Good morning!

I am currently on Day 8 of Phase 1. I have been very very good and not cheated at all. I even turned down an offer for a drink-date on Saturday night and survived yesterday while a friend with thru the McDonalds drivethru and ate while I was in the car with him.

My problem is, I've GAINED a pound in the 8 days since I started. This is super frustrating, because I PROMISE I haven't cheated. AND to increase my exercise, I've gone from walking my dog about 2/3 a mile a day to 2.5 miles per day! (And it actually feels great once we're done w/ the 2 miles at night - I have motivation to do stuff around the house and not just sit on the couch!).

Now, I probably haven't been eating 4.5 cups of veggies every day, thats the only part of the plan I haven't stuck with. But that's because I'm honestly feeling full faster with the protein and veggies I AM eating (and I'm working on my issue of stop eating once I feel full and not just gorging on more food).

Anyone have any suggestions or helpful hints? I was excited to try South Beach and want to stick with it - but if I'm not improving, then I'd really like to back to eatting "bad" stuff!!!

Hang tight and don't wig over a lb.

It could be water retention from sodium or PMS or even extra water in muscles from exercise.

Or it could be food waiting to be digested or a pee/poo waiting to be eliminated. Sorry if that sounds gross, but let's be real. It's gotta weigh something in there, right?

Don't weigh yourself too often. Once a week is plenty.

Or if you weigh daily or several times a day, know that all day long it can flux even up to 5 lbs. So 1 lb is really no sweat -- don't get sucked in scale mind games. If you are getting too close, take a few steps back away from the scale.

Hang in there.

A.

Yeah, the 4.5 cups of veggies is key. Try eating veggies before anything else when you sit down to eat. Veggies A) Have wicked nutrients and vitamins, B) Fiber to fill you up and help keep your plumbing clear, and C) Way fewer calories than the other foods, and no sodium.

Please post an example of your menu so others can take a look and help you tweak it! And don't be frustrated! Just drink your water and follow the guidelines and you'll be just fine.

Lisa

Get those veggies in (veggies mean WATER which you eliminate fast!) and make sure you are drinking your water every day! Also, if you are exercising more than you had, sometimes the body likes to hold on to all it's got for a bit - I started exercising too and have only stalled. And if it's that time of month, you could be retaining water. But don't let it get to you! Hold on, promise it will be worth it.

Are you normally healthy? (meaning we can eliminate any medical issues?). If so, then perhaps you should consider ramping up the veggie intake. Also, are there any variables for your weigh ins? (like morning to night, types of clothes, amount of water you'd drunk before weigh in?) As others before me have stated, just stay calm and faithful. If the scale owes you, it will pay up.

Please post a menu (try to include portion sizes if you can) so we can give you feedback on that.

Well, thanks for all your help and support!
First - as for weighing myself, I do it at night, wearing pretty much the same time every night.

As for menus - I haven't been been sticking to anything in particular. For beakfast I usually eat some cottage cheese and a hard boiled egg. (On the weekends, I'll make something a lot more). Lunch has been chicken wraps (boiled, plain chicken wrapped in a piece of romain lettuce with a little hummus and mushrooms). Snacks during the day have been mini-babybel lites (we have them at work in our kitchen for people to have) and occassionally the 15 pecans that are allowed (again - they're at our dispoable). Dinner has varied from fish (cooked in little oil and topped with lemon juice and worchester sauce), to omlets full of mushrooms, peppers, and spinch. If I'm still hungry, I'll dip veggies into hummus. I've also tried making my little "veggie sandwhiches" - take a large piece of spinch, put a thin slice of tomato on top, add a very small piece of mozzerlla cheese, sprinkle with basil and then top with another piece of spinch - only 2 or 3 of these at a time. Defanintly smaller portion sizes than what I'd been eating before, again, one of my biggest issues has been eating what's on my plate (and going for seconds), instead of stopping when I'm actually full.

I will admit - on Saturday, during a VERY long drive and not having eaten in 7 hrs and passing every fastfood place known to man, I finally stopped at a grocerry store and bought low fat string cheese and 98% fat free turkey without added sodium - I snacked on that on the way home.

I've also gotten some sugar free candy to just curb my urges to snack throughout the day (again - my office is FULL of free snacks to have throughout the day - like chips and crackers and cookies and chocolate - I have refrained from ALL OF THIS).

Also - zero caffine in almost 2 quicks. No coffee or tea or anything. JUST water.
And no medical issues that I'm aware of, just being over weight!

i will try to eat more veggies now. Again, I REALLy want to stick with this diet, I feel great and haven't had an issue with the list of foods I'm allowed to eat and not eat. I'd just like the pounds to drop off quicker!

Please don't take this the wrong way, but at your weight if you are eating as you say you should have lost at least a couple of pounds, so I don't really understand. It seems like you might not be eating enough and not a lot of fiber so that's another reason to add veggies.

Well thank you Mmckellen! Hopefully you can understand the frustation!
I did have an issue with the first scale i bought. Weighed myself the first night and it said X. Then the next night, I had apparently LOST 25 POUNDS IN A DAY! I laughed, tried again 20 minutes later, and then apparently had lost 10 more pounds! I tried once more the next morning and apparently gained 50 pounds overnight! Needless to say, that scale went back to walmart!

I did buy another ditigal scale at target and I know its so cliche to blame the scale, but to not have lost a single pound so far makes me wonder. There is a gym across the street from my office and I may go over thre on my lunch break to see if they have those big metal scales they have in doctors' offices.

I do promise that menu of sorts I posted was acurate. I've wanted to cheat so badly (espeically with all the temptations at work!), but I read something on the board on like day 3 that said "The satisfaction of eating that one bite of chocolate cake is nothing compared to the satisfaction of being skinny." That's really stuck with me this whole time and has made me NOT cheat.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but I'd suggest a couple of days of measuring and logging all the food you eat plus water. If you can post those we might be able to give you some better feedback. Looks like you could use more fiber in your diet, maybe beans and high density veggies.

I understand the scale frustrations if you can't trust it. I find that weighing each morning actually helps me feel better about weighing in than once a week. Tracking my weight each day helps me to see it is possible to put on 3 lbs. or more overnight in water weight. What if that was the case on the day you weighed in - you'd think you had not lost any at all. I don't know how often you weigh, but maybe that could help. I did not mean to be insulting, I hope you didn't find it so.

Mmckellen - no, I'm not offended at all by either of your comments. That's why I'm on this board - to try to figure out what I'm doing wrong. What's the point on going on a diet if you can't do it right?!

I like the idea of weighing myself everyday and realize there are pros and cons to this. But to me, even just a half pound weight loss over a day would put me in such a fantastic mood and really boost my confidence to stick with this diet (I hope that makes sense).

I think I may return this ditgital scale and get a dial one. Again, it's so cliche to blame the scale, but at this point I think I'm very skeptical of the ditigtal ones and would just like an old fasion dial scale.

Btw - I made sure to have extra veggies with lunch today and plan on having more as my afternoon snack instead of a babybel-light!

Have you tried measuring yourself? I find my waist measurement to be a better barometer of my weight than the scale, especially when I'm retaining water. Make sure you're getting your good fats, nuts. Not too much cheese. I don't eat over 2-3 servings at the most per day. Do your fingers feel puffy? Cheese has a lot of salt and can make you retain water.