July 13, 2009 (1st Day of Phase 1)

[QGURL78]

Hello, my name is Helen. Today is my 1st day of Phase 1. I am currently weighing 193 lbs. I want to get down to about 140-150 lbs.

I woke up this morning and went to the gym. I did 1 hour of cardio, the eliptical and burned 600 cals.

While my eggs and vegetables were cooking. I did 45 crunches on my Ab Lounge and 17 push ups on my knees.
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My breakfast this morning was 3 hard boiled eggs and 1/2 cup of steamed Cauliflower and Broccoli with water.

These 2 weeks are going to be tough for me because I LOVE eating cereal in the mornings. My husband and I buy 2% Milk. And we usually buy Fiber One Cereal or Life Cereal. I also enjoy Weight Control Oatmeal- Banana nut bread flavor.

I'm hoping joining this forum could help me stay on track and I can maybe help others as well.

Thanks,

Helen

[RedRox]

Welcome Helen! Make sure you are getting enough good carbs in with the allowed 2 cups of dairy and some amount of beans/legumes every day to help support your exercise regimen in P1 and beyond! (And only fat free and 1% milks are on the recommended foods list.)

And just as a FWIW, the calorie estimators on exercise machines aren't very accurate in terms of actual calories expended, but you can use them for relative comparisons if you use the same machine every time!
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And the weight control oatmeal is typically an instant style of oatmeal and not recommended for SB purposes. Better off with either steel cut or old fashioned styles and adding in whatever SB friendly things you like for flavoring. I don't think Life cereal works either. Be sure to check the cereal guidelines in the P2 foods list in the P2 forum when you get to that point. In general you need all whole grains and more than 5-6 gms of fiber and less than 8 gms of sugar per serving size. Also those cereals that are either puffed or shredded tend to raise the GI by the way they are processed even if they meet other guidelines, which is why instant oatmeal doesn't work very well. Same nutritional panel info, but it is the process of chopping it very finely to cook that quickly that makes it digest that much more quickly as well and raise it's overall GI. The weight control stuff is just a strange collection of ingredients to make the nutritional panel look better than the actual food itself IMO. Kind of a frankenfood IMO. YMMV.

Good luck and best wishes on your SB Adventure!!

[QGURL78]

Thanks Redrox for the tips.

[QGURL78]

Question, what is the proper way to season a steak while on phase 1.

[ma-n-me]

good job on day one wow I can not believe how much exercise you got done first thing this morning. I need to do that. I am on day 6 and other then swimming I have not exercised at all. I am planning on a 3 mile walk tonight and will be pushing my kids in the wagon so that should count for extra points. Good luck!

[logmyloss.com]

Great start to the diet. I also struggled with the cereal, but I ended up not missing it as much as I thought. I will tell you though, one of the things I looked forward to the most in Phase Two was a bowl of Uncle Sam Cereal with skim milk. Yeah, it's not the same at 2%, but at that point I was loving it. I also really began to love the steel cut oats. They are a little harder to make, but I love the consistency. I have a link to a pretty neat way to cook these on my South Beach Diet Blog.
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Regarding seasoning steaks, salt, pepper, and any herbs should be fine. If you grill, and have access to fresh herbs, try throwing the herbs on the charcoal for a unique flavor addition. We also found some marinades that worked for Phase One or Phase Two, although I try to stick to the salt, pepper, and herbs now.

It looks like you are doing great so far. Keep it up!