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South Beach Diet

Related Comic: By Any Other Name

The Diet:

The South Beach Diet is similar to other lo-carb diets. There are a few notible exceptions: in the first phase you aren't allowed any fruits, you may have low fat cheese and milk, you are only allowed one small serving of nuts per day.

The Experience:

The last time I did a low-carb diet I felt like I was a victim of extreme low energy, and this time was no exception. I think the 'low' in low-carb is meant to describe your emotional feelings. Such as the low I felt when I seriously considered eating some baker's chocolate I found in my cupboard. Baker's chocolate being essentially 50% raw cocoa and 50% hydrochloric acid. Somehow I was able to resist the temptation.

The week started off pretty well. I had some eggs which I boiled and used them for breakfast for most of the week along with some cottage cheese. I cooked chicken and broccoli for dinner a few nights (and steak and broccoli another night) and for lunch I generally had a salad. I had my meager handful of nuts, some South Beach brand meal bars, and some sugar-free Jello cups for snacks in between main meals. Take the sugar away from Jello and you are left with nothing but artificially flavored gelatine, which is much much worse than actual Jello.

Exercise-wise I started the week off strong doing 4 miles on the treadmill and immediately after 4.5 miles on the eliptical. Tuesday I went to my Aikido class, before going I thought I might jog afterwards, after the class I laughed at such a silly notion. Wednesday I decided not to jog and instead did a 10K on the eliptical. Afterwards I played Ultimate Frisbee for more than a couple of hours, which made me extremely tried but more importantly hurt my feet to the point where it was difficult to walk. Thursday because of my feet I tried using the bicycle machine, but after 20 minutes I was completely exhausted and had to quit.

The most difficult part of the diet came on Friday morning. Somehow I ran out of all my food Thursday night, so Friday morning I had nothing but a little leftover chicken and broccoli for breakfast. I taught my martial arts class from 11:00 to 2:00, and given that I had eaten very little and I was already extremely weary I felt it was my poorest performance as a paid teacher ever. Regardless of what my diet is this coming week I will need to eat enough food Friday morning to give me energy to focus and perform for my class.

Saturday I attended a wedding of a friend for most of the day, and between not getting enough sleep and having other things to do I didn't end up exercising. Fortunately I've been running a surplus on my miles for the 100 miles goal, otherwise I would be in a bad situation.

The Result:

I was happy to lose a couple of pounds this week, certainly better than last week where I gained weight back, but truthfully one of the reasons I chose the South Beach Diet is because I was hoping to get a really big loss like I experienced the first few weeks of my dieting. Two pounds is still pretty good, but it will take a whole lot longer to get to my target weight of 4 pounds.

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