Life on the Beach

My name is Wildflower, and I’m a carb-aholic. Somewhere on a previous post, or possibly a few posts, I think I’ve mentioned that I am a total carb fiend. Bread is my food obsession. I love bread. Any bread - whole wheat…multigrain…sourdough…cinnamon bread…banana bread…french bread…garlic bread…English muffins….cornbread. I can pass up anything else but bread. Chocolate? I can live without it (not that I’d want to). Cake? No problem saying “no”. Ice cream? No thank you. But wave a slice of bread in front of me and I get almost rabid. It’s not a pretty sight, y’all. This being said, I am now on day 9 of Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. Not because I want to lose weight, though I will admit that I have gained a little while still doing my walk/jog/running each day. Mostly due to said carb addiction. And my home gym has been put away for the last 5 months while we were finishing the basement - my “tone” (ha ha) has gone to hell in a handcart…ick. But mostly because I needed to reset my system, get a grip on my insulin levels. I don’t eat a lot of junk food (pizza, burgers, chips, fried foods, ice cream, ect); I do eat lots of salads, nuts and fruits; the desserts I eat are normally sugar-free and I drink diet soda…very little sugar or bad fats; but I have a history of diabetes on both sides of my family, have noticed that when my blood sugar crashes I get down-right nasty, and am fearing pre-diabetes because the fat storage I’ve accumulated seems to coincide with what doctors describe when talking about insulin-resistant folks. I may be having a total hypochondriac moment about the insulin-resistance thing. Better to be safe than sorry, though, yes? Anyway. So here I am in the middle of Phase 1. It lasts 14 days. There are no carbs during this stage. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. No bread, oatmeal, potatoes, rice, nothing. Anything even remotely resembling a carb is forbidden. By crikey I have not had a crumb of bread in 9 freaking days!!!! I miss my bread!!! (sniffle sniffle) Oh and fruit is not permitted either. Yep, you read that right – no fruit. All my home made dried cherry/raisen/banana chip and peanut trail mix I love to munch on? Done. No apples and cheese for lunch or snacking. If anything could have made giving up bread worse, that was it. I am forever nibbling on either a carb (bread or popcorn) or fruit for my snacks. But. All things aside, the diet is easy to follow, the meals are surprisingly GOOD (the grilled rosemary salmon is delish!), snacks are portable, as are some breakfasts (great news for when I’ve overslept), meals are filling and they even give you a recepie for a dessert using ricotta cheese that comes in vanilla, chocolate mocha, almond, a lemon and a lime. Ohhh baby they’re tastey! I’ve been feeling good, energetic and healthy. No crashing in the middle of the afternoon – woo hoo!!! If I can just make it to Saturday, I can slowly add fruits and bread back into my diet. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to keep a good grip on the leash of my carb demon. I think if I get to have bread again and blow it, then have to start over again with NO bread, I’ll become seriously deranged! (Just hand over the bread and back away slooooowly)

A strange thing seems to occurred in the past 48 hours…spring has arrived! Just when it looked like we’d NEVER see it too. Thank goodness!! I was feeling pretty darn put out about having snow every other day. Playing “now you see it, now you don’t” with my lawn has lost its appeal (lol).

I’ve been so bad about posting stuff about my Kanab trip. All the cool stuff I saw and did while there. I’m working on it….really. Been busy at work so I don’t want to look at my PC when I get home. Ugh. I’ll get some more posted, though…eventually ;0)