South Beach Diet Musings

I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day. I took the day off and spent it at home with my sick ones. They seem to be past the worst of their colds and on the mend, thank goodness. My poor little baby - she kept waking up and crying Sunday and Monday nights because she couldn't breathe through her snotty nose. So, I spent both nights cuddling her in a semi-upright position for most of the night so she could get some sleep (we co-sleep with her, incidentally). That means, however, that Mommy didn't get much rest and was exhausted, so I took a world-class two-hour nap yesterday afternoon and felt a little better. Katie also didn't wake up at all last night, but I still didn't sleep well myself since I was subconsciously listening to make sure she was breathing. Ah, the joys of motherhood :)

So ... last week I broke down and ordered the South Beach Diet book after months of resisting both the media hysteria and the urging of various friends. It was delivered on Monday evening and I took advantage of my vacation day to read it (I can speed-read about 650 words a minute, a useful talent to have). I am not a big fan of what I call "diets in a can" - you know, the "solution" diets like Atkins, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc. that map everything out for you to the point they practically schedule when you go to the bathroom - and I considered South Beach to be one of them, but I have to say this was an enjoyable read.

There are a lot of sound principles behind Dr. Agatston's work and I especially liked how he writes just like a normal person. There isn't a lot of medical-ese to try to decipher, just simple, fairly straightforward information written in layperson's terms. Plus, he isn't one of those "perfect beings from on high" looking to educate those of us wallowing in the ignorance gutter - he's a self-admitted chocoholic, spent years battling his own paunch and made the same screw-ups the rest of us do with respect to diet and nutrition before he invented the South Beach Diet. And he's upfront and honest about it, which I loved - I came away with the sense that he not only talks the talk, but walks the walk, too. Overall, I was surprisingly impressed with both the information and the good doctor.

But ... you knew there had to be a but, didn't you? *wink*

I still can’t get over the insistence of many diet gurus that calories don’t count. On this plan, as with many others, you don’t need to count calories, fat grams, carb grams, protein grams, etc. You eat anytime you’re hungry, in normal-sized portions, about five to six times a day or more. You don’t need to weigh or measure your food, or to count calories – if you follow the program and only stick to those foods that are on the approved list, you’ll lose weight. And, with the South Beach Diet’s Phase I, which is the strictest phase of the program and lasts for about two weeks, you’ll lose anywhere from 8 to 13 pounds.

Now, usually when I see someone has had an 8 to 13 pound weight loss in two weeks, alarm bells go off in my head and I think one of two things: they’ve either lost some Lean Body Mass or they are dehydrated. I just don’t believe you can safely lose more than 2 lbs. of body fat a week, based on what I’ve read over the past six months. Plus, no matter what anyone says, the laws of calorie consumption, calorie deficit and calorie surplus are the same no matter what diet you’re following. It takes a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound, period. Your body doesn’t stop functioning this way just because you go on Weight Watchers or Atkins or the South Beach diet. That’s one of the reasons I track every calorie I put in my mouth – I want to make sure I’m eating within my healthy range of calorie consumption so I can not only lose weight, but also make sure I don’t lose Lean Body Mass in the process. I just don’t trust this “don’t count calories because your body will self-regulate” voodoo.

I’m thinking in the name of science, I’m going to conduct an experiment. I’m going to follow Phase I of the South Beach Diet plan to the letter, beginning Monday, February 20. But I am going to monitor my body fat % religiously and record every thing I eat so that I can track the actual calories I am consuming and make sure I am not losing Lean Body Mass. I will evaluate my results on Sunday, March 5 – assuming I haven’t abandoned the experiment earlier, which I will do in a heartbeat if I start losing LBM. And here’s an interesting bonus. Supposedly, this nutrition plan lowers high blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, etc. just like many of the low carb diets do (the South Beach diet is NOT low carb, by the way – carbs are only severely restricted within the first two weeks, but are added back in subsequent phases). I went to see my doctor for a progress evaluation yesterday and my blood pressure is remaining stubbornly high – no change, even with the new meds. He doubled the dose and I go back on March 7 for another progress evaluation. It will be interesting to see if my blood pressure is coincidentally any lower at that time, especially since it will be the first time in 14 months I will have had any kind of positive response.

Well, lookee here … I wrote another novel. Damn, I’m long-winded, aren’t I? But this should be an intriguing experiment, don't you think?