How Does The South Beach Diet Work?

The South Beach Diet is unique, successful, easy, and works in a three-phase process. Unlike many other so-called diets, with the South Beach Diet, simply substitutes your bad carbohydrates and fats for good ones. After trying this, you will be amazed by how well and quickly it works.

PHASE ONE

This is the first phase of the South Beach Diet. The concept is fairly straightforward: the goal is to get the body free of cravings for sweets, as well as stopping the fluctuations in insulin our bodies endure regularly when we indulge in sugars and other high glycemic index foods.

Your main focus is to avoid all sweets, and any low glycemic index foods. In addition to this, you should avoid anything high in fat, and also other restricted foods outlined in the diet. Avoiding sweets is the hardest aspect to this phase of the diet. It is obvious why - we are all tempted by sweet, indulgent foods, and beyond what you may think is only a mental craving, your body physically craves the foods as well, making it a formidable task to fight the urge. But to succeed in the South Beach Diet, and to achieve the 8-13 pounds loss that is typical of phase one, you must abstain from them.

The food choices you make are also important. You should eat only lean meats, for example chicken, fish, and turkey. Vegetables that are low glycemic index are also allowed. You may add seasonings, and eat candies that are sugar free and fat free (such as sugar-free hard candies or sugar-free Jello). This whole process modifies the way your body works, getting it off of the spikes in insulin that it has becoe used to. This phase primes your body for the next two phases, to eliminate the tendencies that would otherwise prevent you from losing weight.

This phase lasts 2 weeks, and during this time most people who correctly follow it lose between 8-13 pounds. But more importantly, they teach themselves not to crave the bad carbs that could hold them back later on. This phase is meant also to prepare you for the second phase. For a more complete list of approved foods, read the "Meal Suggestions" section.

PHASE TWO

Phase two of the South Beach Diet involves maintaining most of the same techniques as phase one, but with the gradual reintroduction of some carbs and other foods. The goal here in this transition is that your body is working on a restricted group of foods, and the foods you are omitting are going to slow down and could even reverse your weight change if not controlled. Therefore the plan of action here is to slowly add small increments of the banned foods until you reach an amount that maintains the weight you were aiming for but does not exceed and amount that will be conductive to your weight goals. When you eat carbs, your bodies immediately turns to them for energy. When you stopped eating them in the first phase, your body became a fat burning metabolism which focused on other foods for energy. So as you reintroduce carbs back into your meals, you need to ensure that your body doesn't snap back into carbohydrate-burning mode.

Your body will eat up the calories from the newly-introduced carbs and continue turning to eating fat and protein like you began in phase one. In this way, you can continue to lose weight at a rate of what should be one or two pounds per week; and this should continue until you reach your ideal weight. Your ideal weight should be based on one or more influences, prefereably either your ideal Body Mass Index weight, or your Waist-to-Hip ratio, or just how you WANT to look, or the size of a dress you want to fit into; you should NOT base your ideal weight on magazines or societal norms, since these are not realistic or healthy at all. Once you have reached the shape and weight you desire for yourself, move on to phase three.

PHASE THREE

The final phase of the South Beach Diet is considered the "lifetime" phase, since the goal is to remain in the habits you have developped through phase one and two and use them to eat a comfortable diet that allows you never to feel deprived and yet keep a healthy body for the rest of your life.

Phase Three is also referred to as the "maintenance" phase. This is where everything you've done for the past two phases comes together. This phase will last the rest of your life. By maintaining the permitted level of carbohydrates in your diet in order to continue your proper weight, you can enjoy all the meals you've come to love and amounts of the originally restricted foods that you've determined are in keeping with your diet.

The hardest part of the diet in the initial phases is keeping off of bread. Once you reach the level where you are comfortable with the level of carbs in your diet you will be able to enjoy bread (within limits) and still be healthy and look great.