by Stefan Vincent
South Beach Diet is originally created to prevent heart disease by cardiologist Arthur Agatston and dietitian Marie Almon. The original purpose of the program is replacing low fat diet suggested by American Heat Association in 1980s which is turned out to increase the risk of heart disease instead of decrease it. It is gain popularity quickly in the early 2000s as a powerful weight loss program.
The diet basics are actually really simple: replacing “bad carbohydrates” and “bad fats” with “good carbohydrates” and “good fats”:
1. Eliminate foods that contain heavily refined sugar and replace it with relatively unprocessed foods such as vegetables, beans, and whole grains.
2. Eliminate trans fat and saturated fats which contribute to LDL cholesterol and replace it with unsaturated fats and omega 3 fatty acids which will contribute to HDL cholesterol.
There are 3 phase in this diet. The 1st is aim to make you familiar with the basic concept and apply strict diet which will make you lose weight significantly, the 2nd is prolonged session of the 1st phase but with less strict rules. When you enter 3rd phase, you are considered to have mastered all the basic principle and can carry it for the rest of your life.
Pros
1. The diet is originally created to prevent heart disease; weight loss in only one of its side effect.
2. Reduce or eliminating saturated and trans fats; this alone will avoid you from many potentially chronic disease.
3. Fast weight loss feature; up to 13 pounds in the 1st phase.
4. Restrict bad foods; it based on eating low Glycemic Index (GI)) foods which restrict junk food consumption.
5. Various food choice; it consists of various foods and doesn’t eliminate certain food groups.
6. No calories counting or portion control involved; choose the food from the available food list and you are done.
7. The program suggest you to eat at regular portion and having 2 snacks time per day, so there are no reasons to worry about hunger.
Cons
1. The 1st phase is very strict, limiting the consumption of all carbohydrates completely. Some people believe that the weight loss gained during the phase is all water loss, not fat loss; this will cause you to gain weight again after you resume your carbohydrates intake.
2. Drastically limiting carbohydrates intake in fist phase has created many side effects, for instances: fatigue, dehydration, lack of vitamins and minerals, and weakness.
3. The usage of GI as an indicator to determine good and bad foods is still an unresolved issues between experts in medical community since there are foods with high GI and nutritionally beneficial.
4. The program seems solely focused on its food list and ignore proper exercise; this is not a good sign since we all know that a good diet is always complemented by an adequate amount of exercise.
5. The diet will make your kidney work harder since it contain high protein intake.
6. The high protein intake will result in extra cost since foods with more protein is more expensive than foods with carbohydrates.
7. This diet doesn’t put vegetarian or people who can’t eat dairy products into consideration; it forbid soy for the first two weeks and we all know that vegetarian use soy product as meat substitute. Most of the snacks suggested also contain of dairy products.
8. It require the cook to be creative; this especially during the first and second phase since the food choice is limited and it could lead to boredom very quickly.
9. Many of the recipes suggested contain difficult preparation and very time consuming.
South Beach Diet is only one of many alternatives when you decide to pick a weight loss program. Put the pros and cons into consideration, you should have known whether it is good for you or not. The main issues I want to focus here is the diet offer lifetime maintenance, which is great; but it is not put consideration into the importance of exercise in a healthy diet, which is bad.
About the Author:
Selecting a diet that suit you is not an easy task; before you decide anything, visit
Diets That Work to get a great guide regarding selecting a diet wisely and
healthy diet to found out criteria that should be met by a good diet by Stefan Vincent. Hopefully by read both of them, your task will be easier