Monday, July 14, 2008

South Beach

Brad and I have decided that we need a little kick to get us to lose some weight as we've both gained more than we'd like in the last year. To help us out we've started the South Beach Diet, we're going to do Phase I for two weeks.

For those of you unfamiliar with South Beach it's supposed to help you cut out bad carbs and fats but I'm not really interested in the diet long term. What I am interested in is Phase I. Long term, terribly unhealthy but short term it's great for you. You cut out all carbs including those that are naturally occurring which means no fruit and technically no carrots, we're modifying to include carrots though. You also cut out basically all sugar. Diary is allowed as long as it's low-fat or reduced fat. The science of it is that when we eat too many carbs our body stores them as fat, by cutting out all carbs you're body starts to burn the stored fat resulting in an average of 8-12 pounds weight loss.

After Phase I (which isn't recommended for longer than a three week period) you gradually add back in whole grains and some sugars. Phase II and III are about maintaining. We're hoping to build some good habits and break out of some bad ones in these two weeks.

We only started yesterday but so far it's been really easy. Yesterday and today for breakfast we had scrambled eggs with peppers, onion, low fat turkey and some low fat cheese. For lunch we ate bunless burgers with Greek salad and it was so yummy! We did cheat just a little yesterday as the Feta wasn’t low fat. It's what we had in the fridge though and we didn't want it to go bad. We used it all up and the new stuff we purchase will be low fat for sure. For dinner we had BBQ skewers with steak, shrimp, peppers and onion.

Today should be just as good, taco soup for lunch and we're having a yummy salad for dinner. I haven't missed the carbs one bit yet.

I also appreciate on South Beach that you're encouraged to eat until you're full. Don't over eat but you eat a good size meal since everything you're eating is great for you. Snacking is allowed as long as they are good snacks such as nuts or cheese and pickles are allowed.

I'm interested to see what results we get and I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
L

3 comments:

meenalu said...

i heard that weight watchers is the best diet that you can do-because you can eat whatever you want within a certain point level (usually around 20), so you're not cutting stuff out, you're doing portion control.

plus, veggies are zero points so you can load up on them. AND, my friend told me that you can have an entire cup of feta cheese and it's only ONE POINT. amazing!!

Mme Williams said...

Thank you for your comment and your birthday call. I am sorry that I haven't had a chance to call you back but I am on a weird work schedule and so it makes calling difficult.

I hope your diet goes well. Bigges thing with any diet is consistency. You can do it :D

Laura said...

Weight Watchers is good long term I agree, we're looking for quick results which is what South Beach phase I is all about.
I don't think I'dl ove Wight Watcher, I don't want to count points at every meal, I like that as long as they're good foods I can eat what I want.