South Beach Torture

Almost one year ago I gave birth to a tiny baby who arrived six weeks early. This combined with wretched morning sickness and weight loss early in pregnancy, pumping like a maniac and probably a good deal of anxiety about having a preemie in the NICU led to the miracle that was my complete loss of baby weight. Not only did I lose the weight that I gained during pregnancy, I somehow managed to not go back to my pre-preggers weight and stayed at my first trimester weight (because yes my morning sickness was that bad.) Before you decide I am a jerk who gloats about her baby weight, remember that there was a couple months not long ago that we call "the holiday season." Sigh. All that non-work to lose the weight was defeated by mashed potatoes and cookies and stuffing and pie and... you get the picture. In my defense I'd like to point out that the previous holiday season was spent feeling nauseous with occasional barfing.

Due to all the holiday goodies that I piled on my plate, I am now having to get rid of the excess before the mildly important event coming up in my life in five short months... aka my wedding. The Fiance has been wanting to lose some lbs as well so we decided that together we would enter the South Beach realm and try to get a jump start on our plan. Let me just say that the creator of the South Beach Diet must be in cahoots with the devil in some way because only someone with no soul would enforce two weeks without any carbs, sugar or even fruit for crying out loud! I admit I have not been totally faithful to the SBD. The flea market would not have been possible without the Starbucks frappucino or the breakfast sandwich that accompanied it. In an attempt not to completely throw out the plan, I did only eat just one side of the english muffin on the sandwich. Gold star for me.

The hardest part of the SBD for me is having to depend so much on vegetables in my diet. Vegetables have always been a sideshow to the main act in my culinary experience, as is true for most Americans. Apparently this is the problem and the entire root of the SBD in the first place. The other major stumbling block for me is breakfast. Without toast, cereal, fruit, etc you aren't left with many options unless you are the type of person who can eat last night's dinner leftovers for breakfast. I'm not. What are you left with? Eggs. I've searched high and low for SBD breakfast recipes that don't include eggs or egg substitute. They don't exist. We are halfway through the first two-week phase. I am really trying to stay motivated. Once we get through this phase, we can eat whole grains and fruit in moderation. Thank goodness. Until then I guess I better look up some more creative egg recipes.