south beach diet

[eagl]

Hey

I hate fad diets, but sometimes you get suprised...

I've been hovering between 192 and 204 lbs for about 5 years now and I finally decided that moderate exercise and a "healthy" diet wasn't cutting it.  I just finished phase 1 of south beach (2 weeks of excluding simple carbs like sugar, bread, and starchy food) and I'm at 189 lbs for the first time in about 5 years.  Phase 2 of south beach is just slightly more limiting than the diet I've been following for years, so I expect to hold steady or keep dropping weight.

All I did was eat the foods on this list:

http://www.south-beach-diet-information.com/phase2.htm

No money spent on a stupid diet plan, just don't eat any carbs except for all the veggies I can stuff down my gullet.  There is no reason to expect this is only a temp weight loss since I haven't done anything extreme like atkins.  I've been eating all the carbs I need (the veggies) and still the weight came off.  I dropped from 198 to 193 in about 4 days, then held at 193 for almost a week.  Then it dropped a pound a day to a "real" 189 by the time I finished the 2 week phase 1.

Anyhow, I had better than expected results so I thought I'd share.  They recommend a multi-vitamin just in case your choice of foods is short of certain nutrients, but otherwise it seems like a pretty reasonable plan.

[hardtack]

That is great, Eagl.   South Beach strikes me as one of the more reasonable diets.

Couple of things; I think carbs and veggies are two different things.   Carbs are grains-based foods like breads, rice and cereals, whereas veggies are beans, corn, broccoli, carrots, etc.     I'm sure you mean the latter and not the former.

Also, I've heard its best to stick with a brand name vitamin like Centrum, etc and not a generic.   Some study I heard about recently indicated not all vitamins contain what they say they contain.

Good Luck!

[eagl]

the brand-name multi-vitamins all give me severe heartburn to the point of vomiting.  Terrible.  

Certain vegetables are better than others... corn and carrots have a high percentage of sugar compared to broccoli and green beans (for example).  The south beach food lists really make it easy to figure out what will help, what is neutral, and what hurts.  I think that's why I've had such success... I've been able to just adjust what I eat based on how hungry I am and eating only what I have on hand that fits within the food list.  I haven't gone hungry but I lost an easy 8 lbs.

[Ball]

Food To Be Avoided In Phase One

All alcohol

[Sikboy]

I skipped Phase one for the most part, but the SBD treated me pretty well, and whenever I start to move up the scale I just go back on phase 2 for a while.

I started the diet because wife 2.0 was on it and I couldn't well cook for her without adhering to the rules. I was around 185 at the time and lost 10 pounds without really trying (just eating what she ate). I don't know why it worked, but it did.

The best thing for the diet aroudn here though, was getting huge bags of individually wrapped frozen salmon filets from Sam's Club. They were cheaper and tastier than anything else at the supermarket, and we're a bit too far from Salmon country to just go catch our own lol.

-Sik

[WhiteHawk]

Originally posted by eagl
the brand-name multi-vitamins all give me severe heartburn to the point of vomiting.  Terrible.  

Certain vegetables are better than others... corn and carrots have a high percentage of sugar compared to broccoli and green beans (for example).  The south beach food lists really make it easy to figure out what will help, what is neutral, and what hurts.  I think that's why I've had such success... I've been able to just adjust what I eat based on how hungry I am and eating only what I have on hand that fits within the food list.  I haven't gone hungry but I lost an easy 8 lbs.

Watch out for the rebound.  Once you get your target weight nd you feel comfoprtable, you will start to eat as you did in the past and your body will blow up like a balloon.  Drastic changes in your lifestyle are not good 99% of the time. Good luck however.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by eagl
Hey

I hate fad diets, but sometimes you get suprised...

Originally posted by Sikboy
I skipped Phase one for the most part, but the SBD treated me pretty well,

I don't know what this says about the USAF...but it can't be pretty.

[nirvana]

Are you drinking a lot of ice cold water too Eagl?  Should help shed a few pounds, especially if you are rather bloated.  Congratulations on the current weight loss though:aok

[eagl]

I drink a lot of water, yes.  Too much diet soda too, but I always drink a lot of water.  Bloating isn't a problem with me, because I've always eaten reasonably healthy foods and switched to a somewhat reduced fat everyday diet about 10 years ago.  

Because of my job and my old diet wasn't really all that bad, I'm in pretty good shape for an "overweight" person.  I meet the AF fitness standards and I'm a really good swimmer with good overall strength and endurance, so the closest thing I can compare it to is taking a "normal" physically fit person and making him carry 40 lbs of water around all the time.  That's pretty much how I feel...  It just makes everything a little more difficult.

My final realization that I had to do something dramatic came last year when I was preparing for the AF fitness test.  Over 3 months I improved my score by over 10 points and beat the standard by a pretty good margin without losing a pound.  That really bothered me...  I was in good physical condition, just handicapping myself by hauling around 40 extra pounds.

I just added brown rice and raisin bran cereal back to my diet and I'll add back fruit (apples and oranges) in a day or two...  We'll see if I keep losing weight.  My goal is to drop from my starting point of 198ish to 160, but I'd probably be happy at 170 if that's all I can get.  I was 189 again this morning.

[Slash27]

Originally posted by Thrawn
I don't know what this says about the USAF...but it can't be pretty.

What's it to you anyway?





btw, eagl, Good work.

[Debonair]

yamamoto lost about 100000 tons on that diet:cool:

[AquaShrimp]

Vegetables are packed full of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.  However, alot of the plant foods Eagl listed were high calorie.  Carrots are tubers, basically a large carbohydrate source.  Beans are legumes, chocked full of complex carbs and protein.  Both tubers and legumes are high energy foods.

'Real' vegetables are low in energy.  These include : Broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, khale, asparagus, brussel sprouts, cuccumbers, etc.  

I've toyed around with creating a diet of my own.  The best diet I can create would be based around vegetables, with lean meats and healthy sources of fat, along with a few servings of fruit.  But the vegetables are the key.

[eagl]

You're right shrimp.  That's why the diet specifically excludes carrots during the first 2 weeks.

[Sixpence]

Ok, maybe this is the thread to put words into action, I really need to lose weight, for health reasons if nothing else, diebetis runs on both sides.

So, gonna start a tab of what I intake and post results. I am not active other than work(and work on the house) and that will probably not change, but i'll post if I manage a sit up or two.

[Sikboy]

Originally posted by Thrawn
I don't know what this says about the USAF...but it can't be pretty.

Heh, I was Navy! Don't ask, and I won't tell.

-Sik