South Beach Diet

Well, I don't think most people would consider me to be fat (though at Carleton I was the fattest guy in a house of 4 skinny guys). My weight has recently varied between 168 lbs when I returned from backpacking around the world, to this year's post-christmas weight of somewhere between 195-200 lbs. I'm about six feet tall, which put my post-christmas BMI (body mass index) around 27, eeking me into the 'Overweight' category. So I'm trying out a diet.

When I tell people I'm trying out a diet they usually say something like "What? That's crazy! You don't need to lose weight!". I'm not exactly the type who follows recipes, rules, directions, ... and I'm not worried about my BMI number either. But, here are the two reasons I do need to shed some pounds:

1. The extra weight that I am carrying is almost exclusively in the middle of my body, which any nutritionist or doctor will tell you is a bad sign.

2. Much more importantly: I don't feel comfortable in this body.

When I was down around 170 lbs, I felt fantastic, I had more energy, and I felt better in my clothes.

So, Kristen and I have decided to check out the South Beach diet. The main idea of the diet is to get you to think about what you're eating and recognize good and bad carbohydrates. The main issue with carbs is the speed at which they are broken down into sugars. Unlike the Atkins diet, which basically says that carbs are bad across the board, South Beach tries to promote an understanding of why some carbs are worse than others, and that they can be made better or worse depending on HOW you eat them and WHAT you eat them with. Consuming fibre with carbs requires the body to work harder to break down the fibre before it can get to the sugars, which means the sugar is absorbed more slowly and you don't end up with an spike in your insulin levels (which is what causes you to be hungry after lunch or dinner, and start snacking).

There are three phases to the diet. The first two weeks are 'strict', where you cut out all carbohydrates except certain vegetables (e.g., brocolli, lettuce, and peppers are okay, potatoes and carrots are not). Phase two loosens up and you can re-introduce some carbs back into your diet. Not all at once though. You only get a small amount per day. You have to choose the ones that you really want to include. When you reach your desired weight you move to Phase three, where you can eat what you want, though by then you have hopefully changed your eating habits and won't eat much (if any) more junk.

I like the idea behind this diet, mainly because it makes you think about what you're eating it and how. With each new diet that comes out, the general public seems to learn more about nutrition. Of course if you think simplistically about them, you'll end up drinking nothing but juice, or eating nothing but Atkin's official products, which should be obviously dumb. I like to see these things as a slow education of the public, building up our common knowledge base.

Anyway, this is only Day 3 of the diet. Because my bathroom scale is a little old and because my weight seems to fluctuate wildly from day to day, I'm not going to get very excited about specific numbers, but here are some. Last week my weight varied from 194-197 lbs. This morning my weight was 191. That doesn't necessarily mean I've permanently lost any weight (lousy scale + weight fluctuation), but that's one of this week's measurements. I'll post my progress as we go.