RE: Knock knock - any room in here for me?
Marisa, I have been doing the South Beach for 4 weeks now and I've lost 9 pounds. So for me, its definitely working! I didn't "think" I was a huge carb eater, but when I look at my diet now vs before I see now that I was a TOTAL carb junkie. I would honestly go days without eating a vegetable (I loved fruit though).
For me, I prefer thinking about the SBD as a lifestyle change, not a diet. After the first two weeks, you do add back in carbs, but they are not likely to be the same carbs you are eating now. They will be whole grain, unrefined carbs and far fewer of them. The hardest part for me has been the complete difference in what you eat. But I think that the diet is VERY doable. Its big pluses for me and DH are that it does not restrict portions so you never feel hungry. That is a HUGE psychological thing for me.
But I will say that I started this with a pantry full of food that I can no longer eat. To make it work, what I would do is get the book,(its $14 at Costco) read it, plan a shopping list around the meals and menus, and then go stock up at the grocery store. I probably went to the grocery store 5 times the first week because I could not believe how many veggies I would be eating! I used to wonder who bought those huge things of romaine lettuce and peppers and other vegetables at Costco. Now I know, its me! I now get most of my vegetables, eggs, seafood and chicken at Costco, supplementing with a few other basic items at the regular grocery store.
FYI, you don't need to use artificial sweeteners if you don't want to. But the sweetener he recommends is Splenda, which is actually derived from sugar and is not aspartame based. I believe that the artificial sweetener that people are concerned about in pregnancy is aspartame (the one in Equal and in most diet soft drinks).
You also don't have to eat fish. If you eat tuna that will help. But you can do it with other proteins too, but the seafood really helps to vary the proteins. Do you like shrimp and scallops? Those are great too!
And when the nurse was talking about carbs as poisons, that is probably true of refined, non-whole grain carbs. The more I read about refined carbs the more I see how terrible they are for you. But the SBD emphasizes that whole grain carbs ARE good carbs and shows you how to replace the bad carbs with good carbs.
I sound like a zealot, but honestly, I am now horrified at the way I used to eat. And I HONESTLY didn't think I was eating that badly. But I was eating nowhere near enough vegetables and relying too heavily on fruits. It is a definite lifestyle change, but its one I'm glad I'm making.
Good luck and we're here for you!
Beth, mom to older DD (8/01) and younger DD (10/06) and always missing Leah (4/22 - 5/1/05)