It's been a bit more difficult working out while traveling in South America than I imagined. The weights also don't have any numbers on them ! (and it's metric anyway). So, I'm simply going with what feels right, with the goal of being able to lift the entire stack of plates by the time it's time to go home in March. So, far I only have 4 plates to go (out of 17 total). As far as diet ? Pfffft. Not gonna happen. So many weird foods here, it'd take me a week to look all of them up. Just concentrating on eating decent, with no fried foods.