I'm a newbie to the SBD WOE. I'm in Phase II on day 39. It looks like most of the folks visiting this SBD forum are newbies. There are a couple of 80 to 100 day SBD veterans but it seems that most people are in Phase I or have been in Phase II for a short period.

I am by no means an expert, but I thought I would share what I think I have learned and experienced so far...

1. I think that the SBD is really just a very healthy WOE and for the most part is information that I've known at some level for a long time. I wrestled in highschool more than 30 years ago and we all had to lose weight. The first thing we did after football season was cut out the sweets, potatoes, bread, etc. The coaches advised us to eat meat(steak), salad, and other veg. We almost always lost what we needed to in order to make weight. I can rember my grandparents talking about 'all those starches' causing weight gain when they were gossiping about friends and relatives.

2. I think that this WOE requires that I be fully engaged and pay a lot of attention to what I eat. The book seems to intentionally require that I make choices about what I eat and how much. I think that this is what is going to allow me to change my eating behavior so that healthy eating comes as naturally to me as my unhealthy ways were.

3. I've used the book as a daily guide. I rely on the information, food lists and recipes to help me decide what I am going to eat. I rely on package lables, nutrition guides, glysemic index, etc. to help me decide how much I should eat. I've entered most of what I eat into fitday.com and I'm consuming between 1700 and 2000 calories a day without hunger. This is probably half of what I used to consume. At this point good carb items are usually between 50 and 75 gr. per day. My stomach has shrunk and I get satisfied/full much quicker than before. I haven't used many recipies from the book. We come up with our own based on what we like.

4. I've had a couple of minor cheats that haven't caused me any problem. I have had a problem when eating to much of the added in items for Phase II. I've found that if I eat Phase II for breakfast and lunch and then try to stay on Phase I, or at least minimize carb portions, for dinner I have the best results.

5. I think I do best when I don't eat anything after dinner until the next morning. Besides quiting the bread and sweets, this may be my biggest change. For someone who was back in the kitchen within an hour after dinner for most of my adult life, I have got to the point that I don't miss the evening snacks at all.

6. The more water I drink the better my weight loss. It also makes me feel better.

7. I've used 1% milk, 1% cottage cheese, and limited amounts of regular cheese since starting and have still continued to lose weight. I've had a LF latte almost everyday after dinner with no ill effect.

8. I try not to eat any sugar, sweets, white bread/flour, pasta, etc. it's amazing that I really don't miss them.

9. I read every lable to make sure that I understand the products fats, carbs, fiber, and added sugars.

10. After wasting a bunch of money on different LC food items, the only one I use now is LC tortillas. The rest cost too much and don't taste good to me.

11. As I lose weight, I have a better self image, this in turn motivates me to stick to the WOE.

12. I'm very goal oriented and would like to lose the weight quicker, but, I'm slowly realizing that this isn't a race. It took me a long time to put the weight on and it may take a long to take it all off. Even when the weight loss is slow I now know that I'm better off with this WOE.

13. When I first started the SBD it seemed confusing. I guess I wanted the book to tell me exactly what to eat, how much and when. I just don't think that this WOE is designed to be that way. It's not a 'cookie cutter' WOE. It can be used in many different ways by different people and still achieve good results.

14. In my feeble brain the SBD boils down to 4 things:

Don't eat bad carbs - eat good carbs.
Don't eat bad fats - eat good fats.
Don't overeat and maintain portion control.
Get some exercise - any is better than none.

15. I haven't felt this good in a long, long time.

Sorry for the long rant...once again I'm no expert and your milage may very...I've read the book several times, done tons of reading on the web, and have had fairly decent results over the last 39 days...I hope it continues.