South Beach, Day 1

I've just finished my first full day of the South Beach Diet, so here's a little breakdown on how it went.

First, if you don't know anything about the South Beach Diet, its simplified version is pretty logical and sound: Eat less processed sugar and white carbs, eat more whole grains, lean meats and vegetables. It was started by a cardiologist who invented the diet for his patients to make them more healthy and improve their "blood chemistry." But he noticed a lot of weight loss occurring, so he tweaked the diet to make it a more mainstream weight-loss diet.

Phase 1, the first two weeks, you eat NO CARBS. None. No sugar, no flour, no grains, no fruit. Nothing. The idea being that we've all become totally insulin dependent and our bodies are completely whacked out from all the refined flour and sugar we eat. So this a sort of cleanse to get your body responding normally to food again. During this phase, you DO eat as much as you want of the approved foods, so it's not about starving yourself. Approved foods include most vegetables, most meats (no bacon, sausage or super fatty cuts of beef, though), eggs, dairy, nuts, olive oil, and even full-fat dressing! After HCG, this feels positively liberal. You're supposed to lose 8-14 lbs during Phase 1.

Phase 2 lasts as long as you want to continue to lose weight. You are supposed to lose 1-2 lbs a week. In this phase you slowly re-introduce whole grains and fruit back into your diet. Oatmeal, whole grain bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, etc. are all allowed now, as well as fruits.

Phase 3 is basically eating normally. The hope is that your new "normal" includes lots of whole grains, lean meats, veggies and fruits and very little processed sugar and white flour. However, it does allow you an occasional indulgence, as long as you don't overdo it. If you do overdo it, and you notice a weight increase, you go back to Phase 1 until you have it under control.

Sounds good, right?

So here's how it went yesterday...

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese
Glass of milk

Snack: String Cheese

Lunch: Chef Salad, Crystal Light

Snack: Pistachios, Dt. Mountain Dew, later a piece of lime-marinated turkey breast

Dinner: Pan-Seared Salmon and Sauteed vegetables

Dessert: Sugar free hard candy


How it Went: First of all, I don't really like eggs. So eating eggs for breakfast each day is going to be very hard for me. I choked them down (they're more palatable with cheese and ham, but still not that great). By 10:30 I was pretty hungry. So I had some string cheese. Within half an hour I was so hungry I had a headache. I usually do fine with a salad for lunch, but I think the lack of carbs for breakfast and no carbs for a pick me up left me feeling quiet hungry after lunch. So I ate some pistachios and took some Advil with my Mountain Dew, just in case it was caffeine related, not hunger related. I was still really hungry after that, and my headache was still there, so I found a lime-marinated turkey breast from a few days ago in the fridge and ate that. That satisfied me for quite a while. By dinner I was hungry again, but my headache was gone and I wasn't starving. We ate out and asked them to replace our potatoes with more vegetables. It was a fantastic dinner and left me feeling very satisfied all evening. I got a little hungry before bed, which I always do. I thought about making an approved dessert (there are a few), but I decided not to eat any calories before bed. Instead I just sucked on some fruit candy, and, surprisingly, that kept my mouth and mind off food. Overall, it wasn't too bad. I definitely could have used a slice of wheat toast with lunch, but the rest of the day didn't feel too different.

Result: 1.2 lbs loss! WOOT!