If you want to lose weight, one of your options is the South Beach Diet, created by heart doctor Arthur Agatston. He revealed his plan in the 2003 best-seller, "The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss." The overall goal of the South Beach Diet is to encourage weight loss through a healthy balance of nutrients and a healthy lifestyle.
Principles
The South Beach Diet is based on simplicity, with no weighing foods or counting calories. Its principles include snacking on nuts or low-fat cheese in the afternoon to avoid the blood-sugar dips that sabotage diets; the flexibility to adapt to people with different needs; elimination of high-glycemic carbohydrates that cause blood sugar spikes and dips, such as white bread, sweets, white rice, sugary drinks and white potatoes, and replacing them with whole grain cereals and breads, whole wheat pasta and fruits; and replacing saturated fats, found in red meat, butter and full-fat dairy products with eggs, low-fat yogurt, nuts and lean meats and cheeses, according to an article by the diet's creator in the October 2005 issue of the "Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine."
Breakdown of Macronutrients
The South Beach Diet maintenance phase consists of approximately 26 percent protein, 33 percent carbohydrate and 40 percent fat. This compares favorably with the Institute of Medicine's Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges for protein and fat, but falls short of the recommendation of 45 percent of calories from carbohydrates.
Phases
The South Beach Diet is broken down into three phases. Phase 1 is a strict, two-week phase that reduces the carbohydrates in your diet to a low 10 percent. Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, alcoholic beverages, sweets and fruits are prohibited. This phase is meant to eliminate carbohydrate cravings. In Phase 2, some prohibited carbohydrate-containing foods are allowed. You stay in Phase 2 until you reach your goal weight. Phase 3 is the maintenance phase, and averages 28 percent carbohydrates -- the way you'll eat for life to maintain your weight loss, according to MayoClinic.com.
A Healthy Way of Eating for Life
The South Beach Diet intends to present a healthy way of eating for life, not just for a limited period of time for weight loss. It includes sound, evidence-based dietary guidelines, including a diet rich in healthy, unsaturated fats, and unrefined, low-glycemic carbohydrates. The South Beach diet is similar to the Harvard School of Public Health's Healthy Eating Pyramid and the Mediterranean diet, which Harvard considers a healthy, evidence-based way to eat.
An Example of a Daily Menu
If you're following the South Beach Diet, for breakfast you might have an orange, a ham and tomato fritatta, multigrain toast with low-sugar fruit spread and decaffeinated coffee. For lunch, you might enjoy a tuna, cucumber and red pepper salad with lemon-dill dressing and sugar-free gelatin for dessert. Dinner could include apricot-glazed Cornish hen; couscous; Bibb lettuce salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar; and chocolate sponge cake. You would be permitted to snack on baba ganoush, a pureed eggplant dish.
References
- The Harvard School of Public Health: Food Pyramids: What Should You Really Eat?
- "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Alternatives for Macronutrient Intake and Chronic Disease: A Comparison of the OmniHeart Diets with Popular Diets.; Russell J de Souza, et al; Jul. 2008
- "Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine"; The End of the Diet Debates? All Fats and Carbs are Not Created Equal; Arthur S. Agatston; Oct. 2005
- "The New York Times"; New Doctor, New Diet, But Still No Cookies
- MayoClinic.com: South Beach Diet
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