…surprising, since we’re eating an amazing lot. The best deal is that veggie salad that goes with dinner (a light slightly spicy cold crunch—the balsamic vinegar sort of does an instant-mild-pickle number on the cucumber, so it has a very nice flavor)–half the plate is that salad, heaped high. The other half tends to be another veggie, or the cauliflower disguised as potato number, and broiled zucchini (I sub that for eggplant, since Jane tastes bitter very very strongly) or salty stuffed mushrooms, plus a few ounces of grilled meat. Then an hour later we get a pretty filling little dessert, and we are just not tempted to cheat. I handled having a little coffee well: I just don’t cheat on diets, and don’t really have cravings—which coffee is supposed to provoke. Doesn’t do it for me: all I have a craving for is coffee. I drink it black, no sugar, no cream, unless a latte, and I am not having lattes right now.
Jane’s comment on the diet is that she’s thrilled with the abundance of interesting tastes in a given meal—a smidge of this and a smidge of that, and we’ve got several recipes that we will keep doing after the diet ends…the lime ricotta cream being one, and that veggie salad being another.
The Cuisinart is going back to the store, unopened, and the mandolin is on order—it should ship on the 12th, so I will have it by the end of the month.
I can’t remember whether the online version of the diet is 5.00 a week or 5.00 a month, but it’s sort of like subscribing to a cookbook, with some services added, like weight tracking and menu composition (that keeps your portion sizes under control, and your diet balanced.) So whichever it turns out to be, it’s sure better than 70.00 a DAY that some of these food-delivery diets charge.
My reasoning is: I’m on a budget. Yes, we spend a significant amount on food, but we don’t eat 70.00 a day under any circumstance. We were on the somewhat more affordable Nutrisystem, and ended up throwing out things like powdered eggs with onion (we’re allergic, and they’re gross). So that was a waste.
So, self, say I, sure, cooking takes time. But if they do the meal-planning, provide the recipes, provide you a printable shopping list for every few-day period, and none of the recipes are rocket science, here I am feeding 2 of us at the rate of about 20.00 a day, give or take the small cost of the program, and if the thing works, we don’t have to do this forever, and maybe we’ll learn something. You can spend 10.00 apiece a day at McDonald’s, easy, and anybody can follow the simple instruction to lay salmon on a pan with thus and such spices thrown on and stick it under a broiler. The knife-skills with the veggies—if you just cut every veggie in half so it lies still on the cutting-board, and don’t rush the job, you can produce something useful.
Tools absolutely needed: a spatula (the amounts given are quite small, and there’s no sense leaving half of it behind in a mixing bowl). A couple of bowls. A measuring cup. A set of measuring spoons. A decent knife. A knife sharpener. And a good teflon or iron saute pan (shallow, for eggs.) Some antistick Pam spray. A broiling pan. And the food. A good scales (useful) can be had on Amazon: choose one that has a bowl and an adjustment for the weight of the bowl. As a replacement for a scales, look at the package weight, and visually divide the contents until you’ve got a good idea how much of that 8 oz lump of mozzarella is 2 ounces.
Anyway, just a progress report: it works, and we’re heading in the right direction. Don’t try to start with what’s labeled South Beach in the grocery freezer: that’d be fine for phase 3, but not for 1, and often not for 2. Rule 2: (our biggest downfall) just because it’s an open package, doesn’t mean you’re due all of it. Read the serving size, and use ziplocks to keep the remainder for tomorrow. If it’s a half-serving left, yes, throw it out. I hate wasting food, too, but there’s no sense wearing it around your waist. And if you’re trying this along with us, good luck to us all.
I won’t bore you with further daily reports, but when/if we reach a major milestone, I’ll note it.
great! I think a diet that is enjoyable and has lots of variety but small helpings should work!
I have to tell you this – I have just been in Paris for a week, working (and eating too much since I ate in restaurants every night, except one night when I had lobster with a very good friend in her home, delicious! she boiled it herself, and it was fresh from the coast of Brittany), and driving home today I heard our Prime Minister, educated at Eton and Oxford, use “we was” instead of “we were”, after if, should have been the subjunctive, the classic mistake! how sad ….. his parents evidently wasted their money ….
😆 Alas for the PM! Eton should hang its head in shame!
Muahahah! DH got a pound of fresh asparagus as a tip yesterday, so we are having that for dinner tonight, sauteed with a tiny bit of butter and garlic… and something else. Maybe sausages?
Bacon. Nice Kansas City style bacon, which is nearly ham. Asparagus goes well with ham, and with salmon.
DH would definitely go for that, either bacon or ham. Almost everything goes better with bacon — just ask John Scalzi, he-who-puts-bacon-on-his-cat.
Prosciutto or black forest ham is also heavenly with asparagus.
Bacon! Burn would approve! 😀 No idea what nighthorses think about fish….
Squishy. 😉
Laughed at the Nutrisystem eggs remark. I just tossed out a bunch of soups that have been living in my garage for a year since I stopped the system. The plain egg cups were pretty cool (and I usually added hot sauce to spiff them up) but the soups got old.
Don’t know if I could handle a diet with a cooking requirement! 🙂 I’d probably default to salads and basic chicken recipes.
Good luck and keep us posted!
So, does the South Beach diet just amount to cooking your own food and using lots of veggies? If so, I’ve been on it for decades now. Actually, I think my cooking and eating style is simply a byproduct of growing up with a bunch of immigrants from Indochina and having some Italianish roots. Whatever, it seems to work for my wife and I.
