South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet is not low-carb. Nor is it low-fat. The South
Beach Diet teaches you to rely on the right carbs and the right
fats-the good ones-and enables you to live quite happily without the
bad carbs and bad fats. As a result, you're going to get healthy and
lose weight-somewhere between 8 and 13 pounds in the first two weeks
alone. Here's how you'll do it:
Phase 1: Banishing Your Cravings
Phase 2: Reintroducing Carbs
Phase 3: A Diet for Life.Phase 1: Banishing Your Cravings What
you'll eat: During Phase 1, you'll eat normal-size helpings of meat,
chicken, turkey, fish, and shellfish. You'll have plenty of vegetables,
eggs, cheese, and nuts. You'll have salads with real olive oil in the
dressing. You'll have three balanced meals a day and it will be your
job to eat so that your hunger is satisfied.
Nothing
undermines a weight-loss plan more than the distressing sensation that
you need more food. No sane eating program expects you to go through
life feeling discomfort. You'll be urged to have snacks in the
midmorning and mid-afternoon, whether you want to or not. You'll have
dessert after dinner. You'll drink water, of course, plus coffee or tea
if you wish.
What you won't eat: For the first 14 days you
won't be having any bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, or baked goods. No
fruit, even. Before you panic: You'll begin adding those things back
into your diet again in two weeks. But for right now, they're
off-limits. No candy, cake, cookies, ice cream, or sugar for two weeks,
either. No beer or alcohol of any kind. After this phase, you'll be
free to drink wine, which is beneficial for a variety of reasons. Not a
drop during the first two weeks, however.
Now, if you're the
kind of person who lives for pasta or bread or potatoes, or if you
believe that you can't get through a day without feeding your sweet
tooth (three or four times), let me tell you something: You're going to
be shocked at how painlessly two weeks will pass without these foods.
The first day or two may be challenging; but once you weather that,
you'll be fine.
It's not that you'll have to fight your urges-the
cravings will virtually disappear during the first week. I say this
with such confidence only because so many overweight people who have
already succeeded on this program tell me so. The South Beach Diet may
be new to you, but it has existed for several years-long enough to have
helped hundreds of people lose weight easily and keep it off.
Phase 2: Reintroducing Carbs How
you'll change: After two weeks, you will be somewhere between 8 and 13
pounds lighter than you are today. Most of that weight will come off
your midsection, so right away you'll notice the difference in your
clothes. It will be easier to zip your jeans than it's been for some
time. That blazer will close without a bulge.
But this will be
just the noticeable difference. What you won't be able to see during
those two weeks is how you'll have changed internally. You will have
corrected the way your body reacts to the very foods that made you
overweight.
There's a switch inside you that had been turned
on. Now, simply by modifying your diet, you'll have turned it off. The
physical cravings that ruled your eating habits will be gone, and
they'll stay away for as long as you stick with the program. The weight
loss doesn't happen because you're trying to eat less. It will happen
because you'll be eating fewer of the foods that created those old bad
urges-fewer of the foods that caused your body to store excessive fat.
What
you'll eat now: As a result of that change, you will continue losing
weight after the 14-day period ends; even though you will have started
adding some of those banished foods back into your life. You'll still
be on a diet, but if it's bread you love, you'll have bread. If it's
pasta, you'll reintroduce that. Rice or cereal, too. Potatoes. Fruit
will definitely be back. Chocolate? If it makes you feel good, sure.
You
will have to pick and choose which of these indulgences you permit
yourself. You won't be able to have all of them all the time. You'll
learn to enjoy them a little differently than before-maybe a little
less enthusiastically. But you will enjoy them again soon.
You'll
remain in Phase 2 and continue losing weight until you reach your goal.
How long it takes depends on how much you need to lose. People lose, on
average, a pound or two a week in Phase 2. Once you hit your target,
you'll switch to an even more liberal version of the program, which
will help you to maintain your ideal weight.
Phase 3: A Diet For Life This
is the stage that lasts the rest of your life. When you get to this
point, you'll notice that this plan feels less like a diet and more
like a way of life. You'll be eating normal foods, after all, in
normal-size portions. You can then feel free to forget all about the
South Beach Diet, as long as you remember to live by its few basic
rules.
The final change: As you're losing weight and altering
how your body responds to food, a third change will be taking place.
This one will significantly alter your blood chemistry, to the
long-term benefit of your cardiovascular system. You will improve
invisible factors that only cardiologists and heart patients worry
about. Thanks to this final change, you will substantially increase
your odds of living long and well-meaning you will maintain your health
and vitality as you age.
You may start on the South Beach Diet
hoping just to lose weight. If you adopt it and stay with it, you will
surely accomplish that much-but you'll also do a lot more for yourself,
all of it very good. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this diet
can, as a fringe benefit, save your life.
Click here to visit the official South Beach Diet website
