The South Beach Diet is one of the most popular diets today. It’s a weight-loss diet created by cardiologist Arthur Agatston, in 2003. Dr. Arthur Agatston is an author of the best-selling book, “The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss.” 1
The South Beach Diet, named after a glamorous area of Miami, is also called a modified low-carbohydrate diet. This diet is higher in healthy fats and protein and lowers in carbohydrates than is a standard eating plan. However, it is not a strict low-carb diet, and you do not have to count carbs.
The purpose of the South Beach Diet is to transform the overall balance of the food you consume in order to encourage healthy lifestyle and weight loss. This diet is a healthy way of eating whether your goal is to lose weight or not.
Why Choose South Beach Diet?
You may choose to follow this diet because you:
- Want a diet which restricts certain fats and carbs to help you lose weight;
- Enjoy the amounts and types of food featured in the diet;
- Want a diet you could stick with for life;
- Want to change your eating habits,
- Like the related South Beach Diet products, as diet foods and cookbooks.
However, you should check with your GP before starting any weight-loss diet, particularly if you have some health concerns.
About the South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet is a balance of healthy fats, lean protein, and good carbs make it a fiber-rich, nutrient-dense diet, which you could follow for a lifetime of healthy eating.
According to the book “The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss”, this diet will teach you about getting rid of so-called “bad” carbohydrates from your standard diet. It uses the glycemic load and glycemic index to determine which carbohydrates you need to avoid. Food with a high glycemic index has a tendency to increase the blood sugar faster, longer and higher than do foods with a lower index. An evidence submits that this increase in blood sugar could boost your appetite, leading to weight gain and increased eating and probably diabetes that can all contribute to cardiovascular disease.2
This diet also shows you the different kinds of dietary fats and cheers you to limit unhealthy fats, while consuming more nutrients with healthier monounsaturated fats. This Diet emphasizes the benefits of whole grains and fiber and encourages you to include more vegetables and fruits in your eating plan.
Carbohydrates
The South Beach Diet is lower in carbs than is a standard eating plan, however, not as low as a real low-carb diet. On a standard eating plan, around 45-65% of your daily calories come from carbs. Based on a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet, these quantities to around 225-325 grams of carbohydrates daily. In the final maintenance phase of this diet, you could get as much as 28% of your daily calories from carbs, or around 140 grams of carbohydrates per day. A real low-carb diet may restrict your carbohydrate intake to as little as 50-100 grams per day.
Exercise
The South Beach Diet has developed over time and now recommends workout as a significant part of your lifestyle. This diet says that regular exercise will improve your metabolism and can prevent weight-loss plateaus. Check out this amazing 30-minute effective cardio workouts that you can do at home: http://yourhealthtube.com/30-minute-effective-home-cardio-workouts/
Stages of the South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet includes 3 phases:
#1. This 2-week stage is designed to ease cravings for foods high in refined starches and sugar to jump-start weight loss. You remove almost all carbs from your diet, including fruit, bread, rice, and pasta. You cannot drink fruit juice or alcohol. You focus on consuming lean protein, such as skinless poultry, soy products, seafood, and lean beef. You also could eat low-fat dairy, high-fiber vegetables, and foods with unsaturated fats, including seeds, nuts, and avocados.
Here is a look at what you may consume during a typical day in stage #1 of the South Beach Diet:
- Breakfast: It might be a baked egg with ham and spinach or omelet with smoked salmon o, along with a cup of tea or coffee.
- Lunch: It might be a vegetable salad with shrimp or scallops, along with sparkling water or iced tea.
- Dinner: It may feature pork paired with grilled vegetables or grilled tuna and a salad.
- Dessert: This diet allows desserts, such as a chilled espresso custard or ricotta cheesecake, even in stage #1.
- Snacks: You could enjoy snacks during the day, as well, such as roasted chickpeas or Muenster cheese and turkey roll-up.
#2. This is a long-term phase for weight loss. You start adding back certain foods that were prohibited in the previous stage, such as whole-wheat pasta, fruits, more vegetables, whole-grain bread, and brown rice. You stay in this stage until you reach your ideal goal weight.
#3. This is a maintenance stage meant to be a healthy eating plan for a lifetime. You remain to follow the lifestyle principles you learned in the 2 previous stages/phases. You could consume all types of foods moderately.
Results
Weight Loss
The South Beach Diet submits that you will lose 8-13 pounds (3.6-5.9 kilograms) during the 2-week period in stage #1. It also states that most of the weight will be shed from the midsection. It states that you will likely lose 1-2 pounds (0.5-1 kilogram) per week, in stage #2.
Most people could lose weight on almost every diet, particularly in the short term. Most crucial to weight loss is how many calories you take in and how many of them you burn off. A weight loss of 1-2 pounds per week is the standard recommendation. Even though it might seem slow, it is a pace that is more likely to aid you to maintain your weight loss enduringly.
Losing a large quantity of weight fast may indicate that you are losing lean tissue or water weight, instead of fat. In some cases, though, quicker weight loss could be safe if it is done in a healthy way.
Health Benefits of South Beach Diet
While generally directed at weight loss, this diet may promote some healthy changes. Scientists found that following a long-term eating plan that is rich in dietary fats and healthy carbohydrates can improve your health 3 . For instance, lower carbohydrate diets with healthy fats could improve your blood cholesterol levels.
But, no long-term, controlled clinical trials have measured the health effects of this diet. Nor have there been such studies of cardiovascular benefit of following a low-glycemic-index diet or the overall health. However, consuming such foods as fruits, vegetables, unsaturated fats, and whole grains should help to promote well-being.
Does It Work?
According to professionals from WebMD, this diet works, and besides the restrictive phase #1, this is a healthy Mediterranean-style of eating that will help you shed pounds 4 .
For long-term success, you should get regular exercise as advised in the diet plan.
Precaution
The South Beach Diet is safe, in general, if you follow it as defined in official South Beach Diet websites and books. But, if you severely restrict your carbs, you might experience a problem from ketosis, which happens when you do not have enough glucose (sugar) for energy, so the body breaks down stored fat, triggering ketones to build up in the body 5 . Side effects from ketosis may include a headache, nausea, bad breath, and mental fatigue, and sometimes dizziness and dehydration.
Conclusion:
The South Beach Diet is a healthy eating diet plan, which offers various tasty foods and a practical workout plan (in the Supercharged version). And it relies on the science-proven way to lose weight eating healthy fats, smart carbohydrates, lean protein, plenty of fiber, and low-fat dairy to keep hunger at bay.
Losing weight can improve numerous health conditions, and this diet is flexible enough to work for individuals with high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. However, check with your GP before starting any new diet.