It involves a bit of chemistry, ie, nutritional science. The diet is specifically detailed to make sure your body is getting what it needs to avoid hunger triggers and to keep blood sugar in balance. I have a list of menus/meals I can fix; you can trade them around, but changing them too much, or using ‘wrong’ foods can screw you up. For instance, during the initial phase of the diet, I can’t have beans. During the second phase, they’re encouraged, as a protein source. During the first phase, no fruit. During the second, yes, some fruits, but not all. During the third phase you can have most anything, but you’re advised what foods never to get easy with.
I decided to do the cooking because the we-send-you-food programs are outrageously expensive. Why should I pay 5.00 for inedible powdered eggs, when I can get a couple of eggs for .50 cents and toss in a spoonful of actual chopped spinach in less time than it takes to heat up the ghastly powdered eggs.
Real food cooked in-house is the best, IMO…fresher, one knows what’s in it, and one learns how the whole process works, making it easier (at least it does for me) to stay with the new eating plan after the “diet” part is done.
@chondrite…a real high point of my food memories is my next door neighbor coming over with an armload of asparagus from her garden: they were going on vacation and it needed to be eaten, did we want it? Oh yes! Yes! I made some hollandiase sauce (yeah, naughty, but how often do you get to do something like this?) and we enjoyed every bite.
……….and…….drumroll: I’ve technically dropped seven pounds since I started this. I’m down 3 pounds today. Starting weight tends to be water-weight, but if you really want to count the water-weight and everything following the (ahem) slight binge we had before going on this diet, it’s ten pounds. Jane is also down.
Let me tell you, there is a HUGE difference between cooking this diet yourself and buying the store products. One of the big deals of this diet is something they can’t do in frozen food: most of the food you ought to be eating is incredibly watery: cucumbers, celery, snap peas, zucchini and summer squash; eggplant; tomatoes, radishes, in greater amount than lettuce; sugarfree jello; scrambled eggs; raw spinach; mushrooms; a little meat and white cheese, powdered milk; a lot more watery, crunchy vegetables, with a significant lot of olive oil and vinegar. None of these things pack or freeze well. So cooking at home is about it. Pity somebody doesn’t open a South Beach restaurant chain.
It can’t keep up this way, but boy! this is action!
I’m so glad you’re enjoying SouthBeach. I’ve been on the diet for more than a decade because my doc believes it’s good for longevity, not just heart health, which is what Dr. Agatston created it for. As for cooking? You get used to it. And I’ve learned over time how to cook foods on the diet that make good leftovers. That way I don’t have to cook every day.
That’s a good diabetic diet – low carb but not over-proteined. I go on and off eating like that, because I really don’t like to cook and don’t really have the time, and traveling or eating out just about guarantees I’ll go off it. I also gained back a lot of the weight I lost when my parents went into a nursing home – they were 84 and 91 – and my sibs and I had to clean out their rented house, with the gatherings of decades, in 2 months. For eating, and cooking at home I know of no better way to eat, once you break the carb craving connections.
Consumer Reports just came out with the year’s best. The KitchenAid KFP715 food processor scored tops. It retails for around $100, but maybe CostCo has it cheaper.
I bought mine at Target for about $85.00. The slicing blade is 2mm. I’m a big fan of KitchenAid. Yes, the brand is expensive, but seems to last forever. It probably not a good brand for those who need all the latest bells and whistles. However, for good workhorse appliances they can’t be beat. (No, I am in no way connected to KitchenAid.)
I like Kitchen Aid as a brand. But the mandolin takes up no counter space (I’m really crowded in a very small galley kitchen space) and something that tucks into a drawer is better for me. I do have a Kitchen Aid mixer garaged below the counter, which I think I use once a year, if I have to do heavy duty mixing. And a breadmaker I got at a garage sale over a year ago that my diet has never let me use. ;)It sits in the pantry.
I have not bought any small appliances by Kitchen Aid, but my experience with their dishwasher was not good, nor the refrigerator by their parent company Whirlpool. When I remodeled my house I purchaced a top of the line Kitchen Aid product. Consumer Reports listed it as one of the best available. It was a total lemon. I have had to replace the control circut board twice at a cost of nearly half of what the dishwasher cost in the first place. It still does not work. and Kitchen Aid will not do anything to help except to offer to sell me a service contract for more money! I will never buy another of their products!
That’s one bad experience! I have a Whirlpool fridge, I think! I hope it lasts, on that report.
Tin, KitchenAid’s small appliances are generally rated well. Their large appliances aren’t. Different division in the manufacturer, not necessarily the same quality control. I still like my mixer, and the processor, well, I don’t have one of KitchenAid’s. I bought a Hamilton Beach for $30.00 at the Air Force Exchange.
Plus, a mandolin can slice things thinner than the food processor, in my experience.
I’ve been doing Weight Watcher’s On-line since January (yes, my New Year’s Resolution was “get healthier”), and have managed to lose 50 pounds so far. I like it, because it lets me eat “normal” food that I like, and doing it on-line means I don’t have to worry about getting out to a meeting or having to sit through some stuff I find boring. And they have a really handy tool where you can input your favorite recipe, and it will tell you the point value. That’s sometimes frightening to find out! My favorite breakfast-for-dinner is dutch baby (aka puff pancakes or German pancakes, basically milk, eggs, flour, and sugar) with powdered sugar and fresh lemon juice. Who would think that that is 19 points? (Right now, that would be the entire day’s points!) True… you aren’t supposed to eat the entire thing yourself, but it’s definitely not the kind of thing that keeps for leftovers. But now that I think about it… if I could find a smaller pan, I could halve the recipe…. On the other hand, I can make home-made spanakopita and have a decent-sized slice (a sixth of a 9X9 pan) for 4 points.
Personally, whatever works for you is the best thing to follow. Some can do the low-carb diets… I would go crazy.