After the first 2 weeks having NO carbs, you re-introduce only healthy carbs one at a time. Generally it’s one serving at a time… early on… never 2. A serving is 30 grams… NOT of carbs, but gram weight. Where you read the nutrition facts on a label, and it says the serving size, that’s how we (or South Beach) measures the serving size of breads, pizza slices, cereal servings, etc… the gram weight of the serving size.

That said, you make lasagna like you’d make any other lasagna EXCEPT, with whole wheat pasta (NEVER enriched flour or wheat flour - which IS white flour), and be sure to use part skim mozzarella & ricotta cheeses. To make it even more South Beach-friendly, careful with the meat. Make it with ground turkey and turkey sausage if you HAVE to have meat, or not meat. I’d recommend making it a veggie pizza instead. The key, besides using lower fat cheeses, and whole wheat noodles, is serving size. It has to be small. So a nice salad to go with it is key.

Personally, I make “lasagna spinach rolls”. All the same cheeses and seasonings with thawed & drained frozen chopped spinach, egg, etc. I put some sauce in the lasagna pan. I cook the whole wheat lasagna noodles, spread them out with layers of foil so they don’t stick while I’m “building” it, then spread the cheese & spinach mixture over each noodle, rolling them jellyroll style. Then cover with sauce, and add mozzarella cheese slices. It’s soooo easy to serve, and it doesn’t “eat” up the sauce like the traditional way does.

Pizza: It’s about the crust. it has to be whole wheat. You can make your own dough, but more and more stores sell the dough, as well as whole wheat or multi grain ready made crusts. If you have Trader Joe’s, they have both the dough and a great ready made multigrain (100% whole grain) crust. Many of the grocery stores now carry the Boboli brand in whole wheat also. Then it’s about the toppings. Veggies are best, ground turkey, chicken (precooked, of course), etc.. One slice would be considered a serving. I make it rarely so when I have it, I have 2 slices and a salad.

ALWAYS read labels of any grain products. Many that say just “whole wheat bread”, or multi-grain bread”, are NOT 100 whole grains. Oftentimes the first ingredient is enriched flour or wheat flour… they are the exact same thing… WHITE flour! So look for the term “100%” on the packaging, or read the ingredients labels to be sure.

(There’s a brand of pasta products … maybe Ronzoni.. not sure, but the box says “whole wheat blend”. NOT whole wheat, so stay away from that)

These recipes are great for everyone, not just someone following the South Beach way. With a good sauce and seasonings, no one notices that the noodles are whole wheat or the crust is whole wheat.