South Beach Diet

Hello everyone, it's time to update you on the "diet."  As you have already read I was previously trying to follow along with the meal plans on JillianMichaels.com, well that just wasn't for me.  While I still really look up to her, the food plan was a little to elaborate for me, and filled with way too many "hard to find" items at the grocery store. I miss Cub Foods!! Anyways, as I was sitting on the couch (lol) I remembered that I had bought a South Beach Diet cookbook for quick and easy recipes.  I am not sure what prompted the purchasing at the time because I have never tried this diet or had any idea of what it entailed.  So I snagged Kevin into going through this book with me.  The beginning of the book gave you a little snippet of what the diet was, and explaining the three different phases that the diet was made up of.  So of course since I am a Post-It lover, we went through the entire book and assigned each phase with a different color Post-It, so you could easy find recipes for the phase you are in.  The phases are listed on the recipe, you just can't see it from the outside of the book, just a convenience thing with the Post-Its!  The nice thing about this diet, is the recipes don't require you to have a five star rating in cooking.

Let me back track here, and give you a little bit more knowledge on how the diet works. Better yet, go take a look at the Wikipedia page for it.  Just enough info to spark your interest on it, or know that it's not for you.  The first phase is obviously the most challenging, and I have realized that it is not that bad.  I am not a meal planner at all, but I am slowly learning that it really helps me to make the right decisions.  Also, I have made sure that the only things that are in our cupboards are foods that are allowed in this phase, just makes things a lot easier.  One of the things I really like about this diet is that you don't have to focus on counting calories.  I know that is the staple of dieting to a point, but I think the is only one key of weight loss.  Obviously if you wanted to you could fill up your calories with candy bars all day, but your obviously not going to lose weight that way.  The next thing I really like is that you can eat when your hungry.  The diet does have you plan out 3 meals and 2 snacks a day, but if you get hungry, you eat, approved items of course.  Also, serving sizes are not stressed, eat until you are satisfied and then be done.  Remember though, eating until you are satisfied doesn't mean you have to unbutton your pants, or have a stomach ache in return! 

When you move on to phase 2, it is pretty much the same plan but you are slowly adding back in carbs and sugars, in moderation of course.  And phase 3 is basically the rest of your life, you have a little more food options.  Also, if you go on vacation for a week, and delight your taste buds, and see a larger number on the scale, you can go back to phase 1 and do a do-over to drop the weight again!  This diet is simple, and that's my kind of diet.   I am on day 3 of phase 1 and so far the scale is reading -2lbs, but I will do an official weigh-in after a week of it!

Over the weekend I managed to slam my foot into the corner of a table top that was on the floor, (for my puzzle.)   My foot managed to get pretty large, and I am finally able to start walking semi normally, so I am hoping to get exercise started again tomorrow.  And it would be kind of the state of WI to be not include the humidity in the heat!!

Anyways, thanks for reading, and check out the South Beach Diet and let me know what you think!