Thursday, September 1, 2011

We're going to Miami...

Not really. But C and I are doing the South Beach Diet. I generally hate the "I ate this, then exercised for eleventy-million minutes and lost four pounds!" posts, and I really debated whether I wanted to put this up to be counted among the millions of moms out there trying to lose the baby/stress/cheeseburger weight. But I have writer's block and I'm avoiding putting away the laundry...

I've been trying to lose the last 15 furiously awful pounds of baby weight since January. I started the C25K program and went to the gym three times a week, gained 5 pounds. I did SparkPeople, logged all my food, lost nothing. I restricted to an admittedly unhealthy 800-1000 calories. Lost nothing. So then I gave up and ate cheeseburgers and fries several times a week. Felt like crap, lost nothing, gained nothing. I was lamenting all this to a friend and she suggested/insisted that I try the South Beach Diet.

After much hemming and hawing, grieving french fries and brownies, and trying a million ways to talk ourselves out of it, C and I started on Monday. Here's what I've noticed. Monday I felt great. In fact, with all the veggies I felt like I was super full, all day, but at around 4:00 I would've killed for a bowl of cereal. They're not joking when they talk about cravings. Tuesday, I felt like crap. I had a headache, no energy, and just felt Blah. This cemented my theory that carbs and sugar have an addictive quality. Wednesday I noticed that I felt very stable all day. No peaks or drops in energy, no ravishing hunger attacks, just stable. Today I missed a snack and instead of getting "wild badger who will eat your children" hungry I just got really hungry. The pros are that the cravings are slowing down a lot and I like the way my body feels. The cons are that I am really tired of eggs already and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to cook meals without rice, pasta, bread, or potatoes. It's a good challenge though, and I like that C and I are doing it together. That helps a lot.

If people are interested I'll keep writing about my experience. Theoretically I should be able to lose quite a bit of weight in these first two weeks, and then continue on a less restrictive "lifestyle change." Also, if anyone has some fabulous low-carb recipes throw them my way!

2 comments:

  1. Super impressed! I was thinking of giving it another go now that fenugreek is out of the picture. We pretty much made regular dinners minus the carbs. E.g. Stirfry, over a huge serving of veggies topped with cashews (sesame seed oil & soy sauce with chives & fresh Ginger garlic for sauce). Or fajita bowls-trader Joe's carna sada tritip cut up, over sauted bell peppers & onions. Topped with guacamole, light sour cream, and cheese. Taco bowls pover lettuce are pretty good. I have a great turkey chilli recipe. I don't like eggs normally but couldn't ever figure out a good breakfast alternative. Yes, please document! I need the motivation to rid that last stubborn ten lbs.

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  2. Lol-sorry about the insisted :-) if it ends up being two weeks with no loss but only horrible sacrifice I promise you can choose a fitting punishment for me.

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