About five years back, Amy and I went on the South Beach Diet and in six months I dropped 30 pounds, from 180 to 150, though I only stayed that low for a few weeks. My weight seemed to stabilize at 155 without a ton of undue effort, and I considered that a success. Of course, over five years the occasional cheeseburger and fries creeps back into the mix until it’s not-so-occasional and beer goes back on the regular menu. It’s not so surprising that I’ve hovered around 170-5 for awhile now. According to my BMI, I’m overweight. According to my pants too.

I’ve read a lot of criticisms of the South Beach as being just a fad diet, but I disagree. More than anything, it’s common sense. The root of the diet (at least in my jaded eyes) is that the corporate food industry can make more money by mass producing products that are void of nutrition and easily digestible, and this means lots of sugar and flour. Currently, I’m doing a modified version of the diet and it looks like this (in order of importance):

1) Stop drinking lots of beer. (Drink red wine or whiskey instead!)
2) Stop eating crap that you know for a fact is bad for you.
3) Eat more veggies. More than anything else, if possible.
4) Eat lean proteins and not huge portions of them.
5) Get more exercise than playing soccer once a week.

The biggest difference has been switching to salad for my lunches rather than the homemade wraps. The other big change is eating lots of small snacks throughout the day to keep big hunger in check. And of course, laying off beer is hard to do. Really hard.

I don’t watch the scale as much as I pay attention to how tight the pants are fitting. I’ve been on this plan for about a month and I’m down to 165 and my clothes are fitting better. This is good. Let’s hope I can keep it up.

Current Mood: Fine |