The South Beach Diet - Day 9

Hello all! Just here to report how things are going on my new diet - new lifestyle - towards a new me.

We are on Day 9 of Phase 1, which means 9 days of virtually no sugars of any kind. No breads, no fruit, no nothing that I crave most days. The first couple of days (Days 1 through 6) consisted of Jonathan and I throwing back and forth ideas of what we would eat if we could. The winner is a Taco Bell chalupa, beef baja, and a huge Mountain dew. Second place is Pancakes with butter. Third would have to be the pizza we've been smelling.

But besides the immense cravings, we've been doing very well. We've not eaten anything unless it was on Phase 1's "Foods to Enjoy" list. And I've come up with some splendid recipes. We've enjoyed salisbury steak, ham, cauliflower and broccoli, turkey and ham sandwich wraps with lettuce and a lot of pickles. Plus being able to enjoy the no sugar added fudgsicles makes things a lot easier. And the sugar free candy is actually pretty good.

I haven't started exercising yet, but I'll get there. I have a pilates video that I would love to try. When spring comes and they open the parks again, I'd love to start taking family walks.

I said that this is a diet or lifestyle change for me, but it's actually for all 4 of us. There is no pop or juice in my house right now. If they're thirsty, we have milk or water. For snacks, there's fruit (apples, oranges and bananas), cheese, lunch meat; but no chips or other fattening snacks. The only "cookies" in our house are Teddy Grahams and graham crackers. As we progress further into the diet and we get back into our main food groups, we will be substituting more items, such as our breads, cereals, pasta, vegetables, etc. We need to get back to whole foods, not the processed stuff we've been consuming for so long.

And for all of this and how expensive it is, it's completely worth it to me. To have healthy kids to know how to eat right and eat smart is more important than the cost, and well worth the money.

As for how the kids will react, Nathan seems eager to start this diet with us, though he doesn't realize how in depth the eating rules go. He's already enjoyed the whole grain waffles and the whole grain pita pockets in place of white bread and plain waffles. Katherine, with her love of chicken nuggets, french fries and pizza, will probably be harder to influence, but I think she'll adapt over time.

Nathan's doing poorly in his classes, no matter what we say or do. It's discouraging as a stepmother to have to live with this day in and day out, encouraging, cajoling, punishing, and not getting any results. Hopefully he realizes that we are hard on him because we love him and want him to do better. Ah, the folly of youth.

Well, almost bedtime. Being sugarless & caffeine-free makes me tired!