Through the Back Loop

Adventures in knitting, fiber arts, and family.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

South Beach Lifestyle Change... an Update

First, I want to start off by saying that I really do have willpower. I gave up red meat for three years when DH had a heart attack as a way to help lower his cholesterol. We also exercised regularly and some weight came off. I kept most of it off even when we added red meat back into our diet in April 2004. We started eating red meat again after DH was put on a new restrictive diet to decrease the amount of kidney stones he was making. Turned out that the kidney stone prevention diet took out most of the food we were eating on our "no red meat" plan. The red meat came back, but sparingly.

I am 5'10" and weigh 225 lbs. I would like to lose 30 pounds as a start. I refuse to do any "diet" as I have never seen one work. I watched my mother go from one to another all of the time I was growing up, and she never kept the weight off. So, I've decided that lifestyle changes are better. The SouthBeach lifestyle change seemed the way to go. It wasn't. I have willpower! Really! But eating absolutely no carbs while filling my face full of high fat foods like red meat, eggs, cheese and butter left me feeling unhealthy. And I felt myself turning into a rabbit with all of the salad I was eating. I have learned that I like "good carbs" and I started eating them again before Phase 1 (two weeks) was over. The SouthBeach Diet went against everything I had learned was heart healthy. Neither of us felt good. We made it 9 days, with cheating almost every day.

So, I have revised the SouthBeach thing and I call it my Healthy Eating Lifestyle Change. Here is my plan..... it makes sense!

  • Eat lots of fruits and vegetables during the day. Like for snacks. I'm a fan of a fast bad carb snack, so this should be a huge improvement. (SouthBeach said NO FRUIT for the first two weeks and then add it back carefully. HUH? You can only eat celery sticks for so long.. SouthBeach also said NO CARROTS.)
  • Eat carbs, but follow what the SouthBeach Diet called "good carbs" like whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, bulgur, and whole grain anything. Not hard, this was part of our No Red Meat Lifestyle and I have thousands of great recipes. Also, don't pick carbs as snacks. EVER!
  • Eat meat like we used to, making it the "side dish" instead of the main dish. SouthBeach had us making it the main dish, the snack, the breakfast, the anytime food. It was driving me nuts!
  • Portion control. That means I should only eat one slice of toast instead of twenty! And twenty M&Ms instead of 20,000.
  • Pick lower calorie desserts.
  • Watch the unhealthy snacking... actually don't watch them - leave them alone!
  • Exercise! I have added the BeFit button from another blog (sorry I can't remember who...someone please remind me so that I can edit this and add her name) because I'm swimming. The first swim meet was supposed to be tomorrow, but financial problems kept me from entering. February's meet is on the weekend of a BBall tournament for my daughter so it looks like March will be my first meet. I now swim a 500 (20 laps) in 10 minutes and have done many flip turns. Yeah me!

I'll keep you posted as to how this plan works for weight loss. On the SouthBeach thing, with massive cheating, I did lose 6 pounds in 9 days... but eyegahvalt.... what a way to do it!

Knitting:

I'm swatching for my first Latvian mittens today. Size 0 needles will hopefully work. So far it looks good, but I have to measure.

I made a pair of clogs for me from all of the scraps from the others I made.

I felted DH's clogs and the St. Louis Ram's cap I made for him. They both turned out great!


1 Comments:

  • At 10:14 PM , Blogger katharine said...

    Sounds like you have this lifestyle change rolling right along and I wish you nothing bust the best of luck. You can do it !!!

    Can't wait to see pics of the Latvian mittens.

     

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