South Beach Diet

Is the South Beach Diet plan right for you? Take our Top 60 Diet Quiz to find out, whether or not the South Beach Diet is the best diet for you. Our comprehensive diet analysis will examine your lifestyle and dieting preferences, comparing your needs to the South Beach Diet as well as other popular diets. Then BestDietForMe.com provides you with unbiased, expert reports on your matches, complete with detailed diet reviews to help you choose the diet that’s right for you……

The South Beach Diet

(Diet book, by Dr. Arthur Agatston)

Type of Counseling: none, do-it-yourself

Typical Cost: cost of the book, under $30, optional $29.95 for additional recipe plan available at a website (6 weeks)

Type Program: low carbohydrate plan

Type of Foods Used: regular grocery store foods

At-Home or Direct Mail Plan Available? Yes

Website: www.southbeachdiet.com

Summary

The South Beach Diet is one of the most popular low-carb diet plans to appear on the American weight loss scene, around mid-2003. The book was written by Dr. Arthur Agatston, director of the Mount Sinai Cardiac Prevention Center in Miami Beach, Florida.

The South Beach Diet has more than 8 million copies in print, says publisher Rodale Press. From the original book, there are now 6 or 7 books, including holiday cookbooks and other dining guides. The web site has 500,000 "members". In addition, a line of South Beach Diet foods (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack items) have been created by Kraft, sold in supermarkets, online and in other retailers. Dr. Agatston said he has been working on a diet for his heart patients since the mid-1990s.

How The Plan Works

The South Beach Diet teaches you to rely on the right carbohydrates and the right fats (the good ones) and enables you to live quite happily without the bad carbohydrates and bad fats. Like the Atkins diet, Dr. Agatston is concerned about the glycemic index of foods, or how fast the body turns them into sugars, because high-index foods make you hungry.

Also like Atkins, Agatston wants dieters to avoid all pasta, bread, potatoes, sweet things and alcohol during the first two weeks. After that, unlike Atkins and many other low-carbohydrate diets, The South Beach Diet encourages you to return to eating fruits and breads. For fruits, the doctor lists apples, oranges and cantaloupe as good. Bananas, watermelon and pineapples are to be avoided.

Unlike Atkins, however, Agatston warns dieters to stay away from saturated fats such as butter, hamburger and bacon and shift to monounsaturated fats such as olive oil and fish that contains omega-3 fatty acids.

As in the Atkins diet, The South Beach Diet is divided into phases:

Phase 1… lasts 14 days, the strictest phase. The goal here is to eat three balanced meals per day, and to eat enough so that you don’t feel hungry all the time. Expected weight loss in this phase is 8-13 pounds.

Phase 2… lasts until you reach goal weight, a more liberal phase. This phase is similar to the first, but you reintroduce some of the banned foods and eat from all the dietary food groups. Expected weight loss is 1-2 lbs. per week.

Phase 3… this is the weight maintenance phase, an even more liberal version of the initial diet plan. If your weight begins to increase, you repeat the diet plan.

Much of the initial 8-13 lbs. of weight loss is likely to be water weight loss caused by restricting carbohydrates. Such weight loss is usually regained, as soon as the carb consumption resumes.

More Than a Book – Supporting Website

Rodale has arranged with a Web firm to host SouthBeachDiet.com. where subscribers are paying $29.95 for six weeks to get recipes and tips. They can also share experiences on message boards and keep a journal of their eating experiences. The website (www.southbeachdiet.com) is actually an easily navigated and useful site, with some free features.

At this website, one finds the following (free of charge):

Diet profile… after entering your email address, height, weight, and weight goal, and answering four questions, the site calculates your current and recommended BMI (body mass index), and produces a paragraph describing how The South Beach Diet program can help you.

4 links pop up that give you information about your diet goals, other popular diets, your activity level, and strategies for dealing with restaurants you’ve chosen in your profile.

The online plan costs $5/week, billed every 13 weeks ($65), with a 4-week minimum commitment. You may cancel at any time for a refund of the unused portion of your subscription. There is a free 1-week trial too.

If you sign up for the plan, you get the following interactive services/tools:

Weight tracker

Meal planner

Shopping list generator

Online diary/journal of your progress

Message boards, support from your fellow dieters, a buddies program

Member questions answered by Dr. Agatston and online dietitians

Choice of free e-mail newsletters (covering exercise/fitness, household budget tips, horoscopes, motivational tips, financial advice)

Exercise tool to track your workouts (coming soon)

1,000+ recipes

Comment

BestDietForMe.com analysts think that, at $5/week this plan provides a comprehensive variety of interactive support tools, beyond merely the book. In fact, it compares favorably in price and features to eDiets.com, with the exception that with this plan you get one diet program and philosophy—not the 22 choices available at eDiets.com. Nevertheless, this seems to be a good value. The only thing missing is some form of counseling and coverage of things such as emotional eating and stimulus control.

In our opinion, one drawback of The South Beach Diet is the lack of options for people who don’t like or can’t tolerate dairy products. Furthermore, low-carb diet plans are not generally advised for people with any kidney problems.

With a major publishing company’s resources behind it (Rodale), they were able to create a website with some substance. This seems to be the latest trend, regarding diet books—producing more than just a bestseller. Any diet books/diet gurus that don't also have a supporting website today will be considered by many dieters to be lacking, leaving them wondering: "Is that all there is?"

New - The South Beach Diet Parties And Holidays Cookbook

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The information on this web site is intended for information purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice. Before starting any weight loss program, it is recommended that you consult your physician or health care professional.

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