living in the South Beach world

Six weeks ago, Amy challenged me do the South Beach diet with her. I accepted because:

a) I still had baby weight hanging around, 7 months later after the baby was born
b) I'm not disciplined enough to just "cut back" without drastic measures to kick start me
c) I knew James would join me and he wanted to lose some weight, too
d) I had been eating ice cream way too often this summer

I'm not here advocating this diet as the best thing ever for everyone, and there were moments that first couple of days that I felt yucky on it. But, detoxing generally does cause some negative reactions, so I hung in there, believing we could do it. James is amazingly strong and did not cheat any the first two weeks. I happily jumped at the chance to have a lemon bar at Edgar's though. Other than that, I did really well avoiding sweets and bad carbs during the first stage.

The main principle behind this plan is to eat a variety of fruits and veggies, with lean meats and good carbs. Good common sense, right? It's just basically the way folks ate back before our world became so convenience minded and gluttonous. :-) The first two weeks are limited carbs, but it's not as stringent as the Atkins' diet at all. In our third week we started adding more carbs back in slowly. I could still make these changes, even as an exclusive breast-feeding mom, because I was still eating plenty, just much better quality choices!
Some things I've learned:
- I love food more than I should.
- I can survive weeks without sweet tea or frappuccinos.
- Planning a menu ahead allows more creativity and fosters a healthier eating lifestyle.
- Food is meant sustain us, not comfort us, or even worse, be worshiped by us. (ahem - that's me I'm talking to!)

Some of the meals we've fixed are:

whole wheat pasta and spaghetti sauce with ground turkey and salad

beef roast with green beans and creamed cauliflower

beef stir fry (chicken broth, olive oil, asian seasoning, and a splash of soy sauce instead of pre-made starch and soy sauce mix) with broccoli and carrots

greek grilled chicken salad with baby spinach and cukes, tomatoes, feta and vinaigrette

italian grilled chicken tenders with grilled squash/tomato/zucchini kabobs

taco salad with ground turkey, black beans, lettuce, salsa, low fat cheese, and low fat sour cream

turkey smoked sausage with black beans (leftover beans from taco night seasoned with some good cajun spices and hot sauce) and salad

cajun grilled shrimp and fish with veggies

an original skillet dinner of chicken with Italian seasoned tomatoes and mozarella and whole wheat pasta

These were all good and didn't seem diet-ish at all. Many of these are meals we ate anyway, just tweaked to be a bit better for us. We also are drinking more water, which is an obvious help.

We're fortunate. This just wasn't too hard to do for our family. It took some discipline, but we had some built in advantages. Our produce co-op has been put to good use and contributed significantly to our menu options, our kids eat great, so we haven't had to do anything separate for them, and we both have lost a significant amount of weight, which has motivated us to persevere. James has lost about 16, and I am down to my pre-pregnancy weight minus an additional pound! That's 11 pounds in 6 weeks. YEA!

We're still striving to eat healthier, and have cut out the main no-nos of white flour and refined sugar, which we knew were bad for us anyway, but just didn't have the nerve to really deprive ourselves of. We feel better though, so now don't feel deprived at all. I love the recommended snacks - string cheese, almonds, celery, fruit and cottage cheese, apples and natural peanut butter have all been very do-able to me.

One of the things we've enjoyed most is cooking and working on meals together a little more than we previously did. Though our kitchen is oh, so tiny, we've had fun coming up with sensible and yummy solutions together. So, thanks Amy, for the nudge, and thank you, sweet husband, for being a strong example to me!