Real Food Tastes Real Good

Here's the understatement of the year: We LOVE food! Rachel, Bobby, Alton, Paula and Guy are our role models - we watch them, believe them and use their recipes. We owned a restaurant/bakery and had the Pillsbury Doughboy body to prove it! We are great cooks, we cater parties for family and friends and we (dare I say it again?) LOVE food!

Our favorites: Sunday morning with pancakes, waffles or french toast. Saturday morning with hashbrowns, eggs and toast. Great sandwiches for lunch. Pasta, potatoes and steak for dinner. Quick and easy breakfast sandwiches or PBJ on toast....you name it - if it was starchy, creamy, dripping with butter or covered with sugar - we LOVED it.

So after a lifetime of loving food and - surprise, surprise - a lifetime of struggling with our weight we have joined the South Beach scene. We've been "dieting" for years - talking it to death, joining weight loss groups, reading every new diet book on the market, obsessing about our need to lose weight. But this time we have a more important reason - the South Beach diet is part of Lisa's treatment for PCOS and she needs our support and encouragement. We're accountability partners, sharing ideas and new recipes, tracking our progress and reminding each other that we are on the right track.

Randy and I have just finished week one in Phase One. It's actually been brutal - the drastic change in our lifestyle, habits and mindset - not to mention some actual hunger pangs throughout the week. Phase One limits our diet to lean meat, specific vegetables and some dairy. No high glucose foods - no fruit, no bread, no pasta, no grains, no carrots-squash-beets. OMG - what the heck are we supposed to eat??? We have slowly adjusted to this new menu. Scrambled eggs with zuchinni & mushrooms for breakfast. Soup (chicken vegetable) or salad for lunch. Lean meat, poultry or fish with vegetable & salad for dinner. Snacks: almonds, celery with hummus, string cheese, pistachio nuts, lowfat cottage cheese. Water....lots and lots of water.

On Saturday I was fixing lunch - not so easy without the standard quick and easy sandwich - but still possible. What's in the fridge??? Left over stir fry without the rice, some shredded cabbage, lots of chopped veggies. How about this - stir fry over shredded cabbage. Bless Randy's heart - he is very open to any food idea I have. So "sure" is his response. I put cabbage on the plate, then top it with the stir fry and microwave it for 2-3 minutes. Hmmm. Sounds pretty wierd, looks it too. But actually very tasty. We both are pleased with the crunchy texture and blend of flavors. I look at Randy and say "Wow - real food tastes real good!" He agrees with me.

Today marks the beginning of week 2 in Phase One. We are more prepared for the new menus and limitations we will experience - we won't be able to eat all the food we prepare for our Wednesday night Lions Club dinner - but we are more encouraged than ever. This morning we got weighed and together we lost 12 pounds in one week. So real food not only tastes real good - it looks real good too!