Carbs Or No Carbs... That Is The Question

If you are around me for longer than five minutes, I'll have told you AT LEAST once or twice what a fan I am of The South Beach Diet. It is my "go-to" diet plan every January 1st and any other day in between when I realize I'm tipping the scales in a not so flattering fashion. Why? Simple. IT WORKS!

Broken down into three phases, The South Beach Diet focuses on good fats and low glycemic index carbs for a healthy eating lifestyle. Where I tend to go overboard is trying to stay longer on the first phase of the diet than necessary (Phase 1 is two weeks). This first phase is very limiting on your carb choices, completely eliminating some delectable healthy food like fruits and fruit juices. BUT THE POUNDS FALL OFF. My "more is more" mentality thinks that if two weeks of this is "good," a month would be even better! Yeah, that's why Dr. Agaston has all those letters after his name. The man knows what he's talking about. Read the book. Follow HIS advice. Don't be like me (the non-doctor person in this scenario) and do your own thing. Doing "my own thing" is what got me in this situation to begin with, right?!?

It's hard not to look at a piece of whole wheat bread and think, "Hey! Why don't I just forget about you and just have the meat and cheese of this sandwich all by itself?" when denying yourself bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice for two weeks has helped you fit into a smaller dress size. Suddenly carbs of ANY kind start to look like the enemy. And suddenly you start to become obsessed with food. Not healthy.

Carbs are NOT the enemy (I'm saying this for MY sake more than anyone else's!). Whole grains are good. Brown rice is good. Fruit is good (heck, it almost tastes like candy after you've gone without for so long!). It's a crazy, mixed up world when we are more concerned about the amount of whole grains we've consumed in a day and NOT the amount of NutraSweet we've ingested (again... talking to ME). So guess what? As I sit here drinking the last of my Lemon Berry Slush from Sonic ((gasp!)) I'm not gonna beat myself up over the carbs I ate today having lunch with JR at school. I'm hoping that they will fuel the exhaustive efforts I'm about to throw down on the treadmill as I continue to train for a 5K. As someone reminded me today, carbs are ENERGY. And I'm gonna need me some of THAT!