South Beach Progess Report

I'm officially on Day 3 of my phase 1. Honestly, it hasn't been that bad. I sneaked a peek at the scale this morning and yes it has gone down.

How much?

A good bit but I'm not going to say how much until the end of the first week. I know I was holding on to major water weight so this is it just finally going away.

They say you are to lose 8-13lbs in the first two weeks. I've cut out sugar before in my diet and I didn't experience those numbers but I did experience the water flush. It's not fat but it feels good. I feel less bloated and that helps especially since we women tend to bloat a lot around certain times. I'm hoping for 6 pounds. Why 6? It's just a number that will get me to a vanity point on my bathroom scale. What do I really want? Just a clean slate. To feel like my body is ready for nutritious foods. To get a hold of my reese cup addiction. Oh how I love those things.

I'm also very excited to get my whole grains and fruit back. When the time comes I will eat them with appreciation.

Now, the pros and cons so far of this phase:

Cons:
- I got headaches. The first day at the end of the day, I had a horrific headache. I took advil and it just ever so slightly eased back the pain. I had read that these were a possibility and the length of time they lasted depended on the person. The second day I had a minor one at breakfast, but eating and some tylenol zapped it quickly. Today, so far so good.

- The proverbial you're going to want what you can't have. My meal choices have been great and my selection has been abundant but I still feel restricted because well, I am. I came up with at least twenty different ideas for supper the first night but none of them seem to fit. Even after I chose and we prepared dinner and it tasted fantastic it felt like something was missing. Was I really missing a dinner roll? Probably not. My stomach was pouting because it couldn't have it.

- Energy falter / weird feeling. Just every now and then I have felt a little "off". I went on a walk last night and I definitely felt my energy zapped. I know this is due to the low carbness of it all but what I found was that making my meals well rounded really helped. For instance, bulking up on kidney beans in my afternoon vegetable soup did wonders. And a glass of milk with dinner helped too.

Pros:
- I'm bulking up my meals with vegetables instead of bread and pasta. I'll be honest, I love bread and pasta and given the choice I would bulk up with those instead of my veggies. Now, I have automatically hit my daily servings for vegetables over the last 2 days and it's been nice. So, I'm going to try to keep this balance when I get my grains back.

- Oddly enough, waking up in the morning has gotten marginally easier each day. This is my third morning and I woke up fairly easily. Please keep in mind waking up in the morning is one of the worst times of day for me so if eating like this will help make that easier I say bring it on!

- My pants are fitting better.


And that's it so far.

Today is Day 3 and here's a rundown of my eating plan:

B: spinach and mushroom egg muffins
S: vegetable soup and cottage cheese
L: chicken salad in lettuce wraps w/ chopped tomato
S: string cheese
D: chunky tomato and seafood cajun stew

But we'll see how it goes.