Carb Cravings

Until this week, I never lusted after a granola bar. Last night, I dreamed that I drank half of a glass of apple juice before realizing that it was not part of the South Beach Diet; I don't even like apple juice. (Later in the dream it dawned on the that the gallon of vanilla ice cream that I ate before freaking out about the juice was also verboten.) I might kill someone for a bite of a cookie. (Could I use the South Beach Diet Defense in court? "My restrictive diet made me do it, your Honor!")

The first phase of South Beach is the most restrictive because carb cravings generally come from eating carbs. In theory, if you only eat good ones (i.e. - vegetables) for a few weeks, then your body will no longer miss the baddies like granola bars. Clearly, I am driven by psychological and emotional food cravings. Or, the problem might be that I used too much artificial sweetener, which is allowed on the diet. It turns out that the latest research shows that the body produces insulin whenever someone consumes artificial sweetener as if the person ate regular sugar.

On the other hand, once I found out about the Equal/Sweet n Low/Splenda problem and smacked my head and sighed dramatically multiple times, I cut down the amount I used to two packets and tried to drink less than 12 ounces of diet pop a day. That's when the cravings intensified. Craziness.