Day 2 - Beck Diet Solution, Choose 2 Diets

Today is the day to choose 2 diets - one is your first choice, and the second is the backup in case you're finding that the first one doesn't work for you. There are all kinds of eating plans - and what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Beck advises that you choose a healthy plan because extreme diets are firstly, bad for you and secondly, not sustainable. Beck also notes that most reasonable diet plans call for about 1400-1500 calories daily, and that most plans fall under two categories: 1) counting calories or 2) avoiding certain foods/beverages altogether.

I have learned from experience that I don't deal well with diets that cut out entire food groups - like Atkins or the Fast Metabolism Diet. Eating high amounts of fatty meat and cheeses, with very few carbs leaves me feeling awful and very irritable. The Fast Metabolism Diet is very restrictive also - it may allow more "good" carbs but disallows coffee, dairy, soy, sugar, alcohol and a whole laundry list of other foods.

What has worked best for me overall has been staying within a certain calorie limit (1200-1500 calories daily) and eating as healthily as possible within that calorie limit, so I feel satisfied longer and just better in general. In this method no food is off limits, as long as I stay within my calorie range.

It's also been my experience that it is extremely hard to just drop to 1200/day cold turkey. I find it best to start at 1500/day, then tweak that number as necessary to keep the weight loss going.

So at the appointed Beck time, that's what I'm going to do as my first choice. But I also need a backup. The South Beach diet has also worked well for me in the past, and does not require calorie counting. The "Sobe" diet is not that restrictive at all - just for the first two weeks. After that you can enjoy vegetables, fruits, lean meats, cheeses and proteins, whole grains - just mostly staying away from refined flours, sugars and high-fat products. The Sobe diet even allows certain alcohol in moderation, like a glass of red wine with dinner.

So here are my two diet choices:

1) 1500 calories/day to start, to be tweaked as necessary
2) The South Beach Diet

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