South Beach Diet - Day #1

A long time ago, a few months before our wedding in April, 2004, Michele and I both started the South Beach Diet. I won't get into it, but if you've done it, you know about the infamous "first two weeks." Basically, your list of foods that you can eat take up, oh, a page and a quarter roughly. You can eat nothing else, aside from a few "well, this should been on there" items.

When we did it, Michele and I had vastly different experiences. The first two days, I was famished. Near death. :-) I had no energy and was worried. Then, on the third day, the energy rush came in and all of a sudden I felt better than I had at any time in my life. No longer running on Pop-Tarts and candy, I was infused. I lost 13 pounds those first two weeks, and ended up going from 215 pounds to 195 pounds for my wedding, then down to about 185 finally. I lost 30 pounds.

Michele got through the first two weeks as well, however, she felt down the entire time. She also lost weight, though. So, even though we had two different impressions of the diet -- it worked. And granted, since those days, I have gained weight back...but, I didn't gain it all back and I have never gone over 200.

HOWEVER, my eating habits have really gotten sloppy. So to get things fixed up, I'm doing the diet again. I never thought I would. The diet left me a little weak muscularly, but I am theorizing that because I was doing the diet, I stopped exercising, and this time I won't do that. Plus, with South Beach, you don't starve yourself or really restrict your food too much. It's about making the better choices. And once phase 1 is done, it gets even easier.

There's no excuse. This time around, though, I will do things differently. Whereas the first time, I picked the foods I liked and just ate them over and over and over again, this time I am going to try to expand my picky tastes and eat a more varied assortment of food. This will not only help me get through phase 1 again, but will give me more options that will help me down the road.

The South Beach Diet did do a lot of great things for me. First, it turned me on to Caesar salads, which are a HELL of a lot better than the other crap I was eating. I also have tended to stick with bunless burgers, and I got addicted to broccoli too. :-) I also went with light omelette's in the mornings a lot of times with turkey bacon. And that's one of the points of any diet really -- to teach you that, yes, eating healthy foods is a good thing and they are sometimes good. ;-)

So, today is day 1. I actually started when I finished my pizza at the airport at about 7:30 last night. :-) Here's what I've eaten since then in case you're curious what the South Beach Dieter eats during these first two weeks:

• Small bag of cashews (average taste - and hey, it was on the plane)
  
• Bottle of water
  
• Omelette w/two eggs and two slices of bacon (no cheese either)
  
• 15 pieces of walnut
  
• sugar snap peas (these are actually very good, Nick at work turned me on to them)
  
• A turkey sandwich (with tomatoes, whole grain mustard, low-fat cheese, and lettuce instead of bread!)
  
• a pickle
  

As you can see, you don't starve. :-) And all of this food is slightly more healthy than freakin the sludge I have been eating. Carbs begat binging, and thanks to the snacks at work. Thank you for slapping me awake, Dr. Agatson. :-)