South Beach Diet - Day 21

The first week of Phase II has flown by so quickly! It's amazing what adding a small amount of good carbs back to our diet has done for our morale! And Tamara and I have continued to lose weight, too. Tamara has lost about two more pounds, and I have lost three. That puts me at the lowest weight that I've been at since I've cared to look. My total weight loss is less than what I lost on the Body for Life diet, but I weigh less now because I started the diet at a lower weight. Maybe I'll set a goal to beat my old weight-loss record once I've reached my initial goal for the South Beach diet. That would only be another five pounds...

At any rate, I am still on board for the long haul. That's (one reason) why Tamara and I didn't buy more clothes than we did the other day. Our pants were literally falling off after we had shed those initial pounds, so we needed something to keep us decent. Tamara and I both tried on and are now in pants that are (at least) one size smaller than what we were wearing before we started dieting. I am not sure when I last wore size 34 jeans, but even my missionary suit pants were 36! At any rate, though they aren't designer jeans, my new thinner pants are some of my favorite things. :)

Our kids have been asking all kinds of questions about our diet.

"When will you be done dieting?"

"Can we all have some pancakes?"

"Why are you and Mommy on a diet?"

"Can we have some cake?" (They actually did have a cake, the $65 one from an earlier post)

Tamara and I decided to have Trevor teach this week's Family Home Evening lesson on food and diet. It went well, probably in large part due to the visual aids--Tamara helped Trevor set up the play food from the girls' room in quite a spread on our coffee table. Trevor had a hard time leaving it alone before the lesson, but he did a great job serving up different foods to the kids as part of the lesson. First he distributed some "fun" foods (look at me--so PC), and then he doled out the "healthy" foods. We spoke about the availability of carbohydrates to the digestive system and about sugar rushes and fiber. I think most of it was over the children's heads, but they got the point that sweets are not the kind of food that you want to live off of for any length of time.

After we concluded by going over cereals and breads, we played with the toy food for a few minutes and then went shopping at the grocery store. Our goal was to find some bread that had three or more grams of fiber per slice. The children each had the additional objective of finding one healthy snack.


The girls might need a refresher course. Lemon and lime slices rolled in sugar do not qualify as healthy snacks.


Trevor understood his mission! He picked out some yummy pears for us.


Tamara found some whole wheat english muffins and slipped into a carb daydream...


Amazingly enough, Daddy found some trail mix that fit our criteria for "healthy"


Mommy said that we had to go because we had already spent enough money

All in all, I think the evening was instructive for our children. We had brought up an issue that brings sadness to Tamara and me--childhood obesity. The subject was not broached with the intention of scaring our little ones, but rather to raise awareness of some of the possible causes of this disease. We emphasized the importance of exercise and eating a variety of foods, and I think that the children didn't go away from the discussion too paranoid about their weight and health.