Labor Day is here. I always look forward to this weekend, as it is a pivotal point in the year. This holiday weekend represents the end of the wonderful summer season, prime grilling time, and the beginning of another great season.

Fall, with all of its cool nights and wonderful colors, is also prime tailgating season. Your spring and summer cookouts were just preparing you for the big game days. Time to ratchet it up a notch and bring your finely tuned “A-game” out to play.

I recommend squeezing in at least one cookout this weekend, whether it is on your own backyard grill, or while you are watching the Air Show, or perhaps at Cedar Point while you are sneaking in one last trip to America's roller coast. It is a good time to hang with family and friends, reminisce about your summer exploits and prepare for the fantastic tailgating opportunities in the near future.

Here at The Post, we kick off fall with our own tradition, The Goal Post Pro Football Challenge. You play it weekly by signing up, making your picks of the winners of the pro football games each week and win big prizes from restaurant gift cards to a 55” flat-screen TV. You can use this weekend to catch up on all the NFL gossip while you are grilling.

I have discussed grilling throughout the year and quite a bit this spring and summer. But, I want to take a moment to talk about how grilling fits in nicely with one of my new objectives, which is weight loss. I have been working at shedding some pounds the past six weeks and have cut out most sugar and a lot of carbs. I have been eating lots of veggies and fruit, and a lot of protein. It is working well and I am losing about 2-3 pounds a week!

Slow and steady wins the race, right? It all started when I was invited to speak the Cleveland Clinic's and Medina Community Recreation Center's Healthy Medina initiative yearend event put on at one of our area’s great locally-owned restaurants, The Corkscrew Saloon. They asked me to talk about the healthy aspects of grilling while they were cooking up bison, grilling watermelon and more. I thought, wow, at my age, I really should start thinking more about what I eat and how I eat.

So, as I grill now, I use less sauces and instead use things like lime juice, garlic and Himalayan salt and black pepper for flavoring, and let the meats and veggies sing their own praises. I cut out breads and other carbs, but still sneak in small amounts of potatoes from time to time (I am German and Irish, after all).

I make sure to grill as many veggies and sometimes fruit when I am grilling my protein of choice so that I always have a healthy balance. I will say that using skewers, especially for gatherings and tailgating, works extremely well. It makes food bite-size, easy to manage and keep together on the grill, quick to cook and eliminates plates in some outdoor situations, like a parking lot.

While I love cooking on my Big Green Egg (makes the best crispy chicken wings on the planet), I really like having a portable gas grill, like the smallest Webber Q, as it lets me set up and grill anywhere very quickly. I hope to be using it at both Cedar Point and the Air Show this weekend.

One nice thing about combining grilling with your weight-loss efforts is that you feel like you are still living large and eating well, so there is no sense of calorie deprivation, even though calorie counting is the most important aspect of actually losing weight. If you keep portion size in control and do not add a lot of sugar-based sauces, you end up with extremely healthy, well-balanced meals.

Should you cook luscious gooey ribs from time to time? Absolutely! Everything in moderation, right? Should you still have that Oktoberfest splurge? Yes! As I age, I always keep in mind that we only have so many opportunities in life. Enjoy them all. Just put a little more thought into how and what you eat in all those other “non-celebration” hours and days and you can still lose weight while having fun.

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend and good luck in this year’s Goal Post Pro Football Challenge!