South Beach Diet Log - Week 15 & 16

New Year's Resolution - Diet and Exercise

Summary: Week Fifteen - This week lands me smack in the middle of the holiday celebrations--Christmas and New Year's Day. I dived into a bag of potato chips and some French onion dip on Christmas Day. These particular chips, Sterzing's Potato Chips are made locally where I live. I really love them. They are a definite outlaw food so I'm not recommending them for anyone. But if you are looking for a sinful cheat while on your diet... they would be on the very top of my list! I've been really good not having eaten any of these chips since beginning my diet fourteen weeks ago. Which has been somewhat difficult considering they are sold everywhere in our town. Aside from those sinfully delightful chips I was also tempted this week with my mother's Christmas sugar cookies and my dad's holiday fudge. Nothing better than eating homemade sweets, right? But then Aunt Janet's chocolate covered dried fruits that were sent to us from her home in Portland were especially yummy too. Little wonder that the scales tipped foward a pound or so this week. I knew this week would be a losing battle. I promise to get back on track next week. I could have been better and not eaten so many bad things this week, but in comparison to what I consumed last year during the holidays I did control my urges.

End of Week Weigh in: +1.5
Total Weight loss after fifteen weeks: 9.5 pounds

Summary: Week Sixteen - I realized this week that it was time for me get back on track and stop eating outlaw goodies. It was too easy for me to use the holidays as an excuse for returning to bad diet choices. Here I am faced with the new year which is a time for making resolutions. I feel like I am already ahead of the game, having started my diet over three months ago. I know that a low-carb diet and daily exercise workouts allow me to feel better and look leaner. I'm not a big fan of exercise, but I'm comforable with it and know I'll be able to slip right back into the groove once again. Yes, I'll fail to roll out my yoga mat some mornings, and yes I'll nibble on outlaw foods from time to time. But for the majority of the days to come in the new year I'll do okay. I'm lazy by nature, I swear I'm allergic to exercise. However, I have the scales and the full-length mirror to help keep me from straying too far away from my new healthy lifestyle. My New Year's resolution is to continue along this path, making healthy-conscious choices in regard to both exercise and diet. Maybe my strides will be stronger and swifter this year as I walk the track at the gym as well. That would be good.

End of Week Weigh in: -2
Total Weight loss after sixteen weeks: 11.5 pounds

Summary: Week Seventeen - I feel like I did pretty good this week. I stayed within the Phase II guidelines perfectly. I was very careful with my hand-to-mouth activities and managed to maintain my weight from last week. I'm feeling much happier with the holiday treat temptations farther behind me. However... sitting just 3.5 pounds away from my original goal of losing 15 pounds has given me the incentive to retreat to Phase I for a couple of weeks starting tomorrow. Rather than contemplating it I've decided to do it. I lost six pounds during my initial two weeks following the Phase I guidelines in the South Beach Diet. It will be interesting to see what happens during my second-go-around. I had some really bad diet habits when I started then. Now that I've incorporated SDB lifestyle changes into a habit I may not see as significant of a drop in weight. For this reason, I'm not expecting to lose six pounds. But I only want to lose 3 measley pounds.. how hard can that be? I guess I'll find out.

End of Week Weigh in: no change
Total Weight loss after seventeen weeks: 11.5 pounds

Next: Back to Phase I