kaplods, I agree with you...

may 2006 started south beach and it worked for about 2 years... and i loved it.

then i realized i was stalled.... had to do something... kept the habits of eating mostly whole foods and added points counting but i was far enough into eating healthy that it was just a matter of changing the amounts of what i was eating.

there is no way i could go back to eating the way i did before i started losing weight... not daily and maintain the loss much less continue losing.

I call it the fine art of tweaking.

It surprises me sometimes (I don't know why, since I used to do it too) when I hear someone say something about a specific plan like "Oh, I could never do South Beach, because I could never give up sweet corn in the summer." Or "I could never do Sugar Busters, because I love carrots."

OK, did you really gain all of your weight on sweet corn or carrots? Do you have to "ditch" the plan because of one minor disagreement? Do you have to follow an organized plan at all? Can you take the best ideas from all the plans you do like, and see if you can crazy quilt them together into something that works?

I mean sometimes we follow diets as if they were "magic spells," one minor change in the incantation and we've just accidentally turned ourselves into a pink rhinoceros. At least I sure acted like that when deciding I couldn't do a particular plan because of a disagreement over a minor detail.

I mean sure, if I decided to follow South Beach or Sugar Busters and decided that candy bars didn't "count," I doubt I'd have much luck, but would eating beets or fresh pineapple once in a while, really make or break any weight loss plan when I have 200 more pounds to lose?

I mean in the past, when I "slipped," I would get discouraged before I even discovered whether there was any impact on my weight at all. Following Sugar Busters, I'd want to ditch the whole thing when I "slipped" and ate baby carrots. Feeling "guilty" for eating something off the list, whether or not it impacted on the weight loss. Talk about crazy, but it's how I was taught by my mother, grandmother, and women's magazines to think about the process. A list of "bad" foods and a list of "good" foods, and I was bad if I ate off the bad list, and only good if I never deviated from the good list.

we are so in the same place

in 2004 when SBD first came out and i read the book and it said NO carrots and no bananas my then mindset was "oh ok... put the book away I can't live without carrots and bananas"

then my breaking point came, and i was trying to figure out what i could do but i KNEW I had to lose weight... so i reread online about SBD and found out carrots and bananas were added back in phase 2 and i thought..... "i can live without carrots and bananas for two weeks" and I did.

and i transitioned to phase 2 easily (and very slowly) and did that 100% perfect for about 3 months and then fairly rigidly for the first year. and then I started to find my groove... to modify...

watermelon and fresh corn in the summer

beets for dinner

now adding in some non approved grain products as i've modified my plan to incorporate points too.

i also do not know why this time worked for me and all the others did not but it did. i think everyone has to find their breaking point and then they will find a plan that works for them...

and even if i'm doing south beach, it's my south beach not the girl next to me who's doing her version

Here is a very interesting post on Refuse to Regain about if it matter how you lose weight, seems appropriate for this discussion.

Just found out I'm insulan resistant and so def going back to atkins! Thanks for all the help

Very interesting site, thanks for posting!