What Is The South Beach Diet?

Most people are sick of trying new diets! What makes the South Beach Diet different is that it teaches a way of life where you rely on the right carbohydrates and fats. This new way of eating allows you to live contently without eating the bad carbohydrates and fats. In contrast, when a person eats bad carbohydrates and fats they feel hungrier, causing them to eat more, which causes weight gain. In exchange for eating right, you become healthier and can enjoy an 8 to 13 pound weight loss in just two weeks!

The South Beach Diet was created by Dr. Arthur Agatston, a highly respected cardiologist, to work with your body safely and effectively. This diet works in phases, the first two for a specific timeframe and the third phase for life. With this new approach, you can stop counting calories, stop weighing food portions, and stop feeling as though you are deprived from eating good-tasting and satisfying food! Actually, you will be eating three, normal-size meals and you will also get two snacks each day and with meal plans that are designed to be flexible, you can enjoy a variety, based on what sounds good to you on any particular day.

The South Beach Diet promises that you will see amazing results in a short amount of time. Your hips, thighs, and stomach will be thinner, the number on the scales will go down, and all those overwhelming food cravings will be gone! Just imagine losing weight while still enjoying many of your favorite foods. With the diet, you can dine on mouth-watering foods like Chicken en Papillote, Shrimp Louis, and even Chocolate Sponge Cake and still lose the weight!

SouthBeach Diet Tips and Guides

The SouthBeach Diet is different from the Atkins diet in that it is not a low carbohydrate diet. Regardless of which phase you are currently in, you should follow these recommendations:

Drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water, decaffeinated beverages such as club soda, tea, coffee, or decaffeinated sugar-free soda every day
Limit your intake of caffeine-containing beverages to 1 cup each day
Take one multivitamin and mineral supplement daily
Take 500 mg of calcium for both men and women under the age of 50, and 1,000 mg for women over the age of 50, each day

Eating can be both pleasurable and healthy as long as you eat the proper foods. All the meals in the SouthBeach Diet consist of healthy combinations of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Dishes can be made by anyone and the ingredients can be found in most grocery stores. These foods will satisfy your hunger without depriving your system of the low-quality starches and sugars that caused problems with your blood chemistry in the first place.

The SouthBeach Diet does not involve counting calories, fat grams, or portion sizes.

This plan was designed to be simplistic and will help you understand the principles of metabolism and put it to work for your own body. A major key to success with the South Beach Diet is the Glycemic index (GI), which ranks carbohydrate foods based on the effect on blood sugar levels. When you start adding foods back into your diet in Phase 2, keep your focus on low-GI foods such as apples, berries, grapefruit, high-fiber cereal, and whole grain breads.