South
Beach Diet
UNDERSTANDING THE SOUTH BEACH DIETLOSING WEIGHT, GAINING LIFE
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 Back to Top
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 midafternoon, 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. - Back to
Top
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.
- Back to Top
Phase
3: A Diet For Life Back to Top
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. - Back
to Top
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