Has anyone done the South Beach Diet? 

I was talking to a coworker who's in her 50's and is struggling to lose weight.  Her doctor recommended the maintenance plan of the South Beach Diet and pretty much said it's the best diet out there.  I picked up the book for cheap and am now considering doing the whole plan, including the first two weeks where you can supposedly lose anywhere from 8 to 15 pounds!  I figure it's perfect for me since I only plan on dieting for one month.  DH and I want to TTC in December but I need to lose around 15 pounds before then.. so November is my last ditch effort! I also plan on doing the 30 Day Shred over the next month to help speed things up ;)

What are your thoughts if you've done the SBD?  Is it complicated?  Did you do anything to simplify it?  How much weight did you lose in what period of time?

Any advice is appreciated!

I did South Beach in college and loved it...it was definitely not the best "college" diet because my friends gave me a bunch of flack and it was hard to stay on plan while everyone was eating pizza (plus all my friends were skinny minnie and I was the only one who had to work extra hard to keep the weight off).

My parents have done it and had great success...but just know that if you don't maintane the plan like you're supposed to you will gain the weight back.  That happened to me.  But I plan on doing south beach after I have my baby.  I'm due in April and i'm already trying to have a good game plan for my post baby diet!  I got pregnant 3 weeks after our wedding and I had gained 6 pounds on the honeymoon and another 6 pounds by the time i was 4 weeks pregnant so I wasn't where I wanted to start out on the pregnant train! ;)

Good Luck!  Any plan in my eyes is good as long as you stick to it and focus on your goal!

Ugh tell me about it, I gained almost 20 pounds in the year since my wedding.. I'm scared to gain another 30+ pounds with a pregnancy!

I'm glad you had a positive experience with the diet.  I'm really excited to start. I'd say the only the that concerns me is the amount of planning that goes into it.. but I suppose the same is true for any diet.  Heck and if you managed to do it while you were in college, I can definitely do it! :) 

The best thing to do is plan out all of your snacks...that's the biggest issue.  Make sure you have jello cups (and you can add cool whip to the top...YUM), pistachios, and cheese sticks readily available. 

Something that can help with planning is get all of your meals together on sunday...do mini egg quiches (you can bake them in cupcake tins), divvie up your lunch in to go containers (I really enjoy salads with chopped egg and veggies) or do eggs in a mug (make scrambled eggs with veggies and cheese in a mug and zap them for 2 minutes!) and then for dinner I did fish or chicken with green beans or spinach...you can even do the broccoli and cheese that green giant has.  Plus you can have I think it's fudge pops for dessert.  When reading the book I felt like the recipes were a bit overwhelming and time consuming so I just came up wiht my own and being in college they ended up being the same over and over.  I also enjoyed getting sliced turkey from a BBQ place down the street...it was easy because I could have it for dinner or cut it up on my salads for lunch. 

But again the biggest thing is snacks.  They suggest sugar free candy.  I've never had much of a sweet tooth but my parents liked them but they can cause gas...just fyi...lol.

Lol I got totally overwhelmed by the recipe section too.  I mean, they look delish but I can't imagine the astronomical amount of groceries I would have to buy to just get through week 1!  I'm definitely repeating a few things, like the mini egg quiche cups.  And for dessert I'm going to make vanilla and lemon zest ricotta cremes.  Thanks for the tips on the snacks, I think I'll do string cheese and celery with laughing cow cheese.. easy enough!  I'll letcha know how it goes! :)

how's it going so far???  I'm in major "post baby diet plan" mode!!!