Started doing South Beach two weeks ago, and after finishing Phase 1 I'm down 6 or so pounds from the start. It's great to feel like I can be successful at something, and I feel so much healthier from just cutting out the processed **** in my previous diet. LOL.

I am following the Mediterranean Diet, which is lie the Sonoma Diet only it does not restrict fruits. It is not a weight-loss diet (although weight loss does take place). It is a healthy lifestyle eating plan.

Whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies, olive oil, lean meats (although I hardly ever eat meat; I eat natural peanut butter). You can even have wine, although I don't.

I have dropped from 144 to 135 since June 1, and I feel really good when I follow this food lan.

I do the basic principles of Weight Watchers (old points system not pro-points) but don't go to the meetings or follow strictly. I give myself roughly 20 points per day but I don't count fruit and I don't count coffee (as these are things that are always going to exist in my diet!).
I try to cut down carbs in the evening, and I try to eat something every few hours so I'll have breakfast, then fruit, then lunch, then fruit, then dinner.

I only do my points Mon-Fri and then at the weekend I switch off (to an extent). Restaurants & pubs & snacks are always going to be part of my life, and I have to do a diet that's realistic when I reach my goal.

I go to the gym at least twice a week. I also walk a mile+ every day to & from the station.

I've lost 60lbs (over 3 years) but I've never gone up only plateaued and then dropped. It's very slow progress but I've adjusted to my lifestyle rather than crash dieted.

I've been on Weight Watchers since mid-January. So far, I've lost 27 lbs. Slow weight loss, but I have PCOS so I'm just happy I'm actually losing. I also do 45 minutes of cardio on the elliptical and I lift weights 4-6 nights per week. I'm about to start Crossfit in August.

Congratulations on your success! It's inspiring to see someone so successful on such a common sense plan. It shows how small changes add up to big results over the long term. I always have to fight against the "get-it-off-quick" mentality. It's like I'm trying to outrun what I realize will be my eventual discouragment (although I'm doing MUCH better this time around).

I'm making up my plan as well. Calorie-counting, wholefoods (though not to the point of giving up bread or what have you), I'm already vegan, porridge for breakfast most of the time, and soup and/or salad for lunch. I've been happily losing a pound a week and to my surprise, haven't got bored yet.

However, yesterday I saw the doctor about the bouts of nasty upper abdominal pain I've been getting. He thinks it may be gallstones and is referring me for an ultrasound. Meanwhile, he wants me to eat a very low fat diet (10%) and high protein (didn't say). Not the easiest combination on a vegan diet, and quite frankly it's doing my head in. I think I will be getting lots of recipes from fatfreevegan.com and using more protein powder in the porridge. Hopefully it'll only be temporary.

Wow, noregrets! 50 lbs is an awesome achievement!

I'm like most people on here - watching calories and exercising. I use MyPlate to track my daily calorie consumption (It's on the LiveStrong.com website, and it's free!), which allows me to input my daily exercise and thus adjust how many calories I need to consume in a day. I also drink a HUGE quantity of water every day - at least one gallon, if not two. It means I'm constantly looking for the bathroom, but as a bio major for the first half of college I learned so much about how water powers the Krebs cycle (the fundamental reaction that causes fat-burning in the human body) that I'm happy to incorporate it in. As for exercise, I do odd jobs for people to earn $$$, most of which involve house cleaning, painting, or dog walking. I burn at least 1000 calories during a weekday. It's crazy trying to eat enough to keep up with it, but it's working well. I started losing in mid-May and I'm down 27 lbs thus far. I'm trying to average 8-10lbs a month.

I've tried other methods in the past, although South Beach was by far the most successful. Like recycledartgirl, I really enjoyed making it through each stage - the program has mini-goals built into it that really help motivate. But for some reason being on an official 'diet' greatly increases the likelihood that I'll end up falling off the wagon. I think probably because of the 'lose weight quick' mentality that is portrayed in diet advertising, even though South Beach isn't like that. Anyway, the lifestyle change is what works for me!

I do Weight Watchers and am doing great on it, nothing else has worked for me I also wanted to cut calories/portions, and WW was a great way to start!


Yay for lifestyle change!

I worked out an eating plan with a nutritionist, and it follows the diabetic diet principles (mainly, tracking carb grams) but also protein and fat. It is basically a controlled carb/low fat/moderate protein diet. It's the only reasonable diet that has ever kept me reasonably satisfied AND worked for me long term for weight loss. (Granted, eating a Taco Bell burrito once a day and 5 Mountain Dews worked back in the day, but that was NOT healthy! Same with exercising 3 times a day every day and eating 1,000 calories.)
I also work out on the elliptical 5 or 6 times a week for an hour. I sometimes mix it up with walks outside, swimming laps, and riding the stationary bike. As I've seen others say on here, the exercise keeps me honest because I HATE sweating and I'll be dam**ed if I waste that sweat on a stupid cookie!

I've just hit my one week mark back at the gym but I'm still working on figuring out my diet change. I've read that others who are like myself and don't have a thyroid and/or are hypothyroid do best on low-carb, high protein diets. When I was in high school I tried the South Beach diet and I remember losing weight quickly, but having a hard time sticking to it. I don't think I even made it all the way through the first phase because I couldn't adhere to cutting all the carbs.

A lot of things have changed since then and living on my own gives me the freedom not to buy the junk that my parents always had in the house, so I've been eating much better for many years, but haven't really stuck to a "plan" that's worked.

Anyone on a low carb diet- how many grams of carbs do you allow yourselves each day and how do you determine what's a good carb and what's a bad carb? I recently got a rice cooker and was going to make rice the staple of my diet, but it's a carb, so I don't think I can do that now.

Any advice? I'd really appreciate it!

I did WW about 10 years ago and it did not work for me. I did Atkins 8 years ago and it worked very well for me. I lost 90 lbs in one year. I got pregnant and over the past 7 years have not watched my intake at all. I started the Sadkhin Complex in early June. I have lost 21 lbs in a month. Should have been more, but the last 10 days I cheated a lot. Back on the wagon today though. Starting again. Sadkhin Complex is a detox diet and is very strict. I needed to jump start my weight loss and wanted to get my body healthier. This works if you can stick to it.

Thanks Lin, I appreciate your support.

I appreciate the whole 'race against time' thing to lose weight and there's so much pressure with summer magazine articles that are like 'get down to this size before your holidays!' I recently enrolled in a new gym and at my registration I was told I could shed my final 25lbs in 3 months. I laughed at this, and very respectfully declined the offer of them creating a meal & diet plan for me - I'd never stick to it and there's no point in rushing. I'm giving myself a year.

Also - Macarey - I'm a fan of WW too - I like the fact that a) if I want to eat Pizza Hut it's not forbidden and b) I have a heart attack when I realise I ate 70 points worth of Pizza Hut... it makes me behave!

I favor a low-carb exchange plan. I've done other plans too, so all of my weight was not lost on the exchange plan.

I'm following the Scarsdale Medical Diet/Atkins Diet. I have cut the carbs and it is really working for me.

I'm not the kind of person who can maintain calorie counting or weighing my food and with this diet I don't have to do this.

I find that now that I have cut the carbs, I don't really crave them anymore and the rest of my food choices are just happening naturally.