@Lori, If you read the whole Potato Hack thread, you'll see that over time the people who did it found it didn't produce weight loss. That kind of post is very typical of that site, where people are always looking for some kind of simple miracle weight loss short cut rather than accepting that it is all about calories. That site exists to sell miracle diet products so the moderators encourage that kind of behavior. Conversely, anyone who points out that the miracle cures are bogus (and supports their argument with facts) eventually gets banned. I learned that through personal experience.
The anecdotal research they are basing that Potato idea on is based on one person's anecdotal report of eating nothing but potatoes for some period of time and losing weight. Then some of the paleo people tried it. But the vocal paleo people are all young healthy men with lots of muscle mass and high, male metabolisms, who can lose weight eating damn near anything. (My son lost 30 lbs last year cutting his calories down to 2,500 a day!)
If you just accept that it is about calories and that most of us women don't need too many calories to maintain to say nothing of lose, you'll do a lot better, over the long term, and you will also save yourself from eating a lot of awful and/or expensive fad food!
Re: Weather. After sitting in the cold and dark for 2 days due to the Thanksgiving storm, I am delightfully relaxed about this ice storm. Worst case, we sit in the cold and dark but there will be places open to eat this time, I won't have a turkey sitting out in a snow packed cooler, and my kids aren't driving anywhere! That said, this time of year I always try to talk myself into moving to North Carolina. Then, of course, I remember that I moved back to this area from the South not once but THREE times before in the past, because as awful as the weather is, there is so much I take for granted here that isn't other places!
Re Whole Foods. We have one in our region that doesn't look anywhere as fancy as ones I've seen pictures of online. But I hate it! I ate strict low carb for many years, and when I'd go in there it would astound me how much of what they were selling was pure starch and sugar. I'd see all these overweight women with their carts pilled high with starch, sugar, and obscenely expensive (worthless) supplements, and feel so sad for them. For a person with diabetes that high carb food is particularly toxic.
The other thing that annoys me about WFM is that their foods are packed with "natural flavoring" and other additives which are legal ways of representing MSG. MSG promotes weight gain in people regardless of calorie intake. I couldn't find a single broth there, for example, that didn't have hidden MSG in it. They also sell foods with inorganic phosphates in them, and added inorganic phosphates turn out to be extremely unhealthy for both your cardiovascular system and your kidneys.
Add to that the fact that they market everything by filling the store with a bogus spiritual aura (at least in our area, where a lot of people like to think of themselves as spiritually advanced) and the whole place annoys the heck out of me.
I walk through the WF store on my weekly shopping trips because OH likes one of the breads they sell, and I always sample the cheeses (very few of which are very good), but I rarely buy anything else there. Trader Joe's is in the same shopping center and I always find something I like in there at a much better price and without that annoying aura of sanctity. They too have lots of sugary starchy foods filled with MSG and inorganic phosphates but they don't pretend that overpaying for their food will make you a better person.
Fortunately, we have a community co-op in our town that sells the same merchandise as WF without the mark-ups and the pretension, so that's where I get the few (non-worthless) supplements I use (melatonin and calcium citrate) and things like locally fermented miso, asian sauces, bulk supplies and teas.
Dashing off to work .........
2018 Goals 
