Sounds good... hang at the beach all day and get thin! Maybe get a walk-on part in Baywatch?
Perhaps not! Unfortunately this diet plan has nothing to do with hangin' at the beach other than the fact that Dr. Agatston, who created the South Beach diet lives or practices medicine in South Beach, Florida.
What is the South Beach Diet?
It's a diet that shoots to achieve a healthy balance between carbohydrates and fats--good carbs and good fats. Highly processed foods like baked goods, sweets, and soft drinks spike our blood sugar. In those who are susceptible they create carbohydrate addiction and eventually lead to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Sugars in the blood stop being effectively absorbed by the muscles and instead get converted to fat and deposited around the belly.
Dr. Agatston says that decreasing the highly processed carbs in your diet can help you reverse this syndrome and improve insulin resistance, leading to weight loss.
So here's the big question... does it work?
Yes... it does seem to get results.
The diet is founded on the principle that high-glycemic carbohydrates-those with a glycemic index of 55 or higher such as white bread, potatoes and white rice (which Dr. Agatston calls bad carbs) lead to weight gain and eventual diabetes and heart disease.
On the South Beach Diet you would consume more low-glycemic carbs, or good carbs, such as whole grains and vegetables. These are absorbed gradually into the blood stream and so don't trigger the spikes in your sugar/insulin cycle.
Amazingly the weight loss benefits of this diet are a secondary outcome; they were not the original intention. Dr. Agatston designed his diet to help his cardiac patients maintain a healthy lifestyle and lose weight. When lots of patients began to report positive weight loss he decided he was onto something and quickly dashed off the book.
You work the diet in three phases, which initially restrict certain foods and then restore them to your diet.
In Phase 1, which lasts 14 days you eliminate most of the carbs from your diet and instead you eat protein-rich foods, such as lean meats, chicken, fish, nuts, cheese, eggs, vegetables and olive oil.
Cravings for bad carbohydrates should be eliminated by the end of this phase.
The second phase lasts until you reach your target weight, and is less restrictive than Phase 1. Shoot to lose one to two pounds per week.
You can eat good carbs like whole grain breads, sweet potatoes, brown rice, pasta and fruit. You can also have chocolate and wine in moderate amounts.
Once you hit your target weight you should be coasting. The diet becomes part of your life style, you're eating complex carbs again and the carb cravings should be gone.
All in all this is quite a successful diet, not too limiting or restrictive and you will lose weight.
On the other side of the coin, people become frustrated with the time involved in preparing the meals. As well as that, this is not a low cost diet solution... some of the recommended foods can be quite expensive.
Bottom line... this doesn't seem to be a diet that people are inclined to get into for the rest of their life. It's work intensive and somewhat expensive. It's my experience that if a diet gets too complex to prepare and maintain then people don't persist and they don't achieve their desired result.
Much better would be a plan that is low cost, simple, everything is prepackaged and prepared for you and you would be happy to stay on it for life; a diet that is healthy, tasty, satisfying and allows you to lose those pounds and easily maintain a healthy weight long term... and you would never need to go hungry.
If you're interested I can show you a plan like that.
About the Author
I have recently written a book entitled "Lose Weight - Never Go Hungry" which lays out a plan for overcoming carbohydrate addiction and losing weight.
You can download it FREE here: http://www.loseweightnevergohungry.com/Book
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