The South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet is meant to lose weight and maintain a healthy diet for a lifetime.
Cardiologist Arthur Agatston developed the South Beach Diet to help his patients. Like the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet is designed in phases. All phases have the same underlying philosophy, but each phase has different eating recommendations. Establishing a balanced diet that avoids 'bad' fats and carbohydrates is key to weight loss and maintenance.
The South Beach diet advocates claim that losing weight and maintaining that weight loss can be done without counting calorie-intake, weighing portions or stripping appreciated, good-tasting foods. Cutting out empty, high-carbohydrate foods like sugars, potatoes, rice and white bread accomplishes this.
Each phase is specially designed to achieve a particular goal.
Phase I: Adjusting your Metabolism
You eat three meals and two snacks daily in phase I, until you are no longer hungry. This phase takes two weeks, during which time you accomplish a weight loss of 8-13 pounds.
During this phase you are not allowed to consume bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, fruit, candy, cake, cookies, ice cream, sugar or alcohol.
Phase II: Weight Loss
The goal during this phase is to shed weight, aiming for a weight loss averaging 1-2 pounds per week. In this phase, you are gradually allowed to add the confined foods from Phase I back into your diet, but you absolutely have to eat less of them. The daily diet in this phase consists consist of:
- All the protein you want
- Minimum of 4 1/2 cups of vegetables
- Maximal 3 servings of fruit
- Maximal 3 portions of starch
- 1 1/2 cups of milk/dairy, yogurt included
- 3 tablespoons of fat
In practice, a typical menu for a meal on the South Beach Diet might include something like this:
- 2 scrambled eggs mixed with salsa and Monterey Jack cheese,
- ½ grapefruit,
- fat-free milk, decaffeinated tea or coffee and sugar substitute if desired,
- 1 slice of whole grain toast.
The South Beach Diet recommended eating plan accentuates restriction of sweets, white sugar, low carbohydrate foods, processed starches and 'unhealthy fats', but you may consume all the protein you want. It specifies minimum amounts of low carb vegetables to be eaten daily and these amounts are almost similar to the recommendations made by the USDA and the American Diabetes Association.The Glycemic Index - the amount by which they raise blood sugar levels after meals - is a key concept in the South Beach. Foods are ranked on a scale of 1-100 according to their Glycemic Index. While avoiding foods high on the GI scale such as white bread, potatoes and pretzels, the focus of your diet should be on foods low on the GI level, such as yogurt, cucumbers and broccoli and whole grain cereal.
In addition to the above, the South Beach Diet offers the following guidelines:
- limit your intake of caffeine-containing beverages to 1 cup each day,
- drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water and other decaffeinated beverages per day (excluding fruit juices),
- take between 500 and 1,000 mg of calcium daily,
- take one multivitamin and mineral supplement daily.
Phase III:
A nearly identical to the weight loss phase lifetime maintenance plan, only more portions of foods are allowed.
Dr. Agatston cautions that patients being treated for impaired kidney function, diabetes, pregnancy or other chronic illness should consult their physician before embarking on the South Beach Diet or any weight loss diet for that matter.
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