South Beach Diet - Day 14

Yea! Today is the last day of Phase I, and tomorrow I will eat a piece of bread. I will enjoy the bread. Unless you have previously enjoyed eating bread, and then not eaten any for two weeks, you cannot understand how much I will enjoy eating a piece of bread tomorrow.

How well has the South Beach Diet worked for Tamara and me so far? The numbers pretty much speak for themselves. We have both lost about seven pounds as of today's weigh in. What the numbers fail to represent is the countless instances when one of us has craved the carbohydrate-laden food that our children have eaten these past two weeks--largely unaware of their parents' torment.

What I find strange is this--we have eaten well, but still hungered for the carbs that were off our diet. One indication of how well we have eaten is the increased grocery bill of the past weeks. South Beach hasn't put us in dire financial straits, but we definitely noticed a larger outflow of cash towards food since the start of Phase I. A representative list of some of the foods that we have relished gives more insight into the quality of the food that we have eaten: grilled chicken marinated in soy sauce (the reduced sodium variety) and 7-Up (really, just the generic knock off, and diet, at that), broccoli and beef stir fry with cashews and snap peas, broiled parmesan zucchini, grilled shrimp (okay--that was just me), marinated three-bean salad, and, of course, steak.

Despite the delicious food, Tamara and I have longed for grains and carbohydrates. Not having gone without cereals for any period of time, my mind is much clearer concerning (what Latter-day Saints call) the Word of Wisdom.

"All grain is good for the food of man" (Doctrine and Covenants 89:16)

Enough of the diet for now. This morning Anthony and I went fishing. I thought I'd try somewhere new, and was disappointed and chagrined when, after trekking into the purported fishing hole, I had to point out to Anthony a sign that said "No fishing allowed." Apparently, there has been a miscommunication between the local and state governments on the fishability of Echo Lake.

After some asking around, Anthony and I found Louisa Lake, where we spent the remainder of our fishing trip. Although we didn't land the whopper that we were both hoping for, we did manage to catch some glimpses of some other interesting wildlife. On the edge of Echo Lake, we startled a large deer. As we proceeded toward the waterfront, the white-tailed doe bounded into the underbrush. We got a much closer view of a turtle at Louisa Lake.


I couldn't convince Anthony to hold the turtle

My hope for the rest of the day is that Anthony can hold it together so Mommy will let him go out at 5 AM again for another, hopefully more successful, fishing expedition.