South Beach Diet - How does 'having an off Beach' meal/snack affect you?

Hello Chickies!

I am brand new to the beach and was wondering what happens when you have an 'off beach' meal. For example, I survived 8 days on P1 no problem. Then I got really upset (yes, I know that's no excuse :o ), but I had some pasta and chocolate chips). Well, I'm calm now and plan on sticking to program and just pretending like it never happend. I was wondering how this affects my 'beach body'. Have I completely ruined all the work I've done for 8 days. Is my body going to be looking for sugar now? For how long? I hope that I am making sense.

Any help or ideas would be great appreciated.

Are you having craving? We are human, we are gonna have our days.. and brush it off and continue to stay ON PLAN, and if you cheat, dont blow the entire day to **** ,, just soldier on ... Good luck, but if you start having cravings, I would def. go back to Phase 1 for a few days..

Being able to recover after slip ups is one huge diference I can tell between SB and other diets I have tried. Before I might have eaten a bad meal then I would let that spiral into days of eating bad and it was so hard to get back on plan. With SB I have had a couple of slip ups but I just went right back on plan the next meal. That makes me feel even more control over my body.

The farther you get into the diet, the better you will be at handling 'off diet' meals. My wife and I have been livin' South Beach style since January of 2005. I'd say that gradually we've be adding 'off diet' meals more often, and I have not seen a big weight gain as a result. We've actually been losing weight still.

The key is to stick to the principles of the diet. Be strict to the diet as many days of the week as you can, and then be sure to let loose every once in a while. Usually I find myself wanting to go back to the Phase 1 and 2 staples after having a large 'off diet' meal.

Also, be sure to make yourself substitutes as often as possible. I recommend making the squash pizza crust and making a veggie pizza with it. That usually curbs my craving for Pizza. Also doing grilled burgers with baked sweet potato fries is a good 'break' meal too.

Staying steady is a combination of knowing where and when to 'cheat' and really enjoying and respecting how well you feel since being on the diet.

I just restarted PI 9 days ago. The first time I had the approach that I had to do this diet perfect so would not allow any off plan meals, well you know where that ended up. Not on plan at all. This time I took the attitude that sometimes I will eat meals or enjoy foods that are not on plan and not worry about, just stick with plan at least 90% of the time.

So if your off plan started cravings up then you just need to follow PI until the cravings are gone again. No looking back only ahead. :goodluck:

Bunna, I like your theory, No going back, only ahead. It speaks volumes about you as a person. :hug:
I am working on doing better. One day at a time!