Return of the Goddamn South Beach Diet
You never really realize how goddamn obese you are until you see yourself on film. It took me five minutes of watching a student video presentation this week to recognize that it was not the first thirty minutes of Return of the Jedi. Admittedly, if was misleading of the kids to chain a sophomore girl to me, particularly what with the danishes strapped to the sides of her head.
I suddenly discover myself ten full pounds over my all-time peak weight and with the approximate cardiovascular conditioning of a three-toed sloth. This will not do. And thus, it is time for me to return to one of my all-time most horrible writing experiments. It is time for me to go back on the Goddamn South Beach Diet.
The Goddamn South Beach Diet, for the uninitiated, is the depraved invention of renowned medical quack and sadist Dr. Arthur Agastson. The good doctor’s theory is based on the idea that if you eliminate the sole source of human energy (carbohydrates) from a person’s diet, you will leave the patient physically incapable of lifting food to his or her mouth. He dresses this insane idea up in all manner of unlikely scientific frippery about “glycemic indexes” and “HDL cholesterol”. He also goes way, way out of his way to propose “healthy alternatives” to actual food, such as constructing elaborate ice cream forgeries out of ricotta cheese and bean curd.
I do not descend lightly into this abyss, but at this point it’s either that or submit myself as an entry in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. As a means of keeping myself honest, I shall provide periodic updates of my suffering to you, our seven readers. Because this is EXACTLY the sort of thing you read The Crossed Pond for.
Tomorrow I begin the two-week gauntlet of pain that is Phase One. Pray for my soul.
Man. That short post made me laugh until my sides hurt.
If it makes you feel any better, about three months ago I had a doctor’s visit and was horrified to discover I was approaching 200 pounds, about 15 pounds over what I had ever managed before. My resting weight, as I like to call it, is about 180 pounds soaking wet, and my fighting weight is as low as 155, so the fact that I was a pizza under 200 scared me. Just getting a 9 to 5 job managed to knock off 5 pounds, but still, I keep promising that when the weather gets nicer I’ll start jogging again. Hasn’t happened yet; when it does, maybe I’ll update on my difficulty moving.
Comment by Brad — 4/11/2009 @ 1:09 am
Seriously. Calorie count. Don’t torture yourself. When you go off south beach, you’ll go straight back to eating how you did before, and gain the weight back. Again.
http://caloriecount.about.com/
Comment by Kimberly — 4/11/2009 @ 9:53 am
but your diet sounds so GLAMOROUS! i picture you drinking low-calorie mojitos on an island surrounded by scantily clad women. i think im going to create a blog for myself but not tell anyone how to find it.
Comment by beth — 4/11/2009 @ 12:02 pm
The absolute truth.
Comment by James — 4/11/2009 @ 3:58 pm
I’ve found a low-carb eating regimen, in conjunction with stepped-up weight lifting, to be quite effective. Maintain some semblence of a weight lifting regimen after you go off the low-carb diet and you won’t gain back the (bad) weight.
Dieting(or more accurately, changing the composition of your diet) alone without exercise(weight lifting is by far the best) isn’t nearly as effective.
Comment by Kaligula — 4/11/2009 @ 6:59 pm
I’m renewing my cardio regimen along with the dietary change. Just got back from the gym, in fact. I may possibly throw some weight work into the equation.
This particular diet was recommended to me by my doctor based on blood chemistry concerns. I am not entirely convinced of my doctor’s impartiality in the matter (he often seems to want to solve my problems via scrips for pharmaceuticals sold by companies with posters in his office), but I’ll probably take his word for it on this.
Beth, who commented above, is racing me to a slightly lower target weight. I believe she’s actually employing this whole “eat less and exercise” silliness that Kimberly recommends. Perhaps she’ll keep commenting, and we can compare and contrast our results and side effects during my remaining four days on this earth.
Besides, if I’m not torturing myself, it won’t produce interesting blog posts.
Comment by Rojas — 4/11/2009 @ 7:33 pm
You’re all giant fatasses.
Of course I’m no picture of slenderness anymore(I’ll still brag that my heaviest is less than most of your fighting weights while willfully ignoring the fact that I’m generally tiny) but yeah, to hell with silly ass diets, Daily calorie intake being less than daily calorie usage equals weight loss. Up the calorie burning, lessen the intake. This is stupidly easy because it can take endless forms, from eating less, to eating foods of lower calorie to mass ratio plus moving around more.
Here is a simple thing that works fairly well for me as far as burning calories: Run.
I don’t mean taking up running down the road in short shorts like some of my family, I mean just run where you would normally walk. Don’t walk to lunch, the bathroom, upstairs, from the car to house, pick up your feet and run. The reason this is simple is because it isn’t a major change like setting aside an hour for exercise, it’s doing things you already do, just faster. If you’re like me(absentminded), and have to go upstairs to get your wallet, glasses, lighter, keys, shoes, hat, and every one of those is a separate trip(yes, I’m that boneheaded), you can kill a few extra calories by running instead of trudging around.
Comment by Mortexai — 4/11/2009 @ 11:44 pm
What would have been the real indicator of a problem is if you had started nibbling on said sophmore’s danishes. (That sounded suggestive, but you know what I meant.) Now that I’ve finished laughing. . .
Dude, don’t South Beach yourself, count calories and exercise. Which is easer said than done, believe me I know. Besides, don’t you have to eat your weight in meat or something like that? This does not sound healthy to me.
Comment by Liz — 4/12/2009 @ 12:18 am
Yes. Last Tuesday there was an election watch party at a local eatery so that we could watch our doomed efforts to defeat a sales tax increase. The media was there filming us live during the news, and I got to watch myself watching myself watch the returns. Or at least some grossly inflated rendition of myself in what looked for all the world like my own Libertarin sweatshirt.
Wednesday morning I started back on Weight Watchers.
Comment by RoTalMomska — 4/12/2009 @ 11:04 pm
@mord: although you’ll probably get some strange looks if you spend the day dashing around the office between your desk, the break room, and the restroom.
Comment by Dingle — 4/13/2009 @ 11:21 am
True enough, but to hell with them, they can eat the weird diet food.
Comment by Mortexai — 4/13/2009 @ 4:47 pm