South Beach Diet Progress Notes #1

So, I was listening to old installments of my favorite podcast Wise Counsel last weekend and South Beach diet was mentioned and heavily recommended. I've always ignored South Beach diet because of the name. I mean really, it's a dumb name. It screams fad so I completely ignored it. Yet, it's been around for a few years now. I don't hear anything about Adkins or Carb Addicts anymore so maybe this is the real deal. Hmmmm. I decided further investigation was warranted. The result: I found it appealing right away. During Phase 1 you avoid carbohydrates. This is just a 2 week period. The purpose is to eliminate cravings. During Phase 2 whole grain, high fiber carbs can be reintegrated into your diet.

I'm not here to teach, just to document my journey so I'll leave the lesson there. I decided to give it a try. I decided to approach this diet differently than any others I've tried in the past. From my experience, when on a diet I spend the majority of my day thinking about food because I have to carefully plan out everything I'm going to eat. This is especially true for calorie counting diets. It completely defeats the purpose. I think about food way more than I usually would and therefore am much more likely to fail.

My solution to this problem was to take a few days prior to starting the diet to find some good resource sites (my favorite Kalyn's Kitchen) and to plan out my first 30 days of meals and snacks. This way I simply look at my list and eat what's next. I don't have to think about it all day. I planned my menu carefully considering my grocery trips and picking recipes that used same ingredients. In the past I have often found myself buying multiple things that get used once and wasting the rest. That's frustrating and expensive.

Ok, plan in place I started on Thursday. Day 1 went great. Day 2 went even better. In fact, surprisingly I was easily able to ignore my cravings on day 2. What a wonderful unexpected development! I even began to challenge myself and think of things like ice cream and nachos. It's my classic sabotage. For some reason I'm afraid of success in this arena so when I start to feel some I immediately start trying to pull the rug out from under myself. That's something that will definitely need addressed. There are a number of past emotional issues that led me to hide behind 100 excess pounds. I'm not saying it was intentional but it was definitely a protective wall that I built.

Today is day 3. I'm having a wonderful breakfast of eggs, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes, turkey sausage crumbles, and reduced fat sharp cheddar cheese. Yum.

Here's the one thing I'm noticing that may or may not be related. I'm very irritable today. My 3-yr-old and 2-yr-old are driving me up the wall more so than usual and much earlier than usual. Is this related? I don't know. Funny thing though, as I was writing this very paragraph my daughter came running at me with a plastic golf club above her head and smashed me in the nose with it before I could catch it. Hmmmm, am I being excessively irritable or are they just really being 3 and 2 today? We'll see how the day progresses, but I'm really happy with the lack of hunger I feel today. Thumbs up for that!