nawchem,

Thanks. I thought I would start with the south beach concept with not as much fat at first, just to keep calories as low as possible. I am completely expecting to be wrong on stuff though. I figured to shift to a higher fat low carb diet after a couple of weeks. I hope that's not a mistake.

I will look in to those recipes. The biggest problem I have right now is I went and bought a bunch of core foods on the approved list to eat, but haven't done the research on the recipes. I can eat those boring "single foods" to try and hit the mark, but creating great meals is something I dont have a handle on yet. I jumped in to this on an almost last minute decision, so I am totally unprepared for the complex cooking part.

I am a cook...I mean I have been doing some really good cooking for years, but with zero eye on restricting a lot of stuff. My chef abilities are trashed now because of the minefield of the diet issue...its the most aggravating part of this. My wife and I have been enjoying my near gourmet level of cooking a wide range of foods, now I'm lost and what I make is so far like the boring stuff I see others eating in normal life. This week has been horrible and stressful because I'm used to fantastic food nearly every night cooked at home. So far it's a life of eating to live rather than living to eat...which is a boring life, but the weight has to come off somehow, so unfortunately this horrible extreme is what I have to try. It's payback for the gluttony of the past. Quitting drinking at the same time is a double stress, both physically and mentally. I'm not a happy person right now.

I find two major issues. I simply cannot force feed 4-5 cups of vegetable in to my gullet every day. I love many vegetables, even the low carb ones, just not the extreme portions required with South beach for instance...it literally feels like force feeding for me to eat so much volume. And I simply cannot eat vegetables first thing in the morning. V8, yes, but its high in carbs. At some point (I'm busy, I have other stuff to do in life too) I want to explore making my own vegetable juice without the sugary veggies in V8, but so far searches have landed me nothing on blending here on this site. I could blend some veggies of my own I'm sure. And I'm not concerned about salt so I can make them taste good enough to drink in the morning

The other issue is I'm getting mad at food manufacturers. It is maddening all the things they add that I have to avoid and most of it is completely unnecessary. I got some 1% cottage cheese and looked at the label (I actually had my wife pick it up for me when she was shopping and she is so far clueless on actually reading labels for these diets). I didn't understand why the cottage cheese was so high in carbs, then I started reading the ingredients list and among other ridiculous things that dont need to be in cottage cheese...is flipping cornstarch! No wonder it was so thick and not watery! Arrrrggggghhh!

Nrracing,

Thanks to you too! I realize we have very little secrecy on the web. But there IS a difference between a secure site and one that is not. Secure sites have the little padlock icon before the https:. This site is not secure. I'm only going by what my browser is telling me and its telling me that for a reason. When it says "log in information may be seen by others" compared to other sites that do not...I think I can accurately say, there is a difference. But I'm here, so...

To all,

I am a bit confused where to post questions here. The forums are named such that its not totally clear to me. If I want to ask the community "has anyone noticed?" or "is it OK to?" or "what are other people doing about this?"...where do those questions go? I have used the search function to some success, but many results can be from a decade ago, a lot of new information could be out there since.