

Since this has worked for me (the first time I used it, 5 years ago, I lost 20 lbs., and this time I've almost finished taking off the 10 I put back on in the interim, when I wasn't tracking my input), and a lot of people seem to need or want to lose weight (whether to increase their FE or for other reasons), and I really think that I find this tool fun and challenging for the same reasons that I love trying to squeeze every "mpg" out of my hybrid, I thought I'd mention it here. If anyone wants to know what the product is, feel free to PM me (I don't want to be actively selling something here on the board, I hope I've not gone too far already).

Mods, if I see this disappear, I'll know it violates forum guidelines or something; no offense taken.