I am currently on South Beach Phase 2 week 2. I have had very good results with phase 1. I lost 6 pounds. Last week I added one fruit (apples with peanut butter) as a mid-day snack. That week I lost 2.8 pounds. This week, I am still eating apples and peanut butter as a snack, but added sweet potatoes. I weigh myself daily and noticed that my weight is going up. So far I weigh, between 187 and 189. My TOM is slated to start this weekend, and I am not sure if the extra weight is due to water retention or the adding of sweet potatoes this week. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Maybe you could cut out the sweet potatoes till after your TOM, see how that effects your weight, and then when you are comfortable with how your body is working re-introduce the sweet potatoes and that might give you a better indication of how the sweet potatoes are affecting your weight

Hi and welcome!

It can be confusing when you are getting your TOM and retain water from that. I highly doubt that its the sweet potatoes unless you ate too much of them. * 1/2 cup is a serving.*
Some of us find that we can add in foods just a few days of the first week and not daily. Maybe you want to slow down on how many days you are eating them.
What else are you eating?
Are you eating any other fruit than the apples with peanut butter and how much peanut butter are youy eating daily?

Your losses are good for your first couple of weeks and so you're doing well! Make sure that you're drinking all your water daily.
I used to get a bit constipated with my TOM and always saw gain from that. Are you feeling backed up at all?

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the suggestions. I follow WW as well to keep my portions under control so I would only eat 1 serv of sweet potatoes. I will try to add them back on a more normal week. I'm thinking it is water weight because I feel very bloated. I'll see what my weight looks like next week. Thanks for the help.

Hi MsE,

I remember when I started SB, I lost 9 1bs the first 2 weeks, then the first week of P2 I gained 2 1bs and I had only added 1 fruit a day. I was really disappointed, but assured by everyone that it's very normal. It's just your body adjusting to the weight loss. Plus the big amount of weight lost in the first 2 weeks is partly water weight. All I did was kept doing what I was doing and the weight came off the following week. I then continued to lose a pound a week pretty consistently until the spring.

You have to look a the big picture. Where you want to be in a year from now...and not let the little setbacks upset you or throw you off. Just know that you're following SB and that it works. I agree that you really need to add in the carbs slowly. I did 1 fruit a day the first week, then 1 fruit a day and one whole grain carb a day the second week, then slowly added something else a couple of weeks later...

Good luck.

Beaching It
(SB'ing it since Aug 2009)

I agree with BeachingIt, add carbs back slowly. One carb per week for 2 weeks, till you reach up to three carbs. I've lost 22lbs in Phase II doing this and it's only been 1.5 months!

I also added carbs very very slowly in very small portions. I didn't gain a single pound since I started SBD. Maybe you can postpone sweet potatoes for sometime and try whole grains instead. And I know people in USA LOVE peanut butter on everything. But but most consumer-brand peanut butters, even if labeled "natural", contains other ingredients including hydrogenated vegetable oil and dextrose(or other sweeteners). So be careful about eating it.

I'd like to do WW's, but with South Beach guidelines, as I am diabetic and have to limit my carbs. So how are you doing with it?

I am using the southbeach diet as a guideline for what I eat. Btw, I dropped back to the weight I was before TOM this week. Guess I was holding some water. I use WW to control my portions. I stay within my allotted points each day. It's working great for me. My 2 biggest issues is food and portion control and both programs help me to tackle those issues.