South beach diet is a food plan which makes you lose weight and strengthens your heart in order to prevent heart diseases. Renowned cardiologist Arthur Agatston and dietician Marie Almon designed this diet plan as an alternative to low fat diets such as Ornish and Pritikin diets.

South Beach Diet

Agatston found that though low fat diets helped in reducing cholesterol levels but patients were not able to stick to those low fat diets.
This resulted in the creation of south beach diet which simply replaces bad carbohydrates and bad fats with good carbs and good fats. Bad carbs are digested quickly leading to a spike in blood sugar levels and triggering of hunger cycles. Reducing bad carbs improves your metabolism and insulin resistance which helps in losing weight. South beach diet replaces these carbohydrates with relatively unprocessed foods.

This diet is based on glycemic index and glycemic load. GI value indicates how rapidly a carbohydrate transforms to sugar and GL indicates the amount of that particular carbohydrate in the food.

This diet is divided into three phases, first phase being the hardest one. As you move from one phase to another they become more liberal. Phase one continues for first two weeks of the diet. All kinds of sugar, processed carbohydrates, fruits, & high GI value vegetables are prohibited in this phase. Bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, alcohol etc are all banned.Phase 1 leads to significant weight loss and eliminates hunger cycles.

Phase 2 allows most of the fruits, vegetables, and some whole grains as well. It continues as long as dieter wants to lose weight. Then comes phase three. This is the maintenance phase and lasts for life. In this phase dieter is expected to understand the basic underlining principles of the diet and live according to them.

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