The South Beach Diet

What is it?

Developed by renowned cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston, the South Beach Diet is a clinically tested program that will help you lose weight and improve your health. This three phase program is based on the principle that you can still eat carbohydrates and fats, as long as you know the right ones to eat. Followers of this program include: Bill & Hillary Clinton, Nicole Kidman and Troy Aikman.

How it works?

The South Beach Diet is divided into three different phases, each with specific meal plans and recipes.

Phase 1 Phase one is the strictest part of The South Beach Diet. For two weeks, you'll be totally eliminating fruit, refined carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and rice, sugar, alcohol, and baked goods from your diet. Phase one emphasises lean meats, such as chicken, turkey, fish, and shellfish; and low Glycemic-Index (GI) vegetables are allowed as well as low-fat cheese, nuts, eggs. This means you'll be eliminating many foods you may be accustomed to eating now such as a roll with dinner or a banana in the morning. And say good-bye to junk food. However, after the initial two weeks are up, you can begin adding the excluded foods back into your diet. The theory behind phase one is that there is a "switch" inside us that affects the way our bodies react to the foods we eat that make us overweight. When the "switch" is on, we have urges to eat foods that actually cause us to store fat. According to Dr. Agatston, at the end of phase one of his diet this internal "switch" will be switched off.

Dieters should expect to lose somewhere between 8 to 13 pounds in Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet.

Phase 2
After 14 days of "detox," you can begin adding the foods that were off-limits before. You can begin to add fruit, potatoes, pasta, and rice to your meals... it's up to you. You can add dessert, too, if you wish.

You can pick which of these foods you add back into your diet. While you can't eat them all, nor eat the ones you choose with abandon, they'll no longer be off-limits. The key here is to re-introduce these foods in moderation and to not eat them as often as you were before.

In phase two, weight loss continues at a pace of 1-2 pounds a week. You should remain on Phase 2 until you have lost your desired amount of weight or reached your target BMI.

Phase 3
Phase three is the final and least restrictive phase of The South Beach Diet. Dr. Agatston says as long as you follow some basic rules, you'll continue to manage your weight. In fact, he suggests you'll even forget you ever were on a diet and what you've learned will simply become a way of life.

Should your weight increase, return to Phase 1 till your target weight is achieved. Then go back to Phase 3.

Sample MMM South Beach Diet Menu

What Advocates Say?

• In clinical trials, people on the South Beach diet see dramatic reductions in triglycerides and improve good to bad cholesterol ratio by reducing LDL (bad) cholesterol and increasing HDL (good) cholesterol.
• Dr. Agatston says that people lose anywhere from five to 100 pounds on the diet.
• It is good at is improving heart patients' lipid profiles
• This diet has a very high success rate because the food is delicious and there is no limit to food intake.
• Allows greater food choices than low-carb diets such as the Atkins Diet. Instead, a distinction is made between "Good Carbs" and "Bad Carbs" (as well as "Good Fats" and "Bad Fats".)
• This diet is healthy (in fact, the diet was originally designed for preventing and reversing heart disease, and weight loss is the very pleasing side-effect!)
• In one 12-week study of 40 overweight people, those who followed the South Beach Diet lost an average of 13.6 lb, almost double the 7.5 lb lost by those on the strict "Step II" American Heart Association (AHA) diet. And the South Beach group showed greater decreases in waist-to-hip ratio (belly fat) and triglycerides, and their good to bad cholesterol ratio improved more. Plus, only one person dropped out compared with five in the AHA group.

What Critics Say?

• Claims like "Lose 13 lbs in 2 weeks" are often touted for this diet. While this may be true, please be aware that most of this weight loss will be from water loss, not fat loss (due to the limitation of carbohydrates from the diet). Nevertheless, this water loss looks just like fat loss, giving the dieter a psychological boost, so it's not such a bad thing.
• The food required for this diet can be a little costly, and can take considerable time to prepare.
• Lack of option for those who do not like or can't eat dairy as many snacks are dairy base.