South Beach Diet
Prevents heart disease
The South Beach Diet is created by cardiologist Arthur Agaston in Miami and dietician Marie Almon. The original purpose of the diet was to prevent heart disease but in early 2000s Dr. Agatston’s own patients discovered that the diet also meant weight loss. The discovery spread very quickly and gained popularity.
Cut down on the bad carbs and fats
Dr Agaston believes that if you eat too much of the “bad carbs”, found in foods with a high glycemic index (GI), you will create insulin resistance and won’t be able to process fat or sugar properly. He also believes that “bad fats”, such as saturated fat and trans fat, increase the risk of having cardiovascular heart diseases.
This is why bad carbs (found in foods with high GI) and bad fats are held at a minimum level in the South Beach Diet. The South Beach Diet emphasizes on eating the right carbs and fats. If you eat the wrong carbs and fats you will feel hungrier, which may cause you to eat more. You should eat foods with low GI.
The three phases
The diet has three phases. In all phases of the diet, Dr. Agaston recommends minimizing consumption of bad fats.
The first Phase lasts for two weeks and is the strictest of the three. In this Phase you will limit most carbs from your daily diet, including fruit, bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, sugar, alcohol and baked goods. There is a switch inside of us that affects the way our bodies react to the food we eat (and makes us gain weight). When the switch is on, we crave foods that actually cause us to store fat. After the two weeks of the first phase the switch has gone from the on to off position, so you will have corrected the way your body reacts to food.
In Phase 2 you may start adding foods that you were not allowed to eat during Phase 1. The key here is to re-introduce these foods in moderation and not to eat them as often as you were doing before.
Phase 3 is the final and least restrictive Phase of The South Beach Diet. As long as you continue follow some basic guidelines, the diet has become your way of life and you will continue to maintain your weight.