My South Beach Story

Weight and, more specifically, weight loss has long been a sore subject for me. I am 26 years old, and have been overweight or obese for at least half of my life. Over the years, I have tried diets, pills/formulas, and other tactics in an effort to shed the pounds. No matter how hard I tried, however, I was always unsuccessful in the end. Within the first week or two of a diet, I would lose some weight. However, I would then hit a plateau and couldn’t ever seem to jumpstart the weight loss again. After weeks of fighting temptation and starving myself with no results, I would become frustrated and give up. Feeling as if I had failed, I would eat in an effort to comfort myself. Of course, this emotional eating put all of the weight I had lost right back on. I would often end up weighing more than I had to begin with. It was a vicious cycle. Fortunately, I was introduced to The South Beach Diet, and things have since changed dramatically.

I have to be honest and say that at first I felt The South Beach Diet wouldn’t be any more successful than all the others that I had tried. When you fail at something often enough, you start to give up hope. I had definitely given up hope. I knew that I wanted to change—get healthy. I hated the way I looked and felt about myself. Even worse, I could tell that my weight was starting to cause my body some problems. Although I was skeptical that I would see results, I decided to give South Beach (SB) a try.

I began SB on August 11, 2008. At the end of the first week, I discovered that I had lost 7.2 pounds! The second week, I lost an additional 3 pounds. I was so excited, because I had never lost that much weight in a two-week time period. Even though I was excited, though, I tried to be realistic. Most of the diets I had tried before, after all, were successful in the first few weeks. I braced myself for a plateau, and the disappointment that was sure to come with it. Guess what? I didn’t hit a plateau. The weight continued to come off. Sure, I was losing weight at a slower pace once I began the second phase of SB, but I kept seeing results. Four months later, my total weight loss reached forty pounds! I have never felt better. SB has saved my life, and given me back the hope that I had previously lost. My South Beach story isn’t over, though. I still have a lot of weight to lose!

The purpose of this blog is not only to share my SB story with you, but also to share with you what I have learned. I plan to cover a variety of topics that relate to SB and leading a healthier life. I want to share my SB journey with you. Additionally, I hope to offer support to others who are on South Beach or any other diet. Mainly, though, I want to send out the message that it’s never too late to get healthy. I have been in that place where being healthy is like a dream that is out of reach. Don’t give up hope! You CAN do it.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you have imagined!” Henry David Thoreau