south beach diet in winter

Timon0201

I did the south beach diet last summer and went down to my lowest wait in adulthood. thanks to the stress of work and a family loss, the lbs have creeped back up to where i was before the diet. I've tried to re-start the diet about 3 times in the last three weeks. I feel that when I do the south beach diet, i depend so much on salads to get me through. But with the cold winter weather, i don't crave salads at all and actually cringe at the thought of eating a cold salad.

anyone else have this problem? need some motivation to stick with it!

ndj1979

why don't you just eat in a calorie deficit and enjoy the foods that you like….

calculate TDEE and deduct 500 from it
get a food scale
weigh/log/measure evertything
work out/ move more if you want.
eat the foods you like, just less of them…
set macro percent to 35 protein, 35 carbs, 30 fats..

repeat until you get desired results...

Timon0201

thanks for the tip. i guess what i like about south beach is that i can eat whatever i want of certain foods, vs trying to eat a little of any food. just easier for me to control. i guess personality issue. but yes, in the end, eating in moderation is always the key to lasting success.

i have not tried eating by macros, but i will look into it. thanks!

dakotababy

…It does not sound like you have much control with the south beach diet either. You have tried 3xs in 3 weeks…it is probably because the diet plan sucks and is not all that enjoyable to begin with.

Timon0201

well i did the diet this summer and it was easy because the weather is hot, so eating salads is great. i guess during the winter i can't count on these salads, so i need to figure out something else to eat. also, just lost my dog of nearly 16 years, so a pretty emotional time to try to diet. life is never simple though.

ereck44

Salads are not all that nutritious. I lost weight on South Beach the first time, and nothing the second time. Now I am calorie counting with help of mfp and have lost almost 35 pounds. I have plateaued this last year but the good news is that the weight hasn't come back. You didn't gain the weight over night and won't lose it over night either. You might try setting your goal at 1800 calories. I'll bet that you will still lose weight (over time). Focus on eating protein foods. You can add salads, if you like, but a bowl of hot broccoli is more delicious, easy to prepare and only 45 calories. You can add me if you like. I eat a mountain of food and still haven't gained any weight. Stepping up my fitness goals to lose those last pesky 10 pounds.

yoovie

you should move to South Beach probably

lemurcat12

I don't know what's in the South Beach diet, but if the issue is not wanting salads, how about cooked (especially roasted) veggies, which are great winter foods. Sautéed spinach is as good for you as raw spinach, and there are loads of other greens that are good cooked.

concordancia

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I don't know what's in the South Beach diet, but if the issue is not wanting salads, how about cooked (especially roasted) veggies, which are great winter foods. Sautéed spinach is as good for you as raw spinach, and there are loads of other greens that are good cooked.

This, especially since south beach encourages the oils to prep these foods.

myheartsabattleground

How long did you have to wait, to go down to your lowest weight ?

kikontx

Why are you limiting yourself to salads? I did SBD when I initially lost weight (eventually gained it back but that's for a different time) and I didn't just eat salads. I actually ate plenty of lean meats (chicken breast and sirloin mainly) as well as plenty of steamed vegetables.

Not saying I didn't eat salads cuz I did. But that wasn't the only thing. Typically my meals were as follows.

Breakfast - hard boiled or scrambled eggs with turkey bacon; if having scrambled eggs would try to mix in some chopped onions, peppers or spinach

Lunch - wrap or salad (sometimes with tuna or chicken tossed in)

Dinner - lean meats with steamed vegetables and brown rice

Snacks - nuts, sugar free jello, no sugar added fudgesicle (for my chocolate fix)

On a side note, I think the reason why I gained the weight back was because I didn't learn proper portion control with SBD. You mentioned in a subsequent post how you liked SBD because "you can whatever you want of certain foods." That appealed to me as well but when trying to figure what went wrong when I started to lose the weight this time around, portion control stood out for me.

I actually still use a lot of what I learned on SBD initially with my efforts this time but now I also focus on the portion part (among other things).

Good luck!!

Sabine_Stroehm

Soups, grilled vegetables, lean meats, fish.... South Beach is a pretty liberal diet, why limit yourself? There's lots of yummy foods available to folks following the SB plan.