Both the South Beach Diet, created by preventative cardiologist Arthur Agatston, and The Zone Diet, conceived by Barry Sears, formerly a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are low-carb plans. They share many similarities but differ somewhat in their approach, and following one can potentially cost you a lot more than the other.
Restrictions
Both the South Beach Diet and The Zone Diet set your daily carbohydrate intake at a percentage of your daily diet, rather than limit you to a prescribed number of grams. On The Zone Diet, you're restricted to 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat in each meal or snack you consume. The South Beach Diet doesn't set quotas for fat or protein. It promotes lean meats as protein sources, but you can eat as much as you want. The South Beach Diet starts out by limiting your carbohydrate intake to only 10 percent of your daily calories, but that limit raises incrementally to about 28 percent in the final phase of the diet.
Phases
The Zone Diet does not include phases. It's a continuous 40-30-30 ratio of carbohydrates, protein and fats as long as you stay on the plan. The South Beach Diet involves three phases with somewhat different rules in each. The first phase cuts your carbohydrate intake most severely to get you over carb cravings and regulate your blood sugar. After two weeks, you move on to the second phase, designed to produce slower but steady weight loss. When you reach your target weight, you can move on to the final maintenance phase, aimed at keeping you at your desired weight indefinitely.
Results
The Zone Diet is a slower approach to weight loss, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. MayoClinic.com indicates that losing weight at the rate of 1 to 2 lbs. a week is best in the long term. Both diets promise this rate of weight loss in their final stages, but the first phase of the South Beach Diet, when you're restricting your carbs to only 10 percent of your daily diet, will probably result in a quicker, more significant loss. According to MayoClinic.com, you might lose up to 13 lbs. during this phase. The Zone Diet predicts only a loss of 2 to 5 lbs. in the first weeks as your body adapts to its 40-30-30 ratio.
Difficulty
Both diet plans require you to do a little math to figure out how many grams a percentage of your diet allows, if you don't want to buy their associated products. The Zone Diet offers food products for sale with the 40-30-30 ratio already worked out for you. This could ultimately be quite expensive, however, if you rely on them for every meal. The South Beach Diet doesn't offer food products, but its website does have several recipes and cookbooks available to make the calculations easier, and these are more of a one-time expense.
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